The Delivery Boy At The End Of The World
Fry had numerous faults, Leela was all too well aware of this. Thankfully though, being bad in bed wasn't one of them - that just would have been the perfect ending to a truly disastrous day. As it was, lying here with Fry, well, it certainly wasn't the horrible, awkward experience some of her previous encounters with men had been. It was even, she was willing to admit to herself, nice.
That all changed, however, once Fry opened his mouth.
'Ha! I always knew you'd come around,' Fry crowed triumphantly. 'The ladies just can't resist the Fry-meister.'
He sat up and started flexing his biceps. Leela frowned up at his whimpy boy-arms.
'He's Fry-tastic,' he declared, 'He's Fry-licious! He's, oh yeah, Fry-nourmous! He's -'
'I don't know what you're so smug about,' Leela broke in, annoyed at the afterglow which was somehow preventing her from punching him in the side. 'I always said I wouldn't go out with you unless you were the last guy on the planet.'
'Nu-uh,' he replied happily, 'You said not even if I was the last guy on the planet. That's different. It means I must have won you over with my irresistible charm.'
'Well it certainly wasn't your scintillating wit, your toned physique, or your impeccable personal hygiene.'
'Nah, I kinda figured it wasn't any of those things.'
Leela sighed, and stared up at the ceiling.
They'd never made it off the Planet Express ship. The view of New New York as they'd flown in over the city had been depressing enough. She couldn't quite bring herself to disembark yet, and Fry had stayed with her, and they'd ended up... here.
Beside her, Fry was starting to fidget. She could feel him looking at her too, and for a moment, she wished she wasn't quite so naked. It was a bit late for that, though, she supposed.
A few seconds passed.
'You wanna have sex again?' Fry asked.
'Not right now.'
'Okay.'
A few more seconds passed.
'Is it because you're still upset? You know, because everyone's dead?'
She rolled her eye. 'No Fry. It's because I suddenly developed standards.'
Fry pulled his knees up and rested his chin on them.
'I guess I'll miss the Professor, and Hermes, and Amy - she was really hot.'
'What about Dr Zoidberg?'
Fry shrugged. 'Meh.'
Was this the appropriate response, she wondered, for losing an entire planetful of people?
'Well,' Fry said then, a little reluctantly, 'Guess I'll go find Bender.'
'What's he doing, anyway? He disappeared as soon as we landed.'
'He's out looting. There must be lots of cool stuff lying around, now that everyone's dead and everything. I was gonna go with him, but you looked kinda upset, so...'
'Yeah, thanks for taking advantage of me when I was all needy, Fry.'
'Usually I'm the one all needy and stuff. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.'
'Well I guess I did kind of... throw myself at you,' she screwed up her face in distaste.
A moment of weakness. Everyone was allowed one of those in a lifetime, weren't they?
Fry was smiling wistfully. 'Yeah, that was really great.'
She pushed herself up onto her elbows and said, 'Doesn't this bother you? It is all your fault, after all.'
'Actually, since you're my captain, isn't it your responsibility to make sure I don't do anything stupid, like insult all-powerful alien world leaders?'
'No,' she replied immediately. No, this was definitely not her fault. 'Not even I could be expected to stop you from doing stupid things altogether.'
'Well it's not like I did it on purpose,' he said defensively, waving his arms about. He paused. 'Even though it did sort of work out okay for me.'
'Fry, how can you say that?' she demanded indignantly, sitting up fully now and crossing her arms over her chest. 'All other life on Earth has just been wiped out!'
'Yeah, but on the other hand, all other life on Earth has been wiped out, so you can't dump me if some better guy comes along. So I get to live happily ever after with the woman I love. If you look at it that way, it did kind of work out for me.'
Leela stared at him. It must have been the overwhelming grief she was feeling at the loss of the entire Earthian population, but what Fry had just said was really kind of... sweet.
So she didn't point out that there were still plenty of other men in the galaxy - smarter, more attractive, sophisticated men. They just weren't on Earth anymore.
'Wow,' Fry was saying, 'Who would have thought that when I told the Grand High Ch'aquu of Mlechwan III that he looked like my grandma, and he said that he was going to lay waste to our home planet and leave no living thing alive so that we would have to wander desolate and alone for all time, that he actually meant it? I must be the luckiest guy in the world.'
'You're the only guy in the world,' Leela reminded him.
'Yeah,' he grinned and lay back down again with his hands behind his head. 'Hey Leela?'
'Yes Fry?'
'I really do feel bad about it.'
'I know,' she said sincerely.
'Maybe we could go back to Mlechwan III and I could try and get the Grand High Ch'aquu to undo it. D'you think he could do that? Maybe if I just apologised -'
'Fry,' she interrupted him, 'Do you remember what the Grand High Ch'aquu said he would do to us if we ever returned to his planet?'
'Yeah.'
'And can you think of any possible way it wouldn't turn out to be a really bad idea to go back there?'
'Well, no... But maybe if I -'
'No Fry.'
He sighed. 'Okay. It's just, weird stuff happens to us all the time, but we've always managed to fix it. Well, most of it, we have. Some of it, anyway.'
Leela reclined back against the pillows again. 'Maybe we'll be able to figure something out,' she said uncertainly.
He lay down beside her, and joined her in looking up at the ceiling. A few minutes passed.
'You got anything?' she asked.
'Nope. You?'
'No. It's a shame the professor's dead.'
'Yeah. He was much better at this sort of thing. Thinking and stuff.'
Another few minutes passed.
'Hey Leela?'
'Yes Fry?'
'You sure you don't wanna have sex again?'
The thing was, Leela mused, somehow she had just always seen herself settling down someday with a nice Earthian boy. And Fry was right here, after all. So maybe he wasn't good enough for her. At least, she reasoned, he seemed to know it.
He was staring at her expectantly, and she sighed.
'Well, I guess, since you are my last resort and all... Okay.'
He brightened immediately. 'And then you wanna go loot some stuff before Bender gets it all?' he added.
She shrugged. 'Sure, why not?'
'See, I knew you'd come round in the end.'
'Oh, you did not.'