Saving Zim: Epilogue by Dib07

Summary:

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change.

When life isn't what you'd imagined.

When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

Cover art beautifully made by Truekrisstianity! All credit goes to her, please do not use without permission, thank you :)

Warnings:

Character death. Character angst. Blood. Swearing. Gary.

Dib07: Hello there! I guess we're back to chapter one? XD

For those of you who are new to this huge novel, this is Part Two of Saving Zim. Yes you can read it as it is, but you'd enjoy the story much better by reading Part One first. Also, to those who are new to this story, this novel is for adults who grew up with the show, and want something a little more mature. This story contains dark themes throughout.

Why am I separating this part with the original? In relation to Zim's 'new start' and the story picking up from where it left off, this story in itself takes another turn. There is a new plot, well, plots, and I only know that there is a lot more to tell.

This is a direct follow up from chapter 42: Dissolving Boundaries.

CHAPTER 1: Perfect Imperfection

'New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.'

Lao Tzu

-x-

'The way you look us over
Your counterfeit composure
Pushing again and again and sinking lower and lower
The world is on our shoulders
Do you really know the weight of the words you say?

Don't you dare surrender
I'm still right beside you
And I would never
Replace your perfect imperfection'

Imperfection - Evanescence

-x-

'Daylight

I must wait for the sunrise

I must think of a new life

And I mustn't give in

When the dawn comes

Tonight will be a memory too

And a new day will begin'

Memory - Cats

-x-

He tried his hardest not to look repulsed when the shadow of the doorway fell over his frame, the bright afternoon sunshine now cast behind him, but his emaciated muscles tensed anyway, and his grimace only widened.

"We're all home now. No more worries." Clara unpeeled his blankets and cast them to the floor while Dib shut the door.

I can do this. ZIM can do this.

He wondered if they would be fine with him levelling the place and rebuilding it to his preferences, but even though the blunt question was on the tip of his tongue, he could only blink and stare like a terrified owl. He knew they'd be nothing here to hurt his existence, as the humans had proved to him more times than was necessary that he'd be safe, but he could not help but instinctively worry. Every space, every corner still had to be manually checked over, even if it meant lifting up every potted plant and...

Clara passed him over to Dib so that she could shrug off her coat. He thought his human would hold him awkwardly with a healthy dose of caution one would exhibit whilst holding a mad cat, but the investigator held him tightly to his chest, one arm supporting his rump. They briefly met eyes, and Zim noticed how perturbed his human looked. That smile appeared again, an altogether different facade transforming Dib's face whenever he realized Zim was looking his way.

He was passed back over like he was some precious ornament that was allergic to the floor or something, but his spilling anxieties shifted when he caught the strong waft of new smells. Human smells. Fragrances of washing up liquid, soap. Shoe polish and leather. The last time he had been here he had been under massive stress; his mind a cocktail of rage, kidnap and betrayal. The domicile had become a dungeon that held no warmth or comfort, instead offered only agony. It had poisoned his affection for his human, the human he had thought dead.

Clara mouthed something to Dib. He couldn't quite hear them and their hushed conspiracies. Something about him being 'too quiet?' Or 'too queer?'

Zim gazed in disbelief from the cradle of her arms, hypnotised by this new and ordinary world that was now his as much as theirs. It did not feel like it should be any Irken's home. It was plain, primitive, and ugly.

The foyer appeared clean and tidy, and there was a pink coat his size hanging from the coat rack by the door. Beyond the hallway was a doorway that led to the kitchen. Clara took him through while he gormlessly stared, and hanging from the ceiling over the shiny oak table was a silvery and gold banner. Embossed in red letters across it were the words: 'SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE.'

He blinked, and looked again. It actually read: 'WELCOME HOME ZIM!'

She smiled, squeezing him a little tighter.

Louder, as Dib addressed him: "Well, hotshot, what do you think?"

He wasn't quite sure what to think. It felt like he was being pushed forcefully into a kind of imprisoning retirement home where real freedom was but an illusion.

His heavy head leaned against Clara's shoulder. It was too much. Was it normal, to feel this unplugged? To feel like he wasn't really here? The world seemed to dim, its edges decaying as the essence of unreality started to unravel. He was entombed in darkness, floating in a capsule.

'Is there anything else you would like to add in your last report to the Empire?'

Breathe in. Count to 3. Exhale. Breathe in. Count to 3. Exhale.

"Zim?"

"Just give him a moment, Dib. All this is a bit of a shock."

"Maybe...maybe this wasn't such a good idea. We should have given him more time to recuperate with my dad."

As they spoke, the faintness started to steal away, his right antenna lifting before he turned to face the obsessively tidy kitchen.

The countertops were all sparse and clean, the fridge positively gleaming with polish – in fact every inch of furnishing was so spotless that he half believed the kitchen had come from a show-shop room. He could imagine Dib on his hands and knees, scrubbing for all he was worth to get the place to the former Elite's hygienic standards.

