"Mom, can I axe you something?"

"Would you look at these skinflakes . . ." Munda paused in her dusting. "Oh, sure, honey. Anything you like."

Morris lowered his book, Motes From The Underground.

"It's not a loan, is it?" he asked nervously.

"No!" Leela assured him.

"Phew!"

Munda sighed. "Morris, would you excuse us for a minute, please?"

When Morris had shuffled out, she sat down beside Leela and wrapped one of her tentacles around her daughter's hand.

"There, now. What's eating you, sugar?"

Leela sighed, wrestling with herself. She couldn't, could she? She couldn't tell her mom this, it was insane.

"Mom . . . how did you know you'd got it right? You know, with Dad?"

"Oh, you mean when we married?"

"Well . . . yeah. I mean, obviously he wasn't like all the other crummy losers out there, but how did you know he was The One?"

Munda snorted. "Not like all the other crummy losers out there? Sweetie, I hate to disappoint you, but your father was the biggest loser in this entire sewer."

"I . . . what?"

"Sure he was, honey. Oh, my, it seemed like your father was always getting crapped on by somebody." She patted Leela's hand. "He worked in the pipes in those days. Literally shoving shit."

Leela smiled fondly. "But you believed in him."

"Oh, no! I was miles above Morris. I was in college, I was so determined to make something of myself . . ."

Leela swallowed. "What happened?"

"Huh? Oh . . ." Munda blinked her tears away. "We had you, of course! Sweetie, we would have lived in the sub-sewer to stay close to you. And don't you dare think I regret it!"

"But . . . I don't understand. How did you and Dad end up together?" Leela asked, bewildered. "Oh, lord. Was I an accident? Some kind of one-night-stand baby?"

"Don't be silly, honey. We never have to worry about that down here. You wouldn't believe how many women flush perfectly good birth control down the toilet. Really, you'd be amazed."

Leela reddened. She had done the same thing that very morning, blissfully unaware of the fact that she was preventing teen pregnancy in the mutant community as she did so.

"Uh . .. that's good to know, I suppose. But . . you and Dad?"

"Oh, right! Well, we never thought much of it. Morris was crazy about me, and people kept telling me to give him a shot, but you know .. . . it was so conventional. He had one eye, I had one eye . . . what, we were supposed to be together because we had the same mutation? Pur-lease . . ."

"But there must have been more to it than that?"

Munda paused in her reminisces and looked at her daughter sidelong.

"That's just what your father used to say," she said softly. "The way he used to talk . . . like we were special somehow. Oh, lord, he never gave up. I'd get out of school and there he'd be, waiting. He used to bring me things, you know. Books and jewellery and all kinds of fancy things he'd picked up at work . . . it must've taken him hours to fix them up, and he could have sold them for more than he earned in a day, but he used to give them to me. He said I deserved beautiful things, because I was beautiful. He was lying, of course, but it was a beautiful lie . . ."

"Mom . . ." Leela swallowed past the lump in her throat. "You are beautiful."

Munda laughed. "I guess you got that from your father. Leela, sweetie, I've got tentacles. I know what I am, and if anyone else had tried to tell me something like that, I'd have sucker-punched him right in the jaw! But your father . . . he said it the way you did just now. He said it because he saw it, and it's hard to ignore someone like that. He sorta sucked me in."

"I know that feeling," Leela muttered.

"But after that, I knew."

"Knew what?"

Munda touched her cheek. "I knew that he was right," she said softly. "We were meant to be, meant to do something important. And we did, baby girl. We did something so much bigger than either of us. We made you."

Leela hugged her, overcome with emotion. Moments like this one paid for every minute she'd spent in the orphanarium.

She sniffed.

"But you did end up spending your whole life in a shack in the sewer," she pointed out.

Munda patted her on the back.

"That's true. That's what you get for listening to your heart instead of getting a real job. I always did think I should've rode Morris harder . . . Tch. Is it so much to ask not to shed your skin on the carpet? Honestly, men . . . "

Munda began dusting again with one arm, so Leela reluctantly let her go.

"Why did you ask, anyway?" her mother inquired. "I hope things aren't going badly between you and Lars?"

Leela hesitated, allowing herself to picture, just for a moment, the disappointment on her mother's face if she admitted she was screwing up. Well, Mom, she imagined herself saying, I love Lars, but I think I just agreed to have a baby to keep him happy. I'm bored and there's something really wrong with me, because as crazy as it sounds, I can't stop thinking about Fry. I mean, FRY. I have everything I thought I wanted, and I'm screwing it all up!

She forced a smile.

"No, Mom. Everything's going just . . . great."

"So . . . Lars wants us to have a baby."

"Schmeepers!"

Amy knocked over her pot of nail polish, staining the coffee table yellow.

"I mean . .. that's great, Leela! Uh . . . when?"

Leela blushed. "Oh, I don't know. We've just started trying, I'm sure it won't happen right away."

She hoped not, anyway.

Amy sighed. "Well, that's a relief. I can't imagine this place without you."

"Me either," Leela said glumly.

Amy looked sidelong at her. "So, have you told . . . everyone?"

