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“Please don’t stop playing, Fry. I want to hear how it ends.”
He turns and there she is, the only one left of what was a sea of admirers, all of whom left at the first sour note. And yet even with all those glad hands gone, Fry cannot despair; the one admirer who ever counted is still here, right when he expected her to leave.
“I want to hear how it ends…”
He’s never been able to refuse her anything, not even now when it will make him look like an idiot. He’s ashamed by the crudity of the images created by his slow human hands – a child could produce better – but he finds himself hoping against hope that Leela knows that although the images seem rough, unsophisticated, they come from his heart, wherein she is the most beautiful creature ever created.
He puts the holophonor down again, and the images disappear in a puff of smoke. He desperately hopes that his dreams won’t do the same thing.
“I’m sorry it didn’t come out prettier, Leela,” he murmurs, not even sure if she can hear, not even sure if she’s still there.
“It came out pretty enough.”
Her voice is shockingly close, and Fry nearly falls out of his chair when he raises his head and sees her standing beside him. She smiles at him in a way he’s never seen before and by the time she reaches out and brushes his face with her fingertips, Fry feels lightheaded.
“I thought it was wonderful, Fry,” Leela whispers.
“Uh…” Fry wishes he could find his voice. “Uh…well, that’s all that counts to me, you know.”
Leela smiles in that way that makes him lightheaded and nods.
Fry frowns, uncertain. But before he can ask what she means, Leela pulls him to his feet. “Come home with me?” she asks.
He takes her hand.
*****
If it had been any other girl, Fry would be in seventh heaven. But Leela was anything but any girl, and when she told him they would talk in the morning, his heart leapt into his mouth for more than one reason.
Her fingers are sliding up and down his bare back and her lips are on his face and her hand’s on his belt buckle and he finds himself saying, “Uh, Leela?”
“Hmmm?” she murmurs in his ear as she gently pushes him to sit down on the edge of her bed then lifts herself into his lap.
She unfastens his belt, tugging it out of the lapels on his jeans.
He gasps. He can’t help himself.
“Is something wrong, Fry?” Leela’s voice is concerned, soft.
“Uh…” he swallows heavily, trying to unfog his brain enough to form a coherent sentence, but Leela’s presence is like a drug – a drug which becomes more and more intoxicating the closer her physical proximity to him. And with her on his lap…
Fry grits his teeth, trying to recover some semblance of sense. “Are you sure about this?” he gasps.
She pulls back from him a little, and looks him in the eyes.
Fry sits there gasping, trying to look composed.
“Fry, we’ve wasted enough time already,” she whispers. “I’ve wasted enough of our time already. I’m sure. Aren’t you?”
Before he can stop, it all falls out of his mouth in a rush. “Am I sure? I’ve only spent almost four years stopping you from killing your own parents and spending all my money on your Xmas presents and trying to impress you by learning how to fly the ship and throwing myself between you and lethal space bees and–”
Fry stops abruptly, out of breath. He feels light-headed, dizzy, like he’s disconnected from the earth.
“Exactly,” she whispers, touching his face. “I get it, Fry. I finally understand.”
“You…you understand?”
Leela smiles. “Yes. I do.”
Fry swallows. He can’t believe this is happening.
“You love me, Fry,” Leela whispers. “I know you do.”
Fry can’t speak. He fears any movement, any sound he might make, will destroy this moment. That it will disappear, like all his dreams.
But even his dreams can’t match this, the warmth of Leela’s body, the strength of it. The realness of it all.
“You’ve done more than enough in attempt to prove that to me, these past few years,” she says.
“And that’s something which you never should have had to do in the first place. I get it, I understand something I should have seen long ago.
“I love you, too, Fry.”
All Fry can do is stare dumbly at the woman in his arms. He can’t believe what he is hearing.
Leela is leaning towards him again. Her fingers brush the sides of his face, running up into his hair. “I love you,” she repeats, her lips brushing his ear, her breath tickling him.
“Oh, Leela,” Fry buries his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. He feels like he’s about to pass out. Of all the wonderful, amazing things he’s heard in his life…
“Please forgive me, Fry,”
Fry frowns. What is she talking about?
“I know I don’t deserve it, and I know I don’t deserve you…”
Fry pulls back, looking her in the eye. She looks unbearably sad.
“I’ve been cruel to you, Fry,” she whispers. “Very cruel. Needlessly so. There are a thousand reasons I’ve given myself over the years. But…please forgive me, Fry.”
Fry is speechless. “Leela…”
“I’m so sorry, Fry…I’m so, so sorry…”
Fry pulls her toward him, and she follows willingly. She clings to him, her face buried in his neck. He doesn’t know what to do – what to say – to relieve her of this pain. So he just holds her, making soothing noises in her ear, telling her it’s all right, that he loves her, that she has nothing to be sorry for.
Leela leans back. “What did I do to deserve someone as wonderful as you?” she asks, stroking his lips.
Fry grins at her, but his quip dies on his lips when she learns forward and kisses him again, softly at first, then with growing intensity. Fry feels like she wants to climb inside him.
Fry has cursed his human hands, but as he carefully undresses her, running his fingertips gently over every inch of her skin, Leela smiles at him. Her smile only grows as he moves down her body, his tongue tracing her inner thigh.
And when his tongue reaches her core, she cries out his name and tangles her fingers in his hair.
And later, when he finally sinks into her, she clings to him with all her strength, squeezing his sides with her thighs and running her fingernails over his back and shoulders. Her moans make Fry feel like a superhero.
He knows he’s moaning, too, probably everything he’s ever felt about her and wanted to say to her and never had the guts to, but he can’t bring himself to regret a word of it.
He loves her.