Author's Note: Going without reviews on this chapter. What, you guys didn't like it? You could at least tell me... *pout*
Invader Zim is not mine.
At this point, I'll even accept flames. Yes, that's how much I need feedback.
=== DOOM ===
The light is a blinding white, and it fades to blue as it lessens in intensity. Everything around me is in pastel colors for a while, and I stay still while my sight returns to normal.
I instantly recognize my favorite park. Birds sing above me and the grass tickles my bare feet. I'm wearing only a lilac sundress, like the one my mom got me when I was six. The sky is the clearest, most beautiful blue, dotted here and there with white clouds. Mountains rise up along the eastern horizon. The air smells like summer, cut grass and iced tea.
"Tia," says a voice so familiar it makes my heart ache and pound. I turn and see Mom standing under my oak tree. Her arms are open and waiting for me, and I don't hesitate to throw myself into her embrace.
"I'm so proud of you," she whispers in my ear. I smile and bury my nose in her shirt.
And then I remember, and I gasp in shock. "What's the matter?" Mom asks me.
"Dib, and Gaz. They're still in the ship," I say. "And Gir, he'll kill them. He's crazy enough to." Mom laughs and tightens her embrace.
"Everything will be fine," she insists. "Trust me, muffit. Dib and Gaz are more than capable of restraining a little scared robot." Words don't normally reassure me easily, but Mom's voice melts into my heart and I relax.
"Now, come on. I want you to meet someone," says Mom. We walk through the grass, arms around each other because I'm afraid she'll disappear if I let go of her. Eventually we come to a picnic table underneath a gazebo. A woman sits there, clearly waiting for someone anxiously. She turns as sees us.
"Nora!" she greets with a grin. Mom waves at her and she comes down to us.
"Muffit, this is Molly Membrane," Mom introduces. I stretch out my hand and shake Molly's tentatively.
"Your mother's told me quite a lot about you," Molly smiles. I blush.
"Pleased to meet you," I manage, remembering my 's a beautiful woman, with long, silky violet hair and Dib's caramel eyes. She's a tad short, but it hardly takes from her beauty. For a moment I wonder if this is what Gaz will look like when she's an adult, since Dib is practically the spitting image of his father.
Molly invites us to sit at the table and we chat for a while. I apologize to Molly for using her memory to influence the professor. "It's fine. He needed someone to jog his memory anyway," she says nonchalantly. I decide that I like Molly.
A question nags at the back of my skull and I try to think of a way to ask it without sounding offensive or blunt, which is a difficult task since I've been brutally honest for the last day or so. "Um, Molly? Are you... um... how do I say it? Are you, you know... dead?"
So much for subtle.
Molly nods, but the smile never leaves her face. "I've been dead for nearly ten years now," she explains.
I swallow. If both of them aren't alive... I turn to Mom. "Am... am I dead?"
She laughs. "No, you're very much alive. Just unconscious." I breathe a sigh, not sure what emotion I'm portraying. Relief, maybe, but I'm not positive.
"So, I'm dreaming," I say with finalty. "Not the weirdest dream I've had."
"Tia, I want you to do something important for me," Molly says Her face is serious and I nod. "When you wake up, tell my husband to go to the first game reserve to the east of the city. That's where he'll find my body."
I memorize her words, determined to bring the information to Membrane. He deserves to know, and Molly deserves to have a proper burial.
We talk about old memories and new ones I've made. The sky starts to darken, and stars blink down at us. I smile as the gazebo lights up faintly, no source anywhere to be seen. If heaven exists, this must be my personal piece of it, I think.
I yawn and Mom bids goodbye to Molly. She leads me to the oak tree and makes me lay down underneath it in the soft, cool grass, my head in her lap. She runs her fingers through my hair, smoothing it and pulling the knots out. "Muffit, go to sleep," she urges softly in my ear. "It's time for you to stop dreaming."
