Disclaimer: Wooooh HEY PEOPLE I'm BACK! (half hearted yay from crowd) Right yes ahem well I don't own owt so you can screw your law suits!Other stories on standby for now but develop on them soon!
Aaaaaaanyway this is the mark of a new cat/kira story and though it doesn't seem like that, all will become clear soon, much more Rimmery than anything else but this is an important companion to my upcoming 'Red Dwaf - The Alternate Series VII/VIII' a totally cat/kira thingy that most of you who read, review and put up with my daily rants know are in production, Oh and by the way my video is finally done! as all my 'friends' (SI, BEX, LAR, ALEX, ROB, OZZY STEPH!...and others) will know when they wake up at a reasonble time to find me raving about it! (currently 12:30am) So read on! & search the imdb Red Dwarf forum to find the link if you are weirdly intrested int watching my vid!
Saving & Sacrifices
Lister growled in annoyance at Rimmer as the latter left the room in a huff - After gaining permission from the prison guard of course. Lister flopped down on his bunk when the door had shut with a resounding clunk, and had brought out his Holly Watch.
"I can't take this much longer Hol! He's driving me nuts!" Lister moaned as he ran a hand through his tangled dreadlocks.
"Who's driving what now?" Holly replied in a dazed, monotonic voice.
"Rimmer." Lister sighed melodramatically.
"Oh HIM!" holly said, with faint recognition.
"When he was a hologram it wasn't too bad, he changed he became more tolerable but now it's just like it was before the accident, he's a completely unfeeling smeghead who would not give me or Cat or Kryten or any of us a second glance unless it was to help his own cowardly career.
"I'd like to agree Dave but you know you're wrong."
"No I'm not! He never did anything to help me the entire time he was alive! He didn't do much when he was dead either!" Lister protested eagerly.
"Ok maybe he didn't do it on purpose, but he did save you're life." Holly replied sincerely.
"You what?" Lister half said, half shouted in an incredulous voice.
"Half a mo, I'll dig the tapes out of my memory banks."
"You've kept whatever is on them, all this time?"
"Amazing what you think might come in handy!" Holly replied almost on the verge of sounding happy, as his image faded and a sketchy black and white image of his old bunk room took its place, Lister couldn't see anyone, but he could hear running water…
…Rimmer ran a last hand through his hair and turned off the shower. He partially opened the door and grabbed a perfectly folded towel from the rack on the wall. He wrapped it round his thin pale body and climbed out, shivering as the cold hit him. He looked round but Lister wasn't there.
"Probably off bumming around in a drunken daze." He muttered bitterly as he wrapped a dressing down round his flesh and sitting down on his bunk as he suddenly felt so tired. He closed his eyes and yawned, though a short sharp squeak caused him to open them again in surprise, he looked round but could see nothing unordinary, upon hearing the squeak again he climbed onto the floor and looked under the bunk, he was just about to stand up again when a flash of something down the ventilation shaft caught his attention. He crawled over and opened the cover; he peered inside and blinked as something leapt t him through the darkness.
"Smeg!" He cried tumbling backwards, he tried to sit up but found he was pinned down by whatever had jumped him. He raised his head to find a rather heavy cat perched on his chest, who was rather uncomfortably looking for the opening in Rimmer's dressing gown so she could make a nest.
"Get off me you fur ball!" Rimmer protested as he tipped the cat off and stood up, tightening the belt round his robe as he did. The cat lumbered around for a moment before clumsily jumping up onto Rimmer's bed and curling up.
"You have GOT to be kidding me." Rimmer muttered as he sat on the bed next to the cat. The cat unravelled itself and squeaked pitifully before climbing on top of Rimmer.
"Shift you rat bag." Rimmer warned though the cat ignored his protests. Rimmer lifted the cat up and looked deep into her eyes. He tried to look firm but found his anger melting.
"Lister is in big trouble bringing you here." He cooed involuntarily. "My God you weigh a ton don't you?" He said softly placing a hand on the cat's stomach. Suddenly he felt a small kicking against his hand.
"Smeg he's not been feeding you curries?" Rimmer said letting go of the cat who dropped onto Rimmer's lap and began drooling into his dressing gown. Slowly the cat's state of motherhood dawned on Rimmer.
"Smegging hell! How longs he had you?" Rimmer wondered aloud, unconsciously stroking her soft black, feather like fur.
At that moment Rimmer heard a drunken Lister coming down the corridor with someone… Peterson maybe with him.
"Sssssshow me the way to go home! I'm tired an I wanna go to bed!" The pissed voices sang as Rimmer unhooked the cat's pummelling claws and dumped her – gently- onto the floor.
"Byesey Selby 1! Byesey Selby 2! Byesey Selby's 3, 4 and 5!" Lister laughed giddily as the door opened and Selby tipped Lister into the room before hitting the lock button on the outside and continuing his journey along to his quarters, completely oblivious to the fact he had just seen a pregnant cat sat in the middle of his mate's room.
Lister slumped against the door for a moment before plunging forward to the beds and failing. Rimmer caught him and struggled for a moment before unloading Lister onto the bottom bunk and breathing deeply as his lungs tried to recover what oxygen Lister had expelled from him by the force of his dead weight landing on Rimmer's chest.
Rimmer turned and leaned against the wall, he held out his hands, surprised at how shaky they were. He felt his stomach knot in the way it had in his childhood just before his brothers beat him, his father has began the compulsory game of "Do You Want To Eat Tonight?" or his dorm mates searched his meagre packages from home to take what they wanted.
He blinked and tried to decide what was wrong, he wasn't in fear of pain or starvation but he knew that he could loose his joke of a career if he hid the cat and protected Lister but if he gave Lister in, they would kill her, on the plus side Lister's joke of a career would be over but for some reason Rimmer wasn't sure if he could let the cat's death be on his conscious.
"This is stupid!" He told himself firmly. "I don't even like cats! They are fleas ridden mongrels with all the morality and intelligence of a finger biting lemming!" He ranted as he spun round and faced the cat.
"Don't look at me like that!" He moaned in a softer voice covering his eyes to protect himself from the moggie's gaze.
"I'm going to be an officer! Make something of my life! What have you got to look forward to? Eating, giving birth and maybe a bit of incest slipped into a time of exploring and caring for more little rat bags!" Rimmer insisted before shaking his head in shame and grabbing his colour coded revision time table smeared in sauce from Lister's 'accident'. He closed his eyes and slowly ripped it in two, then 4 then… a very large number, he flung the pieces into the air and he and the cat watched as they fluttered softly onto the floor, the cat began to pounce lazily at a few of the pieces while Rimmer stifled a sob as the anti mess dustpan and brush came wheeling out of it's storage place and swept up the pieces.
"It took me 6 weeks to make it what have I done?" He hyperventilated, a suicidal expression on his face…