GAH! I can't believe myself! I'm so sorry for not updating last weekend guys! But here it is anyways, and I hope that my late update doesn't diminish your enjoyment!

Chapter Twelve: Dib

"Just so you know," Gaz voiced as Zim turned down towards his house, "I like Miss Bitters."

"I thought you would," I whispered.

We were silent the rest of the way home, the sounds coming from Gaz's Game Slave growing more intense as she blasted through the levels.

When we got home, I did my homework on the couch while Gaz continued to play her game. She groaned as the levels got harder and harder. When I finished my homework, I didn't know what to do. I would normally watch TV or something, but what if any of the shows mentioned…

"On this episode of Mysterious Mysteries," a voice announced, making my nearly jump out of my skin, "are aliens heading our way?"

"It was getting too quiet in here," Gaz said.

"Scientists have spotted a strange mass heading towards Earth," the announcer continued, showing an image of space. "Some say that it's a meteor, but other say that it could not be."

No. No space. No aliens.

I gripped my head, trying to force rising memories down and block out the sound of the show. "Aliens aren't real," I muttered, reinforcing their truths. "Zim is not an alien. It was all my imagination. Aliens aren't real. Zim is not an alien. It was just my imagination."

This is just a test, and I'm not going to fail.

Suddenly the music changed, making me jump and look up again. It was a kids' cartoon now. Just a cartoon.

"Well, geeze. If you're going to have such an annoying reaction," Gaz muttered as she let the remote control drop back down onto the couch.

I was able to relax now that Mysterious Mysteries had been turned off.

A few minutes later, Dad burst through the door. "Hello, kids!" he shouted, closing the door behind him. "How was your first day of school?"

"Fine," Gaz muttered, not looking up from her game.

"And Dib?" Dad approached the couch and sat on my opposite side. "How did today go with Zim."

"Fine," I whispered, not wanting to talk about who I used to think was an alien.

"That's wonderful, Son!" Dad exclaimed. "Now let's have dinner as a family."

About halfway through dinner, Dad looked up from his electronic work pad and pulled a bottle out of his lab coat. "Don't forget your medicine, Son."

Dad opened the bottle and poured two pills into his hand, offering them to me. I hated taking those pills. They make me feel like I'm half asleep, but it's not like I had a choice. I took the pills from Dad's hands and put them in my mouth, taking a drink of water and swallowing them.

"I know that you dislike taking those, Son, but I'm proud that you are," Dad praised as he put the pill bottle away. "They will keep you well, and able to study real science like me."

"Thanks, Dad," I muttered, a muted sense of something light growing in my chest at his words.

After dinner, Dad actually went upstairs with Gaz and I, and he took a seat at my desk as I changed into my pajamas in the bathroom. I came back out of the bathroom with a glass of water to put on my bedside table, and Dad handed me the pills that would put me to sleep for the night.

I hesitated this time. I was already tired enough. Did I really need them?

"Come on, Son," he encouraged. "The doctors said that you have bad dreams at night, and these will help with those."

From experience, I know that they don't. I still dream, and I remember those dreams. They were terrifying, but the pills kept me asleep and stuck inside of them.

I sighed and took the pills from Dad's hand and swallowed them with a drink of water. I settled down in bed, and Dad tied the length of fabric that was attached to the bed frame around my wrist. "Thanks, Dad," I said.

I didn't enjoy being tied to my bed, but I was so used to it now that it felt unnatural to not be. No one said that I had to be tied down, but Dad said that the doctors told him that sometimes after staying in the hospital for a while, patients prefer that. We tried it out one night at home, and it made me feel less anxious, for some reason.

"Goodnight, Son," Dad responded, patting my head. "I will see both you and your sister in the morning for breakfast."

The nighttime pills were already starting to take effect, and my eyes were closed the instant my dad left the room and didn't open again until the morning, despite the dreams.

As the days went on, I took the same drugs, and the chemicals continually accumulated inside of me, making everything blend together. Eventually, Dad said that I didn't have to take the nighttime pills anymore, and that made me feel a little better, but I barely noticed the world anymore. Everything blended together into one, seamless routine.

That is until, I had to go back into the hospital for a follow up session with the therapist I was assigned when I was moved down to the Observation Level.

Dad and I walked up to the front door, and he knocked on it. The slit at the top of the door opened, allowing us to see a pair of eyes looking out. "My son, Dib, and I are here for our scheduled follow up session."

The slit in the door closed up again, and after a few moments of clanging, the door opened. A man in a doctor's coat stood behind the door, and he waved us through.

Dad and I entered the hospital, and the doctor closed the door behind us. He lead us to the elevator and hit the call button. After a few seconds, the silver doors opened, and we stepped inside. The doctor swiped his key card and hit the button for the Observation Level. The ride in the elevator was brief, and the walk to my therapist's office passed by unnoticed.

