Just FYI, I don't own Invader Zim. Yeah, you've heard it before. But here's what makes my disclaimer unique…NEITHER DOES JHONEN!
Yes, you heard right, Zim actually belongs to Viacom. Weird, huh? That's a life-changing discovery for me. Almost as life-changing as the fact that it's been scientifically proven that Sugar Rushes DON'T EXIST! Yes, I know. I no longer believe in science either.

Also, this is NOT a ZADR. (Zim and Dib Romance) I don't care how you interpret it. I can't understand the people who write those. They're worse than the people who give Zim a girlfriend. SEVERE OOCs COMING! It's a few years after the show was cancelled, so I figure they might have changed a little, at least.


Zim grinned at his nemesis. He had won today's battle.
"HA! Today, Dib, I have driven two of your pathetic earth teachers insane!" He beamed. Dib frowned.
"Y'no, Zim, It's only the second week of school. Now, you have to put up with your creations all year." Zim's smile flickered.
"Yes, Dib…But so do you! That was my intent! So now you won't get a good education! SUCCESS!" He strutted off.
Dib sighed. After three years of Zim's melodramatics, they no longer impressed him. He wondered how Zim always registered success, no matter how badly he had screwed up. He put his textbooks into his locker. Algebra II, AP English, Social Studies 9. He put his Speech textbook into his bookbag and walked outside.

Zim walked down his sidewalk. The lawn gnomes eyed him suspiciously. GIR dug holes in the front yard, only to have them automatically filled in by the house. GIR looked forlornly at the grass already starting to grow. Then he dug another hole. Zim sighed, and walked inside.
"Ziiiim," The computer whined "I've been filling in these holes all day. Why can't we get a babysitter or something? I never have any free time!"
He made a mental note to undo the upgrade he had made on the computers artificial personality. It was a little out of hand. A little red light blinked on the console. Zim grinned. The weekly report to the Tallest was just what he needed. But why had they called him?
"Eh, Zim?" Said Red. He looked at Purple, grinning.
"Oh, go on. You drew the long straw. Quit gloating." Ordered Purple.
"Ok, here goes. Zim, we have something really important we've been meaning to tell you. You see, you haven't been doing anything really funny for a while, so…"

Dib raised his hand. Ms. Bitters looked at him with horror.
"What is it, Dib?" Dib stood up.
"Ms. Bitters, how is it that you teach a Middle Skool class all day, but you can still teach us here most periods?"
"That has to do with the unholy force disconnecting the Skools from the rest of the time zone. That's covered in 10th grade." Ms. Bitters started doom-speaking more.
"Ms. Bitters?" Ms. Bitters growled.
"Ms. Bitters, isn't the Skool supposed to check on a student when they've been missing for more than two days?"
"Yes. Yes they are."
"So where's Zim? He's been missing a whole week."
"Just because the government makes it a law doesn't mean we have to."
"Um… OK." Dib sat down.

