Saving Zim by Dib07

Summary:

He was almost autumnal in a sense, as if he had lost the leaves of youth and didn't quite know what to do as a chill swept in. There was a gloom in his eyes, and a new slouch to his shoulders. When he held Dib's gaze in the rear-view mirror on the way home there had been something in his eyes, something that he couldn't quite say.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

Cover art beautifully made by TheCau! All credit goes to her, please do not use without his permission, thank you :)

Warnings:

Character angst. Blood. Swearing.


Dib07: I dedicate this chapter to the wonderful and inspiring Skeleion who has done a flippin' amazing panel of sketches - (I am still dancing!) and funnily enough I was gonna dedicate this chapter to you Skeleion, for the last heart wrenching, gorgeous fan art of this very chapter all those years ago! In fact your art was so inspirational and so touching that I altered this chapter to fit in more with your picture in mind! I still look at it every day and it will remain a favorite of mine! I am just as gobsmacked as I was back then when this story inspired you, and these sketches you showed me on DA just floored me! So, heh, I was really gunning to get this chapter back out there for you to enjoy! ^^

Side note: Also please check out Luckyrabbit 1927's youtube channel for her wonderful brought-to-life Saving Zim audio chapters! Whenever I read this chapter I can still hear Zim's voice through the magic of her audio!


Blood and Rain

Earlier that day, Clara strolled into the kitchen wearing one of Dib's shirts and noticed a pink vial complete with a repaired neck chain lying on the table. It was the eerie glow that attracted her interest. It even made the wood of the table glow from under it.

Dib was hashing up breakfast in his usual blue shirt and black pants with dark rings under his eyes. He had barely slept a wink all night. He had lain in the dark, too frightened to move in case he woke her. He had never slept with someone before. Even the contact of her skin, the warmth of her hand, the smile he could feel as she kissed him, it was all novel and strange in a wonderful way. When she had fallen asleep, her arms intertwined around his, he had stared at her waves of glossy hair, the way the moonlight fell on her skin, and he had lain there in the disbelief that she was there at all. He wasn't used to feeling another's chest move against his, or the sensation of another's heartbeat. Even her scent of jasmine had seemed alien to him at first until it became oddly inviting.

He scarcely managed to wash and comb his hair in his haste to get up before her to make breakfast. His scythe of hair had to look just right with not a strand out of place – even if it was one in the morning.

"One egg or two?" He asked her.

"Dib? What is this?" She had even gone so far as to pick up the jewel, letting the vial fall delicately against her pale white fingers.

"No, don't touch it!" He grabbed it off her before realizing how psychotic he must look. "It's nothing! I'm sorry!" He said, and there was an ache in his gut and chest when she gave him a confused look. "It's just some junk I used to keep as a kid. I don't know what's inside it."

"Aren't you going to wear it?"

"Wear it?" He blanched as he went back to the cooker, hand mindlessly stirring the eggs and bacon with a spachelor until it was a mess.

"Why keep something unique and beautiful if you're just going to leave it where no one can see it?"

"But it's pink. Only girls wear pink." If anything, it suited her, but he wasn't all too keen on her wearing something that was harmful. Everything Zim ever created or owned or touched was potentially harmful in some way.

"In the 1800s, pink used to be a boys colour." And she approached him with her easy smile. This always paralyzed him, stirring up this helpless and silly smile in turn, but it never stopped him from sweating. She leaned in close and hung the vial around his neck so that it dangled below his throat. He knew he should have kept the damn thing hidden away. "So, what are your plans today?" She asked while the bacon and eggs sizzled away.

-x-

As the sky greyed and turned chilly, the clouds swelling to a dark, bruised purple, he was practically skipping along the sidewalk, whistling any old tune that came to mind. The people that passed him by probably thought he was high on crack. He felt like he was high on crack.

He left his car on the sidewalk, deciding to walk the rest of the way to try and shake some of the excitement out of his system. He was too agitated to care about the drizzling rain, and he was so sweaty and fevered that he welcomed the cool chill it brought.

