The wind was freezing. It was the kind of freezing air that was heavy with snow that now ladened the entire city-scape. The gray clouds loomed ominously overhead as a constant pour of white descended from above. The green alien shivered underneath his wool jacket and hood. It was so cold. He wasn't use to Earth winters yet, especially not in this place. But besides his foreign acquaintance with the weather, there was his skin. While centuries of living in the environment had given humans a type of partial resilience to the bitter cold, Zim had none.

He sighed as he trudged through the now well-trodden snow bank to the pavement, and then home a few blocks away. In his arms he carried his history book with his agenda neatly attached by a string that held it there. He grasped it tightly, shivering as the elements seemed to close in from all sides as if to consume him.

He was melancholy and the weather that was so foreboding didn't help. Everything seemed to go wrong all at once on this one particular day. He had been tormented by bullies, thrown into a locker to rot. He had complained to the principle who took favor with his oppressors, and gave him three days detention for "disorderly conduct". His teacher had given a pop quiz and he failed it miserably. To top it all off, and just when he had thought it couldn't get worse, he had sat in some gum and was carrying the remnants of which all over school on the seat of his pants, much to his eternal embarrassment. The worst part of which was that NOBODY had told him about. He had only found out when one merciful soul out of the heartless had the remorse or sympathy to tell him.

So it had been a pretty bad day. As he continued to walk on the crisp snow bedecked upon the sidewalk, he heard a familiar voice behind him, "Hey, Zim, wait up!"

"Great...just great." he moaned to himself, "Not now, Dib! I'm in no mood!" The awkward boy strode his way over to the alien whose face was intensely branded with a scowling look. "What do you want, Dib?" he said indignantly.

"Hey..." he panted, clearly out breath, his intense breathing protruding in the form of crystal vapor of carbon dioxide in the air. "I...wanted to apologize... about the other night."

His anger over the whole affair had gradually been fading over the past few days. But there was that nagging vexation, that bitterness that restrained him from giving absolution. Whether brought on by his own sentiment or the merely the means by which he would sever himself from this human further was not exactly clear. But, with a weary sigh and a low pitch he let his agonized feeling take him, "Go on..."

"I shouldn't have done what I did..."

His feelings of bitterness and disillusionment suddenly boiled into rage amidst the tempest wind of winter, "No, you shouldn't have! I..." he didn't have to time to answer. In one gigantic rush he lost his footing beneath him and slipped. His leg flew into the air and he landed on the pavement with a mighty thud.

"Zim!" The green-skinned boy held his leg in agony. He groaned and cursed and screamed as he bundled up, unable to shake the unbearable pain. "Zim, what happened!"

"I think...I broke my leg." he managed to breath out.

He felt his thin legs. "Does this hurt?" he squeezed.

"Ow! Yes, it hurts!" He tried to haul himself up, but he couldn't.

The other boy extended his palm, "Here, let me help."

He smacked his arm away with the back side of his hand. "Get away, filth, I don't need your help." He tried again to dislodge himself from the curb between the sidewalk and the street, but could not. "Can't...use...Pak, will be...exposed."

"Zim, let me help you!"

"No!"

"Then at least let me set it and give you something for a crutch so you can limp home."

"No! I don't need any of your inferior Earth techniques!" He tried again with his futile efforts, stuck like a turtle on his back.

"You and your damn pride! Fine! Be that way! See what I care." He begins to storm off.

After one last failed attempt and becoming frightfully aware of the looming cold, he repented at the last moment, "Wait!"

Dib turned around to see Zim."I...may need your help...just this once. But this doesn't mean I've forgiven you either and as soon as I'm back home everything is back to normal between us, kapieren?"

He reluctantly sighed. "If you say so, Zim."

"Now lift me onto your back."

Dib squatted beside him and placed his palms backwards to act a prop. Zim grabbed his shoulder while Dib wrapped his hands around Zim's thighs and hauled him onto his back. He then started off down the ice-covered and completely abandoned and desolate streets of the city.