A / N : Time for a look inside Lars' head. You were curious, right?

Also, kudos to wasabbi, who was the only person to pick up on all the hints I've been dropping about Leela. (The only person I know of, anyway.) Incentivize that reviewer!

He'd forgotten where he was again.

He was lying on cold tiles, and there was a pain in his neck. Not surprising really – it felt like he was using his shoes as a pillow. Why had that seemed like a good idea?

Lars groaned.

This wasn't the first time he'd woken up with no idea where he was. It was happening more and more lately. It wasn't that he was drunk, even – he was just temporally displaced in the few minutes before he became fully conscious. In that short space of time, he might be at home or at work or halfway across the solar system for all he knew. He felt like the only person on Earth not affected by gravity. Whatever kept other people anchored to the world just wasn't working on him anymore.

Leela would have helped. She always did. With her it didn't matter where he was, because wherever she was felt like the right place to be. But she wasn't here now – there was just that aching empty space in his chest which had always had her name on it.

I miss you, Leela, he thought dully.

He opened his eyes and cringed away from the strip lighting overhead. He could see the legs of a stool not far away and hear something bubbling nearby. The whole place reeked of burning rhesus monkey. Oh, right. That was it : he was on the floor of the Professor's lab. He sat up and tried to massage some feeling back into his joints. He was getting way too old to be couch-surfing, and this one had to be a new low. The Professor hadn't even let him sleep on the couch. He had only let Lars take the floor in exchange for a sample of his blood, which had fascinated him once Lars had explained who he really was. Apparently there was something interesting about being a time-travel duplicate. Lars couldn't see it himself, but if it secured him a bed for the night, he didn't really care.

You should have made more friends in the future, he thought. I mean, come on. First your in-laws, now the Professor? Don't you think it's desperate you have nowhere else to go?

Why hadn't he made more friends? (Or any, really, now that he thought about it.) He tried to remember, but all he could remember wanting was Leela. It hadn't seemed necessary to have anyone else, if he had her.

I miss her, he thought again. I miss her. I miss her, I miss her, I miss her, I miss her . . .

He was vaguely aware that he was getting stuck on this thought.

I miss her. I miss her. I miss her. I miss her, I miss her, I miss her, I miss her, I miss her, I miss her, I want her, I need her, I miss her, I miss her, I want her, I need her, I miss her . . .

Something smashed on the edge of his hearing, and Lars jumped. He checked his hands nervously but they were hanging innocently by his sides and there was nothing within reach, so it couldn't have been him.

"Hello?" he called carefully.

There was a small scuffling sound from under one of the workbenches. Lars grabbed a nearby blowtorch and held it out defensively, just in case it was a rabid rhesus monkey.

"Stop, stop!" a familiar voice cried. "Please, put the weapon down. I mean you no harm."

"Nibbler?"

His wife's pet stuck his head out of a tangled mess of wire, and Lars relaxed.

"Oh," he said. "Here, let me help."

Two turned out to be more efficient than one, and in under ten minutes Nibbler was free of the mess.

"Hello," he said gravely.

"Uh, hello. What's going on?" Lars asked. A hopeful thought struck him. "Is Leela here? Is she okay? Last time I saw her she didn't look so good, but that's probably my fault." He laughed wryly. "I keep springing nasty surprises on her."

Nibbler coughed.

"Indeed. Although it must be said that she has brought many on herself."

"I don't know about that. She never asked me to lie to her," Lars pointed out.

"No," Nibbler conceded. "But she has been less than honest with you in turn."

Lars frowned. He had the feeling Nibbler was goading him.

"I think she was pretty confused," he argued. "She wasn't cheating cheating. Even if it feels like that. It can't be. I mean . . . he is me."

"An interesting point . . . but I was in fact referring to her insistence that she did not love you. Much might have been avoided if she had addressed this point earlier."

Lars stared. Working out Nibbler's response took a few minutes (he used a lot of big words for such a small creature) but eventually he got it.

"You think Leela loved me all along," he said numbly.

Lars had suggested this to her himself the last time they spoke, but he hardly knew why. The idea it didn't make any sense.

