A/N: First of all, I'd like to say that I'm extremely grateful to all of you guys who review my stuff! You guys are awesome! Thanks to all of you!

Now, about this chapter – it was hard to write. Why? I do not know, but this one was the most difficult to write. Still, it turned out ok.

Plus I know that in the show Dark Harvest and The Wettening don't happen on the same day, but I figured it'd just be more convenient this way, as this chapter doesn't revolve around either specifically.

Oh, and don't ask about the chicken/flute thing. That was just something I felt like I needed to include. It amused my beta-reader, so.

Anyway, enjoy chp 4 of Crazy Talk!

Disclaimer: Whoa, I don't own ZIM and stuff!

----

After Dib had arrived home, he had tried his best to forget about what had just occurred with ZIM. He had tried his best to rationalize, no, not rationalize - make sense of the situation. Nothing about it seemed to make sense. Why was ZIM's house green? Why was his "dog" green? Why was he green?

Ok, Dib thought, sitting down on the couch and staring forward blankly, Ok so maybe ZIM has a skin condition. That makes sense but – but there's no way his dog does! Dib paused, scratching his chin thoughtfully, Well, maybe, maybe it's not a dog! Maybe it's a…

Dib squirmed back into the couch, What could that thing be?It was so frustrating! Angrily, he rubbed his face, trying to see all the possibilities for that weird dog of ZIM's. Wasn't it "GIR" or something? he continued, That wasn't very dog-like. In fact it kind of sounded like the name he had given to that robot he had built a few years ago…

Wait! That was it! That little thing was a robot! Just like ZIM's parents! Dib concluded, getting up off of the couch and smiling brightly at nothing in particular. It makes perfect sense! ZIM's not all that weird! Ok, he was pretty weird but… He just likes building robots!

That was it! He had solved the puzzle!

Satisfied by his logic, Dib walked into the kitchen, feeling much better than he had but a few minutes ago.

"Hello, son!" Dib heard his father say from behind him, as he opened the fridge and took out a poop cola.

"Hey, dad," Dib said, opening the can.

"I see you came home from skool a little late today" he said, enthusiastically.

"Uh, yeah, I was at ZIM's," Dib said, off-handedly before mentally smacking himself. He shouldn't have said that.

"Is this a friend of yours, son!?" Loch asked, "I'll have to meet him! Can't have him be one of those horrible vampire babies!"

"Uh, no, dad," Dib said quickly, "No, we just had an-um…project together!"

"Good to see you're taking initiative with skool¸ son!" his father continued, giving him the thumbs up.

"Yeah, dad. It's really great," Dib said, looking at his father strangely. "Uh, say, dad?" he asked, awkwardly, "Why do you believe aliens exist?"

Loch blinked, what ever he had been expecting from his son, it hadn't been that. "Well, son," he started, thinking about how to phrase it, "How could there not be aliens? Just look at how enormous the universe is!"

"But, dad, what's the likelihood that those planets would have intelligent life? Let alone ones intelligent enough to come up with long distance space travel?" Dib said, "I mean, look at us, even humans haven't been able to build an interstellar space vehicle!" He paused, "It's just so unlikely!"

"Son, out of all the planets and galaxies in the universe, what makes you think that there couldn't be some race that has developed far past us? It seems completely possible, if not probable to me, son," Loch finished, waiting for Dib to respond. When none came, he shrugged and told Dib he was going to be out for the evening, to investigate some new crop circles that had popped out outside of town.

Dib stared on after his father as he exited the kitchen, "Maybe," he said, taking a sip of his cola.

---

The following day, Dib had gotten up a little bit later than usual. He had finally gotten around to adjusting the mechanism in his alarm clock to a reasonable time, and had nothing to keep him up during the wee hours of the night.

Not being tired, it was easy for Dib to get ready for school, head downstairs, and leave with Gaz. He noticed his dad still wasn't home yet. Sometimes that would happen. Sometimes his dad would be gone for days and return touting new "evidence" of Bigfoot or poltergeists or Nessie. Especially Nessie. Dib wondered how often his dad had already traveled to Loch Ness. It seemed he tried to at least every few months.

