PART 1

The spittle runner rocketed deep into the inky nothing of space. Dib set it to full speed and engaged autopilot, before gently hooking his arms back under Zim's arms and knees. He tried to push himself up out of the pilot seat, Zim in his lap but collapsed back into the chair, wincing in pain. Blood had soaked through his jumper, and the gash on his chest burned madly. He took a few gasping breaths before pushing himself up again. This time he made it up, still clutching Zim tightly he stumbled to the back of the spittle runner toward the small bed in the hollow wall. He carefully laid Zim on his stomach, face to the side, to prevent any further damage to his pak

Dib fumbled frantically through the cupboards on the walls. There had to be a first aid kit in here somewhere. He shoved food packets, small containers and clothes aside as he searched, cursing himself for not being more organised. He had definitely seen one in here when he had been stacking the shelves with food and other provisions, it had to be somewhere. Finally his hand closed around something big and square. He dragged it off one of the shelves, knocking down bottles and jars as it came.

He lay it on the floor, and flipped up the lid. Inside was an assortment of bandages, needles, medicine, scalpels, scissors, spare pak pieces and other medical equipment. Dib ripped off his jumper, picked out some antiseptic and smeared it on his wound. It stung. He quickly covered the cut in gauze and taped it down with medical tape. Done.

He was still in a lot of pain when he dragged the medical kit to the bed. Zim hadn't moved. Dib checked for a pulse, his fingers touching his cool flesh. It was faint, but it was there. A small wave of relief crashed over Dib. He sat himself on the side of the bed, and placed the medical kit in from of him. Zim was small and there was plenty of room for the both of them. It was a little cramped height wise, but he'd manage. Dib turned on a small light that was above the bed. It shone down on Zim's naked body. Dib felt a bit uncomfortable with how exposed Zim was, and threw his jumper over his lower half. His poor Irken had been humiliated enough, he deserved some privacy.

Zim's pak was a mess. Dib barely knew where to start. He was worried that the few weeks he'd spent studying Irken science and medicine wouldn't be enough to help him. He rummaged through the box until he found a small IV bag. Hadn't he read that a glucose solution could be used in an emergency as a temporary life sustaining source of nutrition for Irkens? He double checked with the computer before proceeding to mix a batch of sugar and distilled water to form the drip. Bringing Zim's arm up by his head, so that the back of his hand was facing up, he gently pushed a needle into a vein and taped it down. He attached the drip, and looked for somewhere to hang it from. There were no convenient hooks, so he settled for shoving the top of the bag into a drawer and sellotaping it down. It would do for now but Zim would need proper nutritional supplements soon if he was going to male it.

Finally he took a look at Zim's pak. His hands were shaking and the butterflies in his stomach were nauseating. If he messed this up, Zim might never wake up. Dib took several deep shuddering breaths before finally taking hold of one of the utensils stuck side. Most of them were just to keep the wires apart, but right in the middle was a small metal device. That shouldn't be there. Several wires had been stripped and were now attached to it. He was going to have to rewire his pak. The wires were colour coded, but if he reattached them in the wrong order he might cause Zim's pak to short circuit. Or over heat. Or melt. He had to make sure he did this perfectly.

/0\\\\\\

Lod shivered as she was stripped from her clothes. She felt numb and defenceless, her pak disabled. She couldn't believe this was happening.
She'd been brought back to irk and into a building that she'd heard from a conversation between the guards was called the ICL. She'd only gotten a brief glance of front of the building as they had lead her through the entrance, and she saw that it was mostly caved in and under repair. The shoved her toward the elevator and down into the subterranean layers.

And now she stood, her world falling apart before her, stark naked in front of cold staring scientists. One of them approached her.

"I'm just administering an anaesthetic" the scientist said shortly, grabbing her arm.

"Wait! Please!" Lod begged, fear rising "tell me what's going on!"

But the needle had already been stuck into her arm. She immediately felt woozy, and found it difficult to keep her balance. The room tilted and she slumped forward. The scientist stepped back quickly, and she fell to the floor.

"Please" she mumbled "what did I do wrong"

The light was fading fast, her face felt like there were a thousand ants beneath her skin. The floor was spinning, it was spinning so fast. She heard cold footsteps coming towards her and then nothing.

/0\\\\\

Cross referencing every couple of minutes, Dib managed to work his way through fixing Zim's pak. Removing the strange device was the hardest part, but once he'd figured out the order to rewire it, he got right to delicately twisting them back together. Red was first. He carefully unwrapped it from the metal insert, and wound it tightly together, reconnecting the wire. He wrapped it in electric tape and paused. Zim's pak made a quiet whirring noise before it stabilized. Dib breathed, wiping his brow of the sweat that had gathered there. His systems didn't seem to be overheating yet.

