CHAPTER FOUR

The memories ended there.

In a shock, in a daze, Lister stood. He didn't know what to do. After seeing something like that, you can't just recover.

He left the room, closing the door gently, and began to wander the corridors, just letting it sink in.

"A coffee for your woes?" A female voice asked.

"Nah, I can't at the moment," Lister replied, not looking up at the dispensing machine who had just spoken.

"Oh?" The machine sounded surprised. "I thought you'd never turn down food. And you look like you need a pick-me-up. Latte?"

"I don't want a smegging-"

Lister stopped. There, on the dispensing machine, clear as day was the number 43.

"You're dispensing machine 43," he said, a bit in shock.

"Yes," she replied, as if talking to a toddler. "That is what it says on the side, is it not?"

"You were his favourite," Lister whispered.

"Speak up," she said, annoyed. "What was that?"

"Nothing. I'll have a decaf coffee. I need to sleep."

"Coming right up," she said, cup already lowering and filling with dark brown liquid.

Lister took it without another word and entered the nearest bunk room, crashing on the bed and falling asleep. Knowing that it belonged to a dead crewmate didn't seem so horrible. Not now he knew how long it had really been.

The next morning he went to the kitchen.

"Have you seen Rimmer?" He asked.

"That tosser, no," Holly said. "He's shielded himself from me somehow. Don't ask me, must've learned it somewhere."

Lister felt sick. Now he knew how close Holly and Rimmer had been, this just felt wrong. And he knew how Rimmer knew how to shield himself. If he were trapped with only one other person on a ship, he'd learn how to hide as well.

"Chicken tikka masala, sir?" Kryten offered, wearing a purple apron.

"No thanks, Krytes," Lister said quietly. "I'm not hungry."

The kitchen went silent.

"What? I just said I wasn't hungry."

"In my experience, you're always hungry," the Cat said. "I have never seen you turn down food. Are you sick?"

"No."

He left without another word, just about catching the beginning of Kryten's sobs as he thought that it wasn't good enough for him. He needed to find Rimmer. That was his first priority now.

"You looking for Rimmer?" A soft female voice asked.

Lister turned to the vending machine. "Yeah. You seen him?"

"No," she answered. "But dispensing machine 65 says that she keeps seeing him heading to the observation deck."

"Thanks 34," he said, heading off.

It took him about ten minutes to get to the observation deck, an enormous room with a domed glass ceiling, a path going through the middle and the only place on the ship with actual greenery, shrubs and trees bursting from either side of the path, slightly overgrown and wild.

Rimmer was sitting on a log at the end of the path, staring up into the starry sky.

"Hey," Lister said softly.

Rimmer flinched and didn't turn around.

Carefully, the scouser sat down next to him, looking out onto the night too.

"Clearer than back home," he said. "In Liverpool you can't see any stars 'cause of the smog and pollution. Used to be better, they say. Used to be so clear you could see the Pole Star every night. Not now of course. Maybe it was different on Io."

Rimmer didn't reply, so he kept talking. Steeling himself, he decided to just be blunt.

"I saw your memories."

The other man hunched further in on himself.

"Took me a day and a half, and I forwound most of it. Only saw the highlights."

"Then you know everything?" Rimmer said for the first time.

Lister nodded. "I can't believe you're living with all that."

"Well, the connection is only tenuous," he said. "Snatches and glances, sometimes more if I force it. You probably know more than me at this point."

"What about Holly?"

"Remembers nothing," Rimmer said, sounding pained. "Neither do any of the vending machines. And Cat just thinks I was named after the Rimmer from his tales. Doesn't help that he thinks it's Haley instead of Holly."

Rimmer chuckled dryly, and the two lapsed into silence.

"I'm sorry-"

"Listen-"

They stopped as their voices overlapped.

"You go first," Rimmer said.

"No, you."

Rimmer took a breath. "I just wanted to say sorry. For lying to you. And for everything else. Now you know why I'm such a cowardly git and a smeghead to everyone. And that I- that I was - am - in love with you, and I understand if you hate me, if you never want to talk to me again, I won't press it, I can leave if you want me to-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Lister interrupted. "What makes you think I'd hate you?"

The hologram's eyebrows scrunched together.

Lister laughed in relief and disbelief. "You think I'd want you to leave just 'cause of this? I'd never do that you idiot."

"Why."

The fact he had to ask broke Lister's heart. The Cats had not been kind. Too often, more often, he suspected, than he had seen in his memories, he had been taken, captured, humiliated or tortured. And he still remembered.

"Because-" he said with a laugh. "Because."

He took Rimmer's hands and looked into his eyes, the other man shifting, a look in his eyes of hope guarded by a thousand walls.

"Because you're my best friend Rimmer," he said. "You're my oldest friend, quite literally. And you survived three million years just so you could keep me sane."

He bit out another laugh and decided smeg it, may as well bare my buried soul, and hoped he wouldn't regret. "Plus. I've had a crush on you since forever."

He had never seen a look of such pure shock on Rimmer's face. On anyone's face. It was bad enough he was shocked Lister considered himself his friend, now crush?

"What?" He managed to croak.

"I love you, you smeghead," Lister said, bringing Rimmer in for a hug. "I've never loved anyone more. Since the first moment I met you, I knew I was obsessed, but then we got to know each other and the annoyance overshadowed it. But since we've been alone in deep space..."

He shook his head and drew back. "Is it really so hard to believe."

Rimmer had tears in his eyes. "You...love me?"

Rather than respond Lister leant forward and placed a chaste, delicate kiss on his forehead.

"Yeah. Yeah I do. I really do."

Almost instinctively they leaned towards each other, seeking each other out for warmth and looking out on the stars.

"You know you can always talk to me, right," Lister said. "If you ever have bad memories or something, I'll be here. Just talk to me."

Rimmer nodded. "I think I will."

There was a pause. "Does this make me your boyfriend?"

Another lengthy pause. "How are we gonna tell the others?"

It didn't matter. They had each other now. That was enough. Three million years was a long time, but to be together like that, it was such a relief, it was almost worthwhile.

Almost.

There were still far too many skeletons in the closet.

Many that Lister had no idea about. And as far as Rimmer was concerned, he would never know.

—

A/N: So, that's the end. I'm thinking of a sequel, would anyone be interested in that? Any mistakes, no matter how small, please point them out so they don't irritate future readers.

Many thanks,

Star xx