Futurama: Venus crawls out from under her rock

Layla updated today! Yay! That makes me wanna update!

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Residence of Turanga Morris & Munda
2:13 pm
Recovery: Day 6

Setting her mug of freshly poured coffee on the kitchen table Munda happily began dumping copious amounts of sugar into the steaming liquid. Morris peered at her from over the top of his paperback novel.

“And you complain about my diet.” He muttered.

Cheerfully ignoring him she began stirring in the cream. Once satisfied she sat beside him and reached for the new edition of Mutant Monthly. The house was quiet, Leela was dozing lightly on the couch while the pets entertained themselves elsewhere. Fry had already come and gone with his customary promise to drop by later. Everything was at peace.

At least for the moment. Leela had spent a large part of the past two days trying to convince both parents to return to work. Whereas Morris had finally caved to his daughter’s demands after she had labeled herself a burden Munda was not so easily convinced.

“Absolutely not,” She had refused. “I’ll return to work when you do.” Leela had pled her case mentioning that three weeks was a very long time to go without a paycheck to which Munda had smugly revealed that after her emergency leave days had been used up she (as well as Morris) had gone on paid vacation. Leela had tried to counter by insinuating that Munda might be fired if absent too long. She had just smiled and mentioned her tenure. Frustrated, Leela finally admitted her guilt for disrupting everyone’s lives and her desire for everything to just be normal again. Munda had sympathized, but hadn’t been swayed. Whether Leela liked it or not there was no way Munda was going to leave her alone in the house until she had been given a clean bill of health from her doctor. As a mother there would be no way she could forgive herself if something happened and she wasn’t there.

A startled squeal from the living room jolted the couple from their reading. They stared at each other for a moment in bewilderment.

“What the hell?” Morris asked.

“I have no idea. It wasn’t Leela, her voice can’t go that high.”

Intending to go investigate Morris began to rise, but it proved unnecessary as Nibbler raced into the kitchen chattering shrilly. He slid to a stop, eyes wide, looking back over his shoulder every few seconds towards the living room.

Unable to understand Nibbler’s panicked gibberish Morris and Munda stared at him in concern.

“What do you suppose he’s on about?” Munda asked apprehensively.

“I think he’s trying to tell us something.” Morris addressed Nibbler: “What is it boy? Did little Timmy fall in the well again?”

Not in the mood for jokes Nibbler growled. Sometimes having to remain undercover was a major inconvenience. Not only was he making a fool out of himself with his high pitched wailing but they just weren’t getting the message.

But it was just as well. For Leela chose that moment to stumble into the kitchen. Her face was ashen, her movements uncoordinated. She leaned heavily against the center island.

“Mom? I-I don’t feel right…” No sooner were the words out of her mouth before her eye slipped shut and her legs gave out. Bonelessly she slid down the side of the island landing in a shapeless lump on the tile.

“Leela!” Leaping to her feet Munda vaulted up and over the table landing cleanly on the other side. She reached her daughter milliseconds behind Morris who had been sitting closer to Leela and therefore hadn’t had as far to go. Morris delicately lifted Leela into an upright position. She was unconscious, her body limp as a rag doll. But most distressing was the way she was shivering. Her whole body trembled as if she’d fallen through ice. It was Morris who figured it out first.

“Oh my God, she’s having some kind of seizure!”

“What?! No! Leela!”

“Come on kitten, don’t do this!”

“Morris what do we do?!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Morris frantically tried to remember anything he had ever seen on TV about seizures. But his panicked mind was coming up blank.

“Morris she’s not breathing!” Munda’s petrified shriek brought Morris instantly back to the moment. Hoping she was wrong, that with all the shaking Leela was doing she had just mistaken, Morris placed the back of his hand up against Leela’s face to feel for breath. There wasn’t.

His body went numb. “Oh God. Oh no. Not now. Not like this.”

