Complications

Tak stared up at the night sky in awe. It was surprisingly beautiful. Like a magnificent blanket of twinkling glitter, the distant stars glistened brightly against the vast, open backdrop of space.

She let out a sigh and leaned back on the palms of her hands. She felt amazing, better than she possibly had in years. The raging fury that once consumed her had finally settled and every last muscle in her body felt completely and utterly relaxed. It was as if she had just finished a rigorous session of combat training.

Hearing her sigh, Zim glanced over at her concerned. "Is something wrong?" he asked, wondering if his choice of location wasn't up to her liking. In the aftermath of passion, he had decided to take them atop a grassy hill, one that overlooked the quiet suburban neighborhood below. It was a well secluded area, one in which they didn't have to worry about being out of their disguises. And the hour was shortly after midnight, so by now, most of the humans were already fast asleep.

"It's nothing," she replied, tilting her head back and taking in a deep breath. She let out a steadily exhale and opened her eyes. "They really are quite lovely aren't they."

He turned to look at her strangely. "Eh?"

"The stars," she repeated, motioning back toward the sky. "It only just occurred to me that I haven't just sat and observed them like this since I was last stranded on Dirt. They really are quite exquisite from here. The humans should consider themselves fortunate."

Zim glanced back up at the spectacle above and felt his antennae droop gloomily. "Yes. I suppose they should," he muttered, bowing his head solemnly. He hadn't failed to detect the hint of sadness in her voice and the painful reminder of her unfortunate placement on Dirt wasn't a topic he cared to bring up.

Realizing her poor choice of words, she looked over at him remorsefully. "Zim...I didn't mean..."

"I know," he interrupted, already aware of what she was about to say. He turned his head away shamefully. "Tak. You don't um...regret being with me, do you?"

She looked at him presumptuously. "What do you mean by that?"

He shrugged and began twirling the individual blades of grass between his claws. "I don't know. I just thought that maybe...maybe I...I don't know."

"Zim." Her voice fell and she leaned over to gently place a hand on his. "That choice was mine to make and mine alone. There's no need to feel pity me for me."

He smiled briefly before pulling his hand away. "You don't have to lie Tak," he said softly, refusing to look her in the eye. "I am under no illusion of just how awful this place truly is. I mean look at it. It's a vile mud ball full of disgusting, smelly ape creatures that possess the intelligence level of a walnut. And to make matters worse, you're now stuck here because of me."

Tak's face fell as she tried to suppress her own conflicted feelings. It was true. Despite how much she did care for him, she still blamed him for ruining her life. And even after trusting him enough to get close, a small part of her still hated herself for doing it.

She continued to watch in remorse as he suddenly reached around into his PAK and pulled out a small plastic tube. It was white in color, and had some sort of strip of on the side labelled EMERGENCY.

"I was going to give you this earlier," he said somberly before handing it over to her. "I think you will find its contents rather useful."

She took it cautiously and brought it to her face to study it. "Paste?" she asked, reading the label out loud.

"It's how I was able to withstand the storm the night you arrived," he explained, keeping his eyes focused on the town below. "Applying a layer of it daily will protect your skin and keep you unharmed from Earth's rainier weather patterns. It will grant you the freedom to venture outside of the base from now on."

She glanced down at the tube and then back up at him in silence. Paste? Had it really been that simple? She stared at him in wonder as he looked out over the empty, quiet streets. How was it that someone like him was able to come up with such a brilliant solution? she wondered. Him!? The same guy who couldn't even screw in a light bulb without electrocuting himself?

She continued to bounce back and forth between the tube and Zim, her mind jogging a mile a minute. It was a generous gift, and one that meant a lot more than he probably realized. Granting such knowledge to her meant surrendering his one home-field advantage. Without the paste to protect him that night from the rain, she would have surely been able to finish him off for good.

Opening up her own PAK, she stored the tube away and glanced back over at him. Scooting in a bit closer, she inched forward until their shoulders practically touched. "You know Zim..." she said shyly, brushing up against him to indicate her sentiment. "I'm starting to think you're not so bad for a self-centered, maniacal, destructive, ego-maniac."