Next was the blue. It was supposed to connect to a tiny transistor half way. He slowly disconnected it, then delved back into the medical kit to look for something small to connect it to the transistor. He found a tiny pair of electrical pliers and cautiously used them to connect the blue to the transistor. He wrapped it in electrical tape and listened. There was a small whirring and then silence. So far so good.

He reconnected a couple more wires before he got to the last set of wires. They were pink. He twisted them together and wrapped them in tape, and again, he listened for the quiet Whirring. Instead he heard a click, and the pak began to vibrate violently. This didn't look good.

"No," Dib shook, trying frantically to cool down the pak "no no no no! No Zim, please"

He panicked as began to blow on the pak, fanning it with a small piece of cardboard hid shaking hands had pulled from the medical kit. What happened? Hadn't he done it right? But how could he have been wrong, he'd triple checked everything!

Eventually the pak began to quieten. The vibrations grew fainter, and the fanning seemed to help cool it down. Dib took a pair of tweezers and slowly removed the little metal device from Zim's pak when he was entirely sure it was cooled, he removed the pieces of metal holding the wires apart and shut it.

Nothing happened. Zim's eyes didn't fly open, he didn't groan or sigh. His pak legs didn't suddenly activate and stab at Dib. He lay there in exactly the same position Dib had left him, and didn't move a muscle.

Dibs heart sank. He tried to reassure himself. Sometimes fixing a pak could take up to 3 days to work again. He had to stay positive.

He got up and lifted Zim again, manoeuvring him around so that he lay on his back. His pak sank into the memory foam allowing him to lie horizontally. Dib grabbed the sheet and covered Zim with it, tucking it under the mattress to hold him in place in case the ride got bumpy. He gently lowered Zim's arms to the outside of the sheet and lay them alongside his torso.

Something caught his eye. A pale stretch of scar tissue on his shoulder, a small circle with a cross inside. It was the symbol of earth Dib had cut into Zim's skin over a year ago. His breath caught in his throat. He traced the small scar with his fingertips and as he did, he couldn't stop the warm tears from spilling over his lashes, making his glasses fog up

"Please Zim be ok" he sobbed "Stupid Fucking idiot, you wouldn't listen." He squeezed Zim's hand tightly.

"Please" he whispered.

/0\\\\\

Gaz stood over 5 Irken bodies, dripping in their pinkish blood. Nope. She strode to the bottom of the stairs, through sticky puddles of the stuff, and up to her room. She grabbed her rucksack from under her bed, and stuffed it with clothes, underwear and some books. She grabbed the phone Dib had given her from a shelf and chucked that into the bag too. Then she made her way to the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, face wipes, tampons, pads and a towel from the shelves. They joined her clothes. Shouldering the bag, she made her way back downstairs and to the kitchen. She would rather die than admit that the recent scuffle with the aliens had shaken her up. She avoided their lifeless bodies as she went to the. Kitchen. She grabbed a plastic bag from the cupboard, and began to fill it with everything on the shelves. When it was full she grabbed another and filled that too. She took all the food with her, and several large bottles of water. She could always recycle that. Grabbing her jacket and hat from the floor, she carried the bags out to the back door.

There it was. It was disguised, but after years of interacting with Zim, she become smart enough to recognise a cloaked Irken ship when she saw one. Besides, there hadn't been a giant floating pig in the garden. Before.

She ran her hand along the surface until she found the hatch, and opened it. The disguise immediately disappeared. A sleek purple ship hovered before her with the words "chart hopper" emblazoned in red on the side. She climbed inside, dragging her bags of food and clothes in behind her, and shut the door.

The first thing she did once inside, was check for a ship personality. She'd learnt from her brothers mistakes. When She had found it, she hit delete.

"Approval needed" the computer boomed.

She sighed and took her game slave from her pocket. Plugging it into the control panel, she hit some buttons and watched as the numbers whizzed by on the screen. It was amazing what you could do with these things if you knew how. There was a click sound and then.

"Access approved, personality deleted. Would you like to replace? Y/N?"

Gaz hurriedly hit "N" and began pressing buttons. She had picked up a little Irken herself but not a lot. Admittedly she'd started to learn it just to annoy Dib, hoping she'd be better at it than him. She wasn't and she had grown bored of it very quickly. Flying this ship was going to be difficult. After a few false starts, she finally got the ship to lift up and into the atmosphere.

/0\\\\\

Dib was sitting on the floor leaning with his back against the bed where Zim was lying unconscious. his eyes shut, glasses in hand, his face now free of tears. He was just cleaning his glasses on his jumper when he got the call. He jumped up and walked over to the control panel, slumping down in the pilots chair before grabbing the phone from the glove compartment and answering.

"Hello?" His voice was gruff from crying.

"Dib?" Gaz's voice sounded small.

"Yeah? What's up, are you ok?" he hadn't expected to hear from her.

"No, are you?"

