Leela lay staring up at the ceiling. She should get up, she knew, but a kind of inertia had settled over her, an unwillingness to move that bordered on paralysis.

It didn't seem to affect the mutants. But then, it wouldn't. The siege was nothing new for them, just an extension of the existence they'd always known. They were hungry and stressed, but they didn't feel trapped in the sewer the way Leela did, because they'd never left it. Fresh air and open skies were foreign concepts here. Even her parents didn't view them as necessary - though they seemed to realize such things were necessary to Leela, and that she was suffering without them. They knew it, but they didn't understand it, and on some level that made the feeling worse. It reminded her that she shouldn't be feeling this way – that feeling this way was the result of a privilege no-one else in the sewer had ever known.

Unfortunately self-awareness didn't do anything to banish the feeling. Leela still felt like she was suffocating ninety per cent of the time. She longed to take deeper breaths; to wake up when it was light and fall asleep when it was dark; to eat food that didn't taste like wet mud. She missed wind and rain and late fall humidity; storms rolling in and stars on a clear night; and the knowledge that she could go somewhere else, if she wanted to. In the sewer she felt unmoored and uncertain, cut off from the rest of the world. It was a feeling she hated and did her best to hide from the mutants, but sometimes it rolled over her in waves and threatened to sink her.

She coped by allowing it to take her over sometimes. Not often, and never for long. But first thing in the morning or last thing at night, when she was alone, she would lie like this and let herself feel it. It was ten minutes or half an hour of self-pity, carefully rationed out and savored before she shut it up again. It helped keep her sane.

More rarely, but for the same reason, she let herself miss Fry.

But only certain aspects of Fry. Leela was painfully aware that if she let herself dwell on the things she loved about him – or on specific memories, on her own mistakes – she might never resurface. Not while he was beyond her reach and she was already teetering on the brink of mental exhaustion.

At some point, however, her subconscious had come up with a protective work-around. She could think of Fry and not lose her mind, she had realized, if she dwelled on all the things that annoyed her most about him. It was an extensive list, and she was working her way through it slowly.

He's rash, she thought now. He acts first and thinks later.

He can't manage money, even when Bender isn't stealing it from him.

He'll borrow twenty dollars and pay you back in twenty dollar's worth of scratch cards, and somehow think that counts as interest.

She felt herself relax a little.

He eats nothing but junk. His main food groups are sugar, salt, and artificial additives.

It never occurs to him to pick anything up if he can leave it on the floor instead.

He doesn't even try to dress like he's from this millennium.

He can spend four hours straight playing video games. Without moving at all. It's unhealthy.

He was turned on by the sight of you in, respectively: grease-stained overalls, sweaty gym clothes, and a nightshirt that had no shape whatsoever. That can't be normal.

He confuses you.

You love him.

Leela groaned softly. This last point was more a flaw of hers than Fry's, and it came up every time. It was the stop signal from her brain, the red flag that meant she was getting close to the wrong memories. It meant the end of this brief respite from reality.

She rolled onto her side and was presented with another uncomfortable reminder of reality, in the form of her protruding stomach. Munda's bulky sweaters still hid it well, but without them there was no hiding the fact that she was pregnant. She could no longer pass it off as a big lunch or a lax workout regimen. She stood up and stared at herself in the mirror, sighing. That was a ball of baby, no doubt about it.

She put a hand to her stomach and the baby exploded in a riot of kicking. This was a recent development. Leela felt as if it had come on overnight – as if she had woken up one day and the baby decided to go from passive passenger in her uterus to very (very) active companion. Munda insisted this wasn't the case – that what Leela had dismissed for weeks as weird intestinal rumblings had in fact been the baby moving – but Leela hadn't noticed it. And now all of a sudden she did.

Because now this baby moved all the time. It looked as if Leela's fitness-wired brain and Fry's hyperactivity were a nightmare combination. They had produced a baby that hated its mother to stay still for any amount of time, and liked to practice Arcturan Kung-Fu moves in the womb. (Or so it felt.) If Leela hadn't been seriously insomniac already, this might have been a major problem. As it was she mostly lay awake at night now and let the baby tumble around, feeling glad at least one of them was having fun.

