I don't own Invader Zim. And I sure don't own the concept of karma. Auntie Gravity's mine, however. All mine.
A smoke cloud billows from the shattered and blackened ruin of Karma Laboratories. Coughing up seeds, a bird emerges from the smoke cloud and (somewhat erratically) flies away. A ruffled, soot-covered Dibsthe1 climbs from the wreckage.
Well, that one certainly had mixed results. Ah, well. The thing about experiments is that they show you what doesn't work as well as showing you what does. I will return to taking the approach where my success has been less, er... mixed.
Tearing away the remnants of a blackened and frayed lab coat, Dibsthe1 heads toward a folding screen, then steps behind it to walk straight through to emerge on the other side spotless and with not a hair out of place.
We return now for a while to those days before Zim made his appearance. The opening of this fic overlaps the ending of "Enough to Wake the Dead." Usually I find songfics forced and unnatural, but Dib's situation screams Pat Benatar's "Hell is for Children."
Auntie Gravity
Dib shifted restlessly on the couch. He scratched his neck and sighed, wishing the funeral parlor was a little less full so he could slip off the bow tie without anyone noticing and making him put it on again. Would his father ever say they could go home?
As soon as he realized he was thinking this, he knew he'd been bad. He didn't want to go, in fact that was the very last thing he wanted to do, because his mother would have to stay here, and besides, he could feel safe in the same room as Gaz only as long as his mother was somewhere nearby...
... even if she was dead.
Suddenly, a huge presence loomed over Dib, blocking his view of his mother and swirling the cool air from the outdoors over him. Swiftly it lowered itself onto the couch next to him. The springs grunted in protest as it plopped onto the couch and toppled Dib into a coat so furry, he wondered if a bear had wandered in to sit next to him. With something of an effort he pushed himself upright.
"Hello, Dib!" gushed a wide and vaguely familiar face, beaming down at him warmly. "Remember me?"
Dib stared up, thinking. He'd most definitely seen her before, but the only question was, where?
"I'm your Aunt Gravity!"
"Aunt Gravity?"
The face chuckled and its smile got even wider. "Dad was such a scientist! He gave us all kinds of names like that, Membrane, Gravity, Matter... "
But her name wasn't what Dib was finding odd, but rather the fact that someone asked him a question that didn't have a "skool" or a "Gaz" in it somewhere.
In fact, Aunt Gravity just plain loved children. Her own had all grown up; some were even in their teens. Finding herself now with not one but two of them sitting right next to her, without any conscious effort on her part her arms reached out to rest around the two children like the wings of a mother hen, even as her sharp eyes scanned the room to pick out any relatives she hadn't seen since the last wake or wedding.
Presently someone drifted over to talk with her about grownup things; with no room left on the couch, this other person stood and Auntie Gravity sat and they talked about still more people Dib didn't know and had never met, and with the steady drone of their voices and the warmth next to him, the last thing he remembered thinking or feeling that Gaz couldn't punch or kick him through this large, warm-coated woman before he realized he was hearing them all, not still, but again. With a start he was completely awake...
Is Mommy - ? No. No she isn't. Refreshed from his nap, he sank down against the soft back of the couch down again, feeling the safest he had ever felt since his mother died... even though Gaz was still in the room as well. The room was still full of grownup relatives, talking and standing and talking and sitting down and talking and getting up and talking and talking and talking and talking. Somewhere in the back of his mind Dib wondered why everybody asked him how Gaz was but nobody asked Gaz how he was...
Finally the room began to look different; not as many people were standing around. Maybe they were all going downstairs for something; maybe there were more sandwiches?
As Dib reached for his bow tie, wondering if anyone would notice, the Professor came over and told him they were leaving. Dib's eyes flew to his mother. Already? But we just got here!
- - - - - - -
Waiting at the door with Gaz, Dib sighed with relief as he finally tugged off his bow tie. Membrane and Gravity slowly followed, debating their immediate plans.
" ... haven't seen the gang in so long, and you know how... "
" ...too late and it's too far, so it's only logical... "
"... did the kids have their supper, Mem? Mem? Whatdoyoumean you 'don't know'...?"
This last was almost a shriek right before Auntie Gravity swooped over to Dib and Gaz.