Zim blushed, and catching on to her playful demeanor, let out a confident chuckle. "Well you're rather remarkable for a cold, heartless assassin," he responded provocatively.

She smirked and moved in closer to him, and together they laid back against the Voot.

She stared up at the stars, allowing her mind to drift back to Dirt. She thought about how she used to gaze up at the heavenly bodies from the dock of her ship, fighting off the smell of rotting garbage as she stared at the cerulean-green glow from the massive gaseous planet nearby. The wide open sky on that planet seemed to go on for miles, and it was almost daunting to have to endure such a breathtaking view while her promise of freedom was only a few hundred miles away.

She nuzzled against him warmly while he wrapped his arms around her in return. It may not have been the outcome she'd expected, but this feeling of closeness, this love as the humans called it, it was something she never cared to loose again. She felt giddy and inebriated, like a sweet, sweet nectar, that granted both the strength and the confidence she needed to accomplish anything she set her mind to. It was intoxicating, and invigorating, and she she began to wonder why their kind had abandoned it in the first place.

"Thank you Zim," she hummed, keeping her eyes closed and letting out a long steady, exhale. She rested her head on his shoulder, soaking in his warmth. "I couldn't have asked for a better Valentine's day gift."

He smiled blissfully and gladly returned the gesture. "You are most welcome Tak."


Two months later

"Hey, be careful with that Space boy!" Dib shouted, watching as the Irken carelessly tinkered with his self-constructed listening device. "I didn't bring that all the way down here just so you could break it!"

After weeks of spending significant alone time with Tak, Zim had finally decided to let the pestering young boy back into his labs. He had grown tired of the constant badgering, and Dib had been nothing but relentless. Whenever he chose to step foot outside, the human was there, ready to bombard him with a serious of tedious questions. And even when the Irken tried threatening him, it didn't seem to work. Zim tried screaming at him, activating his lawn gnomes, sending Gir topside, and even unleashing a heard of viscous rabid gofers, but nothing seemed to deter the Earth boy. Eventually, the Irken just gave up, and since the human had proven himself useful on more than one occasion, he decided to allow him back in to help repair the base.

"You DARE command me how to use MY tools inside MY own base?" Zim replied, holding his gorgitwrench high above his head. "You should be grateful I even offered to help you with this...this...?" He paused. "What is this thing anyway?"

"It's a translator," answered Dib, hoping the alien wasn't about to undue all of the hard work he'd put into it the night before. "It's designed to take in any language from the speaker and change it to that of the listener."

Zim waved a hand out in front of him. "Pft! Child's play. Relax Dib-meat, no Irken tool would ever be impetuous enough to damage this simplified design. It would need to be made of scrap metal or some other useless material in order for to-...oh wait, it broke."

Dib's face fell in horror. "No!"

He lunged to take back the device, but Zim held it just out of reach.

"Not to worry Dib-stink!" Zim shouted, making sure to keep it away as best he could. "I can easily repair it with my trusted, GRAVITY LASER!" He turned to shout at his minion. "Gir! Fetch the laser! Quickly!"

Obeying his master's command, Gir set down the hammer he was using to endlessly bang dents into poor Mimi's head and grabbed the tool as requested. He handed it to Zim.

"Now watch human! Watch in amazement as I improve your puny little invention with my superior Irken knowledge!"

Dib watched in awe as the blaring windup from the machine echoed loudly throughout the room. The tool in Zim's hand vibrated intensely, and he waited in anticipation as the sounds grew louder and louder. Eventually, all that followed was a puny little bleep.

"Wait, that was it?" stated Dib unimpressed. "All you did was zap it for two seconds."

Zim rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Yes! But those two seconds are what made it better! And now, Dib-meat, you should find that it can detect ANY possible language, including all of the horrible, ridiculous ones your filthy race has come up with."