"No," I whine. I don't want to stop dreaming, not when my dreams are like this. Not when they're beautiful.
"I love you, darling. Good morning," Mom whispers. She kisses my forehead and I fall asleep in her arms.
A loud, annoying beeping wakes me up, and I groan. I move my arm to pound on my alarm, but it hits nothing. I force my eyes open to find my alarm clock.
I groan again as bright florescent light blinds me. My head pounds and I shut my eyes immediately again. My left hand comes to my forehead, mainly because my right arm is weighted down by something firm and aches. I feel a gauzy wrap around my head, and run my fingers over it curiously.
"Tia!" a voice shouts and I wince.
"Quiet!" I bark in a raspy voice. "Head hurts."
The voice apologizes and pulls my hand from my head to hold it. I peer through the brightness at a familiar face with big round glasses and sweet caramel eyes that are nearly liquid with worry-turning-to-relief.
"Dib," I croak, and my lips turn up in a tight smile. They feel sticky and chapped. I lick them absently.
"Good, you're awake," says an unfamiliar voice. I look in the direction it came from and see a doctor in a white lab coat bustling about the moniters. He's tall and cleanly-shaven, his eyes sunken with exhaustion.
"Hey, doc, could I have a glass of water?" I ask. My throat aches from disuse. He nods and leaves the room for a moment, and Dib and I are alone.
"Are you okay? I mean, how bad does it hurt?" Dib asks me. I shrug. He smiles. "You don't have to keep up the tough girl act. You gotta be in pain."
"I just don't wanna talk," I murmur, which is both a lie and the truth. There is so much I want to tell Dib, so much he needs to know, and yet just breathing through my mouth makes my throat burn.
"Got a headache, I imagine," Dib says. I nod subtly, not wanting to make my migraine worse. "You took a pretty bad blow. The doctor said you have a concussion."
"Seems legit," I whisper, shifting under the covers of my bed. The sheets feel starchy and dusty but not rough.
The doctor returns, and a bunch of people tow along behind him. My entire family and the Membranes shuffle into my room. The kids shout and laugh loudly, and I hiss in pain at the sound. Dad shushes them immediately.
"Tia!" Raemi says loudly. I flinch but a smile flickers on my face when I see her bright blue eyes light up and her golden curls bounce as she hops up on my bed. I pull her into my lap and kiss her face, burying my nose in her hair.
"How're you feeling?" Dad asks.
"Okay, I guess. As long as there isn't too much noise," I reply in a whisper. The doctor offers me a paper cup of water and I drink it gratefully.
"I'm glad that you're alive, but we need to talk to you about-" my step-mom starts. Dad interrupts her.
"After you're finished recovering."
She glares at him for a moment, but he brushes it off and puts a hand on mine. It's at this point that I realize my right arm is in a cast. I remember Gir breaking it, vaguely. I blink the memory away and my lips lift at Dad's tenderness. "We're just really happy you're okay," he says gently.
My step-siblings ignore me and play tic-tac-toe in the corner while the doctor talks with my parents. Gaz steps up and her face breaks into a grin. She has a black eye, but both of them are open and looking at me. Her cheek is bruised badly as well. I reach out and touch it. "Does that hurt bad?" I ask quietly.
"Not really. It's healing," she answers. She nods at my arm. "How about that?"
"Could be better. You know, I've never broken a bone in my life. This next six weeks should be fun," I reply. We giggle, my voice still painfully croaky.
After a while of chatter, my parents finally decide to leave. I ask for Raemi to stay with me, since she's fallen asleep in my lap, and I ask Professor Membrane to stay as well. He does so, but I wait until after my family and the doctor have left the room to tell him.
I tell him where to look for Molly's body. When he asks how I know where to look, I shrug and answer, "Intuition." Dib nods at him and adds that my gut feelings were what led us to stop Gir and save the Earth, so it would be best to follow my advice. My bite the inside of my cheek to keep from correcting him and admitting that it was a dream.