"That's impossible," he said. "If she loved me she would have said something. I was with her every day for eight years, and it's not like the subject never came up."

But he was thinking of Leela's face when he'd asked her about it in the sewer. She'd had the distant, dazed expression of someone who'd just been hit with a horrible truth.

"She didn't know," he realized.

Nibbler nodded. "Consciously? I believe not."

"How do you love someone and not know?" Lars demanded. "That's crazy."

Nibbler made no argument.

Lars buried his head in his hands.

"This is a mess," he muttered. He looked up. "Leela – is she okay? You didn't answer my question."

Nibbler gave him a curiously intense look.

"She is . . . troubled," he said at last. "But why are you concerned?"

Lars glared at him. "I love her," he said coldly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Nibbler watched him carefully. "Who is the you who loves her?" he asked.

"What? I . . . me. Lars."

"Lars who is not Philip J Fry?"

"I . . . no. I mean . . . yes. I don't know. Me. I love her."

"I see," Nibbler said gravely.

Lars laughed. "Do you? I don't think I do anymore."

He stared blankly at his feet.

"I miss her. That's all I know." He frowned to himself. "I had a dream a few nights ago. I dreamed I was dead, and you know what the strange thing was? It didn't feel any different to being alive." He looked up sharply. "It felt how I feel when I'm not with her. That's not right, is it?"

Nibbler looked graver than ever.

"No," he said slowly. He gave Lars a long, searching look. "You are not right."

"What does that mean?"

The Nibblonian sighed. "There are two of you," he announced. "Two versions of Philip J Fry occupying the same point in time. Such a thing cannot be."

"But it already is," Lars retorted. "Fat lot you can do about now. Fat lot any of us can do. Leela can't be in love with two people." He swallowed. "She'll have to choose."

Nibbler shook his head. "The situation is far greater than that. You are an irregularity, and your existence is now entangled with many lives. You have impacted the universe around you in unknowable ways."

Lars frowned. "So? I mean, doesn't everyone? That's why people live together, instead of in, I dunno, some kind of bubble or something."

Nibbler didn't seem all that soothed by this.

"You do not understand," he insisted. "You and Leela are a point on which a great many futures converge. Even my people do not fully comprehend it, but it is so. Interference could threaten the very fate of the universe. And now the three of you have created such an almighty interference that even I cannot see how to right it. I care deeply for Leela, but I see no way to spare her pain in this." He chittered nervously. "Her actions may have put the universe to rights again, or they may have set us all on course to our doom."

"Hey," Lars objected. "This isn't Leela's fault. What she did was bad, but it's not the end of the universe. And maybe she shouldn't have married me, okay. If that wasn't supposed to happen then fine. But she probably wants to divorce me anyway, so I don't think it makes too much difference."

Nibbler groaned. "As individuals," he said slowly, "your actions can be undone. But the three of you have created an anomaly which has the potential to destabilize the universe. If such a creation was supposed to be, then I must protect it – but if not, then I cannot allow it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lars said.

"My race has watched over your universe since its infancy. We – I – have a duty to protect it. Whatever my personal instincts toward Leela, if her progeny threatens us all, I have no-"

He was interrupted by the sound of a cell-phone ringing.

"That's me," Lars said distractedly. "Hold on."

He was wondering what the hell a progeny was. It sounded like a movie by Ridley Scott.

He fumbled awkwardly in his pockets, and then remembered his cell was part of the communicator clipped to his wrist. He wrenched it free.

"It's Leela. Leela! It's you!"

"Well at least that's something we can all agree on," Leela said drily. She paused. "Hi."

She was hard to see on the small screen, but she looked fine. Tired, but safe, and definitely not destabilizing any universes.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"The Professor's lab," Lars confessed. "Nibbler's here too. Freaking out about the universe again."

Leela sighed. "Yeah, he's been doing that a lot lately. Amy thinks I should try him on Xanax."

"I dunno . . ." Lars looked the Nibblonian up and down. He was now pacing in a furious circle, muttering to himself. "You'd need a hell of a lot."

"I know." Leela rubbed her eye, suppressing a yawn. "So what's eating him now?"