Leela narrowed her eye. She didn't like the sound of that pause.

"No. Just you, actually." She frowned. "I don't know why. I just wanted to tell . . ."

"A girl." When Leela's eye widened, Amy laughed. "Oh, come on," she said teasingly, "it wasn't that hard to figure out. I was the same when Kif got pregnant. I was so freaked out. Although I guess you've already done this. Maybe."

It took Leela a moment to realise Amy was talking about the children Kif had had, which were biologically Leela's. Still, Leela hadn't knowingly donated the DNA, and as Amy was the one whose love had inspired the pregnancy, Kif considered her the children's real mother – his smismar. Leela had felt detatched from the whole process. She thought of herself as something like an egg donor or a surrogate – she'd helped Amy and Kif to have their children, and she was glad of it, but they were by no means hers.

"No,"she told Amy. "I've never really thought of them as mine. They were always your babies, Amy."

Amy teared up abruptly, and Leela realized, too late, that the whole area of Kif and their children was bound to be an emotional minefield for her.

"I'm sorry, I never meant to-"

Amy waved her into silence, but gratefully seized the Kleenex Leela offered her.

"It's okay," she gulped, when she'd recovered. "I'm just so confused right now. I miss Kif so much and I feel so guilty, but I think I'm mad at him too. And that just makes me feel worse! And I don't know why!"

"Maybe it's because he doesn't deserve it," Leela muttered. "And it would be a lot fairer if he did."

Amy's mouth dropped open. "How did you know?"

Leela shook herself, and shut her mouth before it could run her into any more trouble. It seemed about as trustworthy as Zapp Brannigan lately.

"Uh . . . I read it in a magazine," she said quickly. "Pop Pyschology Monthly."

Thankfully she was spared further girl-talk by the arrival of Fry and Bender. Fry nudged Amy to one side and settled effortlessly into the groove his body had, over the past ten years, formed in the couch. Bender reached into his chest compartment and withdrew a squirming and highly affronted looking Nibbler. He tossed him at Leela.

"Yo, big boots, this is yours. Found it down the back of the couch."

"Nibbler!" Leela cried. "What on earth . . .?"

Nibbler scrabbled upwards and ducked under her arm, chittering.

"Aww." She scooped him up and tickled him. "What's wrong, pooperdoodle?"

Nibbler swatted her hand away. "Everything!" he declared. "The universe itself is in grave danger!"

Leela blinked. "It is?"

"Yes!"

Bender rolled his optics. "From what, stinkrat?"

"I . . . while it is true I have not yet ascertained the source of the danger . . ."

"You don't know," Leela said flatly.

"Well . . . no."

"Aw!" Amy reached out to pat Nibbler on the head. "I think Nibbler's been overdoing it, Leela. You're so tense, aren't you, little guy? Cootchie-cootchie-coo . . . Hey, you should try him on Xanax. That always worked on my ponies."

"Enough! Unhand me this minute!"

Nibbler wriggled away from the women and landed heavily on Fry's stomach.

"Oof – hey – what gives?"

Nibbler clawed his way up the delivery boy's t-shirt and took cover underneath his jacket.

"I apologize," he declared, his voice slightly muffled. "But something is wrong. Something of vital, nay, paramount importance! I am Nibblonian! We know these things!"

Leela made to give him a reassuring pat, but relented when he cringed away from her. She sighed.

"Alright. What is it, Nibbler? What's wrong?"

"I told you. I don't know. But wheels have been set in motion! Something is amiss in the universe! Even now it strives to right itself!"

"Uh-huh . . ."

Nibbler glared at her. "There is a disturbance in the universe," he said coldly. "Something is which should not be!"

"Like Malfunctioning Eddie's low, low prices?"

"No," Nibbler said wearily. He looked sidelong at Fry. "But think, Fry. Has anything . . . unusual . . . happened to you recently?"

Fry started. "Me? Wha – no! I didn't screw up the universe! I mean, not more than I already did. I didn't sleep with my grandma or find another time-code on my ass or anything. I swear! I swear on Slurm!"

Leela sighed. "Nibbler," she said. "No-one here is suggesting Fry doesn't have a habit of screwing up the universe. But things do seem pretty normal. Are you sure you're not just overreacting?"

"I . . ." Nibbler stared at her, twitching a little. "You do not understand. We Nibblonians have watched over your universe since its infancy. We possess senses more refined than you could possibly imagine! And something is amiss, I sense it! I sense the great harm it will do!"

He vaulted off Fry's stomach and fled the room, chittering in agitation.

Amy shrugged.

"That was weird," Fry said blankly.

"Tell me about it," Leela muttered.

Amy blew on her nails to dry them, and then squealed.

"Oh, you guys! You'll never guess what Leela's – ow!"

Leela withdrew her elbow, red-faced, as Amy hissed "What was that for?"

"I'm sorry," she mouthed. "Not yet, okay?"

"Spleesh. Alright!"

Fry, however, had looked up at the mention of her name.

"What about Leela?" he asked.

"Oh, um . .. Leela's . . . great?" Amy said weakly.

Fry snorted. "That's not hard to guess at all. Hey, All My Circuits is on. Turn it up!"