I'd like to extend a thank you to the solitary reviewer of the previous chapter for the feedback. Wanting to keep the hat may be stupid but even smart people can make bad choices. I figure the hat can only bring him up to average anyway.

I'll reiterate my warning that I think I'll need to upgrade the rating to M in a chapter or two. Nothing graphic planned of course but I prefer to err on the side of caution.

In the meantime thank you for reading. Feedback of any kind is always appreciated.

Fry wandered the streets of New New York in a daze. He'd left Robot Arms when he'd noticed it was getting close to the end of the work day. He didn't feel like running into Bender should the robot decide to swing by their apartment before embarking on his nightly debauchery. No matter how many times he thought it over he couldn't tell where it'd all gone so wrong with Leela. Retracing their argument felt like walking in on a movie that was halfway over. He had been so sure she liked the new Fry but it seemed he was wrong about that. Maybe it was time to accept that she didn't like either Fry. Dumped when he was dumb, dumped when he wasn't. The only version of him she'd ever really liked over the long term was Lars and, hat or no hat, Fry was no substitute for him.

What was he supposed to do? Leela was through with him, his co-workers saw him as some kind of particularly stupid house pet and he simply didn't have anyone else to turn to. He could always fall into another freezer tube for a thousand years but then what? Go through it all over again? Not an appealing concept. Besides, he'd be dead before too long anyway. The Professor hadn't been specific about time but he figured he wasn't looking at a long, fulfilling life.

Then again, he'd lost his family, his friendships and the love of the greatest woman in the universe. What exactly did he have left to lose when his life was already basically a country song?

He stopped in his tracks and looked up at the darkening sky. He must have been walking longer than he thought. The moon was already up and shining its pale light on the city. He'd spent his childhood dreaming of space, of standing on the surface of the moon. Nobody else on Earth in the 31st century really understood how he felt about it. To them it was just a hunk of rock. To him it was something magical.

After several long minutes he dropped his gaze and shrugged. "What the hell, why not?" He strode through the city with renewed purpose. If he was going to do this there were some things he was going to need.

Then he'd be off this planet forever.

–

Leela had arrived exactly when she usually did but Fry was nowhere to be found. She wasn't even sure what she would do when she saw him. There was definitely a powerful desire to beat the daylights out of him on sight. However there was a feeling skulking around in some unnamed corner of her mind telling her to get the hat off of him first. She rationalized this to herself as not wanting to kick his ass until he was definitely clear of death. That might make her feel briefly guilty about it. On the other hand the thought of coming face to face with him also made her want to run crying from the room. She jumped to her feet when the conference room door finally slid open, ready to start pummeling Fry the instant his face came into view. The adrenaline spike was wasted as it turned out to be Bender.

"What's eating you, meatpile?" Bender asked. He didn't bother waiting for an answer before barreling on. "Yeah, nobody cares. So, how long you planning to keep Fry at your place?"

"What are you talking about?" Leela snapped. "Fry didn't stay with me last night."

"Oh yeah? So how come he wasn't there to bask in how great I am?"

A chill ran down Leela's spine. "Fry didn't go home last night?"

"Nope. So, you leave him somewhere? Hey, watch it!" he protested when Leela shoved him bodily out of her way to get through the door. Hermes was just checking in at the main entrance when she reached the lobby.

"Where do ya think you're goin'?"

"Have you seen Fry?"

"Afta' that shoutin' match the two of you had I'd start with da local suicide booth."

"That's not funny."

"I wasn't kiddin'. Wouldn't be the first time Fry did somethin' crazy after bein' dumped. Don't worry, no deliveries today so I'll file this under your 'crew management' duties. Just let me know what kind of untimely death paperwork I need to file and we'll call it even."

Leela barely caught that last sentence before the doors slid shut behind her.

–

Leela threw open the door to Benders closet and was greeted with silence. Fry's garbage was strewn everywhere as usual and the ever present background scent of spilled beer and fossilizing pizza wafted through the air. She gamely tried to shelve her annoyance with Fry's casual disregard for recycling and started searching.

It didn't take long to confirm that Fry wasn't there. Unfortunately there was also no note, no labeled disks, no nothing. Wherever Fry had gone he clearly didn't think anyone needed to know about it even after it was too late to stop him. But did that mean that he had nothing to say or that he just hadn't made it back home at all? Leela kicked the back of Fry's couch in frustration, tipping it over with a loud thud.

"What the hell are you thinking, Fry?"