He tossed it back to Dib, who's eyes slanted in suspicion. "Oh yeah? So it should even be able to pick up on your language then, right?"

Zim shrugged. "I 'unno. Let's find out."

The Irken snatched the device and muttered something otherworldly into it. Dib felt a small shock of electricity and with a yelp, fell to the ground in surprise.

Gir giggled hysterically.

"What did he say?" demanded Dib, pushing himself back up.

"He called you a large-headed Gizzleflorp," Tak answered casually, entering from the other side of the room. She was carrying a sizable box of loose electric components and seemed to be installing them throughout the base.

Dib frowned and rubbed his head in agony "That still doesn't explain why it shocked me" he groaned. "I checked all the wiring this morning and everything should have been fine."

"Your invention simply did not know what to do with the unknown verbal cues," she explained, attaching some of the components to a nearby wall. "The Irken language is far more complex than any of those spoken here on Earth, and it most likely overloaded from the added stimulus."

Dib frowned and turned back toward the alien who had now joined Gir in laughter. "Ha ha, very funny Space boy," he muttered sarcastically. "Maybe next time we'll just go ahead and test it on you first to see how you like it."

He began to remove the device from his ear when Tak spoke up once again. "I can't see how you should be surprised," she stated flatly, causing him to look over in her direction. "It's not like Zim has a track record of doing things right the first time. Or ever for that matter."

Dib glanced at the ex-invader who was now slapping the ground and tearing up in laughter. She does have a point, he thought privately. In a way, it's kind of my fault for being stupid enough to listen to him.

She was about to pack up her things and leave when Dib called out to her. "Hey! Wait a minute!" he shouted, causing her to pause and turn back around. "I've been meaning to ask you. What is it that you see in Zim anyway?"

Tak stopped in her tracks and felt a blush form across her cheeks. "I beg your pardon?"

"Zim," Dib repeated, sticking his thumb out toward the Irken. "He's been doing nothing but talk about you for weeks. I know you hated him when you first landed here and I was just curious. What finally got you to warm up to him?"

Bristled in annoyance, Tak crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't see why I should explain any of that to you human," she answered sourly. "And what business of it is yours anyway? It's not like a simple Earth creature to meddle in the complexity of Irken affairs."

Dib gave her a sarcastic look and rolled his eyes. "Geez, I was just asking. Besides, meddling in Irken affairs is kinda my thing, you know?" He raised an eyebrow and glanced over at her. "It's funny, but you're even starting to sound like him."

Tak's face flushed in embarrassment. "That's it!" she shouted, pointing claw in his direction. "Computer! Dispose of this filthy Earth creature! At once!"

Dib glanced up, and the next thing he knew, a large vacuum tube had descended above his head. "Aw comon," he groaned, already feeling the powerful suction begin to lift him from the ground. Within seconds, the tube had picked him up, and his long drawn out yell could be heard gradually as he was cast further and further out of the base.

"Good riddance," muttered Tak, dusting her hands off as she turned to exit the lab.

"What was that about?" Zim asked, approaching the area where Dib was last seen standing. Tak glanced over at him.

"Oh, just ridding the base of some unnecessary rubbish," she replied calmly, strolling past as if nothing had happened.


The next few days, things continued on as normal. Zim carried on with work around the base and Tak went about upgrading whatever piece of tech sparked her interest. She seemed to be using the project as a means to keep herself occupied and as promised, she'd provided some major upgrades to his base's core systems. She even went so far as to add a few of her own personal touches. His computer, which now operated on half the processing power, responded quicker and was a lot less lethargic than before. And his voot cruiser, which he'd noticed was more responsive during flight, was faster and far more agile.

Things seemed to be going quite well...or so he thought.

After a while, he began to notice she was starting to act much more distant than before, and instead of her usual eye catching glance when she passed him in hall, she barely gave him so much as nod. She looked utterly exhausted, and her stares were focused and on edge, as if her thoughts were thousands of miles from Earth.