"Alright, alright. We're up," she chided it now. "You can knock it off."

This earned her an excited flurry of kicks in response. The baby seemed to like her voice. More than that, it seemed able to pick up on her tone, and kicked up a storm whenever she spoke fondly to it. It also went nuts whenever it heard Lars talk, which might have had something to do with the effect he had on Leela (the sudden guilty increase in her heartbeat and the occasional rush of hormones could hardly fail to get through to the baby) and which Leela tried very hard to ignore. It didn't help anyone.

She pulled on her boots and walked down the hallway.

Lars was asleep on the couch.

This wasn't unusual for him. Everyone in the sewer was rostered for some duty designed to see them through the siege, and Lars pulled nights more often than not. He spent them guarding manholes or helping Skreem at the med center, and caught up on the missed sleep later on. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and the lines on his forehead had grown more pronounced as the weeks passed.

Leela watched him frown in his sleep. She picked up a cushion and gently eased it under his neck, trying to make him more comfortable without waking him, but he clearly hadn't been sleeping deeply – his eyelids flickered at her touch and he blinked up at her.

"Leela?" he mumbled.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"Mmpff." Lars rubbed a hand over his face. "I wasn't really sleeping."

He yawned and propped himself up on his elbows.

"Where were you?" Leela asked.

"Guarding." Lars yawned again. "Guard duty. All quiet," he said, preempting her next question. "Nothing happened."

"Good."

"Your mom's in the kitchen. For breakfast. She left you a new sweater."

Lars indicated a soft bundle balanced on the arm of the couch. Leela unfolded it to find a floppy lilac sweater big enough to fit Leela and at least one other person. There was a lurid yellow sun embroidered on the front. It was wearing sunglasses, and looked a lot like the logo from a bottle of after-sun.

It probably was.

"She thinks you miss the surface," Lars explained.

Leela stared down at the stupid smiling sun. A lump formed inexplicably in her throat.

"I do."

Her honesty surprised even her. It seemed to surprise Lars too. He must have grown used to her shutting him out and insisting she was fine, because he didn't seem to know what to do with the truth. He stared at her for a long moment, then he blinked and recovered himself enough to shift up on the couch, leaving space for Leela to sit down.

"I miss it too." He sighed. "They blocked up the manholes. You can't see the stars anymore."

"I know."

There was an awkward silence.

"You look tired," Lars said at last.

Leela snorted.

"So do you."

To her surprise, Lars laughed.

"I'm old," he joked. "What's your excuse?"

Leela let her head fall back on the couch and shut her eye.

"Stress," she listed. "The safety of the entire mutant population resting in my hands. This baby kicking me all night long. Take your pick."

"It moves? The baby?"

Leela opened her eye to find Lars staring at her in fascination.

"It moves," she said drily. "It never stops."

The baby kicked her to punctuate the point.

Leela winced, and Lars caught the change in her expression.

"Did it just – ? It kicked you!" He reached out a hand, then stopped and hurriedly dropped it again. "Sorry."

He looked away.

There was another excruciating silence.

Lars jumped when Leela took his hand. She settled his palm against her stomach before she could talk herself out of it.

"Leela -"

"Wait." It was the only word she trusted herself to say with her heart pounding against her ribs. "Wait."

For a long moment all she could hear was Lars's slow breathing and the pulse in her ears. And then -

The baby kicked against his hand, and Lars jumped again.

He looked up at her, dazed.

"It - ?"

Leela nodded.

"Wow. I . . . wow." Lars stared at her stomach in wonder. "That's incredible," he breathed.

"I know."

Leela didn't trust herself to speak in anything other than short sentences. Her hand was still resting on top of his, but she couldn't bring herself to move it. It had been a long time since she let anyone touch her, and longer still since she let anyone touch her like this – with this careful reverence, as if her body was something awe-inspiring.