He had never imagined himself as girl-dating potential that would go beyond the first date, safe in the belief that he'd forever remain a loner.

He didn't even know what to with all the options and freedom that came with sharing life with another.

The smile faded, and fearful pessimism quickly returned to darken his dream-filled optimism. He knew it had been too quick. He had shoved the amethyst ring on her finger without the gentle nudges, fearing that in a day, a week, she'd tire of him, see his fun, passionate side as nothing but 'whacky' and leave him. Her eyes had sparkled at the ring, he was fairly sure they had, and she had smiled. When she hugged him, his returning embrace had been more of the desperate kind as if he still expected to be cast aside.

With each step the sunlight dulled a little more until a dark chill gradually took over. Maybe he was running headlong like all the other love-struck idiots and he'd made a mistake? His surname and prestige certainly wasn't a mistake, and that might be the reason she had said 'yes' in the first place.

The earlier fervour began to leak out of him, the chill and the rain causing him to wrap his arms about himself as he plodded towards the eerie and glowing house crouched between two taller houses.

It was going to be just one more visit. One more ring on the bell. One more look at the crooked and misshaped garden gnomes and disfigured birds.

He needed to put all his time and effort into maintaining this relationship with Clara, and it might work, it might not. But it was something he was going to have to work at. And maybe one day, when he truly knew if there was a future, they could move away, to places far away from memories, and far away from Zim.

"What if she wants... kids...?" He blurted to himself, an ironical smile tugging his lips. He still felt like a kid himself, and could not imagine having children of his own.

He suddenly wished he had someone to talk to, just to share all these useless thoughts with.

The investigator paused on the sidewalk, resting a hand on the hard wood of the fence bordering the front yard, wondering how this change would affect the little space bug.

Sometimes he wondered what Zim really thought about him. He was not bound by the same coalitions humans benefitted from, and neither did 'friendship' mean very much to the Irken. The facets of his character would morph and change, animals were volatile and unpredictable like that, and so Dib had never been able to fully trust him. The soldier had become less of curious oddity these days and more of a ball and chain besides. Time raced on, every year adding more responsibilities until Dib could feel the weight of it on his shoulders. Things of former importance had all but faded when he had money to worry about, taxes, health, insurance, a future...

Zim's sudden lapse in self-care opened up avenues of anger towards the alien, convinced he had done it on purpose to get his attention. And why should Zim mean anything more to him now when he could finally move on with his life?

He decided to just get it over with. Then Zim could do whatever he wanted, and he would do likewise.

They had to stop being in each other's pockets.

Hunching his shoulders, he walked down Zim's typical front lawn. Every time he came here it felt like he had just gone back in time. The gnomes were as ugly as he remembered, their positions never changing, and the aberrant glow from the house had unvaryingly pulsed since the day it had 'appeared.'

When he took another step his boot landed on something sticky. Thinking it was green chewing gum he tried to scrape it off the bottom of his boot. It sort of came off, leaving a great long sludge on the pavement.

He came to the purple door and hit the doorbell just as his phone began to jingle the 'Mysterious Mysteries of Strange Mystery' tune. He went to answer it to see: 'one missed call' on the screen. He frowned when he saw that the number was Gary's. I told that guy not to call me when it's my day off!

He hit the doorbell again.

If Zim didn't answer, it was usually Gir who welcomed him inside even if the ritual remained awkward. Zim could be absent for hours, never showing himself until it was werewolf late, and he hated the human showing up unannounced besides.

No one answered.

Perhaps the old Elite had taken Gir out for a walk to run off some of that manic energy, and who could blame him when anyone would struggle enduring that robot - if it wasn't raining.

If the sky looked one shade too dark, Zim would bolt down the doors and windows like the witch from Wizard of Oz, and he would not come out until the sun was practically burning everything to cinders.

He knocked again, making each bang considerably louder so that he could rouse even the deafest of Irkens. "Hey, Zim? It's me. I have some good news!" That was sure to grab his attention, especially when he was two scoops too gullible. Tell him the sky was falling and he'd believe it.

