Rimmer felt Lister touch his hand. He had lost track of how long they had been walking.
"Here, hold this a minute," Lister said, pressing the pet carrier into his hands. Rimmer put down his bag and took hold of the carrier.
"Lister, where are you…" Rimmer began, and trailed off. Lister had disappeared inside a shop that had novelty sunglasses and postcards of Jupiter and Europa's most famous tourist traps.
Inside the carrier, the kittens moved about, and Rimmer had to continuously adjust his grip to maintain the balance. How had Lister managed to carry them for so long? Rimmer hoped Lister wasn't planning on spending much longer shopping for souvenirs, everyone seemed to be staring at him standing there in the street with altogether too many cats.
Lister came out of the shop a few minutes later, grinning.
"This is hardly the time for buying souvenirs, Lister. I mean really, who are you even going to give them to?"
Lister said nothing, but moved to stand beside Rimmer and stretched out an arm. A flash of light momentarily obscured Rimmer's vision. He blinked repeatedly, trying to get rid of the flash.
"Look at this," Lister said, holding out a blank square of paper. He shook it. "Wait, the man said not to do that. But they all do it in the old movies."
Rimmer's vision had now returned almost to normal. A picture had appeared on the paper, Lister grinning too widely, while he himself wore an unflattering expression of surprise. Neither of their faces were fully in the frame.
"Marvellous. An antique camera. And how much did that cost you?"
"It doesn't matter. I wanna record some memories with you and Frankie and the kittens. You know, while we still can. I don't wanna forget them, man."
Rimmer shook his head. "How are you going to forget all this? Even if I live to be four hundred years old, I'll still remember."
"Aww, d'ya really mean that?" Lister said, wrapping his arms around Rimmer's and cuddling up to him.
"Yes," Rimmer said, and then furrowed his brow. "What, do you mean you're going to forget?"
"No, no, 'course not. It's just, the way you said it was kinda nice."
Rimmer smiled and felt a swell of affection for Lister in his chest.
Lister smiled back at him and gave his arm another squeeze, then let go and picked up the pet carrier and they carried on their way.
"People keep staring at us. I knew you shouldn't have got that carrier. We look like a right couple of lemons carrying a whole family of cats through the streets."
"Yeah, I've noticed people staring too," said Lister. "Don't think they're staring at the cats though. I think they're staring at you."
Rimmer smoothed back his hair self-consciously. "At me? Why?"
Lister grinned. "It's easy to forget being on the ship all the time, but people like astros, you know."
"Oh. My uniform."
"One time on Titan me and Petersen went on the pull in our uniforms. Pretended we were astronavigation officers."
"And did it work?"
"Nah. Turned out everyone else had the same idea."
Rimmer considered mentioning that he had had the same thought himself once. But he didn't want to admit to unsuccessful pulling attempts. In fact, he didn't want talk about past love affairs, successful or not, now that he and Lister were together.
After some negotiation, the carrier deemed too large to travel for free, they bought three tickets and boarded a bus to Greenwood.
Rimmer found a seat, and Lister sat on the row behind him, setting the cats next to him.
"It's all right Frankie, we can have a rest now," Lister said, and stuck his fingers through the bars to stroke the nearest kitten.
The bus set off. It was a far bumpier ride than either of them were used to. It took Lister back to being in Liverpool, catching the bus into town for a night out, or to whatever job he'd managed to talk himself into at the time. It was a shame they couldn't make it back to Earth. The thought had crossed his mind back at the spaceport. But they didn't have feline passports, so even if they could manage to scrounge together enough for a couple of tickets, they wouldn't let them on.
Lister sighed, and rested an arm on the top of the pet carrier. He looked out of the window and watched block after block of identical grey buildings go by.
On the other side of the bus, a couple of kids were eyeing Rimmer. He was doing his best to pretend he hadn't noticed.
"Um, excuse me, mister," the boy said.
"It's officer. You're supposed to call them officer," the girl corrected him.
Rimmer felt an involuntary surge of pride at being called an officer, even if it was by a child.
"Excuse me, officer," the boy said again.
Rimmer finally looked over at them. "Yes?" he said.
"What's it like going into space?" the boy asked.
"Oh, it's truly fantastic. You wouldn't believe how… fantastic it is."
Smiles grew on the children's faces. They were already hanging on his every word.
"So what do you do on the spaceship?" the girl asked.
Rimmer was stumped. He couldn't tell them about the plethora of different types of vending machine nozzles. That wasn't what they wanted to hear. They were too young to find out how truly disappointing it was. Then he remembered what Petersen had said yesterday, and inspiration hit him. "I'm afraid I can't tell you, children. It's top secret."
The children's mouths became enraptured Os. "Wow," the boy breathed.
"I'm gonna be an astro when I grow up!" the girl said.
"You can't be!"
"I can! They have girl astros too, I've seen them on TV!"
"Not because you're a girl, because you're annoying!"
The children broke into a scuffle and Rimmer turned to look out of the window. Lister watched him for a moment, then leaned forward and put his arms on the rail on the back of Rimmer's seat. "You all right, man?" he murmured.
Rimmer turned around to look at Lister. "Yeah," he said. "They really have no idea. They think it's all adventure and glory. All these years, and I haven't seen a lick of adventure or glory."
"Yeah, but what about this," Lister said, gesturing at themselves and the cats. "This's been an adventure, yeah?"
"I suppose you're right," Rimmer said. "It's just typical. Only smegging adventure I've ever had and it's completely against the rules."
Lister snorted.
"They made it sound like the Space Corps is all fighting the bad guys and saving princesses, and then having a big old knees-up afterwards. If I knew it was like this, I don't think I'd have bothered."
