I'm not gonna put up the warning or disclaimer thingie anymore. You all know it by now, right?

_-Hello-_


As they walked back to the base, Zim glanced at Dib.

"I take it you were more like your mother than your father?"

Dib nodded, smiling fondly at the memories.

"Yeah. Dad's always been rooted in the 'real world', but my mom was always a total dreamer. She believed in everything from dragons to aliens to the lochness monster. She'd paint them, too. Dad got rid of all of her works when she died, but I have a few pictures I took of them. In fact, one alien of hers looks kinds like you, same eyes."

Dib's smile grew, remembering that not only had she painted that particular one just before he'd been born. It was to be for him, and it had been the start of his obsession with aliens.

When they arrived at the base, Zim went to check on one of his experiments while Dib put his stuff in his room.

Dib was still going through his photo album when Zim came in.

"So, how are the exploding chickens going?"

Zim gave a miserable sigh and sat next to Dib on the floor.

"One detonated prematurely and set all the others off."

Dib had to suppress a small chuckle.

"That's too bad. Here, I want to show you the painting I was talking about."

Zim looked at the picture of the painting. It was of a long-limbed, thin, elegant green-skinned alien with round amethyst eyes, wearing a gauzy purple dress-like-thingie, that looked like it was floating around the alien.

"You mother certainly liked the color purple."

Dib grinned, rolling his eyes.

"Most definitely. She dyed Gaz's hair purple as soon as she was old enough that it wouldn't poison her. It was permanent, and she'd make this big thing out of coloring any hair that had grown on the night of Gaz's birthday. Gaz kept it up after mom died, it was how she remembered her."

"How do you remember her?"

Dib almost laughed, then pointed at Zim.

"Proving that things like you exist. It was mom's goal in life, and now it's mine."

"Do you have any other pictures of her work?"

Dib grinned a little and began pointing out all of her paintings. Elves, dragons, aliens, fairies, gnomes, goblins, fae, unicorns, pegasus, basilisks, mermaids, bigfoot, lochness, mothman (one of Dib's personal favorites), and beings of her own creation.

"Is this all you have of your mother's?"

Dib gave Zim a strange look.

"Why are you so interested?"

Zim shrugged, looking back at the pictures.

"I never had a mother. It's an interesting concept."

"Well, I do have an old diary of hers that I haven't looked through yet."

Dib began looking through his bag to find it. Just when he'd pulled it out, an alarm sounded.

"Computer! What is it?!"

"Dib's father is at the door."

Dib, who was very confused, went up to the ground floor, Zim not far behind.

~~~~~

"Dad, what are you doing here?" I thought you were at work."

"Am I not allowed to spend time with my insane son?"

"You never wanted to before. Why the change?"

"You're the only family I have left. I want to spend time with you before you disappear like everyone else."

Dib's eyes narrowed.

"If you want pity, you're looking at the wrong person. They'd probably still be here if you'd spent more time with them. First mom, jumping the bridge out of loneliness, then Gaz, running out after you'd said you were too busy for our annual family night, and getting blown up in her car! I'm amazed I've lasted this long, you at least paid some attention to them!"

"That's not true! Penny's mind was unstable, I did the best I could to help her! And for all you know, Gaz could have been going to meet a friend!"

"Hah, right! How much I know?! I sure know a hell of a lot more than you! Mom was just fine before you let work take over your life! And Gaz depended on those family nights! It made her feel like she had a real, normal family, and she needed that!"

Zim, standing in the background, could see that Dib was crumbling and frowned. This was undoing all of his careful work to bring Dib back to normal. He quickly stepped between Dib and his father, pushing Dib back into the house before turning on the taller man.

"Go away. I've been trying to get Dib back to normal, and you're ruining it. I don't care if you killed the others yourself, just stay away from Dib. You'll only make him worse."

Before Prof. Membrane could protest, the lawn gnomes had dragged him off the property.

When the professor was gone, Zim went back inside. He immediately looked around to see if Dib was still on the ground floor, which he wasn't.

"Computer! Locate Dib."

"He's in his room."

Zim quickly made his way down to Dib's room. When he opened the door he could see most of the contents of Dib's bag strewn across the floor, while Dib was curled up bed, his back to the door, shoulders shaking. Zim walked over to the distraught boy, resting his hand on Dib's shoulder. The boy looked up at him and he could see that Dib was clutching a stuffed alien that looked alot like the one in the painting, except it was wearing what appeared to be an outdated training suit.

"Where did you get that doll?"

"Mom made it for me. Why?"

"Computer, display image of Tallest Purple when he was in the academy."

Dib, shocked, looked from the picture to the ragged old doll he'd had since he was 2, and back again.

"Shit...They look exactly the same."

"Dib, would your mother's diary have any information about this?"

"Maybe. I'll get it."

As Dib retrieved the diary, a thought struck Zim.

"Dib, are you...alright? You were crying just a moment ago."

"I always fell better when I'm working on something. Don't worry about it. Here's the diary."

"Well, read it."

Dib carefully opened the old diary to the first page.