Dib waited in the rain, thinking of heading back. The reason he'd come at all was because the conversation was one he'd rather have face to face. He owed him that much, especially when he'd blown off his phone call.

"Jesus, Zim. You're not still pissed at me, are you?"

He tried the doorknob, half expecting it to shock him with electricity. Tricks and traps were common when Zim's paranoia extended to the postman, the newspaper boy, bible thumpers and charities. To him, they were all his enemies.

Dib turned the knob to be met by a rather surprising outcome when the door simply clicked open.

He swung it inwards, making his presence as loud as possible in the hopes that Zim would recognise him before he was attacked for the intrusion. "Hello? It's me. The door's open and I'm coming in. I think your security could do with some adjustments."

The front lounge was quiet and lifeless, which was never normally so when it came to Gir's living habits. The couch was completely empty of miniature robots, food mess or even plush toys. The only thing he could hear was the plop of rain at his back and the ticking clock on the mantle. His eyes took in the couch again, seeing how ripped and mangled it was as if a shark had tried to eat it. The walls weren't much better either. Strips of purple wallpaper hung in long, whirling ribbons, and in some places grey drywall and capillary tubing was exposed.

What the hell happened?

"Zim?" He called worriedly. The invader never left his base so openly unguarded and the proximity alarm would have gone off long before he even touched the doorbell.

Outside the rain picked up with the wind gusting violently, reinforcing the belief that Zim couldn't possibly be out there.

He called again, bracing himself for insults, even from the intercom system, as the alien had eyes and ears all over the place. The only response he got was from Zim's military computer system. Its low voice filled the room without a noticeable source which never failed to make him jump. Dib looked around for it, even when he could never find its source as the disembodied voice spoke from all around.

"Zim is not in the vicinity. You are intruding."

Dib wasn't sure how seriously to take that statement. Was it a threat, or just an automated response? He knew he should never take any chances with it, but he wasn't prepared to give up and walk back out without pressing a little deeper. "What happened here? Did Gir throw a party or something?"

There was a moment of intermission before the computer gave out its calculated response. "Stuff was... definitely thrown around."

Dib looked up to see that the damage had extended to the ceiling. A plethora of tubes and cables hung down like intestines. "Okaay. So where's Zim now?"

He heard the computer sigh as if it had the breath to exhale. "He left the base less than an hour ago."

"Where was he going?"

"He did not confirm his objective."

"And Gir?"

"You are not authorized to access that information."

Dib was taken aback by the abruptness of the answer, and since when was Gir's whereabouts 'prohibited?'

The rain hit harder outside, pelting the little windows and open door like an avalanche of tiny fists knocking at once.

He stepped forwards, undetermined on how best to proceed. Zim's business was Zim's business, but to go outside, on the eve of a storm?

He stepped on more sticky residue and again tried to rub it off the bottom of his shoe. The 'residue' was on the floor in tiny puddles as if someone had let their green lollipop drip here and there, and was perhaps nothing more ordinary than Gir's habitual sugar spillages. "Urm. Zim's computer, what is this stuff on the floor that I'm treading in?"

The computer took slightly longer processing its response as if it was internally debating whether to clue Dib up on what the 'stuff' was. "That green residue you're stepping in is blood."

"Blood? Like as in...Irken blood?" He swallowed and looked again at the dregs on the floor, his mind struggling to understand what the computer had just told him. "From Z-Zim?"

"There is only the one Irken."

Panic and greater parts dread bottled him with ice. He bolted to the door, hesitating before a curtain of rain. "What... what the hell happened? Why did he leave if he's injured?"

The computer reiterated its disregard. "He did not confirm his objective."

"Help me out here! Or is that too hard for a program that's supposed to be sophisticated?"

The computer sounded angry. "You are not authorized!"

"Thanks for the help!"

"You're welcome!"

He wasn't sure if the computer was matching his irony or if it was just an automatic counter, but he was already swinging the door wide and dashing down the path through biting rain. Millions of cold droplets stung his face and neck as his boots skidded on slick and saturated pavement, the pink glowing vial bouncing on his chest.

