A / N : I know everyone would rather get on with the story than hear from me, but I want to take a minute here and say a huge thank you to everyone who's left me reviews on this. I love hearing your opinions and I think that this has more reviews than it does chapters is just nuts. Thank you all!

Fry was hunting for mustard when he realized the distant thumping coming from the hangar wasn't a machine. When he pulled his head out of the refrigerator, a familiar voice floated up at him.

"Ugh! Agh! Hee-yah!"

He took a bite of his hot-dog, paused for thought, then crossed to the railing of the conference room and peered down into the cargo bay.

Leela was down there, beating up a punchbag. She looked madder than he'd ever seen her.

Left fist, right fist, left again . . . undercut . . . she flipped head over heels and slammed both boots into the bag at head height.

Fry swung over the railings, dropped down, and caught the hot-dog deftly in one hand. He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.

"Um . . . Leela?"

The cyclops didn't seem to hear him. She growled, sizing up the bag.

Fry moved closer.

"Leela?"

Leela's next blow sent the punchbag swinging right round on its cord. Next thing Fry knew a blinding pain hit him on the side of the head, and he went flying.

"Fry? Fry?"

He blinked muzzily and Leela swam into view. She was leaning over him, looking sweaty and out of breath. And concerned, but that registered last because from this angle, Fry was too distracted by her boobs.

" . . . didn't see you," she was saying. She helped him up. "Oh, lord. You're bleeding!"

There was something cold and sticky smeared across his face, but when Fry opened his mouth he tasted tomato, not blood.

"It's okay," he said. "It's ketchup. See?"

He held up a thumb for inspection. Leela tasted it gingerly, then relaxed. Then she said something else, but Fry wasn't really listening because she'd just licked his thumb and now all he wanted was to -

He kissed her.

His head was still ringing, but that didn't seem like such a bad thing when all he had to concentrate on was Leela. She was probably about to punch him on purpose any minute now, but she wasn't doing it yet, so he got to kiss her and feel her boobs, and pull her closer so that she was doing that thing with her hips he really liked. Her thighs hooked around his waist and then - bam! - he was flat on his back again and Leela was straddling him, kissing him so hard he thought his lungs might explode.

And then she was crying. One minute she was about to have sex with him, and the next she was crying, with her hand pressed over her mouth and a horrified expression on her face. And Fry was pretty sure he hadn't blacked out again in between.

"Um. L - Leela?"

"I . . ."

"Are you okay?" Fry asked carefully. His head still hurt. He had the feeling he was way, way out his depth here.

Leela moved off him and helped him sit up again.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she said helplessly. She wiped her eye, smearing mascara across her nose. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore, let alone why I'm doing it."

Fry shrugged. "I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. It's not so bad."

"It's awful," Leela said. "Every time I see you lately I'm trying to screw you or I'm crying, for Pete's sake!"

She pulled a kleenex out of her wrist device and blew her nose loudly.

"Do you know how much crying I've done over the past two weeks? It's insane! I'm insane."

"I don't think you're insane."

"Oh, Fry . . ." Her face crumpled again.

Fry reached for her before he could stop himself. He felt her melt against him, burying her face in his shoulder. It seemed to calm her down.

He thought for a second.

"Are there future diseases that can make you crazy?"

Leela groaned. "Fry, I'm not actually crazy. I'm just an emotional wreck."

There was a pause as Fry considered this, couldn't see the difference, and filed it away under 'confusing'.

"Oh," he said. "Okay. Well, I was just trying to help. Coz, you know, you were sick, and you taste kinda different today, so I thought maybe . . ."

Leela snorted in disbelief. "I taste what?"

Self-preservation kicked in and Fry back-pedalled, fast. "Um. No, not . . . not bad different! Just . . . funny. I dunno. Different-y." He stroked her hair, trying to hold onto his train of thought. "It's like . . sometimes you taste purple," he informed her. "Or angry."

This was hard enough to explain normally, but right now his head felt like it was floating a few inches above his body, and it was hard to think straight. He couldn't even think what the taste had been. He'd only caught it briefly ; something bright and dazzling, like a spring morning gone supernova. But there was no way he could explain that to Leela.

