A/N: First off, I am sorry for the time it's taking me to update, I expect things to speed up once I finally get into things now that I have three weeks to do whatever I want.

That being said, do you guys want a Christmas special? Completely unassociated with the fic? I figured it would be funny to watch Zim experience Christmas for the first time, but just let me know yay or nay in a review!

Chapter III: The Dance

Kissing. She hated it. There wasn't much in Gaz's life that she liked to do, much less anything she loved. There was a lot of things she hated however. She hated her brother and his meddling nature. She hated her father and his lack of attention for a desperately needy child. She hated humanity in general and their inability to rise above themselves and their vices.

What she did love was pizza and her gameslave—the only things that had always been there for her, the only things that had never left. No matter how much she abused them, used them, or ignored them, they were always there.

This left Zim in a weird light to Gaz. There had always been two categories for her life: that which she loved and that which she hated. Zim, however, fell into neither category. She didn't hate him, but she didn't love him either...right? She got angry with him, but she didn't mind him. She liked to talk with him, she ignored her gameslave and her pizza for him, but he didn't own her. In a certain regard, she didn't own him either.

All of this meant little as she was slammed rather forcefully against one of the walls in her "room" at Zim's house while using the weird metallic desk as a support. Zim was growling louder than normal as he kissed her feverishly, his mouth devouring her lips like a drunk drank alcohol.

"Zim," Gaz panted softly as he pushed against her, trying to get closer to her. His long snake like tongue was dominating her own as they kissed and Gaz honestly didn't care that she wasn't in control for once. The feeling she was experiencing at the moment was completely worth it.

"Love-pig," Zim said softly in return, using his Irken made nick name for her as he felt her shove against him, causing them both to be knocked to the floor. Zim only used the term when they were alone, he rarely used it in public. To Gaz, despite the weirdness of the term, it was a turn on.

"We. Could. Just. Stay. Here." Gaz said in between kisses. What she was referring to was the school homecoming dance, which had already started. The two were dressed for the dance—Gaz in an expensive, but also ghoulish, dress and Zim in a stunning black and red combo suit with a green tie—but neither were very interested in going and were still holed up inside Zim's house.

Tak was really the only one that wanted to go, she had dragged Dib along and following that logic he had dragged them along. Or he had tried to; they still hadn't left yet. And yet was becoming an increasingly subjective term.

"Sounds. Good." Zim answered as he started to remove the jacket from his three piece suit. Gaz likewise began to remove the sweater that she had been forced to wear over her dress by Dib—he claimed it was too cold out for her to be walking around in just a dress. Someone he had failed to realize that Gaz didn't get cold, she inflicted it.

Before either of the two hormone crazed juniors could continue, Gaz's phone went off for the tenth time in the last five minutes. Sighing as she removed herself from Zim—barely—Gaz picked up her cell phone from the floor and flipped it open. "Hello?" she asked, knowing full well who was calling. There were four people in existence that had ever continued to bother Gaz after she had made it clear she was not in the mood to talk to them. One of those people was in the room with her, another was probably drunk, one was dead, and the last one was calling her. And for his sake, he better be the second or third...

"Gaz!" Dib's voice cried out so loud that Zim heard him even though the phone wasn't on speaker. "Save me!" he shouted before the sound of loud music drowned him out. The two teenagers—well teenager, Zim wasn't really a teenager by Earth standards—rolled their eyes and continued with their own 'party'.

"Gaz!" Dib cried fearfully as someone ran into him, causing him to drop his cell phone onto the floor, where it was quickly smashed by the drunk dancers grinding or swaying around him.

Tak was already assaulting his neck with spicy kisses and seductive promises. The two were trapped in the middle of a large crowd of upperclassman going wild on the makeshift dance floor set up in the high school's gym. Glow lights, steamers, and mini disco balls were hanging everywhere as people danced in the center of the room.

Those that weren't dancing either got drinks of questionable origin from tables surrounding said dance floor or participated in equally questionable activities in the darker corners of the gym. The few teachers that had shown up were all nursing headaches and were looking longingly at the surprisingly clear punchbowls instead of the students they were supposed to be watching. In other words, it was like prom but in August.

"Forget about your little sister for once Dib," Tak shouted in his ear as the music around them pounded a beat so strong that he could feel it in the marrow of his bones. "Dance with me!" she said happily while grinding against him. She had already indulged in the student smuggled alcohol than she should have and now it was complicating Dib's night as his girlfriend tried to do unmentionable things to him. Normally he wouldn't object, but Dib wasn't an exhibitionist and he definitively wasn't going to start right now.

"Stop fighting me!" Tak said, her accent pitching higher on the "g" as she planted a sloppy kiss on Dib's head. "Your mouth feels funny!" she shouted happily as Dib finally managed to fight his way out of the dance floor while simultaneously dragging Tak with him.

"I WANA dance!" Tak declared as Dib led her towards a secluded table nearby while the raven haired teen scanned for an exit. How someone like Tak—who was hard as nails and was just as dangerous—could end up drunk so easily while someone like Zim—who was nothing but a pathetic excuse for an alien life form—could habitually drink under the table would forever stump Dib.

He had been so sure Irkens, being such lightweight creatures, would easily become intoxicated. However, one, just one, drinking game with the two resident Irkens had proven that the green race was completely unpredictable when it came to Earth's substances. Tak had lost after her second drink, Zim had cleaned them all out. Even Gaz hadn't been able to out drink the boastful Irken.

