When Gaz woke up, she saw trees blurring past. She soon realized that there was a hand on her waist and she looked back to see Zim holding her over his shoulder and running like crazy. She started yelling for his attention, screaming "PUT ME DOWN!" among various insults and curses.

She realized he couldn't hear her over the sounds of other people yelling and looked up to see her soldiers chasing them just above the trees in purple hovercrafts. She screamed louder.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TAKING ME WITH YOU, YOU DAMN IDIOT?" But of course, he still didn't hear her.

As the soldier's voices faded away, they slowed and came to a stop. Gir was screaming insanely, saying something about a monkey every now and then, and Gaz tried her best to scream over him. She was furious!

She noticed Zim tried to shush her, but she refused to be ignored.

"WHY AM I HERE?" she yelled, just before he threw her and Gir, which she just realized had woken up, too, to the ground. Gir started rolling around, as if nothing was wrong, and Gaz scowled up at her captor.

"What the hell-"

"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP?" he interrupted. Gaz could've sworn she saw a faint green glow, but guessed she was just kind of out of it from being knocked out.

"No, I will not shut up!" she retorted. "What the hell do you think you're doing, kidnapping me again?"

The imaginary (or at least she hoped it was) glow faded, and Zim hesitated.

"I...guess I just panicked."

Gaz stood up. She couldn't believe he had done that! She also couldn't believe that it was possible for her to hate him more, but there they were.

"Whatever. I'm leaving."

She looked around for maybe some kind of path. She tried looking through the trees, but all she could see was just more trees. She turned back to Zim.

"Which way is the way out?" she asked.

He looked at her cautiously. "You're not going to tell them where I am, are you?"

"I couldn't care less."

He looked around.

"Yeah, I don't know." he said after a moment.

"You don't KNOW?" Gaz was furious. Without thinking, she stomped up to him and punched him in the face for being so stupid.

"Hey!" he said after his head had snapped back into place. "It's a big forest!"

"I can NOT believe this!" Gaz crossed her arms and turned away from him, shaking her head.

Zim sighed behind her. "Look, let's just go one way, eventually we'll come out and you can go home."

Gaz spun on her heel and walked away, wondering how, after 1,000 years, he could still be as stupid and creepy as he was when they were kids. Well, at least, she had been a kid. She didn't really know about him.

"Where are you going?" he asked from behind her. Exhibit A.

"Where do ya think?" Gaz replied impatiently.

She heard his footsteps behind her. Of course, he just had to follow her.

They walked in silence for a while. Gaz cooled down a bit and looked at him over her shoulder. He had put Gir's bubble in front of his feet and kicked it with every step. Gir was laughing like a madman.

Gaz wondered why they were here, and how they had gotten here in the first place, with all the security she had placed around the planet.

She sighed as she realized that the only way she would find out was if she asked.

"So, er..." she started reluctantly. "Why... how'd you get here, anyway?"

Zim looked up, a little surprised. He had some spacey look in his eyes as he no doubt was lost in his memories.

"Well," he started after a moment. "After you kicked my, er, the Tallests off of the planet and made everyone turn on them, the only one they could come to was me, actually."

Gaz felt her eyes widen.

"But, I thought I'd ordered them to be killed!"

"Well, yes, they were pretty close to death when I found them. They had landed in the forest back on Earth, the one I chased you through so long ago. I used to experiment with my new powers there, so it wasn't long before I found them."

He looked down. He seemed sad and angry at the same time. "They marveled at how tall I was. I asked them if they were there to evaluate my progress as an invader, but they told me that they had been lying all that time. They told me I wasn't really invader, but they had just sent me to Earth because they had thought that it was a myth at the time, and that I would probably die on the way.

"Which was actually pretty stupid, considering that they depended on me to save their lives."

He paused. Gaz didn't know yet what it had to do with everything, but deep down, she felt sorry for him. Of course, she refused to let it show.

"They also told me that an insanely powerful human had tried to kill them and had taken over their empire. I guessed that it could only be you, since you were missing."

He smiled faintly. "He never stopped looking, you know."

Gaz slowed a bit. "Who?" she said quietly.

"Dib."

She looked away.

"I wish I never asked," she said, almost silently. She ran ahead. Of course, his footsteps were still behind her.

Why couldn't he just go away? She didn't want to talk about her brother, she didn't want to talk about what she had left behind, she didn't want to talk about the people she'd tried to kill to get where she was.

She stopped abruptly and fell to her knees. She looked through the trees and saw how dark the sky was. Suddenly, a feeling of extreme exhaustion came over her.

She leaned against a nearby tree and saw Zim run in.

"I'm going to sleep." she grumbled and turned away from him. She heard rustling and glanced over her shoulder.

He was laying on his back now, just looking at the stars. Even Gir had calmed down quite a bit and was sitting cross-legged in his bubble, watching the both of them silently.

Gaz soon fell asleep, enjoying the darkness that had fallen over her.

Finally, the longest day of her life had ended.

Note: Okay, well, since Fanfiction is being a freaking bitch (don't be all offended by my language, this is rated T, after all) along with my incredibly slow internet, I can't spell check anything. It's late, my throat hurts like hell, and my computer's the slowest and stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life, I'm not exactly in a good mood. So, don't get on my case about bad spelling, please! Anyway, hope you enjoyed! *fake smile plastered on my face*

(I like you people, I really do, but I am just REALLY mad)