I don't own Invader Zim okay? I know I haven't updated this in a long time but hey, there isn't enough fics I can find in the fandom dealing with the Membrane family. So what is an author to do? Write what she wants to see! So enough of this A/N, on with the fic!

Dib stared at his notes while Penelope looked at the clock on the wall. It was getting to be the wee hours of the morning and he was still working on her case. Tak seemed to read her mind and elbowed Dib in the side and motioned to Penelope. "Oh," he said looking up.

"You didn't forget about me did you?" Penelope asked.

"No, I just..." Dib blushed

"Get absorbed in your work." Tak said rolling her eyes. "It's getting late."

"Mom, just go up to my room, you can sleep there. Don't kill Dad." Dib said.

"Why not?" Penelope growled. "After seeing how he left you kids, and that I am legally dead in this time, would be nice."

"We all dreamed of that in this house, but it isn't worth it." Tak said. "Yes, that man is a loser but still. I think the unhealthy diet of fast food and takeout he's been living on for the past few years will do that for you." Penelope rolled her eyes. She was a doctor after all, and to hear her husband in addition to neglecting the kids was neglecting his health as well just annoyed her.

"I guess you are right Tak," Penelope sighed as she headed up to Dib's room. It had been where she had set it when she first moved into the house all those years ago. The last time she had remembered entering this room, there was a small dresser , toy box and bookshelf with a small toddler bed, placed up on a few blocks so that Dib could stare out the window at the night sky. If there was one thing that came back to her mind quickly, it was the memory of Dib's habit of staring at the night sky before he simply couldn't anymore and fell asleep. Obviously, Dib was now too big for that toddler bed nor would the toy box be in the room anymore, but Penelope walked into her son's room and looked around. Many of the things had changed, and like many college aged men, clothes were all over the floor, something she found as she tripped over a boot and fell face first onto his bed. Penelope looked up to find a few things hadn't changed. One: The height of the bed and the fact it was still right beside the window, only now there were post it notes about his latest theories, things Tak had told him and various other paranormal notes. She lay back in the bed and looked over at the desk in the corner. It was a picture of her when she had graduated medical school and gotten her job at the hospital just before he was born. He dug through his father's storage and found this. I am certain once I 'died' he just put every part of me away thinking that would make it easier on Dib and Gazlene. Some genius you are... Penelope thought with a scowl toward what used to be her bedroom as well as Professor Membrane's. She then turned the picture and read the handwriting on the back.

"'Sometimes I get the feeling like she's watching over me. And though you're dead and gone, believe me your memory will carry on'." She read aloud as she feel back on the bed with a tear. "So, when I disappeared, did you think I was out there in the stars? Guess you may have been onto something. Despite what your father thinks, I am pretty certain that I was abducted." She smiled to herself as she collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep.

Tak looked over at Dib, who was finishing up some notes on his laptop. She was certain that he was burying his confusion at how to accept the situation into his work. It was now pushing 3 in the morning and he hardly ever stayed up this late in the evening. He had seen various forms of paranormal phenomenon over the years, but yet none of them had consumed him like this had. It was his own mother after all. "Maybe you should turn in for the night. I can finish some of this in here." Tak said.

"I haven't finished reviewing this EEG yet..." He said as he lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"I can do that. But I am thinking it's going to prove nothing is wrong with your mother." Tak said.

"But who abducted her?" Dib said as he took off his glasses. "Why would they abduct her? Out of the billions of people on the planet, my own mother!"

"I don't think they were trying to get to you. You were only two years old at the time." Tak said. "It's quite possible they were trying to study humans. What for, there's many reasons out there. But you won't solve why if you don't get some rest and she won't be able to tell you until she feels better. You guys are humans and can't go for days without sleep like I can." She closed the laptop and pulled Dib away from the chair. "Go to bed." She said kissing him on the lips, knowing the power her affection had over him.

"I guess you're right." Dib sighed. "But I gave my mom my room."

"The couch you dolt." Tak said rolling her eyes.

"Yeah... guess I am tired." He sighed as he headed into the living room and lay down on the couch, putting his left leg over the back and taking off his glasses.

Once Tak was satisfied that Dib wouldn't try to interfere with the work she was trying to do, she headed up to his room to check on Penelope. What you don't know Dib, is that I put an additional electrode on. I wanted to see if I could capture any memories she might have had. She opened the door slightly to see if she was asleep. Penelope stirred slightly, causing Tak to pause as she just turned in her sleep. "Whooh..." Tak said to herself as she moved closer and shifted through Penelope's long flowing purplish mauve hair. I see what may have drawn her to Dib's dad, they have the weird EST hair I have seen in humans. This color isn't normal in the human genome and Dib's hair defys gravity like his father's. Tak thought as she found the electrode on Penelope's scalp. "There it is!" Tak said a little too loud, to find Penelope's hand on her neck.