There were little wooden or metal folding footstalls here and there, he noticed, and then he could not stop noticing them. He was also aware that upon every door was a second handle that aligned with the topmost one. They were all at his height, and the lowermost handles connected with the upper in a basic pulley system. How many hours, how many days had Clara and Dib spent, redesigning this house with his limited stature in mind? Without his PAK legs, he could no longer elevate his limited height, and they had accommodated this disability of his as best they could.

When had they started working on these redesigns? Had it been before his PAK operation, or sometime after?

Zim woefully realized that, if he had opted for the serum button, Dib would have had to uninstall everything.

His antenna, the apex tip looking less sleek, felt the abyss of space above him.

Had the rooms always felt this...large?

Could you even suffer such a thing as reverse claustrophobia?

Fuss all you like. He told himself, his eyes as hollow as the night sky. I'll get home cooked meals now. I can order Dib around. He's basically become my minion.

A fuse exploded, and he shook his head.

No. NO! Irkens don't retire! I can't stop being a soldier! I don't want this! I can't!

He had this perfect opportunity to let all his worries and duties slide away, and allow someone else to do the worrying. He could watch TV all day or reinvigorate his destructive pleasures and blow up a section of wall to expand this home's interior just to appease that 'Irken restlessness' in him. But what if he couldn't settle for their kind of normality?

Losing his kingdom – his status - for this.

The humans continued to look apprehensive, like greenhorns who had heard the first blast of enemy gunfire.

Clara's fingers stroked the bottom of his chin and before he knew it she had loosened the knots that had started inside him. "Let's show you the lounge, sweetpea."

He snorted. He knew what it looked like, and wasn't keen on revisiting it. But, unable to look away, unable to let go of control, he watched and scrutinised as he was carried there, where not so long ago, he had isolated himself into the far corner. This act; triggered by fright and distress, seemed long ago now, and distant, as if he had not been that Irken. He tried not to look at that corner – even though the holes and the blood he had left behind were no longer there. New carpet had replaced the old. It took a moment for his eyes to leave that place, but slowly and tensely he began to view the rest of the room.

The bookcase was filled with the usual kind of human nonsense. There was the wide screen TV, and nestled below it was the latest X-V console, and opposite the TV was a very soft, squishy kind of sofa that Gir would have loved to bounce on.

And there, standing elegantly in the far corner by the window was a sleek, black piano. He stared ghoulishly at it, hardly believing his own eyes.

What was it doing there? Just how much medicine had the professor doped him up on to enable such hallucinogenic visions?

Dib walked over to the piano and gently patted its top. "All yours, Zim. Something for you to play with. Or you could still drop it over a city. Just make sure everyone evacuates first."

The big, black piano looked so shiny. So enticing. He stared at it from big, shiny eyes.

How could Dib possibly know that he was partial to music? HOW? What spying tools did he have?

Clara showed him the wall above the sofa where they'd hung idealistic framed photos of Dib and Clara; one of the professor holding an award of some kind, one of Gaz actually trying to smile (she looked like she had been seventeen at the time) and strangely, in the centre, one of him.

He looked angry in the photo. If God himself had taken a photograph of Zim every day of his life he would have looked angry in every single one. It was that freezing night in January when they had been playing cards in the Treaty. Dib had brought out a camera, said; "Smile you miserable bastard!" Zim had been wearing his disguise but he had looked none the happier for Dib taking the photo.

"We should show him his room." Dib suggested to his fiancée. "Then I suggest leaving him to it while we get the dinner going. We could all do with something to eat. How about it, Zim? You hungry?"

Food? Now? Really? Zim blinked at him in astonishment. Clara spoke for the Irken, aware of his strange quietness. "He's got a lot to take in. Give him a moment, Dib. Besides, you could do with a bath. You stink of cigarettes."

"I do?" He twirled on the spot as if he could seek the origin of the smell.

She took him upstairs as if she was entitled to take him wherever, whenever, and he chose to put up with it for now, having no clue what to do once his feet touched the floor. Dib followed, only to stop and shake his smelly jacket off half way up the stairs.

As she went, one step at a time, a hand pressed around his burbling PAK, Zim wondered how on Irk he was going to manage such a common obstacle as STAIRS now that he had no PAK legs to do the work for him. His steps at home had been little for little Irken legs. Now it would be like trying to go up and down something tantamount to Mount Everest.

Just mere obstacles for me to overcome. He thought with some acrimony.

"And here's your room. I just painted it, so watch where you put those claws." Dib stepped ahead of Clara on the landing, and, doing the honours, pushed the door open. Inside was truly a palatial palace indeed. Zim however was admittedly a little downhearted that it looked as simple and as ordinary as the rest of the house.

There was an oval window above a bench-like seat to his right, and situated close by was a long, heavy-duty desk packed with raw machinery and computers. Opposite the desk and window was a bed topped in purple pillows and a soft lavender coloured bedspread that matched the soft lilac walls. He had seen the images of his room through blurry eyes on Clara's phone, but back then he had been lost in an abyss with no thought or care as every burden imaginable tried to crush him.

Lying on this new bed with a silly stitched grin across its face was the floppy plush doll of Gir that Clara had handmade.

