Futurama:

FUTURAMA:

OPERATION JUNGLE STORM.

By: April, a.k.a. Fry/Leela Shipper.

Author's Note: This is my first Futurama fic, but not my first FanFic full stop, and this is not meant to be funny or anything. This is of a new genre, FLR: Fry/Leela Romance. Some of you may think it is impossible or whatever, but I don't. And if you do happen to think it is impossible, don't bother giving me any flames, because I never take any notice of them, and it's just wasted energy on your part. It's okay if it's constructive criticism, I can deal with that, and I do pay attention to that. I would also like to say that the characters are a bit out of charcter in some spots. I would also like to add that I have not actually seen the first episode of Futurama, so I do not know how he got frozen, what his parents were like etc. And just before you diss me about copying Harry/Hermione Shipper's name, I would just like to say that I am Harry/Hermione Shipper (I'm also Mulder/Scully Shipper and Jack/Sam Shipper, as in The X Files and Stargate SG-1, but I'm still working on those stories.). You will see that in Harry/Hermione Shipper's Author Profile thingy. Anyhow, send any feedback to fry_leela_shipper@hotmail.com Thanks! Enjoy the Story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Futurama, Matt Groening and Fox Studios do. Beth, Emma and any characters that you don't recognise in this story, they belong to me. I also own the plot. This is a pretty serious fic, and it is not meant to be funny. It is a teeny little bit distressing if you have tendency to cry about beatings, depression etc. I'm a little bit depressed right now, so this is sort of dark because of it.

Chapter One

"Good news, Everyone!" Prof. Farnsworth shouted excitedly as he walked into the room where his crew was sitting.

Fry snorted. "Yeah right!" Fry muttered under his breath.

"You're giving us a holiday!"

"Hermes got fired!"

"You restricted Bender to only 10 cartons of beer a day?"

"Why you little…" Bender lunged at Zoidberg for saying such a horrible thing.

"No, no and I don't think I could manage the last one without ending up in Intensive Care." Professor Farnsworth said, shaking his head. "Anyhow, I've got a package for you to deliver."

Fry snorted again. "I knew it wasn't anything exciting." He muttered to himself.

"Where to?" Leela asked the Professor.

"The planet of Pardozia. It is a paradise. With everything from huge, highly technologically advanced cities to high mountain ranges with snow-capped peaks, down to sprawling deserts and beautiful rainforests, this planet has it all." The Professor told them.

"What a load of superstitious crap." Bender snorted. "Have you ever been there? Paradise, smaradise!" He said, laughing like a lunatic. "What are we delivering anyway?" he asked in his normal aggravating way.

"A package of important baked beans." The Professor said, acting like it was the most important thing in the world.

Fry snorted again. Who gives a crap about Baked Beans, anyway? He thought angrily.

Leela looked at him worriedly. I wonder what's wrong with Fry? He hasn't been his normal, idiotic, noisy self for days. She angrily shook off her worry. He's fine! She snapped at herself. Let him take care of himself. It's his problem, not yours.

"Oh and Bender?" the Professor added.

"Yeah?" the robot said in an obnoxious voice.

"You and Amy need to make a delivery by car to the Mom's Old Fashioned Robot Oil major office on the other side of the city. After your last attempt to fly the ship in a sober fit, I am not letting you near the ship for at least another 10 minutes."

Bender just laughed evilly. "Whatever you say doc." He said, grabbing Amy by the arm and pulled her outside to her car.

"Alright people," Leela said when Bender and Amy had left. "Get ready for takeoff."

Chapter Two

Fry leaned back in his chair and looked out into space. Even though he would never admit it, he was feeling really depressed lately. And he wouldn't tell anyone why, either.

He sighed sadly. Why am I such a loser in life? He asked himself. I did well enough in school. I was at the top of my class in high school, and did well in leaving exams, or I would have, if I did the last one...Fry shook himself angrily. I did so well…so why am I such a loser? He sighed again. If my father wasn't a drunk, who always beat the crap out of me and my mother, I might not of had that car accident that night... He had to bite his lip to stop himself from crying as he remembered that one fateful night that changed his teenage life forever...

*****

December 1992.

Fry walked out of school with his friend Brian and his little sister, Beth.

"That was great!" Fry said.

"That has to be one of the best discos I've ever been to!" Beth whooped.

"What time is it?" Brian asked Fry.

Fry looked down at the digital watch on his arm. "9:30 pm."

"Thanks." Brian said.

"Anytime." Fry answered.

"So, you're mum picking you up?" Brian asked.

Fry shook his head. "My aunt's coming to get me. Mum's at work." He told Brian.

But he was lying.

Brian nodded. "I gotta go, later Fry." He said, waving to his friend.

"Seeya."

Fry was left walking with his sister, Beth.

Beth smiled and looked at Fry. "Hey, you okay?" she asked him. "You aren't getting too stressed about this whole "What am I gunna do in the future?" thing, are you?" she asked him.

Fry smiled. "No, we have our last exam tomorrow, and I am feeling positive about it."

Beth laughed. "Go get 'em, tiger!" she said sarcastically.

Even though 14 months separated them, Fry and Beth were very close. Fry was glad they were there to support each other. Their mother was a strong woman, but there was only so much of a beating she could take while protecting Fry, Beth and their little sister Emma from their father while in one of his many drunken rages. Beth and Fry would always help their mother to her feet, but she would quickly usher them outside, away from her. The only reason why Fry was really using his brain and doing well in school was because his mother pushed him to. She was the same with Beth.

