Bender was gone.

Even Lars could see that the robot hadn't gone anywhere they could follow, so he reluctantly allowed Leela's parents to lead him back to the hospital. Leela followed after him. Amy was supposed to be supporting her – in case the head injury made her dizzy again – but of the two women, Lars couldn't help noticing that Leela seemed the more in control. Amy looked . . . rattled.

He was starting to worry about Amy. Lately she'd been nervy and intent, fixated on this paradox thing. Lars knew how it felt to get swept up in something, but he couldn't help but feel that when you were getting three hours sleep a night and writing on all the walls, you'd crossed the line from "absorbed" to "obsessed", and someone should probably drag you away for your own good.

And then there was the other thing. The skittish way Amy looked at him and then looked away, as if she was afraid he might read something in her face. As if it hurt her to look at him too long.

Lars hadn't mentioned this to Leela. He had the feeling she wouldn't understand it. (Leela could be funny, about Amy. She might think there was some other way he wanted Amy to look at him, even if he tried to explain.) But it worried him, all the same. Strange, loaded silences were something he had only ever experienced with Leela. With Amy, it had always been easy. Amy was uncomplicated, and when he'd dated her, all those years ago, Fry had been uncomplicated too. Being around her was comfortable, and he knew she felt the same. However much they liked each other, it was a safe liking. He had never broken Amy's heart, and she had never broken his. Lars couldn't imagine a universe where they could. Heartbreak required an intensity of feeling they'd never had - at least, not for each other.

Even when he'd been Fry, Lars had never understood Leela's jealousy. He'd always thought that if she really knew him – if she really knew Amy – she would have laughed at herself. Because deep down, where it counted, he and Amy were built the same way. To love with all the crazy, reckless intensity they could summon . . .

And to only really mean it once.

They understood each other. Or at least, they had.

Lars frowned. He could feel her, watching him now, and he knew that if he turned around her eyes would dart away. It was a bad sign. And Bender's last words to her kept echoing in his head.

He's a dead man walking.

Who was? He was? That didn't make any sense.

Lars touched his throat. It ached where the kill-bot had tried to asphyxiate him. He needed the cold pack again. He needed to rest.

Leela's parents seemed to feel the same way. They led him back to his bed and Munda put him insistently into it, while Morris hurried off to find him some fresh ice. Munda sat beside him, patting his hand with a heavily-bandaged tentacle.

"There, now. You rest easy. And you – Leela!"

She sighed in exasperation. Leela was sitting on his bed, completely ignoring her own.

"You should be resting too."

Leela nodded distractedly. Her eye kept drifting to the contusions ringing Lars's throat.

"In a minute."

She shook out the ice Morris had brought and rolled it up in a towel. Then she eased it gently into position behind Lars's neck. The action felt familiar, somehow.

Lars blinked.

This morning. He'd been asleep, and Leela had put a cushion under his head. He'd convinced himself it was a dream, but now . . .

No. It wasn't.

The realization must have shown on his face because Leela hesitated, suddenly self-conscious. She still had her hands on either side of his neck, where Lars knew, logically, she was only putting the ice-pack into position . . . but where they both knew that once, she would have interlaced her fingers and pulled him down into a kiss.

That was the problem with getting too close to Leela. They had been married for two years, and in that time, sense memory developed a gravity all of its own. It pulled you in.

Lars snapped out of it. He shrugged – little more than a twitch of his shoulder, it was all he had the energy for – but it must have been enough, because Leela sighed, and the moment was safely broken.

It was probably for the best. There were some impulses it would be selfish to follow, and kissing Leela – here, now, after everything – was probably one of them.

Lars was spared the need to dwell on it.

"Back, are you?" The doctor had bustled in. "Oh, good. And you've brought me another human." She nodded at Amy. "What did I do to deserve that, I wonder?"

Leela sighed.

"Nothing. She's not a patient. She's just . . . been overdoing it, that's all. And she's had a shock. She could use something to eat."

Brynda snorted.

"Something to eat. Of course. Three more days and we'll be eating our own shoes, but I'm sure I can find something for your human friend -"

"She can have mine," Lars interrupted. He gestured at his throat. "I can't eat it. And I ate earlier."

