A/N- I should mention that I'm an Australian, so occassionally in my story I will use Australian spelling (Mum instead of mom, colour instead of color etc) and sometimes things that it seems you americans don't really say that often (Jumper instead of Sweater, Just Primary school and High school instead of all that Elementary, junior high and high school stuff) I apologise in advance for this. Also, my Beta reading clientele is a little low, so I'd just like to say if there's anyone out there in desperate need of a Beta reader that actually does her job, you can contact me at unravelled_stitching@hotmail.com, or ask in a review, with an email I can contact you with. Thankyou.
DISCLAIMER- Gaz, Zim, Dib and Professor Membrane don't belong to me. I'm not making any money from this fic, so sueing me would be a completely pointless act of pointlessness. That, and I have money no money to begin with.
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BREAKING POINT 06
Chapter 1- There's so many things I cannot grasp.
The wind whispered and moaned, bitterly cold, throughout the city's centre. It playfully touselled in the inhabitants' hair, clawing violently at their newspapers and tugging profusively at their clothing. They shivered beneath its child-like curiosity, clutching their thin coats tightly to their frames and jamming their hats firmer to their heads as though not to lose them to the winds cruel fingers, openly cursing the bitter bout of weather they were experiencing.
There seemed to be but one person in the entire city savouring the chilling winter wind rather than condemning it. The girl sat atop a towering and rather thick brick wall overlooking the main street to and from the city centre. It was a spot she had found so long ago, her sacred spot far above the reaches of civilisation, high enough to observe yet not be observed. She, just as she did at every interval she'd inhabited the place, watched as the world unfurled beneath her, unmoving in her hypnotic and oddly patronising stare. Her booted feet crossed neatly at the knees and her hands, clutching a small, crumpled slice of paper tightly in their grasp were thrust into her lap, begging for the warmth and comfort the harsh weather would not permit.
She turned her head downward to the crumpled paper in her ice-cold hands, as if facing a strong and lifelong mortal enemy. She unfolded it with the utmost care, only to find, to her remorse, that the neat typing job was still conspicuously present, as if mocking her. That the message was still exactly the same. She raised her downcast eyeline to the city once more, blinking profusively against the bitter, icy wind. She was sure it was all a mistake; a big mistake at that. It had to be. For the one time that she would ever admit in her short life, she hadn't deserved the punishment that she'd recieved for her actions. The ultimate punishment one could ever recieve from a learning establishment, at least.
She, Gaz Membrane, halfway through completing her Year Twelve exams, had been expelled. And this time it was permanent.
She closed her eyes in deafeat, sighing so slightly, so inaudibly, one might have thought she'd made no sound at all. Her teacher had always told her she had no use attending school, that she had learned and achieved absolutely nothing since she was eight years old and completing seemingly endless strings of complicated Year Twelve algebra in her sparse free time. Her teacher had always said that still attending school was a waste of her breath and Gaz's precious time. She was too advanced to be attending school. She should have been onto higher, more challenging things, putting her rare talent to good use in the world.
Gaz had known well enough that this was a perfectly true statement from the moment it was spoken, yet she had still stayed in school for the many long years that had followed. What was she possibly going to achieve out of school, anyway? Where was she supposed to go and what was expected of her there? It had all snuck up on her so very silently, so very sneakily that she'd barely seen it occuring at all. She hadn't been ready for University, not mentally anyway, and a job had seemed like something only old and boring people were intended to own at the time it was thought of. No, she had been scared of what would happen to her. She had stayed in school for fear of change.
But now she was being forced into that change she should have been slowly eased into all of those years ago. Only this time there was no easing, no literal meaning for the words 'slow' and 'calm' in her mental vocabulary. No, her dive into the deep end of change would be short and painstakingly simple, like being crammed into a small and claustrophobic box, the lid locked tightly behind her. It seemed to her, with bitter regret, that every the change in her life had been sprung on her at once, without pause and without any sense of mercy.
Gaz sighed bitterly, standing from her seated position. The note between her icy hands crunched in the vice-like grip it was subjected to. The wind pulled and tugged at her clothing, causing the fabric to flicker and dance. With a desperate, albeit weak and thready anger, the note was torn ravagingly piece by piece, word by word, letter by letter until the neat typing job was completely incomprehensible, a hopeless attempt at a jigsaw that would never be completed. And then it was thrown to the wind as a sacrifice, whose icy fangs chewed them up whole and carried them away, far away from her and far away from anyone who cared.
"So much for progress..." she muttered to the retreating pieces, waving a hand vaguelly as they fluttered away.
She stood complacently in the minutes that passed, observantly watching as the pieces came to rest in the gutters, rain-puddles, sidewalks and drains. Yet one lone piece flew up, away from the busy footpath and landed on a low-sitting windowsill of the high-rise building that stood boldly on the land strip opposite her. Gaz watched as the tiny piece came to rest. The blinds of that particular window were closed tight, though as she took in the building with eyes sharp for detail she found it no surprise; every blind of every window was drawn just as tightly.
Gaz had sometimes allowed her mind to wander as a retreat from her problems, and on this particular day it wandered while wondering precisely what it was they were doing in the depths of the place opposite her. It was set under security so severe and strict that she didn't think anyone had been able to find out albeit the people that worked there themselves. There had been no construction period, no large and colourful signs indicating something had been 'coming soon'. No, the monstrosity had just seemingly... appeared. Appeared overnight, and Gaz could not make head nor tails of it
Sighing for the thousandth time that day, she slid from her watchful perch with a cat-like agility to head home. That building, just like many things in her life at that time, was a mystery, impenetrable and unmissable and she didn't intend to figure out the secrets or reasons behind it just yet.
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Dib sighed dejectedly beneath his breath, staring from the window that stood so boldly before him. In reality, he had no choice in the matter of where he was to look; he had been tied to the exact place for a period of time he had long lost count of. He supposed he might have enjoyed staring out of the window to a certain extent; had he been able to see anything at all. He slid his lower body carefully in the chair he was bound to, tapping his foot lightly against the ground beneath him. A sharp cracking of broken glass sounded harshy beneath his boot. Yes, his glasses were still long gone. He supposed Zim had broken them when they'd first brought him in. He was most certain he had been unconscious at the time, so it would have been strikingly easy for the Invader to accomplish this regardless. A boy that could not see was a boy with no defenses. How could he escape the chains that restrained him so tightly when he could seldom see them at all?
He knew why he was there, though; he didn't need his glasses to see that. There was only one person he knew that honestly wanted him dead and gone. Only one person, and that was Zim. Zim had done this to him, and Zim intended for him to be dead by the time he was through.
