Leela had forgotten to breathe.
For six months, she had walled herself off from Lars. From Fry – or, the memory of Fry. From desire in any form.
She had pushed it down, repressed it instead into dreams and obtrusive thoughts. Into her body - which felt like a stranger's as it was - and her head, where it couldn't hurt anyone. She had rationed touch, or denied it outright, and if she couldn't do that she had braced herself against it – turned herself to stone and tried not to feel at all.
And then Lars had kissed her, and it had come crashing back on her like a tidal wave.
It was sensory overload.
His fingers in her hair, cupping her ear -
- his hand on the small of her back, pulling her in -
- his mouth on hers, warm and insistent -
Leela felt her knees buckle. No, no, no, a voice in her head warned – but she was already falling forward, her fists balled in the fabric of his shirt, kissing Lars with a hunger that seemed to come from her body and bypass her brain.
This was what she had done to Fry, all those months ago. She had kissed him, in the hangar at Planet Express, and brought to the surface all the things he'd tried to bury – lust and love and aching loneliness – and never once stopped to think that she might have buried those things too.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid.
Lars kissed the pulse point on her neck and drew a soft, desperate sound from her throat. His hands – warm, steady, safe, always – dropped to her waist – and pulled her down, in one firm movement, as he found her lips again.
His hands settled at her hips, and then . . . gentle pressure, molding her to him as the heat of his mouth opened hers.
Lars had always been like this. Sure, but slow – as if he was trying to freeze the moment and live in it forever. During their marriage, there had been times when this tendency frustrated Leela – times when she wished he would be less gentle, less reverent, more . . . something.
But there had been times when she loved him for it too. Times when he felt like the only real person in the world. Times when he felt like . . .
Home, she thought sadly. Lars had always felt like home to her.
It would be so easy to melt into him now. To forget the world and all its horrors, for the smallest space of time. The dead Skreem; the absent Fry and Bender; her starving and imperfect people. It weighed on her, all of it. And it would be so easy to take the comfort Lars was offering – to give him that same comfort, when it was all he seemed to want.
Would it be so wrong? It disturbed her that she didn't know anymore.
Leela flinched.
Something had jolted her out of the moment. What . . .
Oh.
They were calling her name, off in the distance. Exhaustion settled over her again, tugging her down like gravity returning after a space flight. There was always something, always someone who needed her . . .
She watched Lars blink, as if coming out of a daze. He looked between them - at his own hands and at Leela's swollen lips. At her hair, falling loose over one shoulder, and the crease in his shirt, where her fist was still half-curled.
"Oh," he said.
Leela said nothing. Her head was still reeling.
"I . . ." Lars stopped. I did that, he was thinking, in a kind of mute horror. I really did that. Leela knew him well enough to read the unvoiced thought.
She should tell him something, she knew. Something to make him feel better about what he'd just done. But her own thoughts were too scrambled – "I love you" and "I'm sorry" and "it's fine", all jostling for space on the tip of her tongue - and she didn't trust that the right one would make it out of her mouth.
Breathe, she reminded herself. In and out. It's not hard. Get a hold of yourself.
She forced in a breath, and held it until her head cleared.
"Lars," she managed. Well, that was safe enough.
He stared at her, and Leela wondered if he was really seeing her. He still looked as though he was looking at her through a fog.
"What do they want you for?" he asked dully.
"I don't know." Leela frowned. If past experience was anything to go by . . . "Nothing good, probably."
Lars threw his head back and inhaled deeply. The movement pulled him away from her, and Leela fought the urge to pull him back, pull him closer, prolong the moment.
"You should probably go find out," he said.
Leela hesitated.
"Lars -"
"I think I'll stay here a while," Lars said over her. "Get some air."
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea."
"Maybe it's not." Lars shrugged. "Maybe it is. I don't know anymore."
He sounded lost.
Leela touched his hand, carefully.
"Come back to my parents' place," she suggested. "Get some rest. It might help."
Lars nodded.
"Later," he said, in the same dull, uneven tone.
He circled her hand with his, pressing the pad of his thumb into her palm – and then, with effort, passed it back to her, setting it down gently above her heart.
"You should go see what they want."
Leela frowned as she turned the corner. Her parents had drawn the curtains, and dimmed the lights that faced the street. Either they wanted the neighbors to think they were asleep . . .
Or they were hiding something.
"Mom? Dad?"
"In here," her father called softly.
Leela ducked into the kitchen, her nerves buzzing. Her hand kept dropping to her hip, reaching for a blaster that was no use to her on a dead battery.
