The plot was fairly good but the language was kinda stilted. And not having the dialogue in quotes confused me at first.

 

Originally posted by Venus:
Hurray! Finally a story that refferences Parasites Lost that doesn't portray Leela as a cold-hearted bitch!

    Yep, that's pretty much why I wrote it.  I think some folks are a wee bit hard on Leela for that...which I attribute to over-identification with Fry.  I don't mean that feeling Fry's pain is at all wrong - it's only natural, the episode approaches the incident from his point of view, so WE know his love is sincere, and we ache for him at the end - but Leela doesn't have our omniscient point of view. 

That, and I wanted to write Fry's sonnet.   

And thank you for asking NIC about all that, and helping it get cleared up, I was afraid he meant something similar but was too shy to ask.

And NIC, no problem, it's all cleared up now.  And I see why you had a deja vu feeling, but I swear I hadn't read your story before you mentioned it.  I thought your version was quite in-character.

Philp_J_Fry, Drftwd Dragon, thank you also!  Writing that little Morris and Munda bit was enormous fun.  They really lend themselves well to being insightful and hilarious at the same time.  I'll see if I can't work with them some more...

(Edit: I dropped an "and" somewhere, and couldn't rest till I put it back)

Oh… uh… well… uh… Hello Shiny

Again, I'm really sorry about all that.
All I wanted to do is to show you my point of view of what I think should have happen after the opera. (And yes I really think I got the character right in that part of my fic)

You’re version is great and it is nothing like mine. (I quite like you’re impulsive Leela  )(I like it more when she cries  )

Keep up the good work.

First of all; there is nothing to cure in that story.

But what might not really fit into your average TV-episode was... Well, first of all; it really was a good ending to begin with. I also think they would be a little reluctant to have such a serious romantic scene in the show. Unfortunally.
 But I would not say that Leela was out of character. I reflected on that. I really think you did a good job; both keeping her the person that rejected Fry so many times, and putting them so nicely together.

 A smashing success is what your story is; do not change your way of writing.

Me: This sounds like a job for -

Gorky: Fanfic Critic Gorky!

Me: Alright then.

*sits down and eats some chips*

Seriously, I was getting ready to write this nice explanation, and Gorky here covers all the bases in one fell swoop.  Well played, madam Gorky.

EDIT:  By the way, Shiny, if you’re into Futurama and poetry, you should definitely check out the Futurama poetry thread; I'm always trying to find people to write stuff for it...

I do feel better...because I was worried that I ignored or forgot something in the canon, but it seems I just interpreted them differently.  An author should never argue with her readers...but I did want to explain what I based this characterization of Leela on, since we have a common, objective reference (the episodes) to compare things to.

1. I do see Leela as having the start of an affection/attraction for Fry since the first two episodes, which sloooooowly grew into something deeper.  My hypothesis for the story was, “what if the opera caused it to reach ‘critical mass?’” (I can also see it not getting there, which is a tribute to the writers of the ep and the success of their “open-ended” strategy. )

2. I also (despite AOI1, which was but a dream within a dream, as it were) see Leela as having an impulsive streak, and as much as she wants to deny and suppress it, it keeps slipping out.  As for how this works out in matters of love and sex are concerned, well:

Exhibit A: Alkazar (pounced him the night she met him)
Exhibit B: Fry with his brain on worms (brought him home that very night)
Exhibit C: (almost) Chaz-the-Mayor’s-Aide (she clearly thought first-date sex was a possibility)
Exhibit D: Zapp Brannigan (!)  (A split second of pity is all it took... )

3. I do see Leela as having a vulnerable streak as well, and though it usually comes out as anger, she can also respond to hurt by crying.  She cries in Xmas story and “Crustacean in Love,” off the top of my head. So in “Parasites,” I thought that once the object of her anger (Fry) was gone, the hurt would come to the surface.  I didn’t think she’d indulge in it long before suppressing it again, though.

Anyway, that’s all.  Just wanted to explain where I’m comin’ from, characterization wise.   Thanks for responding!  It helps, believe me...

Nothing to do with your stuff, but, as one Firefly fan to another, let me just say,

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Great job Shiny. I really enjoyed the last one with PS from Leela's POV. It really makes sense and, as Venus put it so nicely, doesn't portray Leela as a cold-hearted bitch! I love your writing style. Keep those fics coming! (that is not a request  )

It's a movie called "Serenity", which is a followup to a brilliant killed-by-Fox science fiction series called "Firefly."  It's kind of hard to describe, but enormously enjoyable to watch.  The DVD's are out (their sales helped make the movie possible) so find a place near you that rents them and give them a try.