The dark purple curtains framing the oval window stirred from the chill outside. As Zim looked, surveying the room from Clara's high vantage point, he saw Dib's old musical box on the purple nightstand. He knew by experience that it played 'Wanderer's Lullaby.' Next to it was a nightlight – one he would later realize produced soft white background noise and projected rotating lights on the ceiling. Unbeknownst to him, Dib had come up with this 'white noise' to allay the silence Zim was not used to experiencing. Though deaf on one side, the little ex-soldier had been comforted by the external hum of his base for over two and a half decades.

A bookcase stood close to the bed, and it was stuffed to the brim with books and magazines. Some were engineering guide handbooks next to a strange blend of fairy tales, and then there were comics of Batman, Mysteries of Strange Mystery first editions, and more fairy tale books and computer construction books than he knew what to do with.

Dib hoped he'd enjoy all these new things. As a soldier, Zim had not been allowed the freedom to take pleasure in anything that involved harmless fun and entertainment, and as such he would have overlooked or hated or ignored such humble pleasures that boosted creativity.

Clara went in a little ways before kneeling down on the carpet and sat Zim on her lap, encouraging him to get up and walk. A strange excitement stirred him into motion, and he tentatively slid down from her lap and limped forwards on socked feet. He naturally stooped a little, as if his PAK was laden with invisible burdens, and he walked with timid steps, looking tensely around him as if he was a weary traveller surrounded by menacing trees in a dark forest. He was attracted at once by the tidy pile of raw machinery that had been stacked by the desk: a desk that was low to the floor so that it was perfectly accessible for his height.

Dib watched him as he stood by, his smile a tepid one. By the bed stood sad reminders of Zim's continued ill health. There was an IV pole that he still didn't quite know how to use should they have need of it, and there was the old respirator machine with its many ugly vials and valve switches. The tubes were tucked up, the breathing mask clean and ready for use. There was no second guessing the utilities of the oxygen tanks – two of them – lined behind the bed's rail headboard. Aggressively marked on the warning label were the words HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. Capping these shiny silver tanks were more valves, and sprouting from them like plastic vines were the tubes.

Tucked and hidden under Zim's bed was a mini defibrillator machine. A spare stethoscope sat on a shelf directly above the Irken's bed. It was his father who had insisted on these precautions. Dib did not like to see them, even partially.

In that stoop of his, Zim did a quick rummage through the material, and whenever he glanced his way, Dib's worried face brightened instantly, and a plastic smile stretched across his face in the hopes of giving Zim confidence. The little creature still smelt of medicine and antiseptic from the lab, and that sly pervading hint of sickness overpowered the scent of his new clothing. Tomorrow maybe, when Zim was feeling a little stronger, he'd sponge bathe those smells away.

Zim gave the machinery one of his many idiosyncratic looks as he scrutinised the raw bulk of hardware. Cables trailed down the sides like naked tails. Some of it once belonged to old 90's computers, while others were 2033 editions. All of this was for him to pull apart, make use of, and remodel. The professor had also given Zim his most powerful computer which was already plugged into his room on a desk ready to go. It was to be his main console, and would give him exhaustive data on pretty much anything and everything that the knowledge of mankind could offer. As if he was an official superintendent, he ran one claw over the wood of the desk to check for dust.

"Whatever else you need, I can get it more or less, so long as you don't ask for nuclear warheads, or the DNA of some killer glowing worm monster." Dib chuckled behind him.

Clara hadn't moved from her kneeling position on the carpet. She was watching the old Irken intently. Zim noticed her staring, and wondered what she was looking for. Distress? Tears? Rage?

Clenching his claws and feeling the hand brace dig into his left palm, he toddled over to the window and climbed up the custom-made step so that he could sit at the window on a soft little daybed. Fresh April sunshine splashed across his pale face and his pastel cream and pink pyjamas.

Beneath his view was an expansive panorama of Dib's neglected garden. The overgrown path snaking along it had been eaten by weeds. The garage roof could be gleamed from where he sat, and he could see the fence that separated Dib's garden from the neighbouring woodland. He looked up, spying the horizon, and saw the monolithic profile of the city and its rising skyscrapers in the foreground of the Oregon Mountains. The remains of his house were in that suburb, somewhere. A proud Invader lived there once upon a time. Now it was a gravesite.

Zim forced himself to turn away before he could get too absorbed in past tragedies.

He clambered down the little wooden steps with rebellious legs, and studied the desk again and the little swivel chair with steely observant calm.

The bed also had a little set of wooden steps leading up to its left side, bridging the two foot gap from the floor. Everything was always within reach, despite his terribly small statue. Regardless of this staple fact, Dib had a strong hunch that his alien wanted to use his PAK legs at times. He'd look at a shelf with such concentration that Dib was sure he was mentally readying to deploy his cybernetic abilities to overcome whatever limited reach there may be – only to stop short, realize they were gone, and huff and pout some. These moments were becoming less and less frequent as he slowly grew to accept a life handicapped.

Dib watched him, realizing how heavy his scrutiny must look, and looked away.

