Amy was chewing gum, twirling it around her finger as she sashayed down the hall. She was humming to herself, but when Lars grabbed her wrist she screamed.

"La, la, la, la . . . aaahhh!"

"Sorry! Sorry!" Lars threw his hands up to reassure her. "I didn't mean to scare you," he said. "I just wanted to borrow you for a while."

He glanced up and down the empty hallway and tugged her quickly into the lab, sealing the door behind them. Then he pulled up a stool and sat the Martian girl down in it, smoothing the sleeve of her sweater where he'd grabbed her.

"Sorry," he said again.

"Um . . . that's okay."

Amy looked at him warily.

"So, um . . . what did you want? And why is the door shut?" A thought seemed to strike her. "Are you gonna take your clothes off?"

Lars shrugged.

"I dunno. You tell me."

"Oh!" Amy blushed. "Well, you can if you want to, but I think Leela would be majorly pissed if she heard about it."

"What?" Lars stared at her in confusion, and then it clicked. He shook his head wearily. "Amy, I'm not hitting on you."

"You're not?"

"No!"

"Oh. Okay."

"I just need you to tell me if I'm dying or not."

Amy gaped at him. It took her a minute to transition from mild disappointment to shock.

"Are you sick?" she asked at last.

"No."

"Do you think you were poisoned or something?"

"No."

"Are you headed for a Suicide Booth anytime soon?"

"No!"

Amy laughed. "Then you look as alive as everyone else. More alive than Scruffy, actually. Why would you ask?"

Lars chewed his cheek, agitated. "Someone said I was going to die soon."

Amy sobered up a little.

"Maybe they were joking," she suggested.

"No. I'm pretty sure they have no sense of humor," Lars told her. "Please – you're smart. You're a scientist. You can do tests and science-y stuff, can't you? If there was something wrong with me I know you could find it." He swallowed. "Please, Amy."

Amy blinked. "You really think I'm smart?"

"I know you are. And I trust you."

Amy seemed floored by this.

"Okay," she said quietly.

"Okay? You'll help me?"

"Yeah."

Lars sagged with relief.

"Thank you."

"No problem." Amy opened a drawer, pulled out a bunch of wires, and slapped them playfully against her palm. She grinned. "Clothes off, probes on, mister!"

"Hey," she continued, as Lars scrambled to obey her. "I heard about you and Leela. I'm really sorry. Do you think you guys can work it out?"

Lars felt his smile fade. "I don't know. Probably not."

"Aw, man. That sucks. Hey, hold still a sec - I need your blood."

She caught his arm, straightened it out, and stuck him with the needle before Lars had time to protest.

"Nice moves," he muttered.

"Thanks," Amy chirped. "I had Type Two diabetes as a kid. Okay . . . I'm gonna scope your blood, so just sit still and let the monitor check you over."

Lars followed the wires with his eyes. They led to an open laptop screen, which was beeping and blipping faintly.

"What does that do?""

Amy shrugged, engrossed in her microscope.

"Monitors stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Heart rate, muscle tone . . . everything. And your blood can tell me everything else. If you were dying, that stuff would tell me why."

"Okay." Lars watched her humming to herself as she twiddled the microscope. He nodded at her engagement ring. "Congratulations, by the way. I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the party – I was at a head conference in Oregon. Did Leela give you the present?"

"The waffle-toaster?" Amy grinned. "Yeah, thanks. It's a good one."

Lars laughed. "Does Bender like it?"

"Are you kidding me? He's driving me crazy with it. I keep telling him how fat I'm gonna be, but I don't think he gets that about humans. Or he's too proud of his waffles to care."

Lars smiled. "Good," he said softly. The image of Bender making waffles made him happier than he'd felt in a while. It would have been nice to try one.

Look after him, Amy, he thought sadly. Because I miss him every day.

He cleared his throat. "How's the bloodwork coming?" he asked. "Can you tell if I have deadly boneitis yet?"

"No! You don't have boneitis, Lars." Amy giggled. "No-one gets that anymore. Actually, you seem fine so far. No diseases at all."

"What, none?" Lars said doubtfully. " Are you sure?"

"None," Amy chirped. "Nil, zip, nada. I'm going to compile the data and draw up a physical profile, to see if you're at risk of developing anything . . . but I doubt it. Honestly, you seem fine."

She typed a few lines, and shot him a quizzical look.

"How old are you, anyway?"

"Uh . . ." Lars paused, trying to think. "I dunno," he managed at last. "Fifty? Fifty-five? I kinda lost track."