And thank you, AsaB!  I'm tryin', I really am....

Finally finished it...it's shippy, but not Fry & Leela shippy.  I'll see if I can't go back to that now that this is out of my system...

~~~~~

Something to Live For
by Shiny

Kif Kroker, newly-made Captain, stood solemnly on the bridge of his first–and last–command.

The Titanic was a fine young ship, well-designed and meant for great things; it was just her bad luck to have come under the authority of that imbecilic fathead, Zapp Brannigan.  Now the vessel was being cut down before her career had truly begun, and no one would remember what was good about her–only the ignominy of her death.

Kif sighed.  He knew an overextended metaphor when he thought one, but it still seemed appropriate.  And if a person couldn’t wax eloquent on the occasion of his own death, well, when could eloquence be so waxed?

Facing death wasn’t as bad as he’d feared.  At least this impromptu field-promotion meant he would die as a Captain.  Kif would do Clan Kroker the honor it deserved in death, as he could never seem to do in life.  That gave him the courage to stand here, on the bridge, staring the swirling maw of gravity right in the eye as it drew him ever closer to the end of his life.  That, and the fact that he knew he wouldn’t be missing much.

His life since he was assigned to Zapp Brannigan’s ship was hardly worth living.  As a matter of fact, his life since he left Amphibios 9 hadn’t been noticeably great.  It had, like the black hole before him, sucked on an interstellar scale.

“Where did I go wrong?” Kif asked himself softly, leaning his head against the cool, transparent surface of the Titanic’s bubble dome.  “Being a member of the DOOP Space Corps is all I ever wanted.  To explore the unknown, to serve the causes of peace and justice among the civilized universe...is there in truth no nobler desire of the soul?”  He sighed again, the sound having become as familiar, in the last few years, as breathing.  “But alas, Fate has decreed it is not to be.”

It was easy to blame it all on Zapp-the-Jackass-Brannigan, easy and largely truthful, but Kif was in a self-deprecating mood.  He felt like shouldering as large a load of blame as he could bear.  If he hadn’t wanted more than the average Amphibion...if he hadn’t believed he had something to offer the cold, empty universe beyond his world’s green-gold skies...if he hadn’t chosen Earth’s forces to enlist in, just because they were the only ones desperate enough to accept him–small and weak as he was, even among his own people, who were not known for their size or strength among the bipeds of the universe...

“Oh, I’m a fool,” Kif wailed aloud, sinking to his knees.  “I should have stayed in my clan mother’s tree and been a grub farmer like my birthmates.  Or taken up competitive whittling.  But no!  I dreamed of the endless frontier of space, and instead was given the endless humiliation of being shackled to an incompetant, self-serving ego in the shape of a fat blond pig.  Why didn’t I read the small print about non-Earthicans having to serve fifteen years before becoming eligible for voluntary discharge?”

It was because he had been young and foolish, of course.  He’d only been thirty-five years old when he signed up, barely past puberty.  The Earth recruiter had thought him almost too old to enlist, apparently knowing nothing of the life cycle of Kif’s species. 

The twenty years Amphibions spent as a water-creature marked a time of pre-consciousness; the mental maturation did not begin until they crawled onto land as children.  In Earth years, he’d been thirty-five; but in developmental terms, he was comparable to an Earthling of only fifteen.  But he was bright enough to complete secondary schooling far ahead of his birthmates, and it gave him false confidence. 

Earth had the largest space fleet in the DOOP, and always needed talented new enlistees. It didn’t occur to Kif at the time to wonder why they always needed so many new enlistees. So he’d blithely signed away his freedom for the promise of adventure and noble service.  But once he’d graduated from the academy, he found incompetance, bureaucacy, low life expectancy, and worst of all, Zapp Brannigan.

Zapp was quick to notice that Kif came from a clan-based society, in which duty and loyalty were unquestionable constants.  The Captain quickly learned that he could make the young Amphibion do just about anything he said by the power of his greater rank.  Kif was certain that a lot of the things Zapp ordered him to do were just for the sheer fun of seeing if he would do it.

And now by Zapp’s decree he was going to die, little more than halfway through his service, at the young age of forty-three.  It was just as well; seven more years of Zapp’s command would have driven him mad, even if he’d managed to survive it. 

Kif looked out of the dome to his death.  He watched the blue accretion disc circle lazily around the black heart of nothingness toward which he headed.  “I have nothing and no one to live for, anyway. So, go ahead!  Take me, cold and lonely space, and wrap me in your eternal, blissful silence.”