The random splodges of green were not so easy to follow. They were spaced unevenly along the chipped path with the rain washing the evidence away.

The blood led him down the first street, towards his car. He jumped in, started the engine and began following the sidewalk. He had his break lights on, and ignored the angry drivers bleating angrily on their horns as they overtook him.

He thought he had Zim all figured out. The blood trail went in the direction of his home down Canvas Road, before the tiny dark puddles veered down an alley, forcing him to get out of his car, but the side alley eventually took him to a deadend. He circled the area, muttering to the walls and dark. "Why did you come down here?"

Maybe he, gods-forbid, came out without his disguise, someone saw him, and he blindly ran away to hide?

But there were no answers, only the drumming, thunderous sound of the storm.

Fighting through the rain, running almost blind as the pink vial bounced around his neck, he wondered why he was doing this. What had he really wanted out of Zim beyond the truce?

The dull evening light was too dim to see by, and he really wished he had brought a flashlight.

His phone started to ring again. Snatching it quickly from his pocket, he saw the same number. He hit the little green icon and tried to shore up breath. "Make this q-quick, I'm having a bit of an emergency right now."

"You're having an emergency?" He heard Gary shout down the other end of the line, "I've been chasing a green fucking alien around Lincoln! I've been trying to contact you! This is big! You gotta get down here, quick!"

Dib had to stop and lean against the wall to keep from tipping over. One hand reached up to hold the necklace, air whistling down a narrowing throat. "W-What?"

"The damn thing escaped and I don't have proof...yet! I was going to get something to scoop up the blood but the rain's washing it all away! If you come down Bishop Street we can hunt it down together! It's small, and it was limping. I knew there wasn't something right with this town...! And when... when I finally saw it..."

Feeling his way through the wet and cold with numb fingers clinging to the brickwork, he asked. "Did you hurt him?"

"What?"

"I said, did you hurt him?"

"What kind of question is that?"

Dib pinched his eyes shut. "Where did you see him last?"

"Up Fleet Street, down the alleyways. I checked all around there though, and I can't find it!"

He hung up and broke into a run through deepening puddles, frantically looking down every alley and slipway he could find. Bringing his hands to his mouth he called into the whipping storm as hair lashed and cut at his eyes.

It wasn't long before he realized he had a bigger problem.

Gary had called the police.

Cops were everywhere. Their blue and red lights flashed heavily through the sweeping rain, with strings of men patrolling the sidewalks with their snarling dogs and flashlights. Gary was among them, helping with the search. A young cop with a moustache was trying to draw what Gary had seen on a notepad under the dripping roof of a retail shop.

Dib ran up to the one who appeared to be in charge. He was eating a soaking wet donut in the soaking rain from a soaking wet donut box.

"Excuse me...sir?" Dib had to pause, icy hands locked on trembling knees as he tried to get some breath into his lungs, "There's been a m-mistake!" He could barely see out of his glasses: the man peered back through a million speckles of water dancing across the lenses.

"Can you move aside, young man?" The man said dismissively. "We've got an investigation on our hands and we don't want anyone in the way."

Dib whipped out his paranormal investigator card and nearly shoved it in the cop's face. "I work in the field! Gary reported seeing an alien, didn't he? He set you up! It's a hoax!"

"Excuse me?"

"I work with him! He makes these elaborate claims to get attention! There is no alien!"

The cop stared back, the soggy half-eaten donut falling from his fingers to the floor. "Your co-worker was awfully convincing." Was his reply.

Dib put his card away, "Look, he's drunk, okay! Do that alcohol test on him or whatever! He goes through like a bottle of vodka every afternoon!"

"What?"

He couldn't waste any more time and stepped out from the shelter and onto the street. Cars flashed by, screening the road in psychedelic cones of light behind curtains of slashing water. He had a feeling this would happen someday, that Zim would be chased down and hunted like an animal.

The rain was a leaden blanket, weighing upon his clothes and smothering his sight. He hunched up his shoulders and stooped as he ran, the rain pushing against him, boots sluicing through water greasy with oil. Tin cans and rubbish floated like flotsam along the currents as they eddied down the roads. The clouds rumbled ahead, with lightning stroking the sky in blinding flashing streaks.

