PICKING UP THE PIECES

'I never thought that I'd end up in the far backwater reaches of the galaxy with only an orphan and my mortal enemy for company. Of course...I never thought they'd become the closest thing I've ever had to a family, either.'

Warnings: Occasional language, sad attempts at drama (ha!), and eventually some sort of strange and very slight ZADR (which might not even qualify as actual ZADR). EDIT: In case I haven't mentioned it before, I will note now that Irkens are devoid of any kind of reproductive/sexual parts, and that the so-called 'ZADR' will based solely on the emotional aspects of a relationship rather than the physical.

Surprise! It's here! ...Finally! Not sure when any actual chapters will be uploaded, as they're not even written yet, but...hopefully it won't be too long from now. Once I've finished getting down the plot plans for the last five chapters (there will likely be thirty chapters altogether), I'll get to work on actually writing the story itself. So, for now, I hope you all will enjoy this, and remember, any feedback or constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Oh, and feel free to point out any of my unintentional spelling or grammar errors. (Yes, I said unintentional. Sometimes I purposefully use odd grammar just to emphasize or make things sound cooler. Ha, I'm weird.)

Prologue – In which a plot continues

"That thing has been watching us for a while..."

A bland murmur of acknowledgment emitted from behind an opaque curtain, beside which Dib was seated with a backpack stuffed with personal belongings slung over one shoulder, and his arms wrapped around Hope, the little toddler he and his unwilling alien ward had saved from certain fiery doom. The teen looked a bit annoyed by the lack of concern in the 'reply', but otherwise didn't say anything more, only kept a wary eye on the many-elbowed owner of what Tak's ship had referred to as a filling station. Whatever that was.

And whatever the owner of the 'filling station' was, it was certainly an alien to be wary of – how did it manage to have so many elbows, yet still have only two arms?

There were, of course, other reasons to keep his guard up, Dib knew. Even though they'd escaped unscathed from Earth, escaped the Krakemeth onslaught brought on by Zim's own beloved Tallests, there were no doubt enemies lurking at every turn. If anyone recognized them before they reached their destination, it was likely they'd soon have the entirety of the Irken Empire to contend with.

None of their ragtag team was supposed to be alive, doubly so where Zim was concerned. Amidst the slaughter of the human race, he'd been the primary target – without him, his race could breathe easy, their weak link terminated and no more than a bad memory.

The Irken in question, of course, hadn't a clue, and at this point was more worried about scrubbing away the dirt, blood, and other such grime that had built up on his person over the course of their daring escape from Earth. Humming in a manner that was quite near cheerful, Zim patted a pale pink dust over his skin, thrilled at the sense of germ-free cleanliness the powder offered as it drifted lazily from slats lining the ceiling. It was about time they'd found a filling station with a shower – it had taken them two days, and five stops at other stations, to find this little bit of reprieve! He could almost forget that the Dib-human was only a few feet away from the cleansing stall, waiting for him so they could continue their flight to safety.

Hmph, safety. Antennae flicking back in a decidedly sulky manner, the Irken applied the powder a bit more forcefully, crimson eyes narrowing. As though it mattered in the long run. Sure, he was safe, but that didn't change the fact that he was a failure, doomed to a life of boredom on some backwater planet in the far reaches of the cosmos. Space ghettos, really! If he didn't know he'd have his PAK torn from his body-shell and his data forever erased if he dared return, Zim just might have marched right back to his empire!

But no! Instead, horror of horrors, his innate sense of self-preservation had brought him to an all-time low, allowing an inferior creature – a human, no less! – to take control of his very fate. Why he'd even submitted to the Dib's whims in the first place still eluded him.

Vaguely, as he scrubbed away all the filth (though in reality, there was none left), Zim wondered if – just maybe – there was something that the human wasn't telling him. He'd almost seemed too adamant when he'd insisted they avoid the Massive...granted, he had found out before Zim that the Tallests had already been informed of the Krakemeth invasion. So maybe Dib was telling him everything he knew. But then, he was a lying little weasel...

