Skoodge had always been a follower. He was easily won over by large personalities, grand schemes, those who were greater than the sum of their parts. Even when he'd been conquering Blorch, his victory was spurred on far more by the idea of impressing the Tallest than by any urge for fame or glory on his own behalf.

This rogue Irken girl was just such a personality. She must have been, to have survived on her own on such a barren planet. Skoodge could tell she was great beyond her size by the way she held her head high and proud when she spoke, as if there was someone much more important than him standing around waiting to be impressed.

"Come on! We're nearly there!" She barked, looking back at him through those narrow, purple eyes. He didn't think he'd ever seen eyes so deep a violet – eyes like the Revan nebula, dense with secrets.

Geez, who did he think he was, a poet? Skoodge knew he was no poet – he was a soldier, first and foremost. Not some squishy-brained –

"Watch it!"

Skoodge yelped in surprise as his Pak leg failed to hit ground – he'd nearly fallen into a hole, but Tak yanked him back just in time. She shook her head at him, as if there was no excuse for being nervous and disoriented on this planet which was made purely of interesting ways to die.

They made their way past white-hot stones, dangerous drops, cliffs well-camouflaged with dust. He tried his best to keep up with her, mostly to avoiding pissing her off rather than saving his own skin, but Tak was much more lean and nimble than him.

"In here," she said suddenly, stopping at what seemed to him a completely random place. Her hand finally released his and he felt a funny emptiness in his palm where it had been.

It was only when she'd disappeared into the side of a nearby cliff that he saw the narrow crevice carved into the obsidian stone. Tak had slipped easily inside, but it took Skoodge a few good tries to wedge his beefy hide through the cleft.

Duke had to help him. It was not very dignified.

"Thanks, Duke," he said, once all three of them were inside the little cave. Tak shuffled around, arranging things fussily, lighting a few torches with a quick flash from one of her Pak lasers.

Skoodge admitted that when Tak had mentioned a "base" he'd had something more traditional in mind – one of the sophisticated, computer-run, powerhouses like Zim's. Instead Tak's home was much more primitive. He saw that she'd gathered a few mechanical looking things from somewhere. Chunks of metal and machinery were piled neatly in corners, each one looking like it'd come from a different planet. A panel off a ship, a few wheels, gutted computers. All little knickknacks that she was probably setting around as much for decoration as purpose.

Tak lit a final torch and set it at one of the far corners, tossing a warm and flickering glow across the place. "There's something about the way this cave is positioned," she said, glancing over at him. "The seismic activity doesn't seem to bother it. We should be alright in here until things are done moving around outside."

"Okay, great. Thanks." Pause. Awkward. Tak sat herself down on the dirt floor of the cave, leaning her back against one of the sooty walls. He sat down not too far from her, unsure if this was the polite thing to do or not. "It's a…nice place you've got here."

"We've been here a long time, haven't we, Mimi?" she said, wistfully, looking away from him toward one of the piles of junk. It wasn't until then that he noticed it wasn't a pile at all – it was a SIR unit, broken into three parts but carefully pieced together. The SIR was sitting up with its legs folded politely in front of it, not unlike a doll, complete with still and lifeless eyes.

"Mimi? Who's that?"

Tak jerked her eyes back to his, shocked and offended as if he'd walked in on something inappropriate. Skoodge felt himself lean back from her ever so slightly.

"You try being alone for five years and see if you don't find someone to talk to!" she snapped at him.

"I'm sorry. You know, if we could get my ship working again we might…"

"What? We might what?" Tak's whole body seemed to be coiled tense like a spring, ready to lash out at any instant.

He swallowed a little, his mouth suddenly dry and sticky at her accusatory tone. "We might be able to fix her."

Tak was staring at him. Intently, focused, those glassy indigo eyes seeming to look straight into his core. Some grand and brilliant scheming was going on in that brain of hers, he could tell by the way the corner of her zippered mouth twitched ever so slightly. Her antennae were artificially still.

"I've collected some things…" she said suddenly, waving a claw around them. "Remnants of human satellites, a few leftovers from an alien race that might have visited once or twice. The escape pod I landed in is about half-there. Some of these parts might be useful. If I…took a look at your ship, perhaps we could work something out."

