Good lord, it's been a long time, huh? I know, you all are going to hit me with bricks because I didn't update in so frickin' long. I don't even have a good excuse ready, I guess I just lost interest for a while, and real life caught up with me. I hope nobody feels the need to hunt me down and hold me at some kind of weapon point in order to make me work. … I really hope. Oo

In other news, I kinda want to get to a hundred reviews on this fanfiction. I can understand if nobody wants to help, but, reviews will make me guiltier for not writing until I start writing again! Look at it that way.

Onto the fic. Puhleaaze forgive any ooc-ness that might occur…

Disclaimer: I don't own many things. Invader Zim is just one of the many things I don't own.

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The waiting room in the hospital was empty, chairs tucked together in lines, all of them a bland gray color, and the fluorescent lights buzzed obnoxiously. He paced across the room, annoyed, angry, afraid, seeing the empty waiting room as a grim sign of a death that could happen any time. A death he wanted to prevent. Normally, Zim wouldn't want to prevent the death of his greatest enemy, but things had changed. So many things had changed.

Small burns, barely noticeable to anybody unless they looked very hard, covered most of Zim's green skin. After receiving the note, he didn't take much time to prepare for the drizzle outside. Dib took higher priority over that, which was odd, confusing to the Irken, but he pushed the issue out of his mind. Silently debating on it now wouldn't help anything. He continued pacing across the shining linoleum.

Zim stalked across the waiting room once more. He glanced up from the progress his black boots were making across the floor, and noticed the desk was empty. The receptionist wasn't there. He glared at the empty desk from behind his contacts, then turned and paced across the floor once again. The main objective was to keep the thoughts at bay, the thoughts that clawed at the corners of his mind. What would happen if Dib died, what would happen then, he would get destroyed if he went back to Irk and if he tried to find sanctuary anywhere else, he'd ultimately fail. Unless he, by chance, stumbled upon another planet like Earth, that didn't know of the Irken Empire. And that wouldn't happen any time soon.

Under the messy wig, Zim's antennae twitched. Down the hall, there were footsteps. Faint, but they were still there. He spun, watching the hall's entrance with suspicion, eyes narrowed. The footsteps were coming closer. The Irken simply scowled as he waited for the human down the corridor to make an appearance.

A moment later, the white-clothed receptionist walked into the waiting room, a thoughtful look on her face as she opened part of the desk and took her place behind it. Zim scowled to himself and went back to his pacing. And his thinking. Despite knowing inner debates on feelings, feelings of all things, wouldn't help anyone, he couldn't stop thinking. Thinking and questioning himself. It made no sense why he would have any feelings for the Dib-beast, apart from maybe mild disgust or mild respect. That's what he used to feel. But then again, that time, when he hated the Dib, it felt like a million years ago. Cliché, but true.

Zim continued to pace, eyes focused on his boots as they passed over the floor. The floor was white, his boots were black. Contrast. By walking across the white floor with his black boots, he was staining it, taking away from the pure as the black passed over it. But then, was the white truly as pure as it seemed to be?

Dib had seemed half-dead when Zim, bearing an umbrella and a crookedly buttoned rain coat, had found him. Dead, cold. Seeing Dib like that aroused another emotion deep in the pit of Zim's stomach, and he didn't know what it was. He didn't desire to know, really, it seemed deeper than anything he'd ever felt before, and submersing that deep into emotions was just something he never did, was good at doing, or intended to do.

Something interrupted Zim's musings, a thread of electric guitar music that weaved through the air, loud in the silence. It took him a moment to locate the source of the noise. It was coming from behind the receptionist's desk. Obnoxious human music. A low growl escaped from Zim's throat. He turned his back on the desk, the receptionist and the music, standing still for a moment and studying the floor. There was a scuff mark a little ways away from where he was standing.

He was silent for a moment, both in speech and in mind, a moment without any true conscious thought. A pointless thought weaved its way into his head; the white isn't pure. Then he shook his head, annoyed with himself for thinking of futile things that, of course, didn't matter. He paused once more, and another thought entered his mind, Does anything matter?

It was a good question.

The Irken had dropped the umbrella upon seeing Dib, he wondered idly if it was still there. He had picked up Dib, despite the light burning sting of the drizzling rain. The mechanical legs in his Pak came in handy for traversing long distances. At that point, Zim didn't know where a hospital was, and all he knew was that his own technology wouldn't work on a human because of anatomical differences. Luckily, a hospital had only been a few blocks away, and people were there.

He had entered, walked to the front desk, where the annoying music was coming from now, and demanded that they fix Dib.

The receptionist had called one of the nurses to check on Dib, and, after they finally decided it was life-threatening, they took Dib to deal with his overdose. Zim had been left with no notice of what to do in the waiting room. So, he had started pacing. And waiting. And thinking.

And that lead to what was going on now. Zim glanced up to the receptionist's desk, and saw she was now dialing a number on the phone behind the desk. The music was still playing. He tuned it in, listening to the lyrics for only a moment. The singer sang the chorus amidst the noise of the instruments that nearly blocked out everything else.

'Yeah, here comes the water,

It comes to wash away the sins of you and I

This time, you'll see…

Like holy water

It only finds you faster than you've ever tried

This time, with me…'

Zim frowned slightly. The lyrics made no sense, but then, it didn't matter. It was only human music. He blocked it out again.

His gaze back on his boots, Zim thought. How long had it been since he brought Dib in? Too long, it seemed like too long. Should he ask? He glanced over his shoulder, at the receptionist. She seemed to be trying to communicate something over the phone. The Irken watched as the receptionist finally finished the phone call and hung up. He turned and marched up to the desk.

"What happened to Dib Membrane?" Zim demanded, eyeing the receptionist. The receptionist was a disgusting model of a human, hair dyed a blonde so bright it looked like it could turn white any moment and sprayed with hairspray until it stayed unmovable, like a rock.

The receptionist flashed an overly-sweet smile at Zim, as if he was a child about to burst into a tantrum. "Don't worry, little boy, your friend will be fine! You got him here just in time! Now, shouldn't you be getting home? Your parents must be sooo worried!"

Zim only scowled at her in response.

That sickeningly sweet smile faltered a bit. "Don't you have parents, little boy?" The receptionist asked, although her voice was a slight bit strained now. Zim wasn't sure why, and he didn't particularly care.

"I want to know what will happen to the Dib." It wasn't a request, not on Zim's part, anyways.

"Oh, don't worry!" That sickening smile was back. "He'll be well taken care of, I just called his foster parents, and he'll be released when he's all better!"

There was a certain amount of jauntiness in the receptionist's voice, and Zim loathed every bit of it. He didn't bother asking how long it would be until Dib was 'all better,' or when he could see the human. The Irken just glared at the bothersome woman behind the desk. There was silence, the smile on the receptionist's face started to get forced.

Finally, the woman broke the silence. "Is there somebody you'd like me to call for you, little boy?"

An idea unfolded in Zim's brain, a way to pass the time until he could see Dib to make sure the human was truly recovering. He looked at the irritating receptionist, weighing his idea for a moment. After a thoughtful silence, he finally answered. "Yes." The Irken gave the receptionist the number she was to call, and she started to dial it.

A grim little smirk crossed Zim's face. He'd let the woman deal with a certain hyperactive robot on the other end of the line.