Howdy y'all! Over on the Red Dwarf Slash Community on LiveJournal, I got commissioned to write an Ace pre-slash for the ever-amazing Lauren Mitchell. And here is the result.

No likey the slash? No read. ^_^ Thank you.

"Well, I don't know how you've managed it, but you have. We're officially off the map - this dimension is reading all zeros: 'invalid reality'."

Rimmer wrenched his eyes reluctantly open, his head still throbbing. It had been one hell of a rough jump - the vague, hazy memories of dictating his last will and testament still swirling uncomfortably in his stomach.

In fact, Wildfire had ricocheted off one dimension, been ejected from another, before blasting out of the reality slipstream to be farted out into the universe's arse end of nowhere. As far as he could tell, they'd managed to materialise on a planet of some description - yet the ship's controls seemed too sparked out and fried to derive any further information from them for now.

"Computer?" he croaked painfully. "Could you please remind me never to attempt a DJ on manual ever again?"

Wildfire's computer didn't need a face to express herself. Rimmer could sense the sarcasm dripping luxuriously from every word. "Of course, Ace," she replied smoothly. "I've filed that on the ship's log and cross-posted it to the database." She paused wryly. "And for your reference, I've placed it under sub-category 'S' for 'No shit, Sherlock'."

Rimmer's head sank back against the leather of the seat with a groan. "All right, no need to score below the belt," he sulked. "More training needed, I admit."

Once he'd completed the arduous task of extracting himself from the safety harness and convincing the glass roof to slide open - the latter requiring three rather patient attempts followed by a fourth smash of a button - Rimmer stepped out into this strange new world.

The twittered song of the birds echoed around him, the air heavy with a fresh, cold scent that felt caught between surreal novelty and distant familiarity. Tall trees encircled him, thrusting their way from the grassy earth and up into the sky, blocking most of the sunlight.

His nose wrinkled unknowingly in confusion. During his last three years as Ace, he'd visited hundreds of planetoids. Yet this one had a distinct odd sensation about it that he simply couldn't place.

"Computer?" he called out. "I'm going to take a little stroll, try and work out where we are."

Rimmer felt her sigh wearily in his mind as the computer momentarily loaded her comms programme into his lightbee so she could still be heard.

"Leaving me to clean up after you again, I see. Like I'm your bloody mother." There was a pause."Do you need me to give you your lunch money?" she clucked teasingly.

"Ha ha."

Rimmer trekked through the forest until the trees cleared to make way for a barren, dirt road – barely wide enough for a van to pass by. Gritty steps punctuated the seemingly endless quiet as he crossed.

He was hit with a strange sense of déjà vu. This whole place seemed achingly familiar; a long-forgotten world most likely lost to the realm of dreams in his mind.

Without pomp or ceremony, a strange yet telling name floated to the surface of his memory.

Nodnol.

He stopped dead. Oh god.

And then he heard it - distant laughter tickling the horizon. Animated chatter in a language he instinctively knew wasn't being translated by his lightbee's Babel programme.

And it wasn't backwards. But forwards.

Leaving the road, he thundered across into the forest before him, drawn forth by the voices. The thin branches whipped against his face as he ran, boots catching in the ancient, gnarled roots that nestled silently in the undergrowth. Yet he didn't slow his pace. In fact, he kept up his furious speed as the chatter grew louder and clearer, only slowing down when he saw a clearing swiftly approaching.

Panting visibly, he snuck over towards the edge of the trees, parting the woven branches to glance through. And that's when he saw them.

The human race. The people they'd once thought dead and gone, the ancestors of those they'd lost, were now here before him - ordinary, oblivious, and alive.

Stumbling out into the clearing, Rimmer watched in open-mouthed awe as their everyday lives played out before him. Children playing on the swings, couples entwined under blankets, elderly ladies chuckling with one another on wooden benches - all seemingly unaware of the terrible fate that their species had suffered in every other incarnation of the cosmos.

This was indeed London. The skyline of the treetops traced the beginnings of distant skyscrapers that marked out the capital's financial hub.

Earth.

Rimmer felt a wrench of guilt. This was the home, the goal, the Mecca that Lister had craved so deeply stranded in the lonely depths of unchartered space. And yet here it was, right here before him - a paradise that he was able to reach out and touch.

It had been over three million years since he'd even seen another member of the human race, bar its final representative; the mixture of longing and fear of even conversing with one feeling overwhelming. God, it had been far too long.

