Resilience Is A Blessing

Zim woke up and groaned, placing his gloved claw to his head and blinking his eyes blearily. He'd been here before. Too much to drink. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he had actually left his room, but what was the point when all that was left outside was this filthy, human-infested lump of rock? He could no longer show his face, so ashamed was he of his failure. Killing four consecutive Tallests had to be some kind of a record. He sighed. He was hungry, but he couldn't be bothered to go down to the dining hall or even just across the corridor to the breakfast lounge, though it was several hours after breakfast time now. He had been like this for a week, and he wasn't feeling any better. He pushed the button by his bed to call for a meal to be brought to him, stating what he wanted in a bored, flat voice. Not even in third person.

"Of course, master, right away," trilled the maid brightly, and he groaned, slamming down on the button to cut off the piercing sound. So happy, so annoying…

Ten minutes later, the same maid hurried down the corridor with a tray, not wanting to keep the Emperor waiting for too long. He had been decidedly testy over the past week, and many servants had paid for their lateness. She didn't want to be one of them. In fact, she was in such a rush that she almost collided with the Empress, and came close to tipping the tray over as well. She stopped dead in her tracks, muttering hurried apologies, but the Empress didn't even seem to notice the fact that she had nearly been knocked over, staring at the tray instead. It was piled high with an enormous amount of junk food. Or, as Flo thought more likely, comfort food. She stopped the gushing apologies with a wave of her hand.

"Are you taking that to Zim?"

"Yes, ma'am, it's the Emperor's breakfast," the maid said humbly, "Forgive me, but I was just on my way to give it to him, I didn't mean to…"

Another impatient wave of Flo's hand quietened her.

"I'll take it to him, Flick. You can go on your break now, if you like," Flo smiled, using the maid's nickname in a fond tone. She tried so hard to be friendly to the servants, and she loved nicknames. As most of her friends had monosyllabic names such as hers, she had never been able to employ them before.

"I… thank you, ma'am," she said, passing the tray over and sweeping her black skirt into a curtsey. When she straightened up, the Empress had gone, already at the end of the corridor without a second glance. She had never bothered with all the 'respectful gestures' that the Emperor demanded. Her communicator buzzed, and the Emperor's voice came shrilly through the speaker.

"Felicity! Where's my breakfast? I…" there was the sound of somebody knocking on a door, and his tone softened slightly. "Oh. Fine." He cut the transmission and she turned back down the corridor to take her break.

Flo knocked on Zim's door for a second time and entered without waiting for a reply. It was dark, curtains pulled closed over the enormous window and only one light on, casting dark shadows over Zim's face. The only visible part of him was his eyes, looking tired and dejected in the gloom.

"Zim? I brought your breakfast," she said, picking her way around empty bottles and wrappers and wondering why the maids hadn't cleaned it all up. "God, you must be starving," she added, with a second glance at the large amount of food. She activated the hovering device on the tray, sending it in Zim's direction, and walked over to the window, throwing apart the curtains and letting the light flood the room. She turned to face the bed, where Zim slouched, blinking in the unwelcome light. He had changed almost as much as she had over the past week, and several expressions passed over her face before she settled on a worried look. Zim glanced at her impassively before stuffing as many doughnuts into his mouth as possible, making involuntary 'mmm' noises as he did so. However, Flo did not, as he had expected, say anything, so he was forced to continue eating in awkward silence. When he swallowed, placing his claws in his mouth to suck off any remaining sugar or jelly, he looked up at her.

"You gotta try these doughnuts, they're…"

"Zim, how could you let yourself get like this?" Flo asked almost angrily. He narrowed his eyes, which lacked their usual lustre.

"Well, if you're going to cut in," he muttered, filling up his mouth again, chewing slowly and deliberately. Again, Flo waited patiently until he had finished eating before pouncing.

"Zim, look at yourself!" she demanded, grabbing the tray so that he couldn't delay his answer. "This isn't healthy!"

He glanced down quizzically and raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm?"

Flo sighed in exasperation and sat down on the end of the bed.

"Fine. I'll make it clearer: How much weight have you gained?"

"What?!?" Zim looked outraged. "I haven't gained weight!"

Flo poked him in the stomach and raised an eyebrow in response.

"It's five pounds at the most," he said, trying to sound unconcerned.

"Five?" Flo asked, and her eyebrow rose, if it were possible, even higher.

"Five… And ten," he grunted, glowering at her before adding, "And you've gained more weight than me!"

