Fry’s eyes snapped open. A dark
room. A hospital room. Dawn light glimmered through a gap in the
cheap curtains that hung over the window. Machines bipped and warbled
in the background. Fry groaned and flopped back on the pillow. Had it
worked?
The questioning of the event, a voice
said in Fry’s mind, would not exist had you succeeded in the
plan you carried. One thing has changed, though; you were not the
only one with a desire for another’s welfare. Consider it a
final parting gift.
Fry groaned and sat up as memory of
the voice faded. She held her head in her hands, nursing the pounding
ache behind her eyes and groaned again. “Great. I still have
boobs.”
“And very nice they are too.”
Fry looked up in shock at the voice. Bender was sitting on the far
side of the room, smoking a cigar. It was herbal. It still stank.
“Bender?”
“In the flesh, baby,”
Bender said, thumping his chestplate. “Or not.” He blew a
smoke-ring, then stubbed out the cigar on his head and swallowed it.
“You look like crap.”
“I feel like crap. How did...”
Fry stopped and looked Bender up and down. He sported a few shiny
patches where some of his parts had been replaced. “Nice to see
you walking about again.”
“Yeah. That Sam guy is pretty
handy with a soldering iron. I feel a hundred and ten percent.”
Bender hurcked up the cigar again and held it out to examine it.
There was a microchip embedded in the side. “Aww, I don’t
know where these things keep coming from but they’d better not
be important.”
Fry giggled. She looked around the
room but, apart from Bender, it was deserted. Her joy faded away.
“Where’s Leela? I thought she’d be here.”
“Yeah. Well... honestly, I think
she went out to pee,” Bender said, examining his cigar again.
He held up a lighter to it and then seemed to think better of the
idea. “She’s been taking turns with that boyfriend of
hers to watch over you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They haven’t been
serious about it though. Every time I come in here they seem to get
all angry and run off to a closet down then corridor. At least I
think they get angry. Leela’s face turns really red.”
“Oh.” Fry pulled her knees
up to her chest and rested her chin on them. There wasn’t much
else to say. Bender rocked his eyes about a little and returned to
his spot by the window. He opened the curtains, and then the window
itself, and leaned out to smoke his cigar. Fry blinked and smiled at
the robot. It wasn’t like him to be so considerate.
She turned on the TV and watched the
news for a minute. It didn’t make particularly pleasant
viewing, with stories of a brewing war between the Democratic Order
and the Ruklisk, and snatched tales of invading fleets appearing as
if by magic in the middle of DOOP space. Fry grimaced and switched it
off.
The door opened. “All right
Bender,” Leela said as she came in. “You can go home and-
oh. you’re awake.” Fry nodded. Leela walked around the
end of the bed and stood leaning on the guard rail. She stared at
Fry, her face an image of studious neutrality.
Bender turned from his window and took
in the scene. “Ahh. You going to get angry again?”
“Ang... no,” Leela said,
frowning. Bender managed a fairly good approximation of a shrug and
light-stepped from the room, humming to himself. The smell of cigars
and alcohol faded after him. Leela turned around, leaning back in the
guard as she looked out of the window. “So. You’re
awake.”
“Yep.” Fry lowered her
knees and leaned back in the bed a little, making herself
comfortable. When Leela didn’t speak again she crawled out from
under the covers and knelt at the guard-rail beside her. “You’re
not saying much.”
“That’s because there’s
not much to say,” Leela replied. She folded her arms. Fry
raised her eyebrows and then frowned.
“Wow. I remember getting the
silent treatment before but it never felt bad until now.”
“Hah.” Leela stood up and
walked over to the window, where she looked out over the small
portion of the city she could see. Fry shrugged and clambered from
the bed, reasoning she should at least put on some underwear now.
“Did anyone bring my pyjamas?”
“Second drawer down,”
Leela said, turning around. She stared at Fry again, mouth working as
she tried to form what she wanted to say. “Fry, how could you
do this?”
Fry paused half way through pulling
clothes from the drawer. “Do what?”
“This. Choose to be...”
Leela sighed and sat down on the bed next to Fry. She put her hands
between her knees and stared at them. “You know, if you’d
done what you promised to do we wouldn’t even be having this
conversation.”
Fry pulled on her pyjama pants and sat
down next to Leela. “It worked out all right didn’t it?”
“That’s not the point,”
Leela replied, screwing up her face. She looked at Fry. “You
based your decision on your feelings toward me. As far as you knew
changing everything back was the better choice, but you didn’t
choose it.”
“Leela, I didn’t have
a choice.”
“You mean you didn’t let
yourself-”
“No.” Fry stood up and
walked across to the window. She leaned on the window-frame and
started out at the city. “I don’t really remember much of
what happened. I know that I tried to change things, but it didn’t
work. I couldn’t...” she turned around to look at Leela.
