Futurama

Know The Answer
By Enhas

Author's Note: I don't own Futurama or anything to do with it, and this is strictly a non-profit only thing.

This is the fourth Futurama story I've written, and it's a complement to Love into Death. You'd be better off reading that one first, though it shouldn't really matter. It's the same events as that story, only told from Fry's point of view this time.

I've never been much for writing stuff, but I just have to get this down for some reason. It's a secret, so earth-shattering and bad that the universe might explode when you read it. Or space monkeys could invade New New York and enslave humanity.

Well, not really. Even though Leela (my wife) and me promised to never tell anyone this, I'm writing this anyway because I caught her the other day writing stuff and thought that I'd get my version out too. It's not like anybody is going to see this until we're probably both dead and gone, but stuff always has a way of finding itself onto the internet some day. Did you know that I found my old bike from 1999 at an auction once?

Anyway, it's not that bad of a secret but we figure that it's easier if everyone doesn't find out.. I guess.

I've known Leela for a long time now. She's the first person I met with after I was unfrozen and we've been together ever since. Well, not together like that.. but we were really never apart from each other for long. We were good friends for a while but I never stopped trying to win her heart. It took a while, but I did it. She saw me for who I was.. and now I'm married to her and have a daughter with her. I really, really, REALLY love them and I'm glad that everything worked out and that we're all happy together.

Yeah, I'm mushy.. but Leela was and is the one reason that I live for, I think I had a dream or something once where I said something like that to Nibbler and he said something back.. but he can't talk, I think.

Anyway, the Professor died. He was my great-whatever nephew and I suppose my great-something grandson too. He left me some of Planet Express and I was really surprised because he always called me a moron and got mad at me a lot.. but sometimes he would give me this weird look that I didn't get for a while.. until I found out just what he was hiding.

He left a holo-video for me and Leela to watch back at Planet Express. I didn't know what could be on it.. but the first thing that came to my mind was treasure.

"Hey, Leela! What if it's some secret space treasure map and there's all ninja pirates and stuff guarding it?"

"I don't know.. I guess we'll find out soon enough. It has to be something pretty important though, ninja pirates or not.." Leela said, and then put the video into this futuristic VCR. The Professor and Bender popped up on the screen.. they both looked pretty tired and sad, especially Bender. It wasn't normal for him.

"First of all, I don't remember doing any of this. I'm gonna have the Professor blank my memories out later. It's better if I don't remember any of it." Bender said.

"Ah, yes.. I'll do that later. Anyway, I plan to outlive you all so if you are watching this.. then I have met with an untimely demise far too soon in my prime!"

The Professor might not have outlived us, but he did live a really long time. I can't imagine being that old and still being able to drink my daily Slurm quota, or being without Leela. I don't want to die first because I'd leave her all alone, but if she dies first then I'd be all alone.. I try not to think about it too much. What's important is how I spend the time I have now, and I realized it even more after I heard the rest of what the Professor and Bender had to say.

The Professor then said something about a terrible and dark secret that he had to tell. I figured that it can't be worse than all the other terrible and dark secrets he told us before, but I was wrong.

Bender then talked for a bit. "It's a few days after the time skips and Globetrotters. I was out for one of my usual nights on the town.. you know, drinking and more drinking until I ran out of money or stole some more. I came home and went into me and Fry's apartment to offer him something to drink.. he was still pretty depressed over the divorce with Leela. There was no answer when I yelled for him, so I went into his room to see him.. and he was dead!"

I remember thinking that Bender was just being an idiot, but I couldn't see any sign that he was telling anything other than the truth.. but it didn't make any sense! I didn't remember being dead!

"Leela, he's wrong! I'm not dead and I don't remember being dead!" I said, and looked over at Leela. She didn't answer back, but looked a bit shocked as anybody would be who just heard their husband was dead.

"He was just lying on his bed, and he actually looked happy! I don't know nothing about human medicine, but for some reason I grabbed him and ran to Planet Express and took him to the Professor." Bender said.

"He was too late.. Fry had been dead for hours and there was nothing I could do.. Philip J. Fry died this very night, in the year of 3002. Now, I'll pause for a bit so you can discuss and so I can use the bathroom!" The Professor said, and walked really slow out of the screen. Bender just stood there looking all sad and guilty, with his head down.

"What is this about, Fry?" Leela asked. "It doesn't make any sense!"

