Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Calisto docks are considered some of the biggest and busiest in the outer system. Both in size and the foot traffic, it stands strong enough to be the Moon’s economy on its own. Long haul ships arrive and dock, people and cargo leaving their homes for what seemed like forever. The docks extend far from the moon, creating a slightly altered rotation as it’s centre of gravity tries to make up for it all.

For those who called the dirty moon home, the docks were ingrained deep into them. The bustle of people, the bright neon lights that never turned off, the thick smog that hung in the air, it all faded into the background of their lives.

Arnold Rimmer was leaning on a wall. He had his hand in a coat pocket, an old cap on his head to keep his hair back, and a cardboard sign under one of his arms. He fished out a computer printout and checked a highlighted number on it, and then his watch. The ship he was waiting for was late. Family members waited for the first run of people to leave the ship closer to the passenger gateway, but Rimmer kept to himself. The moon used a regular 24 hour cycle, and it was currently 3 am. Rimmer was exhausted. But that was nothing to write home about, he was often up in the small hours.

It didn’t look or feel like a 3 am, it looked and felt more like a 3 pm. The docks always felt like a long 3pm on a Thursday. The type of Thursday that doesn’t really exist until you’re experiencing it, and once it happens it never happens again. Rimmer hated Thursdays like that. If it could properly rain of Calisto it definitely would be raining now, that’s the type of Thursday that it was.

Regardless, it was actually a Tuesday.

Red Dwarf was a large ship. It took a long time to dock and be deemed safe for people to leave or come back aboard. Decontamination of any new bacteria was always a slow process, but there were other issues that always came up. Because of her size it was docked in a high orbit, it needed a lot of smaller ships to ferry back to and from the moons that it docked around. That was what Rimmer and the other people had been waiting for. With a crew of over 1100, taking people too and from the dwarf was a slow process. Usually, the whole crew wouldn’t leave together, but a combination of a long dock for repairs and being at the end of a four-year trip, a lot of people took the opportunity for planet leave.

Rimmer shoved the timetable back into his pocket with a sigh. There was a food stand not too far away from him, but the ridiculous prices it was asking had put him off long ago. He didn’t like wavering from a task he’d been set, or set himself. And moving from his position, staring up at the dwarf as she prepared to unload her crew, made him antsy. He did a little jig in place trying to decide whether he wanted to take a break from standing here or not.

In the end, he succumbed to the hunger that had been gnawing at him and the monotony of waiting for the ship to disembark and went over to the stall.

Other people were eating on cheap plastic tables and chairs, enduring the time they were forced to spend together as amiably as they could. The stand itself was more of a truck with a man on the inside with gloves on taking orders and putting the food together.

After a few minutes of waiting, Rimmer got the front of the queue. The man at the counter had a grim expression which made Rimmer feel like he was doing something wrong, or not meant to be there. A few seconds of painfully awkward silence passed before Rimmer saw the man's expression stay exactly the same except for a quizzical eyebrow being raised as he glanced down the sign Rimmer had tucked under his arm.

“Waiting for a friend?” The man asked in a thick Ganymedian accent. He’d been able to make out what was written on the sign in Rimmer’s neat handwriting. It was a simple ‘SMEGHEAD’ in all capitals.

“Uh, yes.” He replied in a voice which was a little more strangled than he’d like it to be.

The man wrapped up what he had made and handed it down to Rimmer. It wasn’t exactly a bánh mì, not exactly a hotdog, but it was food regardless.

Rimmer fumbled with his wallet trying to hand over what he owed, instead he dropped several of the Dollarpound coins onto the countertop. Thankfully none of them escaped to the floor, they just spread themselves over the table.

The man raised his eyes up at Rimmer, clearly not very impressed with the display.

“Sorry.” He bleated as he tried to pick up the runaway change and place it into the extended hand that was waiting for payment. He shoved the extra into his trouser pocket, not wanting to bother making a further spectacle of himself by trying to put the coins into his wallet and slunk off back to where he’d been waiting against the wall.