She was on edge, she realized. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for more bad news. Waiting for things to somehow get worse. It was the sewer again; the siege getting inside her head. Combined with her natural cynicism, it bred fatalism; this low-level, angry fear she couldn't shake, no matter how hard she tried.
Her parents were sitting at the kitchen table, cradling their murky rebrewed coffee. The lamp between them had been turned down so low it barely glowed - but the hemisphere of weak white light just touched on a third figure, sitting between them in the gloom. Drawn and thin-looking, a captain's star glittered on his chest.
Kif Kroker smiled wanly at her.
"Hello, Leela."
"Kif?" Leela stared at him in blank surprise. "What are you doing here? What -" She stopped, dread flooding the pit of her stomach. "You found Fry. Something's wrong."
"No. No." Kif shook his head. "I haven't found him. I'm sorry. But . . ."
"But something is wrong."
"I . . ."
Her parents had poured coffee for Kif, but he didn't seem to have much interest in drinking it. He sloshed the liquid in the bottom of his cup, apparently at a loss.
Leela inhaled deeply through her nose. Her headache was coming back, building like the ball of stress in her stomach.
"Just spit it out, Kif."
Kif stopped toying with his coffee, and took a deep breath.
"Captain Glottus was executed last week on Erosh."
Leela stared.
"Glottus?" she repeated. Glottus . . . . The name clicked at last. "Captain Glottus. That's the man Fry shot."
Kif nodded.
"It looks as if he survived. Fry must have saved him. He certainly couldn't have made it far on his own. Erosh is the better part of a day's flight from his last known location, and, well . . ."
He didn't need to say it. They had both seen the position of the gunshot Fry had left in Captain Glottus. And the blood. Even if the man had managed to stem the flow somehow, he couldn't have stayed conscious more than an hour. If he had survived, it was because Fry had helped him.
Fry had shot him, and then saved his life, and then . . .
Someone else had killed him.
The baby shifted fretfully inside her, and Leela felt pain throb behind her eye. It made it hard to think straight.
"I don't understand," she managed.
Kif sighed.
"I told you," he said wearily. "Eric Glottus was a wanted man."
"An innocent man," Leela argued.
"That's not a story the DOOP ever wanted him to tell," Kif reminded her.
"So they executed him." Leela felt sick.
"Yes." Kif looked nauseous too. He pressed his lips together, staring down at the dregs of his coffee. "If he had fallen into the hands of a better man, he might have stood a chance. But Erosh is an outpost, Leela. Far from civilization. It's a training ground for recruits who prove difficult to break. A place to send disgraced officers. The man in authority, Captain Yearling . . . well, I've seen his file. He's a sophisticated brute. A monster. Only an organization as corrupt as the DOOP has become would have him."
Kif's fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
"Glottus was wanted dead or alive," he said. "Yearling didn't even wait for HQ to give him the order."
Leela searched for an emotional response to this. She should have one, she knew, but she was too tired, too numb, to summon the anger she knew she would normally feel. The corruption in the DOOP would have to stay someone else's problem. There wasn't room in her head for it. There was only room for . . .
"What happened to Fry?" she asked urgently. "The last time you were here, you said he'd be in danger if the DOOP caught him with Captain Glottus. Now you're telling me Glottus is dead. Kif, what happened to Fry?"
Kif surfaced from his own reverie.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"As far as I know," Kif said slowly, "Fry wasn't there when the captain was arrested. I searched the planet's records, and I couldn't find any evidence he entered or left Erosh by normal means. Though, that may not mean very much. Glottus wasn't recorded either, and obviously, he was there. Probably with Fry." He hesitated. "But they weren't logged when they entered the planet's airspace. In fact" - his forehead furrowed - "it looks as if someone removed them from the database. A whole hour of entries disappeared from the records, on the day they would have landed. I tried, but I haven't been able to recover any viable files from the cloud."
"You're saying someone hacked in and scrubbed Fry from the records? Someone tried to cover his tracks?" Leela frowned. This just kept getting weirder. "Who would do that?"
The only people who cared enough to protect Fry like that were here, in New New York. Or at least, they had been last week, when this had happened. (Lord only knew where Bender was now.)
Kif shifted uncomfortably.
"I don't know. But as far as the DOOP is concerned, Philip J Fry never set foot on Erosh. He hasn't been seen since he shot Glottus at that gas station - and I ensured all evidence of that incident was destroyed. As far as anyone – or any thing – that might be hunting him is concerned . . . Fry is a ghost."
Leela considered this.
"Well, that's . . . good," she said, willing herself to believe it.
It was good. If Fry stayed off the grid, the Brainspawn couldn't find him. The idea that someone might be following him around and retroactively erasing his existence was a little creepy, yes, but if it kept him safe . . .
