The crew had gathered around the conference table to break the news to Amy. Leela set a jumbo box of Kleenex in the center of the table and took a deep breath as Amy dropped Bender's hand and sat up a little straighter, eying the box carefully.

"Guh-oh." The Martian girl took in the pitying looks of Leela and Hermes, and the way Fry was doggedly avoiding her gaze. She frowned. "How bad is it?"

"We . . . well, you know we docked with the Nimbus."

Amy attempted a smile. "Yeah, I heard. I was pretty lucky to miss Kif."

"Yes." Leela paused. "But . . . see, the thing is . .. we weren't." She sighed, and decided to just get it over with. "Fry told him about you and Bender."

Amy paled.

Fry tugged the ring off a can of Slurm and began toying with it. "I'm really sorry, Amy," he mumbled.

"I . . . what did he say? How did he take it?"

Fry shrugged. "Like you stomped all over his heart. With really big boots on."

"Fry!" Leela hissed. She kicked him under the table, but he merely jerked his foot back and refused to look at her.

"It's true," he snapped, with more than his usual peevishness. "And if it's true, she should know about it." He looked at Amy, and softened a little. "Sorry," he muttered.

"I don't know what to do!" Amy cried, burying her face in her hands. Leela couldn't help scowling at the way her voice broke at the sentence's end, prompting every male in the room to reach for her. Bender slung his arm around her shoulders, Fry reached awkwardly for her hand, and Hermes patted her sadly on the thigh. When Amy cried she was just so gosh-darn cute, wasn't she? When Leela cried, on the other hand, she went all out, and turned into a blotchy-cheeked, snotty mess, from which men recoiled in horror.

Bender lit a cigar with his free hand, and appeared to consider Amy's question.

"The way I see it," he said at last, "you got two choices. You can sit here like a chump and let your man think you're not good enough for him. Or you can make me your man, and show him he ain't good enough for you. What do you say?"

Amy stared. "I-I don't know what I say. What are you saying?"

Bender took her hand.

"I'm sayin', stick it to him where it hurts."

He took a long drag of his cigar and then exhaled. The resulting smoke ring floated through Amy's hand and settled lightly on her cheek. She blinked it away, coughing, and Bender's mouth turned up in an unmistakeable smile.

"Marry me."

It was a full week before Leela managed to get Fry to herself, and even then it was a close thing. She ended up taking advantage of the confusion at Amy's engagement party, when the Preacherbot was discovered disguised in a heavy mac and pork-pie hat, planning to kidnap the happy couple. The rest of the party-goers, by now pretty drunk, were only too happy to join Amy and Bender in chasing him with magnets. Bender had found a fiddle somewhere, Amy's sorority sisters were shrieking in Cantonese, and above it all the Preacherbot was bellowing "REPENT! AHHHH! REPENT - AGHHH! - SINNERS!".

Leela saw her chance when the magnet flew past Fry and dinged him on the back of the head. Momentarily stunned, the redhead didn't object when Leela seized him by the collar and hauled him out of sight. She shoved him into what she assumed was another room in Amy's apartment.

It turned out to be the closet.

"Oh. Good. Lord."

The cyclops stared around her, overwhelmed.

"I don't think I've ever seen so much pink," she breathed at last, faintly nauseated.

Fry had been rubbing the back of his head, looking cranky, but when he saw her expression his mouth twitched in the ghost of a grin.

"I know, right? Hey, watch what happens when you do this."

He flicked a switch and the lights dimmed. A moment later a pink mirrorball started to spin on the ceiling, casting tiny heart-shaped flecks of light.

"Cute," Leela said coldly. Her stomach had taken an unexpected dip. Maybe Fry knew about the switch because he had slept with Amy. Here. In this room. Right where they were standing. The thought made her feel inexplicably sick.

Fry blundered on, oblivious.

"Yeah . .. she showed me when my head was stuck on her neck. We were always in here. I mean, jeez, how many times can you get dressed? We were always getting dressed. She said everything 'clashed with my coloring'. Can you believe that?"

Leela said nothing. She wasn't sure why, but she could feel her annoyance mounting.

"If you can drag your mind away from Amy for five minutes . . ."

"Huh?"

Leela shook her head in frustration. What was she doing? This wasn't supposed to be about Amy, about some petty resentment from years back. She had planned to play this cool, to be understanding, damn it! She had meant to be kind, to tell Fry that she loved Lars and it had meant nothing, and to try and salvage something of their friendship. She had meant to sort through some of the confusion he was obviously so ill-equipped to deal with. And instead she was standing in the apartment of one of her only female friends, with a sudden savage jealousy chewing her apart from the inside. You slept with Amy. That bitch.

What the hell? But her mouth was racing far ahead of her.

"If you're done destroying Amy's relationship, that is."

