All In The Family.

Author: Invader Johnny.

Summary: Zim and Gaz's family just hit a bump in the road and some unexpected surprises are on the way.

Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim, that's property of Jhonen Vasquez, I'm simply a fan of his work.

Author Notes: This is a sequel to my fics "For Better or For Worse" and "I had a Smeet once" so you might want to read those before continuing to read bellow.

I posted this fic years ago under a different name but erased after re-reading it and seeing how terrible it was, hopefully after years of writing, the story will be better constructed.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave miss." A nurse said condescendingly "You're disturbing the other patients"

"I don't give a rat's furry ass about your prisoners or your stupid rules!" Gaz hissed "My daughter is somewhere in this suck shack and I want to see her now or so help me..."

"Please calm down miss."

"Don't you dare tell me what to do!" Gaz snarled "Just tell me in what room she is or else!"

"I'm sorry miss but right now she is being checked by the doctors" The nurse said oblivious to her impending doom "It seems her… condition is of great interest"

"She's a person, not a lab rat!" Gaz retorted indignantly "And I should let you know her father is on the way here and I bet anyone here on the damn building would be stupid enough to anger him!"

"I'm afraid I don't know who you are." The nurse sneered "Much less who your husband is."

Gaz's eye twitched angrily and grabbed the other woman by the collar of her uniform "Listen to me bitch, I'm Gazeline and yes as in the daughter of THE Professor Membrane and I'm pretty sure you HAVE heard of my husband"

"Membrane… Membrane… " Finally the nurse's eyes widened in recognition and spluttered as many apologies as she could "I=I=I- I'm sorry I- didn't k-k-know you were the Ambassador's wife."

"Stop wasting my time." Gaz growled, roughly pushing the nurse " Just tell me in what room my daughter is or you will pay…"

"She's in room 306, it's on the fifth floor so please don't hurt me!"

"Whiner."

Gaz walked to the elevator and pushed the button with more force than she intended.

Clearly the woman was ticked off at the stupidity of the people around her and even more so the fact that she could have been here sooner if a certain someone hadn't gone MIA.

All in all everything that was happening right now was so surreal to her, she never expected to be here again, not after her father's death but this time the situation was not a horrible one, but neither was it a joyous one… at least in the eyes of Zim.

The scary woman recently turned 51 years old a month ago and she wasn't exactly thrilled about it, it seemed like just yesterday she was just giving birth to Zia in the middle of some deserted road in the outskirts of town.

The one thing missing from this occasion was her husband of over 27 years; apparently he had other more important things than to see his daughter on her big day.

Gaz has been angry with Zim before but this time, she was just plain homicidal, she swore that when she saw him, the guy was going to wish he hadn't left his banishment on Foodcourtia."

Once she reached her destination, the door with the big bold letter "306" The woman pushed the button, the door slides open, preparing to glare daggers at any idiotic doctor who even dares to get blood out of her offspring.

It was a surprised to see her sister in law checking that Zia was not under any danger "Six centimeters… only Four to go."

The Human/Irken hybrid smiled nervously "Thanks aunt Tak"

"Well I don't trust these human doctors to look after you so don't be surprised if I break in and out of the building to check on your progress."

"I'm surprised you even care considering who her father is" Gaz scowled.

Both female turned to see the newcomer.

"MOM!"

The older woman smiled and said affectingly to her daughter "How are you, you little monster?"

"Gaz" The Irken said with a curt nod which the human returned, half caring.

To say that both women didn't get along was quite an understanding; the purple headed she-beast never fully trusted her sister in law, despite Dib's constantly saying she was not going to kill Zim off... Anymore.

"I see you still hate me."

"Hate you?" Gaz parroted sarcastically "No… I like you..,. I just don't want you near my family."

Zia looked at her mother disapprovingly "Mom… not this again… please could you NOT fight… at least for today?"

She narrowed her eyes and gave a distrustful look at the Irken "Leave…"

"Make me"

"Is that a challenge?"

The green one smirked and said "You tell me"

"Fuck you"

"MOM!"

Tak chuckled humorlessly "I don't think stressing out your daughter is a good tactic here pig girl."

"Oh I am so dooming Dib for that!"

Zia looked confused "Am I missing something here?"

Before Tak could say anything else, the human was in front of her giving her a death glare, whispering ominously "you open your mouth and you'll die."

The Irken smiled a bit too smugly for Gaz's liking and said "Keeping secrets I see."

"Leave or die!"

"Fine fine, but I'll be back; after all you aren't her only family you know."

As she left, Tak could feel the angry glare of her homicidal sister in law on the back of her neck, it was clearly a wonder how neither of them had killed the other in all these years.

