A/Note: My computer died, taking this chapter with it. Okay, that's my
excuse. The rest of the tale is that I just now managed to make myself
finish re-writing it. So anyway, if anyone still pays any attention... here
is our conclusion to Weapon. And if you are still reading.. sorry for the
inexcusably long delay. ^^;
Chapter Fifteen: Aftermath
Dib hummed a half-remembered tune to himself as he walked down the sidewalk. He'd grown very familiar with it over the past two weeks. The route from the hospital room housing his father and sister to the convenience store might very easily be etched into his brain in fine detail for the rest of his life. Every crack in the cement, each small spray of bright green grass peeking up from soil deposits in the crevices greeted him silently as he made his way to and from the dingy 24-7 nearly every day.
The uncomfortable routine of living in the hospital was made just a little more bearable with some provisions. The plastic bag that bounced against his leg with each step bulged with soda bottles, a large package of individual cups of pudding, and a few candy bars and straws of pixy-stix. A few of his sister's favorite snacks also occupied the sack. Like any good, responsible sibling, Dib held fast to the belief that there was nothing to bring about the attention of his sister than trying to eat something she herself really liked in front of her. It worked at home every time he took the last slice of pizza or soda, anyway. Who knew? After fourteen solid days of staring at Gaz as she lay motionless in her bed, both he and his father were ready to try almost anything to wake her up.
Dib shook off the depressing thought just in time to abrupt stop, startled by the appearance of a pair of large, bulbous-seeming eyes that stared up at him with blank expectancy. The weird little chihuahua stood there staring at him with a eye-abusing lack of blinking that gave the boy shivers. Dib side-stepped around the dog and continued on his way. "What a creepy... freaky... WEIRD dog.." he grumbled to himself, quickening his pace. Another bizarre little dog was waving at him from the doorway to the medical center.
"HI DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIB!" GIR screeched, straining out the vowel until it could have almost passed for an emergency broadcasting system test. The disguised robot was leaping up and down, waving his little paws in the air frantically as if he were afraid that somehow the object of his attention might miss him. 'Slight chance of that,' Dib thought ruefully to himself, trotting towards the small android before he could let loose another sonic blast of greeting. 'People in Greenland probably could hear that!'
GIR drew in another deep breath, presumably to scream another hello to the human boy, only to be foiled utterly as his master gave a sharp yank on the robot's leash. "Enough GIR! The Dib-beast knows you are here! He knows that you are pleased to see him! Enough of your incessant shrieking!" Zim waved his hands in the air over his head for emphasis as he continued. "This is a HOSPITAL, GIR! You can't go screaming and yelling around here!! It is against the human rules!! When will your brain return from that vacation to the realm that sanity forgot!!??"
Dib snickered to himself, immediately drawing the wrath-prone attention of the green-skinned "kid". "Between the two of you, maybe Gaz is awake now." Dib chuckled, walking past them into the frigid lobby. Zim quickly followed, all but dragging GIR behind him on the end of his much- abused leash. For the moment Zim seemed content to follow silently behind him, silencing any potential noise from GIR with a withering glare and implied threat every few steps. Dib wished his companions would say something. Anything at all would do to distract him from the fact that even after two weeks of living here in this super-sanitized hell, he still had that same feeling as he walked down the halls. The feeling that the air was too cold and made his wrists hurt painfully, and that strange, almost certainly psychosomatic notion that under the scent of industrial-grade disinfectant was a deathly sick odor that somehow reminded him of vomit.
He really, really wished that Zim would say something, even if it was a re-declaration of war or something. He glanced over at the irken, who'd fallen into step alongside him. They stared steadily at each other as they marched down the hallway. "Well..?" Zim prodded as they stepped aboard the elevator, "what will you do?"
Dib stared at him blankly. "Do?" Zim smacked himself in the forehead roughly. "Yes, what will you do if she doesn't wake up, Dib? How long will you and your.." he trailed off, winding his hand as if trying to reel in the word he was looking for, "..father-thing insist on remaining in this squallid festering den of disease?" Dib crossed his arms, inadvertantly smacking GIR in the head with the bag that was swinging freely from his arm. "It's not *squallid*!" Zim cut him off pointedly. "Beside the point! When will you be able to accept the.."