Lars shrugged. "You. Me. The fate of the universe. You know, the usual."

He eyed Nibbler again. He didn't seem to be paying any attention, but Lars was careful to lower his voice anyway, just in case.

"Maybe you should come get him. Bring him a 'special' steak, if you know what I mean."

Leela grimaced. "I can't. I'm a little . . . tied up . . . right now. I'm at Fry and Bender's."

She pulled the camera back a little to show him Fry, asleep on the couch beside her. Leela had her feet up on the coffee table, but there still wasn't a whole lot of room. His younger self was curled unconsciously around her, with one arm wound around her waist. Lars wondered if he'd ever looked so much like a needy child.

Probably, though it was hard to picture.

Still, he couldn't help noticing that Fry's hair was mussed – like someone had been running their hands through it. He felt a sudden stab of jealousy. It had been easy to feel sorry for his younger self when there was no hope of him ever getting what he wanted, but it was harder to feel generous now that he'd somehow fallen into bed with Leela. It was also hard not to feel just a little insecure. For all his faults, there had been some good things about being Fry. Lars remembered being that young. He remembered living on a constant sugar high. He remembered having an attention-span ten minutes long. But he also remembered feeling freer. Less tired, less self-conscious. Fry could be impulsive, and clumsily charming, and he'd had sex on the brain. If you considered those good things, then he had a definite appeal.

Lars was starting to suspect Leela found those things more appealing than he'd thought.

Leela herself didn't seem to notice his jealousy – though maybe she just wasn't used to seeing it in him. He had never been jealous before.

"I sorta mistook him for a punch-bag," she admitted.

"Oh." Lars tried to look like this bothered him. He couldn't quite get there. "How hard did you hit him? Zapp-hard?"

"Harder."

"Ow."

Leela winced. "I know. I was working through some issues with the punch-bag. I didn't even see him."

"Is he still out?" Lars asked. "He looks asleep."

"Huh?"

Leela glanced down. She reddened and her arm hovered awkwardly over Fry, as the urge to move him from his current position battled with her desire not to wake him. The latter won out in the end, and she left him where he was.

"I didn't realize he was . . . ugh." She shook her head. "He is asleep. His head is still a little screwy, I guess." Her face softened slightly, and her hand twitched unconsciously, like she'd been about to stroke Fry's hair.

Well, that explained that.

Lars sighed.

"He'll be fine. Trust me – he's got a thick skull."

"Yes. Of course." Leela hesitated. "Lars . . . I told him."

"About me?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. I had to."

Lars gaped at her. "What? Why?"

"He had a right to know."

"Well, maybe, but that doesn't mean you had to tell him! Why would you do that? It'll just make him miserable."

Leela's expression flickered.

"Then he'll be in good company," she said tightly. "You, me . . . he might as well join the party. Besides – what makes you think he was happy before? You can't really believe that. You know what he must have felt."

There was a long silence.

"I do know," Lars managed at last. "I'm sorry. You're right. I only meant -"

"I know what you meant."

Leela was staring at him now. She'd never looked at him like this before. It wasn't just that she was looking at Lars and seeing that he'd once been Fry. It was like she was looking at him as Fry and for the first time, she could really see him. It made him uncomfortable.

"I . . . You don't seem so angry anymore," he said uneasily.

Leela blinked. "I'm not. Well, I am, but I'm angry at myself. We wouldn't be in this mess if I hadn't been so blind." She took a deep, steadying breath. "You were right, Lars."

"About what?"

"I did love you. When we met again I think I fell for you so fast because I'd never fallen out of love with you. But all that time before . . . I was too afraid to admit what I felt, so I pushed it away. I told myself it couldn't be real. I felt happy just being with you, and when I thought I might lose you I felt sick to my stomach . . . but I was so scared of calling that love I couldn't even let myself think it."

She swallowed, like she had a lump in her throat.

"And then I met you again," she said softly. "And I didn't have all those walls up in my head, so I let you walk right in. It was so easy. When I felt drawn to you or right with you, I didn't question it. It felt like I'd known you for years, and I thought that was how love was supposed to feel."

