Chapter Text
Fry didn't know for sure when the dreams started.
Part of him thought he's always had them. Since the day he came to the future. Maybe even before that.
He vaguely remembered being a kid, wandering his house in the middle of the night, knocking on his parent's door and asking them if he could sleep with them in the big bed. He didn't remember those nightmares anymore. He couldn't even be sure if they were nightmares.
The first night he spent in the future, Fry crashed on the Professor's couch. His elderly nephew had given a non-specific grout and hand-wave at Fry's request for a place to stay the night, so he had taken it as a yes.
He explored the Planet Express building for a while in the early hours of the morning. The Professor had retired to his bedroom long ago, and Leela and Bender had left with the promise to be back early tomorrow to start their new job. Fry should rest for a few hours too, but it was the first day of a new year – of a new millennium.
The first day of his new life!
He's too excited to sleep just yet.
He familiarized himself with every room. The kitchen, the Professor's lab, the showers, the back alley (where a weird noise was coming from inside the dumpster) — he liked all of it!
The space ship parked in the hangar was a beauty. It looked like it had popped right out of one of his comic books, with its bright green and red colors and its sinuous shape.
When it had left the atmosphere Fry'd felt a funny pull deep in his belly – like the drop sensation he got on roller-coasters, but up. It was like his stomach had stayed behind on Earth while he was looking at the stars and the planets, getting so close he could almost touch them.
He still felt a little dizzy at the memory, and he smiled up at the ship.
He couldn't wait to feel that pull again and again.
He found a couch in a room with a TV and a vending machine. He had no future money but he shook the dispenser until a protein bar with a purple-ish color fell down. He shrugged and ate the whole thing. It was a nicer dinner than some he's had in the past, anyway.
Later, he laid down on the couch and tried to get some shut-eye. He had no blankets nor pillows, and his jeans were itchy to sleep in.
He could see the city from the large, curtainless, window - bright and noisy.
Overcars and spaceships flew around and launched high into the night sky, out of the planet's orbit. Fry followed their trajectory with his eyes, until they got confused with the stars and disappeared.
He fell asleep like a baby.
Fry woke up with a jolt what felt like a moment later.
The room was bright; morning light streaming through the large window and it took a few moments for Fry to adjust to it. He heard the muffled voices of Leela, Bender and the Professor talking in the kitchen. That must be what woke him up, he thought, ignoring his hammering heart. He had the vague sensation that the dream he was having was the cause, but it slipped from his mind as he tried to recall it.
Something about New York.
He thought about the ruins under the city that he, Bender and Leela had seen the day before, and he felt a pang of discomfort in his chest.
Instinctively, he looked down at the palm of his hand, massaging the point at the center lightly.
He could hardly feel the career chip in there. Leela had been swift in puncturing him the second time. Maybe she was afraid he would start running, but he wasn't going to.
He might be a delivery boy, again, but he was going to be a delivery boy in space.
He smiled down at his hand, closing it into a fist and standing up to go join his coworkers.
He was too happy to start his new life in the future to pay any more attention to his dream.
In the week that followed, Fry moved in with Bender inside his giant apartment-closet and bought himself an appropriate - for humans - bed. He blew his first paycheck on it actually, and found the rest of the furniture on the sidewalks a few blocks away, as any good New Yorker should.
A full day to decorate and dirtying the place, just enough to feel lived in, and voilà! It was perfect. He and Bender were both so proud of it; the robot had patted him hard on the back and Fry thought that it must mean a lot to him, having Fry there. His bandaged antenna was proof that he really wanted to live together, and the delivery boy felt moved by that. He's never had a friend caring so much about him before.
The apartment was very spacious too. Not as big as Dr. Mobutu's place, but bigger than the one he had shared with Michelle (when she let him sleep there), or the back room at Panucci's (where he stayed the rest of his nights in the past), so Fry looked forward to his first night in the new room!
If it wasn't for the fact that he forgot to buy bed sheets and pajamas.
It didn't matter, though. He set to sleep on the bare mattress in his underpants. Wouldn't be the first time.
The night air was warm to be January, and he kept the large window open, letting the cool breeze enter. The last thought he had before dozing off was about asking Leela or the Professor if that Oxone climate crisis thing everyone in the 2000 was worried about really happened or if it was just another one of those fake crises that wasn't really a big deal in the end.
Fry was walking through the streets of New New York, alone.
Actually no, he wasn't alone, but everything around him was frozen. People and cars were immobile. The wind didn't blow. His feet moved on the concrete making too much noise, echoing in the empty street.
The sun was setting over the horizon, and the light strained everything orange.
He climbed on top of a police car. “Hello?” he called. No one answered and his voice bounced off the buildings.
Fry woke up with a gasp and sat upright.
Everything was quiet around him (for New New York city's standards). Overcars sped past his window with their characteristic whoosh, and the windows in the buildings surrounding him alternated between light and dark. The air was cold enough now to give him goosebumps.
Bender was probably still sleeping in his closet — Fry could hear his muffled sleep mumbles from here — so he couldn't blame his rough awakening on the robot, or anything in particular. He couldn't see why his dream would be so bad that it woke him up.
He huffed, slacking his shoulders, looking out his window again.
He didn't have a clock in his room. He couldn't be sure what time it was, but the sky was turning a light blue color outside, so it must be still early.
He and Bender didn't have to be at Planet Express until nine in the morning. Realistically, they would be there after ten, Leela would scold them on their laziness as they ate breakfast, the Professor or Hermes would give them the details of their next mission (Fry would use the time to doze off a little), and then they would be in the ship, flying into space. It will be a good day.
He flopped back down onto the bare mattress, sprawling like a starfish, smiling up at the ceiling.
In a few moments, he's peacefully asleep again.
Months passed, and Fry forgot all about his two maybe-nightmares.
He slept peacefully once he found some bedsheets and Leela gifted him an alarm clock. It had red numbers and could play the morning news and, most importantly, music! It was a great invention and he marveled at it as he asked the little box to play any song he remembered from his time. He wished he had his Walkman and a few blank cassettes with him to record some new mixtapes, but it was probably buried somewhere in Old New York, and it was such a hustle going there to look for it. If it survived at all.
Therefore, his alarm was his only source of 20th century music. At least until he figured out that the ship had a radio system and could play any song he wanted, too. And so could the TV, the conference table's computer, and the coffee machine.
He really lived in the age of wonders.
It wasn't like he missed the past, he mused to himself one evening as he laid in bed listening to The Cars blast through the alarm's speakers, he just missed a few things.
He just felt out of the loop, sometimes.
There were moments at work when the crew would talk about things he didn't understand, places he had never been to, and history he hadn't been a part of, and he felt… left out.
Sometimes he watched people, robots and aliens in the street, going about their lives, and wondered if they saw him as one of them, or if he somehow gave away that he didn't belong.
It nagged him, eating at the back of his mind. He'd never felt at home in Old New York, he didn't miss it, but at least he had been familiar with it.
