"Are you nervous?" Gomez drummed a hand on the steering wheel, squinting at the sat-nav. "About seeing her? Leela, I mean."
Xandri laughed, fluffing up the back of his hair in amusement.
"He knows who you mean, Gomie."
Gomez shot out a spare hand and caught her wrist. They play-wrestled for a minute and then he laughed, and kissed the tip of her fingers.
Fry turned away from them, staring out at the cloud cover above New New York. It was thick and white, as dense and impenetrable as fog.
"Of course he's nervous," Xandri was saying. "He loves her."
"You're right. I'm sorry. That was a stupid question."
"No it wasn't. It was kind. You're worried about him." Xandri was quiet for a beat. "Don't ever apologize for being kind," she said softly.
Gomez nodded. He kissed her hand again – softly this time, with more intent, as if to show he meant it – and there was a quiet between them, as if they were sharing some memory Fry wasn't a part of.
He kept his gaze on the glass, and tried not to wonder who had been unkind to Xandri, and how.
"Brr!" Xandri broke the silence by shivering hugely. "Ya – Philip, you never said it'd be cold down here. It's freezing." She blinked through the windscreen. "Is that snow?"
She was right, Fry realized. The white wasn't just cloud cover. It was snow, falling thick and fast over the city. New New York was buried in white.
Winter.
It hit him then, how long he'd been away. Months. Months. He'd left at the first snap of fall. There had still been leaves on the trees. It had barely even been cold. And now there was snow a foot deep on the ground, and he didn't even know what date it was. It could be Thanksgiving, it could be Xmas . . .
"When are we?" he blurted out. "What day is it?"
Gomez gave him a funny look.
"You don't know what day it is? Today?"
"No. Why, what is it? Halloween?"
The streets were even more crammed then New New York usually was. People were pushed in on each other like sardines, surging to get to . . . Madison Cube Gardens? Fry couldn't tell. Maybe there was a show starting. Or a parade.
"Hold on."
Gomez was trying to park the car.
"This is as near as I can get," he said at last. "You need to head to Citihall," he went on. "That's where everyone is, if you can get through the crowd. I saw a news crew, and cops. A lot of cops. I think it's her. Leela, I mean. I think something's happening, now."
Fry nodded. He jumped out of the hovercar when it was still a foot above the ground, and sank ankle deep in snow. By the time he'd worked his way free, Gomez and Xandri had got out too.
"I can't believe it's snowing," Xandri said, disgusted. "In winter."
"I thought you were from Earth," Gomez said, confused. He pulled her in and rubbed her arms to warm her.
"I'm from LA."
"Is that warmer?"
Xandri snorted. She buried her face in Gomez's shirt, shuddering.
"I can't even feel my nose," she complained. "If you can't get the heater working, I might seriously have to divorce you."
"Oh, no." Gomez smiled mildly.
He hugged her tight.
"Look," he said to Fry. "I wish we could stay and walk with you, but . . ." He gestured at his shivering wife, and plucked at his own thin t-shirt. "That's probably a bad idea. Unless you know a place that could dress us for snow at nearly midnight."
"No. Sorry." Fry thought about it. "There's a 7-11 near here, but they only sell t-shirts. And those tourist ponchos, for when it rains."
"Yeah." Gomez laughed. "That sounds like a nice outfit, but I don't think I heart New New York enough not to, y'know, freeze to death in it."
Laugh, Fry told himself, uselessly. That was a joke.
"Then I guess this is it," he heard himself say instead.
"I guess." Gomez adjusted his glasses again. He looked like he didn't know what to say. "Good luck," he offered at last.
I never have good luck, Fry thought absently. But he nodded anyway.
Xandri squeezed him in a quick hug, then darted back to the warmth of Gomez's arms.
"Go get her," she urged.
Fry nodded again, and watched them walk back to the car. Gomez made to follow Xandri in and then stopped suddenly, his hand on the car door.
"I forgot!" he said, yelling to be heard over the distant crowd. "Today!"
"What?"
Fry could hardly hear him. People were streaming up the street, surging to fill the space between them.
He side-stepped a crazy cat lady, and tried to read Gomez's lips.
It wasn't working.
Inside the car, Xandri reached over and honked the horn. The street filled with sound and the people surrounding them cringed away, and into the lull Gomez cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled out, "It's Earth New Year!"
Earth New Year.
Fry shoved through the crowd the way Bender had taught him, jabbing with his elbows and stepping on the backs of people's heels until they shifted enough to let him pass.
The heartbeat felt all wrong in his chest, jumping around erratically so he could hardly breathe. Leela was here somewhere, somewhere close, and he couldn't think straight.
Maybe Gomez and Xandri were right. Maybe she had wanted to see him, when she came looking for him. But that had been months ago. She might not want that anymore. She might not want him anymore.
She might hate him, now. He'd been away for so long, when she'd needed him. What if she couldn't forgive him?
What if she was done with him – with every version of him? Or what if she'd fallen back in love with Lars, over all those months in the sewer, and Gomez and Xandri just didn't know?
He'd been there. He'd stayed. And he still loved her, he had to . . .