She touched his face on the screen, blinking back tears.

"I didn't love you because you were different with me, Lars. It was me - I was different with you."

"Okay," Lars said uncertainly. "But don't cry. Please. Why are you crying?"

Leela sniffed. "Because I don't think you know who you are anymore. And I think I did that."

"No, you didn't. You didn't do anything," Lars assured her. "That was all me."

"You're still doing it!" Leela snapped.

Lars blinked. "Oh, right. Sorry." He paused. "Uh, just so I know . . . what am I doing?"

Leela shook her head in disbelief.

"Do you just say whatever you think I need to hear?"

"No!" Lars caught sight of her expression, and reconsidered. "I mean . . . wait, no. No, of course not." When Leela continued to stare him down, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I don't really know what I'm supposed to say to that."

Leela gaped at him.

"Don't you ever disagree with me?" she demanded.

"No."

"So you never think I'm wrong, about anything?"

"Oh, no," Lars said easily. "Never."

"That's insane. There must be something you think I was wrong about, at some stage."

"Not really. You're always right in the end."

Leela glared. "I slept with Fry," she said cruelly. "I did it because I was selfish and restless and I wanted to see if I damn well could. Tell me you don't think that was wrong. You can't!"

"That wasn't your fault," Lars argued. "If I'd been honest from the start-"

Leela made a little noise, like she was suppressing a scream.

"You honestly think that wasn't my fault? How?"

"I told you-"

"No! I screwed somebody else! You're allowed to be mad at me! For God's sake! Aren't you even a little mad?"

"No," Lars said evenly. I'm hurt, but I'm not mad. He frowned. He had the feeling Leela was pushing him, trying to make him snap. He'd had the same feeling with Nibbler, but he didn't really see the point. "Would it make you feel better if I was?" he asked her.

Leela tore at her hair. "What does it matter what I feel? You're not supposed to be making me feel better! Come on!"

"You want me to make you feel bad?"

"No, I want you to want to make me feel bad!" Leela snapped. "Call me a bitch, yell at me, I don't know. Just do something."

Lars stared at her.

"Fine," he said at last. "I don't agree with you."

"I . . . what?"

"I don't agree with you. I don't want to make you feel bad, so I guess I must think you're wrong about something. I don't agree with you."

"Oh my god . . ." Leela started to laugh hysterically. She looked as if she was preparing to scream when suddenly she froze, looking down in a panic. It seemed like she'd finally managed to wake Fry.

"Leela?" he said blearily. "Wha . . . huh . . .?"

"You're dreaming," Leela said quickly. "Go back to sleep, Fry."

"But . . ."

"Shhh." She kissed him swiftly on the forehead, which seemed to convince Fry he was asleep after all.

"Oh . . . dreaming," he mumbled. He curled more tightly around her and planted a clumsy kiss on the only part of her he could reach, which turned out to be her stomach. After a few seconds he started to snore.

Leela let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the phone.

"You can't not be angry with me," she hissed. "That's crazy."

Lars frowned. "Well, I'm not. What good would it do, anyway?"

"None. It would probably make things worse, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be feeling it anyway." Leela waved her arm in agitation. "I loved you for eight years and I never told you. I let you go back to the year 2000 not knowing. You could have died not knowing! If things weren't such a mess I probably wouldn't have told you even now."

"You had your reasons."

"I know I did!" Leela spluttered. "But how do they not make you angry?"

"What would be the point? It's over," Lars said calmly. "Besides, you said it yourself – if all this hadn't happened, I never would have known how you felt. But now I do, so something good came out of this."

"I don't see how that's good."

Lars smiled. "I wanted you to love me, Leela. That's all I ever wanted. No matter what happens now, I'll always have that. And I'll know it was real, because if you loved me even back then, it must have been." He gestured at Fry. "I don't think you'd ever admit to loving him if you didn't mean it."

Leela moaned.

"You could at least be a little angry," she muttered. She gestured loosely at Fry. "He was mad at me. And I'm pretty sure he wants to hit you as soon as he can stand."

Lars shrugged. "Yeah, but he's immature."

"I'm not sure he is. I think I'd be mad too," Leela argued.

