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 Leela restlessly paced around the cage she was being held in. In a few minutes, she would be eaten alive by an alien brimming with anger for avenging his lost young. She didn't know they were alive....heck, there was really no indication. she was just trying to keep herself and her friends alive! Wasn't that the law of life: Survival of the stronger, feeding on the meek?She thought back to the bacon she had last morning for breakfest, or for that matter, ALL meat she had eaten during her twenty-five years. Did she EVER think of the lives those animals gave so that she may live? No.
 Bender's saddened speech brought her back to reality.....some crap about missing her, and comparing her to titanium. Leela looked at Fry, he looked pretty saddened about gazing at her in this cage, but she was annoyed the little moron didn't help her at all to save the Omicronian young after it was realizied what they were. Sure, she liked him......she had always thought of him as MORE then a friend, and she actually LOVED him, but he could be so ignorant........although she knew it was because of a learning disability and him being from 'the Stupid Ages'......

 But she was glad someone cared for her and loved as she was......

 Finally, Fry spoke: "I think what he's what he's try to say is...", and he went off not to a list of how Bender must feel, but how HE felt. He LOVED Leela, from the minute they had that moment in Old New York, and he was gradually building that up since. Sure, it irked him at times when she was nagging, but he knew it was for his own good. And he was thankful for that.
 Leela hand't read between Fry's lines. She mentally rolled her eye and sighed...'What an idiot...trying to make feel better.....Well, I'm not buying for that weak excuse!!' she thought.
 "This is all A BIG LOAD!! -I- was trying to save the Popplers, while you were sucking them down like the FAT HOG you are...!..., and you were......GLURK!!"
 Fry was enraged. He grabbed Leela by the muscle shirt so fast, that she didn't even notice while she was yelling at Bender and she got choked. He started yelling.
 "FAT HOG am I!??! Leese what else you call me...Bastard! Big, stupid liar! Moron! Craw stuffing pig! Are there any I've missed, you mean jerk!?!?"
 "Fry, calm down, I didn't mea-"
 "Oh, yeah right, I -REALLY- believe that!! You know something, Leela? I considered you my best friend! Even more then Bender..."
 "Hey!" the robot yelled in the background. He stormed off.
 "...I even harbored a crush. I really really liked you. I risked my life to save your X-mas present! I cried when I thought you were dead! I pointed out that Alkazzar was a sleezeball! The first time I met you, after YOU ran into that cryo-freezer, I reset it to five minutes! And how do you thank me? YOU CALL ME NAMES?!??! Wow, you really are good to your friends!!"
 Leela was getting partly frantic. The only person on Earth that cared for was rapidly falling away. She didn't realize what she had done till now.
 "Fry, please!"
 "NO!! This time, you listen to me!! I tried to save those Popplers too! And you SHOULD be in there! Remember who ate them first? That's right, YOU!! But I guess you're to busy being angry at me to realize that, huh Leela?"
 "Fry, I'm begging you...please lis-"
 "And do you know WHY I'm speaking in the past tense? Because you just HAD to break the camel's back with fat hog! Go to hell, Leela...!...or better yet, go to an Omicronian's stomach!" And with that, he shoved Leela back so hard she partly bounced of the back of the cage, and stormed off.
 After a few seconds, he turned and looked back. Leela was grabbing the bars so hard, her knuckles were white, and her eye was brimming with tears. "Fry..." she managed to croak.
 "Oh, what, NOW you feel like crap?" Fry finally said. "Give yourself a day...then you'll REALLY feel like it!" And with that we walked away, oblivious to the silent tinkle of Leela's heart breaking into a thousand pieces.

 Leela watched her friend walk off. She felt horrible. She reflected on the past year and half. She HAD been needlessly cruel to poor Phillip at times, but she had always brushed it off as looking out for his own good. But that wasn't true, and she admitted it. Ok, there WERE times where she needed to do it to motivate him, like when she was seconds away from being transformed into a giant slug, but she then remembered that even then, under the spell of the Slurm, he saved her first, while he let Bender get a chunk cut out of him....she shuddered at the thought of what might have happened had it been the other way around. Maybe being a Slurm queen wasn't as bad as being a humaniod to cause the hurt she had caused Fry....
 He had done a lot of things for her. She thought back to all those times HE had saved her. And how she had agreed to being her boyfriend to save her from Zapp on the Titanic. She should have seen it: On board, there were several indications he loved her, but she brushed them all away with angry glares and threats!
 Leela shook her head. She had taken all the frustration, hurt, and sorrow of her life and dumped it on Fry. And all he was trying to do was be there for her....to support her.....

 To love her.....

 Leela's legs began to wobble. She was so overcome with pain she sank to her knees, and then fell against the back of the cage. Nothing mattered to her now, not even her impending death. Eaten alive....she couldn't think of more painful or horrible death. But she deserved it after what she done to that sweet delivery boy from the past. That was the only thing that mattered now.
 
 And with that, Leela balled herself up, and sobbed her shattered heart out.