The ex-soldier toddled over towards a toy chest, and opened it to find more gadgets. Dib walked over, and opened the little white wardrobe by the bed. "Here is where you'll find all your clothes."

Zim glanced up from where he knelt by the toy chest, looking at the various sets of clothes hanging low to the floor so that he could reach them without effort. There were hoodies. Cardigan tops. Turtleneck sweaters. Pants. Little tiny sheepskin booties. Mittens. Pyjamas. And there were shelves stacked with extra fleece blankets, pillows, towels and bed sheets.

There was not a single uniform in sight.

"In here, your medicine." Dib opened the top drawer of his little nightstand, and Zim could hear the glassy click of vials clacking together. "The upstairs bathroom is catered to your needs too. Even the toilet has a little stepping stool."

Zim winced when he climbed back to his feet. Then he stood with his feet apart – clasping his hands beneath his PAK as if he was standing on military ceremony. The pulse in his appended intravenous whisked around to its usual tempo. His mouth opened to speak, but he shortly closed it again, and his antenna fell.

"I'll leave you two to it." Clara got to her feet. "I'm going to make us dinner. Zim, how does some hot broth sound?"

Zim's flicked his antenna up at her voice, his head jerking round as if he'd been in a dream. "B-Broth?" He stammered. His expression looked pain-filled as if he was on a very important trial, and told to answer every incriminating truth. He did not relax from his 'parade rest.'

"Yes." She said clearly so that he could hear her. "Do you have something else in mind?"

The professor had helped Clara and Dib along in their quest for Irken dietary knowledge. He had been giving Zim liquid foods during the early days when he was very sick, many of these dishes consisting of vegetable soups. Then the professor gave Zim dried plain oatmeal biscuits, and plain bread.

"No."

They were both staring at him.

She finally nodded and left the bedroom.

"So, space boy. What do you think? Do you suppose it'll contain at least some of your evil?" Dib teased. He wanted Zim to make and build things when he was a little more ready, hoping this creativity would dispel his depression for good.

There were metal shelves for his work and collected oddities, and there was a chest cabinet and toy box for his blueprints, potions and chemistry set. Dib knew it would never be like his old place, as nothing could replace his technology. He just hoped that what they could give Zim would be enough.

"You made all th-this? For me?"

"Well, of course, Zim. But you've got to learn to share. This room is yours of course, but every other room is for sharing. Remember that."

Zim cast his eyes around, turning his head with unremitting chronic tension. If he had been placed in a district full of nightmarish ghouls, he would have behaved no differently.

"Zim?"

The Irken gave him a fraction of attention, absorbed as he was in assessing his little domicile.

"I want to show you something. I'm real sorry if it upsets you. I just think it's better if I return him to you."

Dib opened a little drawer in his desk, and brought out something limp and unmistakably familiar. There really wasn't that much left of dear old Gir, save for the head and chassis. Fine little circuitry wires had sprung out of the open chassis like multicoloured threads. Dib had salvaged all he could. In fact, there was a large amount of his old things spread here and there. Zim would soon discover that there was plenty of cleansing chalk in the customised bathroom, ration packs of food, and an old bath toy he used to pulverise when he was in the washroom of his base for stress relief.

Zim cradled Gir's head to his chest. He had had nightmares concerning the robot – but nightmares the little robot had guided him through, or out of.

"What are you thinking, buddy?" Dib had squatted down low so that he was closer to his level. He tried to pick up on Zim's mood by reading whatever slight expression the Irken revealed, but mostly he went by the expressive ambience of his eyes, or by the position or angle of his right antenna.

"You...you saved what was left." Came his shy, gratified croak. When he turned the robot's head around to inspect it, one of the eyes jangled loose from its socket, but didn't fall as a thread of wiring held it.

"Not me." He said. "Clara. She knows how important possessions are, especially to an orphan."

He looked up at Dib. His marbled fuchsia eyes were wet and shiny. Then he placed Gir's head lovingly on the desk.

"His corrupted data stopped him from being himself. Stopped him from b-being Gir." He swallowed thickly. "Once your Membrane Father told me what it was, I understood the formula. The CPU was used on enemy warships. A microprocessor. I carried it around like a fool, only for it to be triggered by that lousy electromagnetic pulse thingy!" He kicked once at the floor with his weak foot. "Whenever Gir's behavioural sensors perceived a weakness in me after that, dropping my guard for instance, it triggered him."

"Zim... Zim I..." What could he say? What could he do that might alleviate this hurt? Maybe it hadn't been so wise to recover Gir's remains, and have them here, reminding the former Elite of his failures.

Zim took a wheezy breath, as deep as he was able to manage, and turned away from the remains of a life long gone. That left leg of his wobbled. With another hard swallow, the Irken pointed over at the door with a stern claw to distance himself from Gir's remains, at least, for awhile. "There's no lock."

The door, like all the others, had a second handle at the Irken's height – both top and bottom handles were attached to a cord of strong elastic cord. Once Zim pushed down on the lower handle, the string pulled taut against the upper one, releasing the catch.

"I've already told you why, Fudgekins. Clara and I need to have access no matter what."