He'd known how everything worked, where everything was, and sometimes it was jarring how similar everything was in the future, but not quite. It was like he had come home and someone had moved all his furniture an inch to the left – and the furniture was all science-y, sophisticated and confusing.
But when suddenly 4.3 billion dollars appeared in the bank account he had left with only 93 cents in, he felt like this era was finally paying him back.
He had no idea being rich had so many advantages!
He bought paintings, top hats, and even his anchovies. He was living the highlife.
Money couldn't buy him back the past, but it could buy him back the things he missed from the past.
His next purchase was a 20th century apartment complex — fully preserved and with original flooring, the real estate agent had said. Fry had paid extra to close the deal and get the key immediately, screwing over an archaeologist organization who wanted to have it for historic value. They probably wanted to open some boring museum about his time or something. Who cared.
In a few hours, Fry had moved all his stuff to the new place, and settled into his vintage armchair. Five crates of tapes later, his eyes were burning and feeling gunky, the back of his legs and arms were basically glued to the fabric of the chair, and the general smell of the apartment had gone from pleasantly lived in, to stale and musky.
But he didn't care.
He loved this.
He didn't know how much he'd missed the Petridge Farm commercial until now.
"Fry, are you there?" Leela's knock sounded from the other side of the door.
Fry mumbled a response and Leela and Bender let themselves in, turning on the light. Fry winced. He hadn't been to work for three days and he hadn't turned on the overhead lights for longer than that. He liked it better when it was dark, just the gloom of the TV and the music from his stereo to drown out all the rest.
"This isn't healthy," Leela said, interrupting his jam section. "You're living in the past."
"I'm rich," Fry responded harshly. "I can live whenever I want."
"But we're your friends, and we live here, in the year 3000."
"Yeah," Bender jumped in. "Now, are you going to come to the squid fights with us or sit here wallowing in your prehistoric junk?"
Fry scoffed. Of course they didn't understand. They didn't know what it was like to miss a place they could never get back to. But it was all the same. He didn't need friends to be happy – he just needed to cling to what made him feel real, and grounded, and not like every single thing he knew and loved had been buried under another city.
He showed Bender and Leela out of his apartment, slamming the door to whatever plea Leela had next.
He didn't need them.
He didn't need them at all.
He dreamt again that night, when he fell asleep on his reclining armchair in front of Sanford and Son taped reruns.
He was walking through the streets of New New York. Everything was eerie quiet around him, and people looked as if they were frozen in place while they were going about their life. Riding Tubes, walking, talking on the phone. It was like Fry had stepped inside a picture.
Nothing moved but him.
"Hello?" he called, uncertain. "Anyone?"
No one answered.
He climbed off the roof of the police car. His palms were sweaty where they touched the warm hood and he wiped them on his jeans. They were beige, Fry noted. His hands were trembling slightly.
His breaths sounded so loud in the empty street. He tried to take in a bigger gulp of air, but it got stuck in his throat, and he was forced to swallow hard.
The sun was still setting, bathing everything in orange.
The color felt suddenly oppressing.
Fry's eyes snapped open just as the laugh track sounded on TV.
He looked around his dark apartment and breathed a sigh of relief, slumping back into the armchair.
Outside of his blinded windows, he could hear the noises of the city, the same ones he had been trying to ignore for days. It was comforting now.
He didn't like how alone he'd been in that dream, separated from everyone else in the future. He felt enough like that already.
He raised his legs and hugged them to his chest holding onto his greed shirt (his red jacked was back at his – Bender's – place) and stared at the TV screen, not really seeing it or listening to it, until he felt his heartbeat slow down.
Maybe he'd been too harsh on Leela and Bender, he realized. He'd kicked them out without much consideration when they were just trying to talk to him.
Fry didn't like when people lectured him, it was always the wrong advice at the wrong time, and it never helped. But Leela and Bender were his friends, and they'd never treated him like he was out of place.
He wondered if maybe they felt out of place too, in their own way.
He hadn't thought about that, not after the first day, but when they were in the ruins of New York Leela had told him that she didn't know where she came from and that she felt just as lonely as he did… and Fry had kicked her out of his apartment without even looking at her.
Another laugh track sounded on the TV.
Fry sank deeper into his chair feeling miserable.
He deserved the mockery.
He was such a jerk.
Fry might have woken up face down on the sidewalk, lost his 4 billion dollars, and got attacked by Zoidberg because of the last edible anchovies in existence, but that was all water under the bridge.
The important thing was that he was back delivering packages, hanging out at Planet Express, and seeing space every day.
Life couldn't get better than this.
The crew was great, he and Bender were best friends, and Leela was fun, when she wanted to be.
Which wasn't always, though.
She could be so nagging at times.
"What the hell were you doing?" She was saying to him as he tried to ignore her reproaches. This had gone on for way too long, and he was starting to get bored. "I warned you to stay away from those guys."
"I'm capable of making my own decisions, Leela," he shot back. "Did you ever stop to think I might be happier with gills?" He could think of so many cool things he could do with gills — like talk to fish, or swim!
Or avoid tasting Bender's salty cuisine.
It was truly terrible. But still less salty than Leela's attitude all throughout the mission.
"For once in your life, be careful." Leela commanded after they'd landed on the planet Trisol, showing him the book-size package as if he might lose sight of it. So annoying. "This is my first visit to the Galaxy of Terror, and I'd like it to be a pleasant one." She slapped Fry's mocking hand.
"Ow!"
"Don't touch anything or talk to anyone," she went on, pointing an accusatory finger. "Just go to the palace, drop it off and come right back."
Fry took offense to it.
"Geez, will you lay off? I was delivering things before you were born. I think I know what I'm doing."
He was a professional delivery boy, thank you very much. He got this—
He stopped on his track.
Leela was holding up the package he had forgotten without looking at him. Right. Now he got this!
Outside the ship, the warm air of Trisol clammed at his skin immediately. It was like walking through a thousand deserts.
Stupid Slug, he has never been so thirsty in his entire life.
It reminded him of a dream he had once, where he was walking alone under an orange sunset. It was warm there too, but nowhere near as bad as this.
He was sweating like a pig by the time he dragged himself on the top stairs of the palace.
"Hello?" he called inside the empty halls. "Anybody home?"
No one answered, so he dropped the package for the Emperor on the big chair that he thought was his throne. He was getting so good at this!
He was turning to leave when he saw a bottle with a cool, blue liquid inside. His throat felt so dry.
Would it really be so bad if he took a little sip?
He drowned the whole thing in three gulps, but before he could even feel refreshed, liquid-like people appeared out of nowhere, pointing spears at him.
"You drank our emperor! You assassinated him!"
"I didn't mean to." Fry screeched, walking backwards. "He just looked so cool and refreshing."
"I'm sure he was," one of the liquid guards said, the pointing end of the weapon drawing closer to Fry’s belly. "But now he's gone, and your fate is sealed."
Fry gulped.
Oh, God. He was gonna to die! He should have listened to—
"All hail the new emperor!"
"Hail! Hail! Hail!"
The guards bowed and prostrated at his feet.
Fry blinked at them.