Munda was sobbing brokenly. Not knowing anything else to do she gripped her daughter’s hand tightly. The seizure was causing Leela’s facial muscles to constrict pulling her expression into a false mask of agony. It tore at Munda’s soul. “We have to do something! She needs CPR!”

“No. We can’t.” Finally a memory, from a documentary television show watched months before. “We can’t do anything while she’s seizing.”

Munda stared at him uncomprehending. “Morris she can’t breathe! She’s suffocating!”

“We have to wait till it stops. We’ll hurt her worse if we don’t!”

“We can’t just do nothing! She’ll die!” It was clear from the too-shrill sound of her voice that Munda was panicking. She was dangerously close to losing all rationale. If he didn’t give her something Morris knew she would fragment. It was up to him to stay calm. For Leela’s sake.

“Call an ambulance. She needs medical attention.”

Munda wavered. Afraid of what would happen if she left her baby’s side.

“Munda now!” Maternal instincts screaming at her to stay put Munda turned and fled.

With his wife occupied Morris gathered Leela into his arms. Loathing the feeling of abject helplessness he gently rocked her back and forth, much like he had when she was a baby. She had been such a daddy’s girl back then always squealing happily whenever he entered the room.

He tried to remember the last words he had said to her that morning. And hated himself when he couldn’t. If he had known that the last words he had said to her could very well be the last words he ever said to her he would have said something worth remembering. Tears burned his eye. How long had she gone without oxygen? How much longer could she go?

The seizure stopped so suddenly at first Morris didn’t even notice. But then she gasped for breath and her hands jerked up as if ready to fight invisible demons.

“Leela! Leela it’s me, it’s dad. It’s alright, you’re okay. Munda! She’s breathing! She’s awake!”

Munda peeked in, the phone held tight to her ear. Her eye was wide, still edged with panic. “She’s awake.” She murmured into the phone before letting it drop to the floor with a clatter. She ran back into the kitchen dropping to her knees beside them. Leela had finally opened her eye and was groggily glancing around.

“Werm I?” She mumbled weakly still significantly out of breath.

“You’re in the kitchen.” Morris told her gently. “We think you had a seizure.”

Leela’s eye widened fearfully. “No. That’s…No.” She tried to pull herself upright but both parents reached to stop her.

“You need to stay still.” Munda tried to sound commanding, so that Leela couldn’t argue, but the waver in her voice erased any authority. Noting the waver Leela glanced over and really took in her mother’s appearance. She was pale, her face smeared with tears. Her breathing hitched and she was shaking about as hard as Leela had been. All in all, Munda was a wreck. Feeling shamed Leela turned and buried her face in her father’s chest. Once again she had reduced her mother to tears. How often during the past few weeks had she done that?

Needing physical contact to reconnect with her daughter Munda began stroking Leela’s hair. “I called an ambulance.” She stated softly. “And Philip. They should be here soon.”

Leela lifted her face from her father’s shirt. “You called Fry?”

“After the paramedics check you out he’s going to take you to your doctor on the surface.”

“Why do I have to do both? Won’t the paramedics be enough?”

“Your doctor has your medical records, and better equipment than we have down here. You need to go to him.”

Leela sighed deeply. “So much for a relaxing evening at home.”

The low sounds of oncoming sirens became audible as the ambulance turned onto their block.

Munda stood. “I’m going to go flag them down so they know where to go. Morris could you bring her into the living room?” Morris nodded and carefully climbed to his feet trying his best not to jostle his still lethargic daughter. He carried her into the living room, Nibbler who hadn’t let Leela leave his sight since the seizure started trailing anxiously behind. After Leela had been gently deposited onto the couch Nibbler leapt into her lap. She hugged him to her. Though she was trying to downplay it for her parents sake Leela was truly afraid. She had honestly believed she was going to be fine. It had all happened so unexpectedly, and with so little warning, she had felt completely normal all afternoon. She had been completely unconscious during the seizure and had no memory of it or the few minutes that preceded it but she could tell by the expressions on her family’s faces that it had been bad.