The only trouble was escaping from the tight mess he'd been caught in. In the past, many of Zim's intricate plans had proved strikingly easy to slip through the cracks from. His massive ego seemed to block his vision regularly, allowing him to rake over simple mistakes as if they were not there at all. Yet this time, Zim had almost dumbed himself down to an extent, become primitive in his technological acts. He had his full vision this time. No impairments, no ailments. This time Dib could not escape.
"Well done Zim, so you've finally got me. You proud, asshole?" he murmered sardonically into the harsh and unbroken silence, attempting for the fiftieth time in that day alone to shrug his way from the chains. It was the fiftieth time that day his resistance proved futile.
"If you must know human, yes. Yes I am." Dib ceased his actions immediately, his back arched, the corner of his unseeing eye twitching lightly. There was someone else in the room with him? Had there been after all that time? and it wasn't exactly a secret of who that voice belonged to...
"Oh, so now you decide to show up," Dib muttered, voice dripping sarcasm, barely loud enough for the Invader to hear and not daring to stray a decibel higher. A slight shuffle filled his ears and a tiny chuckle escaped the Irken's mouth, much closer to his face than was humanly comfortable.
"Well, you do know I enjoy watching your feeble attempts to escape me so much." Dib didn't need to clearly see the Irken's face to tell that, as he spoke the words, he was smiling. Had Zim been watching him the entire time? Is that what he was implying? The corner of Dib's eye twitched lightly once more. Another shuffle, and Zim's immensely blurred outline stood before him, stark and gaunt.
"Tell me, Dib-Human. Why are you here?" Zim's voice was much louder, much more forceful now, so much closer to his face than it had previously been. Dib scoffed sarcastically at the pointless question, his eyebrows raised immensely on his face.
"You tell me. I didn't ask to be here, you know," Dib muttered, his voice full and high with incompetence. A hard, sharp blow to the face from Zim's gloved hand sunk him back down to earth with a harsh reality. He bit his tongue, cheek stinging severely from the blow and the sluggish, dirty feel of seeping blood inside his mouth was felt.
"Of course you did, Human! You've asked to be here at every second I've ever known you! Everything you did to destroy me, all the times you infiltrated and undermined me, everytime you embarrassed and humiliated me you've asked to be here, in this situation, Dib. So don't you dare tell me you didn't ask to be where you are right now." Zim's voice, laced with sharp, honest tones of menace, shot at him with the venom of a viper. His words were sharp and course, with glimmers of truth shining though in every syllable.
"Well it doesn't really matter, Zim," Dib protested haughtily after a faultered pause, "because even if you kill me, people are eventually gonna see you for what you really-"
"Shut up! You just can't accept they're never going to believe you. Ever! No-ones ever believed your eccentric tales and I'm willing to bet my very Squeedily-Spooch that no-one ever will," Zim cooed in a menacing, sing-song tone. "What makes you think your people are suddenly, after all this time, going to think 'hey, I think Dib was right, Zim really is an alien, lets attack him with spearguns and whatnot.'?" Zim cried, losing the velvety softness of his voice and switching immediately to the coarseness of sandpaper, his face so close to Dib's face their skin just barely touched; moss green contrasted to a pale ivory. "You're here because of your mistakes, Dib. Accept your fate and stop your pathetic dreaming," a pause. "Wake up, this is reality."
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The door creaked open, as if reluctant and cold, in Gaz's icy fingers. A small, stray shiver crept its way down her spine as she stepped inside, swinging the door closed to the bitter wind that had followed her, teased her, on the long walk home.
The house, as she entered, was in silence so complete, so absolute, that she dared not disturb its presence. The television didn't make a sound. She lowered her gaze to her her watch. The television didn't make a sound even though Mysterious Mysteries, the sole show Dib had never, ever missed an episode of had started fifteen minutes ago. The radio was shut tight, the hot water pipes weren't being put to any use... The only hint of even a slight sound was her steady, even breaths and the dull, mechanical hum of the refrigerator eminating from the kitchen. She knew immediately that, once more, she'd come home to an empty house.
She sighed, defeated, and sat to remove her muddy and weather-worn boots.
Gaz, in all truths, hadn't particularly expected anyone home to greet her that day. There hadn't been for at least a week now and she had yet to find the true reason she was even bothering to check anymore. She knew very well that her father wouldn't have been home, no matter what day it was. No, he had been in the Hospital for years now, she severely doubted she'd ever see him out of the creaky white-linened bed at all, let alone up and about at home. No, he wouldn't be home. He'd be in hospital at that very second, in and out of surgery, in and out of death, and ultimately, in and out of luck.
She supposed he really had been very lucky in a way. The explosion that administered him to that hospital bed for four and a half years and counting had killed thirty three others, the bulk of them having not even been in the building, let alone the room the explosion happened in like her father had. But, in turn, he had been severely burdened as well. Seventy-eight percent of his body had been burned to a crisp in the time frame of an instant. In the four and a half seconds it took for the searing flames to penetrate deep into his skin, bone and flesh, four and a half years of surgeries, life support and pain had followed. Four and a half years of constant, neverending care, constant watching, constant unconsciousness. He was alive, barely, yet he was so very dead; dead inside. She'd been ready to let him go a long time ago, Dib too. Seeing their father in that condition, in that state had long proved too much pressure to their young minds. Yet the hospital flatly and instantly refused. They refused to take him off the life support that was guarding his fragile, paper-thin life. They refused to, like his own children had already accomplished, let him go.
Was it because he was the great Professor Membrane? Was it because they didn't want to lose a mind like his? She failed to know, but she did know that his mind was already long gone. She'd begged them to reconsider their rushed and biased opinion, Dib had too. He couldn't live the rest of his life the way he was; they couldn't live the rest of their lives seeing him the way he was. The hospital staff had always thought this, of course, was completely and utterly ludicrus. Two children begging for their own father to be let die, it was uncalled for! So they'd always told them to give it one more day. And the machine would wheeze away, feeding him that lifegiving oxygen to make it through just one more day..... one more day. And the days turned to weeks, months, years.... and yet her father still had no peace.
She pitied him.