What followed was a big and heavy crown on his head, a spot on that cushiony throne and the rewarding chance to tell Leela she had been so wrong about the whole thing.
The crew was enjoying their time in the palace just as much as he was, but Leela remained stubborn and suspicious. Fry really didn't know what was wrong with her. She acted like she always knew it all and Fry was some kind of moron with no clue. He scoffed at all her long lectures, tuning them out.
He thought he'd dodged the worst of it, when Leela dragged him away from a party in his honor to make him look at boring portraits of past emperors.
"You're in tremendous danger, you idiot!" Leela screamed at his face, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Half of these emperors were drunk at their own coronation."
Fry liked the sound of that.
"Hey, I plan on having a few brewskis myself."
"No, they were assassinated. In fact, the law says you will be killed on the spot if you fail to recite the oath from memory."
"Yeah," he waved it off. "I was going to thumb through that later."
Leela gave a long-suffering sigh. Fry had seen that sigh time and time again. His parents, his teachers, his employers, everyone was always frustrated with him for one reason or another, and no one ever took the time to listen to him.
"That is completely reckless," Leela shook her head; Fry knew that head shake too. Classic, consolidated and irritating. "Don't you ever think ahead?"
"Hell, no." he said angrily. "If I stopped to think ahead I wouldn't be emperor, and I wouldn't even be here in the year 3000." He told Leela the story of the grasshopper and the octopus, changing it a little bit when he didn't remember how it went. If he was honest, he couldn't even be sure those were the right animals but he stuck with them, and the metaphor still stood. Leela-the-grasshopper died in the winter because she worried too much to enjoy life, while Fry-the-octopus got all her acorns and a sports car.
He didn't know why Leela took so much offense to it, but she stormed off with a promise never to help him again.
Fry scoffed as he watched her go.
So what if Leela didn't approve? He didn't need her help. He didn't need anyone's help.
He was the emperor of the world!
He was gonna die!
They were barricaded inside the palace. Fry's stomach grumbled as the Emperor berated him, and the crew was trying to hold the Trisolians off from capturing him and putting him inside a giant blender.
Fry curled onto his cushiony throne and bit at his fingernails as he watched it all happen, helpless.
He was going to die, surely that should be sad enough to make him cry.
But nothing!
His eyes were as dry as the desert and the Emperor wouldn’t come out any other way.
He didn’t know what else to do.
"Wait a second," screamed Amy, looking outside the window. "Here comes Leela!"
Fry perked up in disbelief.
She… she came back for him?
Amy described the scene in the courtyard of the palace in flowy details: Leela kicking-ass against a mob of angry water aliens, all alone. Punch, kick, jump, punch! It sounded like a spectacle… and Fry was stuck in his chair as he listened, anxiety mounting in his chest. Until Amy gasped.
"Oh no. They have her totally outnumbered."
Fry shivered even though the air was so warm.
"I can't believe it," he murmured. "She's risking her life for me after the way I treated her? Oh... I don't deserve this. I feel terrible."
He hugged his cape and pressed his face into his knees. His stomach felt so heavy, but the Emperor was being quiet.
"Is she all right?" He asked once Amy hadn’t updated him in a while.
She had to be alright, she was Leela. She should be scaling the palace’s walls by now.
"I don't know," mused Bender. "Perhaps I'll look out this window. Oh, dear God in heaven! They're swarming all over her!"
"No!" Fry screamed and buried his face deep in his hands. "No!"
Amy protested, but Bender cut her off. "They're strapping her to the juicer! Oh, they're putting some ice cubes in the glass under it."
"This can't be happening!"
"It can, and for all you know, it is." Bender fell quiet and approached the throne slowly. Please be alright, please be alright, please - "I'm sorry, Fry. She's dead."
The words were like a blow to his stomach, and Fry buckled down as if he had been physically hit. He forgot all about the Emperor in there, this pain had nothing to do with him. It felt like the floor was sinking underneath him, and he was falling down into the abyss. He didn’t even notice Amy collecting his tears.
"All Leela ever wanted to do was help me," he said, his voice cracking miserably, "and I was too proud and stupid to accept it." He threw his crown across the room. It was all his fault. Leela had tried for him - even when he had done nothing but reject her, she had tried - and all he did was treat her like a jerk and tell her that stupid tale where the grasshopper died. He sagged down into the armrest, feeling completely, gut-wrenchingly, lost.
"I wish I had died instead of her."
"What are you talking about?"
Fry's head snapped up, his jaw dropping – and there Leela was, climbing over the window without a scratch on her.
"Leela, you're alive!"
"Of course I'm alive."
All at once, Fry realized his eyes were wet. Bender and Amy explained it was all their plan to make him cry, and showed off the emperor's bottle - with two drops of blue liquid at the bottom. Fry supposed that wasn’t much, but now that Leela was safe and in front of him, he felt like he could weep out of pure relief alone.
"Listen, I think I can get us out of this," Leela said in an assertive, but not unkind, tone, "if you're willing to let me help you."
"Thanks, Leela." Fry said, walking to her. "From now on, I'll take all the help you're willing to give. I know you just want what's best for me."
Leela smiled at him, her whole face brightening. She put her hands on his shoulder, they were warm and a little callous, and Fry's eyes softened – and then she stomped her boot on his foot and he cried out.
He didn't deserve the beating he got afterward.
Well, maybe he did, a little.
After a few hours, the Emperor was out of his stomach. The guards and people of Trisol let them walk out of the palace safely once they saw their rightful ruler, and Fry was happy no more punishment came from them.
Overall, he considered this a pretty successful delivery.
The track back to the ship was accompanied by the night sky.
Fry walked slower than the others, because he was covered in bruises and scratches, and because the stars were different from the ones back home, and it was a mesmerizing view.
Leela hung back with him and slowed her pace.
Fry almost expected another lecture — he swore he wouldn't even complain about it this time.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked instead. "I told Bender to go easy on the cigar burns, but he never listens."
Fry laughed a little.
"He's Bender, what did you expect?"
"You're not mad at him?" she sounded uncertain, but Fry couldn't guess why.
"Nah, he was just trying to be helpful. It was all my fault anyway, I got in trouble first."
Leela sighed.
"I suppose you're right."
They walked in companionable silence for a few moments. The others were almost at the ship – out of earshot.
"Thanks for coming back for me, Leela." Fry told her sincerely. "You didn't have to, especially after how much of an ass I was to you."
She looked at him. The wind blew the hair out her face and her eye reflected some of the constellations.
"I wasn't just going to leave you there. I'm your captain, and I have a responsibility to keep you guys safe. And also we… we're friends." It wasn't a question, but it was almost as if Leela was leaving out an implicit ‘right?’ - as if she expected Fry to contradict her, or to not want to be her friend anymore, which was absurd.
"Of course we're friends!" he declared, stopping in his tracks. "We are the best of friends. And you're the best captain ever – you're like if Janeway, Picard and Kirk had a baby and that baby inherited all their captain abilities. And you care so much, you – you came back for me, and I…" he dropped his eyes to the sandy ground. "It – it means a lot."