Now it was Dib's turn to interrupt, and he did so with gusto. "Accept? Accept what, Zim? That she might not ever wake up? That she might for all intents and purposes be dead? Well I can't! Maybe you can't understand it, but I just can't say 'Oh well, guess she didn't make it' and stroll off happily. Love doesn't work that way! She and Dad are all I have, Zim. All that I have in the whole universe. I'm not ready for her to not be there anymore."
The elevator doors opened, and Dib stepped out, hanging his head sadly. Zim fidgited for a few seconds before trailing after the human boy and GIR, who'd thrown off his leash in favor of running over to his friend and seizing hold of his skull. "You've always got US, Dib!" he squealed happily. Dib turned partially in an attempt to get a look at his assailant, and Zim could see a wealth of responses flicker by in rapid succession.
They all stood there like that for a few moments, and finally Zim was compelled to reach over and pull GIR off to end the awkwardness. He headed off towards the Membrane room with GIR tossed over his shoulders like a bag of supplies. "I've been all alone in the universe before. It's exhilerating and oppressive in its' freedom. Eventually you *will* have to face it." He paused at the appropriate door, allowing Dib to open it and enter first. As his rival passed, Zim looked away. GIR, who was the only one close enough to his master's face to register the event, noticed that it seemed for a moment that Zim's eyes seemed a little over-moist. Not that the great Zim would ever be crying. And of course, not that GIR would remember the event three seconds later.
Dib examined a note left on his sister's bedside by their father. Apparently the physical therapist had come to take him for another walk to gauge his recovery. "Looks like it's just us, guys." He grinned suddenly and reached into his trove of junk-food treasures. "Got something for you, GIR!" GIR leapt free of his master and giddily romped over to the boy and setting him with huge hyper eyes of greediness. "PIXERSTIX!" GIR shrieked, stuffing a handful of the offered candy straws into his mouth whole.
Zim glared over at Dib from the chair he had claimed across from the sugary melee. He threw the boy and the bot a disparaging glare before turning towards Gaz and demanding that she wake up and put a stop to their nonsense. Dib climbed into his own chair on the other side of Gaz's bed and continued feeding the robot a few of his choice treats. It wouldn't be a total loss if he could get GIR hyper enough to sing 'The Song that Never Ends' all the way home again tonight, he thought with a snicker.
That was when he felt it. Not a piercing glare of icy doom, instead it was a very, very hard punch to his left arm that knocked him out of his hard uncomfortable chair and sent him sprawling to the floor. He pulled himself upright, fixed his glasses from where they had been knocked askew, and was rewarded by the sight of Gaz sitting up in her bed and glaring at him slightly. She huffed in indignation and pointed to his now-throbbing arm. "That," she announced authoritatively, "is for being right. Again," she added after a thoughtful pause. It wasn't her usual expression of sulky anger, though. Gaz's face seemed a little more open and.. almost amused. There was something in her eyes now that was laughing quietly at some private joke only she and perhaps the world itself were having between themselves.
"Uh.. again?" her brother asked blankly. Gaz jerked her thumb over her shoulder at Zim, who was regarding her with wide-eyed superior confusion, and crossed her arms. "It really MUST be an infinite universe, you've been right about two things so far." she mused. Dib watched her warily, unsure whether to shake her and demand to know what she was talking about, or just hug her breathless for waking up again. She surprised him by making the decision for him, reaching over and throwing her arms around him as if she'd never see him again.
Zim eased down out of his seat and wandered over to the hospital window. The Gaz was awake and Dib's family was once again whole, but would never be quite the way it was before. The world outside seemed different, too. The air tasted a little less stagnant and seemed to require just a little less processing by his pak before it was deigned "safe". The sunshine felt a little less unkind, and the colors around him were a little more indiscribably brighter and less grungy. Was it really just his imagination? Or had Gaz done.. something? But what could make the very aura of the planet feel healthier, friendlier, and more 'alive'?
Zim turned to watch GIR cover the two siblings in gooey saliva-coated kisses. He could remember some upstart would-be invader bragging to him that she "fit in perfectly". She had been wrong, though. And for that matter, so had he. It was GIR who fit in perfectly here, for reasons that he couldn't hope to begin to understand yet. The happy reunion playing out before him took another energetic upswing as Professor Membrane's increasingly familiar face came through the door to the room. The irken was transfixed as he observed the man leap for his two children and without regard to their sticky state or his own recently recovered health, grab them into a fierce embrace. GIR was accidentally seized into the hug, but was not cast aside.