“It wasn’t a choice I could make. No matter how much I
understood what had to be done up here,” she said, tapping her
head, “I just couldn’t change how I felt in here.”
Fry put her hand on her heart. Leela
rocked her head to one side and peered at Fry, her cheeks colouring
up slightly. She stood up. “I told you...”
“I know, Leela, and I’m
sorry.” Fry leaned back on the window and tucked her hands
under her armpits. She closed her eyes. “All I can do is
apologise. I’ve been apologising for how I felt for you ever
since we met, why should now be any different?”
“That doesn’t matter now,
Fry,” Leela said. She stood up and walked toward the door, then
paused with her hand on the handle. “You could have got us all
killed.”
“Like I said, it worked out all
right.”
Leela suddenly punched the door,
caving in the cheap wooden veneer. “Damnit...” she turned
and glared at Fry. “It could just have easily screwed up
completely, Fry! Don’t you get it? You can’t make
decisions like this based on your feelings!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not safe!
It’s dangerous!”
“Oh
like you’re all so cold and logical all the time,” Fry
said, letting her arms drop again. She could feel her hands balling
into fists and forced them to straighten out again. Leela
massaged her knuckles, still glaring at Fry, but didn’t say
anything else so Fry carried on. “You just can’t accept
that I might actually be right about something.”
“Now that’s not fair.”
“Oh, as if any of this is fair,”
Fry said, downcast. She looked up at Leela again. “Everything
works out for the best but you don’t want to see it that way.
You’re the one who made the mistake. You’re the one
taking your anger out on me for being right. How is that fair?”
Leela scowled at Fry. “You...”
she sighed and turned away. “I don’t feel like arguing
with you right now, Fry.”
“No. If course you don’t,”
Fry said quietly. She turned and looked out of the window, watched
the traffic skim by far below and above.. “I guess I’ll
be out of here in a few days. Maybe I’ll see you at work.”
“Maybe.” Fry waited until
the door had closed before she looked back into the room. She fought
the urge to run out into the corridor after Leela and concentrated on
finding the rest of her pyjamas.
Dearest
Diary,
It’s
me again. Who else would it be? Samuel, perhaps, who seems to have
taken a great interest in reading everything I’ve written to
you about him. I have a lot to say today, but I don’t know how
to say it, which is something that may surprise you. It surprised me.
First,
the good news. Samuel proposed to two nights ago, after a wonderful
dinner that he cooked for me himself. I’ll get back to that in
a moment though, because I want to go over the bad news too.
I
have had an argument with Philippa. A big one. I think I just blew
away any chance we have of fixing up our friendship after the last
argument. I just hope she’s able to see past the mistake I
made. That’s right, I made a mistake, and she called me on it.
It hurts to hear someone point out when you’re wrong and at the
time I was so angry with her for making what I thought was a bad
decision, without really thinking about why it was bad in the first
place. The only reasons I had to think that way are moot now. She
said it best; things worked out all right.
But
I was still angry. I’m starting to realise part of the anger
was at myself, for reasons that I can’t even tell you right
now, dear diary, because they hurt so much, and because I knew she
was right. I don’t like being wrong.
And
yet, in the end, I’m glad I was, because this way I at least
have Samuel. Dearest Sam, he’s so sweet. He reminds me of Fry
back when she was a he.
Philippa
once told me that she doesn’t worry about the future because it
would send her crazy, and that she only ever thinks about now. Samuel
said the same thing as well once. That night I finally realised what
that meant. I said yes.
Normality. It was a strange
concept, the idea that this was normal, real, not some strange dream.
Philippa watched the traffic far below snake its way past the Robot
Arms, her hands against the thick glass of the window, then up at the
sky, at the waning moon still visible against the pale blue morning.
It seemed to be a suitable metaphor for her own final transition. She
turned away and looked back into what could now reasonably be called
a living room. It had a carpet.
Bender was in her bedroom, painting.
He was whistling. He had even picked wallpaper. Philippa tried to
work out just when the robot had changed but she couldn’t put
her finger on the precise moment. Even the herbal cigars, supposedly
better smelling, had all but disappeared.
The robot stopped and looked at her.
Philippa smiled at her friend. “That looks very nice, Bender.”
“Great. Hey, whatever the ladies
want, huh?” Bender carried on whistling as he picked up a spry
gun, then started to sing a little. “Paintin the walls, pretty
things gettin made... doo doo doo doo gonna get laid...”
Philippa laughed for the first time in
days. Some things would never change. She stacked up all her old
clothes and piled them into a bag. There was surprisingly little.
“Bender? I’ll see you at work, okay?”