"Leela! You're up!"

Munda's voice shattered the moment.

Lars dropped his hand and Leela felt hers fall away too, felt that invisible bubble of loneliness close over her again. She scooped up the sweater and tugged it over her head, twisting it round so the embroidered sun faced the front. The sweater was hideous, but the thick wool formed a reassuring barrier between her and the rest of the world. When Lars touched her arm to thank her, she hardly felt it. She was safe again, insulated against any tenderness he might send her way.

"Hi, Mom," she said tiredly. "Thanks for the sweater."

"Oh, you're welcome, honey. I get so bored some nights, sitting up waiting for you all to come home. Knitting passes the time nicely." She patted Leela on the shoulder. "It's the least I can do, with my hip the way it is." She rubbed the joint miserably.

Chronic hip pain made it hard for Munda to stand or sit for long periods of time, and had effectively disqualified her from guard duty. Her guilt over this only made Leela angrier at the surface. Up there, she would have been able to get a hip replacement years ago. The professor had had nineteen of them in the time Leela had known him, but Munda was still suffering through restricted movement and downplaying her pain. It was unjust.

"Guard duty isn't everything," Leela reassured her. "You do plenty to help out, Mom." She forced a smile. "And what's this I hear about breakfast?"

Munda's returning smile was genuine.

"It's waiting for you. Lars, can I get you anything? There's some coffee in the pot, I'd be happy to share."

"No thanks, Munda." Lars had already settled back on the couch. "I was just getting to sleep, actually."

He hugged the cushion Leela had given him and rolled over, burying his face in it to smother a yawn.

"Then we'll leave you to it," Munda declared.

She led Leela off into the kitchen, where what passed for breakfast these days was waiting on the table.

It was a fresh-mixed glass of chewy powdered milk, and peanut butter spread on graham crackers. Leela didn't even have to look to know. The menu had been the same thing for nearly three weeks now. It was this for breakfast, then crocodile meat soaked in warm water for lunch (which Munda optimistically referred to as "stew"), followed by a canned good pot luck for dinner. Last night it had been canned peaches; the night before that, beef ravioli. And three meals a day was only for those lucky enough to be designated a vulnerable group – children, pregnant women, the very elderly, and the sick or injured. Everyone else skipped breakfast in favor of strong coffee, the grounds of which were constantly recycled.

Leela didn't blame Lars for turning down his. It was the tenth morning in a row Munda had brewed this same pot.

Leela watched her mother drink – small sips, making it last longer – and felt the familiar rage rise in her again. Nixon was trying to starve them out, and it was working. In another week, they'd be all out of food, and the mutants would start to think seriously about surrender. And that was the best case scenario. The worst-case - the one that had them all on edge and pulling double guard duty - was the fear that Nixon wouldn't wait for a surrender, that he would attack before then and they wouldn't be strong enough to fight him off.

Munda was chattering about something that was clearly supposed to take Leela's mind off her current woes – the difficulty of getting yellow wool or something along those lines – but Leela was finding it hard to focus. She chewed obligingly on her milk concoction and nodded every now and again to make it look like she was listening, but her mind had strayed to siege tactics, weaponry, and provisions, the way it always did. How long could they last, how best could they ration the food, how could they defend themselves if even one manhole was breached? The same questions, spinning round and round in her mind.

She swallowed the last mouthful of cracker, dabbed up the crumbs with her finger, and then pushed the plate back to her mother and stood up.

"I'm going to check on our defenses. See if we can reinforce them somehow."

Munda paled.

"You think they'll attack again."

It didn't sound like a question, but Leela answered anyway.

"I think we should be ready," she said grimly. "For whatever might happen."

In the gray-green light the streets were still.

Leela stuck to the shadows out of habit, fingers curled around the harpoon she was carrying. Weapons were running low, and what the mutants had been able to fashion from scrap – longbows, spears, and machetes – were given to those on guard as first priority. Leela's blaster was useless. Without solar energy to refuel it, it ran down too quickly and took too long to recharge using the sewer's ancient generators. Not to mention the fact that it was a selfish use of their power. A beam of white hot light strong enough to kill a man instantly was undoubtedly useful, but it was an energy hog and nine times out of ten the same result could be achieved with sharpened shrapnel. So Leela had given it up, and raided the fishing stores for weapons.

