Leela gets a call from Alabama County Jail at 4AM. She flies down the next day and pays a thousand dollars to a bail bondsman to spring Bender from jail.
She doesn't ask what he did. She's not sure it matters.
Bender is alarmingly sober when he meets her at the gate. There is a beard of rust an inch thick on his jaw, and his optics are crackling with hungover sparks.
Leela puts some booze in him, as a matter of duty, and drinks half a bottle of bourbon herself in solidarity.
They don't talk. There's nothing left to say.
Leela books a motel for the night. Bender crashes on the couch. He leaves before morning with all the cash in her purse, and no word of goodbye.
He does leave a fridge magnet on the dresser. It's corny tourist junk - I'm With Stupid In Alabama.
Leela stares at it for a while, then flies home and adds it to the box under her bed.
It develops into a pattern. Leela will get a call from out of state, or off-world. She flies out each time, buys some booze, writes a check. Bender says almost nothing, but always leaves her with a souvenir of some kind.
The gold tab from a prize-winning can of Slurm.
A Pac-Man t-shirt.
A Beastie Boys plastic shot glass, and a birthday card that plays a snippet of 'Walking on Sunshine' when opened.
Leela says nothing, and keeps them all.
Michelle asks her to be her birth partner, and Leela can't think of an excuse fast enough to get out of it. She ends up dragged to Lamaze classes once a week, watching as women are taught how to breathe and listening to stories that turn Michelle increasingly green.
"I hate the future," Michelle says bitterly, as they get salad at some sandwich bar downtown. "Aren't you supposed to have all these crazy advances in medical science? I can't believe I still have to go through labor. Can't they just teleport him out of me? What kind of society -"
Leela tunes out.
" - men don't know how lucky they are. They don't have to deal with this. They just shoot their shot and say goodbye -"
Leela tunes back in briefly, senses another Pauly rant incoming and tunes out again.
"- make eggs in the morning when you've told them a thousand times you don't like eggs -"
"- don't even have to be sober -"
" - you're still not sleeping, huh?"
Leela blinks.
"What?"
"I said, are you still not sleeping? You look like a zombie, Leela."
"It's fine. I have it under control."
Michelle toys with her salad fork. Hesitates.
"Your friends don't think so. They're worried about you. Last week, when I went to your work, Hermes told me -"
Leela frowns.
"Hermes is paranoid about his insurance premiums. I can do my job, no matter what he thinks. I'm fully functional."
Michelle stares at her.
"You make yourself sound like a robot. You act like a robot. Amy agrees with me. She says you're -"
"Amy should mind her own business."
"She's just concerned. They all are. They think you're not coping."
Leela rises from the table, abandoning her salad.
"I'm coping fine," she snaps. "There's nothing to cope with. I'll see you next week, Michelle."
"Hi, Nibbler."
Amy beams, and scoops Nibbler up from the fluffy pink pet bed she's put him in.
"Nibbler, look! Mommy's here! Say 'Hi, Mommy!'"
Nibbler jumps out of her arms with the kind of enthusiasm he usually reserves for an extra-large ham, and cannons into Leela instead. He climbs up her arms, butting her cheek affectionately with the top of his furry head.
Leela pets him awkwardly.
"Hi, snookums. You look wonderful. Don't you? Yes, you do." She tickles him under the chin. Nibbler looks less than convinced by her smile, but he purrs anyway.
"His fur is so glossy," she tells Amy. "What are you using for his bath?"
"The shampoo I got at that salon in Paris. The one with real crushed pearl. Jean-Claude would freak, but it's worth it. Look how shiny he is!"
"He's beautiful," Leela agrees. "By the way I brought you some more Kibbles 'n' Snouts, and a couple of hams."
"You didn't have to do that."
Leela shrugs.
"It's nothing. I know how he eats. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't contribute."
"Well . . . if you insist. But you know I don't need your money, Leela. And I'm happy to look after Nibbler. He's my special little guy! And Kiffy loves him too. Really, it's no trouble."
"I know. But I appreciate it."
Amy hesitates.
"You must miss him," she says at last. "I love Nibbler, but you can take him back any time you want, you know."
Leela sets Nibbler back down in his basket, avoiding her friend's eye.
"It's not the right time," she says. "They're fumigating my apartment again this week."
This is a lie, and they both know it. The truth is that Amy took Nibbler home with her the day Fry died, when Leela was too catatonic with shock to take care of him herself. He stayed with her while Leela planned the funeral, and while she went through Fry's possessions . . . and after that, as the days turned into weeks, and somehow Leela always needed just a little more time. The idea was that she would take him back when she felt better, but the more time passes the more she's starting to feel he'd be better off staying where he is. Nibbler has always been sensitive to people's moods, and he seems so much happier here. It would be cruel to take him home with her and subject him to her current depression.