Every deadend, every empty stretch of alleyway and vacant corner brought closer the picture of Zim being trapped in a glass box. He would be imprisoned beneath the hand of science and pain as an indifferent audience looked on.

Gods Zim, please don't be out here!

What if I do find you and the rain has melted you down to your bones?

He tried looking for other distinguishing marks, like little telltale boot prints, but there was nothing discernable to offer so much as a clue that Zim had even been here. After running down a rubbish-strewn pathway between two residential allotments, he came to a chain link fence behind smelly dumpsters at the backend of Fleet Street. "Zim!" He called into the wind, hands cupped around his mouth. "Damn you! Answer me!"

He cursed, twirling hopelessly on the spot, scythe of hair falling onto his glasses and face when his boot stepped on something. He stopped and bent down to lift the item in the dark and wet, screwing his eyes at what appeared to be a child's ebony sock. Using his index finger and thumb, he held up its soggy edge to peer at it through speckled kaleidoscopes of rainwater. It was so soppy that it hung from his fingers like a sodden tongue. But it wasn't a sock. It was a slippery, plastic boot.

Dib wildly looked around, heart leaping and bounding, hope dangerously rising as rain thundered around him. "Z-Zim?"

He skidded to the far corner where two big dumpsters stood: their contents so full that their lids were partway open to emit foul smells. In the dark recesses, between the dumpsters and the chain link fence were mounds of wet newspaper. From it came a faint hissing sound, like something sizzling in a frying pan, with a wispy haze rising into the rain.

Dib dropped onto his hands and knees, not feeling the wet gravel and grime, and lifted the peak of mushy newspaper with cold, shaky fingers.

A droopy pair of muted, magenta eyes peered back from the dark, Dib's reflection filling them completely, and when the man smiled, choking in relief, Zim only blankly stared. He remained huddled in the corner with sinewy arms tightly curled around his chest.

Dib immediately shrugged off his sodden trench coat. "What the hell are you doing out here without your disguise? Good thing I found you! The cops are out there looking for you!"

The Irken torpidly began to uncurl himself, but only to crawl deeper into the tiny recess, his PAK clanking against the wall at his back. Sheaves of soggy newspaper slid off a peeling, wet skull. "No... no! L-Leave me be!"

He opened out his coat. "It's okay! I'm not turning you in! Get into my coat, it'll hide you while I take you to my car and then I'll drive you home!"

"Stalking m-me, w-were you?" His croaks were so gruff and hoarse that Dib could barely hear him. "I'll enslave you y-yet!"

"We don't have time to argue, you idiot! I'm trying to save you!"

His splutters were getting worse. "I don't n-need s-saving..."

There was a strange red light pulsing from the Irken's PAK. He'd never seen it do that before. "Are you hurt?"

"N-No!" The soft glow of his eyes remained pained apertures.

"Then come out!" He could hear the dogs through the grumbling rainfall, and struck his shoulder against the buttress of dumpsters, trying to squeeze his arm through, fingers reaching for the Irken. The left dumpster shifted aside with a grunt, Dib squeezing his eyes against the pain, and hooked a hand around a thin arm of bone and pulled. As Zim was hauled out, newspaper peeling off him, rain attacked his exposed skin, with new blisters forming over the old to then suppurate and bleed. This transition was happening so quickly, and releasing Zim's natural body heat that it caused this 'steam' effect.

The Irken hardly resisted as he was pulled out, and more or less fell into him, his bony knees hitting the gravel.

His lightness of build made it easier for Dib to lift up his upper body, hands under wet armpits to try and keep him from sliding down to the floor. Zim wasn't even trying to stand, and wasn't putting any weight on his feet. The apathy he was showing was really starting to scare Dib.

While he had him propped up like this he slung his coat over the Elite and since the trench coat was so enormous it fitted over him like a shroud, but the coat wasn't waterproof and its fabric was heavy with rainwater.

