Leela comes to gradually.
"Wh -"
The sound sticks in her throat. Her mouth is bone dry. Did she fall asleep? When?
Where is she?
She has a perception of white, and painful lighting overhead.
"Leela? Oh, sweet merciful . . . she's awake!"
"Fry?"
There is a sudden silence.
"No," Hermes says slowly. "It's me. Your coworker, Hermes. Do you remember me?"
Leela frowns. The action makes her head ache.
"Of course."
She puts a hand to her head, and feels nothing. Numb.
How strange.
"Fry," she says again.
"What?"
"I heard Fry." It's the last thing she remembers. Fry's voice, shouting . . . "Leela. Look out. I heard him."
Someone gives a sharp gasp, and starts to cry.
Amy, Leela thinks distantly.
What are they all doing here?
"It was a hallucination," the Professor says. "Your brain must have decided Fry's nasal voice was the only one you'd heed. A good thing too, or you'd be spread into a thin paste on the Neptunian sidewalk, and I'd be scraping what's left of my captain into a jar. Again!"
Hermes fiddles with something beside her bed. The call button, Leela realizes. For the doctor.
She's in hospital.
He pushes her back down again, as she tries to rise.
"Professor, please. We can hector Leela later. She's in shock."
"I don't understand," Leela mumbles. "What happened?"
From the stricken faces around her, it's the wrong thing to say.
Hermes's face goes tight.
"You fell asleep at the wheel."
"You crashed," Amy sniffles. "You totaled the ship. They had to cut you out, Leela. You almost -"
She starts crying again, and can't finish.
Leela just stares. The world feels vaguely unreal.
She tries to raise her other arm, and realizes she can't. It's immobilized in plaster, from her fingers to a point just above the elbow. Her communicator is gone.
She touches the plaster of her forearm, then traces the trajectory to the knot of stitchwork she can feel on her head.
She put her arm up, to shield her head. It's a common defensive injury, and it makes sense, but Leela has no memory of actually doing it. She can't remember anything after Fry's warning, no matter how hard she tries.
She can't remember much before it either.
"Where was I? When I . . . where was I?"
Hermes looks, if possible, even more horrified.
"You don't remember?"
"I . . ."
Hermes gives a groan, and there is a sound of crunching plastic it takes Leela a minute to process. The Professor is grinding his dentures, she realizes at last.
"It's the shock," Amy says, unconvincingly. "She's just in shock."
"You were on Neptune," Hermes tells her.
"Oh."
Leela waits for recollection, but once again, it doesn't come. She has no clear memory of anything she did after she left Earth. She must have passed the Moon and Mars, Venus . . .
There must have been traffic.
"I could have killed someone."
"You almost did!" the Professor snaps. Her horrified expression only seems to frustrate him further. "Yourself!"
"Oh."
"It goes without saying, you're fired."
Leela coughs. The action alone exhausts her.
"That's fair."
Hermes squeezes her shoulder; an unexpected act of sympathy.
"We can review it when you're feeling better."
"No." Leela shakes her head. "The Professor's right. I'm not fit to fly. I could have killed someone, Hermes."
Can't he see what she sees? She's lying in a hospital bed with a broken arm and cake frosting encrusted in her hair. She's obviously incompetent.
Hermes only sighs.
"We'll talk about it when you're feeling better," he says again. "Get some rest."
The doctors submit her to a round of tests, then administer enough drugs to tranquilize an elephant. Leela slides into unconsciousness again.
When she wakes, she can feel pain for the first time. The ache is still there but it's a painful ache, now. Crushing. She shifts uncomfortably, fighting back tears.
It's too much, it's too -
Her vision narrows to the morphine. She finds the switch and toggles it, but it clicks uselessly. Maxed out.
The lights are dim and there is a cold, pre-dawn feeling in the air. How long was she out? Hours? A whole day?
Leela grapples for the morphine again.
A thin, pained sound escapes her.
"Hey, hey, knock it off."
Click.
A familiar set of fingers appears. They snap the valve open with a deft flick and then click it shut again, before the alarm can go off.
"I got you," Bender says, pushing her down again with his other hand.
"Bender?"
It takes a few minutes for the morphine to kick in enough to let her focus. The pain recedes and . . .