"Kids? Kids, what do you want for supper? Whatev - "
"Pizza." grunted Gaz in reply to Auntie Gravity's kind offer, her tone suggesting the last customer any pizza restaurant waitstaff would want to see coming in the door.
"Yes, dear, pizza." Auntie Gravity then turned to Dib. "And you, Dib... do you want pizza too, or would you rather eat something else?"
Without even looking in her direction Dib could feel Gaz's glare searing into him. Whenever their mother had gone back to the hospital they hardly ate anything other than pizza, but at only six years old he had already learned what happened when Gaz didn't get her own way. With a sigh, he nodded, looking down hopelessly at the black and red carpet of the lobby.
But Auntie leaned down to touch his chin and gently tilted his face upward. "Do you really?" Auntie persisted, with a meaningful tilt of her head. "Because I can get something different for both of you, you know, if you don't both want the same thing." She nodded, smiling.
Dib stared up at her face in wonder. Somebody knew? Somebody other than his mother could actually tell he was being forced into an agreement he in no way felt? Dimly sensing Gaz clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, Dib took a deep breath and heard himself say, in a voice lower than he intended, "Chinese."
Instantly Gaz grabbed Auntie's coat collar and hauled on it with all the force she could summon. Auntie turned back to her with a gasp of astonishment as Gaz snarled in a manner more suited to a junkyard dog than someone who'd just been offered her favorite meal, "PIZZA. Or ELSE."
"Yes, pizza, I know, you'll get your pizza, poor dear," said Auntie Gravity, before murmuring about what kind of absent-mindedness are these poor children living under at all?
Dib turned his head to study the wallpaper. How on earth could people continue to view so obviously spiteful and vicious a creature as poor and helpless?
The door sighed shut after Aunt Gravity as she headed off to pick up dinner. Professor Membrane motioned to Dib and Gaz to follow him, and what remained of the family rode home together. Sitting in the front seat beside his father, Dib sat back and pretended they were once more on their way to the hospital to see his mother.
When they arrived home, Gaz headed straight for the couch without another word to him... fortunately. After finding something to read, Dib sat on the lowest step of the stairs, where he could keep his eye on the door while pretending to read. When the door suddenly opened with no knocking or ring of the doorbell, Dib saw Auntie Gravity walk in... carrying a pizza box. Quickly he buried his face in the book to hide his disappointment. He should have known. Gaz got what she wanted by being a swaggering bully... even as the very witnesses to her graceless, loutish behavior backed HER up like she needed the help against HIM!
When Aunt Gravity called them into the kitchen for supper, Gaz still didn't speak until she got to the kitchen, where she began snapping at him to hurry up because she wasn't going to wait for her pizza. Much to Gaz's disgust, Auntie Gravity did wait until Dib reached the table before she presented the food.
When the pizza box was finally lowered to the table, Dib couldn't believe his eyes... on top of it stood not one, but two, containers of Chinese food. Auntie Gravity barely managed to lift them from the pizza box before Gaz shoved the lid up and pushed her hand inside to grab a slice, then wolfing it down as if nobody else was in the room.
When both Chinese food containers settled on the table before him Dib looked up at his aunt, his eyes shining with gratitude. "Thank you, Auntie Gravity."
"Eat. Eat," she urged him, smiling.
One container was filled with chicken fried rice; the other held sweet and sour chicken. And he even found chopsticks! Tricky though they were, Dib relished every opportunity he could get to practice using them; something that was too easy could sometimes be about as much fun as something that was too difficult.
Dib's favorite food was actually lo mein, but he certainly wasn't complaining; just having his preference considered in the first place made this the best Chinese food he had ever tasted. The rice was just greasy enough; the chicken balls, deep fried to fluffy, chewy perfection. Sometimes you could tell how the sauce was going to be just from the color, and this was one of those times. Neither gluey nor watery, it was just the right blend of sweet and sour.
Dib ate steadily until he ate about as much as he usually did at suppertime; after savoring one more chicken ball, he stopped eating. He set down the chopsticks and wiped his mouth with the tiniest flush of pride. This was the first time he hadn't dropped at least one chicken ball before it made it to his mouth! About half of the rice remained, but only three of the chicken balls. He would finish the rest tomorrow, that is, if Gaz didn't get to it first. But if she ate it she ate it.