As the wind swept up the blossom from the grass and sent it swirling up into the sky, Rimmer felt a strange chill in the air. In comparison, it had only been three years since he'd last seen Lister. Yet for some odd reason, that time had seemed to drag out a million times longer. It was an equation that, for Rimmer, simply didn't add up - but in the Universe's grand scheme of things, made utterly perfect sense.

The sights and sounds of that famous city suddenly seemed to collapse on top of him, as the clouds resonated with a low rumble. His eyes glanced up to the sky, just in time to feel the first droplets splash against his cheeks.

In that moment, he recognised that strangely familiar oxymoron of heavy freshness he'd felt earlier. The Blerions had once referred to it as megha - 'the feel in the air before it rains'.

And with this shift in the elements came the inevitable exodus - picnics were hastily packed up, and children snatched from climbing frames as the people of London hurried for shelter. Only one man didn't stir in this now flurried sea of movement. Instead, he simply stood and embraced it.

Rimmer closed his eyes, feeling the droplets trickling down his cheeks and slowly gathering on the tip of his nose. A playful chuckle escaped, unchecked. It had been hundreds of thousands of years since he'd been caught in a rainstorm, and he could be forgiven for wondering why such a usually unpleasant scenario could now translate into an experience of pure and undiluted joy.

Yet something instinctive told him that he wasn't just experiencing this for himself - he was feeling it for Lister too.

The high street wasn't a long trot from the park, and a small, quirky-looking shop looked like it would provide the perfect cover from the oncoming storm.

'They Walk Among Us'. What a weird name for a boutique.

Although, as soon as Rimmer peered around the door, he could see why. It was clearly a shrine to all things nerdy; a castle of geekdom. The low light and cramped space gave it an almost cave-like feel - a cave that just happened to have posters, memorabilia, models and DVDs decorating its ancient walls.

"…yeah it's Noddy, mate. How're you doin?"

Rimmer paused and then edged in awkwardly through the doorway, having clearly walked in on someone mid-conversation. Indeed, the lone shopkeeper's bear-like frame was facing the far wall, propping a phone between his cheek and shoulder as he flicked idly through a wall calendar - its pictures depicting a lanky man and a red-haired woman posing in front of a blue police box.

"Got your message. I don't think that Tuesday's gonna be any good, you know. But Wednesday you've got the Warhammer on, haven't you?"

Rimmer blinked in surprise. From the melodic, sing-song accent, the man certainly wasn't from around here. It resonated of Lister's accent in certain tones but didn't quite match. Geordie, perhaps.

"Look mate, perhaps we can just get a pint in before the convention - " Noddy swivelled around back to the till and promptly froze like a rabbit trapped in headlights as he clocked Rimmer for the first time.

Whether it be simulants, GELFs or other strange and exotic creatures, as the legendary Ace, he'd often get this reaction on first encounter. It was their next move that he could never quite pre-empt, although they'd often fall into three categories: 1) They'd try to kill him. 2) They'd gush about how grateful they were for his help in a previous (and often, not connected with his incarnation) rescue. 3) They'd leap on him and try and shag him stupid.

Noddy finally seemed to regain some degree of vocal faculty. "Reg, I've gotta go," he mumbled, not taking his eyes from Rimmer for one moment. "Something's just come up."

Rimmer's eyes dropped down to the man's crotch before returning to his shocked stare. He prayed it wouldn't be option three.

Noddy ended the call and let the phone sink down to the counter. He still didn't make any attempt to deflect his open stare.

"Sorry old chum," Rimmer began in his 'Ace' voice. "The name's Rimmer. Arnold Rimmer. Friends call me 'Ace'."

Silence.

"Didn't mean to interrupt, but I was wondering if you could help me identify which plane of reality I've ended up in." Rimmer flicked the fringe from his eyes in a heroic fashion before realising that owning up to the fact that he didn't have a clue what he was doing wasn't exactly the best approach for an intergalactic space hero. He coughed politely. "Uh - dimension skid, you see," he passed off brazenly. "Happens a lot this time of year."

Noddy's eyes flitted up to the clock on the wall before returning to Rimmer. April 15th. "I getcha," he nodded slowly, warming to the idea. "I thought you'd be at Oxford Street by now doing the signing. Get on the wrong Tube line, didja?" He shrugged good-naturedly. "Well no worries, mate. Happens to the best of us. This one time, me and my mate Reg - "

However, Rimmer was no longer listening. Instead his eyes were flitting left and right, taking in the various treasures of merchandise laid lovingly across the counter. Books and models and figurines of startlingly familiar design all stared back at him.