Lars laughed. "Yeah, but honey . . . uh, nothing."

Leela narrowed her eye. "But what? What were you going to say?"

Lars rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Nothing. It's just, well . . . I love you . . . but you did sort of sucker-punch me the last time we spoke. I'm just saying. Maybe you and Fry aren't as different as you think."

Leela gaped at him.

"Did you just compare my maturity level with Fry's?"

In her indignation, Leela had forgotten to keep her voice down. She remembered too late.

"Oh, crap."

Fry stopped snoring with a snort.

"Did someone say Fry?" he mumbled.

"No. Go back to sleep."

"Oh . . . okay, Leela." He settled back down, and then seemed to notice who he was settling down on, and toppled off her in shock. "Wait, Leela?" he cried from the floor.

"Damn," Leela said. "What did you do that for, you idiot? You just slept off a concussion, do you want another one?"

She sighed.

"How many fingers am I holding up? What's the Professor's first name?"

"Professor," Fry said blearily. "And I don't know how many fingers, I don't remember."

"That was your laziest effort yet," Leela reprimanded him.

Fry stood up and brushed himself off.

"Okay," he said brightly. "How's this : You love me and you married me and Lars is me, and now I'm going to go punch him in the face. How's my brain working now?"

"As usual, it's not."

"Great. Then I'm back to normal. Let's go!"

Lars left them arguing and hung up quietly. When he turned his attention back to Nibbler, he realized the floor was empty. He sighed.

"This is bad."

"Indeed."

"Argh!" Lars yelled.

Nibbler, it turned out, had been sitting on his shoulder, listening in on his conversation with Leela.

Lars stumbled sideways in shock, tripped, and went flying. He was dimly aware of crashing into something, and a searing pain flashed across the top of his head, but he landed in one piece,so he shrugged it off as nothing.

"I really don't like it when people sneak up on me," he complained. "Ever been firebombed? It makes you a little jumpy, if you know what I mean." He sat up. "Were you eavesdropping on me and Leela?"

Nibbler simply stared.

"The question doesn't go away if you don't answer it," Lars said, irritated. His scalp was stinging, and when he touched it, his hand came away bloody. "Oh. Shoot. I guess it's a good thing I don't have any hair, huh?" He frowned. "That was supposed to be a joke. What are you staring at?"

He followed Nibbler's gaze, curious to see what he'd knocked over.

"I . . . oh."

It was the Professor's portable guillotine. That was strange in itself, but what was really strange was the way it had fallen. The blade had snicked shut on the top of his head, taking off the skin. Six inches lower and it would have closed on his neck.

Lars swallowed nervously.

"Wow. That was close."

Nibbler stood up suddenly, drawing himself up to his full height. Granted, this wasn't any more impressive than his regular height, but it seemed churlish not to pay attention when he was making the effort.

"I must leave," he declared to a thoroughly stunned Lars.

"What?"

"I must return to my home planet and consult with my people. They may have knowledge I do not."

"Knowledge about what?" Lars asked. He was using Amy's lab coat to soak up the blood from his head wound. It looked bad but he felt fine, so it was probably just a flesh wound.

Nibbler eyed him gravely.

"The fate of our universe," he said solemnly.

Lars frowned. "You said all that had something to do with Leela," he said slowly. "So you're trying to help her?"

Nibbler hesitated. "Yes . . . I am fond of Leela, and of this universe. I would save them both at any cost."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Lars observed.

Nibbler watched him intently. "You love her," he said at last. "You must protect her in my absence."

Lars laughed uneasily. "It's not that I don't agree with you," he said, "but Leela's pretty good at protecting herself, and she could use some space right now. I don't think she'll take too kindly to me trying to babysit her."

"It doesn't matter what she thinks of it," Nibbler said fiercely. "You will do it anyway."

Lars balled up Amy's lab-coat and stuffed it in the sink.

"What makes you so sure?" he asked. "And why me? Why aren't you telling Fry this? He loves her too."

On his way to the door, Nibbler stopped.

"Because sacrifice is part of the very nature of your love for Leela," he said sadly. "And because very soon, you will be dead."