"No" he rubbed his eyes. "What's happened?"

"Some of your friends paid me a visit."

"My friends?"

"Irkens."

"Really?"

"No Dib" she said sarcastically. "Of course they did why would I lie? They weren't exactly friendly either, they kept saying something about how I was a key, and they tried to bring me back to the massive."

"What happened?"

"Well obviously I sorted them out."

"Mm." Dib shuddered at her words. No doubt their last moments had been filled with terror. "Did they hurt you? Where are you now?"

"I'm ok, I grabbed their chart hopper and legged it. I think it's better that I exit planet earth for a while."

"Yeah probably."

He was relieved that she was ok, but then she asked him something that surprised him. There was a pause.

"What about you? What happened?"

She could tell Dib was surprised. After years of giving him a cold shoulder she wasn't sure what else she had expected. She had always been so afraid of forming any sort of emotional attachment, and as a result had distanced herself. But she wanted to change, she wanted it so much, she couldn't handle being this alone anymore.

"Well" Dib hesitated, unsure of whether she seriously wanted to know, "I found Zim."

"That's good right?"

"Not really he-" he choked on the words "he's not doing so well. Gaz I think he's going to die."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"He's not dead yet though."

Dib couldn't believe it. Was she trying to comfort him? A fresh wave of tears rolled silently down his cheeks.

"Gaz there's a very high chance that the Irken armada has sent people after me. I don't know how safe this line is."

"Right. We need to organise a rendezvous."

"Not now, I'll send you an encrypted file soon."

"Would you be able to send me an Irken English dictionary or something? The computer here hasn't got English on its database and I'm really struggling with the controls."

"Of course."

"Thanks. And Dib?"

"Yes?"

"Stay strong"

The line went dead.

Gaz seemed different. He'd only been gone about 5 months and yet she'd been nicer to him in 5 minutes than she had been in 19 years. He rubbed his eyes on his sleeve and got to work looking for a suitable rendezvous.

/0\\\\\

Red was furious.

"I can't believe Zim escaped, he's the worst invader ever? Who on irk would want to save him? And now you're telling me that the team of invaders we dispatched to capture the human failed too?" he screamed at the tiny Irken messenger who stood quivering before him.

"Yes my tallest. We haven't heard word from them since their landing, and out probes show the human female is missing."

"Missing? How can she be missing?"

"Her bio-pattern is no longer showing up on the planet my tallest."

"You let another one get away?" He fumed. "Guards! Escort this despicable creature from my sight!"

The small Irken tried to bow before being roughly grabbed by the Arms and dragged out backwards.

"Relax red," purple said coming up behind him and grabbing his shoulders gently. "It's no fun when you're in a twist."

"Since losing Zim were down to only 3 keys! And the ICL hasn't managed to get even a fragment of the information out of them! Top scientists my ass."

"Don't worry about them for now," purple breathed into his ear, rubbing his shoulders with his fingers. "We'll get them all and we'll get the plans for the weapon, don't you worry. I think we should go after the big fish."

"Professor Teri?" Red moaned quietly. Purple ways knew the best places to touch him.

"Yes and when we do, the rest will fall in place." He licked the side of reds neck all the way up until his chin, where he nibbled His skin.

"Guards!" Red said urgently "leave us"

They obediently filed out the door.
Red turned to purple, and roughly grabbing his antennae he pushed him up against he controls. Purple purred.

/0\\\\

Gaz had sent him her current coordinates, and He'd decided on a small moon as their rendezvous. It would take them a month and a half to reach it. Dib had plenty of time for a quick stop to get some more medical supplies first. There was a small trading planet two weeks from the spittle runner's current location, and well on route to their rendezvous. If Dib left now he'd be able to get there just as the last of the sugar and water ran out. He needed to get Zim the nutritional drip. It would be difficult without any real money, the Irken bank had frozen his account and deleted his false credits, and he only had about 500 saved on a portable electronic wallet. He'd have to do it one way or another.

According to the computer, the planet seemed to be a pirate planet, run mostly by Vortians. Irkens would not be popular there, so disguising himself as one would probably not work well in his favour. Unfortunately, Irken was the only alien language he knew. He would probably be better off not disguising himself at all and hoping for the best.

/0\\\\

Over the next couple of weeks, Dib spent more and more time with Zim. He'd sit on the edge of the bed, hold Zim's hand in his, and talk to him. Dib reasoned that if Zim was in a coma, then maybe talking to him would help wake him up.

And so he spoke to him, gently telling him everything.