“Sure thing. Hey, there’s
a new version of the Ninplaybox out. If you go past that store again
flash the guy a little ass for one, will you?.”
“Very funny,” Philippa
said. She put on her coat – the only thing she was keeping from
back then – and slipped out of the door.
She decided to walk to work. The
weather was nice, the air was fresh, and frankly she couldn’t
afford the cab ride after all the money she’d spent on changing
their apartment. Bender tolerated it. She knew he wouldn’t be
happy about some of the changes, but he tolerated it. That was the
one difference about him.
Philippa found herself in a park a few
blocks from the Planet Express building. She’d been here before
a few times, back when walking alone had been a therapy and not just
something to do for a few hours. There were other people here now,
taking in the view, enjoying the fresh air. An attitude of wonder and
relief had come over New New York after the attempted invasion,
though it had never got anywhere near the ground. Sometimes people
just needed reminding of the moment.
She looked up at the sky. Somewhere up
there the fleets were still patrolling, hunting down the remaining
Ruklisk and their slaved minions. A sizeable portion of the
Democratic Order had been subverted by the time the tide turned.
Nobody knew if they would ever be turned back. Philippa didn’t
particularly want to think about it. She looked down again, casting
her gaze around the park. That was when she saw Leela.
She was sitting under a tree, reading
a book with her little pet thing Nibbler by her side. The creature
looked up and gibbered when Philippa approached. For a moment it
seemed to give her a strange, almost angry look that Philippa decided
had to be her imagination. “Hi Leela.”
“Oh. Hi.” Leela carefully
folded up her book – she’d been writing, not reading. It
was a diary. She didn’t look up at Philippa. “How are
you?”
“Still female,” Philippa
said, pouting a little. Leela smiled in spite of herself. “Bender’s
painting.”
“I heard about that.”
Leela sighed and looked up at the sky. She seemed to be thinking
about something. “I guess you got the invitation?”
“I did. I’m surprised.
Getting married after a week of dating. That’s not like you,
Leela.”
“I felt like being impulsive,”
Leela said. She picked at the grass and let it float away in the
wind. “I’ve had two people tell me that the moment is
what matters. Perhaps I should listen to them more...”
Philippa turned and sat down next to
Leela. She stroked Nibbler’s belly; the little creature kicked
his leg and purred. “I’m surprised you sent me an
invitation”
“It was Sam’s idea,”
Leela replied. She picked up her diary and started to stand up.
“Leela, wait.” Philippa
stood up, facing Leela. The other woman refused to look at her. “I’m
sorry, okay? I said things... I was confused. We were stressed, I was
terrified of losing you again.”
Leela peered at her. She fingered her
diary, tapping out a tuneless tattoo on the leatherette binding, then
suddenly grimaced. “Tell me it was jealousy or something,”
she said. “Or that you were trying to get Sam into bed, or
drunk... anything. Tell me you didn’t mean what you said.”
Philippa shook her head. “It’d
be a lie, Leela. I can’t lie to you.”
She
reached out to touch Leela’s arm. There was no flinch. Leela
licked her lips very slightly and looked at the floor. “Honesty
is a rare commodity these days,” she said. There was a moment
of silence, then she looked up at Philippa again. “You really
meant it?”
Philippa nodded. She took hold of
Leela’s free hand and held on to it with both her own. “I
still do, and it that makes you uncomfortable, well, I can just go
away. I’ll join the navy, or move to another planet.”
“No...” Leela’s eye
was full of longing, but Philippa could see it she’d never
admit to anything. She nodded slowly and let go of Leela’s
hand, before turning away. “Phi, hold on a second.”
Philippa paused. Leela’s hand
rested on her shoulder and gently pulled her back around. They stared
at each other for a long time, just letting the world pass by, not
caring. It was as close as she’d ever get.
“You want to maybe get some
coffee later?”
“I’d love to.”
“Me too,” Sam said,
stepping out from behind the tree. He smiled and took Leela’s
hand. “I know this nice place down the road. The owner’s
an idiot but-”
Leela slapped Samuel’s shoulder.
“Quiet you. We were having a moment.”
“I know,” Samuel said. He
looked back at the tree. “Actually I was waiting to see if it
would turn into more than a moment, but then I realised we have to
get down-town to pick out the rings.” He smiled at Philippa.
“Would you like to join us?”
“Sure, if Leela doesn’t
mind,” she said quietly, looking at Leela’s eye. Leela
nodded and then smiled.
“Why not?” She hooked her
arms for them both and and grinned as they reciprocated. “Now
this is more like it,” she said as they walked out of the park
and on to the streets of the city.
“Hey, what about Zapp?”
“What about him? He was... oh,
shit. I’d better call Amy.”
“At least he’ll be able to
tell us what velour tastes like.”