She was almost to the lake when it happened – a flash of blue light that shuttered on and off in an alleyway, stopping her in her tracks.

She tightened her grip on the harpoon and inched forward, squinting into the dark. Her night vision had improved in the absence of natural light, but she had her limits.

"Who's there?" she called, ducking out of the line of fire. "Show yourself or I'll gut you like a fish!"

She rattled the harpoon against the wall to show how serious she was. There was a scuffle, the sound of movement coming her way . . .

Leela thrust the harpoon out at shoulder height, and there was a screech of metal on metal.

"Hey!" a familiar voice yelled out. "What's the big idea, eyeball?"

"Bender?"

"The one and only."

Leela reeled the robot in and unhooked him, staring at him in disbelief.

"What are you doing, skulking around like that? We're in the middle of a siege – I was this close to slicing a hole in you."

Bender rolled his optics at her.

"That would only be a threat to you puny fleshbags. A scratch like that wouldn't even slow me down," he bragged. "And some of us like to skulk around in the dark. Beats lookin' at all the ugly faces around here."

"Those are my people," Leela said coldly.

"Then you won the uggo lottery."

"Bender."

"What?"

Leela sighed.

"Forget it," she said wearily. "What was that blue light?"

"What light?"

"The light. It flashed, back there. Right before you came out." Leela frowned. "You didn't see it?"

Bender made a siren sound and corkscrewed a finger by the side of his temple.

Leela scowled.

"I'm not crazy," she protested. "I saw it. How did you not see it?"

"You're losing it. That's how."

Leela shook her head.

"Shine some light back there," she ordered. "I know I saw something."

"You're the boss, whacko."

Bender pulled a flashlight out of his compartment and shone it into the alley. There was nothing to see but a rusted barrel dripping sewer slime, and a stack of crumpled cardboard boxes.

"See? Nothin'. That huge eyeball of yours is malfunctioning," he said, sounding bored.

"I . . . I guess it must be."

Leela retreated, discomfited. But as Bender went to stow the flashlight back in his compartment, something else caught her eye.

It was Bender. The robot's chassis was scratched and dented, and his usually shiny top coat had been buffed dull. Even his optics seemed dimmer than usual, and there were the beginnings of a rusty beard creeping along his jawline.

"What happened to you?" Leela asked, concerned. "You look terrible."

The light flicked off, and Bender tossed it back in his compartment.

"Right back atcha."

"Bender, I'm serious."

"Me too, meatbag. You're turning into a parade float."

Leela pinched the bridge of her nose.

"For the hundredth time," she explained. "I'm pregnant. I'm supposed to look like this."

Bender made a scornful sound and tugged on the hem of her sweater.

"No-one is supposed to look like that, eyeball. Ever heard of a little thing called style?"

Leela gave up.

"Well, it's been a pleasure," she said. "But unless you have something useful to tell me, I'll be on my way."

"Fine by me," Bender retorted. "I didn't come to see you anyway."

This baffled Leela, until she realized Amy must be somewhere in the sewer. Apparently Amy and Bender were still "a happening thing", as Fry would have put it.

She turned to go – and was shocked when metal arms clamped tight around her and crushed her tight.

"I – what? What are you . . ." Leela squirmed uncomfortably. "Bender – are you hugging me?"

"No. Up yours, meatbag."

Bender's voice was muffled by her shoulder.

"Why are you hugging me?" Leela asked, mystified.

She'd always found Bender hard to work out – understanding the robot's mood swings had been Fry's department, not hers – but this sudden display of affection made no sense at all. Even by Bender's standards.

"I'm not," Bender responded, in total defiance of the facts. "Screw you."

He poked her in the stomach and laughed uproariously when the baby poked back.

