A/n: Hi! Remember me? Sorry I was gone for SO long, I really needed the right inspiration for this chapter. I also rewrote it about 3 times. Well, I should be back in action now, and I have NO idea whatsoever on how I'm gonna get Red to Earth, so e-mail me your suggestions please. Oh and Ryu was kind enough to be my beta reader! Thanks Ryu!

Disclaimer Thingy: I do not own Invader Zim or any characters, places, and/or objects affiliated with the AMAZING show. I do own Kalli, so please don't steal her.

Warning: Contains angst and cursing, but I don't think I have enough cursing to move the rating up. For those that feel really bothered by this, if you don't like this kind of stuff, just don't read it, it's as simple as that. No addresses or names are real.

Chapter 11

All Alone

Kalli's life was slowly ripping apart at the seams. Her plane trip was extremely uneventful. She sat next to a man that got way too drunk for his own good and told her over and over again that his name was David and he worked in the real estate business.

It wasn't until Kalli got to the airport that she realized that she had been gone a long time. She felt lost; her mind went into hyper drive trying to remember something about this place that should be familiar. Kalli finally gave up, grabbed her bag and went outside to get a taxi.

When a taxi finally stopped, the driver asked her, (note: this is Sinhali the native language of Sri Lanka, it is not normally typed in English, so I'm doing the best I can, sorry if there are any mistakes in the translation.)

"oya:ge: raT kohe:d"

Kalli must've been giving him a blank stare because he quickly said, "I'm sorry, you looked like you lived here. Where do you need to go?" This snapped Kalli out of her trance enough to reply.

"mam yanwa: yann ekay hayay namyay naegenhir gam"(I need to go to 169 east village) The driver understood, but he gave her a strange look before starting to drive to the destination. Kalli looked out the window as the sights of Colombo sped by. The driver stopped and Kalli paid and began to get out until she saw her house, that is, the remains of her house.

"What happened?" Kalli managed to choke out.

"You didn't know? There was a fire, the crazy people who lived there set fire to the house while they were drunk inside. Did you know them or something?" The taxi driver asked.

"Those crazy people were my fucking parents!" Kalli rushed out of the taxi to the pile of burnt ruins that used to be her house. The taxi driver began to get out to get her to pay him. He stopped when he thought about what he said to her before she ran and decided that he shouldn't chase her.

Kalli was standing in the middle of the ash and rubble when she couldn't hear the taxi anymore.

'How could they do this to me?... They make me leave and then don't stick around?... How could they!' Kalli's face was wet with tears. After 15 minutes, her legs collapsed, be it from exhaustion or grief, she didn't care. Her head was swarming with questions. What was she going to do? She had no family or home to go back to if things went downhill. Kalli managed to stop crying just enough to gather her thoughts.

At Zim's base

Zim was pacing in his living room. With Drake in juvenile hall, what was he going to do? When he heard a knock on his door, he freaked out. When the roboparents answered the door, a man said he was a good friend of Drake's and was looking for Zim. Zim was overjoyed, he shoved his "parents" away from the door.

"I am ZIM!" Zim said triumphantly. The man looked at him weird, before talking again.

"I'm here on behalf of Drake, 'dis here is some genuine 'stuff'" The shady man looked around before giving Zim a small plastic bag. "If yous grow it, you'll have an endless supply of 'stuff'" Zim stared at the man wide eyed and reached for the bag. The man took the bag out of Zim's reach. "'Dis 'stuff' ain't free you know."

Back with Kalli

Kalli was about to leave when something caught her eye. She walked to the far corner of the now vacant lot and found a small box that had miraculously survived the fire. She opened it carefully as if she expected something bad. But what she found wasn't bad at all. It was a box of old clothes and jewelry. She suspected that her mother kept a small hoard for herself but never expected to find it. She ran her fingers over the beutiful saris and jewelry and started to pack them into her bag.

She stood up and started to walk away. She looked back at what was left of her old home.

'That's right... This is my old home... I have a new home now.' Kalli took one last look of the place and hailed a taxi to take her back to the airport.

A/n: There it was... It was ok, WAY better than the last chapter but not amazing. Ah well... I do still need ideas for getting red to earth, so e-mail me please! ok, I have the next chapter outlined so it should be up next week. This is One Black Balloon, signing off!