“Hurry, she’s in here!” Munda quickly ushered the two paramedics into the living room. She was calming down, now that she had trained experts on hand. But she still fluttered nervously nearby wringing her tentacles together with lack of anything better to do. The paramedics, a male and female team, pulled the coffee table a few feet away so they would have room to kneel in front of their patient. When the man tried to shoo Nibbler from Leela’s lap he was rewarded with a growl and a threatening flash of fang.

“Nibbler, be nice.” At his mistress’ exasperated command the growl stopped. But he still refused to move, hunching down and maintaining an evil-eyed glare. The paramedic decided if he wished to maintain ownership of his fingers he’d leave the agitated animal where he was. It really wouldn’t be that much of a hassle to work around him.

With Leela’s lack of memory of the whole event it was left up to Morris and Munda to supply the details. When Morris, rather needlessly, got to the part about Munda jumping the table Leela couldn’t help but be impressed.

“She jumped the table? The kitchen table? That’s a four foot jump! Go mom!”

“Leela! Now is not the time!” Munda reprimanded sternly. She took over the telling of the story, only mentioning the parts that were relevant.

“Sounds like a Grand Mal. You say her breathing stopped completely?”

Munda nodded miserably. “It was terrifying.”

Morris leaned forward slightly to gain the paramedics attention. “Hey…uh. Wh-when she was seizing Munda wanted to start CPR. I wouldn’t let her. Was that the right thing? Did I…put her in danger?”

“If she wasn’t breathing it was most likely because the muscles in her chest cavity locked up preventing lung expansion. If you had attempted resuscitation while she was seizing you could have caused her lungs to rupture. You did the right thing by waiting.”

Absolutely horrified Munda whimpered shrilly. Had Morris not been there to stop her from performing CPR the seizure itself would have been the least of her daughter’s concerns. Distressed Leela reached for her mom’s tentacle and gave it a comforting squeeze. Munda returned her a tight lipped smile that didn’t quite reach her eye and Leela knew her mother had just added one more thing to her list of things to beat herself up over. A list that was primarily composed of ways Munda felt she had personally failed her daughter. Leela hated that list.

“Leela!” The door crashed open and a very frantic and very out of breath delivery boy stumbled ungracefully into the home. He tripped over his own shoelaces but was on his feet again in a flash. He stopped short when he saw her sitting on the couch staring at him in slight alarm.

“Oh thank God! Your mom said…stopped breathing…and then she…and I didn’t know!…Ran all the way here…and an ambulance…I was so worried!” He panted, his thoughts running together before he could finish them. He leaned his hands on his knees and took a moment to catch his breath.

“You really didn’t need to run the whole way here…I’m fine.”

“No you’re not!” Fry insisted. “Seizures don’t mean good things! They mean bad things! Bad things about your brain and we do not want bad things happening with your brain!”

“My brain is fine.” Leela insisted softly both looking and sounding a little unsure of herself.

Munda sat next to her and placed a tentacle on her shoulder. “And that’s exactly why you need to get looked at by your doctor. So we can make sure everything is alright.”

Satisfied that Leela was out of immediate danger the paramedics packed up their supplies. “Would you like to walk to the ambulance or do you need a gurney?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Munda informed them. “We’re having her taken to her doctor on the surface.”

Fry absently reached up and scratched the back of his head. “Yeah um, I was wonderin’ how exactly we were actually gonna do that. We can’t have her climbing up that ladder. What if she has another seizure and falls off? That’s like a hundred-forty foot fall. Onto concrete.”

Munda’s eye widened with the realization.

“She’d explode like a water balloon!” Fry continued making the appropriate hand motions to illustrate. “There’d be blood all over!”

Had Munda not been already sitting down she would surly have fallen over. Her face drained of color. Everyone else in the room stared horrified at Fry as he continued obliviously. “They’d be peelin’ her up with spatulas! She’d-”

“Fry stop! We get the picture!” Leela exclaimed, more worried about her mother than her own gory demise. Munda buried her face in her tentacles and moaned. “He’s right! How could I even think of putting you up on that ladder? I’m going to wind up getting you killed! Ohh, I’m a horrible mother! You’d be better off with a pack of wild wolves!”