“Hey, you!” shrilled a voice. 

“Ahhh!”  Kif jumped and spun around on the floor.

Two aged Earthlings stood there, passengers from First Class. The Wongs, Kif remembered.  He  scambled to his feet.  “Mr. and Mrs. Wong!  What are you doing here?  The life pods are at the stern of the ship!”

“We looking for Amy, our daughter,” said Mr. Wong.  “Who are you?”

Kif stood straight. “I am Lieu...er, Captain Kif Kroker,” he said.

“Captain?” said Mrs. Wong tartly.  “We thought he was loud blond guy.  You are not him.”

“He was...suddenly called away,” Kif said, hating to cover for Zapp, but unwilling to admit he’d been suckered into saving Brannigan’s fat ass.

Mr. Wong’s eyes lit with an oddly feral gleam. “You are Captain.  I see Captain’s patch on your scrawny little chest.  You not married, are you?”

“What?  Er, no,” Kif said.  “But Mr. and Mrs. Wong, you shouldn’t still be here!”  He glanced at the ship’s sensors.  “Everyone else has gone for the life pods.  If you don’t hurry, they will leave without you!”

Mrs. Wong waved her hand dismissively.  “They not leave without us.  We rich.  But you, green single Captain, why are you still here?”

“It is the duty of a DOOP Captain to go down with the ship,” Kif said, though he wasn’t actually sure that was true.  It was one of those things Earthicans said was done, but he didn’t recall seeing any regulation about it when he was at the Academy.

“Buggalo pies!” said Mr. Wong.  “Duty is worth less than treaty with natives!”

“It’s the duty of a daughter to have grandchildren,” said his wife, “But that doesn’t stop Amy from using contraception.”

“Oh! Ah...” Kif quailed.  “I-I-I, er, ah, that is, I’m s-sure that–well, I mean–”

“Enough chit-chat!” snapped Mr. Wong “You come with us!  Boat can find black hole without help.”

Kif considered.  Yes, they could make it.  He could escape with them, under the perfectly logical excuse that his duty to help them overrode his duty to die.  Though what he’d be living for, he didn’t know.  Working for Zapp, he was bound to die eventually.  What did it matter if it was now or later?  “Well....”

“Come on, Captain,” Mrs Wong said, and smiled.  “You doing no good here.  Besides, we need you to show us where life pods are!”

“Yes!” chimed in Mr. Wong.  “We not sure where where we going.  We old and feeble, need your guidance.  So come on, hurry up already!”

They each grabbed one of his hand and yanked him off the bridge.

As they tugged him along, Mr. Wong asked,  “So, Captain, you got girlfriend?”

“Or boyfriend?” added Mrs. Wong.

“Oh my!  Er, ah, no...neither one,” Kif said.  “You’ll need to turn down that corri–oh, I see you know already.  Could, um, could you release me now?  I’m supposed to go down with the ship...standing on the bridge, I believe, and I...have to get back there before...the protective dome...shatters.  Also, I’m...having trouble...keeping up,” he added, panting in the effort to keep his feet under him.

“We here!” Announced Mr. Wong.  They let him go, and Kif leaned against the wall.

The Wongs searched the boat deck for someone, presumably their daughter.  This was his chance, Kif thught, to reclaim the tiny bit of honor left to him.  And his chance to leave behind the purposeless life he was wasting time and effort on.  If only he weren’t so out of breath....

Ahead of him, the Wongs greeted someone.

“Mom, Dad, you’re alive,” said a high female voice.

“Yah, but so what?” Mr. Wong said. “The important thing is we found you a new man.”

“A captain,” Mrs Wong added.

Kif was too startled to panic when they grabbed him and thrust him forward. 

He found himself facing the most beautiful Earthling he’d ever seen.  “Hi,” she said, tucking a lock of black hair behind her ear.  Her voice had dropped oddly in pitch, and she smiled.

“Hello,” Kif said, entranced. 

What happened next seemed to be a dream.  Like a hero in a ballad, he picked her up and began to carry her toward the safety of the lifepod. She kissed him, and her human lips were soft and warm.  Kif was hardly aware of the walk across the deck.  The next thing he knew he was entering the lifepod and sitting down. 

She showed no inclination to leave his lap.  “I’m Amy,” she said.

What a beautiful name.  “I am Kif.”

Just then a horrible, twisting, sliding sensation seemed to wrench them from all sides.  It was the high gravity, Kif realized, creating a tidal force on the escape pod...and their bodies. 

Kif was about to reluctantly release Amy, in order to pilot the ship away, when the rest of the Planet Express people entered the pod and sealed it behind them.  Captain Leela at once took the helm and Kif relaxed, knowing that she was experienced and competant (even if she showed a lamentable taste in bed partners).  She would see them to safety.

And he wouldn’t have to let go of Amy.

But just after they launched, something impacted the ship.  There was a terrible wrench, and Kif realized they were being pulled back toward the black hole.

