I'm sure everyone starts off like this, but please R&R, I really like hearing about my work (that was a bit egotistical.... //// )

I don't own Futurama in any way shape or form, but it pretty much owns my soul right now. TTwTT

Enjoy!


Playing Hooky - Chapter 1

It was typical of her life that she would get stuck with him.

Yep, typical. Nothing goes right for Leela, mutant cyclops orphan spaceship pilot for the world's most pointless package delivery company. But she digressed.

She really couldn't blame Fry for this. It wasn't his fault that Bender had needed extensive maintenance after their last mission, thanks to having to sacrifice his body for a unexpected emergency landing (which was becoming more and more typical – there was that word again – for Leela and the crew lately), and it most definitely wasn't Fry's fault that her date had gone so badly last night.

The guy couldn't have seemed more perfect – until they got to Elzar's. Leela could have gotten over the extra eyes- conveniently hidden up to that point in the palms of his hands , and even the awful breath wafting past the extra row of teeth, but when he had told her to go easy on the bread she had lost her patience and walked out, leaving him with a large bill and an entire loaf of bread stuffed down his throat .

So, here was Captain Turanga Leela, pissed off and hung-over from a night with Ben and Jerry and her collection of sappy romance movies, and the last thing she wanted to do was spend the day flying around delivering stupid packages to stupid planets with Mr. Stupid himself – Phillip J. Fry.

Seriously, this was the guy who had slept with his own grandma. It didn't get much more idiotic than that.

But, she reminded herself, he was also… really sweet. He could possibly be the sweetest person she knew. He was silly and naïve, but this allowed him to have a heart of gold. His infant-like mentality gave him a genuinely nice personality. Unlike certain cheap, bread horking assholes…

"Um… Leela?" Fry piped up tentatively from the counsel to the left of the captain's seat, "Are you okay?"

Leela looked up at Fry, around the inside of the Planet Express Ship, and then down at her hands clenched on the steering wheel of the ship. "Oh! Uh, yea… sorry. Where are we headed again?"

"Leela, who do you think you're asking? You?!" He spun around twice in his chair and stopped to face her, then made a wavy little hand motion as he continued, "You know I never listen to where we're going! I like to go with the flow."

Leela sighed deeply and rolled her eye, "Fry! Now we have to head all the way back. You know the Prof never answers the phone, and Hermes just won't!"

Hermes had always felt telephones were useless wastes of time. Besides the obvious, there was so much post phone-handling/operating paperwork to process, he was still waiting to get confirmation to answer the phone for his Gramma – and she had died two years ago.

"Oh noooo!" Fry got up quickly and scrambled over to the Captain's chair, "Please don't make us go back there Leela!" He fell on his knees in front of her dramatically and clapped his hands together in front of him, "Please!"

Oh gosh, he was ridiculous sometimes! Fry stuck out his lips in a little pout and Leela couldn't help but smile – it was just a little smile, but Fry caught it.

"Ha! You don't want to go back either. And don't say it's cuz you don't wanna waste dark matter or something. You know you hate listening to the Professor go on and oooooon," at this he unclasped his hands and began waving them T-rex/old man style in front of him, doing a scarily realistic imitation of the Professor, "Eh? Leela? Who's this Leela?! I'm not talking, you'll never take me alive Wormstrum!!!"

Leela couldn't help it. Bad mood be damned, this was the funniest thing she'd heard all week. She cracked up and laughed loudly into one hand, the other clutching her stomach.

Fry's face lit up with a smile as he knelt on the floor in front of the giggling cyclops. He had made her laugh! This was definitely a step up from usual.

In fact, this flight had been going surprisingly well – or at least the 10 minutes so far. He had been worried that without Bender he'd be bored to death, but now he realized for the first time this might be his big chance!

Fry looked up at her slyly; the smile was still on his lips, "Hey Leela?"

"Hmmm?" Leela replied, regaining her composure, but still smiling, "What?"

"Let's play hooky!" He jumped up and threw his arms above his head, "Screw Planet Express, let's go somewhere fun!"

Leela's nose crinkled as she squinted in confusion, "Hooky?"

"Yea!" Fry replied happily, "I used to play hooky all the time when I worked at Pinucci's in the 20th century. You just get fed up with stupid work and stupid life, and you take a break." His arms came down to his sides and he looked off into space (literally) as he reminisced, "I used to hate life, and then I would just take a day off and not come back from a delivery, and it would be a day full of free pizza and video games."

Leela rolled her eye once again, "You know we can't do that Fry. Just 'taking the day off' without any good reason would get us into big trouble. And besides, it's extremely important that we deliver… what is it we're delivering again?"

"Wow Leela, you really weren't paying attention we're you? You have a bad night or something?"

Nice going stupid, Fry thought the second the words came out.

Leela shot Fry a death glare.

"Uh, I mean," Fry's hands went up in front of his chest protectively, palms towards Leela, "You're really going with the flow today." With this his right hand imitated its earlier wave action to demonstrate his point.

Leela turned from Fry to look out ahead of the ship- she was steering after all. Stars whizzed by. She shifted to the right to avoid an ugly yellow dump-truck-ship and straightened them out. A large gold planet laced with green streaks edged into view in the upper right corner of the window.

If they were turning about, she needed to get the ship ready. She pressed a few buttons on the control panel, and then stopped.

What if Fry was right? Maybe a break was what she needed. She had been spacing out pretty bad that morning. She smiled to herself thinking that she agreed with Fry's earlier statement, it had been silly to rely on him to get any useful info.

She snuck a peek at Fry, who seemed to be quietly cursing himself. He had lowered his arms and was looking down as he shuffled slowly back to his seat. He flopped down in his swivel chair and turned it to stare out the front of the ship.

Great, now she felt bad. He had only been trying – in his own silly, naïve way – to help her feel better.

"Fry?"

Fry's head shot up. He swiveled back around to face Leela.

"Yes? What's up Captain?" He leaned forward a little, holding on to the bottom of his chair and moving his legs back and forth a little like an excited 9-year old.

"Maybe…," she started slowly, "We could…" Fry's eyes widened and he started to smile, "Just for today…" Fry leaned forward out of his seat; holding on to the bottom of the chair and grinning like an idiot.

Leela sighed, mumbling out, "Play hooky."

Fry's hands formed into fists and he threw them over his head in triumph. "Whoooo-hooo!" he hooted into the air before falling face-first to the floor.

"Ow!" Fry yelped as he sat up, rubbing his nose and looking with puppy-dog eyes at a startled Leela.

"Oh Lord," Leela mumbled, giving a dubious smile to a blushing Fry, "What have I gotten myself into now?"


A/N: Oooooh. What has Leela gotten herself into now? Let us see…