Even after Dib had stopped eating, Gaz continued to push down wedge after wedge of pizza, as if he was lurking at her elbow intent on stealing any portion she didn't eat first. "Slow down, honey," said Aunt Gravity, "or you'll get sick." When Gaz showed no sign of doing so, Auntie Gravity made a move toward removing the other half of the pizza.
Gaz's typical reaction when anybody was about to touch pizza without her permission convinced Aunt Gravity this wasn't a good idea. "Mercy sakes!" she exclaimed in horror, mentally chiding herself for not getting back faster with the food. "The poor dear was STARVING!"
Gaz gobbled and gulped as if there was no tomorrow. Quite probably she actually was hungry after that long day in the funeral parlor with only a few sandwiches, but what really drove her now was hating to share. When it came to pizza, Gaz always grabbed the first slice, she make sure to get the last slice, and she raised hell if Dib looked like he might take two slices in a row. Now that her dream of having an entire pizza all to herself had come true at last, NONE of it would go to that selfish pig if she could help it. Not now, not the next day, not ever. And if Auntie hadn't had to buy stupid Chinese for stupid Dib, she could've maybe bought her a bigger pizza!
The last time they'd had pizza, Gaz had gone to the fridge to have as a bedtime snack for the one piece she knew remained, only to find it missing. She had barged into Dib's room where she found him idly reading comic books... as if he hadn't deliberately enraged her! Instead of offering him the chance to lie and say he hadn't eaten it, she'd grabbed his shirt collar and flung him to the floor and repeatedly kicked him right in his greedy thieving mouth. Gaz didn't even know how long it lasted; she only knew that none must dare to cross her by taking what she viewed as hers. "'Hungry'? 'Hungry'? Whiner!"
Replaying these thoughts in her head, Gaz ate faster and faster. Part of her wanted to stop but she couldn't, not yet, not while a slice remained. Dib still skulked at the table... waiting, no doubt, for her to leave so he could grab the last slice, just like he always did! She almost never got to enjoy more than half a pizza; now, just watching her progress across the bottom of the box was exhilarating. Eat, eat, eat. Reach out and grab another slice, glare at Dib to make sure he's not plotting anything stupid, and eat some more.
Finally, the final piece lay in the box, alone. Gaz wasn't going to risk letting Dib ruin such a triumphant feeling by eating that slice tomorrow. With a self-satisfied smirk she grabbed the final slice, and for the first time in her life, she actually had to force pizza down her throat. She'd make Dib pay for this... when her stomach stopped feeling uncomfortable.
After Gaz had pushed the final crust into her mouth and left the table, Dib began to clear the dishes, and was surprised when Aunt Gravity instead gently sent him out to watch TV, or do his homework, or whatever it was he did after supper.
So he didn't have to do the dishes? Maybe Aunt Gravity was going to stay and be his new mother. Would anybody mix the two mothers up? If they did, he'd have to explain. He wondered if his old mother would be angry if anybody else used her Thanksgiving platter, the one she never lent to anybody. And maybe he could start having Chinese for supper again, instead of pizza, pizza, pizza night after night after night. And if she had listened when he told her what he wanted to eat, maybe she'd listen to some other things when he needed someone to turn to... like what happened the day before yesterday...
One second he was reading a really good comic book and the next he was on the floor being kicked in the face. He remembered being shrieked and screamed at, and some of it seemed to somehow be about a pizza somehow. After he'd finally pulled himself to his feet and made it to the bathroom, a tooth gleamed back at him from the middle of the reddened face cloth; just thinking about it, he could taste the blood all over again...
- - - - - - -
Dib watched Aunt Gravity dressing the beds; he never could get the blankets straight enough for some reason. She was humming; she liked being his new mommy! And if Aunt Gravity was fair when it came to food, she would probably also be fair when it came to something like this.
Now was the time to tell her, as soon as he got his nerve up, but before she put Gaz to bed. That would give Auntie Gravity just enough time to tell Gaz it wasn't nice to kick her brother in the face; Gaz would go to bed with this little talk as the last thing in her ears, and who knows? Maybe tomorrow she would even wake up even a little nicer. Encouraged by such thoughts, Dib began to speak.