God, Rimmer hated these docks. The bulk of his life was either spent in a ship or on shore leave in one, and they were beginning to drive him mad. It had been a little shy of three years since he had last seen the ‘friend’ that he was waiting for.

It didn’t seem that long, but for Rimmer it was. For the other it wouldn’t have been; a couple of weeks at most. Three years since he was last on the Red Dwarf, and two and a half since he was moved to Calisto. He felt like a fish in a huge fish tank that only had a single good hiding spot.

Rimmer unwrapped and began to eat his food. He was surprised how good it all was, and didn’t notice how much of the sauce had ended up on the front of his coat. A sound binged around the port, White Midget 5 was almost here.

Finally.

“-You see, although you're still a mass, you are no longer an event in space-time, you are a non-event mass with a quantum probability of zero.” Lister watched Todhunter’s face as he tried to explain how the stasis field worked. It didn’t make a single iota of sense, but Todhunter seemed to know what he was talking about.

Lister smiled and nodded once the other man was done, “Simple as that, eh?”

Todhunter rested his hand on the button next to the stasis booth and the doors slid open with a JMC standard mechanical whir.

"Simple as that,” he confirmed.

The inside of the stasis booth had a vaguely clinical appearance and reminded Lister of those blatantly fake hospital waiting rooms. The ones that tried to cheer the atmosphere up by adding an exciting splash of sickly green to the decor.

There weren't any seats, but if he was going to be frozen in space-time, or whatever-it-was-todhunter-had-said he supposed he didn't need to be comfortable.

"See you in eighteen months." Todhunter offered lister a wan smile. Stasis seemed like too harsh a punishment for sneaking an animal on board, but he didn't get to make the rules. He waved weakly and took his free hand off the panel.

Lister waved briefly as the slid shut with a hiss. After a couple of moments, a white light enveloped him before it calmly died down a moment later. The door popped open as the stagnant air mixed with the air from the outside with an even louder hiss.

The first thing Lister saw was Todhunter talking to another crewmember.

“- but in season 17 we saw that she remembered the season 4 cliffhanger, so it has to be the same Mary.”

“Wasn’t there a whole plot about her memories being replaced at some point? That’s clearly what’s happened again. She is a hologram, after all.”

“Not really, that was only a temporary thing. She had to have her memories changed to protect her daughter-in-law from the future.”

“The fact that you even care enough about that show to know what happens 17 seasons in is enough to prove how addicted to that stupid old soap you are.”

“Hey, I can’t help if I have something to pass the time with.” Todhunter’s voice replied.

The two people talking turned around at the opened door as Lister blinked inside of it. The other person, a man in a technician jumpsuit, put his and on Todhunter’s shoulder. “I’ll let you do your job,” He said before walking off.

Todhunter watched the technician walk off before looking back at Lister. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

Lister walked out of the stasis booth and looked at the expansive hallway, trying to orientate himself. Then turned his attention back to Todhunter, “You were just over there,” he said pointing to where Todhunter had been standing when he’d entered stasis, slightly confused.

Todhunter nodded, used to dealing with post stasis disorientation. “Your sentence is over now. how are you feeling?”
“But, I only just got in.”

“It would feel like that, yes. Time hasn’t moved at all for you, but it has for everybody else.”

“Brutal,” Lister said distantly as he looked around, still dazed.

Todhunter escorted Lister down a flight of stairs and into Lister’s dorm. The room wasn’t how he left it, everything had long been packed up. Lister got a few steps in before turning to Todhunter in mild confusion. “Where’s Rimmer?”

Todhunter looked at Lister with an eyebrow raised. “He left the ship, remember?”

“No? When?”

Todhunter tapped his fingers on his thigh. “No that’s right, that all happened after you went into stasis.”

“What happened? Don’t tell me he somehow got a promotion.”

“No he, uh, there was a drive plate malfunction.”

“A drive plate?” Lister replied, furrowing his brow as he tried to make sense of what Todhunter was saying. So much had already happened today.