"Am I high?" Leela swallows. Her mouth is cotton dry. "Bender? Is that really you?"
"The one and only."
Leela stares at him. She's not wearing a contact lens and the morphine is making her muzzy. Bender stays blurred around the edges, no matter how hard she tries to bring him into focus. But it's undoubtedly him. His paintwork is as dulled as she remembers, and he's sporting the same thick beard of rust he was the last time she saw him. But his optics are brighter and he actually seems to be looking at her, for once. Leela has the feeling he can see her, for the first time since . . .
"What are you doing here?"
Bender blinks, the light dimming for a moment in his eyes. Then he pats her on the shoulder, his posture loosening.
"I thought I'd be your Valentine."
The laugh this provokes is so unexpected Leela almost chokes on it.
It turns into a coughing fit halfway through and she grapples for the jug of water.
She doesn't get far - she's one-handed, and without her contact lens her depth perception is shot - but knocking over the jug only makes her more hysterical.
Of course. She can't do anything right these days. Everything she touches turns to -
Bender hits her on the back.
"See, now you're high. Snap out of it."
He picks up the jug and pours the remaining water into the glass for her, thrusting it unceremoniously into her hand.
Leela drinks. By the time she's finished the glass she's not laughing anymore. She settles back into her pillows, worn out.
"Oh, god. It's still Valentine's Day?"
Bender watches her warily. When he's sure she's stopped laughing, he relaxes again.
"Nah. That was yesterday."
Yesterday. Leela winces.
"How long was I out?"
Bender flips through her chart.
"Says here . . . eighteen hours."
"How long have you been here?"
Bender shifts uncomfortably.
"I don't know. How should I know? Like I pay attention to puny humans." He shoots Leela a glare. "You were boring," he accuses. "All you did was lay there like a corpse. Pumping blood and making urine for this stupid chart. Ooh, impressive! It's the laziest you've ever been. You should be ashamed."
Leela adjusts the pillows propped under her cast. The angle is making her shoulder ache.
"I'm sorry," she says, deadpan. "I'll try to be more entertaining in my next medically-induced coma." She frowns, as another thought occurs to her. "How did you even get in here? It's past visiting hours."
Bender snorts.
"Told them I was a vending machine. They bought it." He snorts. "Humans are dumb. You guys believe anything."
A vending machine. Leela doesn't know if she wants to know what he was dispensing. Knowing Bender, booze and cigars are the best she can hope for. There is probably a drunk surgeon or an excited new father stumbling around somewhere on this floor as they speak.
"Well," she tells him. "Thanks, Vender. I'm glad you're here."
To her surprise, Bender doesn't rebuff her corny joke. He ignores it instead, uncharacteristically serious as he avoids her gaze.
"I figured I owed you."
And there it is.
Leela sighs, and lets her eye drift shut for a moment.
"It's not your fault I crashed," she says tiredly.
Granted, it probably wouldn't have happened if Bender had been there. But it's not his job to babysit her.
"I'm a grown woman," she continues. "And I made a stupid decision. I knew I was in no fit state to fly. I should have done something about the insomnia weeks ago. Months ago. People kept telling me I needed rest, I needed a prescription . . . something. They were right. I was just too stubborn to admit it."
Bender says nothing. From the faint click of metal on metal, it sounds like he's fidgeting.
"Are you gonna die?"
"What?" Leela opens her eye again. "No. Of course not. I'll be fine."
"You don't look fine." Bender's tone is accusing - which for Bender, means worried. "Humans die," he says irritably. "You die all the time. 'Cuz of how weak and mushy you are."
His gaze bores into the transfusion bag attached to Leela's arm.
Leela tries a smile.
"We heal too."
"Not always."
It hangs between them, unspoken. The memory wrenches, the way it always does.
Leela swallows.
"No," she agrees. "Not always."
The click and hiss of hospital machinery sounds over-loud in the silence. Bender seems twice as still and unbreathing by contrast.
"I'll heal," Leela says at last. "I'm not going anywhere." She indicates the cast on her arm, and tries again for a smile. "Look at me. I couldn't if I wanted to. I can't even dress myself."
Bender doesn't smile back. He just watches her.