"I don't know Leela, honestly.. let's just wait until the Professor comes back. Maybe you should fast-forward it a bit since he usually takes forever in the bathroom!"

After a while, he came back. "Now.. I bet you're all thinking that I'm absolutely insane, and I may well be.. but Fry is dead, but also alive. I don't know how to tell you this, Fry.. but you're a clone! The original version of yourself committed suicide!"

At that point, it felt like my heart dropped into my stomach or something. I was thinking that he just had to be wrong, and I couldn't stop staring at the Professor and Bender on the screen.

I can't be a clone! I thought. I can remember everything.. how I was frozen and ended up here, meeting Leela.. how I'm actually my own grandfather, and of course the opera. That was the best night of my life because Leela finally loved and accepted me for who I was. I remember Seymour, Yancy.. everyone! I don't have any weird dots under my eyelids like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Sixth Day! Oh yeah, that was a good movie! I was frozen when it was made but I watched it with Leela one night in our room..

I must have been stunned for a while because the next thing I heard was my own voice. "Do you have anything.. that can ease pain?"

I focused on the screen and saw some guy standing in an alley. "I have just the thing, kid.." he said, and he took something out of a coat pocket. It was a jar of honey, but not normal honey.. space-bee honey. Leela told me all about it after her coma.. even though it was just a dream, she had come close to killing herself before she woke up. "Just remember.. three spoons and you'll be sleepin' like you've never slept before! Six feet under! And no money-back guarantee! Get my drift?"

"Yeah, I suppose I do."

That was my voice again.. was this from my memories? I found out that it had to be, because then it showed the inside of Bender's apartment where I used to stay with him before I got married. Somebody was holding a spoon full of honey in the air, and the hand holding it was shaking.

"Already took two.. one more and that's it. No going back. I've got nothing here anyway, Leela doesn't love me and she never will!"

That was me again! He shoved the honey into his mouth and then started to fall asleep.. fading to black like the end of a movie. He said Leela's name before he fell asleep.. before he died. The spoon dropped from his fingers just before it ended.

The Professor came back up on the screen. "As you can see, Fry did a very stupid thing. But then, I went and worked the hardest I ever have in my entire damn life and cloned him a new body in the span of a few hours! I put all of his memories there except for the space-bee honey and suicide ones, obviously.. and I'm going to be sure to pump him full of anti-depressants for a while so he doesn't do something like this again, because I'm not going through something like this ever again! Bender, take the camera and follow me.."

I didn't want to watch the rest of it. Leela was already on the verge of tears, and I was too.. thinking at the time that my whole life was a sham and a fraud. I then saw myself sleeping on the couch in the lounge, and the Professor said how I was a perfect clone in every way.. down to the dumbness. Gee, thanks.. Professor!

The last thing on the video was Bender telling me not to waste my second chance no matter what. I won't, Bender..

I couldn't take it anymore. It's said that men aren't supposed to cry, but I did. A lot. Leela did too and she came over and gave me a big hug.. one of the ones that I really like that cheers me up when I'm sad.

"You're still the man I love, clone or not! I fell in love with you, and nothing is going to change that! What the other you did was very stupid and was the coward's way out.. but I can't blame you for that!" she said.

"You heard what he said! If he hadn't drugged me up for a while, I might have went and killed myself again!" I said.

"He did that because he cared about you! Did you see how horrible and tired he looked after what he did.. bringing you back to life!" Leela said, and we went on like this for a while until we were both too tired to argue anymore.

I wiped her tears away and told her that I loved her. I then told her something I had kept secret for years.. the message in the stars that I made for her (actually not me, but it's easier to just say it was me instead of the "original Fry".. the clone stuff gets weird sometimes). I remember being depressed over it.. but not as much as I should have been. Plus, there was like a day or so that I can't remember.. there was no denying the truth now.

"Fry.. why didn't you tell me?"

"You would have never believed me.. nobody would have. I thought that was my one chance to win your heart, and I blew it big time! But why did I.. the other me just give up on everything? And why was I brought back.. this isn't even my life, it's someone else's! Someone else who died years ago!"

I wanted to leave and be alone for a while, but I knew that Leela needed me more so I stayed with her. We spent like hours just talking about stuff.. that I did have my own life after all. It was me who reunited her with her parents. It was me who was there for her after she left that jerk Chaz. It was me who sat.. hell, lived by her bedside for two weeks after she nearly died after a space-bee sting. And it was me who wrote and played Leela: Orphan of the Stars and saved her from the Robot Devil. Even if most of my memories aren't really mine, I do have my own and they're mine.. and nobody can take them away.