Todhunter moved to sit down at the room’s table, lifting his leg over the back of it as it did it in one smooth movement. “Yes, it happened about a month or so after you were put into stasis.”

Lister joined him at the table. There was a loose pen covered in a fine layer of dust resting on the table. He fiddled with the pen as Todhunter kept on talking.

“He got given the job of replacing a drive plate, half an hour in he was found lying next to the whole system passed out. Turns out the plate was even worse damaged than the reading told us, and him trying to replace it on his own lead to him being close enough to get a pretty hefty dose of Cad II. If the guy who found him didn’t find him when he did Arnold would have been a goner.”

Lister let the pen fall into his hand. “Smeg,” was the best response that he was able to produce.

Todhunter nodded as he kept on explaining. “Spent a week or so in care on the ship before he was moved over to somewhere better for him; I haven’t heard much from Rimmer since but I know he’s still alive.”

“So Rimmer almost died while I was away?”

“Oh, he came pretty close. Just be thankful that we know more about radiation and all that now, had this happened 20 years ago there wouldn’t have been any hope.”

“Well,” Lister said, trying to cough up a proper response as his mind tried to catch up.

“If it’s just a simple job then there isn’t much problem, it’s just that the damage was a lot worse than we thought it was. When it all happened I can remember we had this whole conversation about what could have gone wrong.”

“I assume that means everybody dying.”

“Oh yes. Dead before anybody would have been able to do anything about it.” Todhunter laughed. “Although, the funny thing about it all is that you would have survived.”

“How?”

“The stasis field, since it freezes time. Radiation can’t get into it.”

“Oh, right. At least I would’ve survived when I got out of stasis and got rescued.”

“Ah, no. Too much background radiation. Once you got taken out you would have still died the same as everybody else.”

Lister’s eyes moved down towards a folded bit of computer printout that was on the table. It didn’t have the same level as dust like everything else on the ship. He picked it up and looked back at Todhunter.

“Holly did a run of the calculations during the whole conversation, he figured out that you wouldn’t have been able to get out until over three million years would have passed.”
“So, not much point in being let out, then.”

Todhunter saw the printout and seemed to get distracted by it, his voice going quite as his attention got taken away from what he was talking about. “I wouldn’t want to be, if I’m going to be honest with you.”

Lister opened up the printout to see what was written, Todhunter watched and tried his best to see what it was without actually looking.

“How much radiation did you say he got?” Lister said, moving the printout back into the table.

“Pardon? What does it say?” Todhunter asked, snapping out of his spying.

“I think Rimmer offered to give me a place to stay when we all get back to Calisto.”

Chapter Text

White midget tracked slowly down to the moon below. The sight below of the copper coloured, city covered moon would almost be considered breathtaking if it wasn’t for somebody insisting on singing campfire songs on the journey down, and if not for other people joining in. Lister looked out through the window and watched the port grow closer, hoping the ship would move faster. He pulled out the letter that he had received and checked over it. This was the right ship and place, just a tad late.

The ship tunnelled it’s way down to the port. People filed out of the ship in slow, unorganized messes and came to an even unevener mess by the side of the ship as they all waited for their bags to be taken and handed out. Lister stood up in his spot, almost hitting his head as he did it. How can humans figure out how to travel from planet to planet and still find a way to make it miserable? It didn’t make any sense. He looked at the large-ish grey animal carrier on their chair next to him. It was a wonder that he was able to get a seat for it, but it wouldn’t be fair to those inside to put it in with the rest of the luggage. He walked into the walkway, picked up the carrier and went outside to get the rest of his stuff.

Sirnames and ship employment numbers were called, a flurry of scrambled action as everybody got their things and left a quickly as possible. Lister looked over at the small sea of people that stood around. His eyes seemed to track passed somebody off to the side and then right back at him. It took Lister a moment to notice that it was Rimmer.