"Amy said you got fired."
"I did."
Bender fidgets again.
"What are you gonna do?"
Leela sighs.
"I don't know. Find another job, I guess." She gestures around at the room. "I don't want to know what all this is costing me."
She hasn't had a chance to think about it. Any job that involves flying is out, obviously, and she can't go back into cryogenics. Too many memories.
"There must be something I can do with one arm," she says doubtfully.
"Slot machine," Bender suggests. "You could become a professional gambler."
"It's an option."
"Or you could be one of those dweebs that stand on the street in a costume. You know, with a sign. Fishy Joe's! Getcher Fishy Joe's, right here! Crab cakes, a buck ninety nine!"
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
"But you wouldn't go anywhere," Bender says, still watching her. "You wouldn't leave the city. Because you have to stay close to your parents."
Leela winces again.
"Oh, god, my parents. Do they know about this? Please tell me they don't know about this. They'll be worried sick."
Bender shrugs.
"Amy probably told them. She told me. I bet she told everyone. She probably called 'em up crying and asked for their organs, and they cried about it like weak human flesh-sacks -"
Leela raises her eyebrow.
"Instead of crying at All My Circuits like superior, emotionless robots?"
"Hey!" Bender sputters. "That episode was a big deal! Calculon had just found his long lost father, I'll have you know! He looked like this homeless bum, see, with this big ole bushy beard, but it turned out he had amne - hey, wait. Who told you that?" Comprehension dawns, and with it, outrage. "That was a secret! I specifically threatened to cram his tiny human head up his butt if he told you that!'
Leela smiles.
"Sorry."
"Aw. No fair! I keep all his dumb human secrets." There is a pause, as even Bender is driven to consider the truth of this statement. "If I feel like it," he amends.
Leela feels her heart lurch.
The question is out before she can stop herself.
"Like what?"
Bender scoffs.
"Like how he thinks dogs talk when you're not around. And he listens to Rick Astley, unironically. And he takes holophonor lessons with seven year olds - and they're all kicking his ass!"
"Fry took holophonor lessons?"
Bender freezes.
"No. That was a lie. Forget I said that."
"Why?"
Bender examines his fingertips.
"That was a lie. Obviously. But hypothetically, if it wasn't a lie . . . maybe he was trying to impress some broad. Don't ask me who. I couldn't tell you."
"Oh."
Leela shuts her eye again, crushed by a sudden wave of exhaustion.
"How long?" The lump in her throat is painful. "How long did he take lessons for?"
"I don't know. Since he struck out with you. He never got good though. He couldn't even do the snail right."
"Snail?" Leela says faintly.
"The Happy Snail. It was a song in this doofy book he had. For toddlers."
"Oh."
Fry spent months trying to make a snail perform a nursery rhyme, on an instrument only a tiny proportion of people in the universe would ever be able to play.
It isn't until she feels the tears on her face that Leela realizes she's crying.
"Hey. Hey." Bender sounds alarmed. "You need more drugs? I can get you more drugs." He taps the machine. "Say the word and I'll crack this baby wide open."
Leela shakes her head. She scrubs at the tears, frustrated when they only fall faster.
It's the morphine. It's making her emotional.
"No," she chokes. "No. I don't need that. It's just . . . I'd give anything to see that stupid snail."
She dreams of Fry that night. In the dream, he sits in Bender's spot by her bedside. He's ghastly white and stained with blood, but he's smiling at her.
He puts the holophonor to his lips and conjures a snail. It gambols around her head to the tune of 'Never Gonna Give You Up', spinning in a show of popping lights. When he's finished it takes a bow and disappears inside its own shell.
Fry bows too.
"Ta-da!"
His smile fades at the sight of the tears tracking down her cheeks.
"You're not supposed to cry."
"I know." Leela scrubs her face with one hand. "It's just so beautiful. Idiotic," she amends. "But beautiful. I wish I could clap."
Fry smiles again.
"Yeah. Then we could finally figure out the sound of one hand clapping."
"You're a hallucination," Leela says uncertainly. "Aren't you?"
"Oh, yeah," Fry says. "You're out of your gourd. You're just hallucinating me because . . . well, I don't know why." He smiles sadly. "I never knew what was in your head. And now I'm in your head, and I still don't know. Go figure."