Her voice rose a bit at the end of the sentence as if she were asking permission. As if, were their roles reversed, she'd be hesitant to let a stranger poke around her own ship, ruined as it might be. Skoodge had no such hesitations. He was willing to trust her where she wouldn't have trusted him.

"Sure. That-that would be great. Then we could both get off this planet together," he said brightly, managing a little smile.

Tak leaned back on her palms, still watching him closely. "I…would like that."

They stared at each other in silence, moments passing awkwardly as the earth rattled outside the little cave. Occasionally some chunk of metal would come dislodged from one of Tak's piles of junk and she'd rearrange it carefully.

Perhaps she was used to wordless quietness, to being alone, but Skoodge wasn't. He didn't do well away from others. Crossing his legs fussily in front of him, picking at the tip of his boot, he decided to make conversation.

"So…this planet…what's it called?" he tried.

One of Tak's antenna went shooting up in surprise. "You don't know? Didn't your ship tell you?"

"I guess not. I was a little preoccupied by the whole careening towards the surface like a squishy-centered meteorite thing."

She gave a soft little laugh – a laugh in her shoulders, not the shrieking, mocking cackle of before – and seemed surprised for an instant. A wide-eyed softness spread over her sharp features for an eyeblink, then gone before Skoodge was even sure he'd seen it.

"I suppose that would be a bit distracting. The humans call this planet Venus," she said,

"That's a strange name."

"It's the name of some ancient deity of-" Tak stopped herself, biting her bottom lip as if she'd forgotten her thought halfway through. That seemed unlikely to Skoodge – Tak appeared far too clever to lose track of her thoughts like he was prone to doing.

"Of what?" Skoodge asked, his antennae perked curiously.

"Of affection," she said finally.

Skoodge felt himself sit up straight, tilting his head to the side. "That doesn't make any sense! This planet is awful! Why would you name this kind of planet after something that's supposed to be nice?"

"I have no idea. Only humans could come up with that kind of nonsensical naming scheme," Tak said, rolling her violet eyes.

"…Venus. What a name." Skoodge rolled the word around in his mouth.

Tak let her antenna fall down behind her head. "Now 'Devastis' – that was a proper name for a planet."

"You've been to Devastis?"

"Of course. I was nearly an Irken Elite, you know, if it hadn't been for-"

A stuttering rumble sounded from outside the den's entrance. The rock beneath them gave a slight shake, and Skoodge realized that he was more annoyed at Tak's story being cut short than he was frightened at the seismic activity.

Tak broke her gaze on him, pulling herself to her feet and making her way toward the door. To Skoodge's surprise, she stopped halfway and came back for him.

"C'mon, it sounds like the earthquake's calming down. We can go take a look at your ship," she said, jerking her head to one side.

"Sure."

He walked alongside her, Duke following them both like an imprinted duckling, as they crept back outside into the scorched wasteland. For a second Tak paused beside him. She stood with her feet far apart upon a coal-black stone and gazed with a thousand yard stare across the rent-open earth, the seething lava beneath and the oppressive heat over it all.

Very faintly she gave a little sigh. He couldn't imagine looking out over this place every day for even a few more hours, let alone years. It seemed hellish.

Skoodge reached over and grasped her hand. It was the bravest thing he had ever done. Tak glanced down at her dainty claws wrapped in his, raised her antennae in mild interest, and tightened her grip ever so slightly.

"If we fix the ship, where do you want to go?" he asked her.

"Anywhere."

So, spoiler alert: I really don't like Tak as a character. So, I dunno, if she seems weird or OOC, that's probably why, and you should let me know where I went wrong so I can look out for it in the future.

I'd been fiddling with a much longer fic in which the Skoodge/Tak power couple were the antagonists, so this story was going to serve as a sort of backstory. But the bigger fanfic never really took shape. I still like this by itself, though.

Also I wrote quite a bit of this while watching When Harry Met Sally. If you have some kind of medical condition that means you can only watch one Meg Ryan movie in your life, I recommend you watch that one. It's spectacular if you like two hours of quiet, brilliant character interactions, which I do. Also Carrie Fisher is in it.

Like this? Hate it? Think it's okay? Leave me a review, I promise I'll thank you! Hearing from people always makes my day. But if you read this all the way through and are reading my little A/N right now, then you're a pretty cool person anyway for sticking around : )