“Something’s wrong!” Leela said.  “We’re two metric tons overweight!”

“Well, it’s not me,” Amy said.

How brave she was, Kif thought, to joke at a time like this.

“Look!” the one called Fry said, pointing back.

Kif saw through the window the two robots, the Countess from first class and the Planet Express bending unit, clinging to the pod.  Their added weight, under the force of the high gravity, was dragging them all back to crushing death.

The escape pod wasn’t going to make it.  Kif tightened his grip on Amy, as if he could somehow protect her from the deadly fingers of gravity reaching into their bodies.  It was easy to face death alone; but now there was another life in his arms, one he thought worth saving, and Kif realized just how fragile, and precious, life was.   

Everyone’s life–even his own.

In the face of certain death, Kif Kroker discovered that he wanted to live.

And then a miracle happened.  Another wrench rocked the pod, and then they were moving again–in the right direction.

It became clear what happened when the pod door opened.  Only one robot slid through the protective force field before the door sealed shut once more.

“She’s gone,” the bending unit said sadly.

Leela turned to him.  “But she saved all our lives. Without her, we're light enough to get away.”

In the throes of his new love of life, Kif was astounded at the Countess’s sacrifice.  Even a robot desired to go on existing; that one could give up her future to save another’s touched him.  And he felt even worse for the bending unit, who had lost her because of her very nobility.

He looked at Amy, whose face was pinched with sympathy as she looked at the surviving robot.  “Poor Bender,” Amy said softly.

And that was when Kif felt his heart leave his chest and land with a plop in Amy’s lap, beating a cadence of hopeless love.

*****

Kif never remembered what they talked about on the escape pod; though for once in his life he didn’t stammer or turn into an idiot in front of a beautiful female.  The experience of facing death, and then embracing life, had given him a strange courage that lasted until the rescue ship contacted them.

The viewscreen lit up with a familiar, hated face.  “Ah, the last of the survivors.  Led by my lucious Leela!  Come, citizens, dock with us and greet the brilliant space captain whose quick thinking gave you the time to escape a doomed ship-puh.”

Oh, lord.

“Oh, lord,” said Leela.

“What’s this?!”  Zapp turned his nose in Kif’s direction.  “Kif, you yellow-green coward.  Refusing to go down with your first command.  You’re in a lot of trouble, Lieutenant.”

“You made me Captain,” Kif pointed out.

“Baldercock!  I hereby re-un-promote you.  Your selfish endangerment of others in rescuing yourself shows you to be unfit for the rank you wheedled out of me.”

“What?” Mr. Wong said.  “You not really Captain?  Give me back my daughter, you!”  He snatched Amy away.

“Dad!” Amy said.

Mrs. Wong grabbed her other hand.  “Your father is right.  You don’t need Lieutenant, especially such a green one.” 

Kif stared at Amy, dismayed.

“Leela, my dainty snack cake, hurry and bring Kif aboard.  I need to shower, and this primitive tub doesn’t have towel boys.”  He gave her his seductive grin.  “And I’ve commandeered the captain’s quarters for my personal use.  Hurry and you can share the exceedingly large and soft captain’s bunk with me.”

“Eaugh,” Leela said.  “Kif, what’s the range on this pod?”

“About three hundred trillion miles.”

“Plenty to get us to Earth,” she said, and yanked the steering control.

Kif looked hopefully at Amy, but the dreamlike interlude had passed; her parents kept her firmly between them the rest of the way back.  Still, when he looked at her, she gave him a smile that made his bodily fluids churn in strange new ways.

When the pod landed at the door of Planet Express, the Wongs hustled Amy off first.

Kif sighed.  Wearily, he waited until last, and walked off the ship just behind the bending unit. 

He almost ran into someone.  He looked up.

It was Amy.

She took both his hands, and smiled.  “I really enjoyed talking to you,” she said.

“I–I did, t-too,” he said.  He could feel his usual nervousness stealing back over him.

She pressed a piece of paper into his hand.  “Call me,” she said, and walked away.

He started to stammer to himself as he clutched the phone number.  She liked him!  A beautiful female actually liked him.

Kif felt a warm glow.  With that knowledge, perhaps he could bear going back to serve under Zapp the spoiled Brat-igan.  More even than that, Kif now knew that life was worth the effort.  He had found that nobility and compassion in the least likely places; he could not give up just because pettiness and uncaring existed beside them.  If anything, that just made them more wondrous, as death made life more precious.

He put Amy’s phone number in his pocket.  He could worry about working up the courage to call her later - now had something to do for someone else.