"I miss you."
"I miss you too."
"No, I mean . . ." Leela swallows, past the painful lump in her throat. "I miss you, Fry. That's why you're here. I miss you so much."
Fry blinks.
"You do?"
Leela shakes her head, still heavy under the bandages.
"I got so used to you being by my side," she admits. "Isn't that crazy? I was alone my whole life. Alone in the orphanarium, alone in my apartment . . . alone in the universe. I was good at being alone. It was all I'd ever known, before I met you. And now . . . I don't know how to do it anymore. I'm not good at it. I keep thinking I'll turn around and see you. I keep . . . waiting."
"Waiting? For what?"
"You," Leela says softly. "Your voice. Your smile. Just . . . you."
Fry flinches as if he's been punched in the gut.
Then he recovers, and smiles at her again.
"C'mon. I drove you crazy. Remember what a slob I was? I treated the ship like a trashcan. You hated that. And remember how I'd screw up all the time, because I got bored when you were talking and I stopped listening, right when you were giving me some super vital piece of information? You'd have to come haul my ass out of trouble, and I'd just whine about it. Whine, whine, whine, blah, blah, blah. Michelle's right - that's not attractive in a man. Also, I couldn't grow a beard." He fidgets. "Maybe you wouldn't miss me as much if you remembered all the ways I really bugged you. Try it now," he suggests. "Think about it. Think about how annoying I was."
"Fry -"
"No, think about it. Are you thinking about it? It feels like you're not thinking about it."
"I'm thinking about it."
"What are you thinking about? Ooh! Are you thinking about how I'd chew gum when you were trying to fly, and pop it next to your ear, when you were trying to focus on a landing, and sometimes, it would get in your hair and your ponytail would get stuck to the headrest, so when you got up again -"
He mimes being yanked back into his seat by an imaginary ponytail.
Leela bites back a smile.
"I appreciate the effort, Fry. But it's no good. I miss all of you. Even the things that drove me crazy. I'd do anything to have those back, now."
Her hallucination of Fry doesn't seem to know how to respond to this. He settles for awkward fidgeting.
He studies her heart monitor and scuffs his shoes, waiting for her to say something else.
When she doesn't he picks up a steel bed pan and examines his reflection in the back of it. The sight of all the blood seems to come as a shock. Startled, he almost drops the bed pan. He fumbles a catch at the last second and goes in for a closer look, looking creeped out.
"Um. Leela? I know you're un poco loco right now, or whatever, and I want you to know, I respect your mental breakdown. I do. But why do I look like Dawn of the Dead? It's creepy."
"It's how you looked when you died," Leela explains. "I'm sorry. It's hard not to think about it."
"Really?" Fry contorts his face into a grimace, assessing. "I never saw it from the outside," he declares at last. "I see why you have nightmares now. This is horrifying."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay. It's not your fault."
Fry tugs at one stark white cheek, trying to massage some color back into it.
"I'm really dead, huh?"
Leela watches him pull at his hair, trying to fix the clammy way it clings to his forehead.
"Did it hurt?"
The question blurts out of her against her will. But it doesn't seem to perturb Fry - maybe because he's not real. He just shrugs.
"Only when I was alive. After I was dead it didn't hurt at all."
Light breaks in though the window, washing over his pale face.
The beam of sunlight seems to arrest Fry. His eyes follow it, wistful and distant. He's fading, Leela realizes suddenly. The light is pulling him away from her, and he wants to let it.
She reaches for his hand, terror clutching at her throat.
"No, please! Don't go yet, Fry. You can't go! I'm not ready. I need more time. Just a little more time . . ."
Fry stares down at his hand in hers, his expression pained.
"I would if I could," he says softly. "I'd give you anything you wanted, if I could. Time and space and stars and . . . anything." He turns her hand over in his; tracks his thumb over her palm. "But I can't. I can't give you anything. I'm dead, Leela. You have to let me go."
"I can't."
Fry blinks back tears. He kisses her hand, then sets it down as the sunlight spills over him, washing him out of her vision.
"Then I don't know what to do," he whispers, the ghost of a voice in the air, and he's gone.