The red light blinked twice in the silence, a slow and watchful eye.

Tick.

Tick.

Lars reached out and switched it off. He and Amy stared at each other, across a gulf of quiet.

Her cheeks were wet.

Lars swallowed.

"Here," he said.

He passed her a paper towel from the box on the table. Then he dropped his wedding ring into the palm of her other hand, and folded her fingers over it.

"Remember," he said softly. "Wait until after I'm -"

"Don't," Amy said tightly. "Don't say it. I won't. I know."

Lars nodded.

"Thank you."

Amy flashed him a shaky smile.

"That's what friends are for." She stood up, dashing off her cheeks and tucking the ring deep into her pocket. "Now get out of here," she said bravely. "I have to build a long range transmitter and make a doomsday device stable for transport, without the Professor to help me. Stop distracting me! And tell Nibbler to get his furry butt in here to help."

Lars ripped off a mock-salute, in imitation of Kif's soldiers.

"Yes, ma'am, ma'am! Whatever you say, genius scientist ma'am!"

Amy sputtered out a laugh.

"Goofus," she said fondly. "Get out of here."

Fry was sitting at the kitchen table, poking at an omelet.

Lars hesitated in the doorway. Part of him wanted to turn around and head in the opposite direction. To be somewhere - anywhere - else. But that was the coward's way out.

So he forced himself to enter the room instead.

"You know," he said lightly, "Leela probably didn't make that so you could look at it."

Fry blinked. He stared down at the omelet as if it had walked into the room right along with Lars. As if he couldn't remember it appearing in front of him at all.

Maybe he couldn't. Leela had been right about that look in his eyes. There were times when Fry seemed to be locked in his own head, replaying some other memory. Seeing something that wasn't there. And when he dragged himself back to reality he looked at his surroundings as if they were the unreal thing. Or as if he couldn't tell.

"You don't know," he said at last.

There was a defensive ring to the words - the echo of some stronger feeling - but they seemed dragged out of him, as if it took effort to speak.

Lars forced himself to stop staring.

"What?"

Fry gestured at his plate.

"You don't know," he said slowly. "You don't know Leela made it. I can make an omelet."

Lars laughed, despite himself.

"Not this omelet."

"I can make an omelet," Fry repeated. Stubborn.

Lars sighed.

"I know you can. That's how I know you didn't make it. It would be a better omelet."

"It's a good omelet," Fry retorted, feeling flaring up behind the words. "Don't rag on Leela's omelet!"

Lars tugged the plate away.

"I'm not," he said evenly. "I'm telling the truth. Leela isn't good at cooking. No-one ever taught her. Omelets are one of maybe five meals she ever makes. And they're not great omelets."

Fry was turning red.

"They are so! They're incredible omelets! They're the best omelets I ever ate!" He stabbed a finger. "You take that back!"

Lars raised an eyebrow. Fry got so steamed up about everything. From the outside, it was almost funny.

"No," he said calmly. "Look at it. Look at the peppers. They're all in big chunks."

"So?"

"So, they don't cook as fast as the egg. If you made this, you'd dice them up small."

"No, I wouldn't! That's garbage! I'd -" Fry stopped. "Wait. Yeah, I would. I'd cut them up in teeny pieces, like they do -"

"On TV," Lars finished for him. "You wouldn't even think about it, you'd just do it. Because you live with Bender."

Fry had started to simmer down, but he still looked suspicious.

"So?"

"So, he watches all those cooking shows on TV," Lars explained. "And he makes you watch them too. You think you're bored but there's a part of your brain it's all seeping into. You just don't know it yet. You'd be a pretty good cook, if you tried." He shrugged. "But you don't try, because you'd be better at it than Bender and that would hurt his feelings."

Fry stared at him. Then he shook his head, as if trying to dislodge water from his ears.

"Stop doing that. Stop telling me what's inside my head! It's creepy."

Lars ignored this. He scraped the cold and claggy omelet down the garbage disposal instead.

"You should cook," he said placidly. "Leela deserves to eat better food. And Bender won't know it's good if you don't tell him. Human food all looks the same to him."

