She was here. She was actually in his arms. Alive and relatively well and staring up at him with eyes that looked just like his and were perfect.

Perfect. That was a good word, something he'd made her just through sheer force of will. The antenna was regrettable, but Dib was right, if that was the only problem, she was incredible. Not that she wasn't already.

She was still chewing on his finger. Her mouth was gummy, with no teeth at all. Zim held up her free hand, the other still clinging to Dib's finger, and ran his own finger over the back of it. The skin was so soft.

"No claws… how will she protect herself?"

"She's a baby, protecting her is our job."

Zim looked up at Dib. "She can't be completely useless, can she?" She was the offspring of two of the finest specimens in the universe, how could that be?

"For a little while, she will be," Dib said. "Humans are actually programmed to find babies cute to make sure we protect them while they're just useless little meatballs."

"There's nothing little about her," Zim scoffed as she kept sucking, waving an arm to smack at Dib who backed away before he could make contact. His hips still ached with the intensity of a thousand suns. Nothing that had felt so huge inside of him could rightfully be considered small, and besides, she filled his arms as he held her. "I demand you take both of us to the recharging chamber."

Dib scooped Zim and Twix up with the blanket pile. "I'll go get the bottle when you start recharging."

That was acceptable. Zim settled against Dib's arm, his Pak comfortable pressed against the blankets with Twix held firmly in his own arms. If he moved the finger inside of her mouth around, he could feel the beginning of an egg tooth beneath her gums. Ah, so she wouldn't be completely defenseless! Why didn't she develop it before birth, though? She must have known she wasn't going to come from an egg. Clever, clever, already she was learning before even being born.

She pulled back just enough to pop Zim's finger out of her mouth and began to wail with a healthy set of- they couldn't be called lungs, but breathing parts, perhaps? Healthy, healthy breathing parts, enough to make Zim's antennae tips curl. He rubbed the saliva-soaked finger on the blanket before running it down the base of her longer antenna. Her cries fell to a confused murmur.

"Wow, that was easier than I was expecting. I think I picked up a pacifier but I'll have to go find it, but until then, I'll have to keep that in mind," Dib said as Zim murmured to her.

"Quiet, quiet, Zim is right here. You're safe, no need to cry." She hiccuped, opening her mouth before Zim used his thumb and index finger to squish her cheeks. "I said, quiet." He ran a finger down her body- it was largely smooth and still slightly sticky, eugh- and patted down at her legs. They were chunky. "You're fat."

"That's healthy."

"Really? It was irritating for me, so heavy in my spooch…"

"Yeah, babies need a lot of energy for growing and fat's just energy to burn."

"Mm." That made sense. A less-fat head would have been ideal for birth but if that was how things were supposed to go, he couldn't really blame her.

"And here we go." Dib carefully set Zim and the smeet and the blankets down in the recharging chamber, and the computer automatically plugged Zim right in. Twix blinked up at the light, waving one fat little baby hand. All her fingers were functioning properly, that was good. "I'll be right back."

Zim was too tired to really argue that he needed Dib here- what if she stopped breathing in the five minutes it took?- but Twix yawned and settled against his side, so focusing on her was easy. Time always ran funny in the recharge chamber, and it felt like mere seconds before Dib returned with a bottle, pressing it to her lips. She started sucking at it right away.

"What's in that one?"

"Just basic formula," Dib said as she chugged. "Man, she was thirsty." Her cheeks puffed out as she drank, and Zim smiled before everything started to fade away.

Unfortunately, before he could start to properly recharge, she started flailing around. Zim snapped back awake as Dib pulled the bottle away, lifting her up and away.

"What is it?"

"If you hadn't destroyed the Pak, we could ask!" Zim snapped, tired and sore and feeling decidedly less peaceful than he had ten minutes ago upon first seeing her. Somehow, he knew this was Dib's fault.

"I didn't- maybe she's allergic to something in the formula?" Dib bounced her a little, flipping through a stack of papers with his free hand. "Or she needs to be burped?"

"What's that?" Zim swung his legs off the side of the recharging chamber, feeling the uncomfortable stickiness still present in parts of the blankets. He'd need to scrub them at some point.

"I don't know, Dad just said in the notes that it was something to do with some technical term I don't know!" Dib kept bouncing her and she kept crying until he thumped her back with his knuckles. She burped and her cries fell down to whimpers. "Oh. That's what it means."

"Hand her over."

"Zim, you look like you're going to pass-'

"I said hand her over!" Zim snapped, arms outstretched until Dib placed the smeet in them. She was still whimpering, and Zim settled back in the chamber, stroking his thumb down her stomach. "This calms Gir down sometimes, so it will work for her."

"Gir's pretty different from- oh, hey, would you look at that?" Her whimpering started to die down again until her eyes slipped closed.

Zim's ended up going after her, drifting off after a few moments of his head bobbing. He woke up with her still in his arms and Dib awkwardly crammed into the recharging chamber with him. It stunk of sweat and birth goo stuck to the blankets, but for once he didn't want to sterilize the area. It was… nice.

At least until Dib pulled him into a hug and nearly squashed Twix between them and she started crying again.