"Oh, come on Rimmer, I'm sure I believed all that lot when I was a kid too. But it's just a job. It doesn't define who you are."
"Does it not?"
"No. You helped me, you helped Frankie and the kittens. Your job title doesn't tell you any of that. What I'm saying Rimmer, is that there's more to life than your job. I've always just worked to earn a coupla dollarpounds. And then done whatever I wanted the rest of the time."
"I wanted a career, Lister," Rimmer said, and stopped himself. Part of him wanted to launch into a big speech about his regrets, but he stopped himself. "But it doesn't matter now."
Lister squeezed Rimmer's shoulder. Rimmer wanted to hug Lister, but as they weren't sitting next to each other, there was no way to do it without causing a scene, so instead he reached over and touched Lister's hand. Maybe his career was stagnating as always, but he had Lister now and he cared about him, which frankly was more than he ever expected out of life.
The bus made regular stops to let passengers off or pick up more. When the children left, the bus was significantly quieter. Outside, the uniform grey buildings were giving way to larger homes and the odd green area. The sun was still high in the sky. Red Dwarf ran on a 24 hour day cycle like Earth, and Europa's much longer days were taking their toll on Lister. He found himself struggling to keep his eyes open. The next time Rimmer turned around, he found Lister asleep leaning sideways on the pet carrier.
Rimmer smiled and returned to looking out of the window. Gradually, the green areas increased in size and the rows of houses became smaller and the gaps between them bigger. The bus was still making stops at frustratingly short intervals, but eventually Rimmer saw the quaint hand-painted sign proclaiming "Welcome to Greenwood". He shook Lister, who awoke with a start and rubbed his eyes.
"We're here?" Lister mumbled.
"Yes, we're here."
Rimmer picked up his bag and Lister struggled groggily to his feet and picked up the cats. They made their way to the front of the bus as it slowed down, and it opened its door to let them off.
As the bus pulled away, they looked around. In every direction, there was nothing but green fields. No wood, but it had to be around here somewhere.
"Look Rimmer, cows!" Lister said, tugging at his arm.
"So, will this place do?"
Conflicting emotions crossed Lister's face. "Let's look around. Gotta make sure, yeah?"
They walked in the direction of the field of cows and found a path overgrown with grass and wildflowers that led downhill towards a farmhouse. They looked at each other and made a silent agreement to proceed down the path.
About halfway down the path, they were startled by incomprehensible shouting. They looked around to see a man struggling through the long grass towards them, waving a shotgun.
"Let's get the smeg out of here," Lister said, adjusting his grip on the pet carrier.
Rimmer grabbed the other end of the carrier's handle and the two of them did their best to run back up the path. When they reached the road again, they stopped, gasping for breath.
The farmer was still shouting and shaking a fist in the air, but he had stopped and his gun was pointing downwards.
"Let's try somewhere else," Rimmer said.
The next farmhouse came into view on the other side of the road. They crossed it easily, having seen no other vehicles since the bus dropped them off.
This time they made it to the farmhouse without incident. Lister raised his fist to knock on the door, then paused. He looked at Rimmer, who inclined his head, encouraging him to knock.
Lister looked down at Frankie and the kittens through the bars of the pet carrier, his heart breaking. He tried to think of some excuse to put it off, but they were just that, excuses. He knocked.
A tense minute passed as they waited. Just as it seemed no-one was going to answer, the door opened.
Inside, an older woman squinted at them. "Arthur, have you got my glasses?" she called to someone inside.
A man shuffled to join her, handing her some glasses.
The woman put on the glasses. "These aren't the right glasses," she said, taking them off again and shaking her head. "What can I help you people with?"
"Sorry to bother you, but we were wondering if you could help us," Lister began.
When Lister didn't continue, Rimmer decided that he'd better. "We have a cat and some kittens that need a home."
"You'll have to speak up," the woman said.
Rimmer raised his voice. "I said we have a cat and some kittens-"
"Oh that's nice. Is that an Io accent I hear?"
"Yes, but-"
"Awfully funny folk from Io," the man said.
"Awfully funny folk," the woman agreed.
"Would you be willing to give a home to these cats?" Rimmer tried again.
"Oh no, we don't want to buy anything, dear," the woman said.
"But we're not selling…" Rimmer said, trailing off because she had already shut the door.
"Wouldn't wanna leave 'em with them anyway," Lister said as they walked away. "What if we don't find anyone?"
"We've got to keep trying, Lister. We came all the way out here. There's got to be a farm somewhere that's short of eight cats," Rimmer said, feeling less sure of it himself as he got to the end of the sentence.
It was a long walk to the next farm. A woman with short dark hair opened the door. She didn't look happy to see them.
"We're looking for a home for a cat and some kittens," Rimmer said quickly.
The woman blinked.
"Please don't shut the door. We're tired. We just want a good home for them," Lister said.
"Can I see?" the woman said.
Lister moved the pet carrier towards the door and put it down. The woman crouched down and looked at the cats.
"Cass, who is it?" a voice called from inside the house.
The woman hurried to her feet and shut the door behind her.
Lister and Rimmer looked at each other.
They heard voices from inside.
"They said they need a home for a cat and some kittens."
"But who are they?"
"I don't know. They sound funny. Not from around here."
There was a laugh. "Who is?"
The door opened again, and this time there was another woman with a brown braid over one shoulder. "You have cats?" she said.
"Yeah," Lister said, pointing at the carrier.
The woman put her hands on her knees and bent down to look at them. "Okay, they're pretty cute. We'll take them."
"Oh, but wait a minute," Lister said.
"Lister," Rimmer said.
"But I'm not ready to say goodbye."