A bead of green dribbled down Zim's nasal slit, leaving a dark ribbon of emerald.

"Can you walk? Do...do you want me to carry you? Your PAK is blinking! Is it supposed to do that?" The soldier opened his mouth as if in reply, only to spew hot green. Dib was so horrified that he almost dropped him. "Okay, it's okay..." He wasn't even aware of what he was saying as he listlessly stared at the splattered discharge, hardly believing what had just happened.

Zim miserably spat and gagged out whatever was left in his mouth, those apertures for eyes closing more than opening.

He slowly looked back at the sagging creature before swinging the little thing into his arms like grooms did for their brides.

Zim abruptly squealed. The sound was two parts pain, one part anger. He winced for him, 'I'm so sorry' before easing himself upright, both arms tucked around the coat-wrapped bundle as he made his way down the narrow alleyway.

He could hardly see. The rain dotted his lenses, droplets turning the streetlights into fractured, bewildering kaleidoscopes that flashed and gleamed. His hair was streaming, the thin shirt on his back plastered like glue to his skin.

Zim did not protest or struggle which tore open a dark chasm of worry in his heart.

"Fudgekin... Talk to me damn you."

The blood... the blood I followed. It's all come from you...

He felt the creeping warmth against his arms, and soon felt it running down his shirt and into his pants, intermingling with the cold rain.

Leaving the claustrophobic muddle of buildings, he tried to remember the route he had taken as he struggled to see out of streaming glasses. Everywhere looked unfamiliar. Panic started to build, moment by moment, brick by brick as blood warmly trickled down his stomach.

A dog was baying close by, giving him visions of foxhunters chasing him and Zim down with their guns and hounds.

Stopping and starting, owlishly looking from one unfamiliar place to another, he recognised a road sign and started running towards it, the familiarity just enough to close off the thickening despair.

"Just a little further, Fudge."

The coat had him mostly protected from view, except his antennae. Not wanting to crush or kink them out of joint, especially the broken one, Dib had purposely left them sticking out, knowing how delicate they were, but the coat was sopping wet, and he wasn't sure if Zim was still blistering anyway.

He soon recognised the route when the familiar 'Don't Walk on the Grass' sign came into sight, along with the News and Bags shop on the corner of Bishop Street. Heading for an empty bus shelter, he ducked under its dome of glass to escape the stinging rain and wind. An oval area of dry ground encircled the bench, beyond which was a steady waterfall of rain.

Worried Zim couldn't breathe beneath the shroud of wet coat he gently tugged it off him and used it to cover his own back, shoulders and head like a cloak, hoping this would work better to keep the rain off them.

Police sirens wailed in the distance, with their dogs yapping barks echoing across the street. When he strained his eyes, he could just make out his old blue car across the road beneath a streetlamp. Other cars streamed past, little waves of water swept along by their tires.

He didn't want to verify the unalterable truths that had been quietly seeping into his thoughts through the months and then the years, but he didn't need to look down to confirm what he already knew. The PAK seemed heavier than the one who bore it, and there was no mistaking the gauntness felt through the layer of wet tunic.

The death-defying resilience the old soldier had once worn like a mantle had faded away when all Dib held was a frail creature whose era had come and gone.

"Zim, hey," he lifted his right arm ever so slightly, causing loose and limp antennae to sway, "where does it hurt?"

The Irken struggled to open his eyes. A drop of water ran down the torn split of the broken antenna and dripped off its tattered end.

Something was terribly wrong. He had not seen Zim move since he had pulled him out from the dumpsters.

Maybe he's been hit by a car, or attacked by a dog? He could have been shot when someone saw him without his disguise, but... why isn't he... healing?

The PAK was hotter than normal, and something seemed to be buzzing from inside it.

Dib took a breath. Zim's quiet moan of pain was all the fortifying he needed and he broke into the rain, boots splashing across a waterlogged sidewalk. There was a gap in the traffic, and he darted across the road, the coat billowing out behind his shoulders when he heard the alien screech in pain. The sound jolted him to his centre, but he couldn't stop with cars speeding left and right.

