Unlikely Romance

Author's Notes: Not that much to say, because nothing's really changed in one week's time. I DEMAND REVIEWS! GO READ WHEN A HUMAN LOVES AN IRKEN BY INVADER JOHNNY! IT'S IN MY FAVORITES!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Noomber Thrty Nien. It is a product of my friend Abby's sick, twisted mind. PRAISE HER FOR LETTING ME USE THE PLANET!

"Uh, yeah… Can you tell me what flower stem cells come from?"

-random kid in my debate class

Chapter 3: A Change of Plans

It was early in the morning in Zim's base. Orange light streamed through his blinds and left glowing orange stripes along the couch. Zim growled as the light fell across his face. He gave an annoyed growl before pulling the covers up over his face. When that failed, due to the fact that the blanket now partially suffocated him, he rolled over. There was a heavy thud as he landed on the floor.

Zim swore loudly from his new position. He fought a losing battle with the blanket, which insisted on binding him where he lies. With a heavy sigh, he relaxed.

"Today is going to be horrible," he prophesized, and with that, he jumped up and ripped the blanket in two. "Humph… puny Earth fabric," he mumbled as he cast the shreds aside. For the first time that morning, he realized that he was in the living room and not in his living quarters. "Eh?" Then, the events of the night before came flooding back to him, along with the worry for Gaz.

"Bothersome female," he grumbled, although he didn't mean it. He wanted desperately to hate her for making him feel the way he did. No one had ever made him feel this way before, and he didn't like it. He wanted so dearly to tear out all of the feelings that humans called emotions and stomp them into the ground. But at the same time, he didn't.

When he and Gaz were together, there had been something powerful between them; an unseen, binding force that held them to each other. 'Could it be the emotion humans call 'love'?' he wondered, but quickly shook the thought from his head. Irkens were incapable of love. No questions asked, and no exceptions.

However, that didn't stop him from trekking downstairs to see if the human girl's condition had improved during the night. The elevator had deposited him right at the bedroom door, which opened upon his arrival. He stepped into the silent abyss. The only light there came from the hallway, but it only illuminated so much, and once the computer sensed that he was in the room, the door automatically shut. He found himself wrapped in darkness.

Gaz's figure slowly came into view with Zim's adjusting eye sight. She lay at the far left corner of the bed, curled in a tiny ball. To the side of the bed was a trash can, just in case she became nauseous.

Taking care, Zim made his way over to the bed. When she didn't stir, he sat on the bed next to her feet. On an impulse, he stroked her hair out of her face. The touch slightly roused her and she began to stir. Her brow knitted, and her amber eyes gently slid open, and adjusted to the sparsely lit room. They locked on Zim.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice cracking and hoarse. She cleared her throat a few times in an attempt to fix the problem, but ended up making it worse. Zim watched with his antennas drooping as she went into a coughing fit.

"I came down to see if you were feeling any better," he explained while he studied her. He'd have to be a moron to not notice that something was wrong.

"Well, let me answer that question for you: I feel like a pile of crap," she explained, her voice breaking on the last word. She grabbed her throat.

"I'm taking you to the medical bay," Zim said as he reached down and gently scooped Gaz into his arms. He carried her out of the room, all the doors opening upon sensing their presence.

Gaz didn't like that Zim was touching her, but she knew that something was wrong with her. She certainly didn't feel like walking herself down to the medical bay. Every now and again, she felt like she either wanted to throw up or pass out. The latter of the two seemed more likely. She knew that there was nothing left in her stomach, and she really didn't feel like eating anything. Just the thought of food made her nauseous.

'Maybe he can fix it,' Gaz thought, in reference to Zim. She still felt that he didn't deserve a name. 'I just hope that whatever's going on isn't hurting the baby.' The thought of losing her baby broke whatever repairs she had made to her emotional barriers and she started crying into Zim.

Zim was startled when he felt her body jerk and heard her softly sob. It wasn't long before her tears soaked through a small part of his shirt and lightly dampened a part of his chest. 'What's wrong now?' he asked himself. He knew that she hated him, but he didn't think that trying to help her would make her cry. She's been so upset lately; he didn't want her to cry again.

As he started to soothe her, memories came flooding back to him. He remembered the time that she had run away from her home to come spend the night at his house. The way she had trusted him with her secrets and then leaned on him for comfort. He had comforted her, but only for the sake of his plan. 'Ugh, I'm an IDIOT!' he scolded himself mentally. 'We shared something between us so many times, and I threw it all away for an unworthy cause. The Tallest never had any intent to return my status; they only wanted to use me to get the poem… And then sacrifice me to gain power from the Meekrob.' Zim felt a pain in the pit of his chest. It was a strange sensation for him. He felt hollow and alone, like he was falling or drowning in darkness, and there was nobody who wanted to save him.