"Here you are, Dib," the doctor said, opening the door. "Your father will be waiting just out here for you when you're finished."

I glanced back at my dad as he went to sit down in a small waiting area with two other parents. "I'll see you soon, Son," he declared, pulling out his electronic work pad.

I wandered the rest of the way into my therapist's office and sat down on the couch. This level was so much nicer than what was upstairs. The lights were brighter, there were more windows, and the beds were much more comfortable. We could go outside, and the food was better. I didn't know the reason for the stark contrast, but when I was moved down here, the difference was welcome.

"Hello, Dib," came the familiar voice of my therapist, Delwin. He came in through a different door, a binder and a pen in hand. He sat down in the chair across from me and turned to a page in the binder before looking up at me with a pleasant smile. "Long time, no see. How has your month home been?"

Has it been a month? "Good," I muttered. "Dad's been around more."

"Any nightmares?"

I wanted to lie because I didn't want to talk about them, but I knew what the consequences of lying would be. "Yes."

Delwin marked something down on his paper. "What are they about?"

"The tank mostly," I whispered. "I dream that I won't come back out of it."

"Ah," Delwin voiced. "That's your subconscious telling you that some part of you, no matter how small, is still hanging onto the hope that you were right about Zim. You let that hope go, and you'll stop having those dreams."

"But I know I wasn't right," I countered.

"I know, Dib, but everyone on the planet wants to be right about what they believe, and when that belief is proven to be wrong, it hurts. A small part of that person will still hold onto their previous beliefs just to make it hurt less."

I nodded.

"So you've gone back to school. Is Zim still in your class?"

"Yes," I answered. "He's still weird, though."

Delwin marked things down on his paper again. "Weird how?"

"He's just weird. He gets very common words wrong and yells for no reason," I explained, thinking through the past month.

"What words does he get wrong?" my therapist wondered.

I looked at him pointedly. "He calls whipped cream 'whippy cream'. It's just stuff like that. He called a muffin a 'pork cow' once. And a cow is beef. Not pork!"

I took a breath, realizing that my voice was raising and that my speech was speeding up. Zim's just strange, so why did talking about him make me so anxious?

Delwin marked a few more things down. "It's good that you're recognizing when you're getting anxious," he congratulated. "What do you think the reason for him getting those words wrong could be?"

I thought for a moment. "Well, he does have a skin condition that looks to be pretty serious because he has no ears and water burns him on contact, so maybe he spent a lot of time in the hospital? He might not have been exposed to a lot of common sayings."

"Yes, that's a logical explanation," Delwin agreed. "Do you think it's a good idea to talk to him?"

I almost scoffed. "No. Zim and I aren't friends. We were enemies in elementary school. There was that whole water balloon war, and we'd pummel each other every chance we got."

The rest of the session drifted by like that. I would do most of the talking, but Delwin would ask questions every now and then, occasionally marking things down on his paper. At the end of the two hour session, Delwin walked me out, and led me to my father, who instantly rose from his seat. "How did it go?" he asked, a slight urgency in his voice that almost made it sound like a demand.

"It went well," Delwin answered. "I think that he can stay off of those nighttime pills, and continue his school work, though I would recommend a bit more interaction with others. It would help with the nightmares and his depression."

"Agreed," Dad said, checking his watch. "My lab is still open, and you're already out of school for the day," he looked down at me, "so what do you say to helping me with some experiments today?"

Getting a chance to do real science would be a nice distraction than dwelling on what an idiot I was for believing in my delusions. I nodded.

"Excellent!" Dad exclaimed.

"I'd watch him, though," Delwin cautioned. "Some of the medicines he's on can make him a little unsteady."

Dad chuckled. "Of course. I'll be by his side all day."

At Dad's lab, I helped him do various interesting experiments, though I mostly did the calculations because my hands were too shaky due to the medications I was on. We tested and retested the results of our experiments. Even though some tests would literally explode in our faces, it was the best day I've had since I came back from the hospital. Dad spent all day with me, and he didn't accuse me of being insane and nor did anyone else. Everyone at the lab was on my level of intelligence, so I didn't have to dumb anything down like I did at school. I was disappointed when we had to go home at the end of the day.

Now, I understood why Dad always spent so much time at his labs.

We had dinner with Gaz, and when I went to bed that night, I didn't have nightmares. Delwin was right: actually going outside did make me feel better.

I will say that the ending of this chapter and a chapter or two after this are quite loosely based on the un-aired Invader Zim episode "Mopieness of Doom". If you haven't seen it, it's one of my favorite episodes!

Hope you enjoyed, and again, I apologize for not updating!