No, she wasn't expecting him home anytime soon, if not at all. It was Dib that had raised the suspicion alarm inside her paranoid head. She placed her muddy boots neatly side-by-side against the wall, making for her scarf and coat with freezing, paled hands. A week and Dib had was nowhere to be found. The first few days she hadn't particularly worried. He'd attempted the 'stakeout' thing on many occassions before and, ultimately, it hadn't lasted any longer than two days. She expected him home within a day; cold, wet and begging for her to whip him up a batch of piping hot 2 minute noodles to soothe his doused spirits. The third day, after no cold, no wet and no begging for noodles, she'd stayed up the entire night to await his imminent return, covered in mud and leaves, begging to be left alone from her acid tongue after yet another miserable information-gathering failure. He hadn't. She'd stayed home from school the next day to see if maybe, just maybe he'd come home for food while she was away. Dib ate like a horse; she knew he couldn't go without food for four minutes, let alone four days. But he hadn't come home. And every day after that, she had come home and slept in a house that was utterly empty.
"You left me?" It had always been a small consideration in the back of her mind, chewing away at her conscience like a rabid wolf. The tiny consideration that maybe he had simply up and left, sick to death of his situation, sick to death of her. Had she scared him away? He was her legal guardian, after all, the social workers had said so themselves. She was entirely his responsibility. He was in charge of her wellbeing, her schooling, making sure she had enough food and being sure she wasn't getting into any trouble. He had been since he'd turned eighteen. Before that, it had been the social workers. The awful social workers. She shuddered visibly, she was glad that experience was well behind her.
She supposed, though, that it was only a matter of time before she was to endure another routine check-up from them, and it was only a matter of time before they became rather suspicious of Dib's conspicuous absensy. That would be the very end of her. Back in their care. Away with strangers she barely knew and knew sparse to nothing about her. She shuddered visibly at the more thought, the awkward chill returning and dancing down her spine. She shook it away, placing her coat neatly on the hook beside the door and stepping lightly, as if not to disturb the awesome silence, fully into the house. She hoped to god he hadn't left her...
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"But why? You're always saying how stupid and useless we are, so why use us for your work? Why not get some of your own people to do your dirty work for you?" Dib cried insanely. His internal pact with himself to talk cold and emotionlessly to Zim had long since failed miserably. He had known people had been going missing across the city in small, uneven pockets that he was unable to distinguish the reason to. It was all very hushed and not easily noticed to the untrained eye, but he'd managed to see through its innocent façade. Yet he hadn't truly known the full extent of the kidnappings until Zim had explained it in-depth. He hadn't understood that there were so many people held against their will in that dreadful place, somewhere in its deep and unfathomable depths, working against their own kind by means of brute force and cold blackmailing.
"It's simple really, even you could understand. I need free work. They don't want their families and loved ones stabbed through the head," Zim laughed. "Besides, they only do the meaningless equipment handling. Moving things and the whatnot. And when they're done, they simply cease to have ever existed at all on this puny planet. After all, there's no point keeping broken toys, is there?" Zim said in an almost bubbly, jovial happiness, tugging deeply at Dib's tolerance. He could hear his sworn enemy slowly pacing back and fowarth before him, his boots tapping lightly against the cold ground with every step.
"But enough about me, Dib, back down to the business at hand," his voice toned down a little, losing the childlike happiness and maintaning a more composed, complacent tinge to it. "Let's play a little game, shall we? I'll ask the questions. You answer them truthfully, five minutes will be added to your life. You lie or refuse to answer, I will hurt you severely." Dib glared at the Irken he could not fully see.
"And if I refuse?" He replied darkly, noticing with remorse that his voice broke slightly in the centre of his words. The Irken merely laughed.
"I'll ram a knife through your throat," Zim laughed, clearly humored, "Is that incentive enough for you, or would you like me to reconsider with a little more... how do you say... cynisicm?" Dib was forced to silence, unable to fabricate anything worthwhile to reply with. Deafeated, almost, as his open mouth, preparing to attack, reluctantly closed once more. Zim merely grinned, rubbing his chin triumphantly with a gloved hand. Silently, as though not to alarm Dib in any way, he slid the knife on his belt from its sheath. He severely doubted Dib would attempt refusal this time. Not with what was so preciously at stake.
"Now, how about a nice, easy one to start with," Zim muttered thoughtfully, taking a step closer to his prey. Dib's eyes cast downward, the chains at his hands clanked noisily as he shrugged to attempt to loosen them. His resistance was futile once more. "Gaz. Is she your real sister? A sister by blood? Fully?" the Irken questioned, sliding his gloved finger along the blade of his knife in a preoccupied, thoughtful manner. Dib instantly squirmed at the mention of his sibling.
"What? No, you leave her out of this! This is our fight, Zim! I won't answer any-" he cried in pure and untainted rebellion, his blurred eyes furiously searching the jagged, distorted lines that composed of his enemy.
"Save your noise, human! I didn't want it to come to this, Dib, but you made me, "Zim muttered, his voice as sharp as the knife he held tightly in his hands. "If you dare to defy me, she will die for your mistakes. I know where she is. I say the word and in an instant seven of my cohorts with rather intimidating guns will be slinging her dead body to the flagpole outside. Understand?" Dib hesitated, choked slightly on his words, unsure of the right way to respond. Should he answer? it wasn't that hard of a question. Did he honestly want to risk Gaz's life in a fight that was not rightfully hers in the first place? After all they'd been through over the last few years, after all the courage and acceptence of him he'd built up to her, the last he wanted to do was get her killed on his personal account....
After what seemed like a lifetime Dib sighed, fully defeated, and gave in weakly to Zim's harsh and vulgar words.
"No. Not really. Not fully..." he sighed. Zim smiled. Zim had always found from conclusive study that Dib owned a recessive, aching weakness inside of him. A weakness in the pure and untainted love for his family. Being an artifically inseminated life form, Zim had never really understood or grasped the concept of the bond between humans and their families. Dib seemed to be willing to do anything with the mere mention of their names. A mere tweak or shove to his sensitive spot and he had him instantly giving in. Zim had found that weak spot, and he intended to harrass it repetitively until there was no more to give. Then, Dib would die.
"Interesting. So it really is true, what I hear," Zim muttered thoughtfully, his voice trailing to nothing. "What's her IQ, Dib?"
"Now why the hell would you need to know that!? You're going too fa-"
"You know, your sister doesn't speak that much. It might be a pleasant change to hear her scream." Even without his glasses, Dib could make out the cold, smiling glint in both the Irken's eyes and the gleaming metal in his hands. He was helpless, unable to fight and with nowhere else to turn, having been harrassed mentally by Zim's manipulative fingers. He groaned inaudibly, fully realising the extent to which he was caught in the web. Why did he have to care about that bitch so much?
"Two hundred and fifty two," he muttered between rattling breaths, lowering his eyeline immensely and sighing much heavier than he'd accomplished before, cursing the tight chains; cursing Gaz. Zim paused slightly.