It wasn't all he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the words to express how much it meant to him that she had helped him, instead of calling him an idiot and say ‘this is your own fault, you have to fix it yourself’, even when Fry didn't have the faintest idea where to start untangling his mess. No one ever had the patience for him.
A small smile returned to Leela's face.
"That's sweet, Fry." she said. "I have no idea who those people are, but I'll take it as a compliment."
"You should!" he told her brightly. "They are the best captains Starfleet ever had – oh, and Sisko, of course. I almost forgot about him, but he's your dad too."
"How many parents do I have?" she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Fry went on explaining some Star Trek facts as they made their way back to the ship. Leela concluded that Picard was her favorite captain, and Fry had to argue in favor of Kirk.
They both ended up agreeing on Janeway.
"Well, our accommodations aren't great, but it sure is beautiful out here."
The Titanic had left the harbor a few hours ago and it was already traveling in outer space. Fry and Leela were leaning against the railings, looking at the stars. The delivery boy never stoped marveling at a view like this.
It was so nice, just hanging out with Leela, looking at the immensity of space together.
"Yeah, it's pretty romantic—I mean platonic!" Leela looked at him sideways. He'd forgotten he was not going to mention the fake-relationship. "It's a very platonic view." He finished unconvincingly.
Leela sighed, her annoyance palpable. Zapp had a weird talent for showing up unexpectedly, so she'd voted to stick with Fry for the time being; they didn't know when the next 'captain inspection' was going to happen.
But Fry didn't mind being with Leela. He enjoyed her company a lot, actually, but it's clear she was looking at the stars with him only to maintain the pretense in case Zapp showed up, and Fry didn't want to bring attention to that more than necessary. It would be nice if it were just real.
"Fry, just be quiet," Leela said. "I'm beginning to think this whole fake fiancé thing was a terrible, terrible—"
Her words died in a gasp, and in the next moment Leela's hands were on Fry's face as she pushed their lips together, smacking at the contact.
Fry emitted a shocked yelp against her mouth and then his brain just… Shut down.
Leela spun him around, and held his head still, but Fry couldn't have moved if he tried. His eyes closed on their own accord, and he relaxed against her. Her lips were so soft, so right, and Fry felt like he was dreaming. Surely this was a dream, because he felt as light as air and as if time didn't exist.
He vaguely heard Zapp's voice from a point close to them, but he didn't exist in the bubble Fry was sharing with Leela. Her lips were all he knew; her hand holding the back of his neck was all he felt.
He didn't know how long the kiss lasted - maybe a minute, an hour, or more - but later, Zapp's squeaky footsteps faded away as he left and Leela's hands moved to the middle of Fry's chest, pushing him away and breaking the contact.
Fry dizzily came back to his senses. He opened his eyes and Leela was looking at him as startled as he felt. There was a soft blush of pink on her cheeks, but it was already disappearing.
"Uh, look," Leela began, moving away and facing the railing. "Before you get any crazy ideas, that was for Zapp."
"Well, you got anything else for him?” Fry asked, hopeful.
"Alright," she put her hands on her hips — her captain voice was back on. "Can we try not to complicate this?"
"Mom, dad," came Amy's voice from behind him. "I'd like you to meet Fry. My boyfriend."
Fry only had a split second to think 'wait, what?' before Amy seized his jacket and pushed her lips to his. They weren't like Leela's lips - far from them - but that meant they also weren't as distracting as Leela's lips, and Fry pushed his brain to catch up on what was happening.
Amy wanted a fake boyfriend too. To impress her parents. Fry was that fake boyfriend.
Gotcha.
He cupped Amy's face with his hands and she did the same, deepening the kiss.
It was a good, convincing make-out session, Fry thought, even if he was still a little dazed from kissing Leela so he couldn't really tell.
Amy ended the kiss and her parents said something to her — something about too much red hair and an ugly, crooked nose, he would make terrible grandchildren — but Fry wasn't paying attention.
He looked behind his back to see where Leela was, but she had already left without a word.
Fry tried not to feel too disappointed about it.
"See you later, Wum-ums." Fry kissed Amy on the cheek and she giggled. The Martian waved a hand in Leela's direction before she and her parents left to go to the rich people buffet – apparently that was a thing.
Fry hadn't been invited, thankfully, so he made his way to the sunbeds, where Leela was relaxing. She'd been alone all morning, not talking to either Fry or Amy, even though they both invited her to swim or watch the limbo competition together.
Fry would have thought Leela was downright ignoring them if it wasn't for the fact that he sometimes caught Leela's eye on him, looking all angry from under her sunglasses. Just like she was doing now.
"It would have been nice if you'd told me you were going out with Amy," Leela said as soon as Fry joined her.
"I'm not going out with Amy," he shrugged. "It's just to fool her parents." Zapp hasn't been around since he and Leela kissed the day before (Fry still had problems getting that feeling out of his mind — the memory popping in his head every few minutes, along with that funny sensation deep in his stomach), so he didn't know why Leela was so moody. Unless— "Hey, you're not jealous, are you?"
"What?" Leela said too fast. "No! No. Of course not."
"Good," Fry smiled. "Because I consider my fake relationship with you a lot more meaningful."
"I'm sure you do," Leela rolled her eye, accompanying it with a deep sigh. "This whole situation was doomed from the start."
"Hey, your cover with Zapp wasn't blown yet, and now we have time to be together in case he shows up."
"Great," Leela said sulkily.
"So," Fry asked after a stretch of silence. "What do you wanna do?"
"Nothing," she lowered her sunglasses again. "I will relax and you can sit there and do a crossword puzzle, if you want." She passed him a magazine and Fry flipped to the last pages where the black and white checkered crosswords and Sudoku were only half completed.
"Aw, these are hard."
"They are from ages 12 upward."
"Still, too many letters. I prefer those puzzles where you have to connect numbers to form a picture. Do you have those?"
Leela looked through another magazine (this one had cartoon pictures of sea creatures on the cover), and handed it open on a white page covered in dots and numbers.
Fry dived straight into it and soon he was tuning out everything else, completely engrossed. He tried to keep his pencil steady, erasing a few lines where he messed up, sticking his tongue out to concentrate. It was forming a picture of two whales, Fry guessed three-quarters to completion, and he smiled proudly showing it to Leela.
"That's nice," she said. She wasn't smiling, really, but she didn't look as mad as before either.
It wasn't always easy for Fry guessing other people's emotions. Usually they made it even harder when they said one thing but meant something completely different. It was all in the tone, in the expression, in the intention. It was a layered thing that sometimes flew right over Fry's head and he had no clue how to detect.
It wasn't so dissimilar with Leela: sometimes he thought he wouldn't figured out what she was thinking even if he had superpowers. But usually Leela was straightforward with Fry. If she was angry, she looked angry. If she was happy, she looked happy. She meant what she said, the way she said it. Even now, she didn't sound sarcastic, or condescending. It was a "that's nice" to mean "that's nice", and Fry's smile widened.
They fell silent again, but it was a comfortable silence.