"Where would he go?"
"Hmm?"
"You said Erosh was remote," Leela reminded him. "If Fry had to get off the planet, how would he do it? Where would he go?"
Kif hesitated.
"There are supply lines," he said cautiously. "It's possible he smuggled on board one of those. And there is the – there is a criminal element to consider, on Erosh. I understand they can be quite creative in the protection of their interests." He shrugged. "Fry does make friends easily. And in surprising places."
Leela had to concede this point. There was something about Fry. He was optimistic, uncomplicated. He liked people, almost by default, and maybe for that reason, people found him easy to like in return.
And they did like him. It didn't make sense, but for some reason, the more cynical, hard bitten, or downright criminal the person, the more they liked Fry, eventually.
"Glottus has – had – family on Erosh," Kif went on. "It's possible they helped him. They certainly have no love for the DOOP, and if they knew Fry was a friend of Captain Glottus . . . well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Leela couldn't argue with that.
"If he followed the supply route to a terminal," Kif went on, "he could be anywhere."
"And if he didn't?"
Leela hadn't failed to notice how often the words "it's possible" had factored into Kif's reassuring speech. Or that it seemed designed to reassure himself as much as her.
Kif cringed.
"Erosh is an outpost," he explained. "Our communications with them are delayed by hours. Sometimes days. The last we heard, it was after the . . . the execution." His fingers twitched. "There were reports of fire and rioting. And there are rumors of a mutiny. Even rumors Yearling is dead. High Command has sent Zapp to investigate."
"Zapp?"
"Yes." The Amphibiosan rolled his eyes. Kif, Leela knew, had about as much faith in Zapp Brannigan's investigative abilities as she did. "If they weren't rioting when he left, they probably will be when he arrives. But that's not important," he said. "I've been appointed Acting Captain, you see. While Zapp's gone I represent the DOOP here on Earth. I came to see you because I think – that is to say, I hope – we can end this war."
He turned to her, eyes shining with hope, and Leela stared at him blankly.
"End the war," she repeated.
She understood the words. She just couldn't seem to bring them into her immediate reality.
"Nixon would never allow that," she said at last. "He'd override you."
"Not necessarily." Kif shook his head. "Leela, public opinion is on your side. Earth has many powerful allies, and Nixon's stance on the mutant issue has alienated many of them. And the longer you spend trapped down here – the more extreme the force used against you becomes – the more people begin to question it. He made a terrible mistake, when he sent the kill bots here. He left himself vulnerable, politically speaking. People didn't like it." The Amphibiosan leaned forward, intent. "If you tell the surface that – if you tell them the bots attacked women and children, if you tell them a girl died – Leela, I think they'll listen."
"Listen," Leela echoed.
"Yes, exactly. And if you seem to be giving up something in return – if you make the first move in the negotiations – Nixon would be under enormous political pressure. He'd have to come to the table."
Leela felt something flicker in her at last. An old, familiar feeling. Bitter in the back of her throat, hot behind her eye.
The one feeling she'd always found easiest to access.
"Maybe I don't want him to come to the table."
"What?"
"Maybe," Leela snarled, "I'm not interested in negotiating with that child-murdering bastard."
There was silence, as Kif stared at her in incomprehension.
"You don't mean that," he said at last. "You're upset."
Bang.
Leela had slammed her fist on the table, suddenly furious.
"Yes," she raged. "I'm upset! She was a child, Kif. She didn't ask for this! She didn't deserve it! And now she's dead, on my watch, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself. Of course I'm upset!"
Kif fidgeted anxiously.
"Leela," he said. "I'm sorry, I truly am. But I know how people think, you see." He winced. "People like – they like tragedy. This will make them care. If you want to free your people, you'll never have a better opportunity to make the surface listen." He met her gaze, beseeching. "You have to take it."
Leela laughed bitterly.
"Do you know how many of us would be dead if Bender hadn't warned us the kill-bots were coming? Do you really think I can sit at a table with the man who gave that order and not want to drown him in his own jar?"
Kif swallowed.
"Then I'll act as your liaison," he insisted. He touched her hand, the cotton of his glove cool against her skin. "I know negotiation is what you want, Leela. Let me bring your terms to President Nixon. Let me give him something in return. If we act now, before Zapp returns . . . if we do it openly . . . Nixon and Poopenmeyer will have to follow the tide of public feeling. You can win."
You can win.
Could she?
The tide of fury suddenly ebbed.
Her parents. Her baby. Her people.
It wouldn't undo the months of hunger and hardship they'd suffered. It wouldn't bring back Skreem. But if she could end the war . . .
Leela sagged.