Gaz didn't seem to notice their father's absence. Dib hadn't bothered to tell her that he was gone, but he knew that she knew. She always noticed when their father wasn't home; she loved it. Gaz hated her father being home – in fact, she seemed to hate him all together. She would constantly growl at him, and, occasionally, Dib was sure she wanted to hit him. Dib actually remembered a time, when the two were young, when she had done just that. Her punishment had been rather severe, though ("No video games for a month!") and she had never tried it again.

Truthfully, though, Dib rarely paid any attention to his little sister, and today was no different. He had barely remembered not to leave her behind that morning, and he hadn't said a word to her the entire way to school. He was busy writing out a new experiment he was planning to do.

It was a rather simple procedure, designed to get the FDA to do something about the atrocious school food. Dib was simply going to have a look at the organs of his fellow students, to observe the effects of the school food. It certainly wasn't anything ground-breaking; Dib just wanted something edible to be provided for school lunch.

As the two approached the school, Dib realized they were running late. It would be only a moment before the bell would ring; he didn't want to be late. Quickly, he waved good-bye to Gaz, who didn't look like she was going to speed up for anything, and ran off towards his classroom.

Dib barely managed to enter the class before the bell rang. Ms. Bitters have him a cold look, and he continued over to his desk hurriedly.

---

The first part of the day dragged on horribly. Ms. Bitters wasn't talking about anything of interest, and Dib had already finished preparing for his experiment. He had nothing else to do but listen to his teacher's droning. How could the other kids listen to this all the time?

Finally, the sweet release of the morning recess came. Now would be the time to gather the information on the damage already done to the children. Well, physically, anyway. Dib would never know how bad those kids had been damaged mentally.

Carefully, Dib got out the equipment, as he sat on a bench on the playground. He hoped none of the kids would question what he was doing, as he lifted the x-ray goggles up to his face.

"Hmm," he said, looking at a large circle of children, who were apparently playing some game with a ball, "Zootch seems to have severe liver damage." Writing that down, he switched his view to The Letter M, "Ugh, ulcers?" Again, Dib wrote that down and switched to another child. "Kidney damage," Switch, "Lack of intestinal lining," Switch, "How the heck did they get lung damage?"

Dib continued like this for a while, graphing out a table of all the health problems the children seemed to have from the school food. He lifted his head up once more, checking for anyone he might have missed.

"My squeedly-spootch!" Dib heard someone said, and quickly looked over to whoever it was.

It was only ZIM. "He hasn't been here long enough to suffer any extremely abject effect of the food," Dib muttered to himself, "I suppose I can use him as a control subject."

Turning on the goggles once more, he checked for any problems with ZIM's organs. Immediately, however, Dib knew something wasn't right. "Unknown?" he repeated what the screen said.

"Th-that can't be right," Dib said, removing the goggles and looking down at them. Did they have some sort of technical problem? "They were working just fine a minute ago," he said, lifting them up and inspecting them.

The bell rang, and, reluctantly, Dib stood up and walked back into the building. "Unknown?" he repeated, staring at the goggles, "What does that mean?"

----

After a full day of hearing about how it's only a matter of time before the Earth would implode upon itself because of its corroding magma interior, the only distraction being the sudden case of "head pigeons" that inflicted ZIM, Dib had almost completely forgotten about his experiment, and had taken to laying his head on the desk, waiting for the day to end.

Suddenly, there was a soft dripping on the roof. Relieved to finally have something else to view, Dib looked out the window to witness rain whipping against the building's side. "Perfect," Dib mumbled quietly, "Now, I have to walk home in the rain."

Dib was not incorrect, either, for no sooner had he spoken those words than did the bell ring. Ms. Bitters immediately pointed to the door, and Dib was sure she had said something, but he didn't care enough to find out. He just wanted to leave, rain or no.

It was raining rather hard, though, Dib observed as he followed the rest of the kids outward. The rest of them seemed to be enjoying it, but Dib just sighed at the sight of it. He was going to get wet, no matter what.