He reached the other side, panting, but he didn't stop. Zim was getting worse the longer he was out in the rain. It was almost as if the damp in the air was interfering with his breathing, and clogging up his airway, as each gasp became a wheezy squeak.

He reached the Toyota, holding a limp alien to his chest as he fiddled for his sodden car keys with the other hand, the cape of his coat blowing around his shoulders. The roof of the car was bewitched in tinkles of miniature craters as water thrummed on metal. He hit the button and the headlights blinked on. With one very wet and slippery hand, Dib wrenched the door wide and bundled Zim inside.

The Irken started whimpering and crying as if he was in too much pain and was no longer able to cope. Dib wrapped a dry patchwork blanket around him from the trunk of the car and tried to loosen a pink collar that had tightened to a noose around Zim's throat. His uniform was almost melting into him, the fabric plastering his blistering and smoking skin. Even plucking some of it back ripped off skin that had fused to it.

Oh fuck, oh fuck...

The seatbelt was too large for him, so he clipped in the bottom belt across the alien's shuddering chest and the shoulder strap he pushed behind the seat with the storm breathing down his back. He closed the door and hurriedly went round to the driver's side. Slipping in, teeth chattering, he turned on the interior heater and activated the windwipers. His face and hands were streaming with water and his glasses were fogging up as if he had just come in from a blizzard. He briefly took them off to rub them clear of droplets using a shirt that was much too wet to do a good job of it.

With the storm beating at the car windows, he could hear shaky, wet gasps and squeaks. Zim was frighteningly pale, his eyelids fluttering to a close with reticent shreds of darker jade under his eyes. Steam was rising from every upturned lip of blanket, and Dib could smell the dingy odour of sodden autumn leaves left to rot in a gutter.

"Hold on, little guy. A little further and we'll be at my p-place." Dib struggled to speak through the squeezing pain that had come deep inside his chest. When he went to touch him, Zim's eyes peeled to lacklustre crescents, the wrinkles under them sharp with pain.

His words were whispered, shaky wails that could barely be heard over the thunderous rain. "L-leave me a-alone! You s-stalking me!" He closed his eyes and went back to squeakily crying: "I'm... s-scared... Please don't h-hurt... Z-Zim."

The cries cut into Dib's heart, opening a wound that would never close for the rest of his life. "It's okay, Fudge. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

It was a struggle to operate the car, and a struggle to concentrate enough to inch his way off the curb after releasing the handbrake, but when the tires bumped off the curb it caused Zim to choke. Once there was an opening in the line of oncoming cars, Dib pulled out and drove as rain tried to thickly veneer the windshield, the windwipers struggling to clear back the curtain of water.

His glasses were steaming up again as the car heater blasted warm air into the compartment, but it was a slow process and Zim was violently shivering. The buttery smell of suppurating flesh, sweat and blood was thick in the car.

They passed a cop patrol car going the opposite way and Dib tried to stay calm. The cop car didn't stop, making him feel as though he had just weathered a storm of a different kind.

"Stay awake for me, Zim." He reached over while keeping an eye on the road, but when he touched wet gloves he could feel those claws slide under the material as if the flesh had already suppurated.

"I... I d-don't f-feel soo-soo good... think... I think I'm going wrong..." His childlike voice was a ragged series of tired, choked squeaks, and after a few short minutes into the journey he was trying to curl up on the seat, in obvious pain. Dark viscous fluids lined his lips, and some of it was pooling under Zim's rear. Dib's stomach recoiled at the sight.

When he swung his eyes back to the road he almost didn't break in time. The other car in front had stopped at the traffic lights and he had almost gone straight into them.

Dib kept glancing hopelessly over at the tiny soldier, and gave up trying to master a voice that was already crackling down the middle. He was so wet from the rain that the tears wouldn't make any difference. "Stay awake, stupid alien. I'll poke you if you don't keep those eyes open."

"D-Dib... Dib I..." His gasps for breath were turning into grunts and rattling wheezes.

"You're gonna be okay, you gotta hang on just a little bit longer."