Leela glared furiously at Fry who winced apologetically. “Mom that’s not true. You’re a wonderful mother. Just… a little out of practice maybe…But I didn’t realize about the ladder either and neither did dad so it was a very easy thing to overlook.”

The male paramedic looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking up. “You know, there’s another way to get to the surface. It’s kind of a long walk, very roundabout but it’ll get you there without needing a ladder. It cuts right through a section of old New York and you’ll need to go up a mid-sized staircase, but it’ll be a lot easier for your friend to keep you from falling. We can transport you to the tunnel that leads to the ruins.”

Leela patted her mother comfortingly on the shoulder. “See mom? It’s all taken care of.”

“And I’ll take really good care of her.” Fry chimed in hoping to set things right.

Putting on a brave face to ease her daughter Munda nodded. “See to it that you do. Now you two had better get a move on. I’ll feel so much better once we have this all straightened out.”

Public road in front of Pottery Barn, New New York
3:36 pm
Recovery: Day 6

Gingerly lifting the manhole cover up a few inches Leela peered around for any signs of traffic. It would be just her luck to get hit by a hovercar on her way to the hospital. Satisfied that the coast was clear at least for the moment Leela shoved the cover aside and climbed up onto the street. She extended her hand to Fry who she practically had to drag onto the pavement. He was soaked and panting exhaustedly. Conversely, Leela had yet to break a sweat.

“Whew!” Fry wheezed as he wiped the hair from his eyes. “When that paramedic said ‘a long walk’ he meant a long walk!”

Leela sniffed derisively. “It was barely a mile. And a little exercise won’t kill you.”

“How much farther do we have to go?” He asked ignoring, as usual, Leela’s criticisms.

“Uh…” Leela looked around to get her bearings then pointed towards her right. “About four blocks that way.”

“Four blocks?? Awww man!”

“Suck it up Fry, we’ve still got the walk back.”

“Awww man!”

Leela rolled her eye and started walking. She didn’t need to look back to see if he would follow. She knew he would.

He did his best to keep up with her. Even jogging a few steps ahead once they reached the hospital entrance so he could open the door for her. She gave him a look that indicated that she saw his attempt at being a gentleman to have chauvinistic undertones. He hadn’t meant to offend. Granted he had been a little over solicitous since her awakening, but seeing her in such a vulnerable position had activated a protection instinct in him that he was having difficulty turning off. She was tolerating it for the moment, on account of the current circumstances, but he needed to be sure he got a hold of himself before her tolerance ran out. She hated being thought of as weak and that was exactly what she was taking his heightened interest in her as meaning. That somehow now he didn’t see her as being quite as capable as she had been in the past.

Fry followed obediently behind her as she made an appointment and was sent to a waiting room. They had been lucky to show up when they had. Another patient had recently canceled, leaving Dr. Marsters with an opening he otherwise would not have had. So the wait itself was relatively short, yet still long enough for Fry to get bored. He tried to entertain himself by throwing pocket change into the magazine basket. Clearing her throat in an authoritative manner, Leela held out her hand for the change. Glumly he surrendered the money thinking he had annoyed her yet again, but was pleasantly surprised when she began taking shots of her own. With her poor depth perception her tosses were fairly inaccurate but that wasn’t important to Fry. What was important was the small smile that kept flitting across her face when one of her tosses went way off base. As serious as she always was it was nice to see her let herself have a good time doing something irrelevant. It made things even more fun for Fry because he was sharing it with someone he cared about.

“And now you see how hospitals really make their money.”