"Sometimes things get mixed up in my brain," he told her. "They go in the wrong way, I guess."

"Uh-huh."

Leela rolled her eye, and Fry realized she hadn't got it, that she had no clue kissing her set off a multi-sensory firework display in his head. He gave up, and struggled back to his original point. He'd had one, right? Oh, yeah . . .

"Anyway, I was just thinking about . . . you know . . . you and me. Maybe if you had, like, a brain slug or something, it would make you do thin-"

"That's not a brain slug," Leela interrupted.

"Wait, no, hear me out! I know you can't see it, but I figured that out too." He paused. "It's a brain slug inside your brain."

"It's not a brain slug, Fry!" Leela snapped. "For crying out loud, it's you. It's you!"

He felt her breath hitch.

"Oh . . ." she mumbled. "It is. It's not Lars. It's you."

Fry blinked, nonplussed. "What's me? What did I do?"

He was still trying to figure it out when Leela reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

"Fry?"

"Uh . . ."

"I'm sorry."

Fry shook his head to clear it. "Um . . . for what?"

Leela sighed. "I made a mess of everything," she said quietly.

She settled back against his chest. It felt nice. Fry still had no idea what she was talking about, but she didn't seem to be mad at him, so it couldn't be too bad.

"Do you remember that time you found me crying in the locker room?" she asked. "Before I found out who my parents were?"

Fry frowned. "Yeah."

Leela took a deep breath. "Do you remember what I said about feeling sad? About how I just keep it pent up inside and try not to think about it?"

"Yeah . . . "

"I still do that. With sadness, with things that confuse me . . . and with things that just aren't supposed to happen. Are you following me?"

"No."

"You were a thing that wasn't supposed to happen."

"Why not?"

Fry interrupted without meaning to. He felt light-headed, like when the artificial gravity malfunctioned on the ship.

"Oh, right," he managed. "The married thing . . ."

Something in the sentence must have come out wrong though, because Leela sat up suddenly. She was staring at him, and when Leela stared at you, it was hard to notice anything else.

"Fry," she said sharply, "how many fingers am I holding up?"

Fry tried to focus.

"Um. Five?"

"Guess again, Einstein."

"Four? Three?"

Leela sighed. "I knew I hit you too hard. Alright, get up. I'm taking you home."

Getting up took some effort, but eventually Leela manouevered him into a standing position and took most of his weight. Fry had started to feel dizzy by now, but Leela seemed to be steering, so he just nuzzled into her shoulder and let his feet follow on automatic.

Leela was quiet as they stumbled down the sidewalk. New New York was unusually quiet too. The streets were empty, and a bright, nearly-full moon washed every window in white and cast deep, threatening shadows ahead of every apartment block. A cat yowled in an alley and was cut off as suddenly as if it had been swallowed whole. The only sounds Fry could hear were Leela's breathing and the scuffing of his sneakers as she dragged him along.

"I dreamed the world was ending yesterday," he said vaguely. "There were Terminators."

"Huh."

Leela seemed unimpressed. Fry toyed with the waistband on her jacket, breathing in the smell of her hair.

"You were there too," he mumbled.

Leela stopped trying to swat his hand away. "I was?"

She helped him into the elevator at the Robot Arms and punched in his floor number. Fry's hand had found its way inside her jacket now. Her tank top rode up under his fingers and his palm slid over the smooth, toned muscle of her waist. Leela gave a funny little shiver, but otherwise ignored him.

"What was I doing?" she asked.

"Blasting Terminators," Fry informed her. "You were pretty good."

Leela shrugged modestly. "That does sound like me."

Fry flashed her a lopsided grin. "You're pretty good at most things," he told her. "And really good at some things."

Leela reddened. She tugged his hand out of her jacket and tried to act nonchalant about it, but through the warm fog currently clouding his mind, Fry smiled.

Nonchalance was one of the things Leela really wasn't good at.

The elevator dinged and she sprang up, dragging him along with her. They made it down the hall somehow, and then they were in his apartment and Leela was talking to Bender, using that special tight voice she used when she was mad and pretending not to be.

". . . think he's concussed," she was saying. "You can let him sleep, but you have to wake him up every few hours to check on him. I want to be sure there's no long-term damage."