Fry noted this too, awed. He and Leela sometimes just sat around like this at work as well: watching TV together or eating breakfast. Fry mostly did the talking, blabbing on and on about whatever he had in mind. It was annoying to some people — he knew that — but Leela didn't seem to mind most of the time. She listened to him, sometimes with what could only be described as odd fascination, other times with some degree of irritation, but mostly just interested. And even when they were quiet, like this, it didn't bother Fry. He enjoyed Leela's company in whatever form it was.
"How are you getting sunburned in outer space?" Leela broke the silence after a while.
"What? Oh, yeah. I guess I have sensitive skin or something," Fry ran a finger over a redder spot on his shoulder. Freckles were already showing. They only did when he stayed too much in the sun; his face was probably covered in them too right now. "My dad used to buy a really strong sunblock. He said you could get radiation from the sun and that the commies were using their space technology to increase the temperatures in America."
Leela huffed.
"I should have some regular sunscreen for you."
"Thanks," he took the bottle she ofered and squeezed too much on his hands. He passed it all over himself until the white halo disappeared. It was harder than it looked, and reaching his back was nearly impossible.
"You missed a lot of spots," Leela commented.
"Working on them."
"And you have a big chunk on your cheek."
He rubbed his face indiscriminately to get it off, but heard Leela sigh.
"No, it's on the other side. Let me get it for you."
She reached over and touched his face, and Fry almost jumped at the contact. She massaged cheek, then his nose, then his cheek again — probably to get more of the lotion absorbed. When she got to his cheekbone, Fry closed his eyes.
She caressed his face roughly at first, but her fingers were slowing down, drawing small but firm circles on his skin. When they stilled completely, on a point in his chin, Fry held his breath.
He couldn't hear Leela breathing either.
"Fry!"
They both jumped and Leela retreated her hand as if burned as Amy came running to them.
"Oh good, you’re still here – hi, Leela! Listen, my parents want to go play paddle tennis and we need a fourth."
"Oh," Fry blinked, stunned. He didn't have the faintest idea what paddle tennis was. He looked back at Leela for support, but found her looking intensely at her magazine, her face completely buried in it. "Sure. I guess."
"Great! Sorry to steal him, Leela. I promise he will be back in a few hours at most. Unless my dad decides he wants to play mini-golf, too."
Fry grimaced, but Leela waved a dismissive hand and kept on flipping through the crosswords like it was the most interesting book she's ever read. "No problem, you can keep him as long you want."
"That'd be great!" Amy chirped, starting to drag Fry by his arm. "Splech! You're all slippery, what did you do?"
"Oh, um," he looked back at Leela as they walked away. He caught her eye over the brim of her magazine, and thought she looked angry, maybe even disappointed, but she lowered her gaze immediately barricading her face behind celebrity gossip as if she didn't care at all. "Nothing."
During the next few days on the Titanic Bender was busy swindling a Countess, Hermes was having a crisis about limbo Fry didn't really catch the logistics of, and Fry was pretty busy hustling between being Leela's fake fiancé and Amy's fake boyfriend, so he didn't get much time to actually enjoy the cruise.
The flight had become turbulent after the first day — the ship vibrating and rocking unexpectedly like on a bumper car. The noise of the engine and of other people snoring or fighting in the hallways had been the constant lull of their nights.
Fry never had problems falling asleep, though. His head would hit the dirty pillow and he'd be out like a light in a few moments.
He's had a few dreamless nights, but tonight he was in the empty streets of New New York again.
He looked around himself, but the scenario didn't change. The warm orange sun cast long shadows on the sidewalk, and the silence was so absolute Fry could almost hear his own heartbeats.
He could have sworn even the air tasted different.
The noiseless crowd was as creepy as ever.
Fry crisscrossed in between people, paying close attention to their expressions. They were all different: some were frozen as if mid-sentence, some were serious, annoyed, indifferent… smiling. Fry stared at those people the most.
Experimentally, he touched a few people, poking them on the check and waving a hand in front of their eyes. None of them woke up.
"This is surreal."
He felt the rush of panic getting hold of his chest just like the last time he had this dream.
"I know," someone said behind him.
Fry spun around fast to see Leela, moving like normal in between statue-like people. The sun glittered on her hand and Fry's mouth dropped open.
"This could be fun," she smiled.
Fry woke up with a gasp and shot upright. He felt the consumed cloth of his bed tearing underneath him at his abrupt movement, and he fell on the ground with a thud.
For a moment, he just laid there on the floor, groaning and staring up at the ceiling, letting the sounds of the ship wash over him. Amy and Bender's snores didn't stop, they both went on sleeping unknowingly, but Leela, from the cot closer to his, heard him.
"Fry?" her voice came a little muffled. "What happened?"
"Leela," Fry sat upright. His heart was still hammering in his ears. He's starting to forget some details of the dream, like it often happened after he woke up, but the memory of Leela stayed.
She was in his dream.
Not as a frozen statue, but as herself.
That had never happened before. He's always been alone.
He forced his mind to slow down and focus on the present. Leela had asked him something.
"I fell. I think my bed broke," he said, massaging his lower back. "I'm sorry I woke you up."
He really was sorry. Leela hasn't been sleeping very well with all the noise and the uncomfortable cot. She was a light-sleeper, she'd told him, and it took her a long time to doze off.
"It's fine," she said. Fry could barely make out her face in the dark, but he stared at the shadow of her silhouette and imagined her staring at him. "I was half-awake anyway."
"Oh. I guess it's too noisy, right?"
At that time, a group of what sounded like drunk stokers walked down the corridors outside of their room, ready to crush after their long shifts in the boiler room. Leela waited until they passed before responding in a whisper.
"It's actually the cold that's bothering me."
"Yeah, that too."
It really was cold down here. Fry even had to steal a pair of the Professor's pajama pants from his fancy suite in first class to keep himself warm at night. He wasn't proud of it, but he supposed his nephew wouldn't miss them too much — he had a ton of those.
Fry laid back down on the broken remains of his bed, yawning and stretching to get comfortable. "Well, good night."
"What are you doing?" Leela asked from the darkness.
"Going back to sleep?"
"On the floor?"
"Well, yeah," Fry twisted on the torn cloth, which gave a weak insulation from the cold metal of the pavement. "Where else should I sleep?"
Leela groaned.
"Come here," she scotched closer to one edge of the bed, making room. "But don't get any ideas. And don't kick me."
"I won't," Fry promised, climbing up to join her.
The cloth dipped under both their weights, pushing them to the center, but it held.
The bed was tiny for two. Leela's back was pressed to Fry's chest and her hair was in his face. It was painfully intimate. He should turn around so they were back to back, but it felt awkward to do that now. Every movement only served to push them closer together, so Fry tried to stay very still. Leela wasn't saying anything either, even though he knew she was awake.
This wasn't so bad, Fry realized. Leela's body was warm, and her hair smelled nice. It almost lulled him back to sleep — until Leela turned around and suddenly they were face to face, only a few inches apart.
Fry held his breath. He couldn't make out many details in the dark, except for the soft corners of her face and the slow blink of her eye. He felt heat rising to his collar. His heartbeat was going nuts and he hoped Leela couldn't hear it with how close they were.