Membrane hops to his feet instantly and rushes out of the room. I can only assume he's going to find the police chief and have a search party comb through the game reserve.
Gaz and I talk about video games for a while, but she decides she's hungry and leaves to find the cafeteria. I ask her to bring me a pudding or something when she comes back.
Now Dib and I are alone again, indefinitely. He hasn't let go of my hand throughout this whole time. My palm is getting sweaty but I don't twist my hand away. He tells me what happened after I was knocked out; that Gir panicked and intiated some sort of self-destruct sequence, that he and Gaz barely got out of there with me, that I had been out cold for four days. I take in the story as best as I can with my concussion.
He puts something cool and metallic in my free hand when he finishes. It's my iPod. "I figured you'd need it," he whispers so as to not wake Raemi. "You'll be in here a few more days, until the doctors are happy, at least."
I clutch the device, lean over to Dib, and kiss him. He kisses me back, gently, almost as if he's afraid to hurt me. We part and our eyes meet. "Dib, I have to tell you something. And I need you to promise you won't freak out," I say.
He nods vigorously. "Anything you want," he mutters.
So I sigh and I recount my dreams to him, both the one I just woke from and the one I had over a month ago. Dib doesn't say a thing, and his face doesn't give away any emotion until I'm finished. I blush heavily and hide my face in Raemi's curls again, pretending to be cuddling her. He slides a hand to my cheek and softly leads me to face him.
His mouth grins as me and he kisses me again. Tingles run down my spine. When he breaks away, Dib rests his forehead on mine. "I love you," he mumbles so I hardly hear him. I stare into his eyes, honey-caramel gaze back at me.
"I... I love you, too," I breathe.
Raemi stirs in my arms and we lean away from each other. Dib still doesn't let go of my hand. I don't want him to. After some time of silence in which Dib and I speak volumes to each other, I drift back to sleep blissfully.
The president meets me when I wake up. Dib is still by my side, but Raemi is gone. I guess my parents came back and took her home.
I try to smooth out my messy hair when I see the leader of our country. "M-mr. President!" The heart moniter reveals how hard my heart is pounding. Damn machine, I wish someone would turn it off.
"Miss, I understand it's you I have to thank for saving us all," he starts.
"O-oh. Um, thanks for... thanking me, I guess. A-and please call me Tia." I can feel my bumbling embarrassment creeping up in my face. I'm probably scarlet right now. It's not every day I get a personal thanks from the president of the United States.
The man smiles at me. "You're quite extraordinary. All right, Tia." My blushes deepens. "Truly, though, we are all in your debt. I'm going to hold a ceremony next Friday, to give you time to recover. I hope you'll find time to prepare a speech."
"Y-you don't need to do that," I mutter, hiding my cheeks under my covers.
"Well, I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice. This ceremony is to honor you and your friends," the president laughs. I gasp lightly and shudder at the idea of standing in front of not only the entire town, but probably the world via television cameras.
"I'd... rather not," I try once more.
"You're very humble. I'm surprised; most kids would be drinking up the publicity," the president says. "But then, you're not like most kids, are you?" He chuckles, and it makes me smile a bit.
He leaves a paper on my bedside table next to all my get-well cards and flowers. It's shocking how many I've gotten.
"Just in case you change your mind," the president winks. He leaves with a farewell and I sigh. My heart moniter levels out again.
"Are you seriously gonna miss your own party?" Dib asks me. I shrug.
"I don't wanna, but to give a speech..." I shiver again. "I'd faint at the first word."
"You don't have to speak. Just show up."
I droop, not wanting to voice my true fears. Really, I'm afraid to let everyone down. A shy, humble, homely girl that can't even speak in front of a large group of people; I'd be a total disappointment.
"I'll think about it," I sigh eventually.
=== DOOM ===
There, a nice long chapter for y'all to make up for the last two.
Reviews, please! Please! I don't wanna write if I don't have an audience!