He'd given Leela an age once, but he couldn't remember what it had been. She seemed to have been keeping tabs on his birthdays though, so he usually just asked her how old he was. Let's see . . he'd celebrated eight birthdays in the future, and then twelve in the past . . . eight of those had been do-overs . . . then he'd unfrozen a couple years early when Michelle's cryo-pod timed out . . . and he'd been married to Leela for two years . . . He might even be older than he thought. Thinking about it made his head hurt.

Even this figure seemed to shock Amy, however.

"You're only fifty?" she exclaimed. "Goops. Sorry. I just meant . . . I always thought you were older. Haven't you ever been youthisized?"

"No."

Amy gawped at him. "But everyone gets youthisized! Otherwise you'd look way old, way fast."

Lars shrugged. "I don't want to look younger."

"Wow. That's really rad. But you know you're getting youthisized all the time, right? I mean, there are so many chemicals in the air and in food and in, well, everywhere, that it slows the aging process whether you want it to or not, so there's kinda no point opposing it. It's not like living a bajillion years ago when everyone got married right outta the cradle and looked ancient by the end of their twenties. We have it so much better now."

"Fine," Lars told her. "Then I can stay looking like this for a while. I'm fine with that. I just don't want to look any younger, thanks."

"You're weird," Amy said easily. "Though this look does work for you," she conceded. She looked him up and down and flashed him a flirtatious smile. "If you weren't Leela's husband, I would totally do you."

She laughed when he choked and fumbled urgently for his clothes.

"Relax! I'm not gonna seduce you, Lars. Spleesh. You know, you shouldn't listen to Leela. Just because I'm cute and sexually confident, she thinks I'm a tramp. And I'm really not. I never stole anybody's boyfriend before, and I only ever cheated once in my life – which I still feel horrible about."

"I-" Lars tried to interrupt, but Amy overrode him.

"The only reason I even cheated on Kif was because I got tired,okay? I got tired of him being so perfect and loyal and patient in every way, but freaking out the whole time about how I was going to leave him or cheat on him every time I left his sight. He'd have a meltdown if I even looked at another guy. And I do look at other guys sometimes! So what? I'm only human! I loved Kif, but he made me feel so bad about it, like he was just waiting for me to cheat on him. He didn't trust me." She calmed down a little. "I know everyone thinks I'm crazy for getting into a relationship with Bender, but you know what? I don't care. Because Bender doesn't care. He makes me feel good about myself and I have fun with him, and that's good enough for me."

She added something to his blood sample and shook it vigorously.

"Leela's my friend," she went on, scowling, "and I love her, but she drives me nuts sometimes. She's always judging me. Like the way she thinks I'm a slut, even though she just did the exact same thing as me. She cheated! And actually she cheated worse, because her whole relationship with Fry is just crazy messed-up. Like, why didn't she just bone him way back when they first met? She obviously wanted to, but instead she acts like they're just friends, and oh my god, you would not believe how pissed she was at me when I dated him. I swear she's still mad at me for that. And you can't even talk to her about it because it's like this gigantic elephant in the room, like, oh, don't talk about my totally weird relationship with Fry! And I never do, but I hate that she judges me for sex, which is nothing, when I swear she's got to be in love with – oh my god." The Martian girl pulled up short and looked at Lars in a panic. "I'm sorry," she gushed. "I didn't mean that! Don't even listen to me – I should have kept my big mouth shut."

Lars sighed. "Amy, it's okay. I know."

"You do?"

"Yeah. So does Leela, by now. She loves him. It's okay."

Amy blinked at him, dumbstruck.

"Oh, wow," she mumbled. "I'm so sorry, Lars."

"It's okay," Lars repeated.

"What are you going to do?" Amy asked worriedly.

"I don't know. It's complicated."

They lapsed into silence, which didn't really surprise Lars. There wasn't much else to say.

Amy was the one to break it.

"Did you know you have a weak heart?" she asked tentatively.

"Huh? Oh . . . yeah. I have meds for that. Also for my ADD." Lars pulled them out of his pocket and tossed them to her. "Is that a problem?"

Amy studied the label on the dispenser of pills.

"No, it shouldn't be. You don't eat junk food or drink soda or smoke, and I'm pretty sure you don't do drugs."

"No."

Amy smiled. "Then you're fine. Absolutely positively."

Lars tucked the pills back in his top pocket and frowned at her.

"You mean my heart is fine?"