"Aunt Gravity?"
She turned to him with a smile.
"Gaz kicked me."
The smile vanished. Good. Aunt Gravity was going to take this seriously.
Immediately Aunt Gravity put her hand behind Dib's head and herded him to the living room, then pushed him towards a chair before swooping down on Gaz.
"But I didn't mean for you to... just tell her don't... that's all... "
Intent on her game, Gaz didn't even seem to notice Aunt Gravity scooping her up; she merely yanked enough of herself free of her aunt's arms to stolidly continue pushing buttons.
Aunt Gravity's mouth opened and closed as she groped for words, and when she got her voice back, she said the last thing Dib expected to hear.
"How can you say such a thing about your - about... your SISTER!"
Aunt Gravity was actually cuddling Gaz as protectively as if he had threatened to murder her, making it Dib's turn to gasp. "How can she DO such a thing to her brother?" is more like it!
"It's not enough you left her just sitting here all evening, alone!"
"She WANTS to be left alone, Auntie Gravity, if I just ask her a question, she - "
"She did no such thing, you... you LIAR!"
"No, she didn't kick me today, she kicked me the day before yesterday - "
"The day before yesterday? But that's past! You're not supposed to hold grudges like that! Forget about it!"
" - for nothing, and she even kicked my tooth out, just look - !"
"That was a baby tooth; it was going to fall out anyway!"
Dib had started to pull his lip back to show where his tooth was missing, but this abrupt dismissal stopped him cold. He thought this unmistakable evidence of the attack would be all the proof he needed to lock his case airtight; now he slowly sank back into the chair, completely baffled as to what he could possibly say next.
"But she kicked me, Aunt Gravity. She really did!" Dib insisted, tears beginning to creep into his voice. This wasn't going at all as he had hoped.
"She didn't mean it!"
Dib could only wonder how Aunt Gravity could possibly claim to know what Gaz did or did not mean. But he didn't know how to point out that she didn't know what Gaz was like because she didn't live here, not without being told he was talking back.
"Gaz is only a poor little baby of five and a half!" his aunt now scolded. Dib suppressed a shudder; if ever he had called Gaz a baby... he stole a nervous glance at her but she was now consumed by her game and ignoring everything else.
Aunt Gravity held out her hand with all its fingers extended and shook it to bring his attention back to her. "Dib? DIB!" Then she brought out her other hand with only her index finger out. "... and you're all of a Great Big Six! Understand?" she intoned solemnly.
No. No, Dib did not understand... why grownups always looked at numbers instead of at the plainest of facts!
"Understand?" Aunt Gravity persisted, as if repeating herself often enough would undo whatever was wrong.
Dib stared at her, his eyes silently pleading, trying to figure out how adults could run everything if they made so little sense.
"You're older!" Aunt Gravity declared, as if this was the only thing she could think of saying.
I'm just six... why does she keep telling me I'm "older..." I'm still six! I'm not seven or eight or ten or twelve all of a sudden! I'm six!
He looked down, all hope lost. Auntie Gravity was willing to include him in what he wanted for supper... and even SHE believed the butter wouldn't melt in Gaz's mouth! The confusion swelled into a painful, choking lump in his throat. Not only was all the love in the world waiting in the funeral home to be buried tomorrow, all the sense in the world was going to be buried tomorrow too.
"Good. That's better. You should feel guilty... telling lies to get your small little sister in trouble!" She tilted her head pityingly, and if Dib's tongue wasn't still pushing through the hole left by the missing tooth, he would almost start to believe that he himself was the culprit here. "Now forget about it! And tell her you're sorry!"
Suddenly Dib tried once more. "But Aunt Gravity you don't understand! She's always doing this, always! And if she's not hitting me she's - "
"Now Dib you know Gaz loves you to pieces!" Aunt Gravity chided, now rocking Gaz back and forth on the couch, her arms still looped around Gaz as she occasionally kissed the back of the purple head. "She just has a different way of showing it, that's all."
Oh. She does? What IS love anyway then?
Is love when she locks me out in the cold and the rain?
Or is love when she walks away to have fun with her video games while I knock on the door crying for her to let me in?