Kif was right. Her desire for revenge was selfish. Any escalation of the violence would only rebound on her people, and they didn't deserve that.
"What about you?" she asked.
If Leela understood him, Kif was planning to blindside the Earthican president. Nixon wouldn't take kindly to that. Nor would the DOOP.
"You'll lose your job," she pointed out. "Your career."
Kif smiled faintly.
"Oh, yes," he said sadly. "I'll probably be court-martialed. But you'll be free."
Leela nodded. If she did this, she'd be condemning Kif to prison. The DOOP couldn't execute him for orchestrating a peace pact, but he'd lose everything else.
He was willing to give up everything else. For her. For this. To do the right thing. How could she say no to that?
"If you're sure . . ."
"I am."
"And you're sure this will work?"
"I'm almost absolutely sure it will."
Leela sighed, finally giving in.
"Then we'll try it your way. I won't break Nixon's flabby nose, and you -" she stopped. "Wait a minute. You want me to give the surface something in return." She frowned at Kif. "I don't have anything to give."
Kif shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, actually . . . you have your hostages."
Leela stared.
"What hostages?"
Kif threw his hands up quickly in self-defense.
"I don't think you have hostages!" he cried. "I know you don't! But the surface thinks you do, and you can use that!"
"What hostages?" Leela growled.
Kif cringed under the force of her glare.
"Mostly they just care about Amy," he admitted. "Her parents are frantic. I wish I could say they're worried about her, but, well . . . she does have a net worth of several billion Martian dollars. They're a little agitated to see that in mutant hands."
"Mutant . . . oh for god's sake. I'm not holding her for ransom. I didn't even know she was still here until yesterday!" Leela pinched the bridge of her nose, exhausted. "Fine. Fine. I'll "release" Amy." She rolled her eye, disgusted. "Who else am I supposed to be holding hostage?"
"Well . . . there was a police officer who mutated in your lake."
"It's not my lake. And the NNYPD left him here – I didn't ask them to. No mutants on the surface, remember? Still" - Leela snorted - "if they want him, they can have him."
There was a silence. Kif wasn't smiling.
"There's no-one else," Leela said uncertainly.
Another silence. Kif looked miserable.
"I know he's here of his own free will," he said hesitantly. "But . . . that's not how they see it on the surface, Leela. He's a human. He doesn't belong here."
Realization crashed in on her. Leela reeled.
Lars. He meant Lars.
"No." The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it. "No."
"I do understand what I'm asking of you." Kif's voice was gentle.
"Do you?"
"He is your smismar," Kif said simply. "As Amy is mine. I could never send her into danger."
Leela swallowed.
Your smismar.
It was true. It was the closest anyone around her had come to admitting what – divorce or no divorce – must be obvious to everyone. She still loved Lars, loved him with an ache that wasn't lessened by keeping him close. She had already lost Fry. She had tried to do the right thing, all those months ago, by letting him go, and she had regretted it every day since. Now every instinct she had was screaming at her not to make the same mistake with Lars.
"You don't know what they'll do to him," she said. "If I send him up there . . ."
"I'm asking you to give up Amy too," Kif said gently. "If I thought they'd be in any danger -"
"It's not the same. Amy didn't marry me," Leela snapped. "You can't fraternize with a mutant more than that."
"Well -" Kif clamped his own mouth shut.
"Well, what?"
Kif seemed to shrink in his chair.
"You could, um, fraternize with a mutant more than he did. He could, um, have done what Fry did." He gestured at her waist. "Fry's lucky they don't . . ." He trailed off at the look on Leela's face. "Know," he concluded meekly.
Silence stretched between them.
Kif tried to fill it.
"I thought that was why you were hiding it," he said nervously. "So they wouldn't arrest Fry. I thought that was why you weren't . . . using it. To gain sympathy from the surface." He trailed off again.
Sympathy? Leela thought scornfully. What sympathy? What's one more mutant to the surface? What do they care?
Then -
That's the sewer talking.
She suddenly felt tired again. She had lost sight of so much, down here in the dark.
She swallowed past the hard lump in her throat.
"No," she said tightly. "I'm hiding it because it's no-one's business but Fry's. And he doesn't deserve to find out like that."
"I'm sorry," Kif said quietly.
When Leela said nothing, he seemed to realize he'd pushed her as far as she would go.
He pushed his chair back.
"Please," he said. "Think about it. This really is your best chance."
His hand twitched, and then stilled, as if he had intended some reassuring gesture and then thought better of it.
"I'll be waiting above the Eastern Pipeway," he said instead. "Tomorrow, at noon." He paused in the doorway, gazing back at her. "I hope you'll meet me there."