A / n: Here's a cold-themed chapter, in honor of the Polar Vortex. Thank you Jack Frost love cadi93, LadyBender, gnau, isjocelyns, and HarunoRin for reviewing last time and putting a big smile on my frozen face.


If Leela wasn't here with him, Fry would probably consider this the worst date in history.

Then again, maybe it's not a date. Fry calls it a date any time the two of them go somewhere alone, but Leela rarely uses the word.

She didn't use it this time, that's for sure. She did say Bender wasn't invited, but that was after she said it would be fun if they went to the polar bear preserve, and definitely after Bender got excited at the prospect of a polar bear coat.

Fry didn't care. He'd jumped at the chance to spend time with Leela, even it meant sharing her with a bunch of baby polar bears and falling on his ass a lot in the snow.

But that was back when he thought the polar bear preserve was some kind of zoo, and imagined a date there as walking about looking into enclosures. It turns out the preserve spans half of Greenland and a date there means wearing six layers of clothing and squinting into the forest through binoculars while his nose goes slowly numb.

Fry watches his breath mist in front of him.

"Leela?"

"Yes?"

"Are we lost?"

"No!"

"Oh. Only . . . it's been an hour and I still don't see any polar bears."

"That's because you're making so much noise," Leela snaps. "You're scaring them off."

She raises the binoculars again and squints, moving them up and down as she tries to look through one barrel. She's getting more and more frustrated. Even in this cold, the color is rising in her cheeks, and when she stamps her boots to shake off the snow, she does it like she's squashing Zapp Brannigan's face under her foot.

The guide only offered them binoculars, and though Leela didn't say anything at the time, Fry could tell it bothered her. He should have said something, he thinks. Then again, maybe he shouldn't have. People can be really insensitive about her eye, but sometimes pointing it out just makes it worse.

Still, Fry is starting to regret ditching the guy in that snow drift.

"Leela?" he ventures.

"What?"

"I'm cold."

Leela stamps her feet again, huddling into the hood of her fur-lined coat. She discards the binoculars with a contemptuous sound, but otherwise says nothing.

"Really cold," Fry continues. "I can't feel my intensities."

"Extremities."

"I can't feel those either."

Leela finally looks at him.

"Fine!" she admits. "We're lost! But if you'd stop complaining for five minutes together, I think I could fix on a landmark. Can you do that?"

"Complaining? I'm not -"

Fry stops himself before his mouth can get him in even more trouble. Leela thinks he's not having fun, he realizes. And okay, maybe he's not . . . but at least he's having the not-fun with her.

"I guess I am complaining," he concedes. "But I can't help it. I'm cold! The boogers are freezing in my nose, it's that cold!"

Leela snorts. Fry hangs his head.

"At least you're warm," he says jealously. "You've got body heat."

Leela rolls her eye.

"I'm not warm," she retorts. "Body heat doesn't work like that, doofus. You have it too."

"I do?"

"Yes, you -" Leela breaks off. Then she approaches him.

There's a calculating expression on her face and before Fry can figure out what she plans to do, her fingers wrap around the zipper on his Arctic jacket. She pulls it down in one swift movement and Fry yelps as cold air rushes into the breach – but before he can voice a complaint Leela fills the gap. She's gloriously warm and Fry instinctively pulls her closer, wrapping his jacket around her as she snuggles into his chest.

"This is how body heat works," she murmurs.

Having her this close is like plunging into a hot bath. It's heaven. Fry slips an arm free and worms it under Leela's clothes, flush against her skin. The cyclops swears violently at that first cold touch, but she doesn't move his hand and when the feeling returns to his fingers, Fry is glad. He follows the curve of her spine with his thumb, fingers skimming across her skin, and Leela shivers in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the cold. Her mouth finds his and then they're kissing, standing in the snow, and Fry can't remember why the hell he was complaining.

They get closer and he forgets the cold, forgets his confusion, forgets everything except Leela. The feel of her has become his whole world. All he can think about is soft skin and wind-chapped lips and violet hair, and the feel of her heart racing against his own.

"I love you," he tells her.

"I know," Leela whispers.

She kisses him again.

Maybe "I know" is the same as "I love you", Fry thinks.

It's only later that he wonders if maybe . . . maybe it's not. And a little piece of him starts to worry.