"Dib I wana daaance!" Tak wailed, bringing the boy genius back to the present and at the same time reminding him why he had been trying to find the exit. He needed to get Tak out of here...

"Quite Tak, you don't want to dance, you want to go to sleep," Dib told her sternly as he continued his search for the exit. While he wasn't a hardcore drinker like Tak, he wasn't so far up the moral ladder that he wouldn't drink underage. Whether the three glasses of "punch" he had ingested so far was the contributing factor to his inability to find the exit was yet to be seen, but Dib had a sneaky feeling that it was.

"Sleep?" Tak said out loud as she reached blindly for something that Dib couldn't see. "Yeah!" she shouted, exited once again. "Sleep with you!" was it Dib or was her voice slurring? Crap.

"Quite Tak, calm down!" Dib commanded to no avail as his girlfriend wiggled free and tackled him into a table. The wooden table would have hurt a lot more if there hadn't been someone to cushion their fall.

"Dib!?" Tina Faey shouted in surprise as she stared up at Dib, who was wedged firmly between her and Tak. "What are you doooing he-here?" she asked, her own slurred speech confirming to Dib that the bimbo was just as wasted—if not more so—as Tak.

"Nothing! Just leaving!" Dib said as he stood up, surprised that she was even talking to him as he helped Tak up before helping Tina up.

"Don't leave!" Tina said and latched onto his free arm. "Great time!"

"Yeah!" Tak said as she spun around to face Dib while also linking arms with Tina. "Let's have an awesome time Dibbie!" she shouted over the blaring audio system.

Dib paused, eyed the two beautiful, hungry looking females, both of whom would most likely never even remember the nights events, and weighed the options. Almost immediately he shook his head and yanked Tak away from Tina and after him towards the door. "By Tina! Nice to see you tonight!" he cried over his shoulder before reaching the double doors that led out of the gym and into the school.

"I've always wanted to do it in Bitter's office!" Tak said exitedly as she caught sight of the most infamous office now owned by the most infamous teacher—who was now most infamous principle—in Membrane City's Skool system.

Why me? Dib thought bitterly as a pair of feminine hands that he knew very well grabbed his white tie roughly.

"C'mere handsome!"

"Kids!" Professor Membrane shouted happily as he barged into his home, his arms spread out wide to receive his angels' embraces. Except they didn't come. They hadn't for years. And now—after he had finally come to realize the precious nature and rarity of those few, so very few, moments so long ago—they weren't even home anymore. Both of the professor's children had, completely out of the blue, gotten themselves partners in the relationship arena and now rarely were ever home. Gaz was always off with that foreign boy and Dib was always in the lab with that rich girl. His children had moved on and it pained the suddenly even more lonely professor.

"Kids?" Membrane called softly as he walked down the lone hallway that decorated his now empty home. The two were nowhere to be found, they weren't just locked up in some part of the house with their respective dating partners, they were completely out of the house. For some reason he was surprised, he should have known that failing to uphold his end of the "family night" deal would result in this, but he still felt slighted.

Sighing, he walked into the kitchen and found a pair of notes. One was a perfectly placed sticky note covered in Dib's sketchy scrawl.

Dad, sorry we couldn't be here tonight for Family Night, we got dragged to Homecoming. Have a fun night off!

Dib

The second was a piece of notebook paper that was covered in Gaz's perfect, but demonic, cursive.

If you actually show up for once, I'm not here because I didn't feel like spending it with you

It wasn't even signed by her, but the professor knew fully well who had written it. His greatest failure in life wasn't being unable to make a cure for cancer—he had done that, but had blown it up on accident—it wasn't being incapable of using every inch of his brain—he had tried, but he had decided it was far too dangerous to risk his current intelligence for the slim offhanded chance of gaining a bit higher intelligence—no, none of those were his greatest failure in life. His greatest failure was Gaz.

It was ironic, Membrane supposed, that his greatest failure was his greatest creation, his greatest achievement. He would brag about Dib to his supposed friends in the science communities, he would praise him when he spoke to his government employers, he even privately held him on a pedestal just a bit below his love of science. But Gaz...Gaz he held on a pedestal above all others.

Maybe it was the daddies little girl theory, or the youngest child syndrome. Any of those theories could possibly explain his love for his daughter. But deep down, Membrane knew it was because she was perfect. Gaz wasn't perfect in the Earth sense, she was perfect in the scientific sense. She came from the greatest race ever, mixed with the most promising race ever. It was such a beauty of calculations and possibilities that the professor had spent his entire life observing Gaz from afar to see how his little experiment turned out.

Even calling her that made him feel cold. He viewed Dib as a son, an heir, but Gaz, Gaz he viewed as a test subject. For so long he had seen her as merely a number of possibilities and opportunities. He had always loved her, but only now, once he had lost her love, did he see just how much more important she was to him in an emotional sense than in a scientific sense. And he had failed her.

He had been so focused on the data of his work, on providing for his children, that he had failed to give them the proper attention they required. Dib had taken to his father's work and thus coped but Gaz had refused—no that wasn't a strong enough word—she had refused his work and secluded within herself. She had eventually drawn away from him until Family Night was the only time she ever talked to him. Now she didn't even bother with that...

What was the world coming to? What was he doing with his life? What was the point of it all?

The professor was pulled out of his musings rather abruptly as the sound of an all too familiar blaster charging up could be heard as something metallic was placed against the back of his head.

Three words were spoken. Three words were all that was needed. Those three words brought more fear into Professor Membrane's heart than anything ever had before.

"Where. Are. They."