In all his considerable years, Zim had never felt like more of an outsider as he watched them all celebrate their reunion. Suddenly, he became aware of someone calling him. He looked up. They were all watching him, expectantly. Dib grinned and held a hand out. "Truce?" he offered, not bothering to conceal the broad smile and remaining tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. Zim looked back and forth between the proffered hand and their faces, feeling a sense of strange wonder and fear. What exactly were these creatures who called themselves humans? How could they even consider to make such an offer to him? He was their enemy, for crying out loud!
Gaz watched calmly as Zim stared at her brother's hand. The irken finally reached to accept it, announcing that he was deigning to "study" the human race. She smirked openly at her brother and his new best friend. Things would be different now, but still very much the same. And for the first time in her life, she was looking forward to the future that she could see stretching out in front of them all.
After all, now she really did have a family. They all did.
-----
A/Note: I hope that wasn't too disappointingly gooey. ^^; Now comes my explanation for this whole thing. (And yes, the Gaia thing WAS partially inspired by 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within'.
The whole point of the story was 1. To try and explain Gaz's *bizarre* powers and abilities in some way that would not quite manage to make sense and 2. To make a few characters come to terms with how they related with each other. Especially Gaz and Professor Membrane. His position as the "faceless man of REAL SCIENCE!" always bothered me. I wanted to make a "REAL DAD!" out of him, heh heh.. Of course, that required him realising how much of him was just 'image' and then shedding that image.
Each of the characters is put through a transformation of sorts. Professor Membrane finally becomes a real father for his kids, or at least is motivated to begin trying in earnest. Gaz's changes are sweeping but subtle. The most important one is that she finally discovers she really CAN be a little girl if she just gets rid of her anger and reaches out to her family. She also 'bonds' a bit with the spirit of the Earth itself, which seems to have inflicted some changes on the Earth as well. Zim becomes less interested in destroying the planet and moreso in studying humanity's positive aspects. Dib sheds a little of his paranormalist extraordinare aspect in favor of becoming a member of his own neglected family. GIR becomes a citizen of the Earth. ^^
Thank you to all of you who read, and especially the ones who've reviewed. And BIG, BIG thanks if you actually hung around long enough to see the ending of yet another long, long, inexcusably long in the making story. I appreciate it! ^^!
Chapter Fifteen: Aftermath
Dib hummed a half-remembered tune to himself as he walked down the sidewalk. He'd grown very familiar with it over the past two weeks. The route from the hospital room housing his father and sister to the convenience store might very easily be etched into his brain in fine detail for the rest of his life. Every crack in the cement, each small spray of bright green grass peeking up from soil deposits in the crevices greeted him silently as he made his way to and from the dingy 24-7 nearly every day.
The uncomfortable routine of living in the hospital was made just a little more bearable with some provisions. The plastic bag that bounced against his leg with each step bulged with soda bottles, a large package of individual cups of pudding, and a few candy bars and straws of pixy-stix. A few of his sister's favorite snacks also occupied the sack. Like any good, responsible sibling, Dib held fast to the belief that there was nothing to bring about the attention of his sister than trying to eat something she herself really liked in front of her. It worked at home every time he took the last slice of pizza or soda, anyway. Who knew? After fourteen solid days of staring at Gaz as she lay motionless in her bed, both he and his father were ready to try almost anything to wake her up.
Dib shook off the depressing thought just in time to abrupt stop, startled by the appearance of a pair of large, bulbous-seeming eyes that stared up at him with blank expectancy. The weird little chihuahua stood there staring at him with a eye-abusing lack of blinking that gave the boy shivers. Dib side-stepped around the dog and continued on his way. "What a creepy... freaky... WEIRD dog.." he grumbled to himself, quickening his pace. Another bizarre little dog was waving at him from the doorway to the medical center.
"HI DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIB!" GIR screeched, straining out the vowel until it could have almost passed for an emergency broadcasting system test. The disguised robot was leaping up and down, waving his little paws in the air frantically as if he were afraid that somehow the object of his attention might miss him. 'Slight chance of that,' Dib thought ruefully to himself, trotting towards the small android before he could let loose another sonic blast of greeting. 'People in Greenland probably could hear that!'