"What's gotten into you?" Leela tried to pull back and look him in the face, but Bender's metal arms were unyielding. "Are you sure you've had enough to drink?" she asked at last.

"Yeah . . . yeah, that's it. I'm sober," Bender mumbled. He hugged her tighter, like a child reunited with a favorite toy. "Just so you know, I like you even when you're a grade A nut job," he assured her.

"That's . . . good to know."

"You're my third favorite human."

"I . . . thank you."

"You're alright. You're not the greatest, but you're alright."

"You're alright too." Leela patted the robot awkwardly on the shoulder. "Though I think you could use a drink."

"I got you candy," Bender said suddenly. He pressed a packet into her hands, and Leela felt tiny pellets of candy roll around inside. "Reese's Pieces. They're your favorite."

They weren't, but lately Leela's sugar cravings had been borderline satanic, and nothing in the sewer could satisfy them.

"Thank you," she said, pocketing this bizarre gift instead of pointing that out. "That's very sweet of you."

"The hell it is." On this tender note, Bender finally released her. "Later, loser," he said.

He walked off without a backward glance, leaving Leela staring after him with a crumpled packet of candy in her hand, utterly confused by the whole encounter.

This early in the day, Lake Mutagenic was as smooth as glass. Leela wandered down the shoreline, her mind churning.

Bender's sudden appearance had reminded her of another potential problem. She couldn't keep allowing him and Amy into the sewer. They had both been staunch allies, and provided her with invaluable updates on the situation above ground, but it was just too risky to allow any breach in their defenses. Not when an attack could come any day now.

She'd have to talk to them, let them know that they had helped as much as they could for the time being. It was a conversation Leela wasn't looking forward to. She hadn't spoken to Amy since their argument the day Kif visited the sewer, and Bender was being downright weird. But it had to be done.

She sighed, and was about to head for UnderCity Hall when something caught her eye.

There was a small figure standing on the jetty, leaning out over the water. Skreem. She had one arm wrapped around the end post, and as Leela watched, she raised the other and sent a stone skimming across the surface. It skipped three times and then sank, and the girl's breath hitched in a sob.

"Skreem? What's wrong?"

Leela kept her voice soft, afraid the mutant girl might topple into the water if she startled her.

Skreem jumped anyway. She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

"N – nothing," she said unconvincingly.

"I know that's not true. You're crying."

Skreem took a big, shaky gulp of air.

"You can't help," she gasped. "No-one can."

She leaned out a little further over the water, staring into its murky depths as if they might contain answers.

Leela reached out, as slowly as she could.

"Why don't you come home with me?" she said. "If I can't help you, I'm sure Lars can. He cares about you. I know he'd hate to see you so upset."

Skreem flinched.

"No! I can't see Mr Filmore."

She shook her head violently and Leela frowned.

"Why not?"

"Because he - he's too nice. He says I can come live with him on the surface, when this is all over, and I – I want that. I want to be who he thinks I am, because it would be easy, and nice, and – and it's all I ever wanted. I could have a real family."

The passion of this statement swung Skreem dangerously far over the edge. She could swim, of course – all mutants could, Lars was the only person in the whole sewer who would be in real trouble if he fell in – but Skreem was obviously emotionally vulnerable, and Leela didn't want her to go under.

"I know how that feels," she admitted, and when Skreem turned round to look at her in surprise, she caught the little mutant girl's arm. "Why don't we sit down?"

There was a pause, but then Skreem folded her knees obediently and sat down, her feet dangling over the edge. It was more secure than her previous position, but Leela held onto her arm when she sat down next to her anyway. Just in case.

"How do you know how I feel?" Skreem asked nervously.

"We're not so different," Leela admitted. "When I was your age I was lonely too. I hated the way I looked. I dreamed of finding my parents. I grew up too fast because it seemed like the only way to get the world to take me seriously, but deep down all I wanted was not to have to be responsible for once in my life." She hesitated. "Is that close to how you feel?"

Skreem nodded.

"That's what I want," she whispered. "But I can't have it."