"Fifteen pounds? In a week? How… I knew I shouldn't have left you on your own in here... You can't be trusted not to destroy yourself, Zim! Gods above, the Tallest dump you here, you become an alcoholic. They die and you become Jabba the Hutt. Oh, and by the way, Zim: I'm pregnant!!! With triplets, in case you'd forgotten!"

"How convenient," Zim muttered bitterly, and Flo slid up the bed slightly to get closer to him.

"Zim, I know you're depressed. It's not your fault about the Tallest, Helio was so messed up it'd probably happen anyway."

"Really?" Zim sounded hopeful, in spite of how bleak this statement seemed.

"Really. So please, don't stay locked up in here any more. I've kinda missed you," she smiled, putting her arm around his shoulders. He allowed her to hug him for a while, though his own arms lay limply at his sides, and he had a sullen look on his face. There was a sudden bump, and they sprang apart.

"What on Irk was that?" Zim asked uncertainly, and she beamed.

"That's why I came up here! The smeets are kicking… It shouldn't be more than a week now!"

"Hey, that's… that's pretty neat," Zim said, placing his hands to Flo's stomach, then his whole head, listening for the movements. A smile was spreading across his face for the first time in days, and he started whispering softly. "Yes, my smeets," he crooned, "You're going to grow up to be powerful, strong, tall… the universe will be ours for the taking…"

Flo sighed, slumping down on the bed to allow Zim to continue. At least he wasn't depressed anymore.

---

Purple sat on a chair next to the cot that had been set up for Red. Gem was attending to his wounds, bandaging up limbs expertly and swabbing the gashes with a brown ointment that steamed and stung like hell for a while, but knitted the skin back together extremely quickly. Then he put two of his spider legs together at the base of Red's skull and sent an electrical charge across his body, until his eyes opened fully and he stood up, though a little shakily, taking a few uncertain steps across the room and looking at the bodies of the troops with distaste.

"He killed all your troops?" he asked Gem, who shook his head.

"The rest of them are fixing the shuttles. You ok there, my Tallest?"

Red nodded, and Purple flew across the room, hugging him so tightly that his eyes bulged and the newly-healed wounds on his chest nearly burst open.

"Pur…I… can't breathe…" he wheezed, and Purple let go quickly, causing him to fall to the floor. He clambered to his feet, breathing deeply and Purple backhanded him across the face. He stood there, dumbstruck for a second, and then took a large step forwards, almost nose to nose with Purple, his eyes narrowed.

"What the hell was that for?" Red asked angrily, his one lonely antenna standing on end comically. But nobody laughed. Even though they were the same height, he seemed so much taller than Purple at that moment.

"You modified my memory, you jerk!" Purple shouted, and instantly Red shrank down.

"Oh. Yeah," he said, with a nervous laugh, "Sorry about that."

One of the remaining soldiers ran into the room, grinning.

"Gem! The ships are all under our control now! We can go back to Irk!"

Gem grinned back.

"Excellent! Erm… I'm guessing you guys want to come too, right?" he added, glancing at Red and Purple. They nodded, and Red looked confused.

"How did you get here in the first place?"

"By ship! But we crashed here… I'm not very good at parallel parking," Gem said, looking mildly embarrassed as Red muttered into Purple's antenna "I'll drive back".

"You can if you like," he said, gesturing to the escape shuttles, "But we need to get going. You see, we can't be here. We can't stay in any one place for too long. If the control brains find out about us, we'll all be killed."

Gem went on to explain to the Tallest about RACE and their long, underground battle against the control brains. Not comfortable with the thought of the entire empire being controlled by these… things, only able to think logically, never of love or of forgiveness, but cold, hard, logic, a small group joined together. Against the Empire, For the Empire. Soon, other Irkens that had been affected by the control brains joined up too. The little people, ones who couldn't make a difference on their own, but soon the numbers swelled. Forming a resistance against the control brains was the most dangerous thing that they had done so far, but now RACE had gathered enough support to go to the next level. A Civil War, as such. Every single control brain on every single planet belonging to the Empire was to be destroyed. How this was to be achieved Gem would not say.

"Wait a minute… I'm missing something here…" Purple said, and Red smirked.

"We know you are, Pur. But I love you anyway…"

"Oh, HA-HA-HA, very funny, Red. But if you guys are shutting off control of Irk, what happens to me and Red?"

"Oh, yeah!" Red said, suddenly looking rather menacing despite his injuries, "What will happen to us in all of this?"

Gem looked humbled, and cleared his throat.