~~~~~~~~~~

SUBMISSION FOR DEMOCRATIC ORDER OF PLANETS AWARDS OF HONOR

Submitted by Kif Kroker, Lieutenant, the Nimbus[/u]

In the opinion of the undersigned, acting Captain of the Titanic during the time in question, the Countess DeLaRoca (deceased), Class 1 Luxury Robot, Countess of Pembotshire, and Class 3 Registered Yacht, acted with superlative courage and self-sacrifice in the matter detailed below.  It is the opinion of this officer that she deserves to be posthumously awarded the Medal of Civilian Bravery for her actions which saved the lives of nine DOOP citizens, one DOOP officer, and one bending unit....

~~~~~

Edit: had to tweak a paragraph.

There's not enough a's in the word aaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww to adiquately express how adorable this was. And you write Amy's parents accent perfectly. I could hear them speaking each line and it was hysterical!

Now for Leela/Fry Shippy!

Ah. So sweet, and such a great read. It was really well-written... I loved it lots. You did play Amy's parents perfectly. I loved how Kif talked of Zapp. His soliloquizing was perfect  .

Yum. More!

I'm such a lucky girl  I had three delicious fanfic updates waiting for me, and they were all great too! You sure are talented Shiny, that was really nice. Write more, now!! Uh, no pressure. Of course.

Hi, guys.  I have been somewhat absent of late; I had a bout of really bad “tender tummy,” and then I had to get a whole lotta stuff done in my off-hours.  Just wanted to prove I'm still alive and writing...

Thus this fragment.  I wrote this as an intro to a story idea I had, but it turned out to have the wrong tone. I kinda like it anyway, so I decided to share it.  I warn you, I have no actual plot to follow this.  It’s most likely I never will have.  Still, it might amuse you for a moment or two.


Edited 7/24/05, to put the heading in.  This has now become the start of a hopefully long tale whose title shall be revealed in good time. 


~~~~~~~~~

Story of Unrevealed Title
Chapter 1
Part 1


Leela was not generally a morning person - that was why she had laid down the money for the Buckingham BronCo Caffomatic Complete(tm) System.  When its morning-motion detectors spotted her staggering out of bed and into the bathroom, the multi-bladed grinder set to work turning a measured amount of coffee beans into fine coffee dust. By the time she washed her hands and peered blearily at her fuzzy reflection, maser beams had taken twelve ounces of distilled water from room temperature to a rapid boil in 1.4 seconds; the pulverized beans and water had met in the maelstrom of the depressurized Rapidbrew(tm) chamber and were well engaged in the sacred alchemy that turned them from H2O and crushed seeds to the Drink That Sustaineth All Life.

Before she found the kitchen door and waved the lights on, the Holy Beverage was born; as she crossed the Finoleum floor it accepted the intrusion of a bit of calorie-free Neosugar and a third of a cup of Third and Third and Third, which swiftly cooled it to the perfect drinking temperature.  The robotic arm set the finished product out on her built-in dinette table just as her butt hit the coordinated, ergonmic chair.  All she had to do was raise it to her mouth and drink.

There was an optional Caffomatic attachment to do that for her, too, but Leela took pride in her self-sufficiency.  If the people in Fry’s time could cope with the arduous [task] of using the ancient automatic drip device, then she could bear to rough it a little.

Usually.  This morning, the mental effort involved in bringing cup and lip to a happy meeting place felt like a two-hour oral midterm in Cyborganic Chemistry 101.  One cup of coffee was not going to turn her into her usual alert and practical self.  “More,” Leela commanded, and waited in impatient bleariness for the second mug to emerge.  She had been up too late the night before; this lag between coffee doses was a rare and dangerous time - woe be unto they who bearded the half-woken Leela in her den at such a moment.

Clearly, the idiot who rang her doobell was both A) tired of living, and B) too cheap to shell out the quarter for a suicide booth.
   
Leela would be glad to oblige him.
   