"What?" he replied, faultering lightly on his breath.
"You heard me, asshole," Dib breathed vehemiously. His anger that had been slowly simmering inside had grown immensely over the minutes that had passed, and he ached in every appendage of his body to be rid of the chains and showing the green-skinned moron what he was really made of. Zim, meanwhile, had obliviously conducted several mental calculations and had, with little difficulty, translated the human IQ measurement into the Irken equivalent. He was astounded. Truly astounded. He had heard a lot about this particular girl, both from word of mouth and several newspaper and magazine clippings. Many things; humiliating, flattering and plain ugly. She was the gossip on many a humans' lip. There were countless against her, priests and politicians desperate for votes for what she was, how she had come to be. Yet there were an equal, if not greater amount behind her, considering her a masterpiece, a hero of technology. Though everything he had heard had never informed him that she was this smart. Incredibly, unbelievingly smart. Smarter than he and, he was sure, smarter than anyone else in the human race.
"Fascinating... She certainly is smarter than you'll ever be," Zim laughed, relishing silently in the coarse glare Dib had blindly subjected him to. "You can relax, Dib, I'm tired of the questioning now. You're here for a reason, and it's time to fullfill it."
"You can forget it, Zim. I'm not doing anything for you." His voice, bitter and icy yet retaining an unnerving calm to it cut through Zim's body like a knife. "Why don't you just kill me now and get it over with. You'll get nothing else out of me."
"Well that would be quite an unfortunate situation then, wouldn't it?" Zim mused lightly, placing a thoughtful hand to his chin, his mouth a small, smirking line. "I've read up on the whole 'orphan' ordeal and it seems, to my studies, that you are old enough to be an independant member of society," he took a step toward the window, peeling back the thick charcoal blinds and peering down to the tiny city lights beneath him. "Gaz, on the other hand, can not at only sixteen. It is my estimation that you've become her guardian, yes?" The small, reluctant squirm of his lifelong enemy from beneath the mass of chains was all he needed as a reply. "If you weren't to fullfill your duties, and you were to be accidently... uh... incapacitated, that gives little Gaz a one-way ticket to Orphanland, no exchange, no refunds."
"She won't care," Dib's voice, faultering slightly beneath its own weight, piped in sharp defiance, his pointed and unfocused gaze slowly lowering itself to the floor. Zim merely laughed.
"Oh, she will, Dib. She can barely function in the world without being pulled out of the schedule that seems to be the proverbial stitches holding her in place. You comply, she will be kept safe, and I give you my word as an Invader to this," he held his right hand over his heart; patriotism was something the green-skinned menace took very seriously in his life. "If you fail to comply, instead of killing her, I'll watch her die inside her own level of hell." A sharp, aching glint had now filled his magenta eyes as he slowly took in the look of masked defeat on his assailants face. "Now, take it or leave it, but here's what I want you to do..."
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Gaz groaned as her empty, darkness-filled dreams slipped just beyond her reach of consciousness, muttering as she was jolted rather violently back to her human reality. She rubbed weirily at her lead-filled eyelids, scratching lightly at the crown of dishevelled hair atop her aching skull. For a few seconds after her rather rude and abrupt awakening, Gaz wasn't entirely sure what had been the source of the disturbance in the first place. It was then that the dull, blaring tone of the telephone, high-pitch and scraping to her sleep-sensitive ears sounded. She groaned openly, groping with unopened eyes for the cordless she was absolutely sure she'd left on the coffee table...
"Hello," her voice, disgruntled from lack of sleep groaned as the telephone finally connected with her searching fingers. A small, rather desperate voice replied.
"Gaz, it's me," her sensors pinpointed the user of the voice in less than a second. She was extremely unamused with his antics, though a small, heavy weight immediately lifted from her chest as she heard him speak.
"Dib," she muttered. "Obviously haven't gotten yourself killed yet, then?" She replied fully, her discourse as bitter and vehemious as she could gather from her vocal chords at the spur of the moment, differing greatly from the awesome sense of relief she was experiencing inside. There was a small, weak pause.
"Not yet..." was the tiny reply given. She made a small, disapproving tut, shifting her position to a more comfortable one.
"Well, what do you want?" she muttered, scratching again at her skull. There was a slight pause from the opposite end before a small, defeated sigh rung through her ears.
"I need you to... to meet me somewhere."
"Have you lost the keys to the car again? I'm running out of spares, you know..."
"No, it's nothing like that," he sighed a second time, his voice trailing. "Besides, the cars still in garage, right where I left it. Look, I just need you to meet me at Dad's, okay?" He sounded, to the girl, almost desperate, as if he were using every ounce of strength he had left in him to force out what he had to say. She raised an eyebrow inwardly, not daring to change her facial expressions in any way. It was unlike her brother to speak in this way. His voice was commonly stuffed full of confidence, so full at times the stuffing gave way to actual coherant speech, which resulted in him babbling about absolutely nothing in the time space of an hour.
"At Dad's? Dib, you know I hate that hospital-"
"I know you do," the impatient voice of her older brother replied, as if rushing the conversation through. "But I want you to meet me there, okay? At six. We'll... We'll go to Bloaty's after," he muttered, "my treat." She faultered slightly, more than ready to firmly plant her foot down with a resounding no, yet stopped. Her brother had never offered 'his treat' before. My and treat were two words that had never fit together properly in Dib's vocabulary. She supposed she might as well take advantage of whatever was going on inside his sickeningly large head, making him seem too pleasant and agreeable, if not slightly eccentric.
"Okay," she replied, "but I swear, Dib, if this isn't worth it, I-"
"Stop worrying," he cut her off sharply, the violence of his words astounding her. She'd never heard him talk that way before; so dark, so sharp, so dissmissing. She was slightly taken aback. "Six at Dad's. Don't forget."
"Don't you forget." She found her words return to reply with a snide remark. He laughed, yet the sound bared no sense of humour in its tones. It was empty; dead and empty. There was a slight, awkward pause. He was beginning to scare her. "I'm going, Dib."
"Wait a sec!" he cried loudly just as she turned to hang the phone neatly back in its cradle and resume her long welcomed nap. She rolled her eyes, placing the telephone back to her ear in annoyance.
"What is it?"
A pause. "Love you."
"Whatever." And with that, she broke the connection with a brute, heavy force, rolling to her side, sighing, and attemping to hone the sleep that had so abandonded her. Had she known at the time that that particular phone call, that brief phone call, would be the very last time she would ever hear her brother speak to her again, she may have intended to drag it on a little longer than she had....