"That is why I took a job on the Massive, my Tallest. RACE needed to know if you two could be trusted, could be left to lead once the control brains were destroyed. I came to observe you, and I have come to my conclusion. You clearly don't take control because you are so used to the decisions being made for you. I think that you could be good leaders on your own, without the control brains. So you must hide. A planet that Irk has links with, but has no control brain. One where the leader would be happy to let you hide there, one where no other Irkens would go. Do you know of such a planet?"

Red and Purple glanced at each other, and Red groaned.

"Oh, no! No, Pur, I don't want to go live with Zim!!! It'll be more torture than this was!"

"But Red, we have to stay alive, Irk is depending on us…"

"And he'll want to show us all his accomplishments, and then he'll…" Red continued to mutter, more to himself than anyone else, and Purple continued over the top of him.

"RACE is depending on us; we could go back, start again when all of this is over and…" But Red's voice grew louder, and he started to pace back and forth as he carried on his frenzied monologue.

"And he'll be like, My Tallest? My Tallest? My Tallest? My… Freaking… Tallest, all the freaking time, and then…"

"And Dib! We'll see Dib again and we can…"

"WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IF DIB'S ALIVE!!!" Red bellowed, his angry response the only sign that he had been listening to what Purple had been saying, silencing Purple and sending a strangled echo down the corridor.

Purple's bottom lip trembled, and he sank down on the end of the cot, cradling his head in his hands, his eyes covered by his long, spindly fingers. Red had voiced the gnawing doubt that he had been harbouring all this time; that Dib had not survived the explosion, or that, even if he had, he was lost in space, or had been tracked down and killed. That all of this had been for nothing. Red sat down behind him, but did not comfort him.

"Ok. We'll go," he said in a low voice. "We need to send a transmission to Earth."

"I'm sorry, my Tallest, but that's impossible. All communicators are tracked; the control brains could find out our position so easily by doing that. And, another thing. Our ships will only be able to escort you so far. After that, you're on your own."

"That's fine. We can take care of ourselves."

Gem smiled.

"Are you sure? I watched you two on the Massive… You don't do a lot for yourselves if you don't mind me saying so."

"More than capable, Gem," Red said in a dangerous voice, and Gem backed down at once.

"Of course, my Tallest."

"Oh, and Gem? Thanks for… you know. Cleaning me up and stuff. Saving our lives. I guess that's the least I can say under the circumstances, but..."

"For you, my Tallest, it was nothing but an honour."

As Gem herded the troops into the shuttles, Red turned around and went back through the corridors, looking into the scene of Helio's bloody demise. Disgusted though he was, he forced himself to go in, large strides so that he covered more ground. He went over to the place where they had been shackled to the wall, and started to search. It was a while before he found what he was looking for, laying bloody and battered on the ground. He bent down to pick up his antenna, and as he straightened up, the low voice sounded at the doorway.

"We won't be able to reattach it, you know," Gem said, staring at the mangled body of his previous partner, limp and shredded in the gears of his machines.

"I know," Red said, "But I wanted to… take it with me. It's mine."

Gem smiled fractionally.

"Actually, that would be Helio's."

Red dropped it in horror, and saw the smile on Gem's face widen. He picked it back up.

"It… It's not, is it," he asked uncertainly, just to make sure, and Gem shook his head. As Red walked back to the shuttles, Gem walked back across the room and located Helio's own severed antenna. He walked over to his partner's remains and tucked the antenna into Helio's blood-spattered, rainbow-striped waistcoat, gently zipping it up against his cold chest.

"Sorry, old friend," he sighed, as he delicately moved his remains into a more 'comfortable' position. Had his bottom half not been shredded and were his face not contorted into a scream of agony, he could have been sleeping. "I used to understand you. Respect you. Maybe, once, love you. But you're half the Irken you used to be," he whispered. It wasn't until he had shown the Tallest the controls of the shuttle, programmed the coordinates of Earth into their ship and slid behind the controls of his own shuttle that he gave a soft chuckle at the unintentional pun.

---

His heart was pounding, his hands were cold and clammy, and a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. The approaching fleet of spaceships sped up, and their missiles were blowing his base apart. It wouldn't hold forever, that he knew, his only chance was to move. He got out just as a missile blew up his base, but before he had a chance to work out where to go next, a missile hit him. The words 'GAME OVER' flashed on screen, and Dib sank to his knees, flung his hands ostentatiously above his head and screamed.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Gaz smirked from her seat. Dib had stupidly challenged her to a 'Space Invaders' playoff and so far she had topped every high score he had achieved. However, seemingly spurred on by sheer determination, Dib had come close to beating her score. So close… and yet he had been shot down before this feat could be achieved. She hopped down from her chair and patted him on the back.