"I'm not . . . I wasn't!" Fry protested. "I was just trying to be a good friend."

"Oh? First you object to her and Bender, then you screw up any hope she has of getting back on track with Kif. Sounds like a real good friend. Sounds like more than a friend, if you ask me. Maybe you want her back yourself. Maybe that's what all this is really about."

"What?" Fry exploded. "I don't want Amy! I want you, and you're crazy if you don't know it."

Some inner voice was screaming at Leela that she knew it very well, but it was being drowned out by the crazy surging through her veins.

"Sure," she heard herself sneer. "Sure, you want me. But hey, no harm in freeing up Amy too, right?"

"Wha . . .? No! Look, Amy and Bender . . . I didn't want it to get weird, with us all working together and her still being in love with Kif! I like Amy – as a friend, sheesh, do I even have to say it? - and I don't want her to get hurt. Rebound relationships always suck. Look at me and Colleen. And Bender's my friend. My best friend. He doesn't know what it's like to be with someone and know you're not good enough the whole time, he doesn't know how much it blows. And I didn't want him to know. Because it does blow, Leela. I love you, and it blows. It stinks, it sucks, it's killing me. And I still can't stop."

He paused for breath, panting, and they glared at one another. Leela felt as though her skin was suddenly too tight for her. There was too much hot, furious something trying to get out, straining beneath the surface. Before she knew what had happened she had seized him by the collar and pulled him up sharp, crashing her lips to his in an instinctive, hungry kiss.

He didn't pull away. Maybe he was past trying to be noble about it, or maybe (more likely) he was just too mad to think straight. Either way, Fry was kissing her back, just as passionately, just as angrily.

Angry was pretty much the word for what this was. She pushed Fry's jacket off his shoulders as they stumbled backwards into a ceiling-high shoe rack. This hint that she wanted more, that she wanted to do this to him again, didn't go unnoticed. He growled in frustration. Leela didn't blame him – she hated herself for doing this to him, but . .. but . . . anger. She hadn't been angry like this in a long time. Lars never gave her any reason to be, and until recently, Fry had been so miserable it hadn't seemed fair to lose her temper with him. But he wasn't miserable now. He was furious, and oh, god, she'd missed it. Her teeth snagged on his lower lip and Leela tasted blood, hot and oddly sweet on her tongue. It should have been disgusting, but it wasn't. She moaned – shivering, boneless for an instant as the taste flooded her mouth – and then she went wild, tearing at his shirt with her nails, clawing him closer. She was gasping, pleading, demanding something, though her head was spinning too much to focus on the words. Don't and stop and no, it sounded like, but why was she saying that? Maybe it was don't stop. Don't stop what? Don't stop this? That sounded more likely, given that she had pressed every inch of exposed flesh to him and was fumbling even now at the zipper of his pants, moaning her dissatisfaction.

If Fry thought she was playing chicken with him, he didn't give her the chance to lose her nerve. He pulled off her tank top in a motion that was clumsy but swift, and then he was sucking her neck, kissing her collarbone – he bit down unexpectedly on her breast, and Leela cried out. She launched herself forward and they stumbled back again, this time into a rail of Amy's sweatpants, which was a soft landing at least. They landed in a tangle of pink polyester, and for a moment, Leela was jolted back to reality, aware of the fact that this was a bad idea, though no less aching to do it.

Fry seemed too far gone for that. Of course, he would be. He just did things on impulse, without thinking, and it drove her mad. Steal a Luna Park buggy on the moon? Sure! Leap between her and a killer space bee? No problemo. Try and leave the universe? Why the hell not?

He had that same look now. He wouldn't be capable of stopping this, unless she dragged him back to his senses. But why did she always have to be the sensible one? And how could she be, when he was being so maddeningly . . . maddeningly . . . Fry.

They were in a hot, tangled mess, kissing ferociously as they kicked off shoes and tore at clothes, a push-pull that seemed to leave them both straining for more.

She was going to stop this. She was going to stop this . . .

Fry's movements were fast and jerky. Leela sank her fingers into his upper arm, hard, feeling the muscles knot.

He was angry and hurt and this was a mess . . . and then he was inside her and she couldn't have stopped for anything.

Oh, god, Fry . . .

The cyclops arched her back and cried out. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to feel like this – like she didn't know where she ended and Fry began, and didn't care. Like something missing had finally fallen into place. This was supposed to feel cheap and sordid and guilty. It wasn't supposed to feel right!

Fry groaned and collapsed against her, gasping for breath. He rolled over onto his back, and they both lay staring at the ceiling for a long moment.

"I love you, Leela."

This time it wasn't anger in Fry's voice. It was defeat.

"I . . ." Leela felt her mouth open and close. "I don't know what I feel," she whispered.

When Fry reached cautiously for her hand, she didn't have the strength not to hold on.