The new chapter! I've already started the next chapter-because I had the opening scene written out for a while now-but with the holidays still in full swing, we'll see just how fast that gets put out, aha. Hope you guys enjoy!

Part 40: By Cover of Night

A fractured hip, a punctured section of his sqeedlyspooch, a fractured foot on the other side, and a migraine.

All in all, Zim wasn't doing fantastic. Even with the PAK pumping his body full of pain medication and doing it's share of repairs, Zim wasn't allowing it to put him into an auto-sleep. There was no way until he was back into his base. Once he was, Dib could care for him again. As it stood, Zim had sustained worse—the memory of being shot came to his mind first—in previous crashes. He'd be fine, in the end.

Zim climbed over his back fence, swearing for the nth time that day. He trudged up to the back door, kicking it open. It smacked the wall and rebounded. Zim knocked it out of his way. It slammed behind him. The pain in his foot had increased substantially since he'd kicked it; like an idiot. He contemplated flipping the table in his anger; but thought better of it. He reached the living room and stood frozen in the doorway. It was completely empty. Zim looked around again, as if that'd change the outcome, and Dib didn't reappear.

"Computer? Where is Dib?" he asked.

"Left."

"…. He left?"

"Yep."

Zim felt his eye and antennae twitch. "WHY?"

"Don't know."

"…." Zim pinched his brow. He'd told Dib to watch the base. Granted, he'd been right, it could watch itself, but STILL. "Is he at his own house?"

"Probably."

Zim sighed, reaching for his phone. When he pulled it out his scowl grew. The screen was completely shattered. Because of course it would be. Zim threw it on the couch.

"I'm heading over. Where is GIR?"

"Followed him, I guess."

"You guess. Alright."

Zim thought on his way to Dib's house. He thought of how much he was going to scream when he got there. He thought of how much work repairing and salvaging his Cruiser was going to be. He thought of GIR screaming the entire time. He thought of Dib asking him incessantly about the finer mechanics of the ship and how it worked.

He was still thinking of all of that when he rounded Dib's fence and saw his feet rushing back and forth from a small gap between the garage door and the concrete. Zim could hear him yelling at GIR for something. He was rushing back and forth quite quickly. Zim got closer and could hear tools being dropped and shoved this way or that, until Dib had found the one he needed and ran back to the center of the garage. Zim lifted the door just enough to crawl under and lit fall shut completely behind him. Dib whirled around; a torching helmet flung haphazardly over his glasses. He dropped the blowtorch, the fire going out before it hit the ground, and he tackled Zim in a hug.

"You're alive!"

"OF COURSE I'M ALIVE, YOU IDIOT!" Zim shoved Dib off, feeling hot—he blamed the garage—taking in the pile of parts in front of him. He only had to look at it for a moment. "Are you building a ship?"

"Well, I'm trying to."

"WhY?"

"Because you just flew off! You didn't have a spare, and Tak's ship is definitely out of the question. SO," Dib presented the pile of parts as if it were a prize. "I was making one myself! I got about a third of the way through when you got here."

"…Looks more like an eighth."

Dib's arms fell. He punched Zim in the arm. "Don't be an ass. What happened? You look…. Less healthy than you were before."

"That's why Zim came to find you. …I…" Zim groaned and sighed. He held his side, looking dejectedly at the floor. "I crashed the Cruiser… it's in the woods."

"You WHAT? How did you manage that?" Dib asked. He tossed the torcher's helmet into the pile of rubble. GIR popped up from the center, grabbing the helmet. Zim glanced at Dib. "He's building a 'fort'."

"…Right. The ship shot back, of course. My ship's lasers destroyed them, of course. But… let's just say some improvements could be made on the steering mechanics after a shot has been fired. Notes have been made." Zim says. "I need a way to get the Cruiser back to the base for repairs. Do you know anyone with a truck?"

"Um…. Abed, probably. We wouldn't be able to grab it until he's off work. That's not until 8." Dib says, already whipping his phone and texting. Zim slumped down to the floor.

