Leela stepped into the gloomy hallway and shut the door as quietly as possible, leaning her forehead against the cool wood. Her head was throbbing.

Please don't be here. Please don't be here.

"Leela? Is that you?"

No such luck.

Lars stepped into the hallway, half-smiling and half-anxious as he reached out to take her coat.

"Leela!"

She stumbled a little, falling into his waiting arms. Leela let him hoist her up and help her to the couch, feeling that after all, she couldn't get much guiltier. She might even be going mad, because just for a second there . . .

"Leela!", he'd said, and her name had split in the middle, tilting up at the end, just like it did when Fry said it.

She shook her head to clear it, and tried to focus on Lars. Her husband. Oh, god, this wasn't going to be easy.

She pushed his hand away as he tried to feel her forehead, and forced herself to look at him. She loved Lars. She owed him the truth.

"Lars . . . we need to talk."

Lars dropped his hand, frowning at her.

"Okay . . ."

"There's something I have to tell you. I did something horrible, I . . ." Oh what the hell. She might as well just come out and say it. "I slept with somebody else."

"What?"

"I had sex with someone else."

She loved Lars, but he could be a little slow on the uptake. For a long minute he just stared at her, as though struggling to put two and two together, but then his expression cleared slightly and became resigned.

"Was it Zapp Brannigan again? It was Zapp Brannigan, wasn't it?"

"No! Anyway, that was a one-time thing. The planet was at stake, for crying out loud."

"And this time it wasn't?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay. Just checking."

Leela reached for his hand, which he let her take, unresisting.

"Look, it was . . . it was a moment of madness, I can't even explain it. I'm a horrible person. This is what happens when I decide to be impulsive - things go horribly, horribly wrong. Not that that's an excuse." Leela stared at her boots. "You must hate me," she said miserably.

"Hey – no! I could never hate you. I love you, Leela." Lars squeezed her hand, his eyes wide and earnest as he searched her face. "I could never hate you," he said again. "I waited so long for you . . . for this . . . I'd be crazy to give it up now." He squeezed her hand more tightly, suddenly serious. "But I need to know what I did."

"What?"

"If I don't know what I did wrong, I can't fix it," Lars said.

"Lars . . . you didn't do anything wrong. You were perfect."

Too perfect, Leela thought bitterly. You did everything you thought I wanted, before I realized I might not want it after all. But she decided to keep this to herself. That Lars was even willing to speak to her after what she'd done was more than she'd allowed herself to hope for – throwing this forgiveness back in his face might push even him to the brink.

But he was frowning, and for the first time he looked agitated.

"You can tell me," he insisted. "I can take it! But I have to know what happened, or I can't fix it."

"Lars-"

"I'd do anything for you. Anything. But I won't lose you! I can't lose you again, Leela . . ."

Leela moved closer, worried. "I'm right here."

Lars nodded distractedly. "Please, just tell me how I stuffed up. I'll put it right, I promise. But I'm not smart enough to figure it out on my own. You gotta help me out here."

Leela threw her hands up in frustration.

"Lars, enough! It was me, okay? It was my fault, I stuffed up! I don't even know why. Temporary insanity, maybe." She let out her breath in a huff. "I'm certainly not about to leave you for Fry, of all people."

The effect was Lars was sudden and unexpected. He had been beginning to relax – to look as if he believed her at last – but at Fry's name he froze, and a look of indescribable horror stole across his face.

"F- Fry?" he croaked.

Leela flushed. "What does it matter?" she said, a shade more defensively than she had a right to be, she knew.

When she reached out to reassure him, Lars jerked away from her, stumbling to his feet.

"I need to think. I need some time alone. I – I'm sorry, Leela." For a second it looked like he was going to say something else, but then he shook his head and hurried from the room, leaving Leela to stare after him, open-mouthed. By the time she recovered enough to shout after him, he was gone, and she was left feeling like the bottom had dropped out of her world.

Again.

Dr Cahill hurried along the darkened corridor of the Head Museum, her high heels clacking on the tiled floor. Reaching the tiny office she shared with Lars Filmore, she slipped inside and flicked on the light.

"Ow!"

There was a crash and a cry of pain as Lars - dazzled into wakefulness by the glare of the light - shot upwards and hit his head on a desk lamp. Cahill jumped.

"Oh, my goodness!" she trilled. "Lars! Are you alright? I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you were here! I forgot my keys and-" - she smacked herself playfully on the side of the head - "ditzy-witzy! I hope I didn't hurt you?"

Lars rubbed his temple, and shook his head.

"No," he said blearily. "I'm fine. Not your fault."