There was a pause as Leela and Bender both considered Fry. Leela sighed.

"Just do it anyway."

Bender shrugged. "Whatever you say, Adulterous Annie. Trombone okay?"

He pulled one from his compartment and sounded a blast so loud Fry fell over backwards.

"No!" Leela groaned. "That's it – I'm staying with him."

"Oho! Oh no you don't!" There was a metallic clink as Bender folded his arms. "You think I don't see what you're doing? You think I don't know how it starts?"

"What are you talking about?" Leela had her hands on her hips. She looked pissed, but Bender didn't seem to care.

"I miss you, Fry", he mimicked. "I hate it being awkward. Can't we just start over as friends?" Oh, sure. And then before you know it, you two are boning and no-one bothers to keep me in the loop, oh no. Why tell Bender? It's not like he needs to know . . ."

"You don't need to know!" Leela snapped. "What Fry and I do together is none of your business."

Fry sighed. He'd been waving his arm in the air for five minutes now, but his friends hadn't noticed. He let it fall despondently and addressed the ceiling instead.

"I sure wish someone would help me up."

They ignored him.

"He's my buddy," Bender argued. "And buddy trumps sex buddy, so I win. Ha!"

"I don't think we're sex buddies," Fry offered vaguely.

"We're not," Leela said sharply.

"Oh. Okay. Uh, I guess you don't wanna help me up or anything . . . ?"

Bender laughed. "So it's a formal arrangement, huh? Is he paying you? Because that's nasty."

Muscles which had been sluggish before suddenly screamed into action, and Fry found himself on his feet again, struggling to hold Leela back.

"It's a joke, it's a joke!"

Bender sniggered. "Yeah, I'm just yanking your chain, eyeball."

Leela muttered something in which the words "kick his ass" were clearly audible, but she subsided in the end. Which was weird, Fry thought. Normally the cyclops wouldn't hesitate to take out someone who came between her and the target of an ass-whupping. But she was letting Fry hold onto her now, and she had gone all quiet and calm again, like he had magic sedatives in his skin or something.

"Fine," she said at last. "We'll both stay."

Bender sat down, looking petulant. "Fine."

"Fine."

"I'm okay with that," Fry said. Not that anyone had asked what he thought.

He sank gratefully back into the couch and shut his eyes. His head was starting to throb.

"I don't get it," he mumbled. "If you're so worried about me, why don't you just take me to the hospital?"

"You can't afford hospital," Leela told him. "You let your insurance policy lapse months ago, remember? And if I claim third-party injury one more time, I'll lose mine."

When Fry opened one eye, she looked defensive.

"I'm a one-eyed spaceship captain with poor depth perception and anger management issues. Let's not even go there."

Fry rubbed his head gingerly. "You are kinda dangerous to be around." He grinned. "So . . . this is like insurance fraud."

"No!" Leela scowled. "It's just a little creative budgeting, that's all."

"Sure."

"Look, I can't help it if I'm surrounded by jackasses just begging to kiss my boot. I just wish I didn't have to pay their medical costs afterward. You'd think punching Zapp Brannigan would count as some kind of humanitarian act, but apparently not."

"Uh-huh." Fry leaned back even further into the couch and swung his legs up, so his feet were resting in Leela's lap. If touching Leela had a magic calming effect on her right now, it was having the opposite effect on Fry. He felt drunk.

"Leela's committing insurance fraud . . ." he sang.

Leela swatted at him in a half-hearted kind of way. She hadn't made any attempt to move out from under him, Fry noticed. She merely shifted position slightly to make herself more comfortable, resting her arms lightly on his shins.

"You have gum on the bottom of your shoe," she said drily.

"I was wondering where that went . . ."

Fry grinned at her grossed-out expression, Leela reached out to swat his hand away from his shoe . . . and Bender interrupted.

"Knock it off, meatbags."

"What did I do?"

"You know."

Fry blinked, bewildered. "No . . . what?"

Bender looked uncomfortable. "Aw, jeez, do I have to say it . . ? Fine. Quit. Flirting."