"Why not?"

Skreem picked at the scaly flesh on the back of her hand.

"Bad things will happen," she mumbled. "People will get hurt. They'll die."

Leela blinked.

"Skreem," she said carefully. "This siege has been hard on all of us. It gets inside your head, I know that. But you can't let it." She touched the girl's hand, feeling scales rasp beneath her fingertips. "We won't be under attack forever. I'm going to get us out of here, I promise you. You'll get to the surface, and all of this will seem like a bad dream." She rubbed Skreem's arm, in what she hoped was a soothing motion. "Lars will look after you," she continued. "He's good at that. It's a different world up there, you'll see. You can be a teenager on the surface. Go to the movies and pierce your bellybutton and do everything teenagers are supposed to do. And Lars will go easy on you because he's soft." She smiled. "It won't be a fairy tale ending, but you'll have family. We'll be family. And that's what's important. That's what you have to remember."

Skreem went very still.

"You – you'd want us to be family? Me and – and your baby?"

"Of course. You're . . . you're very sweet. And very brave. But now I need you to stay brave and keep it together."

"I'm trying."

"I know. So – why don't you tell me what's so bad even Lars can't make you feel better?"

Skreem stared out over the water. In this light, the reflection of the lake made her eyes look glassy and distant.

"I have to do something," she said quietly. "And I'm scared I can't do it right. But it has to be me."

Leela frowned. This, she thought to herself, was why it was a bad idea to put a fourteen year old to work in a hospital. It was all the girl had ever known, but that didn't mean she could cope with a level of stress most adults would balk at.

The right thing would have been to take her away from all that, the way Lars kept trying to. But Leela couldn't do that, for the same reason the mutants were letting Skreem work in the first place. She needed her. Nixon's next attack could come any day now, and when it did the mutant medi-center would fill up with casualties, no matter how well they fought. Taking Skreem off medical duty would mean they were short-staffed, and the center was already near capacity.

Leela was painfully aware that she was sacrificing Skreem for the greater good, but she couldn't see an alternative. One girl's mental health, or an unknown number of innocent lives. It was a cruel choice. But Skreem was young and she would recover. The mutants who might lose their lives without her never would.

"Sometimes, I wish I was someone else," Skreem said softly. "A real kid, like Mr Filmore thinks I am. Because then I wouldn't understand responsibility. I wouldn't know I need to do this, because no-one else can, and helping someone when they need it is more important than how you feel. Because if you can help someone and you run away, that makes you as bad as the person who hurt them. Doesn't it?"

"Not as bad," Leela corrected. "But it's not good, no." She sighed. "I know you're scared, Skreem. And I don't blame you. You're being starved and threatened, and you've seen things you should never have had to see. It's not fair on you. But it's the way it has to be, for now. We have to have this war, now, so we can get to the surface in the future. "

Skreem nodded slowly.

"Sometimes, at the hospital, a limb gets so infected we have to cut it off. And the patient always screams at us not to do it, because it hurts so much and they're scared. But after, they get better. And they're still alive."

"That's a lot like what I'm trying to say, yes."

"It's the ending that matters," Skreem went on. "The big picture."

"The big picture," Leela affirmed.

Mutant rights. Safety for her baby. That was Leela's big picture. It was what she clung to when she faltered, what she used to force herself on when exhaustion began to overtake her anger.

Fry and Lars fit into this future too somehow, but it was never clear how. She wanted them both happy, and safe – that much she knew. Any desires beyond that were dangerous territory, and Leela was careful to repress them.

"I know it's hard," she told Skreem. "But it won't be forever. And if you're afraid, or tired, remember that. Remember what we're fighting for."

Skreem nodded, the action as small and serious as the girl herself. She looked heartened, resolved in a way she hadn't when Leela first sat her down. Leela could only hope that meant her advice had helped. The church bells were ringing – the call for the war council to meet – and she couldn't stay to offer more comfort.

"I have to go," she said, helping the little girl to her feet. "Why don't you go see my mom? She's knitting scarves for the winter, and I know she'd love your help."

