So here is another chapter, this episode is a nice little tangent from the action I've been throwing at you in the previous few. I'm going to give you a taste of the main plotline in this episode so it isn't completely pointless, sorry if you wanted action.
Episode 4: Thrift Shop
October 19, 3000
Leela flicked her lighter on and raised the flame to the cigarette in her mouth. She puffed on the cigarette and muttered, "Dammit Fry, getting me addicted to these things again."
For a moment she was back in The Order. She puffed on the cigarette and slid a battery into her laser pistol. She checked to make sure it was charged then nodded to her 'other'. Her 'other' nodded back then Leela kicked open the doors to the church where the traitors were supposed to be hiding, it was empty. She looked left, then right. There was defiantly no one here, several metallic clicks sounded and she spun around. She still didn't fully understand why it had to be that way.
She shook her head, trying to get The Order off of her mind. Her cigarette glowed bright orange and she took a long drag of it, letting herself relax as she did. She leaned against the railing of the Planet Express tower balcony and looked out at the city. She took a few more puffs of the cigarette and it was gone, she took the pack back out of her Applied Cryogenics coat. She flipped it open and removed a fag before she stuffed the pack back into her coat. She fumbled around in her pockets for her lighter for a few moments before she was started by Fry's voice from behind her, "It's sad that in the year three thousand people still need to sneak off for a fag"; he leaned against the railing beside her and flicked on his lighter. He lifted it to her mouth and she lowered her head so the cigarette was in the flame. It glowed orange and she took a drag. Fry took a cigarette out of his own jacket and stuck it in his mouth, lighting it a few moments afterward. He took a drag and eyed Leela, she came up here to think a lot and he hadn't- until recently –figured out where she would disappear to. Leela let out a sigh and smoke lingered around her head before it floated up into the sky. Fry realized that she looked a little down and decided it was up to him as her best friend to cheer her up, "Hey Leela, look at this."
Fry took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled, the smoke floated out of his mouth as heart shaped rings, "Pretty cool huh?"
Leela forced a smile, "Pretty cool."
Fry crushed his cigarette out and turned to Leela, "Hey, I'm a little short on ammo, how about you and I go to the thrift shop and get some?"
"Do I really look that bad?" She asked, still staring out at the concrete jungle.
"You look like you're thinking. Hopefully you're not still thinking about that guy."
"Who, Zapp? No… I'm thinking about what he got me into."
"With the clone?"
"Yes Fry, with the clone", she hissed, her voice overflowing with frustration and misplaced anger.
"What exactly happened?"
"Nothing, I left… so nothing happened."
"Left what?"
"The Order you dimwi-…", her voice trailed off as she realized she'd inadvertently given out a piece of information that could lead Fry to his ultimate demise if he followed up on it.
"Come on Leela. You need some time off", he took the cigarette from her hand and tossed it over the balcony. He took her hand and dragged her towards the elevator that connected the tower with the rest of the building. Fry pushed the down button and dragged her into the elevator after him. Leela didn't protest or even grumble, she didn't want to admit it, but it was nice to be lead around by someone for once. She was always the one making decisions, giving orders; it was an enjoyable experience to have someone do it to you for a little while.
"Remember, my gun is Beretta 92FS so don't bring my any batteries thinking I can use them, okay?"
"Yeah Fry I know", she stepped into the thrift shop and was stunned to see rows of bins filled with everything possibly imaginable. Her mouth dropped at the sight, she'd never been to a thrift shop or an antique store before and wasn't expecting what she saw.
"Glorious, isn't it", Fry said from behind her as he too stepped into the store.
Fry smiled and started towards the weaponry area. Leela followed closely after him and they began digging through the bins looking for ammunition for his gun. The bin he was digging through was filled with bullets, lots of bullets. The worst part about it was that there was no organization to it; he just had to match up a used casing from his gun with the bullets he found to tell if his gun would fire them or not. The process was monotonous and he hated doing it, Leela's company seemed to help him through it though. Normally he'd be bored and lonely, but with Leela around he had someone to talk to.