The two men saw each other from across the docks. It was a little strange at first with neither of them in uniform – Arnold ‘ship issued pyjamas while on shore leave’ Rimmer doubly so. Lister waved to him, and the far away Rimmer gave a small wave back. Lister had a duffle bag over his shoulder and a guitar bag that was being held together with duct tape and horrible needlework on his back as well as that carrier and another box of assorted junk. Usually, people had more stuff than this, but It was actually sort of surprising how much stuff he actually had.

Rimmer wiped his mouth with the side of his hand and made his way to where Lister was. For Rimmer, it was strange seeing him again - It didn’t look like Lister had aged a day. Of course, he hadn’t. That’s how stasis works.

Lister coughed into his fist once Rimmer was close enough for the two of them to talk. “Uh, hey man.”

Rimmer nodded in a formal way. “Hello.” Was what came out of it.

There was quite between the two of them. Somehow neither man seemed to have anything good to say as a conversation starter even after all this time.

Rimmer seemed to take a few steps back. “Let’s go, my car isn’t too far away from here.”

“So, how have you been?” Lister asked once the two of them were driving. It was an older car, but it did it’s job alright. Hoppers aren’t as big of a thing here as they were on Mimus. Lister’s stuff had ended up occupying the back two seats, it wasn’t like Rimmer had a boot or anything that he had opened - don’t be silly.

Rimmer looked back. “Alright, I guess.” Was his quiet reply.

“Cool. Been doing anything lately?”

“Well, chemotherapy, mostly,” Rimmer said as he checked his rear-view mirror.

“Smeg,”

“Uh-huh.”

There was another bit of quite.

“How’s work been?”

“I can’t work.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve been too sick.”

Lister’s body sunk lower into his seat. “You look good, though. You look pretty much the same as the last time I saw you.”

Rimmer stopped at a red light. “Thanks,” he said quietly after putting his elbow on his open window. The light of the street seeped into the car, the harsh red light shining on his face in such a way all you could see were the large bangs under his eyes and skinny frame. Frankly, Rimmer looked like shit.

A quite sound came from Lister’s carrier. It sounded almost like a small squeak, or possibly a meow. Both men looked back into the back seats with differing reactions.
Lister then pushed his chair back and turned himself around in it so he could reach into it, his seat belt still on as he did it.

“Lister what are yo-“ There was a loud horn causing Rimmer to look away from Lister and keep driving. “Do you have a cat back there? The one that you got put into status for?”

“Yeah man,” Lister said as he picked up one of the tiny bundles of cat and sat back down in his spot, “That and her kids.” It was pure black just like its mother, aside from a white diamond on it’s chest. “They all got found a bit after they were born, and Kochanski was able to get them to be put in status,” He moved the kitten closer to his face, “She saved your life, yaknow,” he said to it in a softer voice as if he was talking to a (human) baby. The kitten gave a weak ‘mew’ in response.

Rimmer just rolled his eyes and kept on driving, holding the steering wheel tighter.

“This one’s ‘Danny,’” Lister said as he moved the kitten towards Rimmer to show the little man off. Danny ‘mew’ed’ again.

Rimmer leaned away in response rather dramatically, his head almost leaving the window.

“Not much of a cat person?”

“Lister, I’m trying to drive.”

Lister moved Danny to his lap and began to softly scratch him behind the ears. “The other black one is 'Hinton', and the grey one is 'Terry.' The real little orange one is 'Vindaloo.'”

“You were really willing to risk your carrier over those, things?”

“Yeah well, I’m off the ship now. That’s what matters.”

Rimmer exhaled a quiet exhale. This man was a lot more trouble than he was honestly worth.

Rimmer kept on driving for a little more before turning up at an apartment complex. At the entrance to a basement driveway Rimmer leaned out, pressed some numbers on a keypad and waited for an old and run down roller door to roll up and let him drive in. Once the car had parked the two of them got out and opened up the doors to the back seats. Cold, blue lighting and fresh paint of the parking lot told a lot more about the place than that needed to be said.

