Zim sat on the metal floor of one of his base's lower levels, staring up at the human that was suspended in his containment tank. This scene seemed eerily familiar. So many times he had captured the Dib, and so many times he had threatened him with horrible experiments, but something always went wrong in the end. Perhaps this endless battle between the two of them was just a distraction to help him deny his emotions. If it was, it certainly wasn't very good at doing so.
The tank Dib was trapped in now was a great improvement compared to its broken predecessor. It's more like a freezer than a containment tank, as it has a way of temporarily shutting down bodily functions. This meant more time to spend sitting and admiring the Dib's features, so smooth and surreal compared to the armies of clones back home.
He wondered briefly how long they had been there. Dib wasn't conscious of his surroundings; Zim could probably set him free and he wouldn't know any time had passed. Surely the people at Skool would be suspicious, if indifferent, and in Zim's mind he might as well keep the human at this point.
"Isn't this so much better than fighting?" Zim mused aloud as if the other could hear him. "We could just stay here forever. And you'd never age, and you'd never know pain as the humans know it, and wouldn't it be lovely, Dib? But is this living?" He reached out a gloved hand and stroked the glass that separated them. "We cannot fight, but we cannot reconcile. You cannot escape but we cannot touch. There is no winning. But it's too late now. If I let you go, you're bound to figure out where you've been, and then not only will we be unable to have this but we'll be unable to reclaim what we did have."
Of course, Dib didn't answer.
Zim slowly stood up, his eyes never leaving Dib's face. Spider legs emerged and lifted him high enough to reach the top of the tank. It was filled with an immaterial green mist. Zim reached out and touched it. The air was cooler there than the rest of the room, but otherwise it felt like normal air. Something overcame him, and he slowly dipped his entire arm into the tank, his fingertips brushing against the tip of Dib's hair. In a further attempt to get closer to the human he soon submerged his entire head. That was enough; his heartbeat slowed to almost nothing and his brain activity came to a null. The spider legs failed to support him and he plunged face-first into the tank. There he stayed, his face frozen not an inch from Dib's, until he died.