The next few days had a rough sort of pattern. Dib would wake up with Twix (who he called Nebula, although Zim had to admit the name was growing on him, but she could deal with two names, she would be too smart to get confused) and feed her, then scan the notes for what to do. She was incredibly fussy, which was already growing old. Zim would wing it and do a far superior job, at least until Dib killed the fun by informing him that babies needed sleep and couldn't be prodded at whenever Zim wanted. (Or dropped off the roof. Smeets were more bouncy than human babies, apparently, although to be fair they did have Paks that needed to be trained through exposure to dangerous situations. Zim was still certain that she would have fared better with one, but it was too late for that now.)

He had also been annoyingly frustrated by how slow his body was healing. He expected to be back to normal by now, but no, his hips still ached, and he'd gained just enough weight that his uniform felt tighter. He had to use his mechanical legs twice as much as usual. At least they were working. Or, to be more precise, at least they were listening to him.

It was nice that something was.

"You need to eat food, and you need the nutrients from this in particular, so eat. " Zim tried to press the bottle to her lips again, but again she turned away, only smearing liquid across her chin and cheeks.

"Ba!"

"No, this is a drink, not- ba isn't even a real word!" Zim narrowed his eyes. "Open."

"Pffffpbth."

"Open your mouth or I will open it for you."

The tip of her tongue poked out between her wet lips, and Zim took it as a chance to push the tip of the bottle into her mouth. She sputtered around it before starting to drink. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

There was a crash, and Zim turned to see Dib having dropped what had sounded like a heavy bag. "She's drinking, finally!"

"Zim, what is that?"'

"Cream soda. Those formula drinks were terrible and she didn't like them anyway-"

"She can't drink that!"

"She likes it!" Zim countered. Really, as long as it had the needed sugars, it was fine, wasn't it?

"Maybe, but she can't- the carbonation and that much caffeine are probably terrible for her!" Dib pulled the bottle away and she immediately started bawling. "See?"

"I see you took away something she wanted!" Zim held her protectively, patting her back until a few bubbly burps quieted her down. "She always cries longer after that formula, and she was throwing up on you so often I assumed a change of diet was in order, and see? She's fine!"

"We need to stick to-"

"She's half-irken too!" Zim squeezed her to his chest, pushing out a hiccup. Her eyes trailed up, head bobbing a little, too big to hold itself up. He shifted his grip to better support it as she tried to reach for the bottle in Dib's hands. "And irkens live on sugars and fats."

"And humans get sick on anything other than milk," Dib countered.

"She doesn't look sick, does she?"

"She always looks sick!" Dib ran a hand through his hair, before sucking in a deep breath. "Okay, it's not your fault our skin colors mixed the way they did."

"I think she looks fine. Don't you, Twix? Yeah, she does." Zim turned her over, tickling at her nose until she sneezed. "Don't spit your germs at me!" She just blinked up at him, wiggling her limbs like one of those dolls Gir liked the commercials for before making a gummy smile. Her egg tooth was beginning to grow in, and being able to feed her slightly less bottle-y food would definitely be nice.

"Has she gotten sick with you today?" Dib asked, and Zim grimaced.

"Once. I need to put a washing machine in every room at this rate."

"The notes said that's not too weird, but if she got even half of your allergies, we're in trouble. Babies need to eat a lot to grow at a healthy rate. Dad had something like that in the lab, maybe I can-"

"No!" Zim held her protectively. "You aren't experimenting on her!" What did Dib think he was doing, putting her at risk like that?

"No one's going to see it but me, promise!" Dib held up his hands, before a buzzing sound vibrated towards Zim's antennae and Dib pulled his phone out of his pocket. He swiped it up before flipping it around to show Zim a text chat. Most of it was in the other category, of messages that had been sent- he was pretty sure, at least. Usually, he just called Dib, texting was too slow.

'The botanical problem has been contained! If these are the kind of projects you'd work on in the biological sector, perhaps you're better off with mechanics.'

'Simmons told me why you left, is the child born yet?'

Then there was a reply from Dib. 'yeah shes fine, zims okay and were just tired talk later'.

'Wonderful! Do bring her in when you're ready.'

'Kendell asked where you were, do you know when you'll be coming back?'

'Are you alright?'

'I look forward to seeing her!'

"This is a good excuse to go in, I'll just say I want to check on a couple of allergies. You know Dad, he'll never question anything that she's alien-ish," Dib said, drawing the phone back and starting to type. "I'll tell him I'll come in tomorrow."

"I'm coming too," Zim said instantly. "You aren't taking her anywhere without me."

"Yeah, sure, Dad probably won't mind. Are you sure you're up for the walk, though? Even if we drive there and use the elevator, the lab's pretty big."

Zim scoffed. "I've faced far worse than some lab buildings, Dib."

"Alright, because I'll be carrying her so I won't be able to pick you up if you get tired." He paused. "And I was starting to sway some of the interns to believe in paranormal science-"

"Is that a threat?" How dare he! Zim's disguise had served him well all these years!

"No, I'm just saying it might be a good idea to be careful." Dib tapped the bottle against the space over his heart. Or maybe the lung? Honestly, if they weren't cut open Zim still got the pieces and parts mixed up with just how many organs humans had. "I'll show her to my Dad and then we'll be in and out once we make sure we aren't going to be feeding her poison."

Avoiding poison was a good idea... "Very well. But I won't let her out of my sight!"

"Fair enough."