Rimmer picked up the duffle bag of clothing from inside of the car and slung it over his shoulder. “And let me just say, before you get any wrong ideas, the only reason that I’m even helping you right now is that there are exactly four hotels on this sorry moon and all of them have a price tag that leaves you more than a little bankrupt. Trust me, if you try to book last-minute then you partially become their poetry for the rest of your existence.”

Lister seemed to nod in a way to show that he was listening, and that trying to find somewhere to stay on the night he arrived wasn’t his plan from the beginning.

“You’re just lucky that my place allows pets,” he said as he watched Lister put little Danny into the carrier with the rest of his family and carefully pick the carrier up.
“Yeah, uh, sorry about all of these.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Rimmer replied with a sigh as he closed the back door that he was behind and pressed something on his keys to lock the whole thing. The rest of Lister’s stuff stayed in the car – no real point in taking it out only to put it back in in the morning.

The elevator ride up to Rimmer’s flat was quiet. There was an old, hand-drawn poster for a monthly karaoke night at one of the apartments on the wall next to the mirror that was covered in pen graffiti. The door to Rimmer’s apartment had an overgrown plant next to it that was in bloom.

The flat itself was pretty unremarkable. Small and open, there was a kitchen island that doubled as a table and an old couch with a blanket folded on it facing a small tv that was next to a wide window that overlooked the city. On a day that Calisto was facing its planet, you would get a pretty good view of it all while sitting on the couch, while also being able to watch TV. The place was also really tidy, either because Rimmer liked it that way or that he cleaned it all up for Lister. It could, in a sense, be called a bachelor pad, but it didn’t really give off that vibe.

“Nice place,” Lister said as he put the carrier on the kitchen island and opened its door.

Rimmer put the bag on the floor near the doorway, “it’s really not much. Bare minimum, really.” A large grey kitten jumped off the counter and onto the floor with a ‘thump’ and start to climb up the couch like her little life depended on it. “Do you actually have a plan as to what you’re going to do about them?”

“Take them back to Earth with me, duh.”

“Well,” Rimmer put his hands together, “I bid you luck on all of that.”

Lister took his bike jacket off and put over one of the chairs to the island. His eyes began to wander towards something besides the window. He walked closer to it as the sound of Rimmer trying to catch a runaway kitten faded into the background. It was some sort of large-ish canvas covered in dark paint.

Lister pointed at the canvas as he came up to it, “What’s this?” he asked.

“Don’t touch that,” came a disgruntled voice from the floor. Rimmer sat up, two eager kittens already climbing on top of him.

Lister walked around and took a better look at the half-finished painting. It seemed to be a nightscape of the view outside of the window. He looked back at Rimmer. “Did you do this?”

Rimmer put the two kittens back on the hardwood floor and stood up with a huff. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s really good.”

“Just ignore it. I’m telling you, leave- what?”

“Yeah,” Lister said with a smile as he turned around. “I didn’t know that you painted.”

Rimmer blinked. He wasn’t at all expecting any kind of complement. “Uh, well, thanks,” was the result of what he was able to respond with. “It’s really nothing more than something to pass the time with.”

Lister looked back at the painting and nodded.

“Look,” Rimmer said, putting his hands together again, Hinton climbing up his ankle as he spoke, “It’s been fun but I really need to sleep. There is some leftover Chinese in the fridge and uh, the couch, to sleep on.” He gestured to the furniture in question sheepishly.

Lister looked back at the couch. “Oh yeah, thank man,” he replied. “I really do appreciate it.”
Rimmer put his hands in his coat pockets and did a single, ‘yes sir’ nod of his own before going into what appeared to be his bedroom and closed the door.

Time passed. It got until the city began to wake up for the morning before Lister was able finally to fall asleep. There wasn’t as much of a sunrise, but more of a uniform, primal feeling of it being dawn as lights came back on the planet above turned slowly it’s all it’s glory.

Chapter Text

According to reports, the first human-piloted multi-fold fighter was tested yesterday, accoutering to an inside source at the Mimas Testing Base. The program has now been put on hold indefinitely as per a logistical roadblock in the whole operation.