Or perhaps, in the very least, returned his very last words of affection.
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A/N- Reviews motivate me. They make me work faster. Please, for the love of Zim, take the 1 minute of time to review this little piece of crap. That is all.
DISCLAIMER- Gaz, Zim, Dib and Professor Membrane don't belong to me. I'm not making any money from this fic, so sueing me would be a completely pointless act of pointlessness. That, and I have money no money to begin with.
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BREAKING POINT 06
Chapter 1- There's so many things I cannot grasp.
The wind whispered and moaned, bitterly cold, throughout the city's centre. It playfully touselled in the inhabitants' hair, clawing violently at their newspapers and tugging profusively at their clothing. They shivered beneath its child-like curiosity, clutching their thin coats tightly to their frames and jamming their hats firmer to their heads as though not to lose them to the winds cruel fingers, openly cursing the bitter bout of weather they were experiencing.
There seemed to be but one person in the entire city savouring the chilling winter wind rather than condemning it. The girl sat atop a towering and rather thick brick wall overlooking the main street to and from the city centre. It was a spot she had found so long ago, her sacred spot far above the reaches of civilisation, high enough to observe yet not be observed. She, just as she did at every interval she'd inhabited the place, watched as the world unfurled beneath her, unmoving in her hypnotic and oddly patronising stare. Her booted feet crossed neatly at the knees and her hands, clutching a small, crumpled slice of paper tightly in their grasp were thrust into her lap, begging for the warmth and comfort the harsh weather would not permit.
She turned her head downward to the crumpled paper in her ice-cold hands, as if facing a strong and lifelong mortal enemy. She unfolded it with the utmost care, only to find, to her remorse, that the neat typing job was still conspicuously present, as if mocking her. That the message was still exactly the same. She raised her downcast eyeline to the city once more, blinking profusively against the bitter, icy wind. She was sure it was all a mistake; a big mistake at that. It had to be. For the one time that she would ever admit in her short life, she hadn't deserved the punishment that she'd recieved for her actions. The ultimate punishment one could ever recieve from a learning establishment, at least.
She, Gaz Membrane, halfway through completing her Year Twelve exams, had been expelled. And this time it was permanent.
She closed her eyes in deafeat, sighing so slightly, so inaudibly, one might have thought she'd made no sound at all. Her teacher had always told her she had no use attending school, that she had learned and achieved absolutely nothing since she was eight years old and completing seemingly endless strings of complicated Year Twelve algebra in her sparse free time. Her teacher had always said that still attending school was a waste of her breath and Gaz's precious time. She was too advanced to be attending school. She should have been onto higher, more challenging things, putting her rare talent to good use in the world.
Gaz had known well enough that this was a perfectly true statement from the moment it was spoken, yet she had still stayed in school for the many long years that had followed. What was she possibly going to achieve out of school, anyway? Where was she supposed to go and what was expected of her there? It had all snuck up on her so very silently, so very sneakily that she'd barely seen it occuring at all. She hadn't been ready for University, not mentally anyway, and a job had seemed like something only old and boring people were intended to own at the time it was thought of. No, she had been scared of what would happen to her. She had stayed in school for fear of change.
But now she was being forced into that change she should have been slowly eased into all of those years ago. Only this time there was no easing, no literal meaning for the words 'slow' and 'calm' in her mental vocabulary. No, her dive into the deep end of change would be short and painstakingly simple, like being crammed into a small and claustrophobic box, the lid locked tightly behind her. It seemed to her, with bitter regret, that every the change in her life had been sprung on her at once, without pause and without any sense of mercy.
Gaz sighed bitterly, standing from her seated position. The note between her icy hands crunched in the vice-like grip it was subjected to. The wind pulled and tugged at her clothing, causing the fabric to flicker and dance. With a desperate, albeit weak and thready anger, the note was torn ravagingly piece by piece, word by word, letter by letter until the neat typing job was completely incomprehensible, a hopeless attempt at a jigsaw that would never be completed. And then it was thrown to the wind as a sacrifice, whose icy fangs chewed them up whole and carried them away, far away from her and far away from anyone who cared.
"So much for progress..." she muttered to the retreating pieces, waving a hand vaguelly as they fluttered away.
She stood complacently in the minutes that passed, observantly watching as the pieces came to rest in the gutters, rain-puddles, sidewalks and drains. Yet one lone piece flew up, away from the busy footpath and landed on a low-sitting windowsill of the high-rise building that stood boldly on the land strip opposite her. Gaz watched as the tiny piece came to rest. The blinds of that particular window were closed tight, though as she took in the building with eyes sharp for detail she found it no surprise; every blind of every window was drawn just as tightly.
Gaz had sometimes allowed her mind to wander as a retreat from her problems, and on this particular day it wandered while wondering precisely what it was they were doing in the depths of the place opposite her. It was set under security so severe and strict that she didn't think anyone had been able to find out albeit the people that worked there themselves. There had been no construction period, no large and colourful signs indicating something had been 'coming soon'. No, the monstrosity had just seemingly... appeared. Appeared overnight, and Gaz could not make head nor tails of it
Sighing for the thousandth time that day, she slid from her watchful perch with a cat-like agility to head home. That building, just like many things in her life at that time, was a mystery, impenetrable and unmissable and she didn't intend to figure out the secrets or reasons behind it just yet.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Dib sighed dejectedly beneath his breath, staring from the window that stood so boldly before him. In reality, he had no choice in the matter of where he was to look; he had been tied to the exact place for a period of time he had long lost count of. He supposed he might have enjoyed staring out of the window to a certain extent; had he been able to see anything at all. He slid his lower body carefully in the chair he was bound to, tapping his foot lightly against the ground beneath him. A sharp cracking of broken glass sounded harshy beneath his boot. Yes, his glasses were still long gone. He supposed Zim had broken them when they'd first brought him in. He was most certain he had been unconscious at the time, so it would have been strikingly easy for the Invader to accomplish this regardless. A boy that could not see was a boy with no defenses. How could he escape the chains that restrained him so tightly when he could seldom see them at all?
He knew why he was there, though; he didn't need his glasses to see that. There was only one person he knew that honestly wanted him dead and gone. Only one person, and that was Zim. Zim had done this to him, and Zim intended for him to be dead by the time he was through.
The only trouble was escaping from the tight mess he'd been caught in. In the past, many of Zim's intricate plans had proved strikingly easy to slip through the cracks from. His massive ego seemed to block his vision regularly, allowing him to rake over simple mistakes as if they were not there at all. Yet this time, Zim had almost dumbed himself down to an extent, become primitive in his technological acts. He had his full vision this time. No impairments, no ailments. This time Dib could not escape.