He pulled a can of soup out of the cupboard and tipped the contents into a bowl in the microwave.

"Where is Leela, anyway?" he asked.

Fry dropped his gaze to the floor, as if he thought he could see through it if he tried hard enough.

"Talking to her parents," he said vaguely. "Downstairs. They wanted to see her. They were happy she won the war."

They were probably happy you showed up alive, Lars thought. But he didn't say that out loud.

A frown creased Fry's forehead.

"I didn't go see them," he said. "I don't know why. I like Leela's parents." The frown deepened. "It seemed like a lot of people," he said at last. "A lot of noise. I don't know. Leela said I should stay here."

The microwave dinged and he jumped.

Lars pretended not to notice. He took out the bowl of soup and set it in front of Fry.

"Here. You should eat."

Fry stared at the bowl and then back up at Lars, bewildered.

"Why are you making me soup? You hate me."

Lars sighed. He dropped into the chair opposite. He suddenly felt weary to the bone.

"I don't hate you."

Fry fidgeted with his spoon, dipping it in and out of the soup.

"I hate you," he said uncertainly.

Lars gave him a long look.

"No," he said slowly. "You don't. You hate me like you hated Yancy. It's not real."

To his surprise, Fry didn't fight him. He just stared down at the soup bowl, breathing in the heat of it.

Yancy's name seemed to have knocked him off-balance.

"I had a dream about him," he said suddenly. "Yancy. We were home, and there was a poster on my wall that was talking to me, but it felt . . ." He touched his temple, frowning in confusion. "Real."

He swallowed, his throat working convulsively, as if he was trying not to cry.

"I miss him."

"I miss him too."

There was a moment of silence. Fry touched the edges of his soup bowl, feeling the heat of it and then pulling back.

"What was it like?" he said quietly. "Going back again. Seeing them. Not in your head. What was it like?"

Lars tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling as he fought to swallow back the lump in his throat.

"Hard," he said at last. "Mom was the hardest."

Fry said nothing. Maybe he'd nodded. Lars didn't dare look.

"I thought I could go back," he admitted. "I thought I could pick up my old life like nothing had changed, but . . . it had changed. I'd changed. And everyone knew it, even if they didn't know why. I was right there in front of them and all they wanted was the old me back. Sometimes I felt like an imposter in my own life."

Fry twitched, a flicker of motion Lars caught in the corner of his eye. He forced himself to look at his younger self.

"It was hard," he said. "I thought going back meant going home, but I had it all wrong. This was home. The future. Leela and Bender and the ship, all of it. This was where I belonged and every day I stayed away, I felt homesick."

He shook his head. Homesick was too mild a word.

"No. I felt miserable. I was so lonely," he admitted. "I got by. I got pretty good at faking it. But deep down . . . nothing seemed to matter." He shook his head. "There were cracks in me, and sometimes . . . sometimes the feeling would creep through. I would just start crying, bawling like a baby, out of nowhere. And I slept too much. Or I didn't sleep enough. I didn't really eat, for a while. It wasn't that I didn't want to. But I would start to eat something and it was like . . . time would slow down. And suddenly the food was cold and I couldn't remember how it got that way." He shrugged. "Or I would just forget about meals, because I didn't feel hungry. Food didn't taste of anything. It took a lot of energy. Chewing. Swallowing. Making stuff." He gestured at the bowl. "Soup was easier."

Fry curled his fingers around the bowl, as if he could pull the heat of it into him.

"How did you make it stop?"

Lars went quiet.

"I found something to love," he said at last. "I remembered why it was good to be alive."

Fry looked at him with sudden, undisguised hope.

"And then it went away?"

Lars hesitated.

"Yeah," he said. "Eventually." And then, because he couldn't lie so completely, not to himself - "Mostly."

Fry dropped his head into his hands.

Lars watched him, waiting for him to surface again, but he didn't.

Maybe it was better to leave him alone.

Lars stood up.

"Well. Anyway. I should go." He cleared his throat. "You should eat the soup. You don't want to faint on Leela."

He found Leela sitting at the top of the stairs with a pile of soft wool on her lap. She looked lost in thought.