Dib stood outside the glowing green house. It wasn't even his fault he was there. Ever since his dad had moved them into the house next door, Dib was at that house evry day. (The poor guy next to Zim finally got tired of the wires and moved.) He couldn't decide if it was good, because he could spy on Zim, or bad because he was next door to his hated enemy.
He sighed. While he was there…well…he might as well make sure the lawn gnomes still worked. He walked up the path. The gnomes didn't move. This worried him a little. He walked to the front door and kicked it open, expecting to see Zim with some kind of arsenal. The room was empty. Except for a little green dog, who paced worriedly. In three years, Zim had updated the little android quite a lot. He could speak in a semi-regular voice now. His sentences made a little more sense.
(All GIR fans surround my house with Uzis. I yell out my window. 'I didn't kill GIR! Keep reading, you overly-violent Neanderthals!')
But he was still insane, and destructive.
(Uzis are replace with rocks.)
And he was still horribly loud. And still played with Pig.
(They grumble, and walk back through the portal into the real world.)
"Big-headed Dib boy!"
"Yeah?"
"DOES YOU GOT A BOMB?"
"Ummm…no."
"Ok. Could you help me with this?"
"With what?"
"Master won't eat. Or move. Or do anything but cry."
"ZIM'S CRYING?!?"
"Yeah, but don't tell him I told you. He'll go off yelling again."
"Again?"
"Uh-huh. Couple days ago, he got a call from the Big Tall Guys. I dunno what they said, but he went all nuts and broke stuff."
"Yeah!" Intoned the Computer. "It been five days, and I still haven't fixed it all. That flame thrower…wow."
Dib quirked an eyebrow. Why hadn't he used this destructive power on Earth, instead of his base?"
"Ok. What do you want me to do?"
"Just help me carry him."
GIR marched off, toward the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door, and walked inside. Dib followed. The door closed, and Dib felt the fridge jerk. They were going down.
When the door opened, Dib half-expected Zim to be there with a triumphant look on his face, but he wasn't. Dib was glad. The little blue robot hopped off into the purple shadows of the base. Dib wondered how far down they were. Probably really far.
"OOOVVER HEEEERE!" Came echoing out of the darkness. Dib followed the voice. It was pretty dark down here.
"See? He's been right there for about 5 days. I can't get him to do anything."
Dib gasped. His once proud enemy lay in the metal floor. He was sleeping. Dib realized the robot's need to get Zim to eat: He looked emaciated. Briefly, Dib wondered what Zim ate. He hated all Earth food.
"I was thinking we should move him up into the house. At least there's light up there."
Dib nodded. The computer had a point. He looked over at GIR, who was squeezing a rubber moose.
"GIR, can you get the right side? I'll get the left." Dib pulled Zim up. Zim groaned and opened his ruby eyes. They widened in shock.
"GIR! There's an intruder in the base! Defensive mode!" GIR didn't respond. He just grabbed Zim's right arm. Zim kicked at Dib.
"What have you done to GIR? I made sure he would go into defensive mode! I fixed that on Halloween! He's been working for THREE YEARS!" Dib shrugged.
"I didn't do anything to him. He got ME to come down here." Zim glared, but then dropped it. Dib had made it into his base. And he was powerless to stop anything Dib wanted to do. He didn't know that GIR's digging had screwed up the gnomes. The computer hadn't fixed them yet.
"Actually, Sir," Said the computer. "GIR is running on full defensive mode. That's why he's taking you upstairs. You are gonna die if you don't eat something."
Zim didn't scowl like he normally would have. Instead, he just looked sad. All the way to the elevator, he didn't say a word. Dib and GIR let go of his arms. He stood, for a moment, but then overbalanced when the elevator started up. Dib caught him before he hit the floor. Zim gave him a look of gratitude, but didn't say anything. Dib understood. Something had obviously happened to the little Irken. When you were as deeply submersed in the sea of denial as Zim was, it took something really huge to get through to you. (Megadoomer, cough, cough.)
The elevator stopped, and the refrigerator opened again. Dib ducked. The fridge wasn't tall enough, a fact he hadn't noticed going down. Dib had grown since 6th grade. He was now about 5'9. Zim had grown too, surprisingly. He had come up to 5'2. That was 4 inches taller than the Irken average.