"I don't want you to end up like your father." She told them both sternly. "You both have brains, use them to your advantage and don't waste them like you father has."

"Hey, Fry?" Beth asked, noticing the troubled expression. "You still here?"

"Yeah…" Fry said, but his speech drifted off when he saw his father's car pull up at the kerb.

"What is it?" Beth asked him.

"It's him." Fry said, pointing to his father's car.

Beth followed Fry's finger to their father's car. She gasped.

"Get in the car!" their father snapped at them.

Beth and Fry exchanged nervous glances.

"Now!" their father barked.

Fry and Beth walked over to their father's car, trying to act casual.

Beth got in the front next to her father. He had alcohol on his breath.

"Are you sure you aren't drunk?" Fry asked his father carefully.

"Of course I am!" his father bellowed.

Fry got into the back seat.

As they drove down the main road, Fry watched the speedometer like a hawk. The needle was starting to creep up ever so slightly. Faster and faster, over the speed limit.

"Daddy? Slow down!" Beth told her father in the front seat.

"Shut up!" he yelled at his daughter. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Ahhhhh! Dad! Watch out!" Fry yelled as a telegraph pole came into view.

"NOOOOOO!" Beth screamed.

BOOM!!

The front of the car smashed into the pole with a terrifying smash.

"AHHHHHHH!" Beth screamed in terror.

"Beth!" Fry yelled.

The car spun around as it windmilled back out onto the busy road.

BOOM!

A car smashed into the side of their little Ford, crushing their father's legs partially.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Beth squealed as she hit the windshield, and then everything went black.

*****

When Fry woke up, he was in Intensive Care. His mother was sitting on the chair beside his hospital bed, staring off into space.

"Mum?" Fry asked, his voice thick with drowsiness and shock. "Mum, is that you?"

Her head snapped around. "Oh, Phillip!" she said, lying her head on his stomach, her whole body shaking with violent sobs. "I thought you wouldn't make I…" she sniffed. "I'm so glad you're safe."

"Wha…what happened?" Fry asked his mother. His memory was a mess of shadowy fragments of painful memories from all through his life.

His mother sniffed again, and again started to cry. "Your…your father was driving you and Beth home from the dance. He…he was drunk. I didn't realise he was going to the bar before picking you both up or I would of come myself." She sobbed. "Oh, it's all my fault!"

"Oh no it's not!" Fry told her.

"Yes it is! If I had thrown your father out then none of this would of happened and Beth wouldn't be…" her voice drifted off.

Fry shot up in bed. "What …what about Beth? Mum, what happened?!"

His mother looked up at him, and in the dim light coming in from the hallway, Fry could see that his mother's face was wet and tear stained.

"What happened?" Fry asked, choking on his words.

His mother shook her head sadly. "She…Beth didn't survive the crash. If only I had been there I could of stopped it!" she cried. She was hysterical.

Fry heard his mother's cries, but just glazed over. A cold, hard hate welled up inside him and scraped him clean, carving away his insides. He never cried. Just held his mother tightly while she cried.

He didn't go to his father's funeral, neither did Emma, but his mother did. He didn't go to Beth's funeral either. He just didn't have any enthusiasm left. He fell behind at school. From up the top of class straight down to the bottom. The family spiralled down into nothing.

Emma left home at 14. Was married in Las Vagas at 15 to a drop-kick drug dealer by lying and saying she was 18. She was pregnant at 16. She had a little boy who she named Phillip in his uncle's honour. Divorced at 17. And last he heard she was living in some hostel for single mothers down in New York City.

His mother turned to drugs and alcohol, and then put herself into rehab for her children's sake.

Fry was in hospital for more than two months recovering from his injuries he received from the car crash. And while after a time his physical wounds healed, his emotional ones didn't. He never recovered from Beth's death and his life spiralled down at a very fast pace…

*****

"Fry? Fry, are you okay?"

Fry turned around to see Leela looking at him with a worried expression on her face. "Are you alright?"

Fry smiled at Leela. "Yeah, I just have a headache or something." He told his friend.

"Oh. You want an aspirin or something?" Leela asked him.

"Yeah. And then I think I'll go lie down." Fry said.

Fry took the aspirin that Leela gave him and went back to his quarters.

Chapter Three

Leela was getting ready to increase the speed of the ship's engines when she head a sound, faint at first and then louder.

She spun around to see an alien spacecraft equipped with state-of-the-art lasers.

"Oh crap…" she started to say.

BOOM!!

"AHHHH!"

Fry was thrown out of his bunk and was sent sprawling across the floor.

He ran out onto the bridge of the ship where Leela was desperately trying to keep the ship under control.

"What the hell happened?!" Fry yelled to Leela over the noise of various alarms and warnings spewing out over the speakers.

"I don't know," Leela yelled back. "I think some sort of alien craft hit us."

"An alien craft?"

"Yeah. A violent one."

Fry looked down at the temperature gauge. The bridge was heating up. The hull temperature was over the far end of the gauge. The ship was plummeting towards the planet below them, getting closer and closer to the planet's atmosphere.

"We're gunna blow! The atmosphere will incinerate us!" Fry cried.

"Quick! Get to the escape pod! It can take us safely down to the sur-" but here was where she was cut off as she was thrown across the bridge and into Fry, knocking themselves out against the wall.

And then everything went black…

TO BE CONTINUED…