"Well done Zim, so you've finally got me. You proud, asshole?" he murmered sardonically into the harsh and unbroken silence, attempting for the fiftieth time in that day alone to shrug his way from the chains. It was the fiftieth time that day his resistance proved futile.
"If you must know human, yes. Yes I am." Dib ceased his actions immediately, his back arched, the corner of his unseeing eye twitching lightly. There was someone else in the room with him? Had there been after all that time? and it wasn't exactly a secret of who that voice belonged to...
"Oh, so now you decide to show up," Dib muttered, voice dripping sarcasm, barely loud enough for the Invader to hear and not daring to stray a decibel higher. A slight shuffle filled his ears and a tiny chuckle escaped the Irken's mouth, much closer to his face than was humanly comfortable.
"Well, you do know I enjoy watching your feeble attempts to escape me so much." Dib didn't need to clearly see the Irken's face to tell that, as he spoke the words, he was smiling. Had Zim been watching him the entire time? Is that what he was implying? The corner of Dib's eye twitched lightly once more. Another shuffle, and Zim's immensely blurred outline stood before him, stark and gaunt.
"Tell me, Dib-Human. Why are you here?" Zim's voice was much louder, much more forceful now, so much closer to his face than it had previously been. Dib scoffed sarcastically at the pointless question, his eyebrows raised immensely on his face.
"You tell me. I didn't ask to be here, you know," Dib muttered, his voice full and high with incompetence. A hard, sharp blow to the face from Zim's gloved hand sunk him back down to earth with a harsh reality. He bit his tongue, cheek stinging severely from the blow and the sluggish, dirty feel of seeping blood inside his mouth was felt.
"Of course you did, Human! You've asked to be here at every second I've ever known you! Everything you did to destroy me, all the times you infiltrated and undermined me, everytime you embarrassed and humiliated me you've asked to be here, in this situation, Dib. So don't you dare tell me you didn't ask to be where you are right now." Zim's voice, laced with sharp, honest tones of menace, shot at him with the venom of a viper. His words were sharp and course, with glimmers of truth shining though in every syllable.
"Well it doesn't really matter, Zim," Dib protested haughtily after a faultered pause, "because even if you kill me, people are eventually gonna see you for what you really-"
"Shut up! You just can't accept they're never going to believe you. Ever! No-ones ever believed your eccentric tales and I'm willing to bet my very Squeedily-Spooch that no-one ever will," Zim cooed in a menacing, sing-song tone. "What makes you think your people are suddenly, after all this time, going to think 'hey, I think Dib was right, Zim really is an alien, lets attack him with spearguns and whatnot.'?" Zim cried, losing the velvety softness of his voice and switching immediately to the coarseness of sandpaper, his face so close to Dib's face their skin just barely touched; moss green contrasted to a pale ivory. "You're here because of your mistakes, Dib. Accept your fate and stop your pathetic dreaming," a pause. "Wake up, this is reality."
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The door creaked open, as if reluctant and cold, in Gaz's icy fingers. A small, stray shiver crept its way down her spine as she stepped inside, swinging the door closed to the bitter wind that had followed her, teased her, on the long walk home.
The house, as she entered, was in silence so complete, so absolute, that she dared not disturb its presence. The television didn't make a sound. She lowered her gaze to her her watch. The television didn't make a sound even though Mysterious Mysteries, the sole show Dib had never, ever missed an episode of had started fifteen minutes ago. The radio was shut tight, the hot water pipes weren't being put to any use... The only hint of even a slight sound was her steady, even breaths and the dull, mechanical hum of the refrigerator eminating from the kitchen. She knew immediately that, once more, she'd come home to an empty house.
She sighed, defeated, and sat to remove her muddy and weather-worn boots.
Gaz, in all truths, hadn't particularly expected anyone home to greet her that day. There hadn't been for at least a week now and she had yet to find the true reason she was even bothering to check anymore. She knew very well that her father wouldn't have been home, no matter what day it was. No, he had been in the Hospital for years now, she severely doubted she'd ever see him out of the creaky white-linened bed at all, let alone up and about at home. No, he wouldn't be home. He'd be in hospital at that very second, in and out of surgery, in and out of death, and ultimately, in and out of luck.
She supposed he really had been very lucky in a way. The explosion that administered him to that hospital bed for four and a half years and counting had killed thirty three others, the bulk of them having not even been in the building, let alone the room the explosion happened in like her father had. But, in turn, he had been severely burdened as well. Seventy-eight percent of his body had been burned to a crisp in the time frame of an instant. In the four and a half seconds it took for the searing flames to penetrate deep into his skin, bone and flesh, four and a half years of surgeries, life support and pain had followed. Four and a half years of constant, neverending care, constant watching, constant unconsciousness. He was alive, barely, yet he was so very dead; dead inside. She'd been ready to let him go a long time ago, Dib too. Seeing their father in that condition, in that state had long proved too much pressure to their young minds. Yet the hospital flatly and instantly refused. They refused to take him off the life support that was guarding his fragile, paper-thin life. They refused to, like his own children had already accomplished, let him go.
Was it because he was the great Professor Membrane? Was it because they didn't want to lose a mind like his? She failed to know, but she did know that his mind was already long gone. She'd begged them to reconsider their rushed and biased opinion, Dib had too. He couldn't live the rest of his life the way he was; they couldn't live the rest of their lives seeing him the way he was. The hospital staff had always thought this, of course, was completely and utterly ludicrus. Two children begging for their own father to be let die, it was uncalled for! So they'd always told them to give it one more day. And the machine would wheeze away, feeding him that lifegiving oxygen to make it through just one more day..... one more day. And the days turned to weeks, months, years.... and yet her father still had no peace.
She pitied him.
No, she wasn't expecting him home anytime soon, if not at all. It was Dib that had raised the suspicion alarm inside her paranoid head. She placed her muddy boots neatly side-by-side against the wall, making for her scarf and coat with freezing, paled hands. A week and Dib had was nowhere to be found. The first few days she hadn't particularly worried. He'd attempted the 'stakeout' thing on many occassions before and, ultimately, it hadn't lasted any longer than two days. She expected him home within a day; cold, wet and begging for her to whip him up a batch of piping hot 2 minute noodles to soothe his doused spirits. The third day, after no cold, no wet and no begging for noodles, she'd stayed up the entire night to await his imminent return, covered in mud and leaves, begging to be left alone from her acid tongue after yet another miserable information-gathering failure. He hadn't. She'd stayed home from school the next day to see if maybe, just maybe he'd come home for food while she was away. Dib ate like a horse; she knew he couldn't go without food for four minutes, let alone four days. But he hadn't come home. And every day after that, she had come home and slept in a house that was utterly empty.