The three of them stepped out into the green room. Zim seriously considered telling the computer to kick Dib out, but deep down, he knew Dib wanted to help. Right now, at least. He stumbled over to the real fridge, which was concealed in a wall. He took out an Irken Lick-em-stick. On an afterthought, he threw one of GIR's sodas at Dib. He caught it, and popped it open.
Zim walked over to the couch. No longer did he need his spider legs to get on it. He sat on the far left side. Dib sat on the far right. He didn't feel quite right in this room. All the other times, he had been on his guard. Hanging from the ceiling with cameras silently recording. But this time, he just watched the green boy eat his Irken food, and wondered.
It wasn't that he didn't have a camera. No, ever since finding the colony of Rat people in the parking garage, he carried a video camera and a regular camera with him at all times, in a backpack. That little trick he had picked up from Zim. Zim had everything a person could want in that bio-mechanical pak.
"Umm…You haven't been up to any evil in a while… I got concerned. Are you gonna tell me your plan?"
"No, Dib- Monkey. There is no plan. And there never will be again."
"Are you going back to your home planet? Don't you want Earth?"
"No. I'm not going back to Irk. They won't let me. The Tallest never wanted Earth. They just wanted to get rid of me."
'Wow. Waitaminit. You're planet's name is Irk? That's funny." Zim looked at him balefully. Dib blushed.
"Um. I guess it means something different in your language. Probably not what it means in our language."
"What it mans in our language can't even be translated into your language. It means…" Zim stared at the ceiling.
"Inkr temor outhe kemouure temeto haslemg treia. Yrti ourpn grate. Nyish." He smiled sadly.
"I'm forgetting. I can't remember my pod on Irk anymore. It's only been four years since I was there. I should still remember."
Dib frowned. Zim said his memories were all in his pak. He shouldn't forget unless his pak was gone. Or malfunctioning. Could paks malfunction?
"Aren't all your memories in your pak? It's not broken is it?" Zim gave him a look.
"No. Irken technology does not 'break.' It's being erased. The Tallest are erasing it."
"How? Can't you stop it?"
"It's being reabsorbed by control brains. They access it through a remote link. I can't remove the link without losing all communications with Irk."
"So you'd rather DIE than lose contact with the people who abandoned you?" Zim's face contorted with rage.
"How would you know? All I've wanted all my life was to be an Invader! It was programmed into my pak before I was even brought to life! And now I find out that my whole life has been a joke! My mission only continued because The Tallest found by struggles amusing!
"Even GIR! I believed for three years that he was advanced, because that's what they told me. When I finally looked closely, when I pushed away all my chips, the things I had added, he only worked because two loose wired randomly crossed. If they hadn't been touching, he would have just been a pile of spare robot parts. They weren't even up-to-date parts. They were broken prototypes." Dib nodded.
"Harsh. But really, Zim. There's other stuff to life besides destroying planets. Why don't you just stay on Earth because it's nice here? You don't have to hate us anymore; we're not your targets."
"That is correct." Said the Computer. "Why don't you try it, Zim?"
"Because I don't want to!"
"That's kinda too bad, cuz I just accidentally disrupted all communications lines and the control room has imploded. That's your fault, Mr. Destructive Rage."
"ARRRGH! This is a conspiracy, I know it. This is all your fault, Dib." Dib shrugged. At least Zim had the same reasoning.
"I hate doing this, Zim, but you really need it. Wanna come…" Dib gulped. 'This could be a trap!' said a tinny voice in his head. He ignored it.
"Wanna come to my house and do something? We could watch a movie or something."
Zim considered for a moment. Deep-ingrained hate for Dib versus the need to do something, anything, with another person.
"I have nothing else to do at the moment. My base is repairing it's self. So I will take you up on that. Out of sheer boredom." Dib knew a bluff when he saw it. Zim needed someone to talk to. He pictured three years on a strange planet, hating everyone around you. It wasn't good.
Zim stood shakily up. He was already almost OK. Irken Lik-em-sticks are really healthy. Plus, Irkens heal really fast. So Zim was getting better while they spoke.
"What movies do you have?"
"Intestines of War…"
"Oh, God no. Ohhh, the memories that movie left me with…"
Ok…I'm not even gonna ask."
They made their way over to Dib's house. Gaz sat on the couch, playing her Gameslave 8.734. She looked up for a millisecond when Dib came in. She did a double-take.
"Holy COW! Dib! You let Zim in our house! WOW! Zim, I got nothing against you, but what did you do to Dib?!?"
"I have done nothing. This is all Dib's fault."
"Yeah, Gaz. I invited him. I think we've been enemies too long." Zim was grateful that he didn't say anything about the Tallest.
"Ok…If the old Dib surfaces anytime soon, call me. I wanna watch you fight. It's usually really funny."
"Whatever" said Zim. The two boys walked up the stairs to Dib's room. Gaz smiled a little. Zim was gonna be in her house now. That's cool. She unpaused her game, and resumed her pig massacring.

Chapter 2.
Uh, oh. I made Gaz like Zim. That can only lead one place. I'm so horrible. I hate myself. (Hits self in head) Bad Melissa! Baaaad.
Inevitable ZAGR…OF PAIN!
Also, in order to understand this chapter, you have to know my 'pak' theory. Ok, I think that the reason Zim is so eccentric is because of his pak. All Irkens have paks. They have translators and stuff in them. Also, a Tallest -> Brains -> Irkens link makes all Irkens think the same as the Tallest, or the way the Tallest want them to think. Zim gets his opinions through his pak. But his pak's broken, so it horribly distorts and magnifies all his opinions.

