NOTE: The next chapter will be increasing the rating to M just to be safe. I'll update the description with a warning as well.
On to the usual business. Thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter, the feedback is appreciated as always. At least one question gets answered in this chapter.
I've seen the last episode of course. In terms of time lets just say this takes place between the final two episodes. Sad to see the show go, of course, but we've been here before. Maybe we'll be here again someday. Until then thanks for reading and I welcome any feedback you may have.
Fry took a few steps back to admire his work. It had cost him just about all the money he'd earned in his tip but it was worth it. Enough supplies to last a couple of weeks, air recycling system, portable air tanks and a self contained environment to house it all. The space tent was more like a large plastic and metal igloo than anything else. Roomy, very space age-y and complete with windows. It hadn't even been that hard to set up while wearing the somewhat bulky space suit he'd bought. In fact his only complaint was that it'd taken several trips to get everything there from Earth. After being denied a car rental from several different companies he'd resorted to ordering one of those space wagons that Cubert and Dwight had used when they founded Awesome Express.
It'd been a pain to pedal it up and back so many times with so much weight but the whole thing had actually been a great experience. He'd ordered it, got the supplies and put it together by himself without any problems. While the old Fry would never have been able to do it the new Fry did it in only a couple of hours. He had done all of this. Stupid, useless Fry had done this. It felt... good.
He turned on the spot to let his eyes take in the glorious grays of the surrounding landscape. Every plain of dust, every jagged rock, all of it just as incredible as he remembered. Now he had the time to enjoy it. His relaxing view was disrupted when he came around to face the blue green planet hanging over the horizon. When he raised his hand he could pinch the image between his thumb and forefinger. From here the whole world was smaller than the palm of his hand. He couldn't even see New New York.
He turned his back on the sight and stepped into the tents airlock. By the time he saw that city again it'd be too late to take it back. Old Fry would be gone forever.
...Good riddance.
–
Leela drove her fist into Fry's stupid smile for what felt like the thousandth time.
Three days. He'd been gone for three days and nobody had so much as heard from him. At this rate Leela was going to wear out her punching bag. She'd already gone through four different pictures of Fry and half a roll of tape thanks to the need for frequent reattaching. She was worried about him and that pissed her off to no end. How dare he make her worry about him? When she found him she was going to break his damned legs to stop him ever running off like this ever again.
Two left jabs, right cross, left hook, right hook and a spinning kick that tore Fry's picture clean off the side of the bag. Leela glared down at the battered photo as though she could make it burst into flames with sheer rage. Why hadn't she just kept her mouth shut? If she hadn't forced the issue Fry might not have left. She could have stayed with him to make damn sure he didn't slip away before the hat came off. They'd probably still be through but at least her best chance of seeing him again wouldn't be someone finding his corpse and calling up the Professor to identify the body.
Leela gave the bag another vicious punch. She wasn't supposed to want to see him again. She was supposed to be furious with him for what he'd said to her. How could she be anything else? It was one of the worst betrayals he could have done. To think she'd almost believed him when he insisted that he loved her, mutations and all. How could she have been so stupid?
The one bright side was that he was no big loss. It's not as if he'd been some incredibly handsome, charming and successful pillar of masculinity. He was lazy, unmotivated, out of shape, ignorant, pasty, careless, carefree, friendly, sweet, enthusiastic, devoted... Leela gave the bag another kick. Alright, maybe she had lost a few things. She turned away from the bag and started to unwind the protective wraps from her hands. Fry's few good points couldn't make up for all the trouble he caused her. Regardless, while it was completely and entirely mutual he'd still started the end of their whatever-it-was. Too good. Too good for her. She spun on the spot and kicked the bag hard. The straps connecting the bag to the mount gave out under the force from this proverbial last straw, letting the bag slam freely into the wall.
Leela stooped down to check the tag. Sure enough, the warranty had expired last week. She sighed heavily and headed to the showers.
–
It was day five of what Fry was calling his 'retirement'. He'd been on the moon three of those days and nobody had found him yet. That was one of the reasons he'd picked the moon. Sure, he could have run further but there was really no need. There wasn't a single person he knew in the 31st century who would even think to check the moon, especially in the middle of the nowhere. This was doubly true since he was all but certain that nobody would even be looking for him at all.
He tried not to think about that.
Instead he focused on the book he was reading. All his life he'd found reading most books to be a chore, especially the educational ones. Given the circumstances he figured that now was as good a time as any to do something new, something totally un-Fry. The last items he'd collected for his supplies had been books and videos. He'd probably learned more about the world of the 31st century in the last few days than he had in the last 13 years. He'd even watched a documentary on Blernsball. He still had no idea how it worked which, as far as he was concerned, proved that it was officially too complicated. Though the fact that he was distracted by memories of going to games with Leela and the others may have played a part.
That was just about the only problem with his retirement. He could eat whatever he wanted with no chance of nagging. He could lounge in his underpants at all hours of the day and take naps whenever he felt like it. It was practically a never ending bachelors weekend, something he'd used to enjoy. It was just that somewhere along the line being a bachelor had started to lose its appeal.