He told him about earth, he told him about finishing school. He told him about turning 20 and about how lonely he'd felt.
He told him about how much he'd missed their fights or their weird alliance, or even just seeing him around during their worst days. He told him about his strong sense of unshakable wanderlust, how he had to visit the stars and leave his planet behind. He told him how he'd decided to leave earth, and left in the spittle runner, a journey that had ultimately lead him to an urge to find Zim. He talked about infiltrating the massive and about how he'd gotten into the archives and raised Lod's suspicions. He told him how he'd walked into the trap in the ICL and how he'd broken him out. Sometimes he'd talk about anything and everything, telling him stories of the Stars, or reminding him of when they were kids. Sometimes he would just narrate what we was doing. Either way he would try to fill the void with words to keep him company.

"It's a little colder this morning" Dib said covering Zim in the only duvet.

"I think the spittle runner is a little low on fuel so the heating isn't working so well."

He sat on the edge of the bed and took Zim's hand in his.

"I hope my fingers aren't too cold, I'm wearing the biggest jacket I could find and I still feel freezing."

He paused.

"The cut on my chest has pretty much healed, you were right, Irken medicine is much better than earth medicine."

Still no movement. Dib sighed.

"I wish you would wake up Zim, you're worrying me to death. Sometimes I think you're just doing this to piss me off. If you are its worked and you can stop now." He said hopefully.

Nothing. He watched Zim's chest rise and fall gently. Sometimes it would look like he'd stopped breathing, and Dib would panic, frantically searching for a pulse. That's why he would hold Zim's hand in his, that way he would always feel his pulse. At least that's what he told himself.

"Please promise me you'll hold on until I can get you the proper drip? Promise you'll wake up?" He tried not to choke on his words as emotion welled up inside him, and the thought of losing him after all this took over.

On good days he'd walk back to the captain's chair in the cockpit, and busy himself with co-ordinates and controls, or the english-Irken guide he'd been writing up for Gaz. literally anything to keep his mind off of it.

Bad days found him lying on the floor next to Zim's bed silently weeping, please let him wake up.

That had been last week. Now the small pirate planet was within sight, its pink cloudy atmosphere speckled with hovering space crafts. He would have to be careful here.

/0\\\\\\\

He landed in a small alleyway next to a dozen other ships. This planet didn't seem to have hangars. He honestly didn't feel comfortable leaving Zim here like this, but he had no other choice. At least this way he had a chance of helping him. As he left, he triple checked that he'd locked the doors, and set the spittle runners disguise to a large rubbish bin. That would have to do.

After 15 minutes of wandering, he eventually found what looked like a small bar, and went inside. It was quiet and dark, exactly the kind of grubby low life hangout you'd expect to find on a pirate planet. The corners of the room hung in thick darkness, concealing the figures that Dib knew Sat there. He could hear their voices, see the lights of their cigarettes as they brought them up to their mouths. He turned to the bar. A few different aliens hung around, drinking from tall glasses. The bartender turned to him, and said something in a strange alien tongue. Dib didn't know how to respond. The bartender tried again, this time in a different language. Still nothing.

"How about Irken? Everybody speaks Irken these days."

"Yes." Dib replied with relief.

"Alright, what can I get you?"

"Water?" He asked uncertainty.

The bartender cackled.

"Water? We've got ourselves a regular joker here!"

"What do you have?"

"How drunk do you want to get?"

"I don't."

"Everybody wants to get drunk!" The bartender laughed "we have Floob, that doesn't have much alcohol in."

"Ok I'll try one of those."

The bartender handed him a tall purple glass with some strange orange liquid in it. There was a layer of nasty looking scum that floated on the surface.

"That's 3 credits."

Dib reluctantly transferred some of his remaining money to the bartender.

"Thankin' ya"

He gingerly took a sip from the strange liquid and almost choked. This wasn't barely alcoholic, in fact, he wasn't even sure it was safe for human consumption. The bartender looked at him expectantly.

"It's fruity" Dib managed.

"What part of the cosmos are you from friend?" he grinned.

Dib hesitated. He wasn't sure it was such a good idea to talk about his planet yet unconquered. He settled for:

"Faraway"

"Fair enough" the bartender conceded "many folks who come here would rather not say where they're from. Stands to reason. What's you're after however is different. No one comes here, who doesn't already live here, who's not looking for something. What are you after?"

"Medicine." Dib said

"I might be able to point you in the right direction. What race is the medicine for?"

Dib leaned in, unsure of whether it was wise to say it out loud.

"Irken" he said under his breath.

The bartenders face darkened.

"I see. That table on the left, doctor Nik can help you."

"Thank you" Dib said downing his drink.

"You didn't hear it from me." The bartender said going back to wiping the counter.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own iz or its characters

Hi guys! So I reached chapter 10, and I thought id celebrate by making the chapter extra long. I originally aimed for 10 pages, but over shot it a bit and hit 14! I thought it would be better and more accessible if I uploaded it in two parts! (that why it sat pt1 at the top)

I know im uploading the both of them in one go, but if you decide to review, please let me know what you think of each chapter as I love to get feedback!

See you in part 2!