Reports indicate that hours before the test launch another ‘Wildfire,’ the name of the ship and program, appeared. Her pilot was charged so badly that the only way the autopsy was able to identify the pilot was by the sunglasses that he had on at the time. Computer readings from the second ship show that it too did the same test, but its trip was not successful for either her or her pilot. Officers are concerned that the same will happen to this ‘reality’s’ version of the two if the project is to succeed.

There is no word on when, or if, the project will be picked back up. Saturn Ops has not released any statement regarding the ethical backlash of such a ship, only that a program has been put in place to make sure that all of the engineers who worked on it the ‘Wildfire’ project will not be out of a job. When asked about the proposed trip, the company’s selected pilot, a Commander William Swatch, says that it was ‘not his call [to suspend,] but is happy to be in one piece somewhere that he is familiar with.’ Swatch is predicted to be reassigned to other Saturn Ops test flying work later in the summer.

“You would think that the flight directory would be easier to find, huh,” Lister said, looking back up at Rimmer.

Rimmer just sighed. The two of them had been there for at least half an hour at this point. He took a step away from the large, wall-mounted map that the two men were stuck in front of. It was like a map you see while at a museum or zoo with pictures all over it, but even harder to read. The map also seemed to be 3-dimensional, but clearly had no idea how to showcase this information without overlaying lays on layers on each other.

Whoever was involved with making this map clearly had never heard of putting layers on other pages or next to each other, or even knew how maps worked.

“Maybe we should ask somebody?”

“Who?”

“I don’t know man, anybody? People can’t just be here blind.”

“We are.”

Lister looked over to him. “Yeah, you’ve got a point.”

The two of them took a step back, Rimmer with a hand on his chin and Lister with his in his jacket pocket.

“As far as I’m aware,” Rimmer began to muse, “you just sign up for a ship and they escort you to the right dock when your time comes. Like Death herself.”

“Are you sure that there is nobody we can ask? Like, somebody who works here?”

Rimmer looked back at him and paused for a moment. “We can manage on our own.”

Lister made a mental note to never ever go on a road trip with him. They could aim for Ipswich and end up on Pluto.

The two of them started walking around in the hopes that they maybe they might cross a tourist marquee or two if they waited for one to show up. The docs seemed bigger than they were last night, but that was largely because they were paying attention to the size of it. 

“Dock….. Seven,” Rimmer said as they arrived at dock 4. He seemed very sure of himself, even when the two of them walked past a sign with a huge ‘4’ painted on it.

There was a while midget parked on one of the smaller docks. There was a person or two that Lister and Rimmer could recognize coming out with their bags.

“Must still be unloading ‘Dwavers,” Lister commented as two men, one in uniform and one who had been waiting, went in for a long-awaited kiss.  

Rimmer looked back at him. “Lister, nobody in the history of ever has called crew that.”

Lister shrugged. “Ya’know what I mean.”

The pair could see more coworkers on and off. A golfcart-esk car drove past them carting luggage.

In the distance, maybe a hundred meters or so away from the two of them was a woman with permed brown hair and a heavy coat and scarf around herself, and by her side was a small child. He was holding tightly onto the fabric of her pants and looking at the rest of the docs while still being safe. His hair was a soft red and had a padded navy coat to combat the cold. His hair was all curly, but cut short enough so it wouldn’t be an issue to care for. He looked to be about three years old at the oldest.

It only took a few moments of staring for Rimmer to realize that the woman was Yvonne McGruder. Yvonne herself wasn’t paying much attention to the toddler, aside from putting a hand on his shoulder to keep him close. She seemed to be looking out for somebody, not unlike what Rimmer was doing yesterday.

Rimmer’s pace slowed to a halt. Yvonne didn’t have a baby before, did she? Whose kid was that? Well, hers, but who was the other? He didn’t even realize that he had been staring at her before the two of them saw each other, and for a brief moment neither had the chance to fully comprehend what was about to go down. At that moment two of them were nothing better than complete strangers. The little man by her legs dug deeper into his mother’s pants, almost going inside of her coat.