Two weeks later
Zim lay on Dib's roof, and looked at the stars. Dib pointed out the constellations. Zim found the fact that humans found shapes in the stars amazing. For an Irken, the stars changed position all the time. Very few ever stayed in one place for any amount of time.
"That's Ursa Minor. The little bear. Over there is Ursa Major. The Big Bear. Some people say they look like Bears, some say that they look like Dippers" Zim laughed.
"Your people think that dippers and bears look the same? HA! Primitive humans."
"Oh, shut up. At least we don't base our Gov't on height."
(Zim, no longer having all his opinions automatically downloaded into his pak, now kinda understood the stupidity of this.)
"Well we aren't planet bound. Your space ships. Ha! You can barely even make it to your own moon. That's not a ship, it's a RAFT." Dib had nothing to say to this. Zim's technology, while outdated by Irken standards, was still years ahead of Earth's. He changed the subject.
"Could you do something for me? Gaz's birthday is coming up. It's on September 29th. She's got every game made by humans. Is there any chance that I could use Irken technology to make her something else? Is your stuff compatible with ours?"
"Yes, for some reason, my technology is compatible with your puny Earth machines. And you can use my base. But you've gotta come down into the labs. I figure you've been down there before, and I haven't been dissected yet, so I can trust you for now."
Zim's fake purple eyes looked into Dib's amber ones. And Dib saw sincerity there. He smiled.
"You can trust me. Truth be told, I haven't thought of dissection in a while. I guess it got old."
"Ms. Bitters yelled at you for drawing it, more likely." Dib blushed, remembering the drawings he used to do. He still had a few of them in a box in his room, along with sketches he did of Zim, slug people, and bigfeet. He wondered why he didn't throw it away.
"Wanna go work on it now?"
"Ok. I was thinking about something with attack squirrels."
"With nut-lobbing action." The two boys laughed as they made their way down off the roof.
Gaz sat in her room, not even noticing as one, then the other flew past her window, to land with a crash on the ground. She was writing in her journal. She wrote with the practiced ease of someone copying down notes. But inside, deep within the shell she had built around herself, she felt emotion. It burned at the thick walls she had built to keep it in. And it grew.
'Zim comes over almost every day now.' She wrote. 'At first, Dib thought it might have been a trap, and I'm sure Zim must have thought the same. But now they laugh and joke like pre-skool friends. I guess I should be glad that Dib has someone else to rant to now. But I kind of miss it.
'And it seems like I'm jealous of him. But why should I be? Friends are no good. They're just human. And humans will disappoint me. Like mom did. I guess that's why I like Zim so much-'
She stopped dead. She stared wide-eyed at the last line. Why had she written that? She scribbled over the black ink, covered it so hard that the ink pooled, and drained through onto the next page. Silently, she resumed writing.

"Tell me again. You humans celebrate your own births because why? Irkens have no such obligations. I don't even know how old I am." Dib rolled his eyes.
"Ok, we celebrate our birthdays because we are glad that someone we love has come into our lives. Like I love Gaz, so I'm glad she was born. So I celebrate the anniversary. And celebrating means gifts. That's how it works on Earth."
Zim thought for a moment in silence.
"So, that means YOU have a birthday, too, right? When is it?"
"Oh, it's already passed. It was back on August 24th." Zim's eyes widened.
"Wasn't that the day I-" Dib nodded.
"Yup. That's the day I locked you in the girl's bathroom. And than you stuck me in the air conditioning vents." Dib laughed. "Man, don't feel bad. Had I done that to you, I would still be laughing about it today." Zim nodded.
"Hey, remember that time you came to school covered in meat? I laughed so hard I almost threw up!"
"Remember that time I hit you with that water balloon? That decimated the whole city. You humans regenerate fast." (Really, it's amazing that they could be friends after all this!)
"Remember that time I got trapped in your space ship? And Gaz had to come get me? And then you came into Bloaty's? You were scared to death by those awful robots."
"Remember the time you sucked me into your head? It's scary in there."
"And you left me in there!"
"Well YOU gave me to the nightmare creatures!"
Dib tackled Zim, and they rolled around the base, wrestling like little kids. After a minute, Zim released his spider legs, which lifted Dib up by his shirt. Zim stood haughtily, grinning at his defeated friend.
"You know… I still wanna see what you look like with your organs on the outside." He said jokingly.
"NOOOO!!!!" Yelled Dib, fighting the metal appendages. He wasn't sure that Zim was kidding. The little alien did malicious glee very well. Zim dropped him.
"I was just kidding." He said. Then he had an idea. He looked at Dib, who was still on his guard.
"GIR! Come play with Dib!" A high-pitched squeal came from the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. It was horrifying, in a funny way. Dib looked at Zim, a look of pure fear on his face.
"NO! Zim, please don't! Oh…." Zim grinned.
"I'll be back in one second" He said, and disappeared into a hole in the floor.
Dib looked fearfully around him, into the shadowy corners of the subterranean room. On the ceiling, tubes and wired moved. He jumped at every little sound. Then-
In the darkest corner, two cyan circles glowed. There was a glint of metal as the little robot's mouth formed a huge smile. It advanced slowly toward the cowering Dib.
"Have you met my little friend?" Gir asked in a creepy voice.
"N-no, I don't think-"
'PIIIGGG!!!!!! PIG COMERE! I WANT YOU TO MEET DIB!" The robot grinned hugely at Dib. Then he noticed that Dib wasn't happy.
"Aww, Master's Friend not happy." Gir frowned. "I know what'll fix that. I'M GONNA HUG YOOUUUU!!" Gir ran toward the helpless boy. Just before he got there, Dib fell through a hole in the floor, landing on his butt. He sighed.
"Sorry about Gir, I haven't fixed him yet." Dib jumped up and whirled around. Zim stood there, grinning.
"C'mon, I have something to show you." Dib followed him to the elevator. They went up several floors. The doors opened. Dib gasped.
On a high pedestal on the center of the domed room was the Voot Runner. A metal ramp descended, and Zim walked up it. Dib followed, still in awe of the sleek machine.
"There's only one seat, so it might be kinda cramped." Zim said. Dib said nothing. Did that mean what he thought it meant?
The purple craft had its windshield open, and Zim stepped in. He sat in the half-moon shaped seat. There were two panels behind him that Dib guessed led to storage compartments. Dib climbed in next to Zim, and sat on the metal floor. It was warm to the touch. Zim hit a button, and the shield closed. The roof opened up, and the Voot shot up into the night sky. Zim's red eyes searched the horizon, and located a certain constellation.
"How would you like to miss a few days of Skool?" Dib nodded. It would give the poor teachers some time to recover. Their fighting had been awful, but their friendship had driven the teachers to madness. It didn't help that they had all the same classes.
"Well, then. Let's go see this 'bear' of yours. Big or little? I happen to know that Invader Groot is on a planet in the little…"
"Big, then. Definitely." Zim grinned, and the ship flew off onto the sky at a rate unknown to humans. Speed of light was child's play to the Irkens. But it wasn't until they were far past Betelgeuse that Zim realized that something was wrong.