The apartment was only her first stop and it was past midnight when Leela dragged herself back to her apartment. She must have covered every square foot of the city in her search for how tired she was. Every bar they'd ever been to, the Head Museum where he had that night job, Applied Cryogenics, his old house down in the Old New York ruins, the park, little Neptune, even the museum exhibit of that pizzeria he used to work at and a dozen other places besides.

Nobody had even seen him.

It was sheer force of habit that got her to pull out her contact, brush her teeth and change into a nightgown before flopping into bed. She screwed her eye shut, willing herself not to miss having him there with her. It shouldn't have been hard to do. Fry had flat out told her he couldn't stand being with her anymore. And yet she'd just spent her entire day trying to find him. Was she holding out some hope that he'd forget all about it when the hat came off? That it wasn't really over because it wasn't really Fry?

Why the hell should she care? After what he'd said what difference would it make? After all, the worms hadn't changed his feelings, why would the hat? He'd meant every word of it. Leela's hands balled into weary fists. That was it then. No more searching for Fry. He wasn't an idiot (at the moment) so if he wanted to get let his brain get barbecued that was his own problem. He wasn't a friend or co-worker with a problem that needed her supervision whether he liked it or not anymore. Let him kill himself. It wasn't her responsibility.

Maybe if she let those thoughts cycle through her head long enough they'd start to sound right.

–

Leela swatted blindly at her alarm until it shut off before she opened her eye to a bare sliver. Her first slightly blurred view of the day was of an empty stretch of mattress next to her. She closed it again quickly. Somewhere in the back of her mind an internal schedule reminded her that it was the weekend at last. No going to work unless the Professor specifically called everyone in to make a delivery for a client willing to cough up the weekend delivery surcharge. Would it really hurt to stay in bed a while longer? She had been up late, after all. She'd earned a little bit of sleeping in. The owner of a baritone voice had other plans.

"Are you not going to resume the search?"

Leela groaned and turned her face further into her pillow. "Go away, Nibbler."

"Negative. Fry must be found at once. It is of the greatest importance!"

"Not to me," Leela grumbled.

"This is not the time for your human self delusion. Fry's life hangs in the balance."

"Fine, then you go find him." Leela rolled over, trying to recapture the feeling of teetering on the brink of sleep before it totally slipped away.

"I intend to, however there is much ground to cover and I doubt that I will be able to persuade him to return. That task will fall to you."

Leela shut her eye tighter and spoke through gritted teeth. "We're done, Nibbler. Fry doesn't care about me anymore."

"That is hard to believe," Nibbler said dismissively. "The Mighty One has long held you in the highest regard."

"The who?" Leela asked. "It's too early to be drunk, Nibbler."

"It is of no consequence and I am most certainly not inebriated. Now come, we have already wasted enough time."

Leela's patience finally ran out. In a flash she was sitting up and holding Nibbler by the front of his cape so that they were nose to adorable nose.

"I. Don't. Care."

"That," Nibbler declared with an impressive degree of calm for someone in his position, "is also hard to believe."

"The next time I see him I'm going to kick his ass. He told me right to my face that he thinks he's too good for me now."

Nibbler gave her a look she didn't recognize, possibly thanks to it being delivered by three eyes. "Did he? Or is that merely what you heard?"

Leela rolled her eye. "I only heard what he said."

"Are you so certain that you're willing to throw away all hopes of getting him back?"

Leela released her grip on Nibblers cape, dropping him on her lap. "Who said I want him back? It was mutual." Nibbler stood and straightened his cape.

"Very well," he said gravely. "I shall continue the search on my own." He hopped down from the bed and crossed to the door. On the threshold he paused and looked back. "Consider what I have said. If Phillip J. Fry is not found quickly we shall all pay the price in time. You are angry now but you may find your choice much harder to live with once it is too late." Before Leela could reiterate just how mutual the breakup was Nibbler was gone.

She let herself fall back onto the mattress. But even when she did her best to relax her eye would not stay closed. After 10 minutes she let out a frustrated sigh and sat up again. Nibbler just had to get her angry, didn't he? Now she'd have to wait a good 16 hours before she'd be able to get back to sleep. Stupid healthy sleep cycle.

She swung her legs over the edge and rose into a stretch. Alright, so she was awake. That didn't mean she was going to go looking for Fry. She was just going to run through her morning routine and then spend the rest of the day in her usual post ditching/getting ditched routine. She might have to make a quick trip out for ice cream but otherwise her time was going to be split between some quality time with her TV and her punching bag.