"Yes, yes, it's those stinkin' House Rules of yours again!" At last, a flicker of the old Zim. "But... what if... what if somebody comes in? What if... it isn't safe? You have no first-class security systems. No lockdown force fields! No sentry turrets! How do you two idiots live like this?"

"You are perfectly safe! I know it must feel very strange when you can't rely on the protection of your old technology, but you are safe. No one's ever going to know you're here. And we'll make a new disguise for you."

"Install security cameras at least! Over the front door!" He croaked petulantly. "And the back porch! So I can see who's coming and who's g-going!"

"If it'll give you peace of mind, I will."

"And what if... what if Zim wants to be alone?" His question rounded off into an angry squeak. All this energy he was using just to speak made his chest labour that little bit harder.

"If you install a lock on your door Zim, I'm taking it off. Do you hear me?"

Zim crossed his arms and looked away, right antenna fully erect. "I hear you." He muttered in a very small voice.

Now that that was out the way, Dib's stern expression softened on the instant. "We'll always knock first. That should give you plenty of time to hide whatever doomsday device you happen to be in the middle of making." He said. "If you want to have some privacy, sure, just tell us. Now, let's show you the rest of your new home before supper. Then you need to rest."

He waited for Zim to show some willingness for the tour to continue. It wasn't to determine a lack of interest; it was see how much energy he still had to spare, and he did not like asking him if he had the energy to do this or that. Reminding this little former soldier of his limits never went down very well.

Dib paused suddenly, looking at the Irken in an almost dismayed manner. Zim's surviving antenna twitched, wondering what it was that had caught his attention. Was there a spider crawling up his face? The human stared a moment longer, in the place just above Zim's head, then his eyes cleared up, and he was on his way again. "Okay, on with this tour thingy."

Zim slowly followed like a little shadow, gingerly touching his antenna, but it felt normal enough. Maybe Dib had been looking behind him.

When he went to leave his room, and not quite used to the new orientation of the place, his eyes everywhere, he walked face first into the doorframe that had been left hanging open at a sharp angle.

"Oh Zim! You gotta watch out for those!"

The alien growled, holding his face. A bruise – darkish lime – was already forming between his eyes.

Good luck explaining this to Clara. Dib thought, wincing at the potential backlash he would receive.

He opened the door directly next to Zim's, showing the little Irken the master bedroom. Everything towered above the alien. The bed. The closet and wardrobe. The dresser. The windowsill. The walls were an ice-cream coffee colour, and the curtains were a rich chocolate shade. Zim raised his antenna at the sounds of lonesome cars rushing on by outside.

"We sleep right next door, so we're never far away." Dib said, giving his ex-nemesis a moment to eye up the place. Then he turned round and headed for the bathroom. Again, like Zim's custom bed, the toilet had a little footstool. An extra wooden flap came down that would ensure no little creatures could go falling in. In a little wicker basket was the Irken's supply of cleansing chalk. The professor had kept one so that he could make duplicates.

"How am I supposed to get in the tub?" Zim croakily asked. For the giant bath – well – it was enormous to him anyway – had no stepping ladder or footstall as if it was automatically out of bounds.

"I'm not letting you anywhere near unregulated water, Zim. You've got your own tub. And we'll be the ones bathing you until you're a little better."

Dib opened a bathroom cupboard and pulled out one of those pint-sized plastic baths made for children to bath their dolls in. The ex-Elite eyed it incredulously before his mood adjusted to unreserved revulsion as if Dib was showing him how best to eat a slug. "Is this your fun idea of torturing me?" Zim asked.

"Sure is." He chuckled, and slipped the offending item back into the cupboard. But it was on a shelf too high for the Irken to reach, almost as if the investigator was predicting that Zim would try to steal it, and melt it over a large bynson burner.

Just as he was about to follow the man back out, he caught his reflection in the tall bathroom mirror. He toddled back a few steps, snarling at once when his eyes jadedly caught the image of the shiny blue tube and the gloomy blemishes under both eyes. Then he saw with double grievance what Dib had been staring at.

The tip of his right antenna had started to turn white.

His implacable thought: Fuck. I'm getting older.

The jagged left, about as crooked as the letter Z, had also started to turn whiter at its torn edges.

He didn't care how he'd do it, or what with, but by Irk he was going to paint those tips black again.

Dib was waiting for him on the landing. The Irken walked out, his hip disallowing him to commence his usual goose-steps. Cognisant of his appearance, he flattened his antenna right down, making himself even deafer.

There was one more room next to the master bedroom. The door was shut, and this time there was no second 'Zim-high' handle on which to open it with. And the door was a baby blue. But Dib did not even mention it, as if the room behind the blue door was totally exempt from the tour.

"What's in that one?" Zim asked.

"Oh, that? That's urm... just a spare room. It's not important."

Zim stood looking at it with an adopted keenness that he gave his most stubborn of foes. "Why don't you open it?"

"It's a real mess in there, hotshot. Maybe later."