This was stretching the truth, but Leela knew she'd get away with it. Munda had been trying to teach her to knit for years. She'd be thrilled to have a new pupil, and it would keep Skreem's spirits up.

Skreem nodded again.

"Okay."

"Good. I'll find you later -" Leela started to say, but Skreem interrupted her.

"Can I borrow your sweater?" she blurted out. She bit her bottom lip, embarrassed. "I'm – I'm cold."

"Oh." Leela blinked. "I – of course."

Skreem had never given much indication she felt the cold before, but it looked like she had been by the lake a while, and cold did rise up off the water. And it wasn't as if Leela needed to hide her pregnancy from anyone here in the sewer. It had stopped being hot gossip among the mutants weeks ago.

She peeled off the sweater and handed it over. Skreem was swamped by it, but she seemed stronger when she put it on. She touched the embroidered sun, as carefully as if it radiated real heat.

"Thank you," she said solemnly. "I'll take good care of it, I promise."

The bells rang out again.

Leela sighed.

It's just a sweater, she thought, struck once again by how strange Skreem could be.

"I know you will. We'll talk later, okay?"

Leela walked off, and the gloom of the sewer swallowed her up. Skreem watched her go, gnawing on her lower lip.

The skin of her cheeks was cracking where her tears had dried.

One hour, he'd said. One hour to decide. And now her time was up.

She turned and left the lake behind, tracing the path Leela had taken from the Turangas' house. It would be so easy, she thought, to carry on walking. To follow the path Leela had laid out for her.

But it wasn't her path. Not any more.

"Be brave," she whispered to herself. "Big picture. Be brave."

He was waiting for her in the alley, just like he'd said he would be.

He was sitting on a trash can, drinking something greenish-brown and sour-smelling out of a glass bottle.

Sewer hooch.

It didn't belong to him.

He glugged from the bottle as she approached, but otherwise didn't seem to register her presence. When she stopped in front of him, he lowered the bottle and looked her up and down.

"So?"

Skreem took a deep breath.

"What – what you showed me," she stammered. "Was it – is it going to be real? Will it really happen?"

"I'm a bending unit, not a VFX studio." When Skreem only stared blankly at him, he took another swig of hooch. "It's the real deal, scaley."

Skreem chewed at her lip again, bit hard enough that she tasted blood.

"And we can fix it?" she said urgently. "If I do what you say?"

The robot stood up. His eyes glowed dim yellow in the shadows.

"If you do what I say, it never happens." He held out the bottle. "So. You in or you out?"

Skreem took the bottle and swallowed a huge gulp of the contents. It burned the back of her throat and made her cough furiously.

"I'll . . . come," she gasped.

"Good." The robot retrieved the bottle and stowed it away inside his chest. He frowned down at her, noticing what she wearing for the first time. "What's with the dorky get-up?"

Skreem tugged self-consciously at the hem of the sweater.

"It's Leela's," she said simply. "It smells like her."

Bender tilted his head to the side.

"What is it with you biological creatures and smells?"

Skreem shrugged, a tiny twitch of her shoulders to indicate that she couldn't explain.

The robot let it be. He held out his hand instead, and Skreem took it, the way she had before. His palms were cool metal, his fingers impossibly strong. He was her anchor, the thing that would stop her dissolving in the stream.

It wouldn't be so bad this time, she told herself. Not now she knew what was coming.

And it would only be one journey.

This time, she wouldn't come back.

She tightened her grip on the robot's hand as he began to chant out loud.

"One one zero zero one one . . ."

The blue bubble enfolded them as he spoke. Skreem kept her eyes open, squinting through the haze. She couldn't look away from this portion of the sewer, this dank alleyway that would be the last glimpse she ever had of home. She wanted to absorb every detail, to never forget.

She wished she could have seen Mr Filmore one last time. She wished she'd been strong enough for that.

"Zero zero!" the robot concluded.

The sphere flashed blue, the liquor lurched in Skreem's stomach, and her world winked out of existence.