For the first time since she was a little girl, Gaz cried. She hadn't thought she would miss Dib if he decided to take off for the stars, but…
She looked over at the orphaned little green dog. It played on the floor in front of Zim's huge TV. The Scary Monkey growled menacingly. For the fifth time she walked to the elevator. It took her down to the same room. The computer, having an artificial intelligence, knew what she needed to see.
Just to reassure herself that it wasn't just a horrible nightmare. That Dib wasn't going to come running in, babbling about how cool the solar system was, Zim trailing behind. But the words remained on the screen, glowing red in the eerie darkness.

Voot runner destroyed. Location: k-938
Gaz blinked back tears. She had seen the Voot runner leave, barely two days ago. It wasn't the first time. Her window was level with Zim's roof. Every time he left or returned, she knew.
But that was the first time Dib had been in it, his eager face looking out the shield, and grinning. He saw her, and knew that she had seen all this before. And he was temporarily upset. What he would have given to have it on tape only a month ago…
And that was the last time she would ever see him. She thought of the last time she had ever seen her mother. She was in the hospital. How sad she had looked. She gave Gaz the silver skull pendant, and then the doctors had to take her away.

Gaz had cried and cried, but her tears did nothing. So she took them and built a wall around her heart. And for years nothing could get through. But this could. She sobbed like a little child, and the emotions swelled, and broke through the wall she had built so long ago. Rage, and fear and sadness filled her, and she had a thought.
"COMPUTER!" She screamed. The computer was programmed not to react to anyone but Zim, but her voice made him fear for his artificial life.
"Yes?" It said timidly.
"What is k-938?"
"k-938: Planet not yet conquered by the Irken Empire. Coordinates are-"
"Yes, yes, very good. Can you put yourself in a disc?"
"Um, I've never tried but-"
"Do it."
"OK"

Tak's ship did not like being bossed around by a 13-year old girl. Gaz didn't really care what the ship thought. At least she had Zim's computer in there too, to keep Tak from any mischief. The ship rose into the sky, and took off toward the Big Dipper.