~~~~~~~~~~~

That's all, folks.  See you around, I hope...

I don´t like coffee.

There, one short sentence and three quarters of PEEL want me dead.

I seriously doubt that whatever this "wrong tune" is would be bad enough for us not to like it. I mean, it´s not like you are going to kill a main character, right?

...

Right?

In any case, it´s good to see you writing here again. And remember, things tend to turn out a lot better than the author herself thinks, so don´t go not posting something because you think it´s bad. It isn´t.

Thanks, you guys!  And by "wrong tone," I merely meant that it seemed too wacky and funny for the idea I had.  If the idea in question gets itself written, it will certainly appear, but with another intro.  And if I think of a plot on the zanier side of the Force, I will consider grafting it onto this fragment.

I don't like coffee, either, actually.  But I've been addicted to caffeine (the delivery system is incidental).  Also it amused me to speculate about Leela being addicted to coffee - most of the very practical and energetic people I know are utter slugs until they've had their morning dose.  And it was fun "designing" the coffee system, too (probably too much fun, which is how this brief intro paragraph grew out of control...heh).

Much of my writing, actually, consists of these little fragment without bodies...I think of a scene and write it, and sometimes the rest of the plot crystallizes around it, sometimes nothing does.  We'll see...

Hmmm, another bit of writing that slipped by me while I was away.  My main comment, of course, is this:

 

too wacky and funny

Never use those words in that particular order again!   

Well, here's hoping you find a plot you like to match with a tone you deem appropriate, because it'd be nice to see you writing again.  Until next time *toasts with a coffee mug*

Well, gosh, I didn't even realize JBerges had posted here.  I'm such a spaz....

   

Re: "...too wacky and funny..."

Never use those words in that particular order again!     

There IS such a thing as too wacky and funny!    Stories have to match their openings...you can't open up like South Park and then go all Party of Five, people will get confused and annoyed. 

However....I have found a story that the Caffomatic intro will go with (well, it'll work for now).  It will hopefully contain both wacky/funny stuff and serious angstiness.  And (also hopefully) it will be longish.  With plot and stuff.  Yeah, plot, that's the ticket.  However, I promise nothing on the timeliness of updates.  I should rather die than be forsworn to you, my esteemed PEELians.

Anyway, here goes....


(partial recap of last paragraph)


~~~~~

Story of Unrevealed Title
Chapter 1
Part 2


...[This morning], one cup of coffee was not going to turn her into her usual alert and practical self.  “More,” Leela commanded, and waited in impatient bleariness for the second mug to emerge.  She had been up too late the night before; this lag between coffee doses was a rare and dangerous time.  Woe be unto they who bearded the half-woken Leela in her den at such a moment.  Even Nibbler knew enough not to ask for walkies while she was still proto-syllabic.

Clearly, the idiot who rang her doorbell was both A) tired of living, and B) too cheap to shell out the quarter for a suicide booth.

Leela would be glad to oblige him.

She stalked to the door and pressed the button. 

Fry’s smiling face greeted her.  “Hey, Leela.  What up?”

Leela glared pointedly.  Sometimes Fry could take a hint.  Sometimes he couldn’t pick one up if it had a five-foot, extendable handle and big glowing letters flashing HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT.

Apparently this was one of the latter times.  He glanced at her robe, and her slippered feet.  “Oh, cool, penguin slippers!  I had a pair of Yoda slippers in the Twentieth Century.  Until Seymour chewed the ears off, and then they just kind of looked like geriatric weasels.  If weasels came in green.  So, you just woke up, huh?  No problem.  I’ll give Nibbler a walk while you get ready.”

Fry walked in as if he had every right to; Leela was so startled she moved out of his way without thinking.  Her brain was a bit busy, slowly working her way through Fry’s disjointed speech, trying to make sense of it.

Fry was (characteristically) oblivious.  He was greeting Nibbler, who bounced up and down and churbled happily, holding his leash in his paws.  Nibbler was perhaps not the brightest pet in the world, but he’d learned the word “walk” with amazing speed.

Fry, leash in hand, was leading Nibbler past her when Leela said, “Wait.”

Fry stopped, looking at her curiously.

“Why are you here?” Leela finally found words to say.

“Uh...to go to brunch with you, and then to the Mets game?” Fry said.  “You remember, I asked you yesterday?”

“I remember,” Leela said, beginning to regain her mental acuity.  “I also remember that I told you ‘no’ eight times yesterday.”

“Well, yeah...” Fry shrugged, “but the ninth time, you said ‘yes.’”

Leela stared.  “No I didn’t!”

Fry looked very confused.  “Yes, you did.”

“I did not!” Leela snapped, annoyed now.

“You did, too!” Fry said, echoing her annoyance.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Not!”

“Too!”

“Not!”

“Too!”