"The toilet is leaking," Leela said as a way of explaining.
"Okay," Fry blinked. It took him a moment to catch up on what she meant. Fry, Bender and Amy had screamed ‘dibs’ first and claimed the beds they wanted, which meant Leela had been stuck with the cot closest to the toilet. Fry'd felt bad about it and offered to trade, but she'd stubbornly insisted it was fine.
The smell was pretty strong, though, so it mustn't have been very fine.
Leela pressed her cheek and nose close to the pillow — right under the crook of Fry's neck. He swallowed hard.
"At least we are already in position in case Zapp shows up," Fry joked awkwardly in a desperate attempt to lighten the tension. It turned out to be the wrong thing to say.
Leela looked up again, and he didn't have to clearly see the scowling look on her face to know it was there.
"What did I just tell you?" she asked sharply.
"What?" he wondered.
Leela sounded like she wanted to keep argue, but then just groaned and buried her face in the pillow again.
"Never mind. Just go to sleep."
The ship rocked and their bodies pressed a little closer together, Fry's chin hitting the top of Leela's head and her nose brushing his neck. It tickled and the sensation sent a jolt in his stomach. He tried his damn best not to squirm or shift.
Another group of people walked down the corridor outside. There was a noise like glass breaking, followed by a burst of laughter, until they disappeared further down the Siesta Bridge.
Leela was quiet, her eye shut, and Fry looked at her in the darkness for a long moment. He hadn't been with her a lot these past few days. He mostly had to hang out with Amy, because her parents were more demanding and hyper-present, and Zapp was too busy avoiding the comets to bother Leela (or so Fry's heard). But even when Amy's parents weren't paying attention to their daughter and Fry had tried to be with Leela, she'd always been busy or nowhere to be found.
Fry reflected on this again as he tried to fall asleep, but a question was pressing on the tip of his tongue and he couldn't contain it anymore.
"Hey, Leela?"
She sighed.
"Yes?"
"Were you avoiding me today?"
She opened her eye.
"What? No."
"Oh," Fry mused. "Because I saw you hurriedly get into that salsa dance class for elderly people when I was waving at you."
"I was just... running late for the lesson, that's all."
"Oh," he said again, thinking. "If you need a partner for it, I could do it."
"There is no need," Leela muttered, suddenly interested in the fraying pattern of their shared pillow. "Zapp is not even there."
"I know, but we could still do it. I'm a great dancer and I—"
"And you're always with Amy," Leela said abruptly, as if that was final.
Fry opened his mouth, but closed it again.
Maybe he'd pushed it a little too far with his teasing. It's not like it was Leela's fault Zapp was the captain of their cruise ship… but it wasn't Fry's fault if Amy's parents were here and she needed a fake boyfriend too. She didn't need to be jealous of anything.
Fry and Amy were just friends, and so were Fry and Leela. Sure, it was true that he preferred to be Leela's fake boyfriend, and he liked the one kiss they'd shared over the ten or fifteen ones he had with Amy. And he thought about her constantly, and wondered what she was thinking about when she looked at him all fumingly, barely concealing it. And he found himself staring at her so much from across the pool that even Amy's dad had noticed and had given Fry a long, mean lecture about what would happen to him if he was cheating on his daughter...
But that didn't mean anything!
They were friends.
"Not always," Fry said weakly. "I could make time, for you."
"That's sweet, but I'm not demanding that of you. If you want to spend your time with Amy, that's—"
The ship rocking harder, as if to avoid a larger comet, cut off her sentence and Fry and Leela were pushed together — their faces colliding and their lips crashing.
Their eyes stayed open and Fry saw Leela's eye widening.
For a moment, neither of them moved, they stared at each other stunned and paralyzed. The hard press of Leela's lips on his was as sweet as the first time, for whatever, impossible, reason.
It wasn't even a kiss, it was just their mouths pressing together in an awkward angle. A stupid accident, but Fry thought that if it lasted even a moment longer he would lose himself in it and never come back to himself.
They broke apart at the same time.
"S-sorry!" Fry cried.
Amy and Bender hadn't woken up at all, their snores only got louder, and the ship proceeded on a steadier route, as if nothing had happened.
Leela stared at Fry, her lips parted slightly, and an unreadable expression on her face. She looked shocked — or maybe frightened.
There was an unspoken half a second full of uncertainty where Fry almost imagined he could close that distance again. It hung heavily between them, consuming all the air in the room, until he saw Leela's expression changing and closing up, her lips sealing shut and whatever emoting had played on her face was safely stored away in the recesses of her mind.
"Do you want me to face the other way?" Fry asked. His voice came out cracked and high-pitched and he mentally kicked himself in the shins.
"Yes," Leela said cuttingly. She still had traces of that dazed look on her face, but she was rapidly merging it into sternness.
So Fry turned around, awkwardly changing position in the unsteady bed. There still wasn't enough room for two, and this time Leela's body pressed flush against Fry's back. He could feel her movements when she inhaled and exhaled. He could feel the tension in the air between them lessen with how Leela's body slowly relaxed.
His body must be warm, Fry thought, because Leela was drawing closer to him, but still avoiding touching him as much as possible. And Fry felt warm. His cheeks were basically on fire and his palms were so sweaty where he was balling them close to his chest. But maybe that was okay, because after a while Leela started snoring lightly. The noise would be drowned by the clamor of the ship if Fry wasn't so close to pick it up.
He listened to it for a long time and silently matched his breathing to hers, watching the darkness in front of him.
He still felt the ghost of Leela's lips on his, and it was difficult to let go.
But he had to.
In two days' time the cruise would be over (unless Zapp steered them all inside a Black Hole or something crazy like that), and he and Leela would be back to being coworkers. Their fake coverage affair would stay on this ship, and Fry had to do his best to leave the kisses here too. He didn't want to make things awkward with Leela once they were back home. Their friendship meant too much to him to ruin it like that.
He had to let it go.
He was good at letting things go. The past, his old life, every uncomfortable and saddening feeling he's ever had. They all washed over him, and he was always fine afterward.
He just had to let it go.
Eventually, the gentler rocking of the ship and Leela's steady breathing lulled him back into a dreamless sleep.
Fry didn't see Leela in his dreams again for a long time. But, truthfully, he didn't always remember what he dreamt in detail.
Sometimes he woke up and the only thing that stayed with him were sensations — an inexplicable silence, echoing in every direction, in every part of him. The color orange and the warm, pressing air.
On others, fewer nights he recalled more, as if he had stayed longer in that frozen world. But it wasn't enough to derail him from his day to day life, and Fry never told anyone about them. They didn't feel all that important.
Months went by, the disaster of the Titanic sinking was well behind them, and life at Planet Express moved on as usual.
December started with cold air and crisp mornings. It hadn't snowed in the city yet, so the crew decided to take a day off from work to visit a chalet in the mountains upstate, where artificial snow (or maybe real snow from a nuclear winter, Fry didn't really get it) washed the whole place in soft white.
It really put him in the Christmas spirit.