It was Kif he saw first, as he neared the steps of Citihall. The alien's bald green head stood out in the crowd, and he looked different, stood taller, somehow. There was a badge on his tunic, like the one Zapp Brannigan wore, and behind him -
Amy.
She looked tired, and her clothes were creased and stained. But she stood up straight and her jaw jutted out, defiant, and she was holding up -
That was Lars, Fry realized, blinking as he struggled to reconcile the man in front of him with the one in his head. He was thinner than Fry remembered, and he looked older. The lines in his face cut deeper, and there were patches of gray in his beard. There was something wrong with his neck too. It was mottled in bruises, like the ones around Fry's throat from where Captain Yearling had tried to choke him – only deeper, and darker, as if whatever tried to kill Lars had gripped harder. And longer.
Lars jerked when he saw Fry, and grabbed Amy's arm. He said something, right into her ear in an effort to be heard above the crowd and the droning voice of Mayor Poopenmeyer. He gestured urgently at Fry.
Amy followed the motion. Her mouth fell open.
Fry stared at her, taking in her face, trying to decide what he was supposed to feel. What he was supposed to do.
It was funny, he thought, to look at Amy and see someone who seemed half a stranger now. A stranger with a face he knew.
Lars was a stranger too, staring at him with another familiar stranger's face. Nibbler was sitting on his shoulder. His eye stalk was twitching.
The mayor was still talking.
". . . and so, as we usher in the New Year, we usher in a new era of peaceful co-existence between surface dwellers and our disgusting sewer mutant friends – I mean" - there was the sound of paper riffing beside the microphone - "- ahem, our diverse mutant population, who are henceforth recognized as full citizens under Earth law. We salute their brave struggle and, ah . . . welcome them to our fair city."
There was a smattering of applause.
"mmMutants!" President Nixon's flubbery growl cut over it. "From the stroke of midnight I, Richard Milhouse Damned Handsome Nixon, President of Earth, grant you freedom and citizenship of Earth, the Big Blue Marble! And you know what that means. Pay your taxes, you lazy hippy slobs! And when election season rolls around, vote for me! Now . . ."
The lights snapped off around them and the street lamps went out, plunging them into darkness.
"TEN," Nixon boomed.
"NINE!" Mayor Poopenmeyer squawked.
"EIGHT!" Was that Leela's dad? It sounded like him.
"SEVEN!" That was Kif. He must be wearing a mic under his tunic.
"SIX!"
"FIVE!"
More voices he didn't know, and faces he couldn't identify. One of them was that shouty lady police chief whose name he couldn't remember. They all seemed like they were supposed to be important somehow, but Fry had missed it all, and he didn't know what they'd done to bring them here at the end of Leela's war.
"FOUR!" another stranger said, and then -
"Three."
Fry froze.
Leela's voice was quieter than the rest, but it rang out clear all the same, and in the hush that followed her words every countdown in the distant city seemed to echo her.
("Three!")
("Three!")
("Three!")
The man in front of him moved and suddenly -
Fry could see her.
She was standing on the steps of Citihall, staring almost unseeing at the crowd. She was wearing a thick winter coat, but the wind had worked her ponytail loose and her hair was streaming across one shoulder. She looked tired, and sad, and somehow far away.
"Two," she said softly.
Fry's heart clenched in his chest.
"Leela," he breathed.
She couldn't hear him. She was too far away, and the countdown was too loud.
She couldn't hear him.
But her head snapped up anyway, and the next number in the countdown died on her lips. She stared at him, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Leela," he said again, and it came out sounding wrong, half a laugh and half something else.
He was crying, he realized. Laughing and crying at the same time.
Leela stared at him. The climax of the other countdowns sounded distantly around her – ("One!") ("One!") ("One!") - but she didn't seem to hear them. She just stared into the crowd, at the spot where he stood.
At him.
"One," Leela whispered at last.
She shut her eye and pushed the detonator for the fireworks like she was making a wish.
The night sky erupted in a sunburst of yellow and orange and red, and in the first flash of light she opened her eye, and found Fry again. She jerked back and put a hand to her stomach, as if someone had kicked her back a step. A sob burst out of her.
Fry blinked and she was gone from the podium.
He blinked again, his vision blurred and hot, and Leela was in the crowd, knocking aside anyone who tried to hold her back.
She cut in and out of view as the fireworks ebbed and burst above them and the crowd thronged, cheering.
There, and gone . . .
Fry caught a flash of violet, the sleeve of her coat, the end of her hair . . .
Suddenly she was standing in front of him, with tears shining on her cheeks, and her mouth was moving in words he couldn't hear.
She touched his cheek, her hand trembling. The light burst over them again as the fireworks exploded, and a smile spread over her face, as radiant as the sun. The warmth of it hit him like a punch to the chest, and Fry rocked back, and then forward again, staggering like a drunken man as the crowd surged against him.
Leela put a hand on his heart, to steady him.
"Fry," she said, the only thing he could hear above it all.
There were snowflakes in her hair.
I love you, Fry thought suddenly. I'll love you forever.
It was the truest thing he'd ever known.
But his mouth wouldn't obey him and she wouldn't be able to hear him anyway, so he did the only thing that made sense in all the chaos.
He cupped her face in his hands, pulled her close, and kissed her like the world was ending.