“Not!”

“T - ”   

Nibbler ended the intellectual debate by dropping a load on the doorstep.  The whole building shuddered.

“Oh, great!” Leela said, pushed past the limits of her already-weakened patience.  “Now I have to clean that up.  Look, Fry, I told you that I have other things to do today, which I knew about yesterday, so there’s no way I agreed to go anywhere.  Did you think if you got here early enough, I wouldn’t remember what I said?”

“No!” Fry said, offended.  “And you did say what I remember you saying, even if you don’t remember saying what I remember you said, if I must say so, myself.”

“Just give me Nibbler and get out,” Leela snapped, holding out her hand.

“Fine,” Fry said, handing her the leash and backing up.  “But just watch out, Leela, because one of these days I’m going to cook up a really fantastic date which you’ll just have to go out with me, and you’ll finally see there’s more to me than just what’s on the surface.  And then you’ll fall for me just like a ton of - ”

Fry stepped back, out over the open stairway, and kept on going.  His eyes got comically wide and his arms made great pinwheels as he balanced on the edge for a split second; Leela instinctively reached out to catch him, though he was much too far for her to cover the distance in time.

Fry went down the stairs with a great, crashing timpani of thuds, and landed with a splat that made Leela cringe. 

“Ow, my myofascia!” he yelled from the bottom.

Leela hesitated, torn between wanting to pick him up and make sure he was okay - and wanting to pick him up and throw him down the stairs again.  She settled for hitting the ‘slam’ button.  Except that the door bounced off of Nibbler’s globe of dark-matter excreta and set the building vibrating again; the floor then gave way beneath the super-dense material and sent the small sphere crashing down into her landlord’s apartment below - and the basement after that.

“That’s tacked onto your next month’s rent!” he yelled up.

“Oooooo - !”  Leela hit the “slam” button again and was finally rewarded with a slam.  She stalked into the kitchen only to find that her second cup of coffee had vibrated right off the table, and was now spilled halfway across the kitchen floor.

Leela contained her anger with superhuman effort.  Forcing her voice to a reasonable tone, she said, “Another cup, please.”

The Caffomatic buzzed briefly.  Then, in an apologetic voice, it said, “Coffee reserves exhausted, ma’am.  May I make you a cup of Earl Grey tea?”

Leela blinked. 

The machine repeated,  “Coffee reserves exhaus - “

Leela picked up the chair and slammed it into the Caffomatic’s face plate.  “Coffee reserves exhausted, ma’am,” it tried again, then it opted for the safety of silence as Leela pummeled it until the chair was in pieces.  It did little more than dent the machine’s facade - the Caffomatic was sturdy enough to withstand any caffeine-deprived assault - but it was immensely satisfying, anyway.

She dropped the pieces of the chair on the floor, thinking sourly that yet another thing was going to be tacked onto her next month’s rent. 

Well, at least now she was plenty awake. 

She stalked into the bedroom, threw on clothes, wrist unit and boots, and brushed and put up her hair again. Then she snatched up her purse and headed for the door.

Nibbler crouched in front of it, front paws scraping half-heartedly at the doorframe.  When he saw her, he gave an excited little jump, and made entreating noises.

Leela knew what he wanted.  It wasn’t his walk - he’d taken care of that business on the doorstep.  Unlike the other neighborhood pets (she’d finally trained him NOT to try to eat them, Lassie be praised), Nibbler never seemed interested in any sort of scent-marking or sniffing out the marks of others.  No, Nibbler always acted like this on those few occasions when Fry came over.

“We are NOT going after him,” Leela said, feeling betrayed by her own pet.  Nibbler had always liked Fry a lot, for some reason she couldn’t fathom.  Fry was fond enough of Nibbler, petting him or throwing him leftovers when they were available, but Amy made much more of a fuss over him, and he seemed only moderately attached to her.

Nibbler’s burbles took on a slightly scolding tone, and he continued to paw insistently at the door.

It was too much to take.  “Oh - can it, you furry little traitor!  If you like Fry so much, go live with him!” 

Nibbler stopped pawing and squeaking and just looked at her, his eyes gone all big and sad.

Leela instantly felt like a louse.  “Oh, what am I doing?” she said.  A wave of shame washed over her, and she dropped her purse and sank down to sit on the floor.  “Nibblykins, I’m sorry.  Come here.” She held out her arms.

Nibbler hopped into her lap hugged her neck, while she wrapped her arms around his small furry body.  “Mommy’s sorry, little guy.  She didn’t mean to snap at you.  And you’re right, she shouldn’t have snapped at Uncle Fry, either.” Fry wasn’t devious enough to have tried to trick her into going out, he had probably just mistaken something she said.  For a guy with limited perception and limitless optimism, that was all too likely.

