A / N : Thanks gertie345!

"Meatbag! Hey, meatbag. Wake up!"

Someone was shaking him by the shoulder. Bender, Fry realized. He wondered dimly why the robot was trying to wake him up. He was awake already. His eyes were open anyway, even if he wasn't seeing all that much.

He blinked.

He was sitting on the couch, staring into space. He felt dizzy, and when he swallowed his throat was dry and sore, like he'd been crying.

Oh, man.

"How long were you shaking me for?" he managed.

Bender shrugged.

"Dunno. A while. You were pretty out of it." The robot lit a cigar and settled back against the couch. "So what gives?"

"Nothing," Fry mumbled.

He didn't remember Leela leaving. He didn't remember much after he told her to leave, now he thought about it. It had hurt too much.

Bender whistled.

He didn't have to say it for Fry to get the message : I think you're nuts.

"If you say so, buddy. I only ask because while you were out of it on hormones or whatever you humans got, someone did a number on the apartment. Trashed the joint."

"Huh?"

Bender put a hand on the back of his neck and swung his room-mate's head 180 degrees, first one way, then the other, allowing Fry to take in the mess.

The delivery boy shook himself.

"Uh . . . I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, but I think . . . I think maybe it was me." He hung his head. "Did I wreck anything good?"

"Nah. Mostly just your crap. Oh, and this thing."

Bender waved something briefly in the air and dropped it out of sight again.

"What thing?" Fry asked.

The robot coughed again and tried to pass it off as a vigorous puff of his cigar.

"Hey," he said quickly. "Let's go shopping for a new TV. And by shopping, I mean stealing. I want to watch All My Circuits in Smell-o-vision."

This was unusually evasive for Bender. Fry narrowed his eyes, feeling suddenly nervous.

"What was the thing?" he persisted.

Bender held his gaze for about thirty seconds before giving in.

"Aw, fine," he muttered. "Stupid meatbags with their stupid emotions . . . It was this."

He dipped his arm over the edge of the couch again and came up holding the shards of Fry's holophonor. He dumped them in his friend's lap and moved a hasty six inches to the left. Fry ignored him.

The holophonor was beyond repair.

Fry ran his thumb over one jagged purple splinter, lost in thought. He had bought the instrument years ago, back when parasitic worms had overhauled his body and mind, and he could actually play the thing. That was the first time he'd been able to put words to the way he felt about Leela, and the first time she had ever looked at him as someone who could make her happy. But not knowing if she loved him or just the perfect thing the worms had made him into had freaked Fry out. He'd never been able to play it after that – until he swapped the Robot Devil's hands for his. That had been incredible. He'd been himself, but for the first time his hands could keep up with the music in his head. They'd moved faster than thought, pulling the feelings from somewhere inside him and turning them to chords, to pictures, to words - to everything he really felt, in a way someone else could understand. He had always felt closer to Leela when they didn't use words, and the holophonor . . . maybe it was just an instrument, but it felt like it understood that somehow. Better than that, it made Leela understand.

He knew why he'd destroyed it – because now Leela did understand, and it didn't matter.

Bender intruded hesitantly on his thoughts.

"Sorry, buddy."

That was weird, because Fry was pretty sure Bender had been built without an empathy chip. It wasn't like him to care, unless it was his own feelings that got hurt.

Fry tossed the holophonor to one side and stood up.

"Let's go," he said.

"Go where? TV stealing?"

Fry shook his head.

"No," he said feverishly. "Let's just go. Somewhere, anywhere, I don't care. You've always wanted to go on an intergalactic crime spree, right? And I haven't even seen one tenth of the universe. I mean, there must be a billion planets I've never been to. A billion bars you've never been to. So let's just go!"

"We'd be like Bonnie and Clyde," Bender mused. "You'd be Bonnie."

"Yeah! C'mon!"

Bender sighed. "I can't, buddy. Maybe some other time."

"What? Why not?" Fry bounced up and down on his heels, agitated. "You said you wanted to!"

"Yeah, but I can't. I'm this close to sealing the deal with Amy. I'd be crazy to walk out on her now."

"What? But – but – you don't even love her!" Fry protested.

Bender rolled his eyes.

"Fry, I'm this close to becoming a millionaire without doing a thing. I'll never have an opportunity this great again! I don't even have to plan a heist! I'd be a chump to give it up now." He shrugged. "Anyways, I like Amy. She's cute and she's nasty."

Fry deflated. "Okay," he mumbled. "I get it."

He should have known Bender wouldn't agree. Fry might be his friend, but in Bender's eyes no-one mattered more than numero uno : Bender. There was no way Fry could compete with a share in the Wong family fortune. And definitely no way he was sleeping with Bender, so Amy trumped him twice over.

Still, the robot did seem kind of sorry about it.

"You want a beer?" he asked. Sharing his beer was the closest Bender got to being selfless.

"I guess."

Fry cracked open the proffered can and sucked at the froth that welled up.

"I'm going to clear my head," he announced. "You can call my cell if you need me or whatever."

Bender looked at him askance but didn't say anything. Not that there was anything he could say. He'd never really got Fry's feelings for Leela. He thought love was like a bug in your system ; a meme you played out over and over until the obsession wore off. He'd never understand how someone could get inside your head and become impossible to live without. There was no way he'd understand how Fry felt alone without Leela, like the best part of himself was missing. How nothing was the same without her. How everything was just better when she was there, and hollow when she wasn't.

And he'd never know what it was like to love someone so much you were willing to leave them.

The night air stung his cheeks when he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Fall was definitely on the way ; Fry couldn't remember the last time he'd needed a jacket at night. (He usually wore his anyway, but he didn't actually need to. He just liked it.)

He walked without paying any heed to his surroundings. The background buzz of New New York went on around him. The swish and pop of transport tubes, the humming of a nearby hovercar, the hookers yelling obscenities . . . normally he found it comforting, but right now he hated it. Right now he hated everything.

"I hate my life," he mumbled, throwing his head back. "I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life . . ."

It wasn't completely true, but it was a better mantra than the one really running around his brain, which was I love Leela. So he stuck to it.

He stared up at the sky, letting it suck him in. How many stars were up there, anyway? How many planets? He wondered how long you could run for if you started, and how far you could get.

The delivery boy smiled grimly.

What the hell. He might as well start running.

He took off his jacket, shivering in the cool air, and tied it round his waist. Then he pulled a pen from his pocket and looked down at his chest. He chewed his cheek, concentrating on getting the letters right upside-down.

A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E, he wrote.

Fry examined his handiwork, shrugged, and stepped up to the kerb.

He stuck out his thumb.