"Zim's fine with that. Need a nap anyway." He said. Dib chuckled. He looked up from his phone, all ready to give a proper clapback, when he noticed Zim had already fallen asleep against the garage door. He sighed, sliding down the door and sitting beside him. The PAK fit snugly between the slats of the door. Dib only had to lean on them for a minute before he was resorting to just laying down beside Zim.

Dib shook Zim's shoulder. Zim cracked an eye open. The world was blurry for a second before everything came back into focus. Dib was using the flashlight on his phone, pointed towards the ceiling to dilute the light into the whole room, and he was already in his jacket. Zim rubbed the sleep from his eyes and took the room in. It was already past dark, and Dib had cleared away most of the rubble.

"You're ship?"

"Can wait. I was halfway through clearing the garage when I remembered no one is using it. Gaz doesn't even have a car; we both just take the bus." Dib says. Zim followed him out the side door. The truck sat in the driveway.

"Abed came by already?"

"He did. I paid him in soda. He said as long as I get it back to him by tomorrow at three, he doesn't care what weird shit I'm dredging up from the dump. He just wants it back in one piece." Dib says. Zim climbed into the passenger seat.

"You do that often enough, huh?"

"Only on days you're not free. I get bored. It's a good place for free parts. …so long as the guards don't find you shifting through the trash." Dib says. "They don't like freeloaders sneaking in."

"Free loaders? It's trash!"

"You have to pay to dump there! They don't just let people take whatever they want, that's not sanitary or safe." Dib explained. "I may have… gotten a few tickets when they've caught me."

Zim blinked at him in disbelief. "Goodness, you do not make good decisions when you're bored."

"Oh, shut up, let's just go out to the boonies and grab your ship."

"It was not the boonies!" Zim exclaimed.

Dib ignored him. Zim navigated him as far as he could until they were perpendicular to the ship. Dib pulled the truck to the side of the road and leaned out the window to look at the trees.

"Well, I don't see it." He says. He shut the truck off and climbed out with Zim. Zim looked into the trees and pointed slightly to the right.

"It's that way. I had to hike for a while."

"And we're doing this at night. Totally optimal," Dib grumbles. He fumbled around in his jacket until he had his phone out, clicking on the flashlight again. Zim smirked at him smugly, leaning in to make sure Dib saw him in his peripheral. Dib pouted at him. "YES. I KNOW."

Zim marched ahead, unimpeded, but careful not to leave Dib behind.

"Are you hauling it to the truck?" Dib asked.

"Mmm… the plan was to break it into pieces since it's not flyable and bring it back bit by bit." Zim admitted. Dib guffawed, stumbling for a moment in the brush.

"Zim, that'll take until dawn!"

"Not with my speed and strength. You'll carry the more delicate parts, but the sturdier pieces can go with me." Zim explains. Dib mumbled something; but he wasn't disagreeing with the plan. Zim chalked that up to a success.

They had made it just over halfway there when Zim's antennae started to pick up voices. They had almost reached the edge of the tree line when Zim put his hand out. Dib stopped and shut off the phone's light. He stowed it back into his pocket and moved closer to Zim.

"What?" he whispered.

"Voices and machinery. Computers. The sound might be their fans running." Zim says. Dib's heart sank.

"Zim," he begins. "Don't tell me your ship was commandeered by crazed fanatics. Again."

"No." Zim said grimly.

He started climbing a nearby tree, pulling Zim up with one of his spider legs. He set Dib down in the branches and stood to look out over the tops. He could see a large number of people around his crash site. Every person was either in a suit or a scientists' coat. Dib groaned, knocking his head on the tree.

"Oh, this is so much worse. So, so much worse." Dib says. Zim sat down beside him, thinking hard.

"Zim could… could…"

Dib looked up at him. Zim had taken his disguise off momentarily, the wig held in one hand, the other trying to smooth out the antennae that were bent… completely forward. Dib suddenly felt very unsafe in a tree fifty feet off the ground. He looked back at the crash site.

Oh, yes. A crashed ship, a whole unit of government agents, and a very angry Irken.

Just the night he needed.