He didn't mention the fact that he'd been living on half-rations for a week. What he didn't sneak to Amy, or couldn't convince Leela to take on top of her share, he added to Skreem's plate. If he was quick, and gave to her when she was half-asleep at the end of a shift, she didn't notice. Amy had been too intent on . . . whatever she was doing . . . to wonder where her food came from, and Leela . . . Lars thought she was starting to suspect him, but that was okay, so long as she didn't realize her parents were giving her their food too.

The doctor gave Lars a hard look that suggested she, at least, saw right through him.

"You're eating," she snapped. "I'll mash your food myself if I have to. As for you" - she rounded on Leela - "get back into bed and stay there, if you don't want me to tie you down."

Leela climbed reluctantly back into her own bed. Amy was still staring off into space, so Lars took her elbow and tugged her down onto the end of his. At least she'd be out of the way.

He nudged her.

"Are you okay?"

Amy said nothing.

Leela shifted uncomfortably in her bed.

"Look, I'm not even going to pretend to understand why you would even try and overclock Bender," she said, in a tone of voice Lars could tell she was trying hard to keep even. "Even if he told you it would work, you should know better than to believe a word that comes out of his mouth. Especially when he's trying to get something he wants. He lies, Amy. And he hasn't been right since . . ." She stopped. "Well, he hasn't been himself lately. Everyone knows that. What you did was reckless and stupid -"

"Er." Lars coughed, painfully. "I think what Leela's trying to say, is that what you did was . . . everything she said. But it's okay. Whatever happened to Bender . . ." He trailed off, and tried again. "I don't know what happened to him. I don't know where he went. But he was still alive, or whatever robots are . . . and he wanted you to do it. So it wasn't – it wasn't really your fault. I mean, it wasn't your fault."

He sent Leela a help me glance.

"Lars is right," she said. "What you did was stupid, but you know it was stupid. And like he said - Bender is still out there." She hesitated. "Somewhere."

Amy shook her head.

"You don't understand," she said quietly.

"We've all been played by Bender, Amy. Once he has his mind set on something, he'll do anything. You can't keep beating yourself up about it." Leela sighed. "If you won't listen to me, you should at least listen to Lars."

"Listen to Fry, you mean," Amy snapped.

"Amy -"

"That's who he is! He's Fry! Da sei nei! He's Fry, and he's going to -" She stopped herself. "I can't do this."

She stormed out.

Lars made to get up after her, but Leela waved him back down.

"Don't," she said tiredly. "She can't leave the sewer, remember? I'll talk to her later. She's probably just upset. And she should be. She almost killed Bender."

Lars frowned.

"She felt bad about it, though. You saw her."

"That doesn't mean it wasn't an idiotic thing to do."

There was silence, as a young mutant placed a bowl in front of each of them and moved on down the line of patients.

Leela prodded unenthusiastically at hers. It looked like refried beans, served with some strips of gamey meat that were probably crocodile. (Probably. They looked too scaly to be rat, at least. Lars had learned not to ask too many questions about what he was eating in the sewer - although sometimes his imagination kicked in without his approval, and provided vivid mental pictures.)

"I'm worried about Bender," Leela admitted.

"Bender?"

"I saw him, before he overclocked himself. He was . . . erratic."

"Er . . ."

"A mess," Leela translated. "I think he was sober, Lars."

"Bender?"

"That's what I thought. And he was – he hugged me."

"What?"

"I know."

"You?"

"I know." Leela frowned into her food. "I couldn't make any sense of it. But then I saw him later on and he seemed fine."

"Right."

Lars nodded. This was true. He'd seen Bender too, and aside from the space-age water cooler built into his compartment and the whole I-can-see-an-hour-into-the-future thing, he had seemed fine. He definitely hadn't been sober, anyway.

"Maybe he likes you more than you thought," he suggested.

It was a poor explanation. Bender had strange ways of showing affection, it was true – but they mostly involved petty theft, or making people eat his food. Sometimes offering to commit murder. Bender had to be feeling really insecure to hug someone – and even then, it was usually Fry.

It was always Fry, now that he thought about it.

From the look on Leela's face, she had worked this out ahead of him.

"What happened to him?" she murmured. "There was all that green light, and then he was just gone. Like a teleport."

"A teleport?"

Of course, Lars thought. Leela had never actually used the time code. She wouldn't think time travel right away, the way he did when someone stepped into a sphere of green light and disappeared.