Zim warily looked around, eyes wet and glassy. He gave Dib the impression of a field mouse spying for that prowling owl above the nodding heads of wheat. The rooms and spaces were large for an Irken so small. He was used to interweaving through catacombs, low ceilings, confining arterial tunnels and walkways. Despite his deafness, he was aware of new noises, as well as new smells. He had to cope with all this, as well as coming to terms with his infirmity.

They came to the top of the stairs. It was a long, scary drop for one so small, and Zim automatically shied back a few steps. There was no way his tired muscles and heart could manage the entire decent, especially with his precarious balance.

"I'll carry you down."

"No." He said. "I can perfectly manage!"

"Uh huh. And then you'll fall and break something." He reached out, put a hand under Zim's arms, and lifted him up. He could feel that awful gauntness beneath his soft velvety clothing. He was much too frail to really be walking just yet. He held him against his chest, one hand beneath his rear, the other holding his shoulder as he walked down the stairs.

The kitchen was fragrant with the beautiful smells of cooking. The banner of 'WELCOME HOME ZIM' was still strung across the ceiling above the table. The table itself was already set for three. A red candle sat in the middle, and at each place mat was a spoon, fork, knife and serviette. Dib eased Zim onto his chair – a chair piled high with cushions so that he could reach the table and his plate. Zim jumped when Dib went to tie a napkin around his neck. "It's okay! We don't want your pyjamas getting dirty!"

Zim eyed his exits while Dib did his stupid fiddling. There was the backdoor by the dishwasher. The doorway that led back out into the hallway behind him. The windows weren't even covered with curtains, and here he was, sitting at the dinner table in plain sight! What if someone came and knocked at the door, like the irksome postmen that revisited his old home day after day like a reoccurring disease? There were cookie-scoutie girls and those nosy window cleanie people!

The room felt stuffy, the former Elite suddenly finding it harder to breathe.

"Zim, it's okay. I've already locked and bolted the front door, and if anyone knocks, I'm not answering them." Dib put a soft, reassuring hand on the Irken's bony shoulder. He had obviously perfectly seen and understood Zim's fractious concerns.

"But... but anyone can..."

"I have no immediate neighbours. Hell, you could play around in the garden and no one would see you because I have a forest growing on all sides of the fence."

"Dib," Clara called, "can you serve the food, please? Zim's is on the left. And why is there a bruise on his face?"

"He walked into a doorframe." He replied.

"I didn't walk into a doorframe." Zim mumbled to himself, "It walked into me."

Dib walked over to the stove, turned off the heat and served out the steaming vegetables onto a plate. As he served out the lasagne, he turned to see Clara pat Zim's forehead with ointment using an antiseptic pad. The Irken sat perfectly still, closing his eyes on occasion when the pad got close to them. "There." She said to him, "Perfect! Just don't go walking into anymore doorframes, okay?"

Dib grabbed the pan and poured the soup into a dish. Clara helped him serve the dishes. Zim was watching their every movement from his cushion-piled chair as if he was on some secret mission to spy on their hospitality. He fidgeted nervously, unsure as he was on how to act and behave amongst humans. He was used to doing things for himself. Used to doing things a certain way. Releasing the reins on his life and allowing these people to look after him was not just strange – it was unbalancing.

Clara placed a bowl of broth in front of him, and a side dish of peaches for desert alongside a tall plastic cup of chocolate milk.

It was not the first time Zim had taken food from them. During the weeks of being in the lab he had been spoon-fed oatmeal, or a mush of various flavours as he twisted and turned in fever. He had been sure he would inevitably get sick from their poison. But so far, he hadn't had a single bad reaction.

"I got another call today. From work." Dib was saying as he sat on Zim's left. He took up his knife and fork and began cutting into his brick of lasagne. Zim was watching him curiously as if what his human was doing was somehow both magical and bizarre. "I've run out of sick pay. Though the money doesn't worry me, I can't lose my position. One of us is going to have to go back to work. And it's gotta be me."

"Can't you work part time?" Clara asked. She was sitting opposite her fiancé at the other side of the table.

Reflexively, his antenna was pulled in towards their conversation, mirroring his attention, his eyes darting left and right.

This is madness! He came to realize. I'm in a house! A HUMAN house! Eating with... eating with HUMANS! Talking their small talk! This is it! This is how I'll go mad!

The door somewhere in his head, the very same door that locked out his alter ego, laughed and laughed.

Dib took a sip from his soda, realizing that Zim had yet to taste his broth. The Irken was staring at each of them in turn, ashen pale, and looking utterly trapped in bewilderment. "Zim, are you okay?"

"Err, yes, yes." Zim said on autopilot. If Dib had asked him if he wanted to try some coloured crayons with his meal, his reply would have been the same.

"Eat, honey. You must be starving!" Clara was looking down at him from across the candle light.

"So, you like your room?" Dib asked.

"I hope the place isn't too big for you." Then the girl.

"There's still the garage to see, and what I've got stored in there."

They went on and on, talking to and fro. They packed his head with too much noise.

"Please! Enough!" Zim weakly brought both his fists down on the table, causing his spoon to rattle upon the tablemat. There was silence following his croaky bark, and he shyly looked up at the two humans, wondering where his temper had come from.