Or maybe love is when she just opens the door to punch me in the face and say shut up idiot and close it again. Maybe that's love. I hope not.
I'm supposed to love her, so that means I'm not allowed to do any of those kinds of things to her... even after she did it to me. But then when she does it to me first, THEN it somehow means... she LOVES me?
"Just accept her the way she is," Aunt Gravity suggested, still cuddling Gaz.
This made Dib stare her in the face in open-mouthed bafflement. Well I just like to talk... so why can't she ever accept me the way I am too sometimes?
"Good! You do see."
Frowning, Dib looked down and swallowed, clutching the edge of the cushion as he frantically sought a thread of sense, however slender and slippery, in the insanely contradictory information swirling around him. He shook his head to clear it.
"Tch tch," Aunt Gravity shook her own head disapprovingly. "If your mother could see you now, what would she say?"
My mother sure wouldn't... my mother would... she...
It was too much. Dib's teeth gritted as his entire world blurred before him. If he spoke another word he would cry uncontrollably; despair paralyzed him...
What would it take? What was it going to take to convince people of something they didn't already believe? If it just looked like a little girl, then whatever it actually WAS, it could have the soul of a contract killer and the compassion of a shark... and everyone would insist on treating it as if it actually was a little girl.
Everyone.
Had Aunt Gravity only seen with her own eyes the crumpled six year old crying on the floor of his bedroom, or standing on tiptoe to check in the bathroom mirror the damage to his bleeding mouth, she would very likely have said something different. But now she saw only the gamer Gaz, the Gaz that didn't bother doing much of anything else, and this invited the stereotype to come rushing in... that little girls were the epitome of sweetness, innocence, and helplessness... creatures of feelings, sensitive and fragile.
But Dib knew their other side. Living in a world of feelings enabled them to know exactly where, when and how to inflict the most possible hurt.
Head down, he retreated to his bedroom, to sit at his window to look up at the stars. At least they wouldn't tell him he was bad for wanting to be treated half-decently...
- - - - - - -
Aunt Gravity sighed as she settled down in the spare bedroom. She was still stinging with frustration after a rather tense discussion with Membrane. She couldn't stop replaying the conversation, wondering if anything she could say could make the vital difference if she said it soon enough.
"You can't just leave the children to themselves Membrane!"
"You always did worry too much, Gra, they'll be perfectly safe! As soon as we get home afterwards I'll replace the locks with a biometric palm-scanning security device at all the doors to permit only authorized entry!"
"But will your scan palmer ask them how skool was that day? Will it remind them of all they need to do? Will it tell them it - that you love them?"
The Professor held up a pair of hoverscreens. "It won't need to; I'll do that myself! Science will keep this family together and safe!"
Aunt Gravity knew only too well what it meant whenever Membrane mentioned the word "science." For all her money, she wouldn't be able to help these children any further now. They would need a lot more guidance, and protection even from each other, than they were going to get, but he was adamantly refusing her offer of even occasional assistance.
She always hated losing all the arguments with her older brother, and it was no easier now; in fact, it was worse.
Aunt Gravity undeniably loved children. Perhaps she was a little bit biased toward the younger ones, but they needed it, poor little things!
- - - - - - -
The next morning Aunt Gravity bustled about the kitchen preparing breakfast; Dib dutifully ate some of the fried bacon and eggs, even though he thought of it as more of a grownup's breakfast, and looked around warily. If Gaz still hadn't had her breakfast it could be tricky reaching for the cereal he would have preferred. "Where's Gaz this morning?"
"See? I knew it! You do love your precious little sister!" Auntie Gravity beamed. It had all blown over just as she had known it would. "She's just got a bit of a tummy ache today. You want to go in sometime and see how she is!"
Dib stared into his plate as he munched steadily away. At least he'd be able to reach for some cereal later on without the world coming to an end.
Aunt Gravity kept up a steady patter of advice for Dib, he was older so he had to do more, he had to do this and that and tell Gaz to do this and not to do that and...
You keep telling me to be good to Gaz, look out for Gaz, tell Gaz what to do. Gaz Gaz Gaz Gaz Gaz Gaz GAZ... can't you just once tell Gaz to be good to me? Or if you really want me to tell Gaz to do stuff... WITHOUT getting beaten into the floor... try telling her to listen to me... or at least not to get all psycho when I ask did she happen to leave any cereal in the box.