It wasn't long before her nervous behavior started to take its toll on him as well. He began loosing his ability to concentrate, and he wanted to pull his antennae out when his mind only thought about whatever it was that was bothering her. It was like they were back at square one, when he tried to impress her meticulously to get her to notice his efforts. He began intentionally placing himself in areas where she frequently visited, hoping to catch her when she was in the right mood for conversation. At first it seemed to work, but gradually she caught on to his tactics. She started changing up her routine, and made it more and more difficult for him to track her. Eventually she ventured around the lab only when he was away, and when she walked into a room where he was found to already be working, she simply would leave without a word.

One evening, Zim found himself casually marching down the halls of the base when he suddenly heard shouting coming from the lab.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN POSITIVE! I THOUGHT YOU SAID THE TESTS CAME BACK AS INFERTILE!"

In an instant he sprinted down the corridor, curious what the commotion could possibly be. The voice was undoubtedly Tak's, and she sounded very angry about something.

He stopped at the entryway and poked his head around just enough to see to the inside of the lab. Sure enough, she was standing there, and in front of her was a small evaluation tank with a test sample of what appeared to be fresh Irken blood. It was strange in color, and looked as if some sort of foreign chemical had been added to the vial.

"No. What I said was, it was very unlikely," corrected prisoner 777. The Vortian was hovering directly in front of her on the monitor and he too looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"But Zim is tank bred!" shouted Tak, trying to suppress the panic in her voice. "There's no way it should even been possible!"

777 shrugged. "Look, I don't know what to tell you lady. I'm an engineer, not a doctor."

Tak squeezed the test tube in her hand, threatening to snap it in two. She leaned in closer. "Listen you bumbling idiot. You'd better have some answers for me soon, or I swear I will launch those three helpless children of yours into space!"

"What is it with you Irkens and launching people into space?" he questioned tiredly.

She stared back at him with a venomous glare.

"Alright, alright," he said, holding his tiny hands up. "Let's just back up and go over the details for a minute." He pulled up a list of digital files and scrolled through them carefully. "Let's see. The initial results of your blood test DID originally come back as negative, but intriguingly they were very different than the ones you sent me the second time around. It's as if your hormones completely rearranged themselves overnight."

"And what about the information you collected for Zim?" Tak asked impatiently. "Isn't there something in there that can help?"

The Vortian flipped through a few more files and shook his head. "All it says here is that to keep up with the rate of intergalactic conquest, your kind built massive hatching facilities to produce soldiers on a grand scale. Most of the smeets born by that point were genetically randomized while others were simply cloned. It appears that over time, your species gradually lost the need to reproduce, and because it was deemed an unnecessary distraction, it was fazed out further with the help of your PAKs."

"But that STILL doesn't explain why this happened to ME," shouted Tak impatiently. The Vortian sighed wearily.

"Well you mentioned that you ARE natural born," he said, reconfirming the obvious. "It would only make sense that you would be predisposed to such a condition." He brought a claw to his chin to think on the matter. "And Zim's PAK WAS determined to be defective during his trial on Judgementia. The only reason he's still alive is because the control brains deemed the files too corrupt to integrate back into their collective. Hmm. It's quite possible that his PAK never functioned properly from the start, and that WOULD explain why the two of you were able to-"

He paused, noticing Zim's scarlet red eyes peering around the corner. "Oh no..."

Tak turned around, curious to see what caught the Vortian's attention. Her eyes narrowed.

"Zim!" she shouted, her tone indicating that he had already been caught. His head disappeared rapidly behind the wall. "Just how long did you plan on spying on me?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Spying?" he replied innocently, stepping out from his hiding spot. "Zim has no need for spying Tak. I was simply...uh...checking up on you. Yes, that's it!"

Tak gave him a contemptuous look. "Then what were you doing out in the hallway!?"

He made his way over to her. "It is MY base, in case you have forgotten." he stopped only a few feet away. "And what's going on here between you and prisoner 777 might I ask? Some sort of secret meeting I should know about?"