"So how did you end up in NNYC?"
"I was left here as a baby and something just brought me back I guess", Leela said, picking up a box of ammunition that she handed to Fry to inspect.
"So you were born here?"
"I guess"
"We have the same hometown", Fry said with a smile as he examined the bullets in the box- they were the right kind so he set them in a shopping cart nearby them.
"Yup"
"You said something brought you back. Where did you go?"
Leela was surprised at how observant Fry was being, normally something like that would just go right over his head, maybe there were some things he too like to keep secret. Never the less, she wasn't going to tell him all about The Order.
"Leela, are you sure about this?" Warden Vogel asked, taking a sip of his coffee. He had such sad eyes, Leela could tell he'd been through hell in some way or another. Maybe he was in the War of 2971; she'd heard one of his friends say something like that once.
"I'm sure, and you can't keep me here any longer; even if you want to."
"I know, I'm just going to miss you. You always were my favorite one, mainly because you never broke anything."
"Oh… well thanks", Leela spun on her heels to leave the Warden's office, but he spoke up again and she stopped to hear him out.
"Leela, wait", she turned around and looked him in the eyes, "There's all kinds of people in the universe and you're just a girl."
"I can handle myself", Leela scoffed, a little mad that he had the nerve to doubt her abilities.
"I don't doubt your abilities; you've just always been so special… like a daughter almost. I just feel like you're destined for something better… something great. That's why I want you to have this."
He took a small wooden box- no bigger than a cigar box -out of his desk, inscribed on it was his name and the words '11th Cavalry'. He set the box on his desk and pushed it towards her. She stepped forward and sat down at the seat across the desk from him. She opened the box, in it were several pictures of the Warden and other soldiers in the sewers, putting down the mutant insurrection. One picture in particular caught her attention. The Warden was on a knee handing a chocolate bar to a mutant girl. The girl had tentacles for arms, and that was about all Leela could make out since she was facing away from the camera. The date- June 6, 2971 -was scrawled in barely legible handwriting at the bottom of the picture. Somehow she'd overlooked the laser pistol in the box; it was a puke-green color and had a fully charged battery in it. She picked it up to see if it was real- it was. She looked up from the gun to the Warden, "Why?"
"Like I said, there are all kinds of people in the world. Kung foo will only get you so far Leela."
"Yeah, I left. I'm back now so why does it matter?"
"How long were you gone?" Fry completely ignored her question and continued to prod.
"I left for five years"
"Why so long?"
"I needed to escape; I hated this city for being so cruel to me as a child. I needed some adventure."
"Five years of it?"
"Fry, why are you the one asking all of the questions?"
"Because you're really interesting", he answered, it was so simple yet so sweat and honest as he almost always was.
"No I'm not", she replied almost too quickly.
"Well I think you are", he smiled and picked up another bullet. He did a quick comparison with the casing he had, then deemed it the correct caliber and tossed it into the shopping cart.
"The more you know about me, the less likely you are to die of old age", it was a brutal way to put it, but it was the truth. Fry was better off not becoming close with her. He stared at her to see if was being serious- she was. "Maybe I don't want to die of old age", Fry mumbled as he tossed another bullet into the cart.
"I think I have enough", he took hold of the cart and began pushing it towards the checkout register. Leela followed him; an awkward silence had descended on the two friends after Leela's dark comment and neither was trying to break it. Fry paid for the ammunition with the company credit card and pushed the shopping cart out of the store and into the parking lot. Leela helped him load it all onto the Planet Express ship then they took off. Fry sat in his usual spot in the navigator's seat and watched Leela pilot the ship.
"Leela?"
"What?", she didn't look away from the sky, she just continued staring straight ahead. Fry couldn't tell if she was doing it to avoid eye contact or if she was actually just that focused on flying.