Frustrated by the roundabout thoughts, the Irken decided to simply shrug the entire thing off. Whether Dib was lying about something or not (something important, that is – in Zim's opinion, he was always lying about somethingor other), all that mattered was that Zim wasn't going to be going back to the Irken Empire any time soon. If he ever could at all.

Things weren't looking too good...

Zim frowned in annoyance when Dib's voice emanated from somewhere to the right of the curtain once again; why did the pig-stink have to keep reminding him of his presence? It was already demeaning enough having to sanitize himself in such a degenerate place! "Are you done yet? I'm really not liking this, that elbowy-alien clerk won't stop looking over here...I think he's onto us."

"Silence your smelly head, Dib-thing!" Zim barked sharply as he twisted the cleansing stall knobs, stifling the lazy cascade of dust. He shook himself for a moment, sending a cloud of the powder back into the air, before poking his head out from behind the curtain, looking for his companion. Once he was found, an antenna quirked insistently – a motion that, for once, Dib was completely unable to decipher.

He couldn't be faulted for it, exactly, seeing as it wasn't something he normally saw from Zim. In fact, it was something he'd never seen, for they'd never been allied long enough for him to get a chance to. Thus, he was thoroughly bewildered when Zim emitted a very peeved growl and glared at him. "Uh, okay..." Dib pursed his lips and squinted uncertainly, awkwardly adjusting the straps of his backpack with one hand as the other supported Hope's light bulk. "What did I do wrong now?"

Antennae flicking in irritation (that was something Dib was used to seeing), Zim merely shook his head, replying flatly, "What do you mean, now? You do everything wrong." Before the teen could get in any complaints, the Irken snapped, "My uniform, smelly fool! Where is it?"

"Uh, you told me to burn it for being so filthy," Dib reminded him with a roll of his eyes – sometimes Zim's terrible memory was almost worrisome. The alien's eyes bugged somewhat at the reply, claws clutching at the curtain tightly, and Dib just about smacked his forehead. "Please tell me that wasn't your only uniform..."

"Of course it wasn't!" Zim spat, withdrawing back into the sanitizing cubicle for a moment. There was a bit of shuffling within, and a metallic clicking which Dib assumed was a PAK compartment opening and closing, before Zim peeked back out once again, seeming disgruntled. "Give Zim your shirt."

After a while of staring at the alien in disbelief, Dib gave up with a grating sigh and dropped his backpack to the floor, leaning to shuffle through it; once he'd found some item or other that was deemed suitable, it was promptly flung in Zim's face. "You're really lucky that I had the foresight to bring extra clothes," the teen told him sourly, only to get a grumpy scowl from the Irken before the curtain fell back into place once more.

There was a bit of grumbling amidst the rustling of cloth, before Zim spoke up loud enough for the human to hear. "Well, Zim didn't get a chance to do that, so don't be so quick to assume your head isn't filled with a lump of useless!" That was a new one... Dib made a face, but didn't comment on it – a wise decision, as his alien ward wasn't done talking and was likely in the mood to eviscerate anyone who dared interrupt him. "I had a spare uniform in my PAK, but...ehn...I think GIR ate most of it. At least he left the pants, though. He never liked eating those."

"That's nice, Zim," Dib responded automatically (seeing as he didn't really care), slinging his backpack over his shoulder once more and propping Hope up on one leg once he'd reclaimed his seat, wary eyes locked on the overly-elbowed clerk yet again. Such elbows should not be. Struggling a bit with Hope, as she had decided that squirming might be fun, and that whining when he didn't cave into her wants to be put down would be even more so, Dib gave another grating sigh and hissed, "Hurry up, will you?"

Hope's whines vanished to be replaced with a gleeful noise when the curtain was swept aside and her Irken 'mother' rejoined them, but Dib was not quite so enthusiastic, and only made a strange face. Catching the look (it wasn't hard to miss), Zim mimicked the frown on his borrowed shirt, tugging at its bottom hem a bit and asking flatly, "Am I just that amazing, or has your tiny brain ceased function again?"