Chapter 3
Under normal circumstances, Zim would have found some way to blame this on Dib. And vice versa. But really, it was no one's fault. Maybe Zim should have checked the pressure before they left. Maybe Dib should have heard the ever-so-slight hissing next to his seat. Either way, laying on the blame was not gonna fix the Voot.
In a one-to-a-million chance, they had managed to crash onto a planet with an atmosphere. Zim was suddenly glad that he had paid attention in geography. There was slightly less oxygen in the atmosphere, and a little more hydrogen. But it was breathable. Zim's atmospheric adjustor compensated for him, but Dib…
The Earth boy breathed hard, as if he had just run very far. For a moment, he had wondered about carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. He smirked at that now. What could he do about it if there was? Not breathe?
He envied Zim's pak more now than he ever had. He was totally prepared for everything. There was a generator that made 'food' in a word. Irken food. It wasn't that bad. It felt like eating chalk, but he wasn't hungry.
Zim walked around the barren plains. Well, actually, he bounced. It was a small planet. There were a few straggly plants, but that was it. No sign of intelligent life, or even stupid life. Just plants. And then he walked into the 'night.'
"DIB! C'mon, we gotta move. NOW!" Zim jumped back into the sunlight, knocking small pieces of ice off his green skin even as they melted. Dib saw the ice. And he started moving.
(Ok, here's what is happening here. The little compassy-thing says which way North is. The sun here rises in the South. It's setting in the North. And they have to follow it to keep from freezing to death. Everybody get it? OK.)
They moved at a quick pace until they were about a mile north of nightfall. Then they had to slow down. Running is hard on Earth, where there's plenty of oxygen. So they bounced slowly along, once in a while looking behind them to see if the darkness was getting any closer. It was.

"Proximity warning: Planet ahead. Are you LISTENING, Earth-monkey?" Gaz shook her head, purple hair falling to her shoulders. It wasn't comfortable in the ship, built for a 4-foot Irken. At 4 foot 11, she was quite squished in the little ship.
"HEY! Wake up, or I'll jettison you and take off on my own!"
"You will do no such thing." Zim's computer flared the screens to prove that he was there too. Invisibly, Tak crossed her arms and pouted.
"What were you saying about a planet?"
"Oh, yeah. Do you know how long you've been asleep? Almost twelve hours. I told you not to stay up so long before. You just watched the stars move for the first twelve, and then you slept for twelve, and now we're gonna be there in an hour, and your sleep schedule is gonna be really messed up."
" All I really needed to hear of that was 'we're gonna be there in an hour' Jeez, you Irkens and your 'we're always right.'"
"We ARE always right, human."
"Then why is Zim so incompetent?"
"NO FAIR!" Both computers shouted in unison. "Zim's a defective. He doesn't count."
"Oh, yes he does!" Yelled Gaz gleefully. This was great.
"Well if he's so incompetent, why do you like him so much?" Asked Tak. Gaz paled. Why did this keep coming up?
"I DON'T!" She yelled. The computers shared a malicious grin. This was gonna be fun.
"Yes you doooo!" Said Tak.
"You talk in your sleep." Said Zim's computer.
"No I don't." Said, Gaz, confused. The computers looked guilty.
"Ok, fine. We just listened to your thoughts. We can do that, you know. That's how Tak got her personality into the ship."
"Yeah. You do like him. You dooo!" Gaz settled back in the half-moon seat to think. So what if she did like him? It wasn't like he liked her. She'd barely ever said anything to him. Not counting threats of disembowelment, that is. She'd probably scared him off. Just like she scared everyone else off. She shook her head. It wasn't her fault. How was she supposed to get close to anyone after what had happened?
"Dib did." Said Tak. Gaz glared. Tak cowered.
"Maybe we should just stay out of this." Said Zim's computer.
"Yeah." Said Gaz. She fell back into herself and thought.
"You know," Said Tak "I hate Zim, but since I'm a computer, I really don't care about revenge, or being an Invader. And I've listened to enough music to know that if you like somebody, you should tell them."
"Maybe." Said Gaz. "If I can find them. If they haven't gone and blown themselves up."
The computers had nothing to say to that.

Dib fell slowly onto the cold yellow dust. Zim tried to pull him up, but he was tired too.
"C'mon, Dib. We've gotta keep going. If we don't we're gonna get caught in the dark. The dark is very, VERY cold, Dib."
"Why? Why keep going? We've gotta keep going until what? Who knows we're here, Zim? The only person who even knows we left is Gaz. We've been bouncing ahead of the dark for twenty-four hours, Zim. We're racing the sun. And it's not stopping for rest breaks."
"I don't know why we have to keep going. But we do. We can't just stop and die when we can keep going."
"This is real funny coming from the guy who would have let himself die because his abandoners felt like killing him."
"SHUT UP! That's different! Loyalty is bred into us from generations of modifications. They try to eliminate all emotion except loyalty. Are you humans bred to give up?"
"No! But we're running on energy we don't have. On hope that is groundless."
"Yes. Groundless. That's why they call it hope, Earth-monkey."
Dib stared up at Zim. Then he looked back at the advancing darkness. And he stood up. And started bouncing again.