At Dr. Marsters’ sudden appearance at the door Leela and Fry’s game as well as moment of bonding came to an abrupt halt. They stood politely, Leela handing the remaining change to Fry who haphazardly jammed it back into his jeans pocket. All business now, they allowed themselves to be led to a large office where Dr. Marsters offered them seats on foam-filled, synthetic leather-upholstered, lumbar-supportive chairs. Sinking contentedly into one Fry wished they had given him something similar while he had been sitting by Leela’s bedside. It would have been a huge comfort.

Sitting Leela’s file on the desk in front of him the Doctor addressed his patient with concern. “You were so ready to get out of here, it must have taken something mighty big to bring you back.”

“Yeah, hopefully it was just a one time thing. But knowing my luck recently…”

The Doctor brought out a writing pad and readied his ballpoint. “Start at the beginning. Details are good.”

“I don’t remember any of it, so this is all second hand.” Leela relayed the story she had heard her mother tell the paramedics. Dr. Marsters scribbled her retelling in the stereotypical Doctor’s shorthand that only he would be able to decipher at a later time. After she had finished she watched the Doctor’s expression with apprehension. He was frowning as he looked back over his notes, tapping his pen against the desk as he thought. Fry was so nervous his leg was starting to twitch. But for a long moment the Doctor was silent.

“How did you feel this morning?” He asked at last.

“Normal. I felt fine, there was no indication anything was wrong.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Uhh…I was sleeping on the couch. Then Nibbler woke me up. He was upset. That’s all I remember.”

Dr. Marsters paused from his notes. “Nibbler?”

“Her space-rat.” Fry chimed in.

“He’s not a rat!”

“He’s like this Guinea Pig thing. Doesn’t really do too much.”

“You don’t either!” Leela snapped irritably to her pet’s defense.

Ignoring the dispute Dr. Marsters continued with his consultation. “You say he got upset?”

Leela nodded. “Yeah. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to push him off me. Then, according to my parents, he went into the kitchen and started bugging them.”

“Animals,” The Doctor said thoughtfully, “Specifically house pets, can be great barometers of their owners health. We get reports all the time of pets predicting seizures, strokes, or even cancer. Your pet may well have been trying to warn you.”

Leela beamed proudly, as only a pet owner can.

“If these seizures prove not to be a one time deal, he could be an important tool in alerting you to trouble.”

Straightening to attention in his seat Fry held out his hands, palms out. “Whoa wait, hold on. This is the future! Don’t you have like an alarm you could give her? You can’t seriously want to put her safety in the paws of an animal that falls for the ‘fake throw’ every time!”

“The alarms only let you know when a seizure has already started, animals tend to let you know in advance. In any case, we should worry first about what caused that seizure and whether or not we’ll need surgical intervention. We can worry about prevention after we know for sure what we are dealing with.”

The pride of her pet’s newfound abilities quickly gave way to fear. “What do you mean ‘surgical intervention’?”

“Only one of many possibilities.” She was soothingly reassured. “I’m going to schedule some tests. I promise we will get this taken care of.”

The pair was once again relegated to a waiting room while Dr. Marsters went to prepare for the multitude of tests that were to be performed. Once they were alone Fry pulled the leftover change from his pocket and tried to offer it to Leela. But she was too lost in thought to even notice.

“Surgical Intervention…” She murmured softly. “Do you think he meant,…brain surgery?” Tinged with fear her voice had risen almost half an octave. She looked to Fry for some kind of reassurance. Instantly concerned Fry draped his arm around her shoulders trying to offer support, but like always, felt he was coming up short in meeting her need. But she accepted what he had to give her.

“Could you imagine me trying to explain that to my mother?” She continued sullenly. “She’d need surgical intervention!”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that.” Fry lied knowing full well that it could very easily come to that.

“I don’t want them cutting open my head.” Tears began to well up but she refused to let them fall. She was stronger than that.

Fry hugged her tight, wanting to cry right along with her but knowing she hated public displays of weakness. Which was what she always believed crying was, a weakness to never be shown to anyone unless absolutely unavoidable.

“You didn’t seem to mind when you got that eye surgery done a few years ago.” He pointed out desperate to soothe her.