Again, huh? Rolling his eyes, Dib handed the toddler up to the Irken when she reached for him insistently, observing in a mild tone, "It's gigantic on you."

"That's because you're fat," Zim replied in an equally mild way before he scooped Hope up, in a manner that suggested he thought he was rescuing her from something distasteful. Which was most likely the case, especially when his expression soured and he prompted, "Do you require bathrooming again?"

The teenager frowned, and only shook his head. "I'm fine for the moment. Thanks for the, uh…consideration." If you could call it that. "We should really get out of here." That said, Dib made his way towards the exit, the strap of his backpack clenched nervously tight in a hand as he moved past the overly-elbowed clerk.

Zim, however, had other ideas. "But we've been running out of snacks!" the Irken protested, not budging from his spot, even when his companion stomped back over to him and actually had the audacity to drag him. Inch by inch he was pulled away from his spot, true, but he refused to make it easy. Upon realizing that Dib had already dragged him past the register, and the now confused-looking clerk, Zim took to shrieking indignantly, "Your bagels are unsatisfactory, and smelly! I hate them! You said they were like donuts, but it was all a lie! A horrible, horrible lie!"

"You ate them anyway!" Dib snapped in retort.

"I most certainly did not! I couldn't stand to have such revolting food-things in the cockpit, so I threw them out the airlock!" Zim shot back angrily, yanking his arm away and storming off to the nearest aisle, Hope squirming in discomfort in his too-tight grip. "I am getting some Irken snacks, and you can't have any! Bagel-lover!"

Throwing his free hand in the air in frustration, Dib yelled after him, "Fine! If you want to waste more time, go ahead! See if I care!" He then slumped against the portion of counter nearest the door, suddenly not even caring that the clerk was glancing back and forth between them intently. He did care enough to notice, however, when the bizarre alien inched over bit by bit until they were next to each other, and he couldn't help but mutter rudely, "What do you want?"

One of the creature's four eyes blinked, as though it were unsure of the teen's defensive words, before it spoke in a nasally drawl from some hidden mouth, "Uh, he, um…he is going to pay, right? Uh…with monies?"

It wasn't what Dib was expecting, so he only directed a strange look at the alien at first, before answering, "Well, he'd better." He paused to consider something, then asked hesitantly, "Is that why you were watching us?"

"Well, yes… Irkens have a bad habit of just taking what they want, you see," it offered in a somewhat sour manner, three eyes narrowing in Zim's direction as various snacks were sifted through and decided on, the last eye remaining on Dib. "I, um…honestly thought you were a slave at first. I mean, what with that funny little collar and all."

"It's an atmospheric regulator!" Dib exclaimed helplessly, tugging lightly at the metal ring at his throat and suddenly feeling very uncomfortable, especially so when he thought he heard a quiet snicker from the Irken currently rummaging through merchandise.

The clerk only gave a little shrug. "Okay, if you say so. I'm not too familiar with the model, but…yeah, I work way out here in the space ghettos. What do I know?"

There was that weird phrase again, Dib noticed. Space ghettos…it just didn't make any sense to him, but then, he was dealing with aliens now. He half-wondered how the clerk was even able to hold a conversation with him, but quickly remembered Zxhermnskilek; the Krakemeth had mentioned having a translator. Huh. Now that he thought about it, it was possible that even Zim was using a translator, and likely wouldn't be able to understand him without it. Unless, after all that time on Earth, he'd started to pick up on English naturally.

Highly doubtful, Dib thought with a somewhat amused grin, about to speak to the odd alien again when Zim marched up to them, Hope (looking rather grumpy) tucked under one arm and several snacks (looking rather tasty) balanced precariously in the other. "Search complete! Let us resume our journey!" the Irken proclaimed, already heading toward the door with his prized treats (and pet) in tow.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Dib asked him flatly, nodding to the clerk.

Antennae perking, Zim stopped and stared up at him with a blank expression, then directed the look at the alien next to him, who now seemed quite disgruntled. "Oh. Yes. …Of course." The Irken frowned a bit, the blank expression being replaced by a look that was almost somewhat of a sulk at having been caught – he'd fully intended to walk out without paying.