Dib just nodded and politely smiled, but Zim could feel the change in his mood. "It's...it's okay. Nobody's expecting you to absorb everything at once. There is no pressure. Honest. This is a big change for all of us."

"Please eat, Zim." Clara insisted more firmly. "Your food is getting cold."

It was the first time he was eating anything without the professor's strict regulations, reliant as he was on his infinite wisdom. Still, Zim picked up the spoon and dipped it into his steaming broth that was loaded with chunks of vegetable. Despite the natural look of distrust marking his face, he was thankful. Leave Gir alone in the kitchen for just one second under the simple instructions of making a pasta dish, and lord and behold that robot would make a hodgepodge dish containing glitter, raw potatoes, horse radish and teddy bear stuffing.

He took a swallow from the spoon and inwardly marvelled at the taste. There were no cruel spots of pain leaping along his tongue and lips. No allergic flare-ups or anything similar. He took another sip. The professor's food had been adequate, yes, but it was always Dib's and Clara's cooking that had a wholesome flavour.

"So, looking forward to being a bug of leisure?" Dib teased. His smile was a little more fulsome again, a little newer. The Irken was noticing how both the humans had changed since coming home now that they were away from the beeping machines and long stretches of unfriendly laboratory.

Zim rolled his eyes at the human. "Not when I've got about a billion things to fix and improve. You call this a house? I call it a hovel!" He turned in his seat and pointed at the washing machine that had, all this time, stood innocently amongst the other appliances. "What on Irk is that?"

"That's a washing machine. You load laundry in it. You know, clothes and stuff."

"Do you have perimeter defences?" He was already thinking of uprooting them, and setting up new IRKEN ones around the boundary of his room.

"No, space boy. No. That would actually be pretty dangerous."

Zim tensed, thinking of what would happen the day after this, and the day after that, and the day after that. What if he grew tired of them, or they of him? He could imagine himself going bananas in less than a week. The fear of his own PAK only emphasised this uncomfortable unknown.

When he reached for his glass of chocolate milk he noticed how badly his claws were shaking. Quickly he snatched his hand back to his chest, hoping neither of the two had seen. They both seemed to be busy eating and chatting, but he was also pretty sure they were mentally noting down every little thing he did.

He sipped down some more of the broth, but the vegetables were thick, the sauce rich in natural flavours. Before long his spooch had had about enough.

Dib talked some, about work, and all the mysterious missed phone calls he kept finding on his answering machine, and Clara exchanged his boring drips and drabs with equally boring drips and drabs about the weather, and if it was a good idea to invite Gaz round, and oh what about the shopping? There was a sale on! Oh and darn that washing machine! It takes ages to wash those clothes! There's so much to clean! Oh and we'd better pay that gas bill!

On and on and ON they went, talking about human stuff that meant nothing to him.

He rested with his chin on the palm of his hand, but before long his elbow slipped, his chin sagged, and pretty soon he was snoring quietly against the backrest of the chair.

Dib jammed a thumb at the dozing Irken, whispered, "We'd better take the old goofball to bed."

"I don't want to wake him."

"He'll only get cold, Clara. And if he spooks himself and falls off the chair..."

"Okay, okay." She went round to the back of his chair, seeing that he hadn't managed to eat all that much. "Zim, honey, bedtime."

The Irken roused, eyes opening, and was only half aware of what she was saying. "No." He muttered weakly. "No. You don't... you don't tell Zim what time of bed it is..."

She chuckled as she untied the napkin from around his neck. "Even warriors need their beauty sleep, Zim. Come on. If you don't put up a fuss, I'll read to you."

"I'll get to find out what that stupid Pan does with that Hook person in this Never Ever Land?"

She nodded. "Of course." She lifted him up, holding him securely in her arms from long weeks of practise.

"My bed should have an armoured shell that descends over it." Dib could still hear Zim mutter tiredly as Clara carried him away. "I can biologically inscribe force fields. You could still come in. If you're good th-that is."

Dib remained sitting at the table, his smile finally dropping clean away to reveal the worry he'd been feeling ever since getting Zim home. He pushed his plate of food away from him, also unfinished, and dropped his face in his hands.

-x-

She took Zim to the bathroom, and left him there with the door closed. He was only in there a short while, and he opened the door himself using the two-way handle system that Dib had so cleverly installed.

"Washed your hands?"

He nodded, his tired eyes of hard fuchsia watching her with studious intent.

"We'll get you changed into something that'll really keep you warm."

He walked after her, padding silently across the carpet of his new room. She drew the curtains across the oval window and turned his bedside lamp on. Glowing stars appeared on his ceiling with the contrast. He peered up at them bleakly.

Clara opened his white wardrobe and took out a pair of pink pyjamas decorated in white stars.

Zim paused at his desk, his eyes falling upon the corpse of Gir. All the strewn bits and pieces of machinery, circuit boards, wires and flaxen tubes begged for him to start tinkering. To make something. His claws flexed against the palm of his hands as he stood by the desk chair.