After the door shut, Gaz finally relaxed and walked quickly to her child's bed "How are you feeling kid?"

"I been in here for the past 73 hours, I got contractions every five minutes AND I can't even eat a burrito! How do you think I feel?!"

The older woman smirked proudly, at times like these she could see a bit of herself in Zia "No one ever said that giving birth was an easy task.. I should know, I gave birth to you."

The hybrid touched her mother's hand and squeezed it "So, are you ok with being a grandmother?"

"Don't say that!" Gaz snarled "It makes me feel old."

Zia grinned playfully "Well no offence mom but you are…"

"Finish that sentence and I swear any grandchild that comes out of your area will be grounded for life!"

"Fair enough" The younger female said in an uneasy tone "Did you ever think much about this mom?"

"This what?"

"Grandchildren?"

She sighs dejectedly "Zia, let me put it this way, I never even thought I would become a mother much less a grandmother."

"Why is that?"

"Because I never expected anyone to be crazy or stupid enough to love me."

"Then dad came along."

"Oh please," Gaz said half disgusted "Zim is not the brightest being in the universe and god knows that and to be honest, the night we met, he tried to kill me and your uncle Dib."

Zia gaped "HE WHAT?!"

"Relax, he failed... and horribly I might add."

"Bububububububut…. But. But, DAD TRIED TO KILL YOU!"

She shrugged "Keyword being tried."

"Mom this is so not funny!"

"Oh it's not a big deal when your aunt told you about the time she caused your father horrible pain for days but it is a big deal when you find out he tried to murder me?!" Her mother said exasperatedly.

"That's different!"

"Oh really?, how?"

Because… ow, ow, owowowowowowowOWOWOWOW!"

In less than a heartbeat Gaz jumped to her feet, not wasting a second, she wrapped her hands over her daughter's while the contraction wracked the younger woman's body. If the powerful grip around her upper arms seemed to be getting a little hot, Gaz never said a word. Sweat rolled down the young woman's face and her expression was hardly that of peaceful repose, but the event did pass soon enough for both women to relax a little with the rock-hard mound of the unborn child between them.

"… Shit… sorry…"

"It hurts like hell, I should know so don't apologize, didn't I taught you anything?!"

Zia smirked toothily "So going back to what we were…."

Gaz raised her hand and in a tone that clearly said no discussion was going to happen said "Forget it, its all in the past, I don't need you to go all ballistic on mine and your dad's rocky start"

"Rocky start?!" Zia cried out "Mom I can't believe you never told me, I mean it's just insane, it doesn't make any sense!"

"What does?"

"How could two…"

"Gotten together?"

Zia nodded slowly while her mother shrugged "I can't really answer that because partly I don't know… things just took a twist with us… I mean you knew you dad was once an invader right?"

Her daughter nodded.

"Did you know that it was because of him that Vort was on the list of impending doom II?"

"No... I… I didn't know that."

"You see those little things made him proud a long time ago because he felt he was helping the Irken Empire and when he got the fake mission he thought that finally everything would be fine for him."

"And?"

"Well when he found out everyone on his home planet hated him, he entered a deep depression, it was extremely pathetic how he acted, at first I just called him a whiner and I actually encouraged him to exterminate all life on Earth"

Zia opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish trying to get some water into its lungs "This is so not right."

"He just needed motivation, a reason to continue doing his job… he needed a reason to hate mankind."

"But mom, you're a human"

"No duh."

"Why would you do something like that?" Zia asked "It's absolutely insane!"

"My reasons are my own."

"Mom, I'm not a little kid anymore, you can't use that excuse every time I ask you something and get away with it! So whatever it is just tell me already!"

The purple haired woman growled "Don't order me around only I get to do that!"

"Mom, please!"

"Ugh, before I tell you, you got to promise me NEVER ever to tell your dad about it, the last thing I want is for him to rub my feeling on my face."

"Ok, promise."

"I…" She sighs uncomfortably "I… felt sorry for him OK?!"

Zia's antennae rose skeptically, surely she heard wrong, Gaz Membrane never showed sympathy towards anyone.

"I must be going nuts."

"I guess I grew attached to him."

"You guess?"

The scary woman chuckled "I remember that I tried one night to cheer him up by thinking of many fun ways of hurting your uncle Dib, from there we kinda started a friendship of a sorts you know?" Just hanging out doing stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

Here Gaz's face became as red as a tomato "Err… not important… anyway the point is we started dating and the next thing I knew, he proposed to me…."

"Aww, that's so sweet."

"I ended up eating my engagement ring."

"What? What? WHAT?!"

Gaz smirked "Well he wanted me to be his life mate or something, he left GIR behind as a distraction while he went to some diamond planet to make the ring, I beat him up for asking me to babysit his stupid robot and after that he brought pizza and the ring was inside... Next thing I know, I'm in his lab getting the ring extracted.