 Even before he was out of sight of Leela, Fry cursed at himself. That was a totally horrible thing he just did to Leela. She loved him, he knew it...she just couldn't express it because she was afraid he'd be horrible...like Zapp, Alkazzar, or Shawn. If only HE could have admitted to it....
 He sat down on a stool off-stage. He knew from the booing Lrrr and his wife were out in the arena, ready to eat Leela for vengance. The thought gave him goosebumps. He didn't mean what he said....just like Leela was trying to say, they were both frustrated. But, why didn't he notice the growing pain and panic in her face? The body reactions that made her look like she was taking a punch to the gut with every angry sentence?
 Fry felt like a real heel. There was only one thought on his mind now....to save Leela.

 But how?

 Zapp led his reluctant sidekick Kif backstage to wherr Leela was being held. He looked at her.....curled into a fetal ball, crying softly. He figured she was crying because she was scared about what was going to happen to her. Or maybe because she yearned for him...?
 "Leela, my sweet! I have a plan to let you escape!"
 Leela brought her head up. Her eye was bloodshot, her face slick with dried tears.
 "No. Don't doing anything."
 "What?"
 "Let them eat me...I just want the pain to stop...."
 Zapp was taken back. "Uh, Leela? You DO realize what you're saying?"
 "Yes....just leave me alone! Earth would be better off without me anyway! Besides, it's only way I can save you all...."
 Zapp looked to Kif. The equally confused alien just shurgged his small shoulders. Zapp took another look at 'his woman'....and did what she asked.
 As the DOOP officers walked away, she felt the sensation of movement. She looked around, and realizied she was being wheeled out into the arena, so she could be devoured whole while the world watched. She deserved this...after what she done to Fry. She watched silently as Lrrr tore open the cage, and start to reach in to grab her...

 "STOP!!!!!!"

 The crowd gasped in surprised as a young man dressed in a red jacket and jeans rushed out from backstage towards the cage. He jumped up on the exposed floor of it.
 "Look, alien. If you're going to eat Leela...." Fry walked into the cage, and hugged her protectively, "then you're going to eat me too!"
 "Fry, no! Don't throw your life away for me...I'm a real jer-"
 "No you're not! I didn't mean all that a few minutes ago. I was frustrated at your comments, not you!"
 Leela sniffled for a minute, and then said "And I didn't mean all those names...I was just selfishly dumping my frustrations on you....I didn't mean them..Oh Fry, I'm so sorry!" Leela sobbed, burying her head against Fry's jacket. "It's OK", Fry said, holding her. "I know that..."
 "Out of the way, puny Earth man!" roared Lrrr. "I must devour the one you call Leela, or your species will be our dinner instead!" Several people began to uneasily move in their chairs.
 "No, I won't move!" Fry replied. He lead Leela out of the cage, holding her hand. "If you eat her, I'm eaten too!"
 "Is that true? You would give your life for this murderer?!"
 "Yes! I love this woman! And besides...are we not all murderers? Do we not all eat some sort of animal? You yourself were going to eat Leela, for simply just trying to stay alive! She didn't mean any harm! If she knew they were your babies, she wouldn't have touched them!!"
 "Is this true, Earthling?" Lrrr asked Leela.
 "Yes! I wouldn't harm an animal on purpose.....I love every living thing!!"
 "Hmm...well then, I've changed my mind!"
 Fry turned to Leela and hugged her with joy, and opened his mouth to say something...
 "So I'll just eat BOTH of you instead!"
 Fry and Leela managed to stammer a unison "Wha..what?!?" before he grabbed them, threw them into the air and swallowed them like peanuts. Fortunatly, Leela managed to grab the back of his throat, and held on to Fry, helping him up.
 Lrrr' wife shook her head, and muttered "Lrrr, how many times have I told you NOT to swallow your food whole!?! That's why you're nearly choking like that!! Here, wash them down with this wine..."
 He was about to so when Bender ran out on stage, holding a small Omicronian. He cried to be heard.
 "Humans and Omicronians! I'm am Jrrr of the planet Omicron Persei 8! (Robot, could you raise me a little higher? Thank you) Were that young man's words not true!? We DO eat other living things, and are we not cruel in tha sense? We never think about those victims....Dad, if you swallow them, how long would it take you to forget them? A few minutes, seconds perhaps? The robot tells me they are peaceful, but rather stupid couple..."
 'Bender...." Fry and Leela managed to grumble from within the alien's throat.
 "...but I think we should all learn that lesson: That we never think of the fellow creatures that we eat to stay alive, and that love is far more powerful the vengence!"
 Lrrr thought for a moment, and said "The young one is right!!" And with that, he spit Fry and Leela out, coughing and soaked with saliva, but otherwise fine.
 Lrrr turnedto his compainions. "Now let's go get tacos!!"  he cried, and his fellow aliens ran cheering backstage and out of the Garden to their ships after him.
 "Well, that was a bit of fun", Fry mumbled, as everyone filed out of the building.
 "Yeah...thank you for saving me Fry. You're a true friend! I wish I realizied that sooner..."
 "Leela, it's OK! Now, let's go get a pizza, my treat!"
 "Ok.....just promise me there's no meat, OK?"
 "Deal."
 And with that, Fry helped her up, and the left hand in hand for a nearby pizza parlor. Although they weren't ready quite yet to call this a first date, they felt this was the start of something big....
 

END.