"What the hell are you doing?" Penelope said as she held up Tak looking at her in an intense rage.

"I see where Gaz gets it..." Tak gasped.

"Tak!" Penelope gasped as she placed Tak on the ground. "I'm sorry, you woke me up. I have been told I am much stronger than I look. I mentioned giving Dib's father a concussion when we first met but that isn't the only time something like that has happened with me and I handled bullies much better than they thought I could when it comes to fighting back. From what I could feel when Gazlene punched me, she got it from me. So what brings you to my sleeping form?"

"I didn't tell Dib about this but I placed an additional electrode on your head when he ran the EEG." Tak said. I am not going to tell her everything, just the basics. "It's of my own design to try and capture a person's memory wavelengths and project them onto a screen so I can see what may have happened to you. Maybe prove Dib right?" She smiled so that hopefully Penelope wouldn't take it as too much of a sneaky move or personal violation. Hopefully her maternal side and growing disdain for her husband would have her overlook the fact.

"You didn't tell Dib about it?" She asked Tak.

"I plan to in the morning." Tak said rubbing her neck. Even though Irkens could handle being strangled better than humans could, it still caused a bit of pain. "But he needs his rest. I got up late this morning so I am going to do a little more work than him." Tak knew better than to tell anyone she was an Irken that didn't already know. Zim and Gaz knew and they were the only ones because for them to use it against Dib would mean Tak would do the same to Zim.

Penelope looked at Tak's concern for Dib and his dream, to the picture Dib had kept and looked towards the moon. It was full and could be seen pretty clearly through the window. "I don't know how to feel. My son's got a good girlfriend to look after him and got a good education but what he went through when I wasn't here..." She placed her face in her hands and began to cry. "And with Gazlene, she hates me because I was never there and I don't blame her. I blame myself!"

"Look, you were abducted and taken lightyears from here. I know Dib would yell at me for giving you that before things could be proven exactly but just call it women's intuition." Tak said. "And I came up with something to help him prove that. But you didn't leave on your own and there was nothing you could really do to prevent it. Even if you drove home instead of walked that night. No point wondering the what ifs."

"You... you're right." Penelope said as she laid back down. "I guess I got what every woman my age wants, to look like they are 25 when they're in their fifties..."

"That's the spirit. Now sleep. You need to catch up a quarter century and people say jet lag's bad." Tak said as she headed back to the garage and plugged her electrode into the computer on her ship. Dib's laptop had a lot of processing power, but not the level she would need to retrieve and decode a person's memory. She wasn't even too sure it would work. But they would read the theta brain waves and take the information and try to read what the brain was thinking. Irken technology was far advanced in comparison to humans and could put a personalty into a computer's AI. As Tak's ship analyzed the recording, she found the theta waves where broken up, but there were impressions left by delta and alpha waves, a lot like in sleep.

"So these aren't taken as a real memory but a dream, mixed in with her memories." Tak said as she took the alpha and delta waves and began to decrypt them an image of a familiar species to her appeared on the screen. "The Tallest?" Tak yelled. "Dealing with Mantians and Greys? What could they want? Zim's mission was a farce!"

Tak got up and began to pace around her ship. Mantians and Greys were both known for abducting other races in the universe and studying them, but they never dealt much with Irkens or the Tallest. The Tallest never thought their planets worthy of Invasion and they normally just had the Invaders provide information about the people of the planets they intended to conquer. And the planets selected were often allies or enemies. They never wasted time with neutral planets in case of an uprising on a planet they were trying to Invade so the natives could not call neutral planets up to their side. And Tak had been traveling around the universe a lot and knew that the galaxy knew Zim's mission was a joke. Nobody wanted much to do with Earth to begin with, they saw it as a planet of wild and untamed and idiotic creatures. Some races liked to study them, as with the Mantians and the Greys, but none wanted it. The Tallest didn't want it when they sent Zim to there. So this dreamlike memory was concerning to Tak. "This is something big." Tak said to herself as she stared at the projection on the screen. "What I don't know, but the Tallest don't do dealings like this unless there's something in it for them..."

So how was that? Penelope kind of likes Tak for looking after Dib, and some interesting things are on the horizon. So many things getting linked together in a little web of foreshadowing that complicates things. So now with family drama adding on, there may be an Invasion on the doorstep. I did a little bit of research for what the electrode Tak had would pull up but don't you dare quote me for a report on neurology. How everything works is not backed up fully. But if you are thick enough to use a fanfiction as a source for a school paper, well that F is well deserved. Well remember to read (well you just did) and to review. Ciao for now,

otherrealmwriter

aka

Realm