Lars squeezed her shoulder, trying not to startle her.

"Hey. You okay?"

Leela shook herself.

"Yeah," she said slowly. "Fine."

"You don't look fine," Lars said gently. "I mean, not that you look bad. You look beautiful. You always do. But you don't look happy."

"I am happy." Leela frowned down at her hands. "In some ways."

Lars didn't bother to ask which ones. He could guess.

He eased himself down beside her.

"Then what's bugging you?"

Leela sighed.

"The war, I guess. I've been so fixated on ending it, I never even thought about what comes next." She pushed her bangs out of her face. "My parents were here. You just missed them."

"How are they?"

"Arguing."

"What about?"

Leela gave a hollow laugh.

"What comes next," she said. "Mom wants to get out of the sewer. Dad wants to stay. He's the mayor and a lot of the mutants are too scared to leave. And I think he is too. You know, I never even stopped to think about what it would be like for them if I won. I never thought about how hard it would be for them to adjust to life on the surface." She shook her head. "I fought so hard to free my people. I never imagined there might be families torn apart by it. I never thought my family might be torn apart by it."

Lars squeezed her hand.

"Hey. Your family's not torn apart." He tapped her bump, with the shadow of a smile. "It just got put back together again."

Leela's mouth twitched, as if she couldn't help smiling a little. Lars felt it again - that out-of-body sensation, the feeling that he was Fry and not Fry at the same time. The feeling that his doppelganger's emotions belonged to him somehow. That the love Leela felt for Fry was his somehow.

It made him feel off-kilter and oddly grounded, at the same time.

He coughed to cover it.

"Your parents will figure it out. They love each other."

Leela sighed.

"Sometimes love isn't enough."

Lars swallowed.

"No," he agreed. He patted her bump again, feeling the baby kick back under his fingertips. "But sometimes it is."

He smiled at her.

"If Fry can find his way back to you across the universe, your parents can figure out a place to live together. Have a little faith, huh?"

Some of the worry seemed to smooth out of Leela's forehead.

"You're right," she said at last. "They'll figure it out. They wouldn't let a good thing go after thirty years over something as petty as this. I just wish I could make this whole thing easier on them. Smooth the transition somehow. I feel like all this upheaval is my fault."

Lars shook his head.

"It's not your fault. You did the right thing, Leela, even if you don't see it right now. I know the sewer is your parents' home, but it's still a sewer. They deserve better. You tried to get a better life for them. A better future for their grandchild. That's not wrong. You can't ever think that."

Leela was quiet for a long time.

"Mom made you something," she said at last. "For Xmas. Here."

She pushed a wad of floppy dark wool into his arms.

Lars unfolded it to see a sweater. Navy blue with flecks of orange. It was a seaman's cut, like the one he'd worn in the Arctic Circle. The one he'd worn when Bender blew him up, and he ran to freeze himself again.

It had been the way he'd looked the first time he caught his own reflection in the mirror and saw Lars Filmore staring back. The day he stepped into the future again, knowing that this time Leela was waiting for him.

Seeing it made him uneasy. It gave him the sudden feeling that his life was coming full circle, closing in on him at last, the way it had meant to all those years ago.

Leela couldn't know what he was thinking but something of it must have shown in his face, because she frowned.

"You don't like it."

"What? No!" Lars said hastily. "I think it's great. Your mom is the best." He pulled the sweater over his head, smiling at her as he popped his head through the neck. "Blue is my color."

Leela smoothed out his sleeve, tweaking the seam on the shoulders to straighten it.

"It is," she said. "You look good."

She stroked his shoulder again.

The seam was sitting straight already. Lars could feel it.

He didn't say anything. It wasn't like he was kissing Leela, he reasoned. It was just one tiny touch. A wife thing. He could have that, couldn't he? It was allowed. One little reminder of how Leela had loved him, this him. Just a tiny, insignificant gesture he could tuck into his heart and take with him to Eternium.

"I feel good," he joked, hoping it would cover his reaction. "Tell Munda I said thanks. Did she knit you one too?"