Lister turned around once he was a good 10 meters ahead of Rimmer. He jogged back and stood next to him to try and figure out what he was looking at. It didn’t take long for him to figure it out, Giving Yvonne a small smile when it happened. She gave it back.

“Hey, McGruder’s looking good,” Lister commented.

“Yes that is, that is her isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.”

Rimmer swallowed a ball of spit and looked away from the parent and child to make it seem like he didn’t mean to look.

“I didn’t actually see her when I got out of status now that I think about it.”

“Well, she’s here now,” Rimmer said with not much else good to say in the situation. The last time he had personally seen her had been before he had left the ship, as far as he was aware up to this point she was still crew. He was wrong about this now, of course.

Rimmer looked to the side, Yvonne was still looking at them. Lister nudged Rimmer over and the two of them went to say hello. Baby McGruder came in closer, if that was even possible.

“Hey Yv!” Lister said with a smile, going in for that sort of pseudo-hug/handshake thing that insecure straight guys do when they don’t want to be caught hugging another bro, “It’s nice to see you.”

“Likewise,” Yvonne said with a matching smile.

There was a weird moment of quiet between the groups. Rimmer’s eyes’ met with Baby McGruder’s. Baby McGruder blinked with huge brown eyes that looked like they could have been copied directly from his own.

“I’ll uh, I’ll be in the car if ya need me, man,” Lister said as he patted Rimmer’s back a little harder than he should have. He had a feeling that they wouldn’t be doing all that much ticket buying today.

Who knew how much time had passed, but it wasn’t as long as you would expect there to have been. Rimmer got into the driver’s seat, he didn’t put his seat belt on or even turn the car on.

Lister looked back at him. “Howya goin’?” He asked softly.

“Alright,” Rimmer said without much resistance.

“You were gone for a while.”

“We talked for a while.”

More silence. Rimmer looked worse than he did yesterday, and that’s saying something in itself.

“Do you want me to-“

Rimmer got out of the car and began to walk around it. Lister undid his seat belt and lifted himself over the controls in the middle and sat in the driver’s seat. Both of them got into their new spots at the same time.

Lister started up the car. “So… how did it go?” He asked.

Rimmer stayed still in both his body and voice. “Alright, I suppose. We talked for a little bit and then exchanged numbers.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all, yes. And yes, before you ask. His name is Michael,” Rimmer looked back at Lister for a quick moment. “Michael Richard McGruder.”  

Lister whistled. He really didn’t really know what to say right now. He knew that this sort of thing happened, but he didn’t know how he would react to it happening to him, or to somebody close to him it’s a ‘what if’ situation that you just hope never happens to you.

“And he’s mine, she hadn’t slept with anybody else at the time.”

“Is that good?”

“I don’t know.”

The car waited at a stop sign.

“She would have fallen pregnant a few weeks before I left. By the time that she was able to actually confirm everything –“

“You were already off the ship?”

Rimmer nodded. “Nobody on the ship had my direct contact information, or even knew what planet I had been transferred too. There wasn’t anything that she could do.”

Lister turned a corner, looking at Rimmer to the left of him as he did it. His face was still, whatever he was feeling wasn’t going to be shown outwardly any time soon.

“She’s been living on Calisto for the last four years with him. We could have crossed paths at any time - we just, didn’t. She couldn’t contact me, and I had no reason to contact her.”

Lister didn’t know if saying anything would help or just make things worse, so he said nothing.

“She’s there waiting for Lisa Grayson, engineering, I think?”

Lister thought for a moment. There were a lot of people on Red Dwarf. “Grayson? Yeah, she’s in engineering. Or was, I guess. I think they were roommates.”

Rimmer nodded. “Proper engineering, not like what we did.”

Lister was almost taken aback. Rimmer being so unenthusiastic about work? What? What is happening?

The car stopped.

“Ya’ alright, man?”