GIR drew in another deep breath, presumably to scream another hello to the human boy, only to be foiled utterly as his master gave a sharp yank on the robot's leash. "Enough GIR! The Dib-beast knows you are here! He knows that you are pleased to see him! Enough of your incessant shrieking!" Zim waved his hands in the air over his head for emphasis as he continued. "This is a HOSPITAL, GIR! You can't go screaming and yelling around here!! It is against the human rules!! When will your brain return from that vacation to the realm that sanity forgot!!??"
Dib snickered to himself, immediately drawing the wrath-prone attention of the green-skinned "kid". "Between the two of you, maybe Gaz is awake now." Dib chuckled, walking past them into the frigid lobby. Zim quickly followed, all but dragging GIR behind him on the end of his much- abused leash. For the moment Zim seemed content to follow silently behind him, silencing any potential noise from GIR with a withering glare and implied threat every few steps. Dib wished his companions would say something. Anything at all would do to distract him from the fact that even after two weeks of living here in this super-sanitized hell, he still had that same feeling as he walked down the halls. The feeling that the air was too cold and made his wrists hurt painfully, and that strange, almost certainly psychosomatic notion that under the scent of industrial-grade disinfectant was a deathly sick odor that somehow reminded him of vomit.
He really, really wished that Zim would say something, even if it was a re-declaration of war or something. He glanced over at the irken, who'd fallen into step alongside him. They stared steadily at each other as they marched down the hallway. "Well..?" Zim prodded as they stepped aboard the elevator, "what will you do?"
Dib stared at him blankly. "Do?" Zim smacked himself in the forehead roughly. "Yes, what will you do if she doesn't wake up, Dib? How long will you and your.." he trailed off, winding his hand as if trying to reel in the word he was looking for, "..father-thing insist on remaining in this squallid festering den of disease?" Dib crossed his arms, inadvertantly smacking GIR in the head with the bag that was swinging freely from his arm. "It's not *squallid*!" Zim cut him off pointedly. "Beside the point! When will you be able to accept the.."
Now it was Dib's turn to interrupt, and he did so with gusto. "Accept? Accept what, Zim? That she might not ever wake up? That she might for all intents and purposes be dead? Well I can't! Maybe you can't understand it, but I just can't say 'Oh well, guess she didn't make it' and stroll off happily. Love doesn't work that way! She and Dad are all I have, Zim. All that I have in the whole universe. I'm not ready for her to not be there anymore."
The elevator doors opened, and Dib stepped out, hanging his head sadly. Zim fidgited for a few seconds before trailing after the human boy and GIR, who'd thrown off his leash in favor of running over to his friend and seizing hold of his skull. "You've always got US, Dib!" he squealed happily. Dib turned partially in an attempt to get a look at his assailant, and Zim could see a wealth of responses flicker by in rapid succession.
They all stood there like that for a few moments, and finally Zim was compelled to reach over and pull GIR off to end the awkwardness. He headed off towards the Membrane room with GIR tossed over his shoulders like a bag of supplies. "I've been all alone in the universe before. It's exhilerating and oppressive in its' freedom. Eventually you *will* have to face it." He paused at the appropriate door, allowing Dib to open it and enter first. As his rival passed, Zim looked away. GIR, who was the only one close enough to his master's face to register the event, noticed that it seemed for a moment that Zim's eyes seemed a little over-moist. Not that the great Zim would ever be crying. And of course, not that GIR would remember the event three seconds later.
Dib examined a note left on his sister's bedside by their father. Apparently the physical therapist had come to take him for another walk to gauge his recovery. "Looks like it's just us, guys." He grinned suddenly and reached into his trove of junk-food treasures. "Got something for you, GIR!" GIR leapt free of his master and giddily romped over to the boy and setting him with huge hyper eyes of greediness. "PIXERSTIX!" GIR shrieked, stuffing a handful of the offered candy straws into his mouth whole.
Zim glared over at Dib from the chair he had claimed across from the sugary melee. He threw the boy and the bot a disparaging glare before turning towards Gaz and demanding that she wake up and put a stop to their nonsense. Dib climbed into his own chair on the other side of Gaz's bed and continued feeding the robot a few of his choice treats. It wouldn't be a total loss if he could get GIR hyper enough to sing 'The Song that Never Ends' all the way home again tonight, he thought with a snicker.
