I don't own Futurama.

Leela woke up at four in the morning, and she couldn't get back to sleep. Something had been bothering her a lot. Usually the troubling thoughts that woke her up involved death, but not this time.

Fry woke up, too, but for a different reason. He ran to the bathroom, without noticing at first that Leela was awake.

When Fry came back to bed, he saw Leela sitting up, with her head hanging.

"What's wrong, Leela?" Fry asked, sitting back on the bed and holding her hand. "Did I wake you up? Did you need the bathroom, too? I know I shouldn't have drunk all that Slurm before bed, but-"

Leela sniffled, then clung to Fry.

"Oh, I get it!" Fry said. "You had a nightmare."

Fry rubbed Leela's back, but wasn't sure what else to do. When he was a kid, he'd try to go to his parents if he had nightmares, but his dad would go on about how "commies" were using satellites to put nightmares in American kids' heads to weaken the next generation. That didn't help. His mom couldn't really see the big deal about nightmares, unless they involved losing at a sport. Nothing was scarier to his mother than that.

"It wasn't really a nightmare," Leela said. "It's...why do you love me?"

"Because I love you," Fry said with complete sincerity, "and I loved you the first day we met."

That wasn't a good enough reason for Leela, and in a way, it made her feel worse.

"But...was it just because I was the first woman you saw when you woke up from being frozen?" Leela asked. She hoped that wasn't the reason. She knew she had issues (anger issues, trust issues, etc.) and there was the fact that she was a mutant. Leela still wondered if Fry might be happier with someone who had two eyes.

"No," Fry said. "I was mad when you were trying to put the career chip in me. I don't think I loved you yet." He rubbed his head, thinking to the best of his ability. "It was when we were in the ruins of Old New York. I was sad because my family and everybody I knew was gone, and then you told me about how you were alone, too."

Leela raised her eye to meet Fry's eyes.

"I guess," Fry went on, "I figured since we were both alone, we should help each other not be alone anymore."

A really big tear escaped Leela's eye. She loved how he could be so awkward and...less than eloquent...and yet still so genuine.

"Oh Fry..."

She almost kissed him, but the tender moment was interrupted when Bender yelled, "HEY! I CAN HEAR EVERYTHING! KEEP IT DOWN!"