Leela's expression shuttered closed again.

"Yeah," she said carefully. "It's green."

She showed him.

It was a cardigan this time, maybe because Munda had thought that would be easier for Leela to take on and off. It was soft and comforting, something that would wrap around her like a mother's hug.

And it was green. The same shade of green Skreem's scales had been - a soft acid green, fading deeper at the edges.

Lars touched it, trying to remember the feel of Skreem's hand. Or the last time he'd hugged her. He came up with nothing. He couldn't pin the memories down.

He hadn't known he needed to lock them away.

He swallowed, blinking back tears. He picked up the cardigan instead, pretending to admire it.

"It's nice," he said. "It's pretty."

"Yes. It is," Leela said, in a voice that told Lars she saw the same thing he did in the color, and felt just as conflicted about it.

Munda had probably meant it as a nice thing. A tribute of some kind. But Lars wondered if Leela would ever be able to think of Skreem like that. Or if she, like him, would always feel guilt first when she thought of that little girl.

There was a third sweater lying in Leela's lap. It was burnt orange, and Lars didn't need to ask who it was for.

Leela was smoothing the collar on this sweater with her thumb. It was the same unconscious petting gesture she'd used on Lars earlier, and that stung more than he'd expected it to.

He wrenched his gaze away.

"Leela?" he said unsteadily. "About earlier. With Fry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tell him like that. I mean" - he stumbled, correcting himself - "I didn't mean to tell him at all. And I'm sorry. I know it was important to you and I just blurted it out, like an idiot."

Leela blinked.

"If I thought you meant it," she said lightly, "I'd have kicked your ass." Somehow, incredibly, she softened. "It wasn't how I pictured telling him. But it could have been worse. He didn't run away screaming. I don't know how much it's sunk in yet, but not screaming is a good start." She smiled. "I can work with not screaming."

"I'm still sorry."

"I know."

They sat in silence. It wasn't uncomfortable - just a lull in the conversation while they waited to see if they had anything left to say to each other.

Not for the first time, Lars wondered what would happen if he told Leela the truth. He could feel the words stuck in his throat. There was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to tell her everything - the truth about his own inevitable doom and why he'd decided to run to it instead of away from it, at last.

It was a fight not to tell her. But Leela had enough on her shoulders. It would be selfish to make her carry the weight of this too, when there was nothing she could do to save him. He could already see what it was doing to Amy. What it had done to him. And with Leela it would be ten times worse. There was no universe Lars could imagine where she would accept this - where she would let him go to his death without fighting him every step of the way.

He could try what Amy had done with Kif. Lars pictured himself taking Leela's hand, looking her dead in the eye and asking her to trust him. Telling her he had a secret and couldn't tell her what it was, and asking for her to put her faith in him anyway.

But Leela wasn't Kif. Leela wasn't capable of letting things go. It was the best and worst thing about her. She was hard-wired to interfere, to find out the truth at any cost. To fight. Lars couldn't imagine a world where she could overcome that, even for him.

And now the moment was passing, and the choice was being taken out of his hands anyway.

"I should go check on Fry," Leela said. "He's still a little . . ."

She made a vague motion with her hand, to indicate Fry's current state of mind.

Lars nodded.

"Yeah."

"Kif thinks it'll get better if we just ride it out."

Leela didn't look convinced by her own words. Lars squeezed her hand.

"I think it helps when you're around," he said carefully. "You remind him who he really is. He needs that. Someone to hold onto. To bring him back."

You need that too, he thought, but didn't say.

Leela sighed.

"I hope you're right. I hope Kif's right."

She stood up, one hand on his shoulder and the other on the wall to help her keep her balance. Lars swallowed hard, thankful she couldn't see his face. When she put out a hand to help him up, he schooled his expression before he took it.

"Well." Leela stood, uncertain, at the top of the stairs. "Goodnight, I guess."

Lars nodded.

"Goodnight," he said softly.

There were a thousand things he couldn't say crammed into the word, but Leela couldn't hear them, and maybe that was for the best.

He turned his back first, and didn't look over his shoulder until he heard her footsteps fade away.