"Yes Aunt Gravity." He knew saying anything else would get him nothing else but an argument, one in which he didn't have a prayer of being heard.
What if we were twins, and I was only older than her by like five minutes or something... would I STILL be getting told all of this?
As Dib got up to reach for the cereal, he suddenly remembered the leftover Chinese food. While preparing to microwave it he wondered why adults thought things had to be red before children would like them. He liked blue, actually, but unless he had a chance to select it himself, nearly every one of his toys were red.
Aunt Gravity now placed her overnight bag next to the front door and called to alert her sister Matter, who lived across town, that she would soon be on her way. The family would all sit together at the funeral that afternoon, well, except for poor Gaz, unless she was feeling better. She shook her head, knowing she'd have to remind Membrane to call a babysitter.
Once more she turned back toward the kitchen where Dib sat at the table enjoying the last of his Chinese food. He'd need a strong adult nearby and a male role model to guide him; only too knew did she know Membrane's tendency to lock himself away from the outside world for days at a time when excited by a new project. The Professor never had handled grief particularly well, and something was definitely off about his approach to this whole situation now, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was exactly.
Someone would have to show Dib how to be the sort of big brother poor little Gaz needed so badly. She searched her mind for some way to introduce Dib to somebody, anybody who could provide the sort of guidance to which he would be receptive. But she barely knew him. His interests would be a good place to start...
She remembered seeing him staring in fascination at the stars the night before, and this reminded her of someone her oldest son used to talk about when he had the summer job at NASAPLACE. She walked up to Dib and cleared her throat.
"You like stars and planets and all that, don't you, Dib?"
After the briefest hesitation, Dib nodded once for yes.
"Well, my son had this summer job at NASAPLACE two summers ago, and some days he'd start talking with this nice old guy who worked there, well, he didn't really work in space, he was a janitor. But how he could talk and talk and talk about space! I'll just ask my boy if he kept this guy's email, and we'll ask your father if it would be okay for you to start emailing each other. How's that?"
Even though Dib wanted, wanted more than anything, somebody to talk to, somebody who wouldn't keep telling him to shut up or calling him crazy, he hardly dared hope any more after what had happened the previous night. Without speaking, he now gulped down the last mouthful of Chinese food... the Chinese food his aunt had still bought for him, even though Gaz was insisting on pizza and pizza only...
Well, okay. He would try this one more person. And if this person turned on him as well, he wouldn't reach out to anybody else any more... ever. He wouldn't talk about Gaz, certainly not right away. The first thing he would ask about would be the space aliens... the space aliens that had so terrified his mother every night, had made her last nights at home so scary. When he mentioned these aliens at skool, everybody laughed in his face. If this Johnny Terr didn't laugh, Dib would know right away that he would be able to trust him. But if he did laugh, then Dib would know right away that here was no friend of his and he wouldn't open any more emails from him.
Dib now looked up at his Aunt Gravity, and once more Dib nodded yes.
The Professor came to the door. Aunt Gravity thought it was to watch her drive away, but he only placed the materials for the palm scanner beside the door. "I hope Gaz is better."
The Professor looked up, interested. "Better? Better how? Smarter, taller, higher video game scores...?"
"No, just better."
"She reads better, she does math better...?"
"BETTER, Mem. Just better... after being up all last night heaving her guts out... poor little angel!"
The End
(A/N) Ah, yes. The oldest and wisest of us cannot fool everybody all of the time. But no matter how young you are, no matter how innocent you look, you cannot fool an overloaded stomach.
Or karma.
To whoever reads my Karma fics, I do apologize for the long gap. For some time I knew something was missing from this fic, I just didn't know what it was. Finally I realized that the incident that ties this fic together actually takes place before the events of the actual story.
Canon has shown that Dib enjoys Chinese when he actually has a choice, and thejennamonster had Jhonen himself bring Dib some lo mein; who am I to disagree with Jhonen?
If you haven't done so already, I invite you to visit my updated profile.
The Karma Circle is now closed. Thank you and good evening.
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