Still, he hung around at the school's entrance for a bit, waiting for the rain to stop. He noticed he wasn't the only one doing so however. ZIM also appeared to be waiting for the rain to stop. Yet unlike Dib, who was simply irritated with the rain, ZIM actually appeared a little afraid of it.

"Are you ok, ZIM?" Dib asked, raising an eyebrow at the green kid.

ZIM looked at him strangely for a moment, before laughing, "Of course I am fine, Dib-beast! There is nothing to fear from a little," he paused, looking at the rain, "A little…eh…"

"Rain?" Dib finished for him.

"Yes, yes, that stuff," ZIM said, pointing to the falling water vaguely.

"Uh, yeah," Dib said, walking from underneath the protective covering of the entranceway. "Well," he said, awkwardly, "Bye."

ZIM looked at Dib, then back at the other children, who were singing some strange song about rain. Apprehensively, he followed into the stream of water. Dib watched curiously.

At first, ZIM seemed fine – until he burst out into horrific screams. He began to run around, waving his arms widely in what was inevitably horrible pain. Eventually, he seemed to realize that he needed to get out of the rain, and ran under a tree, panting like mad.

Dib gaped. What was up with that? Was it even possible for humans to be allergic to water like that? "That is not normal!" he said aloud, eye twitching slightly.

Gaz walked past, holding an umbrella, "Gaz!" he cried, "D-did you see that?"

"See what, Dib?" Gaz said, turning to look at him.

"ZIM! He -" Dib said, pointing to ZIM, who gave him an angry look. "He-" Dib paused, as the rain had suddenly stopped, and light was now peaking from out of the cloud cover.

Emerging from beneath the protection of the tree, ZIM walked over to where Dib and Gaz stood. "Hoo-boy," he said, "Was that refreshing. Mmm, yep, just your average human shower! Yep."

"That's not how humans take showers," Dib said, quietly.

"YOU'RE LYING!" ZIM accused, glaring at Dib for a moment before coughing into his hand and looking the other way.

Dib blinked, and the two stood there, staring at each other blankly before Gaz piped up.

"Come on, Dib," she said, "I can leave with or without you," she added.

"Uh, yeah," Dib said, backing away from ZIM, "Yeah, let's go."

---

Dib entered his home flustered. He immediately blew off anything he had been planning to do and ran up the stairs to his room. It was still as white and as scientific as it had ever been. Half fulfilled experiments still lined the floor, and new gunk had appeared on the wall.

Ignoring all of this, Dib opened his lab top and quickly looked up "water allergies." He found several pages on it, and he found that water allergies were indeed possible. People would sometimes break out in a rash or hives if hit with it but no where did it say that they would experience extreme pain or…smoke. Yes, ZIM was smoking, wasn't he?

Then, his organs hadn't shown up in the x-ray goggles. Were they really just broken? Dib took them out of his pocket, and gave it a quick going over, testing it on several objects, and even used it on Gaz (without her knowledge, of course). It seemed to be working just fine.

Why then, did it say "unknown?"

Dib's heart began to beat very quickly. This didn't make sense. It wasn't possible. There was simply no way ZIM was something not human. Right?

Shaking his head, Dib shut the lid of his lap top. No, he just needed to relax and think about this rationally. Ok, he thought, dodging his way down the stairs, Maybe, maybe something in the playground blocked the x-rays beams an-and it's possible ZIM has a never before seen case of a water allergy.

Leaning against the banister, Dib took a deep breath; he had realized he was shaking. Suddenly, there was a loud buzzing from his watch, which made Dib jump.

"W-what is it, Simmons?" he asked, finally realizing that it was just a call from the lab and taking it.

"Sir," Simmons said, as Dib slowly began to walk towards the couch, "We need you to do some double checking on the chicken/flute experiment. We think there's an error in the calculations and -"

"Yeah, Simmons," Dib said, sitting down on the couch, and looking forward at the coffee table, "I'll -"

His sentence broke off abruptly, as Dib stared at a large book on the coffee table. It was completely black with only the words "Aliens" in bright white lettering on the front.

"So, will you do it, sir?" Simmons pleaded.

"Actually, Simmons," Dib said, looking back over to the book, "I have some private research I'd like to look into tonight."