"You wanna get coffee or something coz I'm kinda hungry and I don't want to eat whatever Bender has planned for dinner", in the few weeks Bender had been with the Planet Express, Fry and Leela leaned that he was an awful cook.
"Yeah, neither do I", Leela altered the ship's course and landed outside the coffee shop where she'd had her run in with Fry a few months earlier. The duo entered and ordered coffees and an apple pie, then seated themselves at a table on the patio.
A waitress brought them their coffees and pie, and then left them to themselves. Fry sipped his coffee and stuffed his mouth with pie; he tried to ask Leela something, but a mouthful of pie stopped him. He chewed and swallowed it, then tried again, "How do you like bounty hunting?"
"It's fine…", Leela left her sentence unfinished, it hung awkwardly in the air. This was better that what she used to do and Fry knew that, even if he didn't even know what she used to do.
The bureaucrat behind the desk stamped Leela's job application with the 'denied' stamp and slid her papers back to her. This was the seventeenth job she'd been denied on a basis of a lack of depth perception. She felt like the system was rigged against her; it was upsetting that at this day in age aliens were still discriminated against. Some primal part of her mind shouted for her to take the laser pistol from her purse and blast him, but she fought back the disgusting urge. She made her way out of the building and into the street. She punched a mailbox as she passed it; it crumpled and toppled over. She wanted to leave, she needed to get away. In they few months she'd been out of the orphanarium she'd accomplished nothing; she still had no job, maybe she could get a job as a nurse in the army.
"Oh god", she turned her head to her left; Zapp Brannigan was snoring away next to her in the bed. She sat up, her stomach flipped over and over again, she nearly threw up. She put her hand to her forehead and closed her eye tight. This was all a dream; she opened it- no such luck. She slid out of the bed and slipped into her clothes, she was getting out of the army- right now. She pulled her boots on and crept out the door. She made her way to the Nimbus' hangar and climbed into a fighter jet. She was a little nervous about going AWL and stealing a military space-jet. She pushed herself to carry on; she couldn't work with Zapp anymore, he was just so idiotic. She hadn't been around anyone so stupid or annoying in her entire life, and she didn't want any more of it. She primed the jet's engine and then started it. The jet lifted off of the hangar deck and flew out into space, never to be found again.
"Leela, are you okay?"
Fry waved his hands in front of her face to see if she was okay. She blinked rapidly and leaned back a little, "Yeah, I'm fine", she stood up and downed the last of her coffee. Fry stuffed the last piece of pie into his mouth and chewed it as quickly as humanly possible before he too stood up. They made their way back through the coffee shop and out the front door, Leela in the lead. She bumped into a man in a fancy suit as she left the coffee shop and he turned around to see who bumped into him. Leela gasped a little- he was the mayor's aid.
"Well hello. I haven't bumped into someone as beautiful as you since I walked into my mirror this morning."
"Hi", Leela shied away; Fry caught up with her, but he had overheard the beginning of the conversation anyway.
"I'm Chaz, the mayor's aid", he took a business card out of his suit's pocket and handed it to her.
"I'm Leela-"
"And you're head over heels?"
Leela laughed and they talked a bit more. Fry was fuming, and he had no idea why. He was just so upset; it bothered him to see someone else flirting with Leela. Did he like her? That was a weird question, they were friends nothing more. That was the truth right? Or was it what he wanted to believe, did he have feelings for her? It was a weird feeling, a wrenching feeling in his gut. He bit his lip and waited for Chaz to depart before he spoke again, "Well that was… strange."
Leela tilted her head to the side, "How? I'm a grown woman Fry", she put her hands on her hips and eyed him, waiting for a response.
Fry leaned back a bit and looked her up and down, "Yes…you are", he said with a smirk.
She let herself relax a bit and gingerly punched his shoulder, "Let's get back to the ship."
In the next episode an enemy from Leela's past reemerges and exacts their revenge on the Planet Express crew, leading them to take in a new member.