"Zim? It's bedtime. You can have some fun tomorrow."

He growled, dipping his chin and casting his eyes aggressively at the desk and all its promising wonders as he moved reluctantly from it. He took a step on the little ladder that had very stable, soft rungs, and climbed onto his bed – a surprisingly easy thing for his hurting joints to cope with.

The bed was soft under him, the fleecy coverlets so velvety and ductile beneath the painful sensitivity of his bare hands. The plush doll of Gir had been sitting by his pillow. Now it slipped and fell onto its side, its stitched mouth gently smiling its silly smile.

Not wanting Clara to baby him anymore, he started undoing the buttons down his top. He never liked to expose himself, and did not like to show more skin than he was comfortable with, especially now that he had many more bones to show, principally his ribs and hip bones. They popped out of his skin in hard ridges and lines, hips jutting out like little handles. There was nothing left of his chest now but a skeletal ribcage that would no doubt play a note if someone ran their finger down its rungs. It was just as well the bandages hid them away.

Angrily he pulled a sleeve down each arm before tugging the pants off his legs.

Clara could see the confusion and upset gather in Zim's eyes like a building storm. Before he could get too embarrassed, she draped the new top about his shoulders and helped pop an arm down the sleeves. Soon he was all dressed and wrapped in the pyjamas, and in seconds he could feel toasty warmth spread through to his bones; stilling any shivers that had started in his hands and feet. Lastly, the hand brace was removed.

"There! All snugly and cosy again!" She said.

Zim tugged out a gentle smile. This alteration of his behaviour, much less his character, gave her a sense of extraordinary disquiet. He was responding to her more now than he had ever done before - but this openness, this emendation in him was a sad reminder of how broken he'd become. The majority of what made him had been taken, figuratively and physically.

Then he looked away from her, eyes staring back at the broken Gir sitting on his desk. The poxy thing of a moon was shining bright as if someone was holding a flashlight through the curtains. Heavy silence filled the room. It was as loud as a proclamation.

"What are you thinking about, honey?"

His eyes swept down low, taking in the soft velvets of his blankets.

"Nothing." He said in that husky, roughened voice. The claws on his lap tensed into fists as those self-destructive urges he could hardly control stormed through him in sharp relays. "Everything."

She noticed the way he was holding himself. Despite the frumpy, soft pyjamas and the deep serenity of the room, he was rigid and tense as if he was awaiting the summons of the final call to arms. His right hand in particular was so clenched that the knuckles were turning white.

"Why do you tense up, honey?" She took his right fist and eased out his claws one by one. He had been gripping them so tightly that the claws had cut into the skin, causing dozens of little dark indents, some of which were bloody. She kneaded them until he relented, his claws falling slack in her hold. It was no different to what an extremely anxious human did when they were in a bad or a new situation that scared them. It was a way of bracing oneself against present hardships.

"I'm not tense." He defended.

"It's a lot to take in. You battled through today okay, didn't you? It'll get easier. And one day soon, you'll enjoy it. Being part of a family."

His eyes were unreadable as he looked at her; thoughts trapped inside that might always be out of reach. She smiled weakly at him, not sure how else to reassure him, and when she reached the shelf where his stethoscope lay to grab the storybook of Peter Pan, she heard Zim mutter in his patented croak; "I could not lay a claw on this infernal planet now anyway." He sounded perplexedly content and angry about it: confused perhaps by the paradox he had found himself in. Earth had changed his incentives long since, now more than ever. He had been shown such kindnesses that even if he was new and strong and deadly again, he would either depart from Earth to find somewhere else to conquer, or stay and live peacefully. "I just wish... I wish Gir..."

"Just remember how far you've come. I often think we're like characters in a book, and some of us still have many stories to tell. Now, get cosy, and I'll read to you."

He growled despairingly at her; either because she was telling him what to do, or because he wasn't ready to settle down. After all, his new workstation was opposite him, and must have looked tempting indeed for a workaholic Irken.

Zim tugged the blankets all the way up to his neck before resting his head upon the big, squishy pillow that smelt as alien as everything else. The bed was much larger than the safe and pleasing confinements of the cocoon he was used to at home. It was like he was resting on a huge platform and it encouraged an uneasy helplessness in him.

Clara even placed the Gir doll by his shoulder. He was careful not to react to it.

"Dib kn-knows something." He exclaimed, and her eyes jerked towards him, the question catching her off-guard.

"And what might that be?" She asked.

"I don't know!"

"You need to stop worrying, honey, and concentrate on getting better."

As she began reading, leading off from the end of the last chapter, his exhaustion did not quite eclipse his fear of what would come next. The lights would go out – Clara would leave. Then what? What would he do in the long hours of the dark, other then be a victim to his own narrative horror as his brain spoke its mind?

He was afraid of his body. Every hour was a countdown to the next dose of medicine.

In heartbreak, he glanced over at the amputated Gir on the desk as Clara read to him.

I'm going to OVERCOME this.

I just feel...out of sorts.

Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

No. Don't cry. Not again. You big, dumb worm-baby.