I'm very lucky.. most people don't get second chances or do-overs for the things they do in life. But I'm lucky that I did.. the Professor and Bender both cared about me more than I ever thought they would. I can see why Bender wanted his memories erased.. it must have been really hard on him.

I asked Leela when she first knew that she loved me. She said that she always admired me from when we first met and liked me as a friend, but it wasn't until she was stung by the space-bee that she really knew for sure.. but she still didn't admit it for quite a while (until the opera) because she was scared to. Imagine that.. Turanga Leela, the toughest and fearless, most beautiful woman in the galaxy.. scared to tell me that she loves me!

Leela had a dream when she was in the coma.. that I died and that she was really sad and at the end of it, she wanted to die and be with me forever in death because she was having really romantic dreams with me in them. Somehow, she heard that I wanted her to wake up.. it scares me a lot to think of what would have happened if she didn't. She would probably be dead and I wouldn't have her or my daughter.

As for me.. I don't know when I first really loved Leela. I thought I did when I had the worms, but I can't remember how much of that was actually me thinking (again, not actually me.. but still me in a way). When the time skips happened and we were married and divorced in like a second, I didn't feel good.. but when I saw I LOVE YOU, LEELA that I had written in the stars being blown up, I knew then that I really did love her and that she was the only one, and that I would just keep trying harder.

I did.. but the other me didn't. His story ended a few days later, and nobody knows it except me and Leela.. and anybody reading this, I guess. I remembered seeing a grave with my name and birthday on it but I thought it was just someone else.. and in a way, it is. But it scares me.. I could have ended up just like him!

When we got to the graveyard, it didn't take long before I found it because Bender had left a stash of empty beer bottles that were still there. I moved them out of the way and looked down.

"I remember me and Bender went through here one night. He showed this to me and laughed, that someone else had the exact same name and birthday as me. Oh man, this is creepy.. this is my own grave! Nobody looks for their own grave, so they must have figured I'd never find it." I said.

"No, it's not your grave.. you still have a long time to live yet if I have anything to say about it!" Leela said. "Fry.. he is not you! He made a horrible, terrible decision that was mostly my fault! I feel guilty every single day! Not only because he's dead, but because if he didn't die nothing might even be the same now! I might not have you, and our daughter! I feel like I killed a man just so I could have another.. even if it's the same one!"

I felt terrible at how Leela was feeling. Right then and there, I made a promise to myself that I would never leave her. I may not be a smart guy but I've learned that suicide is not the answer to anything. Maybe The Scary Door is, but not suicide. "Leela, don't blame yourself! If he wasn't already dead, I'd kill him for what he's doing to you! The Professor is right.. I've been given a second chance and I'm not gonna waste it, Leela! I love you and our daughter and nothing is gonna change it! I won't ever leave you the way he did.. you can count on that!"

I moved closer and kissed my wife, which made her a bit happier and put a smile on her face.. I like that. I put the bottles into a trash can that was a few feet away and brushed off a bit of dirt that was on the headstone, and stopped to think for a few seconds while I was staring down at it.

What you did was wrong and really hurt Leela, the Professor and Bender.. but you're still me and I won't ever forget you, and who you were.

Leela thinks that I don't know, but I followed her one day back to the graveyard without her seeing me. And the next, and the next. She always leaves a flower there and some days looks happy, but other days she cries.

But I have a secret too. Sometimes I go there by myself to just look at the grave. Sometimes I pick up one of Leela's sweet-smelling flowers and enjoy the scent. But most of the time, I just wonder.

What if he hadn't died?

It would have been a great question to ask the What-If Machine, but it's been missing for years now and nobody's ever found it. And I think that in a way it's good that I can't find it.. because I might not want to know the answer.

I had no plans on writing something else so soon, but this was just killing me and I had to get it out. Suicide is the ultimate selfish act and is never the right answer, and all it will accomplish in the end is hurting others. If I didn't become a Christian almost two years ago, then I don't know where I'd be today. When I think back to the stupid things I thought of and could have done, I realize how much of a fool I was. There's never any good reason to kill yourself, and if you look hard enough for a reason to go on.. you'll find it.