Zim was alone today. A few years ago, that wouldn't have phased him, but now… the house felt too quiet, even with the energy thrumming healthily between the walls and the sounds of the tvs on either side of the base blaring and making his antennae twitch. Gir was irk knew where, probably out getting some greasy food. Honestly, it was preferable to him trying to feed the 'bay-bee'. (It wasn't going to be a bee, so Zim didn't get the term, although Dib did say he was some small part bee now, so maybe it would be? If it came out with malformed wings he was going to give the Dib a good hard smack, though. He was still nervous around human babies sometimes after the incident with the nhar-gh'ok. Even the non-alien ones drooled and smelled. His certainly wouldn't do that.) Gir had thrice tried to shove spoonfuls of mashed potatoes crumbled with chips into his stomach, despite there being no way the smeet could get any nutrients from that. He didn't even have a little denty old mouth there like most humans did, since he was grown in a tube.

Dib didn't really have one either, though, since apparently he'd been grown in a tube too. Heh. Kind of funny that they'd been made the same way, but Zim was growing the smeet the old-fashioned way. The really old fashioned way.

He stuck his tongue out without thinking as he strained to reach the top shelf. He'd crawled up on top of the counter in the kitchen, trying to get at the package of bacon Gir had placed there weeks ago and forgotten. It was starting to smell terrible and he wanted to throw it out. He grinned as he grasped the edge of the package, but he pulled it out with such force that he tumbled backwards. He tried to send his pak legs out to catch him, but-

BAM!

He hit the floor hard, bruising his poor butt. "What was that? " He tried to crane his neck to check out his Pak, but could only see the edges, same as always. He risked popping it off for a few moments, lifeclock immediately starting in the corner of his vision, but a quick visual inspection yielded exactly what he'd gotten used to- a small dent in the lower left corner, and a bit of a chip in the upper right he needed to straighten out one of these days, but nothing wrong. He put it back on, hearing the satisfying click.

"Computer!"

"What?"

"Is there anything wrong with my pak?"

A lavender light scanned him. "The lower ports are stuck."

Zim's shriek nearly rattled the walls. "What?"

"There's nothing wrong with the life supports. It's probably a malfunction, since the smeet's hitting a growth spurt and your pak doesn't know how to handle maintaining two life forms properly."

Zim tugged on his antennae, sore butt forgotten in the new revelation. "If it won't let the legs work, what if the atmospheric filter breaks? Or the translator? Or the memory bank!"

"Those are deeply encoded. Stop whining, it'll be fine," The computer half-huffed.

Zim's spooch turned at the idea nevertheless. He set a hand on the bump. "Did you say a growth spurt?"

"You'll see."

"Ominous," Zim muttered, tapping out a rhythm on the standard-issue fabric with two fingers. "Very useless too.."

"Your skin got crazy stretched during that weird organ binge you did years ago. You'll be fine."

"My pak wasn't glitching then, it fixed the skin up afterwards." Zim said, tugging up his uniform. A few faint lines were darker than the rest of the skin. "My perfect skin!"

"It'll heal itself once it's out."

"But it looks bad now!" Zim prodded at it with one gloved finger. It kind of itched. It was nothing compared to other terribly painful sensations he'd dealt with before, but for some reason, it caught in his brain. "How much longer until it's out again?"

"Three months. Maybe four."

"Maybe four?!"

"It's hard to tell since it's part human."

Zim growled at that, pulling the shirt back down so fast that if it hadn't been superior irken fabric, it probably would have ripped. "I don't want to deal with this for another four months!"

"Well, you'll have to, drama queen."

"Don't talk back at me!" Zim stood up, cracking his back as he arched it forward. "And you," he glared down, "You'd better be worth it. Cutting off access to parts of my pak… you really are part Dib-pig, aren't you? Being all annoying and messing with my things. And getting annoyingly big… but that means you'll be tall. That's good. Maybe once you're out you'll listen to me. You're part me, you'll have to be aware of how brilliant and amazing I am. And I can get you to help with the experiments Dib started babbling to me about his precious 'ethics' on. You're grounded for hurting your birther, though. For a month!"

He pulled himself up unto the couch, still looking down."Still, you'll know I'm right and be a good little smeet. You just don't have anywhere to cause good destruction yet except in me… bah, I wish I could give you to Dib for a few weeks, let him handle how well even irken smeets create beautiful chaos." Zim thought for a moment. "I haven't contacted the Tallests in a few weeks, I can't let them worry about me… I'll do that tomorrow, they'll be most interested in how the cow-chickens have started cannibalizing each other." He grinned. "The look on Dib's face when he saw the chicken ones pecking the eyeballs of the cows out was incredible."

He ran a quick diagnostic scan on his pak. It came back a tad scrambled, like it always did, but the parts he could read said his legs should be working again in a few days. Well, that wasn't too bad. Dib was good for reaching stuff, and so was Minimoose. It was only a minor setback.

He scratched idly at his hip. Yes, just a minor setback. Everything was going to be fine.

(The fact that he got nauseous again an hour later didn't help affirm that, but at least Gir came back without smelling like the disgusting mixed perfumes and boozy stench of a rave. Small victories.)