She felt honestly bad that he’d thought she’d agreed to a date, only to show up and get snarled at by a java-starved piranha-woman.  Raising his hopes only to dash them again was the last thing Leela wanted to do.  She cared about Fry a great deal, and she hated seeing him hurt.  She hated it even more when she was the one who hurt him, but sometimes it seemed impossible not to. 

Today, however, she could have handled it a lot better.

Leela sighed, scratching Nibbler at the base of his eyestalk.  He crooned with pleasure.  Nibbler - and Fry - forgave her quickly enough, but her own conscience wasn’t so magnanimous.  She decided she would make it up to both of them.

Nibbler was easy to take care of.  She programmed the can opener to give him an extra can of snouts mid-morning, and she dug out the hunk of raw emu she’d been saving for his Sunday morning treat. He leaped on it like Zoidberg on a restaurant dumpster, and Leela retrieved her purse and slipped out the door.

Out on the street, Leela breathed in the brisk mid-morning air.  She might have brought her jacket, she thought, getting goosebumps on her arms, but it would warm up soon enough.  Autumn had been delayed in transit while Indian Summer tarried in New New York, enjoying the sights and seeing the shows.  The Weather Bureau claimed credit for it, but they always claimed the good weather, blaming heat waves, storms, and hard freezes on the vagaries of chaos systems.  Sometimes, though, good things did just happen, Leela thought.  The universe was random, not mean.

How she would make things up to Fry, she wasn’t sure.  The obvious answer was to say “yes” the next time he asked her out, but she couldn’t do that..  If she did, it would hurt him a lot worse later on. Why did he have to persist in chasing her, when any sensible person would have given up long ago?   Because “Fry” and “sense” didn’t reside in the same galactic cluster, of course.  But it sure made Leela’s life harder.

It wasn’t as if it were impossible that she might - eventually - grow to return his feelings.  After all the surprising things he’d done for her in the last year - the last, but far from least, being the opera, and surrendering his robotic hands to save her - she’d begun to see some depths beneath his callow, happy-go-luckless surface. She liked what she was seeing, but there wasn’t any need to rush things, for Pete Seeger’s sake.  Why couldn’t Fry just be happy being friends for now, and give a relationship time to sprout?  Why did he always have to try so hard to impress her - when he impressed her more when he wasn’t trying to at all?

She guessed it was just male impatience, or Frylike impulsiveness, or Bender-encouraged reckless disregard for cautious, sane behavior.  Whatever.  Leela hated being pressured or pushed; sometimes that, more than anything else, caused her to get impatient with Fry’s undaunted pursuit.

Maybe she would go out with Fry...and explain that to him. Let him know that his quest wasn’t hopeless, but that he needed to ease up a bit. 

Leela instantly liked that idea. That would give Fry some reassurance, and herself some room to breathe.  Feeling better than she had all morning, she headed toward the tube and her day of errands. 

Then, of course, the communicator in her wrist unit beeped.  It was the PE business line.  Leela triggered it with a sigh.  “Hello, Prof - oh, Hermes.  Hi.”  Odd to see Hermes at the office on a Saturday - he was as strict at limiting his own overtime as anyone else’s.

“Leela!  Great.  I need you if you’re not busy - or even if you are busy.  There’s some tings down here on the ship that seem mighty odd.  And by odd, I mean suspicious as a fat green snake in an empty sugar cane truck.”

Dismay at losing her day off was overridden by her suddenly alarmed captain’s instincts.  “I’ll be right there,” Leela said.

~~~~~

(Edited 7/24/05 to put in chapter heading)

OK, you win, things can be too wacky.  There’s a time and place for inexhaustible wackiness, and it’s called Gorky’s thread 

 

“Ow, my myofascia!”

Just when I think every humorous variation of the “Ow, my ____” range of jokes has been utilized, another one comes along to make me laugh out loud.

 

happy-go-luckless

Just a little turn of phrase, but I liked it.

So, um… yay, another talented writer is starting a story!  Hope you find your groove and are able to continue it.  Don’t worry about update timetables, I’ve been further off than New Jersey transit on mine recently.

 

Originally posted by Shiny:
Sometimes Fry could take a hint. Sometimes he couldn’t pick one up if it had a five-foot, extendable handle and big glowing letters flashing HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT.

That is quite possibly the best term for ignoring the obvious I've heard that doesn't involve biting or asses.