"Your heart is fine, and everything else is fine too. You're about as likely to die as I am, Lars! So chill out, okay?"

Lars let go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"I'm not gonna die?"

"No!" Amy elbowed him in the ribs. "Quit it with the doom and gloom already."

She squealed when Lars picked her up and spun her round, laughing.

"I'm not going to die!"

He felt like a weight had been lifted, like some half-formed dread had passed by overhead. Sure, it hadn't made any sense for him to be dying, but the idea had hit home in a way he couldn't explain. Maybe it was because he'd felt so lost lately. Maybe it was just how sure Nibbler had sounded. Either way, it was a relief to know the Nibblonian had been wrong.

He set Amy down again.

"I have to go – my face is late for a meeting with someone's fist. But thank you, Amy. I owe you one."

He kissed her on the forehead and hurried out, leaving her giggling helplessly in the Professor's lab.

He ran into Leela on the sidewalk outside Planet Express.

She was standing staring up at the building, obviously debating going in, when he walked into her. Lars held onto her instinctively when she stumbled against him. They stayed like that for a moment, tangled clumsily together, both forgetting to breathe. Lars was taking in her face, absorbing every tiny detail he'd forgotten since he last saw her. That was what he had feared most, when Nibbler had told him he was going to die : never seeing Leela again. Lars had never been instilled with any real sense of religion, so he was hazy on the afterlife, but he wasn't afraid of it either. The only thing that really scared him was the thought of something happening to Leela, of having to go through the rest of his life without her. Some life that would be, he thought vaguely. Looking at her now, she was so beautiful she made his heart ache. He let go of her unwillingly.

"Hey."

"Hi."

Leela tugged her jacket more tightly about her, shivering a little in the cool fall breeze. She looked chilly, and deeply unhappy.

"We need to talk," she said quietly.

Lars nodded.

"We'll get coffee," he said.

Leela offered no opposition to this plan – she simply followed him across the street and took a seat in silence. She accepted her coffee without complaint, but didn't seem much in the mood to drink it. She pulled a face at the first sip and then just cupped it in her hands, using it to warm her fingers. Lars gulped his own decaf too quickly, blistering his tongue.

"We need to talk," Leela said again.

"I know," Lars said.

What he really wanted to say was "I love you", and what he really wanted to do was reach across the table and kiss his wife - but he had the feeling that wouldn't help.

"You look tired," he told her instead, as gently as he could.

Leela avoided his eye. "It was a long night."

"I'm sorry," Lars said guiltily."Where's Fry? I was expecting him to be hitting me around about now."

Leela scowled.

"He doesn't know where you are, and I'm not telling him. You've both done enough stupid things on my account. I'm not adding some bone-headed fist-fight to the list."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out an orange perspex tube. Lars watched her open it and unfurl the papers inside.

"Divorce papers," he said quietly.

Leela nodded.

"I got us a quick-kit from the 7-11," she said. "I figured there wasn't much point hiring a lawyer if we could do this amicably."

"I guess not."

Lars thumbed through the papers. He hated the idea of ending his marriage, but he'd known it was coming. He pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and clicked off the lid.

"So how do we do this?"

"We fill out the form and send it on to the Central Bureaucracy," Leela said. "They send us back the document, we digi-sign it, and it's official. Knowing the Central Bureaucracy, it'll take a few weeks, but it's still pretty fast, considering."

Too fast, Lars thought.

"You really thought this through."

"Yes," his wife snapped. "And it wasn't pleasant, but someone had to do it. This is a mess, Lars, but I'm trying to end it as cleanly as possible. And you won't change my mind by arguing about it, either of you."

"Either of us?" Lars laughed. "Why would Fry want you to stay married to me?"

"He doesn't."

"Then what . . . oh. He wants you to be with him. And you said no," he realized. Leela's expression had frozen, and for the first time Lars felt a prickle of anger. "Why would you do that?"

Leela's face softened.

"Because I love you," she said. "Despite all the lies. And I love him, despite . . . well, everything. Do you have any idea what it's like to love two people at the same time? It's driving me mad!"

"Then choose."

"I have chosen," Leela said. She sounded strained. "I can't be with either of you without hurting the other, and I won't do that. So I'm making the only choice that's fair. I won't be with either of you."

"But . . . that leaves you alone. How is that fair?" Lars scowled. "Fry can't agree with that."

Leela sighed.

"Lars . . . just . . . shut up."