"I hope not," she went on. "But I don't see what else it could be."

Lars said nothing. Maybe he was wrong. They'd destroyed the time code, after all. There was no version of it left anywhere. And he didn't know the first thing about teleports. For all he knew, they worked using binary codes too.

"If someone out there has teleport technology," Leela was worrying, "they could get into the sewer. They could break the siege."

"I bet they won't," Lars assured her. "I bet it was the Professor. He comes up with crazy inventions all the time. He probably just tested it out on Bender or something. He's been stuck in Planet Express with Hermes since we've been down here. The cops will arrest them if they leave," he remembered. "Maybe he was trying to invent a way out?"

Leela blinked.

"That . . . actually makes a lot of sense."

Lars nodded.

"See? But he's on our side. And if he did have a teleport thingy, he would never give Nixon or Poopenmeyer the code. He might be an amoral crackpot, but he's our amoral crackpot, and he'd never hurt us."

Leela smiled faintly.

"You make a good voice of reason."

Lars swallowed, pretending to struggle with a mouthful of food. The rarer Leela's smiles became, the more they affected him. Even the faint, fleeting ones that passed for happiness these days made him feel off-balance and lonely.

He wondered if that was how Leela felt all the time. It was hard to be sure. Her walls were up so high even Lars couldn't read her lately. But he had a feeling it might be. Despite the fact that she was never technically alone anymore, Leela radiated loneliness, these days.

"I try," he managed at last.

He was aiming for light-heated – trying to make her smile again – but he must have missed the mark, because Leela only murmured, "Yes. You do."

Her thoughts seemed to go somewhere, before she flinched and returned to the present. She rubbed her stomach in mild irritation. The baby must have kicked her, Lars decided. (And it could really kick. Like a mini Leela, minus the boots and the cry of "Heee-yah!". He didn't blame her for flinching.)

"Hey, are you done yet?"

The mutant boy was back to collect their bowls. Lars knew him by sight: Raoul's son, Estevez. He volunteered at the hospital sometimes. Not, as far as Lars could see, out of any real desire to help people, but more because he was the son of the Supreme Mutant and that kind of thing was expected of him. He wasn't a bad kid, but if Skreem was around, he had a tendency to off-load all the work onto her.

"Still working on it," Lars rasped. He indicated his throat. "Sorry."

Estevez rolled his eyes.

"Well, hurry up, would you? I'm supposed to go around with the drugs when this is finished. Take with food, you know?"

"Right."

"And then the doc says to change all the bed pans, but no way am I doing that. It's not even my job. Skreem can do it, whenever she shows up."

Lars frowned.

"What do you mean, whenever she shows up?"

Estevez shrugged.

"She skipped out on her last three shifts. Brynda's pissed, dude."

"What?"

"Says this is no time for her to suit herself, or whatever."

"What?"

"She thinks maybe she's got a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, or whatever. But I told her, Skreem's not, like, a normal girl. If she's being weird she's probably, like, going through an emo phase or something. Like my sister, when she cut her bangs all wonky and started wearing socks on her arms." The boy was eying Lars's leftover croco-rat meat, hungrily. "Are you done yet? Because you're not eating."

Lars stared at him. He would have shaken his head, if doing so wasn't a one-way ticket to pain right now.

"What are you talking about?" he croaked instead.

"Emos," Estevez explained. "They, like, write poems about razor blades, and listen to songs where dudes scream at you about how love is pain, man."

It was Leela's turn to stare.

"Teenagers do that?"

"Emos do."

Lars shook his head, grimacing at the pain.

"Skreem's not an emo," he managed. "I don't understand what that is, but she's not one. She keeps sea monkeys. And she only wears socks on her feet."

He made himself breathe in. This wasn't important. The important thing was . . .

"She missed her shifts. She wouldn't do that."

Estevez looked uncomfortable.

"I don't know, man. But she didn't show up. That's all I know."

Beside him, Lars was aware of Leela frowning. She was looking up and down the ward, as if performing a count in her head.

"What?" he asked her.

Leela hesitated.

"Skreem," she said at last. "I saw her this morning. I sent her to my mom."

Lars absorbed this.

"But . . . your mom was here. With us."

"Yes."