"Better luck next time," she said smugly. Dib sank down.

"Well now I'm really depressed," he muttered.

"Heh-heh-heh. Foolish, pitiful Dib-Stink," came a voice from the doorway, "I've seen Irken smeets that could play better than you."

"Well, if you think you're so great, why don't you try and beat Gaz, Zim?" Dib said, without taking his eyes off the scoreboard on the screen. Another chuckle.

"Your second idiotic mistake. Only the greatest Irken military commander would have a chance at beating your sibling at this primitive war game. Or, possibly, Flo."

"Somebody say my name?" Flo's voice came in, and when Zim explained she laughed. "Me? Beat Gaz? Only at Irken games, ones that she'll never have played before. Hey, Dib, you wanna grab a bite to eat? We could… I dunno, pack a 'picnic' and go to the beach or something."

Dib smiled. He had told Flo about the beach, how he had only been five times in his whole life because his dad had been too busy to take him after his mum died, how much he liked it there. Flo had been horrified at the idea of the sea, so the prospect of her choosing to go there with him was nice. Evidently seeing his slit wrists had upset her. He turned around and at once a smirk grew on his face. Flo grinned back; she had been expecting this.

"I don't know about a picnic, Flo. Depends on how much food Zim's left for the rest of us." Zim looked up and glared at him, daring him to continue. He did. "Have you been stealing people's organs again, Zim? Or should I call you 'Jabba' now?"

"Who is this Jabby you all speak of? Tell me!" Zim demanded. A computer screen came down with a picture, and Zim regarded it with fascinated horror. "He is a powerful monarch," he noted, and Flo sighed.

"That's not the point, Zim, he's a repulsive, bloated blob of fat!"

"…And he has a slave-girl in a bikini," Zim added.

"You mean, like Yasmine?" Dib smirked, and Zim looked up from the screen. Dib smiled nastily. "See? You already act like him. Just a step away from looking like him, Emperor Zim."

Zim licked his lips nervously, glancing at the picture again and shuddering. Flo grinned at Dib.

"I'm just off to the kitchens to get a picnic together. You wanna come?"

Dib nodded, and Zim turned around as they walked to the door.

"Hey, Flo? If you're going to the kitchens, you couldn't send up some nachos, could you?" he asked, before adding nonchalantly, "A…And a salad."

"We're all out of nachos, Zim. But I'll send up that salad. You'll be in the gym, right? After all, we can't both look fat," Flo replied, smiling warmly and slipping off before he had a chance to answer. Gaz watched him with a raised eyebrow as he stalked from the room.

---

Flo sat on the towel under a large umbrella, watching Dib thoughtfully. He was sitting next to some rock pools, scooping up water with cupped hands and letting it trickle through his fingers again. She was staying up on dry land, raking her claws through the soft, powdery sand and admiring the dangerous beauty of the ocean. Dib picked something up from a rock-pool; a razor shell. She watched him sadly as he mimed drawing it across his wrists, before snapping it in half and throwing it out for the sea to claim. He turned to watch the sea himself, gazing blankly out at the rolling waves and letting the roar of the water clear his mind. When he turned back, he saw pink eyes reflected in the rock pool. Flo perched on the edge of his rock, looking into his face tentatively.

Suddenly, he plunged his hand into the rock pool and drew out his prize; a small shell. Flo drew closer to look at the swirling patterns and recoiled when a hermit crab poked its eyes, then head, then body from within, scuttling across Dib's hand with its claws raised threateningly.

"What is it?" she asked, and he did not answer straight away. When he did, he looked up, his eyes swimming, like pools of molten gold.

"Resilience is a blessing, Flo. These tiny creatures protect their vulnerable bodies with tough shells. If their shell is damaged, they just scurry off and find a new one, start again. I wish I could do the same."

"You've gotta take this one step at a time, Dib. I know it's tough, losing two of the ones you care about most, but you can start again. Your story doesn't have to end as a tragedy. You just need to skip ahead to the next chapter. It can only get better from here."

Dib nodded, holding his hand above the pool. The crab ran to his fingertips and slipped over the edge into the water. He stood up.

"We'd better go back. The tide's coming in."

Before they left the beach, Dib looked up at the cliff that he had gazed upon once before, when he was five. Now, Zim's face was carved into the side of it, proud, haughty and contemptuous. He heaved a sigh of remorse. He wasn't sure if things could get better, but they couldn't get much worse.

AN

As usual, please review and I shall update.

I don't own Invader Zim. That's Jhonen Vasquez's. However; Flo, Gem and Helio are mine.