Leela had never told him to shut up before. But the memory must have been hard-wired into his brain, leftover from years of being Fry, because Lars shut his mouth automatically. It was annoying, being cut off like that, but in a way, it felt kind of . . . good. Had he missed that?

Apparently he had.

There was an awkward pause.

"I'm-" Leela started to say, but Lars cut her off this time.

"Don't say you're sorry," he said. He pulled the divorce papers toward him and forced himself to smile at her. "We should start on this. No point in dragging it out, right?"

Leela stared down at her coffee. "I guess not."

"Okay, so . . . name : Turanga Leela, age : 36." Lars scribbled this down. "Name : Lars Filmore. Age . . . uh . . ." He glanced at Leela. "How old am I?"

She sighed. "You're 53."

"Right, right. Hmm." He clicked the pen lid on and off a few times, thinking about the next question. "What's our address?"

"Lars!"

"What? Oh . . ." Catching her expression, he coughed. "Stupid question?"

"How do you not know where we live?" Leela asked impatiently. "You live there!"

Lars shrugged. "But it's not like I ever write home," he pointed out.

Leela groaned. "Just leave it. I'll fill it out later."

"Okay." Lars took a deep breath. "Length of marriage . . . two years. Kids : none. Pets . . . does Nibbler count as a pet? I mean, technically he's your pet."

"Of course he's mine."

Lars nodded, reading ahead.

"As-sets . . . what's a set? A set of whats? Asses?"

"Oh, lord. Assets. It means things you own. You know, valuables."

"Like what?"

"The car. The house. Things like that."

"Oh, right." Lars considered this. "So . . . you want that stuff, right?"

Leela stared at him. "What?"

"Well, I get it if you don't want the car. It could use a service. The house is nice though. Do you want the house?"

"Uh . . ."

From her response, Lars suspected he was doing something wrong.

"You can have the car too," he said hurriedly. "I'll get it serviced. Or you can paint it a new color. Do you like red? You never said you didn't, so I always thought you did, but if you don't like it I can-"

"Lars!" Leela put her cup down abruptly. Cold coffee slopped over the edges.

"What?"

"This . . . this is not how a divorce works. You don't just give me everything!"

"I don't?"

"No! For crying out loud. We're supposed to divide up the stuff we own together, fairly."

"Oh." Lars nodded. "Gotcha."

He returned his attention to the page, and carefully signed over the house. But not the car, because that would be giving her everything, and apparently Leela objected to that.

"Alimony," he said next. "We have to 'agree alimony'. What's-"

"It means money," Leela said wearily. "Spousal support. You pay it out of your wages every month, and I'm not taking a dime."

"But . . ." Lars frowned.

"It's not up for discussion," Leela said tightly. "I cheated on you. I'm not taking a cent."

"But your wages are terrible," Lars reminded her. "How are you going to pay the mortgage on your own?"

"What mortgage?"

"You know – the one on the house," Lars said helpfully.

Leela glared at him. "You're giving me the house?" she said in disbelief. "Lars! I cheated on you! Stop giving me stuff!"

"Why?" Lars challenged her. "I don't want it." Not without you, anyway. "And I lied to you. That's got to be as bad as cheating," he argued. "I didn't mean to do it, but I hurt you, and I want to make that right."

Leela's resolution seemed to waver, and she sighed.

"Fine," she said at last. "I'll keep the house, but I won't take any alimony."

They stared at each other for a long moment, but when she wanted to be, Leela could be at least as stubborn as Lars himself. Before long he realized he had no choice but to succumb to the stalemate and give her what she wanted - even if what she wanted wasn't what was best for her.

Leela filled in the details he'd forgotten at the top of the form, and then she slotted the papers back into the tube and sealed it.

"I'll send it off this afternoon," she promised.

"And then what? We just wait to be divorced?" Lars asked.

"Pretty much."

"Well . . ." Lars stuck his hand out across the table. "It was nice being married to you."

Leela put her hand in his cautiously.

"It was nice being married to you too," she said. She sounded sad.

They both stood up in the same awkward, abrupt moment – then realized their hands were still clasped. Leela broke off the handshake, blushing pink.

"I have to go," she said. She stumbled free of her chair and turned away from him in one quick movement.

Lars didn't try and stop her. If he did, he was afraid he'd see she was crying, and there wouldn't be a thing he could do about it – because it was all his fault.

Amy was cleaning up something gloopy and glowing when he got back to the lab.

"Don't ask," she said, and Lars decided he was happy not to.

"Where's the Professor?" he asked her instead.

