Ok, I'm no doctor, so please excuse me if I make any medical mistakes. :3 And sorry this took so long!!

Zim, now sitting on the bench outside the MRI machine, grumbled to himself. "Stupid hospital… stupid Earth… I'm fine… these so-called doctors think they know everything…"

Rebecca, listening to his irritated rant, noticed that he was unconsciously rubbing his sore leg. She smiled to herself, mostly out of pity. Fine? She thought not. Hopefully it was nothing serious, though…

Matt, standing next to Rebecca, followed her amused gaze. Honestly! Zim was so stubborn. He did have to admit, however, that this was already getting interesting. It would be pretty intriguing to find out what was wrong with him -- hopefully something they could fix; but whatever it was, it was a kind of mystery. Matt liked mysteries.

And, finally, Dr. House, the one who everybody else in the room reluctantly admitted they were dependent on, was at the MRI controls behind the glass. He had one finger on the intercom button and seemed to be talking, although the others couldn't hear him behind the glass. Every now and then he would stop and roll his eyes. Eventually, he took his finger off, a look of pure triumph on his face, and opened the door.

"Well, I've got permission to start the machine, so go ahead and --" He was cut off by Matt.

"Don't they have technicians that do that?" Matt asked cautiously.

House, slightly irritated, replied "Yes, but I was just talking to them, and they gave up after much kvetching on my part. I'm now authorized to start the machine."

Rebecca smiled, amused. "You just earned points by me for your Yiddish vocabulary."

"Good to know…" House trailed off, unable to come up with anything witty to throw into the conversation. "Okay, the two humans -- or at lease partial humans -- need to come out of the room with me now." He began to leave, Rebecca and Matt trailing behind him.

Halfway through the door, Rebecca paused and glanced at Zim. She gave him an attempt at a reassuring smile (although it came out more like a grimace) and a thumbs-up. Zim returned the gesture with a soldier-esque salute. Rebecca rolled her eyes and closed the door.

House spoke through a microphone into the MRI room. "Okay, please remove all, erm, cranial accessories, as well as any metal you may be wearing…" he began, "and…" He pressed a button. "…we begin!"

The platform Zim was on began slowly rolling into the machine. When he was securely inside the machine, House pressed another button and the machine turned on.

Suddenly, a muted but obvious scream came from the MRI.

House and Matt looked quite befuddled, so Rebecca quite forcefully reminded them of the situation with a loud "TURN IT OFF!!" Snapping out of his confusion, House turned the MRI off and threw himself threw the door and up to the machine, manually pulling the platform out.

The two younger humans followed him in, only to find an enraged Zim, teeth clenched, shaking a tad with the sheer force of his incident.

"YOU FORGOT. TO TAKE OFF. MY PAK."

Matt and Rebecca, quite relieved, sighed and rolled their eyes. "So that's all…" Rebecca commented.

"That's ALL?!" Zim yelled, sitting up. "I could have died had it been ripped from my back!! And you forgot to take it off when I went into a MAGNETIC MACHINE?!"

"WE forgot?" Matt countered. "You're the true-born Irken here, Zim! Not to mention that you were the one going into the machine. What went through your head when Dr. House said 'remove all metal accessories?'"

"A PAK is hardly an accessory," Zim notified him.

"Uh, excuse me if this is a bad time," House began tentatively, "but… what's a PAK?"

"Care to explain, Zim?" Rebecca cued him.

"A PAK," Zim began, "is an Irken's main life support system, encased in this thingy." He gestured to the round metal object on his back.

A look of horror and anger beginning to surface, House face-palmed. "I am your doctor," he reminded them, agitated. "It would have been quite nice to have known that earlier."

The small green alien began to open his mouth defiantly, then closed it again.

"He's right, you know," Matt added.

There was a long silence, during which Dr. House folded his arms in front of him, quite satisfied, forever loving to be correct.

Zim sighed. "Admittedly, it was a little stupid to send you off trying to find out what was wrong with me without even understanding my anatomy."

"And," House added, "for future reference, something always goes wrong in the MRI…"

"Well, I didn't know that," Zim recoiled. "Anyway, how about we start this issue over again… with some extra information?"

"Huh?" Rebecca asked, not quite understanding.

"If I can hack back into my computer's database," Zim explained, "I can find you some important information on Irken anatomy."

[A/N: And there's the title!!]

"That sounds way smarter than I thought you were." House decided, smirking. A glare was returned from Zim. "No, really; do it. It makes more sense than anything else that's happened today."

"That's another thing," Rebecca began, confused. "How in the world do you believe us? I wouldn't; not if I was in your situation."

"Well…" House pondered, "first of all, you don't seem crazy. Except for lime-face."

Another glare from Zim.

"Other than that, I suppose I don't have an excuse."

"Well, you will," Matt informed House. "Take off your disguise, Zim. As long as he knows… he is, after all, your doctor."

Zim looked tentative on the subject. "You're not in with the FBI, are you?"

"Uh… no," The confused doctor replied.

"United Nations?"

"…No."

"CIA?"

"Well, I did go on a secret mission for them once, but no."

"Oh, ha…" Rebecca smiled.

"No, I'm serious," House said earnestly, eyebrows raised. "How come nobody ever believes me when I tell them that…?"

"Last but not least," Zim finished up, "do you PROMISE… you won't laugh?"

"No."

"No?"

"That's not something I can promise you."

Zim growled slightly, then proceeded to take off the wig. Then came the contact lenses. Then a few teary blinks and a mumble about how itchy those things were.

House simply stared, his face an expressionless boulder. After a few good seconds of this, Rebecca asked "Well?"

Words came slowly to the sarcastic doctor this time. "Red…" He sighed, struggling to find the words. "Red eyes… antennae… he's a beetle."

Matt laughed, realizing how true the statement was. Rebecca only blinked slowly, thinking, flashes coming to her mind of Norwegian furniture, walruses, hello's, and goodbye's.

[A/N: This is something that happens to me when I get reeeeaaaally tired, and after a day like this one, well… beetle can quite easily sound like Beatle.]

After some mental sorting, she blurted out an "OOOOHHHHH." This attracted several curious glances from the others. "Nothing, just my brain… being… my brain…" she dismissed.

"Now that we've got that settled," Zim changed the subject, trying to hide his slight embarrassment at the comment, "I'll get the data." He hopped down from his place on the bench and went for his stuff, which was spread out on a table a few feet away.

"How are you going to get to it?" Rebecca said, although there was no doubt in her voice. If she knew Zim, he would get it; it was only a question of how.

"With…" Zim trailed off as he sorted through the various alien objects, "This!" he said when he found what he was looking for. He turned around to show them…

An apple.