"Oh, you mean Xmas," Leela corrected him. "You must be using an archaic pronunciation — like when you say 'ask' instead of 'axe'."
"Xmas, huh?" Fry repeated, then sighed. "You know, this will be my first Xmas away from home."
Nostalgia sneaked up on him from time to time, when he remembered an old song he used to always listen to, or walked down a street that painfully reminded him of Old New York, but he wasn't one to easily fall into that rabbit hole.
Those moments came and then passed.
However, this time Fry couldn't seem to shake out of it fast enough.
The holidays were getting closer, and they brought with them uninvited reminders of his home and his family. Of all the traditions he would never be part of again.
He wanted to forget about Christmas - or Xmas - as soon as possible, but it seemed like the crew had entered in full celebration mode overnight. The next day, the Planet Express building was adorned with green and red lights, a 7 feet tall palm tree was being put up in the observatory room, and Bender was singing Carols with Nibbler on his laps in front of the fireplace.
And Fry felt miserable through it all.
"What is the point of Xmas when everyone you knew died a thousand years ago?" He whined. None of the crew was even paying attention to him, which made him feel even worse.
He saw Leela entering the room.
"Hey Leela, how about a little sympathy here, huh?"
To his surprise, instead of reaching over, Leela bursted in tears and ran the way she came from. Fry'd never seen Leela cry before.
He didn't know how he had forgotten that she was an orphan. That she was the only one of her species, and that she didn't know where she even came from. It was a sobering wake up call.
He immediately set out to do something for her. Something special, that would make her happy and take her mind off the holiday. Like a gift!
He needed to find the perfect thing, though, and that took him through a dozen stores all over Manhattan.
He ended up spending 500 dollars on an orange parrot and following it all the way up to the ledge of a skyscraper in the course of its escape.
Fry tiptoed on the edge of the tall building, where the bird was perched. He should get vertigo from being this high up, but the sensation was familiar, somehow. It gave him the creeps.
He inched closer and the parrot moved away, until it ran out of space.
"Aha! Cornered!" Fry screamed, but as he tried to catch the damn bird, it flew away and his sneakers slipped.
Fry screamed as his stomach dropped and he fell into nothing but air. It only lasted a moment before his hands caught on the big digit of the clock at the side of the building.
The seconds ticked: 2... 3 - he dropped at 4.
He caught the edge in the middle of 5... 6... 7 - then his hold disappeared again.
He screamed his lungs out, sure he was plunging through his death, until something took hold of his wrists and he swinged on the side of the building.
"Hi, there."
"Leela!" he exclaimed, looking up in disbelief. "Oh my god, you saved my life. I'm going to get you so many lizards."
Leela smiled down at him.
He still felt a little dizzy in his legs as they walked down the street of New New York to get back to Planet Express. He told Leela about the parrot, the rude pet store owner, and how he'd ended up falling off a roof.
"You didn't have to buy me a present, Fry."
"I just wanted to do something to make you happy," he said simply, burying his hands in his pockets. The temperature had dropped and there was surprisingly no one walking down the street besides them. It was peaceful, and quiet. Familiar. "I mean, I miss my family but you never even had a family."
"It's okay. You're lonely and I'm lonely. But together, we're lonely together."
She removed her hand from her pocket and left it in the middle of them, for Fry to take. He did, smiling at her.
"Merry Xmas, Leela."
"Merry Xmas."
It finally snowed in New New York. A white powdery layer that turned into gray slob collecting on the sidewalks within the day, matching the color of the sky. But Fry wasn't a downer.
On December 31st, he walked with Bender to work. The robot sang a Xmas song under his breath (but really it was loud enough to attract side-eyes from strangers) and Fry rejoiced in the botched melody, humming along.
He smiled at the people, aliens and robots walking past them, and he didn't have a care in the world.
They had a delivery to Jupiter that they could make within the day - grab a late lunch at the Fishy Joe near Callisto - and get back on Earth in time for the night celebrations.
Fry was excitedly anticipating it.
The mission went by smoothly and with minimal shenanigans. Leela parked the ship back into the hangar with plenty of hours in between them and midnight.
Technically, they were done working for the day, and that put Fry in an even better mood. It was the first night in years that he didn't have to work on New Year's Eve.
He bounced off the stairs of the ship and joined Amy, Zoidberg and Hermes as they readied for the party. The Professor was dozing off in his armchair, but Fry knew he would wake up either to complain about Dick Clark's head giving the same speech every year, or startled by the fireworks.
There were so many things to do before midnight. Fry had a whole feast to take care of. They'd tossed a coin to decide who would cook for all of them, and the final showdown had been between Fry and Bender. Leela had tossed the quarter into the air, and the crew held their collective breath, silently praying behind her. None of them wanted to outright hurt Bender's feelings by telling him his food was disgusting and had given them nightmarish stomach aches for days, so they'd pretend to make it into a lottery where one member of the crew won the right to cook for everyone else.
Bender had surprised everyone by making it to the final round. Maybe he was rigging the game. But either out of luck, or because Leela could throw the coin just right to predict the outcome, it had come out tails, and Fry had won.
The delivery boy wasn't exactly good in the kitchen. He had worked for years in a pizzeria, sure, but they also had giant rats running around and his dog bathing in the sauce, so his skills were the least of the complaints, but he couldn't let the crew down now so he tied Bender's 'to serve man' apron around his waist and got right to work.
An hour later, the pizzas were in the oven, his dad's famous pork ribs and patties were roosting on the grill, and the sauce and chips were ready to be served.
Bender was spying on Fry's every move, checking from over the delivery boy's shoulder and commenting on everything he did.
"Elzar would never do it like that." ... "The dough is too sticky, it needs more punches." ... "You call that a glazing? My grandma could do better."
It was getting under Fry's skin.
"Look, I'm really sorry you didn't win the coin flip," he apologized to the robot as he balanced three trays in his hands and Bender looked at him with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed, probably judging his pathetic human strength and coordination skills. "I bet there is an alternative universe somewhere where the coin flipped heads, and we would be eating your food tonight."
Fry shuddered internally but didn't let it show.
"Yeah," Bender conceded. "And you bet that universe would be so much better!"
Fry chuckled, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Yeah, for sure."
As promised, all the food was ready by 10pm and the crew gathered around the conference table to eat.
None of them particularly praised his cooking, but no one gagged, or pretended to hide their gags, so Fry considered it a win. And in his mind, it was one of the best pizzas he's ever made.
Leela seemed to think so too, because she placed Nibbler on the floor when he tried to sniff her plate, sending his way only the ribs and four hamburgers but keeping the pizza for herself.
The rest of the night passed by fast and before they knew it, it was time to move to the balcony.
There was a moment of panic ten minutes before midnight, when they couldn't find the party hats anywhere.
Fry ran around all Planet Express trying to find them. The clock was ticking. He looked in the lab, in the ship, in the dumpster, but nothing! Finally, by some miracle, he found them in Nibbler's fluffy bed, 30 seconds before midnight. They were all chewed and wonky, and he had to wrestle a few of them out of Nibbler's mouth, but he got them all and he rushed back into the observatory room just in time for the final countdown.