Here she rubs her forehead in annoyance "Oh and to top it all off, he asks me to marry him seconds after the ring had just been released."

"That sounds like dad." Zia groans "So, weren't a bit disturbed about it?"

"Nah, actually was pretty cool, better than to ask me in some restaurant… too cheesy."

"Just when I thought you guys couldn't get any weirder" Zia hugs her hospital pillow "So what happened next?""

"The wedding came and went." Gaz smirked "The ring was actually the boring part, I actually looked forward to the cutting of out thumbs."

"HUH?!"

Gaz chuckled "Well you see Zia on Irk, marriage is obsolete but they did have a sort of a celebration to unite a couple in days long past, mind you this was hundreds of years ago and according to your old moron of a father, for two Irkens to get together they had to cut off their thumbs similar to the Tallest but in this case it had to surgically put it on the other's hand."

"So you're saying that…."

The older woman takes off one of her pink glove and to Zia's surprise she saw her mom indeed had a green thump.

"Is that…?"

"Your father's finger?" Gaz finished… "Yup"

"That's really morbid"

"Only to you... to me… it's unique."

"Speaking of dad... Where is he?" The half breed asked "Did he come with you?"

She tries to lift up enough to see past her mother in hopes to see through the little door window the ex-invader walking and waiting his turn to see her.

Gaz look straight into her daughter's hopeful eyes, it killed her to know that the person Zia wanted to see the most at the moment wasn't around.

When their eyes met, the answer was clear.

"He's not coming is he?"

Gaz shook her head "I'm sorry baby", never in her life has the pale woman used a pet name to address her daughter but at the moment she felt she needed to, at least to be comforting.

"Sometimes I wish Zim wasn't so thick headed!" The mother thought angrily.

"Is he still mad with me?"

"Yes... he is."

"About the pregnancy or about the other… thing?"

"What do you think?!" Gaz said harshly.

The twenty one year old lowers her head in shame.

She felt her hand being squeezed and looks up uncertainly at the person in front of her "Zia… look you got to understand that even thought Zim is angry with you, you don't know his point of view…. When… when you talked about the option of aborting the baby…. Your Smeet, your dad lost it."

"And you?"

"I wasn't thrilled either-"

"Then how come you took it better than dad?"

"I didn't… I wanted to hunt down the little bastard who knock you up and kill him!"

"Mom!" Zia yelled "I don't know what you and dad have against Lorrs"

"For once what kind of name is Lorrs?" She asked disgustedly "Secondly he's a Vortian and he left you!"

Zia started to play with her hair nervously "You and did wouldn't be racists would you?" She chuckled nervously.

Gaz gave her a suspicious glare "He did leave you didn't he?"

The green woman didn't say a thing.

"ZIA!"

"Well… mom… the thing is… I…. I…"

Never the patient one Gaz screamed in irritation "SPIT IT OUT ALREADY!"

"I kinda broke up with him before he found out about the baby."

"You LIED to us?!"

Zia flinched… "Just a little."

Gaz puts both her hands over her face "Goddamn it… this is so fucked up!"

Subconsciously, Zia started to rub her stomach in an attempt to calm herself down and to reduce the fear she was feeling.

The mother gets a cell phone out of her pocket and dials a number.

"Who are you calling?"

Silence.

"Mom?"

Still she wasn't replying.

"Mom?"

Apparently someone from the other side picked but because Gaz said in a gruff voice "Hello? Yeah it's me… look I don't care what time it is you crappy piece of technology!"

Zia knew she was calling home and most likely talking with the computer.

"Do me a favor; tell me where is my idiot husband."

Zia knew right then and there and she probably lost all the trust her parents had for her.

And that thought alone was enough to make her cry.

"I'm so stupid."

For those of you who are unaware, according to Melissa Fahn, who voices Gaz, she said that our favorite gamer is capable of love she just has a big ego, a perfect fit for Zim, huh? And of course Jhonen Vasquez once said that Irkens are capable of love.

Yes in here everyone on Earth know that aliens exist, which explains why Zim is referred to as an Ambassador and why Tak had no disguise while visiting her niece.

The idea of Zim as an ambassador was to poke fun at the fact at the supposed plot Jhonen Vasquez planned towards the end of the series where Zim would lose his desire to conquer Earth and instead protect it after finding beauty on the planet, whether he was serious or not is left up to debate.

Don't worry, Zim will eventually appear, there is a good reason as to why he went AWOL and it might just surprise a lot of you, he may be angry but I think deep down he would be a decent father, insane but there you know?

Invader Johnny Signing Off.