“That was different.” She insisted. “That was surgery on my head not in my head. All it would take is one slip, just one, and I’m not me anymore.”

Not wanting to discuss or even think about it further Fry looked her in the eye and told her firmly: “We are freaking out over nothing. They haven’t even done the tests yet. What’s the point in getting all upset when he’s just gonna come out and tell us everything is fine and we got nothing to worry about?”

After a pause she nodded acquiescing. “You’re right. I’m worrying about something that might not even be an issue.”

“It won’t be. You’ve already had all the bad stuff happen. It’s time for good stuff now.”

“If only it worked that way.” Leela lamented with a sigh.

“Are you saying it doesn’t?” Her companion asked with genuine confusion.

She gave Fry an odd look before responding. “Not in my experience. ‘Bad stuff’ usually leads to more ‘bad stuff’, which leads to more ‘bad stuff’, which eventually leads to me curled up alone on my couch eating a gallon of cookie-dough ice cream while watching the Lifetime channel in my pajamas.”

Fry frowned thoughtfully. “In my experience everything is always right back to normal at the end.”

“Yeah well, you’re naturally lucky, I’m naturally not.”

Hoping to distract her out of her sudden depression Fry leaned over and leered suggestively at her.

“You know, if you’d like a little luck in you…” He waggled his eyebrows at her. Incredulous and disgusted she shoved him away.

“I don’t know why I even bother talking to you.”

“Cause otherwise you’d hafta talk to Zoidberg.”

Realizing he was right she frowned. “I need girlfriends.”

Fry’s expression grew dreamy and a smile began to spread across his face. Annoyed, Leela smacked him in the back of the head with a rolled up magazine startling him back into reality.

“What?! I didn’t do nothing!”

Deciding the best course of action would be to just ignore him Leela unrolled the magazine, a shallow fashion type more suited for someone like Amy, and began to skim an article devoted to the wondrous majesty that was flavored lip-gloss.

Glumly realizing he’d been dismissed Fry also found himself a magazine and set himself hard at work trying to find his way through a maze designed for children aged ten and under.

“Man this is complicated.” He muttered as he hit his eighth dead end. Leela, who had been watching his progress over the top of her magazine, rolled her eye. He really wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box.

It wasn’t too much longer before a nurse interrupted them to collect Leela for her tests. Just as before, Fry was denied the right to accompany her, much to his frustration.

“But I’m her next of kin!” He’d whined.

“I’m sorry sir, it’s hospital policy.” The nurse had replied kindly.

“Would it really be that much of a hassle to have him there?” Leela knew she had made a mistake the second the words had left her mouth. Her voice had been tinged with nervousness at what might be in store for her and Fry had picked up on her fear. His expression steeled and she knew there was no way the hospital staff alone was going to be able to separate them.

The nurse continued, not noticing Fry’s heightened determination. “I’m afraid he would just be in the way.”

Wanting the whole ordeal to be over as soon as possible, and knowing that Fry was willing to fight it out if necessary, Leela relented. “Alright,” She said with a sigh. “Fry I want you to wait here.”

“What?! But you just sa-”

“I know what I said. But if we do what they say we can get out of here sooner. I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.”

“But Leeeeeela…”

“It won’t be for that long,” She shot a look at the nurse. “Right?”

“Twenty minutes tops.”

“You can keep yourself entertained for twenty minutes. I’ve seen you do it.”

Fry looked unimpressed.

“I’ll be fine.” She reassured.

After a moments consideration Fry gave in. “I wanna’ be with you when they read the results.” He demanded firmly.

Wanting that as well, Leela looked to the nurse for permission and was met with a nod. “That we can arrange.”

Allowing herself to be led from the room Leela glanced over her shoulder and gave Fry a gentle reassuring smile. He frowned unhappily back at her and slumped in his chair.

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Dear god, i've officially been working on this fic for three years. And to think when i originally started i was so sure i could bam this thing out in a couple of weeks.