"5, 4..." Fry slapped the hats on top of the crew's heads as they counted, "3, 2... Splech Fry, ew."
Just one more hat left, and Fry placed it into his own head solemnly and screamed, "1!"
He blew into his party whistle as everyone cheered around him. Fireworks exploded all around them brightening the night sky.
They were quite a spectacle!
Hermes passed the champagne glasses while Leela held the bottle, Amy was trying to talk to the Professor who kept screaming that he couldn’t hear her, and Fry, Bender and Zoidberg formed a choir of unsynchronized singing and dancing.
It really was a magical moment, until—
"And happy anniversary to you, meatbag!" Bender hit him soundly on the back, making Fry blow an involuntary note on the whistle.
"Wha-?" the delivery boy couched.
"Isn't it one year since you came to the future?" Bender asked as if it was obvious. "I remember because I was about to steal Leela's ring but she stopped me. But don't worry, I got it eventually." He proudly puffed out some cigar smoke in Fry's face.
Fry just blinked.
He… he hadn't thought about that.
"Hey, yeah!" Amy jumped in. "Happy anniversary, Fry." She raised her glass to him and soon the whole crew joined, wishing him happy one year and happy new year all together.
Fry forced himself to just smile and say thank you.
One by one, they all went back inside, complaining about the freezing temperature.
It really was freezing.
It had started snowing again, the falling flakes chilled Fry where they landed on his head. But he didn't go inside with the others.
There were a few late fireworks going off in the distance, a colorful boom of light in an already illuminated night sky.
Fry held his champagne paper cup a little closer to his chest and rested his back against the wall, letting himself slide down until he was sitting on the ground, his legs folded in front of him.
One year.
He couldn't believe he hadn't thought about the past at all today. Between the delivery and cooking dinner and running around for the party hats, it had completely slipped his mind.
He felt bad about it now. Like he had betrayed something, somehow.
There had been days in the last year where he just couldn't help but think about his old life. Every little thing he saw strengthened that nostalgia he'd felt deep within him but that stayed otherwise dormant most of the time. Fry didn't like to feel it. There was nothing he could do with it. But on the one day that he was supposed to spare a thought to the life he's left behind, he had forgotten about it.
On the one day he was supposed to feel this feeling, he hadn't.
And he couldn't find it now.
It seemed unfair, and anticlimactic… and a little lonely.
He heard the door open again behind him, the warm air from inside dissipating into soft mist.
"Hey," he heard Leela's voice say. Fry turned to her and saw she was holding the remaining champagne bottle in her hand, her other arm hugged around herself against the cold. "Do you want some company?"
Fry's eyes went lucid right then and there.
He looked into the ground and only nodded.
She lowered herself next to him and served herself a drink, leaving the bottle in the middle of them. There was quite some distance, and Fry suspected she was giving him space. Or maybe she didn't want to startle him. He did feel like a whiny kid at that moment, so he stayed silent, not quite trusting his voice.
"Weird weather," Leela said, after a beat of silence, drawing her eye up to the sky. Snow kept falling, and they had no roof above their heads, so it pooled a little around them, outlining their corners. "I swear I was walking around in just a tank top until yesterday."
Fry looked into the sky too. It was too bright tonight to see the lights of the universe, but the snowflakes looked a little like fallen stars.
"If it keeps going, we might have enough for a snow fight tomorrow," Leela went on.
"You think it will?" Fry asked. This was an odd conversation; it wasn't like Leela to make trivial small talk about the weather.
"I do," she said. "It didn't snow at all last year. This year is already special."
Fry smiled a little at that, one corner of his mouth perking up.
"How were the years before the last one?" He asked mellowly. "I wasn't around for those."
Leela shrugged.
"You didn't miss much. It was pretty boring, actually."
"Really?"
"Yeah. When I was in the Orphanarium it used to snow a lot in the winter, but it never looked pretty. It was just cold." She paused, staring at a snowflake landing in her paper cup, melting with the bubbles of the alcohol.
"New York was the same," Fry found himself saying. "I mean. It snowed, sometimes, and they even had to cancel schools for it. I used to try to build ice-shelters in the backyard. I never could though," he laughed. "They always caved in and buried me in a pile of snow. It was fun."
He looked up again and stuck his tongue out to catch a flake, but one landed in his open eye instead. He yelped and rubbed it away. Leela snorted out a laugh.
Fry looked at her in awe for a moment, feeling a familiar smile spreading on his face.
"One year, I was probably ten, or maybe fifteen, there was so much snow that it completely covered our front porch. My dad had to take out his emergency shovels and me and my brother took turns digging. My mom was timing us, and I actually beat my brother by 26.7 seconds. It was nuts!" He recounted, remembering his mom's cheers and his brother's beet red face, and how much his arms had hurt from digging but how awesome it was to finally break that last layer of snow that was keeping them trapped and see the driveway and the white neighborhood on the other side. "My brother was so mad that I won, but even my dad said I did it fair and square and gave me a pat on the back."
"That must have been nice," Leela said earnestly. Her smile was soft tonight; she radiated an easy sense of serenity that Fry supposed he didn't see just every day in her. In fact, this smile was something so private Fry realized he might be the only person who ever got to see it. The thought made him feel dazed and a little teary eyed again.
"It was." Fry said, and his voice had dropped to almost a whisper, he wasn't sure why.
He suddenly realized what he had just said, and what Leela had just done for him.
He'd recalled his family and a memory from the past on a day where he was supposed to but didn't even know where to start with how daunting and far away it felt.
Leela had made it so easy he hadn't even realized it.
"Thank you," Fry told her, looking at her intensely. He hoped that she would get what he meant, how grateful he was to have her as a friend. How smart, and kind, and thoughtful he thought she was, and how she always made him feel better with just her presence. There probably weren't enough 'thank you's in the world to express all of that.
Leela inclined her head to the side, like she was surprised, or if she was trying to figure him out. She opened her mouth to reply but right at that moment the door to the observatory opened again.
"Hey, you two!" Bender said, holding two cigars in his hand and another in his mouth. "You coming back to the party, or what?"
"Yeah, just give us a minute," Leela said over her shoulder.
Bender shut the door again, but the bubble they were sharing had popped and Leela looked back at him with a different smile on her face, more guarded, but Fry liked this one too, to be honest. He liked all of Leela.
"Ready to go back?"
"Yeah," Fry nodded. "It'll be fun. I've never been to a new year party before."
"Me neither," Leela confessed. She got up first and extended her hand for him to take. Fry did with an easy smile, climbing to his feet so they were eye to eye.
"Happy new year, Fry."
Their hands were still clasped together in a warm and familiar shake. A smaller bubble of intimacy, but just as precious.
"Happy new year, Leela."
And so they went back inside and spent the night away like that, opening another bottle of champagne, singing and cheering as the streets outside turned gradually quieter. A slitter of dawn appeared over the river, and it was a brand new day of a brand new year, and Fry felt himself fall in love. Just a little bit.