Several hours later
Dib looked at the ground. It was yellow dirt. No rocks or sand or even plants. It flew up at him, then retreated, then came up, and retreated. He fell into a pattern, not paying attention to anything other than the ground. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.
"Dib?" The question jerked him out if his lull. The exhaustion flew back at him.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry we were enemies for so long. I should have seen the world around me. I was too wrapped up in trying to do my job."
"Wow. An apology. From you. Am I dead? This can't be real."
"All jokes aside, human. I am sorry."
"I'm sorry too. I wonder if anyone has noticed we're gone yet. Certainly not my dad. He probably hasn't even come home yet."
"Not yet? We've been gone for over three days. I never knew he spent so long at work. It must be awful trying to live with just yourself."
"Just me and Gaz."
"Don't answer if you don't want to. What about your mother?"
"Mom died when I was five. Gaz was only four then. She got sick. Really sick. I don't even know what she had, but one day she was fine and the next…" Dib trailed off. Zim didn't say anything.
"Dad couldn't find a cure in time, and he hated himself for it. So he wrapped himself up in his work. He became obsessed with making everything perfect. And I got paranoid. Every time someone coughed, I was sure they were sick with the same disease. After a few years, the paranoia spread to other things." He sighed.
"I wish that we had been a better family."
"Irkens don't have families. But they sound like desirable things. We aren't supposed to feel 'affection' as you humans call it. But I do. I feel it." He looked over at Dib.
"I like you. I was always led to believe that any emotion was bad and could jeopardize the mission. But now there is no mission. And I can feel what I like."
"You really need a girlfriend, Zim. Really." Zim's eyes shut. His antenna stood straight up. Then he opened them.
"I would have. I did like an Earth girl. Almost since before the Tallest abandoned me. But I couldn't admit it to anyone. But now, since we're probably gonna die… I liked Gaz." Dib's eyes almost fell out of his head.
"SEE! If I'd have told you that earlier, you would have strangled me."
"That's true. Wow. Gaz. I never even would have thought. The thought of Gaz with a boyfriend is really weird."
"She doesn't like me anyway. I don't think she likes anyone."
"We better go faster. The dark is right behind us." Zim turned. The night was no more than a half-mile behind them. As he watched, dark ice crystals grew on the flat landscape.

Gaz looked at the approaching planet. It was pretty small.
"At least it has an atmosphere." Said Tak. "You should be Ok without a spacesuit. Good thing, because we don't have a spacesuit."
"Approaching Voot coordinates." Said Zim's computer. The ship set down next to the remains of the Voot. Gaz gasped as a layer of ice formed over the windshield of her ship.
"Wow. Cold." She said.
"Oh, don't worry about that. The sun's coming up. It should hit the ship…now." The ice melted away instantaneously as the sun's rays hit the ship. Gaz jumped out, and walked to the Voot. She climbed through the broken windshield into the cockpit. The half-moon seat was slashed in several places. But the ship was empty. She climbed back out, and looked around for evidence of life. She saw two sets of footprints heading north. There were no returning prints. She turned back to her ship.
"They're somewhere on this planet. And they were alive when the sun set here. We need to find them. They've been trying to escape the sunset for a day and a half." She climbed into her ship, and it flew off, following the footprints.

"That's it. The water condenser is broken. There isn't any water left to be had, unless we wait for the ice." Zim sat on the dry ground. Dib sat next to him, then leaned back and lay on his back.
"What do the Irkens think about death?"
"It is to be avoided at all costs. That is what I know."
"We can't avoid it anymore."
"I know. I know."
Zim lay on his back too. They looked up at the alien sky.
"No pictures in these stars."
"No, there is. Look there, Dib. There's a snake. Or maybe it's a gopher."
The two boys laughed as the dark washed over them.