"You left me?" It had always been a small consideration in the back of her mind, chewing away at her conscience like a rabid wolf. The tiny consideration that maybe he had simply up and left, sick to death of his situation, sick to death of her. Had she scared him away? He was her legal guardian, after all, the social workers had said so themselves. She was entirely his responsibility. He was in charge of her wellbeing, her schooling, making sure she had enough food and being sure she wasn't getting into any trouble. He had been since he'd turned eighteen. Before that, it had been the social workers. The awful social workers. She shuddered visibly, she was glad that experience was well behind her.
She supposed, though, that it was only a matter of time before she was to endure another routine check-up from them, and it was only a matter of time before they became rather suspicious of Dib's conspicuous absensy. That would be the very end of her. Back in their care. Away with strangers she barely knew and knew sparse to nothing about her. She shuddered visibly at the more thought, the awkward chill returning and dancing down her spine. She shook it away, placing her coat neatly on the hook beside the door and stepping lightly, as if not to disturb the awesome silence, fully into the house. She hoped to god he hadn't left her...
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"But why? You're always saying how stupid and useless we are, so why use us for your work? Why not get some of your own people to do your dirty work for you?" Dib cried insanely. His internal pact with himself to talk cold and emotionlessly to Zim had long since failed miserably. He had known people had been going missing across the city in small, uneven pockets that he was unable to distinguish the reason to. It was all very hushed and not easily noticed to the untrained eye, but he'd managed to see through its innocent façade. Yet he hadn't truly known the full extent of the kidnappings until Zim had explained it in-depth. He hadn't understood that there were so many people held against their will in that dreadful place, somewhere in its deep and unfathomable depths, working against their own kind by means of brute force and cold blackmailing.
"It's simple really, even you could understand. I need free work. They don't want their families and loved ones stabbed through the head," Zim laughed. "Besides, they only do the meaningless equipment handling. Moving things and the whatnot. And when they're done, they simply cease to have ever existed at all on this puny planet. After all, there's no point keeping broken toys, is there?" Zim said in an almost bubbly, jovial happiness, tugging deeply at Dib's tolerance. He could hear his sworn enemy slowly pacing back and fowarth before him, his boots tapping lightly against the cold ground with every step.
"But enough about me, Dib, back down to the business at hand," his voice toned down a little, losing the childlike happiness and maintaning a more composed, complacent tinge to it. "Let's play a little game, shall we? I'll ask the questions. You answer them truthfully, five minutes will be added to your life. You lie or refuse to answer, I will hurt you severely." Dib glared at the Irken he could not fully see.
"And if I refuse?" He replied darkly, noticing with remorse that his voice broke slightly in the centre of his words. The Irken merely laughed.
"I'll ram a knife through your throat," Zim laughed, clearly humored, "Is that incentive enough for you, or would you like me to reconsider with a little more... how do you say... cynisicm?" Dib was forced to silence, unable to fabricate anything worthwhile to reply with. Deafeated, almost, as his open mouth, preparing to attack, reluctantly closed once more. Zim merely grinned, rubbing his chin triumphantly with a gloved hand. Silently, as though not to alarm Dib in any way, he slid the knife on his belt from its sheath. He severely doubted Dib would attempt refusal this time. Not with what was so preciously at stake.
"Now, how about a nice, easy one to start with," Zim muttered thoughtfully, taking a step closer to his prey. Dib's eyes cast downward, the chains at his hands clanked noisily as he shrugged to attempt to loosen them. His resistance was futile once more. "Gaz. Is she your real sister? A sister by blood? Fully?" the Irken questioned, sliding his gloved finger along the blade of his knife in a preoccupied, thoughtful manner. Dib instantly squirmed at the mention of his sibling.
"What? No, you leave her out of this! This is our fight, Zim! I won't answer any-" he cried in pure and untainted rebellion, his blurred eyes furiously searching the jagged, distorted lines that composed of his enemy.
"Save your noise, human! I didn't want it to come to this, Dib, but you made me, "Zim muttered, his voice as sharp as the knife he held tightly in his hands. "If you dare to defy me, she will die for your mistakes. I know where she is. I say the word and in an instant seven of my cohorts with rather intimidating guns will be slinging her dead body to the flagpole outside. Understand?" Dib hesitated, choked slightly on his words, unsure of the right way to respond. Should he answer? it wasn't that hard of a question. Did he honestly want to risk Gaz's life in a fight that was not rightfully hers in the first place? After all they'd been through over the last few years, after all the courage and acceptence of him he'd built up to her, the last he wanted to do was get her killed on his personal account....
After what seemed like a lifetime Dib sighed, fully defeated, and gave in weakly to Zim's harsh and vulgar words.
"No. Not really. Not fully..." he sighed. Zim smiled. Zim had always found from conclusive study that Dib owned a recessive, aching weakness inside of him. A weakness in the pure and untainted love for his family. Being an artifically inseminated life form, Zim had never really understood or grasped the concept of the bond between humans and their families. Dib seemed to be willing to do anything with the mere mention of their names. A mere tweak or shove to his sensitive spot and he had him instantly giving in. Zim had found that weak spot, and he intended to harrass it repetitively until there was no more to give. Then, Dib would die.
"Interesting. So it really is true, what I hear," Zim muttered thoughtfully, his voice trailing to nothing. "What's her IQ, Dib?"
"Now why the hell would you need to know that!? You're going too fa-"
"You know, your sister doesn't speak that much. It might be a pleasant change to hear her scream." Even without his glasses, Dib could make out the cold, smiling glint in both the Irken's eyes and the gleaming metal in his hands. He was helpless, unable to fight and with nowhere else to turn, having been harrassed mentally by Zim's manipulative fingers. He groaned inaudibly, fully realising the extent to which he was caught in the web. Why did he have to care about that bitch so much?
"Two hundred and fifty two," he muttered between rattling breaths, lowering his eyeline immensely and sighing much heavier than he'd accomplished before, cursing the tight chains; cursing Gaz. Zim paused slightly.
"What?" he replied, faultering lightly on his breath.