"I'm not-" Fry began, but he stopped when he felt Leela shaking. She was doubled over, trying to cram her fist in her mouth so they wouldn't see her laughing. It was weird laughter too, more funny-we're-all-gonna-die than funny-haha.

"What's so funny?" he asked, but she only gasped incoherently.

"He's . . . right . . ." she spluttered. "We are. Sometimes I think I hit you just so I can touch you. And I never even . . ."

She shook her head, and Fry found himself mesmerized by her hair, whipping through the air in a violet arc. He put out a hand, tracing the after-images through the air.

Leela ran out of air and her laughter became a cough, then died away completely. When it did, her serious face came back.

"You're supposed to be resting, Fry."

"Huh?"

"You're supposed to be resting. So rest."

"But you never told me what was funny," Fry protested.

Leela smiled sadly. "It was only funny to me," she said.

She caught his hand as it floated aimlessly through the air and forced it down again.

"Look, just go to sleep for a while," she said. "That's not normally such a big ask for you. I need to talk to Bender."

"I'm not tired," Fry insisted.

Leela just shrugged. Her hand was resting on his chest, her fingers drawing light, impatient patterns on his t-shirt. He yawned before he could stop himself, and the corner of Leela's mouth twitched in a smile.

"Not tired . . ." he mumbled, but he shut his eyes obediently. Leela watched him for a while, but when he didn't open them again she seemed to figure he was asleep.

Her voice changed. Now she was using her captain's voice, the one that promised an ass-kicking for anyone who got on her bad side.

"You knew," she said.

That voice had never worked well on Bender. He laughed.

"Everybody knows, eyeball. I mean, everyone except Captain Moron over there, obviously."

Leela tensed. "What do you mean, everyone knows? There wasn't anything to know, until -"

"Sheesh," Bender interrupted. "You could see it from space. You. Love. Him."

Him? Who was him? Fry frowned, trying to figure it out. Unless . . . him didn't mean . . . him?

Leela had gone perfectly still.

"How did you know?" she said quietly. "I didn't even know, until tonight."

"So you're deluded. Who cares?" Bender lit up a cigar. "We had a book running on when you'd finally get it. I put fifty bucks on a deathbed realization."

"Mine or his?"

Leela's voice sounded like it was coming back to her from a long way away.

"Eh, either's good. Wanna know what everyone else thought?"

"Not really."

Bender exhaled slowly. "Amy had a hundred on 'when he marries someone else', Hermes is betting on your second divorce, and Zoidberg's holding out for a lobotomy. I can't remember what the Professor thought. I just took his money and ran."

"Why didn't you say something?" Leela demanded.

"Why would I? You don't really love him. I love that little meatbag more than you ever will."

Fry felt Leela's fists ball in the fabric of his shirt. She was shaking.

"How can you say that?"

"Easy," Bender snapped. "You only want him when you can't have him. When you think he's dying, or when you got nothin' else. You only want him if he changes. Well I like him just the way he is – a total chump. So you and your feelings can take a hike, lady. You can die miserable and alone, for all I care."

There was silence for a beat.

"Aw, no. Are you crying? Stop that. Stop it, I said! You're not gonna make me feel bad . . . I'm Bender. I don't do that."

Leela's tears crossed the line from silent to 'really, really loud'.

"Hey. Knock it off. Stop that! Aw, crap . . ."

Leela was crying ugly tears now, rocking back and forth as Bender hovered awkwardly. He was probably aware he'd crossed a line, but there was no way he'd ever say sorry. Bender didn't do sorry.

"Look," he bluffed, "you're reading way too much into this. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I mean, you might not die totally alone. You could have some cats in there. You're a cat person, right?"

When Leela broke into fresh, horrified wails, the robot backed off.

"Oy vey," he muttered. "I'm outta here. If anyone needs me, I'll be at the porno theater."

When the door slammed behind him, Fry opened his eyes. Leela was crying too hard to notice. She blew her nose on Fry's shirt as he watched her curiously.

"Damn," she whispered. "Damn. Damn. Damn. Son of a bitch!"

Then it dawned on her that Fry was awake, and she screamed.

"Fry! How long have you -? When did you -?" She pulled herself together. "I mean . . . you're awake. That's nice," she said limply.