She can't take care of him the way he deserves. It's better he stays here in fluffy pink Siberia with Amy and Kif.
Time passes.
The weeks drift into months, and Leela's insomnia grows worse. Luckily she's in New New York, the city that never sleeps, and she finds ways to fill the hours of dead space that now eat into her nights. She does her laundry at the all-night laundromat, watching the hypnotic churn of the drum. She becomes acquainted with the shopping channels and the fluctuations of the stock market. She watches cable news and discovers a foreign world of bake sales for veterans and off-the-wall late night political commentary.
She works out. She cleans the apartment until every surface gleams like a show home. She watches incomprehensible arthouse movies from Europe at the late-night theater, and pours Slurm into the lap of every public masturbator who can't tell the difference between arthouse and soft porn.
She walks around the block, sometimes. Not going anywhere. Just aimlessly pounding the sidewalk. She beats up five guys in as many days, the first time she tries it, but word soon gets round and the neighborhood prowlers learn to give her a wide berth.
Leela has developed all kinds of ways to pass the time, when she can't sleep. But ultimately, the night always ends the same way.
Lying in her bed. Staring at the ceiling.
Trying not to remember.
The alarm goes off while she's lying in bed staring at it. Leela wonders why she even bothers to set it anymore.
She takes a cold soup spoon out of the freezer and holds it over her eye as she brews her morning coffee.
It's raining again. It's rained every day in February, so far. As she makes her way to work she passes washed-out flower stands and passers-by clutching soggy Valentine's cards and half-drowned teddy bears.
Leela is too tired even to feel bitter about their happiness. She's yawning before she makes it to Planet Express, and even a second cup of coffee doesn't help.
It's fine. There isn't much to do today. A couple of last-minute express deliveries, that's all. A thousand red roses going to Neptune. A heart-shaped gemerald going somewhere else. A three-tiered cake in pink frosting.
Leela puts the cake in Bender's old seat. It's about the right height. If she catches sight of it in the corner of her eye, she can pretend it's company.
She doesn't look at the other seat. She never does, anymore.
She stirs creamer into her third cup of coffee instead, and sips it as she turns on the radio.
"Goo-ood morning, Valentines! You're listening to Love Radio, the station that broadcasts for just one romantic month per year. Settle in with us and feel the love this fine morning. It's true what they say - it really is all around! Stay tuned for -"
Leela yawns. Space traffic is heavy this morning. Must be all those romantic getaways.
" - unusual solar flare activity continues this week so you fly safe, folks -"
Leela blinks. The convoy of space chickens ahead of her has moved on. She slams the gas, breaking out into open space.
Love Radio is still yammering at her. They're cutting to commercial again. Leela can't remember a word of the show in between.
" - all you have to do, to win this incredible prize -"
There is an inch of cold coffee sloshing around the bottom of the paper cup. She can't remember drinking the rest of it.
Grimacing, she swallows the last filmy mouthful and throws the cup in the trash.
Focus, she tells herself, as her attention threatens to slide again. You have a job to do.
"Service your robot today," the radio urges her, "and try our new diamondillium top coat! Experience superior shine and frictionless -"
It's been a while since she saw Bender. She should withdraw some cash. He's bound to -
- bound to -
- some cash -
- she should -
She can't remember how that sentence started. Or how it was supposed to end.
She has no idea what she was trying to remember. The radio is playing a Beatles song, and she can't remember when that began either.
Heavy-headed, she reaches for . . . for . . .
What was she reaching for?
"You say yes, I say no
You say stop, but I say go, go, go
Oh, no . . ."
Leela jerks back abruptly, her nose an inch from the wheel.
What was that? Did she just . . ?
No. Of course not. But it was closer than she'd like.
She blasts the A/C, as cold as she can, to wake herself up.
Maybe she should get another cup of coffee.
She brings the ship down through the gears, slowing as she sinks through the swirl of bluish fog and into Neptunian air space.
The Beatles are still singing at her; the kaleidoscopic, carnival-ride melody tugging like taffy at her train of thought.
"I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, noooo . . ."
The fog feels like it's been poured into her brain. Leela shakes her head, trying to clear it.
Maybe she shouldn't be flying in this state.
Maybe she should -
- just -
- for a minute -
"Why, why, why, why do you say goodbye . . .
Oh, no . . ."
"Leela, look out!"