"There they are!" The ship dived toward the ground, and the two still forms on the ice-coated ground. Two robo-arms cam out, and grabbed them. A second later, they were inside the ship. Warm air filled the cramped area, and water pooled on the ground as the ice melted. Gaz went first to her brother. He probably had frostbite. But he was alive. And he was beginning to come around. She pulled a piece of ice out of his hair.
"GAZ!" yelled Zim's computer. "Gaz, Zim isn't breathing!"
Gaz forgot the expansive array of Irken technology that surrounded her, and applied the kiss of life. Dib grimaced a little. 'Please, Zim, don't be dead.'
"I've released the nanobots. They should be fixing your frostbite. If you feel a little-"
"SHUT UP! Forget me, help Zim! HE'S the one who's dying!"
"Oh, no, he'll be-"
"REACTIVATE!" Yelled a female voice. Tak looked at the floor.
"Sorry." She said quietly.
"Like I was saying, I think he'll be ok." Finished the computer.
Gaz looked around.
"He's breathing again. Tak, is he gonna be ok?
"Oh, I'm sure he'll be fine." Said the embarrassed computer.
"Yeah, once the circuits in his pak thaw out he'll be back to normal. Interesting revival technique you humans have." Gaz blushed.
"Oh, be quiet."
"Anyway, I've released the nanobots. They should clear up any frostbite you two have. They sometimes go a little overboard, though. You might have to get your eye-lens prescription changed." Dib rolled his eyes. Like that was one of his worries right now.
Zim moaned, and opened his eyes. He saw Gaz, and quickly sat up, dusting himself off.
"Is this Tak's ship?" He asked. Dib nodded.
"Gaz, how you got this thing working is beyond me."
"Irken technology is programmed to fix it's self." Said Zim, confused.
"I knew that." Said Gaz. "It was just a matter of persuasion." Tak giggled.
"Your sister is a lot meaner than you Dib. All you ever did was cuss at me. Like I would respond to that."
"Shut up, Tak." Said Dib.
"Are there any spare parts on this ship? I want to see if I can fix the Voot. It might be cramped in this ship for two days." Said Zim. The Dib and Gaz nodded. They flew back to the crash site.
Zim managed to fix the ship well enough that it would fly, at least. He got the disc of his computer, and put it into his ship to make sure that he would be informed of any problems. The computer ran a diagnostic, and the Voot came up OK. Just to be safe, Dib and Gaz went in Tak's ship. The two ships rose into the black sky, and flew off toward home. A plant turned to another, awestruck.
"Did you see that?" Asked one.
"Yeah! Aliens! They sure were ugly."

"You kids know not to stay out past ten!" Professor Membrane said. "It's dangerous out there. You know that." Dib and Gaz looked at each other sadly. They had been gone for almost a week, and their Dad only knew that they were gone the last hour.
"Yes, dad. We know. We won't do it again." Said Dib. Gaz went to her room to write in her journal. Dib went to his room, and locked the door. He pulled out the old box of drawings he had done so long ago. Slowly, methodically, he tore them all into pieces.
"Dib!" His father yelled from downstairs. "Dib, the spaceship you parked in the backyard is gonna kill the grass! Put it in the gar- No, never mind, it's moving itself." Dib dropped into bed, and was asleep in an instant.

Dear diary,
I haven't written in you for a while. I've been in space looking for Zim and Dib. They almost killed themselves. What do you expect from a bunch of boys though, really?
Two days of sitting in a ship thinking showed me a lot of things. The two computers babbling to me all the time helped too. I guess I really do like Zim. But it doesn't matter, really. He wouldn't like me. I've always been mean to him.
Except I guess I kinda saved his life. Maybe that counts for something. Maybe not.
Something about him tells me that he's not trying to conquer Earth any more. I think maybe something happened to him. Something really bad. He's not so high and mighty any more. I think most of the 'Irkens are superior' stuff is now more out of habit than conviction. Maybe Tak's right. Maybe I should talk to him. I dunno. I'm going to bed.

In the house next door, Zim put the finishing touches on Gaz's game. This would take her a while. The last level was statistically almost impossible to beat. Today had been her birthday. They had spent most of it peering out the window, looking for the first glimpse of Earth. They had just gotten home a few minutes ago. Zim decided to give her the game tomorrow. She was probably asleep now anyway.
He envied the human's ability to sleep basically at will. Irkens needed to be in a supreme state of exhaustion. Once a month usually sufficed to keep them well rested.
Ah, well. Suddenly a spark of an idea formed in his head. It grew into a flame, then a bonfire. He began working on the game again. A level beyond the last level. Statistics had nothing to do with beating this one.
The End.

Sequel is called Elsewhere. CHECK IT OUT!!