Fry sat up carefully, gripping the back of the couch to steady himself. Leela frowned and tried to make him lie down again, but he ignored her. He still felt nauseous and the back of his head was pounding, but he found he was thinking pretty clearly all the same.

"Bender thinks you love me," he said.

Leela swallowed.

"Fry . . ." she said uneasily.

Fry kissed her.

Every other time this had happened, he had been too distracted by the fact that he was kissing Leela - and she was kissing him back, and not slapping him - to pay much attention to the way she was kissing him back. And actually, it was pretty weird.

Weird Thing No. 1 : When he kissed her, Leela seemed to forget about everything else. Amy had said she must have forgotten she was married when she slept with Fry, and she'd been joking – but he was starting to think she might have a point. Leela really did forget things when he kissed her. She forget she was supposed to be guilty, or mad at him, or married. And it always took her a while to remember she wasn't supposed to be kissing him. Sometimes it took her a long while.

Weird Thing No. 2 : The way she kissed him didn't always match the way she acted. Sometimes it was like there was a whole other conversation happening between them in a different language. When he'd kissed her earlier – the hot-dog kiss – she'd looked really sorry she'd hit him, and he'd believed her . . . but she'd kissed him like she was mad. It didn't match up now either. She looked like she'd been about to say "Bender's wrong" or "I don't want to talk about it" . . . but she wasn't kissing him like that. She was kissing him like she was relieved. Like she was proud of him for something.

Like she was sad.

He pulled away, frowning.

"You do love me."

Leela smiled weakly.

"Yes, Fry. I do. Though Lord knows why. You're an idiot."

She stroked his cheek and Fry relaxed a little.

"Then . . . then . . . why are you sad? Because I'm an idiot?"

Leela's smile faded away.

"No," she said bitterly. "Because I am."

Fry struggled with this. "I don't get it."

Leela took a deep breath. "You love me," she said. "But I didn't get it. I didn't trust it. You love me more than anyone else ever could, Fry, and I just didn't understand it. I thought you'd get bored, I thought you'd get distracted, I thought you'd screw up a relationship - though you probably would have, because let's face it, you're hopelessly immature . . . ."

Fry shrugged, conceding the point. Leela reined herself in.

"I didn't understand you," she said. "If I had, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. But -" - she avoided his eye, embarrassed - "no-one's ever loved me like that. I didn't realize how much it mattered."

"I still don't get it," Fry said.

Leela sighed. "You will soon." She put her hand in his. "What would you do for me, Fry? To be with me, I mean."

That sounded like a trick question, but Fry doubted he was smart enough to spot the trick, so he answered honestly.

"I'd do anything."

"Like . . . lie to me?"

The question stung.

"No! I told you before, I'd never lie to you to get you to be with me. Or use drugs, coz they're for losers, and hypnosis is for losers with big weird eyebrows, and . . . oh." He reconsidered. "Okay. I guess not anything. There's some things I wouldn't do."

Leela nodded. "That's what I thought," she said. She was quiet for a beat.

"What would you do to make me happy?" she asked softly.

Fry thought about it, taking in her face. There was nothing he wouldn't do for Leela, he realized. He'd die for her – he'd known that for years, it was as easy as breathing. And he'd done some crazy things over the years, in the hopes she'd like them – like rearranging the stars, or chasing a parrot up a hundred-storey building. And it had been worth it just to see her smile, even for a second. Fry had been square with this pathetic, desperate side of himself for years now. He wasn't really bothered by it.

But watching her now, he realized it wasn't just crazy, stupid stuff he'd do for Leela. It could be dangerous too, like hacking into his own brain, or making the Robot Devil cut his hands off. That stuff had hurt, but he'd still done it. It was like there was this big hole in his head when it came to Leela, and even if he looked into it, he couldn't see the bottom. If he ever thought he couldn't get much more stupid or reckless or dangerous, he only had to think about Leela to find that stuff like common sense and self-preservation just vanished, sucked into the hole, and suddenly there was plenty more room in his head to be stupid.

"Anything," he said at last. "I'd do anything."

Leela smiled sadly.

"I know," she said. "You really are selfless, aren't you?"

She squeezed his hand, and let go.

"I just wish I'd figured that out before I married you."