The busty blonde doctor frowned. She didn't spend much time at the Head Museum – her contract didn't actually require her to spend more than one day a week there in an advisory capacity – but she had come to like it. It was an easy ride, and she knew her presence (or perhaps more accurately, her cleavage) titallated the heads. She liked to feel she was doing her bit for the morale of Earth's forgotten heroes.

And she liked Lars. She liked his easy, irreverent manner. She liked the useless trivia he sprung on her at random. ("Hey, guess what else you can do with Torgo's Executive Powder!") She even liked the way he hated paperwork of any kind - which was unfortunate for him, as there was a lot of it in museum administration. Poor Lars had never gotten used to it. He'd procrastinate and doodle and get distracted playing minesweeper before eventually giving in and scrawling something unintelligible on the paper, then stuffing it into the chute. Nine times out of ten the report would get jammed and be accidentally incinerated. (Cahill received a lot of angry memos from the Central Bureaucracy as a result of this habit.) Really, she should never have given him the job, but he was undeniably good at the practical side of things, and he'd seemed so desperate at the interview that she couldn't help but be swayed.

(That, and the first time he'd met her he'd called her 'Dr Good'n'sexy' by accident, and she'd blushed like a schoolgirl. That had helped too.)

Yes, she liked Lars. She'd grown close to him over the years, even as her hopes their friendship might develop into something more had slowly faded away. She had flirted up a storm at first, but Lars hardly seemed to notice. He had attributed his complete lack of a love-life to "waiting for the right woman to come along" and Cahill had been beginning to suspect he was secretly gay when suddenly – bam! - he was dating some alien with purple hair and a penchant for martial arts, and before she knew it, he'd married her. From that day forth it had been Leela this and Leela that, until Cahill started to feel like she had married her herself. She knew everything about Turanga Leela, from her shoe size to how she liked her eggs in the morning. And she couldn't remember the last time Lars had let five minutes elapse without mentioning her.

Cahill pushed aside an empty pizza box and perched herself on the edge of her colleague's desk, frowning.

"Is everything alright?"

Lars buried his head in his hands. "Leela cheated on me," he mumbled. He raised his head again, anguished. "I really screwed up this time."

"Oh?" Cahill moved a little closer, batting her eyelashes and trying not to scream "Ka-ching!" at the top of her voice. "I'm sure that's not true," she said instead, rubbing his arm in reassurance. Lars seemed too sunk in despair to notice.

"No," he protested. "I did. I messed up, just like I always do. But I thought . . . I thought I was doing the right thing!" He shook his head. "I just wanted to make her happy. I was never supposed to come back! If I hadn't come back I could have told her the truth and no-one would've got hurt. But I had to go back for that stupid pizza, didn't I?"

Cahill blinked. She had gotten used to her co-worker's distracted manner and rambling logic over the years, but this was crazy, even by his standards. She smiled, masking her concern, and moved the arm-rubbing up a gear to a more sensual stroking.

"You seem tense," she purred. "How about a shoulder massage?"

"Nuh-uh." Lars shook his head, staring miserably at his keypad. "I thought I had no chance with her," he continued. "But she already loved Lars. It should've been so simple! Why wasn't it simple?"

Cahill frowned. She was pretty sure Lars had just referred to himself in the third person, which was a red flag for crazy no matter which medical school you went to. Oh well. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Cahill hiked her skirt up another inch and leaned forward, her mouth forming a sultry pout, perfume floating about her co-worker's head in a dizzying haze. She put on her most breathy, sensuous voice.

"Lars," she whispered. "Let's have sex."

Lars sighed distractedly, waving her away as though she had just offered him a cup of joe, not the chance to ravish her right there on his desk.

"I'm good thanks."

Cahill huffed. She crossed her arms, pushing her breasts a little higher.

Incredible. Leela, Leela, Leela. What did he do when he married her, gouge out his eyes?

(Maybe. She had eye enough for the both of them, after all.)

"Maybe Leela never loved Lars," the doctor said sharply. "Oops! I mean, you." She pretended to slap herself on the wrist. "Silly! Maybe she never loved you."

Lars scratched his cheek.

"You think?" He sighed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see. But it wouldn't be as bad as thinking maybe she did love me, the other me, and if I hadn't . . . if I hadn't . . ."

He shook his head, too pained to continue.

"I don't know." He sighed. "I'm going for a walk to clear my head. Get a Slur – coff – er . . . juice, I guess. Can you hold the fort here?"

"Oh, sure. I have some research to do anyway. You just take as long as you need."

Cahill smiled reassuringly as she watched Lars leave. When he was safely out of view, she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a handful of pamphlets. She pushed aside Inappropriate Xeroxing and Electro-Gonorrhea - Who's Laughing Now? and Help! I'm Sexually Attracted To The Water Cooler! before she found what she was looking for - Committing Your Co-Workers (Discount Rates!).

Sighing, she began to read.