"Nothing that concerns you!" she snapped, causing him to take a step back. She seemed unusually callous, and not in a way where he would be able to win her over with simple praise.

The Vortian cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh actually, it kinda does concern him..." he interjected, raising his hand.

Tak wheeled around and glared at him with piercing violet eyes. "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS VORT BOY!"

Zim approached her cautiously, making sure to keep his guard up. "Tak?" he questioned, his voice full of concern. "What's going on? Are you sure you're alright?"

"DO I LOOK LIKE I'M ALRIGHT?"

Recoiling from her sudden outburst, he eyed over her worriedly."Are you sick? Because you seem sort of...not good."

Letting out a heavy sigh, she collapsed in defeat. She knew she was fighting a loosing battle, and he was destined to find out sooner or later. "Isn't it obvious you idiot?" she asked, hoping he would get the hint.

He stared at her blankly.

Standing up, she led him over to the collection of vials and pointed out the ones scattered around the floor. "These are various blood samples I ran over the course of three weeks," she explained, her voice staying low. "All fifteen came back positive."

Zim cocked his head. "Positive? Positive for what?"

She stared at him vacantly, but said nothing.

A good amount of time passed before either of them decided to speak. Finally it was the Vortian who broke the silence.

"Tak is pregnant with your smeet Zim," he interjected, urging the conversation along. The two Irkens looked up at him in shock. "Hey, someone had to come out and say it," he shrugged.

Zim whipped around to look back at her. "Tak? Is..is that true?"

She nodded, and kept her gaze low to the ground.

He took a step back and suddenly felt the base of his knees go weak. His body went stiff with shock, and the weight of gravity seemed to drastically increase as his head swirled about in a cocktail of excitement and confusion. "A smeet?" he muttered, doing everything he could to prevent himself from collapsing. He repeated it over and over in his head. "You're carrying around a smeet!?"

Tak felt her nerves pick up as he stared back at her anxiously.

"H-how...how long have you known?"

"A couple of weeks now," she answered, casting her glance off to the side. "The effects have only started to become apparent in the last forty-eight hours."

Zim paced the floor, contemplating the information that was presented to him. A smeet? A helpless Irken child? One that had no way of knowing who it was or how care for itself?

He continued to pace the floor in a panic.

He didn't know how to care for such a thing. There was no preparation, no training for him to speak of. His kind were genetically engineered to have this sort of thing prevented, and for good reason.

Suddenly, the Vortian interrupted again. "Ahem. Perhaps I can be of some assistance," he said, clearing his throat.

Zim stopped and turned around to face the monitor. 777 continued. "You are probably wondering what course of action to take about now," he stated, reading the Irken's mind. "Well, the most important thing you must know is that without proper surgery, Tak's life could be in very real danger."

"Danger?" Zim's antennae perked up. "What do you mean REAL danger?"

"Well," continued the Vortian, "if the smeet isn't removed in time, it could end up killing it's host. Or in this case, Tak."

Zim paused as he tried to process the information."So what you're saying is, if nothing is done, Tak will...die?"

The Vortian nodded.

Zim felt a lump in his throat as he tried to think of something that could be done. He turned back to look over at Tak, but she looked just as worried and frightened as he was.

"What can be done?" he asked, his voice suddenly stern.

"The only way to ensure any chance of survival for both parties, is if Tak returns to Irk. There she can be watched over carefully in a facility where they still carry out that sort of thing."

Zim's posture stiffened, and he felt a sudden tightness grip his organs. "Irk?" No, she couldn't go back to Irk. The Tallest would definitely catch wind of her arrival and once she was forced to go stand trial, he would likely never see her again.

He looked back at her, a fearful expression reflecting in his eyes. He felt his stomach drop, and in that instant, he knew what had to be done.

"It's settled then. Tak will return to Irk."

Tak's eyes widened at the response. "What!?" she questioned, her voice rising in panic. "Are you insane?"

Pacing the floor, Zim ignored her protest. "You must. It's the only way."

