A/N: I wrote this piece a long time ago, when Invader Zim was cancelled. I felt it deserved some sort of closure, no matter how strange, and settled on this. I hope you enjoy it.

Dib sat in his windowsill, gazing on the very stars which had entranced him as a small child, and now held so many dark secrets from his eyes. He vaguely recognized the Little Dipper, and hunted out Polaris amongst the boundless wonders of the heavens. Polaris, the North Star, the guiding light of sailors and adventurers the world over. What did Polaris mean to the inhabitants of other planets? Nothing, he supposed. Just another pinprick of light, another distant sun.

There was no warning, no foreshadowing, and no telltale sound to betray Zim's arrival. His red eyes suddenly blocked Dib's view of the sky, spider-legs clinging to the corners of his window. "Hello, DIB!" he snarled, grinning maniacally. "I have come to DESTROY you!"

Staring oddly at his nemesis for a moment, Dib sighed. "Not now, Zim."

The alien blinked, settling his feet on the recently vacated windowsill. "What is the meaning of this, inferior human stink-beast?"

"I'm too tired to argue with you. Go away."

But Zim's curiosity was piqued. "You will not deny ZIM information! GIVE TO ZIM!"

Dib ignored him, settling back on his bed to gaze past Zim and into space. Bewildered, the extraterrestrial retracted his spider-legs and sat beside him. "What are you looking at, Dib-worm?"

"The stars," Dib explained, not bothering to shoo Zim away. "It's clearer out tonight than usual."

Zim nodded. "Indeed. Your FILTHY human methods of waste disposal have not clogged your DISGUSTING Earth skies as thickly as I have come to expect. I fail to see why this interests you, Dib-stink."

Shrugging, Dib leaned his head on his hand. "I don't know. I guess it's only natural, really. It's so vast--the universe, I mean--and we've explored such a small portion of it."

A blank stare was his response. "Yes. Yes you have. The mighty Irken Empire has explored and devoured hundreds of THOUSANDS of planets, and you have put a man on the Moon." He sneered. "Well done."

Dib nodded slightly. "Yeah... Even your Empire hasn't seen all of it, though. Don't you ever wonder what else is out there?"

ZIm's antennae flattened back against his skull. "Of course not, disgusting piece of human FILTH. I am ZIM! I do not WONDER!"

A smile greeted his speech. "Right. I forgot." Dib pointed to a spot in the sky. "You see that star there? The one that's brighter than the others?"

Zim nodded, leaning forward to get a better look in spite of himself.

Dib continued. "That's Polaris. Before compasses, sailors used to guide their ships by it. Wherever you are, Polaris is always North. Even though we don't need to find it in the sky anymore, people still point it out to each other. Whenever you're lost, it leads you back home." Dib glanced over at his alien companion, to see him staring wide-eyed out the window. ZIm's antennae were upright, his face softly lit by the stars. He was like a child hearing a story for the first time.

"You didn't know that, did you?" Dib asked.

"No."

This answer shocked the young paranormal investigator, and he glanced over at Zim. The alien was admitting to having been unaware of something? That was strange, even for him.

"On Irk," Zim said softly, not himself at all, "we call that star Nelvak. It is our brightest sun. You cannot see the other three from here. You can hardly see them on Irk itself, the streets are so well-lit. When I was very small, my class and I took a trip out into what you could call the country for training. I remember being amazed at how well you could see the suns. Gaklin, Wuntorp, and Quertis were like your sun. Nelvak--your Polaris--was blue."

Zim stood. "I think..." he said, spider-legs extending, "that it is time to go home." He began to clamber out the window, but Dib stopped him.

"Wait! Home, as in your base?"

"No, Dib-human," Zim said softly, "Home. Irk. Your planet would not have been an asset to the Armada anyway, and I grow tired of your filthy human air."

Dib blinked, staring at his nemesis. "You're homesick."

Strangely enough, he didn't deny it. "Yes, worm-baby. I am." Before continuing his descent, he turned once more to Dib. "Perhaps... Perhaps I will find your sun in the sky someday, human. I have grown oddly attached to your filthy little world. Consider it a victory: the Dib's disgusting human sentimentality has saved mankind. Take good care of your hideous race, stink-child. Perhaps they will recognize you for it some day."

And then he was gone.

Dib stared blankly at the place where Zim had been just a moment before, and tried to comprehend the strange feeling in his stomach. It wasn't sadness--the little maniac hadn't been particularly close to him, after all. It was a bittersweet feeling. He had saved the human race, and that was a good sensation, but with Zim went the most exciting and fulfilling years of his short life.

He sat there for some time, staring away into the far reaches of space, before he saw what anyone else would have thought to be a shooting star. Dib knew better. Lying back on his bed, the boy drifted off to sleep. His dreams, once filled with aliens, now held an endless expanse of stars.

Zim sat quietly in the cockpit of the Voot Cruiser, Gir humming faintly beside him. Glancing back at the planet which had been his home for four years, he almost smiled. Ignoring the urge, he spoke: "You have been a worthy opponent, Dib. I hope I am given the chance to fight you again someday."

With that, Zim turned his back on Earth and its people. The whispering light of the engines was now the only thing left to mark his trail, and those were quickly fading in the vacuum of space. Gir, stirring slightly, spoke up in a soft tone he had never used before.

"Are we really going back, Master?"

Now Zim did smile, and he spared the little robot a kind glance. "Yes, Gir."

Falling once more into silence, the strange companions let Polaris guide them home.