"You heard me, asshole," Dib breathed vehemiously. His anger that had been slowly simmering inside had grown immensely over the minutes that had passed, and he ached in every appendage of his body to be rid of the chains and showing the green-skinned moron what he was really made of. Zim, meanwhile, had obliviously conducted several mental calculations and had, with little difficulty, translated the human IQ measurement into the Irken equivalent. He was astounded. Truly astounded. He had heard a lot about this particular girl, both from word of mouth and several newspaper and magazine clippings. Many things; humiliating, flattering and plain ugly. She was the gossip on many a humans' lip. There were countless against her, priests and politicians desperate for votes for what she was, how she had come to be. Yet there were an equal, if not greater amount behind her, considering her a masterpiece, a hero of technology. Though everything he had heard had never informed him that she was this smart. Incredibly, unbelievingly smart. Smarter than he and, he was sure, smarter than anyone else in the human race.
"Fascinating... She certainly is smarter than you'll ever be," Zim laughed, relishing silently in the coarse glare Dib had blindly subjected him to. "You can relax, Dib, I'm tired of the questioning now. You're here for a reason, and it's time to fullfill it."
"You can forget it, Zim. I'm not doing anything for you." His voice, bitter and icy yet retaining an unnerving calm to it cut through Zim's body like a knife. "Why don't you just kill me now and get it over with. You'll get nothing else out of me."
"Well that would be quite an unfortunate situation then, wouldn't it?" Zim mused lightly, placing a thoughtful hand to his chin, his mouth a small, smirking line. "I've read up on the whole 'orphan' ordeal and it seems, to my studies, that you are old enough to be an independant member of society," he took a step toward the window, peeling back the thick charcoal blinds and peering down to the tiny city lights beneath him. "Gaz, on the other hand, can not at only sixteen. It is my estimation that you've become her guardian, yes?" The small, reluctant squirm of his lifelong enemy from beneath the mass of chains was all he needed as a reply. "If you weren't to fullfill your duties, and you were to be accidently... uh... incapacitated, that gives little Gaz a one-way ticket to Orphanland, no exchange, no refunds."
"She won't care," Dib's voice, faultering slightly beneath its own weight, piped in sharp defiance, his pointed and unfocused gaze slowly lowering itself to the floor. Zim merely laughed.
"Oh, she will, Dib. She can barely function in the world without being pulled out of the schedule that seems to be the proverbial stitches holding her in place. You comply, she will be kept safe, and I give you my word as an Invader to this," he held his right hand over his heart; patriotism was something the green-skinned menace took very seriously in his life. "If you fail to comply, instead of killing her, I'll watch her die inside her own level of hell." A sharp, aching glint had now filled his magenta eyes as he slowly took in the look of masked defeat on his assailants face. "Now, take it or leave it, but here's what I want you to do..."
* * * * * * * * * *
Gaz groaned as her empty, darkness-filled dreams slipped just beyond her reach of consciousness, muttering as she was jolted rather violently back to her human reality. She rubbed weirily at her lead-filled eyelids, scratching lightly at the crown of dishevelled hair atop her aching skull. For a few seconds after her rather rude and abrupt awakening, Gaz wasn't entirely sure what had been the source of the disturbance in the first place. It was then that the dull, blaring tone of the telephone, high-pitch and scraping to her sleep-sensitive ears sounded. She groaned openly, groping with unopened eyes for the cordless she was absolutely sure she'd left on the coffee table...
"Hello," her voice, disgruntled from lack of sleep groaned as the telephone finally connected with her searching fingers. A small, rather desperate voice replied.
"Gaz, it's me," her sensors pinpointed the user of the voice in less than a second. She was extremely unamused with his antics, though a small, heavy weight immediately lifted from her chest as she heard him speak.
"Dib," she muttered. "Obviously haven't gotten yourself killed yet, then?" She replied fully, her discourse as bitter and vehemious as she could gather from her vocal chords at the spur of the moment, differing greatly from the awesome sense of relief she was experiencing inside. There was a small, weak pause.
"Not yet..." was the tiny reply given. She made a small, disapproving tut, shifting her position to a more comfortable one.
"Well, what do you want?" she muttered, scratching again at her skull. There was a slight pause from the opposite end before a small, defeated sigh rung through her ears.
"I need you to... to meet me somewhere."
"Have you lost the keys to the car again? I'm running out of spares, you know..."
"No, it's nothing like that," he sighed a second time, his voice trailing. "Besides, the cars still in garage, right where I left it. Look, I just need you to meet me at Dad's, okay?" He sounded, to the girl, almost desperate, as if he were using every ounce of strength he had left in him to force out what he had to say. She raised an eyebrow inwardly, not daring to change her facial expressions in any way. It was unlike her brother to speak in this way. His voice was commonly stuffed full of confidence, so full at times the stuffing gave way to actual coherant speech, which resulted in him babbling about absolutely nothing in the time space of an hour.
"At Dad's? Dib, you know I hate that hospital-"
"I know you do," the impatient voice of her older brother replied, as if rushing the conversation through. "But I want you to meet me there, okay? At six. We'll... We'll go to Bloaty's after," he muttered, "my treat." She faultered slightly, more than ready to firmly plant her foot down with a resounding no, yet stopped. Her brother had never offered 'his treat' before. My and treat were two words that had never fit together properly in Dib's vocabulary. She supposed she might as well take advantage of whatever was going on inside his sickeningly large head, making him seem too pleasant and agreeable, if not slightly eccentric.
"Okay," she replied, "but I swear, Dib, if this isn't worth it, I-"
"Stop worrying," he cut her off sharply, the violence of his words astounding her. She'd never heard him talk that way before; so dark, so sharp, so dissmissing. She was slightly taken aback. "Six at Dad's. Don't forget."
"Don't you forget." She found her words return to reply with a snide remark. He laughed, yet the sound bared no sense of humour in its tones. It was empty; dead and empty. There was a slight, awkward pause. He was beginning to scare her. "I'm going, Dib."
"Wait a sec!" he cried loudly just as she turned to hang the phone neatly back in its cradle and resume her long welcomed nap. She rolled her eyes, placing the telephone back to her ear in annoyance.
"What is it?"
A pause. "Love you."
"Whatever." And with that, she broke the connection with a brute, heavy force, rolling to her side, sighing, and attemping to hone the sleep that had so abandonded her. Had she known at the time that that particular phone call, that brief phone call, would be the very last time she would ever hear her brother speak to her again, she may have intended to drag it on a little longer than she had....
Or perhaps, in the very least, returned his very last words of affection.
* * * * * * * * * *
A/N- Reviews motivate me. They make me work faster. Please, for the love of Zim, take the 1 minute of time to review this little piece of crap. That is all.