It was them. Him. All emblazoned with Red Dwarf's old ship logo.

"What the - ?" he breathed, the voice of his alter ego suddenly lost. "What the smeg are these?"

Noddy paused, baffled. "It's your latest merchandise, mate. I'd have thought your marketing lot would have shown it to you before it went for general release? Selling like hotcakes at the moment."

"Merchandise for what?"

"Why, the complete DVD release of course!" Noddy span back to the glass case behind him and excitedly fished out a handful of cases, laying them out on the counter for Rimmer's inspection. "All eight series of Red Dwarf are out now, complete with behind-the-scenes extras and cast commentaries. Been a long time in the coming, I can tell you!"

Rimmer blinked unsteadily as he cast his eyes over the cases before him. "DVDs? Series? What - ?"

He turned over a couple of the cases with shaking hands. Sure enough, they each depicted their adventures in synopsis format. All of the memorable events were there, as well as the ones he'd rather forget.

"So - " Rimmer rolled his tongue round his mouth, as if to test out this new premise, " - in this reality, Red Dwarf is a TV show? I'm a character not a real person?" A much-appreciated light bulb clicked on in Rimmer's mind. "So that's why the computer said that the readings showed this as an invalid reality."

"So - " Noddy seemed similarly stumped by this premise. "You reckon you're not the actor, but the actual TV character?"

Rimmer did nothing to confirm or deny the accusation. His bemused, shocked expression was clearly enough.

Noddy was strangely silent, eyeing him suspiciously through one eye. "If you're Ace then, mate," he began slowly, "which one are you?"

"Sorry?"

"Well I thought there was supposed to be loads of different incarnations of Ace?" Noddy ventured. He gestured to the silver DVD, emblazoned with Ace's smug visage on the front. "You're not the original, are you?"

Rimmer scoffed. "That arrogant git?" He flicked an un-amused eyebrow. "Hardly."

Noddy tapped his finger against his lips. "Or there was that episode in series six? Where the polymorph sucked out your negativity and you became Ace?" He placed a fist to his forehead before removing it with an audible schmuck sound.

"How on Io did you - ?" Rimmer stopped himself quickly. This was too weird for words. "No."

An odd look crossed Noddy's face, caught somewhere between reverence and pity. "Then you must be the original Rimmer," he said quietly. "The one who left."

Rimmer's eyes sank back to the Red Dwarf merchandise shelf to see Lister's cocky Liverpudlian grin gazing back up at him. He squirmed uncomfortably under his expectant stare. Something in Noddy's words had felt a little like an accusation, although he didn't dwell on it long; something else he'd said had snared his attention.

"Wait, what do you mean I must be the original Rimmer?" he asked suspiciously.

Noddy swept up the DVDs, ensuring that the brown one at the very end was snatched up first before stacking them back carefully in the case behind him. "Oh, no reason," he muttered.

A low rumble of thunder sounded outside as the rain began to lash down mercilessly. The park across the road that had once been full of life was now empty and barren.

After a thoughtful pause, Noddy turned back to face Rimmer. "Do you miss them?"

Rimmer's mouth opened to allow a series of carefully crafted insults to spurt forth. Over the years they'd been stranded together, he'd collected enough verbal attacks, criticisms and snide remarks to ensure his frustrations about his crewmates were sufficiently vented for at least two hundred years. Yet caught off guard at this moment in time, he couldn't recall a single one.

He closed his mouth and simply shrugged. He didn't wholly trust himself to say anything.

Noddy grinned, proffering him a purple DVD case. "Wanna see what you've been missing?" He wiggled it temptingly.

Rimmer pursed his lips, nonchalant. "DVDs are a little archaic, don't you think?" he muttered. "Don't you have any video versions?"

"VHS?" Noddy shook his head. "Bit beyond my remit, mate. You'll probably need to check out eBay for those, I should think."

Releasing a sigh through flared nostrils, Rimmer accepted the DVD with a grateful nod. "I don't suppose you know where I could find a bed for the night, do you?" he asked. "To sleep, I mean," he added a little too quickly. He'd swiftly learned it was best to ensure his enquiries for sleeping arrangements left little to the imagination.

Noddy tapped his nose. "I know just the place."