That was when he felt it. Not a piercing glare of icy doom, instead it was a very, very hard punch to his left arm that knocked him out of his hard uncomfortable chair and sent him sprawling to the floor. He pulled himself upright, fixed his glasses from where they had been knocked askew, and was rewarded by the sight of Gaz sitting up in her bed and glaring at him slightly. She huffed in indignation and pointed to his now-throbbing arm. "That," she announced authoritatively, "is for being right. Again," she added after a thoughtful pause. It wasn't her usual expression of sulky anger, though. Gaz's face seemed a little more open and.. almost amused. There was something in her eyes now that was laughing quietly at some private joke only she and perhaps the world itself were having between themselves.
"Uh.. again?" her brother asked blankly. Gaz jerked her thumb over her shoulder at Zim, who was regarding her with wide-eyed superior confusion, and crossed her arms. "It really MUST be an infinite universe, you've been right about two things so far." she mused. Dib watched her warily, unsure whether to shake her and demand to know what she was talking about, or just hug her breathless for waking up again. She surprised him by making the decision for him, reaching over and throwing her arms around him as if she'd never see him again.
Zim eased down out of his seat and wandered over to the hospital window. The Gaz was awake and Dib's family was once again whole, but would never be quite the way it was before. The world outside seemed different, too. The air tasted a little less stagnant and seemed to require just a little less processing by his pak before it was deigned "safe". The sunshine felt a little less unkind, and the colors around him were a little more indiscribably brighter and less grungy. Was it really just his imagination? Or had Gaz done.. something? But what could make the very aura of the planet feel healthier, friendlier, and more 'alive'?
Zim turned to watch GIR cover the two siblings in gooey saliva-coated kisses. He could remember some upstart would-be invader bragging to him that she "fit in perfectly". She had been wrong, though. And for that matter, so had he. It was GIR who fit in perfectly here, for reasons that he couldn't hope to begin to understand yet. The happy reunion playing out before him took another energetic upswing as Professor Membrane's increasingly familiar face came through the door to the room. The irken was transfixed as he observed the man leap for his two children and without regard to their sticky state or his own recently recovered health, grab them into a fierce embrace. GIR was accidentally seized into the hug, but was not cast aside.
In all his considerable years, Zim had never felt like more of an outsider as he watched them all celebrate their reunion. Suddenly, he became aware of someone calling him. He looked up. They were all watching him, expectantly. Dib grinned and held a hand out. "Truce?" he offered, not bothering to conceal the broad smile and remaining tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. Zim looked back and forth between the proffered hand and their faces, feeling a sense of strange wonder and fear. What exactly were these creatures who called themselves humans? How could they even consider to make such an offer to him? He was their enemy, for crying out loud!
Gaz watched calmly as Zim stared at her brother's hand. The irken finally reached to accept it, announcing that he was deigning to "study" the human race. She smirked openly at her brother and his new best friend. Things would be different now, but still very much the same. And for the first time in her life, she was looking forward to the future that she could see stretching out in front of them all.
After all, now she really did have a family. They all did.
-----
A/Note: I hope that wasn't too disappointingly gooey. ^^; Now comes my explanation for this whole thing. (And yes, the Gaia thing WAS partially inspired by 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within'.
The whole point of the story was 1. To try and explain Gaz's *bizarre* powers and abilities in some way that would not quite manage to make sense and 2. To make a few characters come to terms with how they related with each other. Especially Gaz and Professor Membrane. His position as the "faceless man of REAL SCIENCE!" always bothered me. I wanted to make a "REAL DAD!" out of him, heh heh.. Of course, that required him realising how much of him was just 'image' and then shedding that image.
Each of the characters is put through a transformation of sorts. Professor Membrane finally becomes a real father for his kids, or at least is motivated to begin trying in earnest. Gaz's changes are sweeping but subtle. The most important one is that she finally discovers she really CAN be a little girl if she just gets rid of her anger and reaches out to her family. She also 'bonds' a bit with the spirit of the Earth itself, which seems to have inflicted some changes on the Earth as well. Zim becomes less interested in destroying the planet and moreso in studying humanity's positive aspects. Dib sheds a little of his paranormalist extraordinare aspect in favor of becoming a member of his own neglected family. GIR becomes a citizen of the Earth. ^^
Thank you to all of you who read, and especially the ones who've reviewed. And BIG, BIG thanks if you actually hung around long enough to see the ending of yet another long, long, inexcusably long in the making story. I appreciate it! ^^!