She shrugged. "I think he's in the observatory. How'd it go with Leela?"

"We're getting divorced."

"Oh, man. I'm sorry."

Lars nodded.

"Actually . . . I wanted to ask you something," he said slowly.

Amy straightened up. "What, like another favor?" she said.

"Yeah. I need a place to stay. You don't have to say yes, I know it's a big ask. But I can't go home, and I can't stay here. I could ask Dr Cahill, but she's my boss. That could be a little weird."

Amy snorted. "Um, Lars? Leela would go apeshit if you moved in with her. She hates Dr Good'n'Sexy."

"She does?"

The intern laughed. "Um, yeah."

"Oh." Lars couldn't say he'd ever noticed this, but Amy seemed pretty certain. He'd been more worried about Cahill putting him in the nuthouse, but from the sound of it, he'd dodged more than one bullet with that idea. He wondered vaguely what it was Leela hated about Dr Cahill. "Well . . . I don't really have anywhere else to go," he admitted.

Amy sighed.

"You are so clueless," she said pityingly. "Seriously."

She patted him on the shoulder, and seemed to come to a decision.

"Okay. You can stay with me, but you ought to know – Leela will drag you out of there by your ears as soon as she finds out."

"You think?"

"Oh yeah." Amy shook her head in disbelief and turned back to her work. "I'll take you home with me tonight, but I have to finish up here first." She shooed him away with her hands. "So go, clear out for a few hours, okay?"

Talking to the Professor turned out to be pretty pointless, as he'd forgotten who Lars was. Lars decided against explaining again – the old man would probably just insist on taking a fresh sample of his blood, and the crook of Lars' arm was still black with bruises from his last short-sighted attempt. His memory would likely return in a few days anyway.

Fry didn't show up for work and Leela didn't return, so Lars spent the afternoon watching tv on the couch, and wondering how far from home Nibbler was by now, and how soon he might be back. He really didn't want to have to tell Leela her pet was gone.

Amy clocked out at five and let him walk her home.

"I would let you sleep on the couch," she said brightly, as she led him into her apartment, "but Bender likes to have sex on it. So I hope this is okay. It's just the guest room and it's not decorated or anything, but I think there's a fold-out in here somewhere. Or a futon. I don't know, I don't come in here much."

She unlocked a door at the end of the hall and flicked on the light. The room this revealed was tiny, and crammed ceiling-high with stuff. Boxes, pictures, giant stuffed toys, a scale model of the universe . . . . Lars inched his way inside and lifted the lid of a nearby box. It turned out it contained unlaundered DOOP uniforms, romantic holo-records, and a giant, sticky candy heart. Printed neatly on the top were the words "Memories of Kif".

"This is where I keep all my memories of Kif," Amy said, unnecessarily. "You won't mess anything up, will you?" she asked nervously.

"Oh. No. Not at all," Lars assured her. "Er, what's the sme-"

"Ambergris."

"Right. Right."

Amy checked her watch.

"Well, I have to go – Bender and I are testing some new hardware at his place, if you know what I mean."

She winked.

Lars put this image together in his head, and immediately scrubbed it out again.

"Sure," he said quickly. "Have fun."

"I always do!" Amy chirped. "Don't wait up!"

She waved once, and then she left him.

Lars found the futon easily enough. It wasn't all that comfortable, but his old hammock on the Planet Express ship had been worse. He shoved a stuffed frog into a "Kif Me Quick" t-shirt, and wedged it under his head for a pillow. It didn't help much with the pain in his neck, but it was better than nothing.

There was a stack of books beside his elbow. The top one caught his eye and he reached out for it.

It was Webster's Dictionary (75th edition).

There was a note in the inside cover.

My dearest Amy,

All the words in this dictionary can't express my devotion to you.

Love,

Your Kiffy.

Lars pulled a face. That was unbelievably sappy.

Leela would have laughed.

The realization he couldn't just tell her and hear her laugh hurt. Still, with Nibbler gone, the dictionary was probably his best shot at an explanation, so he turned to the first page.

Aardvark : a large burrowing nocturnal mammal (Orycteropus afer) of sub-Saharan Africa that has a long snout, extensible tongue, powerful claws, large ears, and heavy tail and feeds especially on termites and ants . . .

Lars groaned. He could feel his attention wandering already. This was going to be hard-going, especially if all the chapters were as boring as this one. And was it just his imagination, or did all the words on this page begin with 'a'?

He sighed, and wondered vaguely how long it would take him to reach the word 'progeny'.