As they entered the medical bay, Gaz heard Zim give a small, high pitched whine, like a puppy, when he set her down on the examination table. She wasn't sure if she had really heard it, for all she knew, she could have done it. She searched Zim's expression for any hint that he was the one who made the noise, but he turned his back to her as soon as he laid her down.

She dried her eyes with her coat sleeve and watched him go over to one of the panels. She watched as he started pressing buttons. Within seconds, a light appeared at her feet and then traveled slowly along the table in the direction on her head. She felt as though she was in a giant copying machine. She looked over at Zim and watched as her silhouette appeared on the screen in front of him. When the scanning light reached the top of her head, it turned around and started to head back towards her feet. On the screen, the silhouette of herself started filling in with her skeleton, going form head to toe.

When her skeleton was fully on the screen, it gave Zim a detailed report on anything that might be wrong with it. Reading his native language, he found that there was nothing abnormal with her skeletal system, so he had another scan preformed. This one would scan her from foot to head to see if there was anything wrong with her nervous system.

Gaz watched as the light began to move up her body, and as it did so, the image of her on screen had the skeleton erased and a detailed map of her nervous system took its place from the foot up. When it was finished, Zim again red the report and found nothing wrong with the girl. So, he started yet another scan, from head to toe on her internal organs. Gaz watched as the cluster of nerves in her silhouette's head turned into a picture of her brain. She watched as little by little, her organs appeared, each one having a detailed read out for Zim, but because it was Irken, she didn't have a clue as to what it said.

Zim began reading on what each of the organs was meant to do, and then read the statistic on how well it was currently performing its task. Her lungs and heart were working fine, and her brain was alert and functioning. He moved down and saw that her stomach wasn't digesting anything, as it should, so he concluded that Gaz needed to eat something when the tests were done. Finally, an organ of particular interest appeared on screen: her uterus.

Zim read the report on it. Subject: Uterus. Function: Reproduction. Status: In use. Details: Embryo is detected to be half human and half Irken, and is estimated to be a week old. Embryo status: Growing. Maturation of embryo is estimated to be seven Universal weeks.

Zim stood up straight and absorbed the information. Until just now, the smeet had only been an idea. Some intangible substance that Gaz intended to keep away from him, but now, the child seemed very real. 'This is really happening.' Zim thought.

"How's the baby?"

Zim was jarred from his thoughts. He turned to Gaz to find her expression just as pleading as her voice. She looked terrified as she lay on her back on the scanning table with both of her hands over her stomach.

"The baby's fine," he explained.

"This scanner won't hurt it, right?"

"No, not at all."

"Does it say anything about the baby… On that screen?"

"It says that the baby will be born in about seven Universal weeks."

"Seven weeks!" Gaz exclaimed, her eyes popping open and gazing down at her stomach in disbelief.

"Seven Universal weeks," Zim corrected.

"So, what's that in human weeks?"

Zim thought while his claws drummed lightly on his chin. "A week in Universal is about a month for you humans."

"Seven months?"

"That's what it says."

"Is that normal?"

"Not really. Smeets only need six Universal weeks to mature. I wonder why this one needs seven," he pondered, his voice trailing off.

"Humans need nine months to mature," Gaz explained.

"Nine months!!"

"In human months! It'd only be nine weeks in your time," she stated.

A red light beyond Zim caught her attention. When he realized that she was no longer looking at him, he turned around and looked back at the screen. The red was to indicate that the computer had found the problem. He walked over to read the computer's report.

"Is it the baby?" Gaz asked, frightened.

"No, I already said that the baby is fine. This is something wrong with you," he explained.

"What's wrong?"

"… It says you're… dehydrated… What's that?"

"It means I've been puking my guts up all night and I need something to drink."

"I have soda, but it's Irken soda, and I don't know how you'd react to it."

"How 'bout a glass of water? That's what would really help."

"Water? I have no water! It burns me!" Zim yelled.

"Well, that's the only thing that'll fix it," Gaz countered, raising her voice as well.

The two glared at each other. "Fine," Zim said. "I'll locate where the nearest water source is. You just rest." He left the room before she could reply.

Gaz lay back down on the table, confident that Zim would help her.

(Page Break)

Dib sat in the sand, hunched over, holding his knees to his chest. His brain was viciously rejecting the conclusion that he had drawn earlier. 'Gaz can't be dead,' he told himself. 'There's an obvious explanation for why she's not answering her communicator… Maybe she's asleep. Yeah, she just fell asleep and didn't hear me beeping in, or… maybe my watch really did break in the wreck! Yeah! Gaz is just fine.'