"And when she got hurt, she was in the Hall. With the other mutants." Lars tried to piece it all together. "When the kill bots broke in, everyone who was hurt got sent here." He tried to make sense of it. "Skreem would have come. If she saw people hurt, she would have come. Here. To help them." His eyes roamed the ward, as if one of the occupants of the beds might suddenly mutate into Skreem. As if he could have overlooked her. "Why isn't she here?"

"Lars." That was Leela's voice, trying to talk him down. "If she was hurt, she'd be here. The fact that she isn't is a good sign. She's probably back at my parents' place, getting some sleep."

"Your parents," Lars echoed.

"Right." Leela nodded. "But just in case . . . Estevez? You know where my parents live. Go and make sure, please."

"But -"

"Now, please."

Estevez didn't dare disobey Leela. None of the mutants did. Sulking, he put down the bowls and headed out.

Leela continued to watch Lars warily, as if he might detonate. She wasn't the only one. The mutants in the beds around them kept sneaking glances at him too, as if they expected him to do something more interesting than just lie there poking at his food.

It took him some time to realize why.

"Oh." It hit him at last. "I went off the deep end," he remembered. "After the kill-bot knocked you out." He paused, as memory floated up to fill in the gaps. "I lost it, didn't I?"

When he woke up, the memory had been a distant second to the sight of Leela out cold. But it was coming back to him now.

He'd yelled at the doctor. At everyone, now he thought about it. Leela had been hurt, the baby hadn't been moving, and the mutants had all been too afraid to do anything, even though they were in the middle of a war . . .

"You were hurt," he explained. "And they wouldn't do anything."

Leela nodded.

"I know."

"I don't remember a lot of what I said," Lars admitted.

Leela smoothed out a crease on her covers, suddenly avoiding his eye.

"You told them some home truths," she said carefully. "It was very . . . it . . ." She gave up. "Well, it worked. That's what matters. They listened."

"Good."

"They think you're a madman," Leela added. "But they did listen."

Lars nodded. People thinking he was mad wasn't new. He managed to sound crazy to someone no matter what century he was in. He'd got used to it, over time.

He stared down at his hands. There were friction burns across both of his palms, where he'd grabbed at the kill-bot's tentacles and tried to tear them away.

"You really think Skreem is okay?"

His own voice surprised him.

Why was he even asking that? Leela had been right earlier – no-one could leave the sewer. Skreem had to be around here somewhere. And she wasn't here in the hospital, so she couldn't be hurt.

It was just that some part of him couldn't convince himself of this fact, not without seeing her face. Some part of him couldn't let it go, and he didn't know why.

Leela seemed to know what he was thinking.

"Nixon sent kill-bots into the sewer," she said gently. "That would scare anyone, Lars. And Skreem is fourteen years old. I wouldn't blame her for feeling traumatized. I know the siege has been getting to her." She sighed. "It's been getting to all of us. Maybe she just needed some time alone. Maybe she -" She frowned at a spot behind Lars. "What? What is it?"

Estevez was standing there, nervously twisting his fingers. He was back from the Turangas'.

"I, uh . . . I asked about Skreem," the boy said.

"And?"

"And, uh . .. " He swallowed. "She's not there."

"What?"

"She's not at your parents' place. Your mom said she never saw her."

Leela frowned.

"She didn't go and see my mom this morning?"

Estevez shook his head.

"No," he said. "Mrs Turanga said she can't even remember the last time she saw Skreem." He hesitated, agonized. "She says Skreem wasn't in Undercity Hall when the robots attacked. She wasn't with everybody. And . . ." He looked tortured, his cockiness suddenly stripped away. "I know she wasn't in the hospital, because I've been here all day."

"What are you saying?"

Mutants began to stir in the beds around them. They had been absorbed in their food before, or diplomatically pretending to sleep. But now they were openly listening in on the conversation. Whispers started on the other side of the ward.

Lars became aware of raised voices outside. And layered over them . . .

The bell.

Leela stiffened. Her hand went unconsciously to her hip, reaching for her blaster.

Drop everything. Come now. That was what the bell meant. It meant an emergency.

It was the call to arms, the call for help. Every able body in the sewer was supposed to answer it.

And Lars knew, instinctively, that they were ringing it for Skreem.

Estevez stared miserably at his feet.

"No-one knows where she is," he mumbled. "We can't find her."