~~~~~~~~~

July 19

My 16 birthday. I got this stupid diary from grandma, might as well use it. I still think Uncle Frank is a Werewolf, but there's a slight chance he's a Yeti. Maybe he's a hybrid, he definitely becomes hairier near the full moon, but he's pretty hairy anyway. And Cousin Petunia is definitely a changeling.....

~~~~

"Too early, Dib. Skip ahead a bit."

"Okay."

~~~~~~~~~

April 20

Membrane proposed today! I can't believe I still use this old diary, but it's grown on me a bit. I told Pur about it. Poor guy's been so stressed, planning this huge thing that he won't even tell me about. Red hasn't been helping, what with his love of lasers and.....

~~~~

"Wait, go back!"

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

~~~~~~~~~~

August 5

I finally have proof! Aliens do exist! I don't think I'll prove the existence of these particular aliens, though. I'd hate to see them dissected. Here, I'll explain the whole thing, in case I forget later on.

I was taking one of my 2 am walks through the park again, still trying to get over my 18th birthday party. Remember, Cousin Jack tried making a fireball with a lighter and a can of hairspray, and it blew up? The burns on my arm still sting a bit, and the house still smells funny. Anyway, I was walking around the football field when there was a bright light and something crashed in the middle of the field. I hid as best I could and watched as two tall, skinny creatures got out and began yelling at each other. After a moment I realized that they were yelling in english, though it was strangely accented, and they used some phrases I didn't know. I listened, trying to figure out what they were saying.

The one with the glowing purple eyes was yelling at the other about a stupid road trip to the middle of nowhere, and heading to the first sparkly planet he saw. The other one, who had red eyes, yelled back something about not checking the fuel tanks and getting them stranded. After a few more minutes of this I decided that they weren't dangerous, and began taking pictures.

They noticed the flash right away and grabbed me. It wasn't until the red one picked me up by the back of my shirt that I realized that they had to be over seven feet tall. The red one poked at me.

"What is it?"

The purple one sighed and set me back on the ground. It looked at me impatiently.

"Well? What do you want?"

I panicked, I didn't want to offend my first contact.

"Well, I was just curious...I've always been interested in alien life forms."

"So you haven't interacted with other-worldly beings before?"

"Well, not many people even think you exist...."

"Then you wouldn't have the kind of fuel we need...Great., and we had that important meeting coming up. Red, I can't believe you talked me into this!"

I thought for a moment, before asking what the composition of the fuel was. The purple one told me, and I nearly grinned. It sounded almost exactly like a formula Membrane had been tinkering with. I told them that I could supply them with at least a small amount, which surprised them, but they agreed. The purple one and I began talking (his name really is purple) and while he thought me childish, he said that if my line of thinking were to spread worldwide, it could lead to interplanetary travel within a few decades.

Red, meanwhile, had been investigating the planet. He'd said something to Purple, who'd just gave an irritated sigh and told him that this planet was way too far to be of any use.

Purple ended up staying with me (parents out of town, remember?") while Red guarded the ship, which had been transformed to look like a house. Purple later told me that they could have just shrunk the ship, or both stayed with it, but he was sick of Red at the moment.

~~~~

"Zim, do you know who Red and Purple are?"

"They are the leaders of my planet."

"And my mom had one stay over at her house?"

"Apparently."

"Wow....and I thought my life was weird."

"Skip ahead a bit, I just want to hear a little more."

~~~~~~~~

September 29

The ship's finally repaired, they're leaving tomorrow. I'm gonna miss them. Yes, even Red. Purple's been working on writing in english. It interested him that our languages were spoken so similarly, yet had such different ways of being written. He's going to try writing something in here.

Helo. Ive had an interesting taim on Urth. I wil mis it, but I hav to go bak home, my peepul need a leedur. I wil keep in kontakt with Penny. I wish U luk, goodbai.

Well, he's got some work to do, but not bad. He's going to give me a device I can use to talk to him, but he's erasing the coordinates to this planet. He won't tell me why though. Well, I'm helping them get ready, they need me to cram all the snacks they're taking back with them into their ship. Aliens with sweet tooths, who'd have guessed?

~~~~

Dib sat, staring at the diary. Zim however, began to walk away.

"Where are you going, Zim?"

"I'm going to contact the Tallests."

"I'm coming too."

"No."

"Yes. They knew my mom."

Zim nodded and kept walking.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~


And there's the third chapter! Please don't complain about the whole Dib's-mom-knew-the-tallests thing, It's just a scenic route to the happy ending. Well, please review!