Dib sighed at his miserable attempt to convince himself that Gaz was still alive. He knew for a fact that his watch was in perfect functioning order, but he wanted there to be some room for doubt. He didn't want to accept that Zim had killed Gaz.

A soft moan caught his attention. He looked over and saw Tak stirring uncomfortably within his ship. He had placed her in his cockpit earlier to keep her out of the sun. He walked over to the doorway and peered in. It was at least ten degrees cooler inside, and he'd kept the door open to allow some wind to flow through.

Tak rolled over slightly and cracked an eye open. She glanced over at the human. Her brow knitted as she racked her brain for his name. He looked so familiar, and at the same time, so different. She gazed into his eyes.

"D-Dib?"

"Hi," he replied.

"You're different," she stated in reference to his hair and height.

"Yeah, I've hit puberty," he told her.

"Oh," she said with a nod. She had no idea what puberty was, but she just accept that as the thing responsible for Dib's increased height, deeper voice, and more defined facial features.

"Are you in any pain?" Dib asked.

"Should I be?" she replied, looking down. All she saw was her body disappear under Dib's trench coat. It did make a warm blanket, however, and she was quite comfortable at the moment.

"No, I wouldn't want you to be… I saw your robot give you a shot shortly after I finished splinting your leg. Maybe it was a pain reliever…" he mused.

"What's wrong with my leg?"

"You broke it in the crash," Dib explained, and took a half step into the ship to get out of the sun.

"How badly?" she asked, gently peering under the blanket to see the damage.

"It wasn't an open fracture, if that's what you're worried about. I had a fairly easy time splinting it. How long do you think it'll take to heal?

"I can't say for sure… Maybe a month or two…"

Dib nodded. Well, we're going to be stuck here for a while, then… Both of our ships are in pretty bad shape, and I may need your help."

"So you're the thing I crashed into."

"Yeah… Sorry 'bout that," he said, and again mindlessly wiped his forehead. Luckily, the blood had started to coagulate; either that or he was running out of blood in his body. At this point, he really didn't care too much either way.

"Go have MIMI clean that up," she said, indicating to the wound on his forehead.

"Huh? Oh, sure. Are you okay?"

"At the moment. Now go get cleaned up," Tak ordered, somewhat kindly.

Dib nodded and left the ship to find MIMI.

(End Chapter)

Author's Notes: PRAISE ME! I finally got that chapter done, and look how long it took me to do it. (Sighs and leans back in chair) I am just too nice to all of you… I'll update in about two weeks. NOW GIVE ME REVIEWS!! LURB! Onward to the thankyous….

Invader Johnny: So good to see that you're the first to reivew, but I wouldn't expect anything less. I hope you get the chance to update your story soon. I CAN'T FREAKIN' WAIT!!

Invader Sideos: Of course you want the baby to be named Sideos, but I'm not that mean. Oh, NO!! Not the monkeys! Here's the chapter; don't send the monkeys!

NightmareAlive: I typed your name just as it said 'alive' in the song I was listening to. Just thought you'd like to know that. Yup, Tak's awake, and Gaz is already a little moody, but it'll get so much worse. Poor Zimmeh!

The Sole Survivor: Yeah, Zim better be acting small. You know what they say: When you're in it up to your eyeballs, it pays to keep your mouth shut.

Aneirin: I donno, Tak seems to be in a fairly good state of mind. I don't think she'll kill Dib, but I'm not making any promises. (Cackles)

XRaykaX: Keep the nephew and send the gift wrap. (Overly pleased voice) Giiiiiift wraaaaapp. (Lost in happy place)

fanfictionfan123: Yup, praise me for my making-of-the-sequel-ness. (Feels awsome) Thanks for reviewing.

Broken Ember: Don't worry 'bout your not loging in. I'm glad to hear from you. I WANT YOU TO UPDATE! (Pouts) I wanna know what happens. GIR: I know what you meeeeeaaaaaan.

YELLOWCARDFMAFANS: (Looks at you laying on the ground) o.O; kay... (Pats you on the head) Thanks for reviewing. Ah misseded you.

Ing Rimescale: Yup, praise my friend, Abby, for the making of the Noomber Thrty Nien goodness. She's sick in the head like that. (Looks proud)

DemonSurfer: I'll take your input into careful consideration. To be honest with you, I don't exactly have this fic planned out; I just have a general idea of where I want it to go. Soooo... Thanks for the input.

Forever: Homework IS Hell. Period. Thanks for reviewing, despite your horrible homeworkness.

Abby: But what if it is corn? Hmmmmmmm?!? oO LURB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

buggy500: Here be your more. ENJOY!

InvaderInsane: Hmmm... Thanks for the review.