With every hour that slipped by without any sign of her a dismal feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. When he opened his eyes after a nap without a kick in the ribs to find nobody standing over him, glaring down at him ready to ask what the hell he'd been thinking the feeling got worse. Even now as he watched the seconds tick their way past 3:59 he found himself hoping that this would be it. This would be the hour that someone, anyone knocked on that airlock door.
A shadow passed over the tent. Fry looked up through the skylight window but saw only space. Just some traffic passing by off the main lanes. Nothing to do but sigh, toss the book aside, push the button on the remote and watch the next video.
Maybe something would happen at 5.
–
Five days and still no sign of Fry or Nibbler. Leela's apartment hadn't seemed so empty in years. Neither had her life, for that matter. Not since her days at Applied Cryogenics had existence felt quite so... flat. Like a soda left open on the counter all day her life had lost something and now nothing about it tasted right. Worst of all it was making her melodramatic.
And of course, there was Zoidberg.
Leela had long ago gotten used to the fact that Amy, in her infinite sluttiness, had better luck with men than she did. Later on her relationship with Kif had become arguably as stable as Hermes' marriage when you factored in LaBarbara's tendency to wind up with Barbados Slim when something happened to her husband. As for her other co-workers Bender simply didn't give much of a damn so long as he had access to hooker bots and the Professor was so old it just didn't matter.
Zoidberg was another matter. The hideous and foul-smelling crustacean had failed to win a mate even during his species horribly disgusting mating frenzy. He'd been miserably lonely for as long as Leela had known him. It could not possibly be overstated how repulsive his stench was. He could knock flies off a dumpster at half a mile and then make a hearty meal from contents of said dumpster.
Right now even he had a better love life than Leela. Either through sheer force of her affection for the doctor or some mistake he'd made when connecting her new nose's scent receptors to her brain, Marianne was still head over heels for Zoidberg. It was weird, incomprehensible, disgusting and undeniably sweet. The two of them were happy together. What difference did anything else make?
The silence of her apartment was driving Leela insane. With nothing better to do she strapped on her boots and strode out the door. She didn't have a particular destination in mind, deciding to just walk until she was tired enough to go home and fall into bed. With luck she'd manage to find some section of the city that wouldn't remind her of Fry every few seconds.
When a shadow swept over Leela she ignored it without question. Such things hardly registered when you spent your life in a city full of flying cars and pedestrian propelling tubes. It was this ingrained attitude that left her oblivious to the shadow making a u-turn for a second pass. Again she paid its passage no mind. The empty Slurm can that landed squarely on her head was another matter.
"Ow! Hey!" Leela looked up to find the wise guy who was asking for a free tooth removal. The windows above were all closed and dark. The only thing she found to direct her glare at was the moon. Even after all these years Fry still had a soft spot for that lifeless rock. She'd found him on the Planet Express balcony more times than she could count just staring up at it. She wouldn't be surprised if he tried to move there one day.
Leela's train of thought screeched to a halt, jumped the tracks and burst into flames.
"Oh. My. God." The next second she was sprinting into a tube. "Planet Express building!" It was so obvious. Where else would Fry have possibly gone? She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it sooner. The moon may just be the moon to her but to Fry it was a life long dream and she was going to drag him away from it before "life long" lost all meaning for him.
After she hit him a few times that is. Just a few solid slaps before she brought him back. She had earned at least that much.
–
"The final death toll for the Interplanetary Bean Bag championship came in at a mere 73, the lowest in three centuries. Morbo hopes for a better result next year to aid in the swift extermination of the human vermin."
"Ahahahaha... Don't forget to tune in tonight at 11 when we'll be sitting down at a round table with Hedonism Bot, General Extermulo and a vat of sentient silicone gel to get their views on immigration reform."
Fry shut the TV off and stretched out on his back. The news was kind of depressing when he was smart enough to really think about the implications. He was already depressed enough without seeking out more reasons to add to the pile. Space stared back down at him. One thing he couldn't get used to about the moon was how quiet it was. Nothing moved out there. Hardly any ships flew past this far from the park and there weren't even any space rednecks for several miles at the closest. He yawned widely and scratched around the base of the hat. He was just starting to nod off when the stars were blotted out by an electric mucus colored wall. He sat bolt upright and scrambled over to a window. Bessie swung around in a wide arc and landed about half a mile distant.
It could only be Leela. Nobody else parked that far away.
Leela had come to find him. She had actually come to find him. The question was: why? What was she going to do? His question was answered several minutes later when Leela reached the tent and got through the airlock. She stood there, framed by the inner door, just as beautiful as ever. She took off her helmet and held it under her arm but said nothing. The two of them simply stood there in silence, staring at one another.
"Uh... Hi," Fry said awkwardly. Before he could think to say anything else the sight of Leela's face was replaced by the sight of Leela's fist.