Tak woke up blearily. The pain in her head was gone, except for a dull throb. She looked around, and as soon as she realized she was in Zim's lab, she bolted upright. The sudden movement made her dizzy, and someone pushed her back down.

"Rest, I don't want to have to spend another day down here if you get hurt again." It was Zim, and he sounded very annoyed.

"How long have I been out?" She asked, suddenly feeling nervous.

"About twelve hours. Now, why don't you tell me what's going on." He was not happy. Not one little bit.

Tak sighed, and figured she might as well 'fess up. There was no avoiding it now. "Alright, I'll tell you." She sat up slowly, trying to get into a more comfortable position. He had put her on some kind of padded version of where he put his experiments when he worked on them.

"Do you know about Cranaritis?" She asked, but he shook his head. "I'm not surprised. It's a very rare genetic disorder. It requires the DNA of a male who has it, and a female carrier, for a female to show the symptoms. Since almost all Irkens are born in hatcheries with random sets of DNA, very few ever get it.

"What happens is that the Irkens' brain isn't compatible to the PAK's programming. This keeps the Irken from functioning, except for the most basic needs. The only way to fix it is one of these," She pointed to the tube in her head. "It's a robotic implant that reformats any of their thoughts so that they are compatible to their PAK. There are maybe four other Irkens alive now with the same disease as me."

Zim looked a little confused. "But that doesn't explain why you fainted."

Tak looked a little embarrassed at that. "Well, you see, the implant is painful, as it has to be hooked up to the brain, but the PAK is able to suppress it for most of the time. Once a year, though, it has to recharge, so I have to take a special anesthetic. For some reason though, all of mine were gone, so I didn't have anything to keep the pain down. I guess it was too much, and I passed out."

"Why didn't you tell me? I could have ordered you some more, instead of spending the whole day trying to figure out what was wrong with you." Zim was very upset, and glared down at her.

Tak's temper started to flare. "Geez, I'm sorry. Forgive me if I don't want to tell everyone I meet about my weaknesses."

"I don't have to listen to this. You go back to sleep, and I'll check on you again in a few hours." He said, storming off, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

She fumed silently, lying back down, thinking, 'That Zim…he's so infuriating!'

"HI SCARY LADY!" GIR cried, jumping onto her cot/bed/slab thing.

Sighing, she said, "Hello GIR."

"Aww, whassa matter, scary lady?" He asked, cocking his head a little.

"Nothing…" She muttered, closing her eyes and trying to sleep, despite her anger at Zim.

"You upset 'cause Master won't play with you either?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I kept tryin' to get him to play with me, but he just spent all day down here."

Tak opened her eyes, and looked at GIR, trying to understand what he was saying.

"He wouldn't even let me down here! And I left mah piggy here!" He started to cry, "WHY MY PIGGY? WHY?"

"GIR! Get away from there!" Zim's voice cried from across the lab.

"But…mah piggy…" GIR sniffed.

"I have it over here, now get away from her! I can't afford to waste another day taking care of her if you mess something up!" GIR squealed, and ran out of Tak's line of sight.

Even though she convinced herself that she was still angry with Zim, after she fell asleep, there was a most peculiar sort of frown on her face. If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was a smile.

A/N: Props to my science teacher, who taught me about genetics, without which Tak's genetic disorder would never have been possible. It was REALLY hard to come up with, by the way, so you guys better appreciate it.