"But they'll imprison me the moment I step foot on that planet! There's got to be another option."

"There isn't."

Feeling her anger rise, Tak stomped over to him. "You do realize what they'll do if I go back there don't you? They will send me back to Dirt. Or worse! They'll label me as a defective."

Zim turned to her with a sorrowful expression. "I'm sorry Tak, but it's the only way. I never intended for this to happen but-"

"Of course you didn't," she cut him off, a thin sheet of tears forming in her eyes. He fell silent as she stared into him coldly. "You never mean for these things to happen Zim, but somehow you always end up being on the other end of it. You just can't help but destroy the lives of everyone around you can you? And even when you think you're making things better, you always manage to make them worse."

Zim felt his heart sink as he felt her words cut into him. He knew she was probably only reacting to the hormones, but her insults still hurt worse than when Gir accidentally released his brain eating monster creation.

Swallowing hard, he reached out to help her. Tak...please I-"

She shoved him away.

"Don't touch me!" she snarled, shoving him away. Her emotions starting to get the best of her, and he could see the confused, fearful look in his eyes. "Please." She begged, turning away from him. "You've already done enough."

He watched helplessly as she exited the lab and felt the desperate need to chase after her. But before he could take two steps, he was stopped abruptly by Mimi.

"I command you to step aside at once!" he shouted impatiently.

Mimi stared back at him, refusing to budge. Its eyes narrowed into glowing, scarlet slits, and it leered back at him with menacing intensity.

They remained that way for a while, both Irken and machine challenging each other in a game of wits. Neither of them were willing to back down, but eventually it was Zim who finally conceded.

"Fine! But don't think this is over. I promise you will rue the day you ever stood up to me, ZIM!"

Satisfied, the loyal SIR unit snorted and turned away. It scurried along to join its master.

Zim watched as it trotted away proudly, leaving him to cope in his own misery. He turned around and dragged his sulking body back over to the monitor. The Vortian prisoner watched curiously as he hovered a fist over a large release button.

"Hey, what are you doing?" asked the prisoner, suddenly worried.

The Irken slammed his fist down, hard, and the container that held the Vortian children suddenly opened up and sucked them straight out of the lab.

"What did you do!?" Where did my children go!?"

"Your offspring have been released and transported to their proper caretaker back on Vort," explained Zim, his voice calm and emotionless."You should find you will be able to contact them in a matter of weeks."

The Vortian stared at him dumbfounded. "Um, well I uh...t-thank you," he replied, completely at a loss for words.

The Irken ignored him and then leaned over the button to cut the transmission.

"Wait! he shouted causing the Zim to freeze. The exiled invader looked up at him annoyed.

"What made you suddenly change your mind?"

Zim's eyes narrowed and he glared back at the prisoner. "Let's just agree that you are to never speak of this in the future. Understand?"

Getting the hint and recognizing the dark tone in the Irken's voice, the Vortian nodded and immediately ended the transmission.


Author's note: Whew! So sorry this took so long to get out there. This chapter was originally way longer, but I have decided to split it in two since this seems a good place to pause. I must have rewritten it at least twenty times before finding a version I was happy with. The previous drafts were far too fast paced and had way too much going on to make any sense. So, I had to scrap them and start over from scratch. Plus I was dealing with filling out unemployment and balancing fiances for this whole COVID thing, so that didn't exactly create the best head space for sitting down and writing.

I'm sure some of you probably saw the direction that this story was going from the start, and I just hope I didn't disappoint anyone with an overly predicable plot line. But like I mentioned before, this is loosely based off my original story and I planned to have a lot of similarities when writing this one.

Also, I have no idea how two Irkens would come together to produce a smeet, but I'm a big fan of the "life finds a way" idea. And even if there was an alien race out there that tried to leave that primitive part of themselves behind to further improve their conquest, I can't imagine nature would allow that sort of thing to be forgotten easily.

Don't forget to let me know what your thoughts were! And be sure to stay safe out there during these crazy chaotic times!