Rimmer got annoyed. “Lister-“

Lister looked right at him. “Are you?”

Rimmer fixed his scarf, it was knitted and showed its age. “I told you, Lister, I’m fine. Just a little… surprised that’s all.”

Lister didn’t believe that, but it wasn’t really his place to judge.

It was three days before Yvonne and Rimmer saw each other again. In that whole time span, Rimmer was pretty evenly torn between wanting to text her at every waking moment and throwing the phone out a moving shuttle window and crying in the corner like a little baby.

Like the little baby that he has. His baby. A whole entire child that he was a part of making. In an elevator. His.

AHHHHHHHHH.

Right now Rimmer was standing outside her house. He didn’t remember how he got there, it was very much an event of getting into his car, blanking out, and arriving at the door.

It was an apartment on the bottom level. It was slightly bigger than his own and a lot nicer. The welcome mat was well worn and each curtain that he could see from the outside was different. Yvonne had clearly seen, or heard him arrive, as she was able to open the front door seconds before Rimmer was able to knock. Both said ‘hello’ at the same time.

Michael was resting on her hip in a soft grey hoddie. He seemed to recognize Rimmer enough not to immediately hide into his mother at the sight of him, but he was still rather quiet.

“Come in, come in,” Yvonne said as she waved Rimmer into the apartment. “Sorry that it’s a bit of a mess in here.”

“That’s alright,” Rimmer said as he put his coat on a hook by on the wall. It wasn’t like his own was all that much better.

Yvonne put Michael down and he went back to finish doing a puzzle that was on the coffee table. The rest of the apartment didn’t show any signs of the ‘mess’ she had brought up. “Would you like some tea? Coffee?”

“Uh,” Rimmer paused for a second as his response still loading, “I’m fine, thank you.”

Yvonne took out two mugs regardless. She put them both inside of the wall-inset food replicator and pressed a few buttons and the computer did the rest.

She turned around to face Rimmer again. She could already see what parts of Michael that he took from him – mostly in the mouth area and eyebrows. She sort of hoped that Michael would be as tall as he was at the very least if nothing else.

Rimmer walked up to where Michael was playing. The two looked at each other with matching ‘uhhhh’ expressions.

“Does he speak much?” Rimmer asked as the two looked at each other. Michael was still sitting on the floor.

Yvonne looked over. “Oh, not really. He’s quite shy.”

Michael looked over at his mother.

Yvonne smiled and sat on one of the couches. “Why don’t you say hello, Mikey? This is a friend of mine, Arnold.”

Friend.

“Hi,” Michael said softly.

Rimmer felt like he was about to snap in half and melt into the floor. “Hello there,” he replied.

Michael went back to his puzzle, fixing two larger chunks of black sky pieces together.

“I wonder why he’s ginger, neither of us are,” Rimmer thought out loud.

Yvonne thought on that for a little bit. “It’s a recessive gene, my mother’s hair is the same colour.”

Rimmer shook his head. “Neither of my parents are. The only person I can think of who is was my house's gardener, and he wasn’t related to anybody in the family.”

“You sort of are.”

Rimmer looked back at her and put a hand in a ploof of his own curly hair. “Not really.”

“It's auburn,” Yvonne said with a shrug. “It’s a sort of red.”

“My hair’s brown, if anything.”

“It’s enough to count.”

The food replicator dinged and Yvonne stood up to get the drinks and came back with two coffees with milk.

The two drank their coffee in quite for a little bit. Michael went to ask Yvonne to continue doing the puzzle with her, but read the room successfully enough to know not to do that.

“Hey,” Yvonne said with a soft smile as she cut through the quite. It almost made Rimmer jump. “Would you happen to be free on Thursday evening?”

Rimmer was free every evening. “I believe so, yes.”

“We should have dinner or something. It might be a nicer environment to catch up in.”

Rimmer sat on that for a moment. “Yes, that should be nice.”

It was clear to both of them that this whole thing was going absolutely horribly. Micheal finished the puzzle, the picture one of a ship’s ramscoop.