When the Irken only shifted from one foot to the other and back again, still frowning and antennae flattening into a defensive posture, Dib spoke up again, all the while hoping that having to avert such behavior wouldn't become a regular thing. Getting the Irken to share the space needed for supplies back on Earth had already been a miniature nightmare in and of itself. "And what are you forgetting?"

Scowling at him, Zim back-tracked to the register, dumping the food-stuffs on the counter and adjusting Hope to a more comfortable position. She gave an annoyed sound, seeming to suggest it was about time he stopped carrying her like a ragdoll, but calmed quickly to curl her arms around his neck, babbling something to herself as the Irken patted her on the back and pointedly avoided looking at the teen. "Payment for wares," Zim grumbled finally, noting offhand that glaring at Dib's reflection on the counter wasn't quite as satisfying as glaring at Dib himself.

Something like gratitude passed in the other alien's expression as it glanced to the human, before it quickly scanned and bagged the snacks with ease that was surprising, considering its many ungainly elbows. That done, it stated simply, "Fifty monies, please."

Muttering irritably, Zim moved an arm under Hope's bottom to keep her propped up as he dug in a hidden pocket with his other hand. This was ridiculous! He was Irken, it was his right to take what he wanted from inferior beings! He could feel Dib's eyes on him, though, knew that the teen was itching to yell at him, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Sure, it was annoying that he was having to spend monies, but having Dib yell at him would be even more annoying.

Growling when his hand only came across two large coins (he'd found them in GIR's head a few years back, oddly enough), the Irken shook his head, pulling hand from pocket and saying dully, "It'll have to be a PAK cred charge – I've only got twenty monies on me." The clerk nodded and tapped a button, a small device sliding forward; Dib only had to wonder about it for a second before the top compartment of Zim's PAK clicked open, a cable shooting from it to latch onto the smaller device. One quick beep later, and the cable retracted, PAK closing and Zim snatching the bags with his free hand before storming off to their waiting ship.

"Have a nice day!" the clerk called after him cheerily, waving to them as Dib jogged to catch up with his companion.

Ignoring Zim's low and rather nonsensical grumble of 'I'll show you a nice day,' as well as what were clearly curses in various alien languages, the teen managed a little smile. "See? Was that so hard?" he asked after the automatic doors had slid shut behind them and the covershield of Tak's ship opened for them.

Nearly throwing the bags into the cockpit, Zim only glared at him, climbing into the ship and roughly jabbing a couple of buttons with one claw. Before Dib could get in another word, or even get into the ship himself, the covershield snapped shut and the vessel hummed to life. Immediately, the teen's eyes bugged in shock and his backpack dropped to the ground, before he lunged to latch onto the first part of the ship he could – which probably wasn't the best idea.

The roar of engines seemed to surround him, a high-pitched ringing already beginning to echo in his ears from the terrible noise, before silence closed in around him without warning. Suddenly unable to properly draw breath and every muscle in his body straining, Dib couldn't even bring himself to open his eyes, for fear of what he'd see.

"Oof!" He found himself sprawled halfway across the ship's controls moments later, nose likely bruised and his glasses askew. Adjusting them, he dared a glance at his surroundings, and was surprised to note that despite the fact that he was hanging halfway out of the alien craft, the metal of the filling station's ground was still just below him.

They hadn't lifted off at all.

A baffled look crossed Dib's face as he pushed himself up to look up at Zim, whose expression was quite sour indeed. It didn't take long to figure out why; seated in the Irken's lap with feet kicking and her tiny hands outstretched, little Hope was positively bawling as she reached insistently for Dib. Struggling for a moment, feeling shaky, to pull himself into the cockpit, the teen collapsed into the pilot's seat next to Zim, desperately trying to calm down and only just noticing Hope's slight weight as she crawled onto his leg, still hiccuping even as her fit of crying abated.

The ship's interior went mostly silent, until Zim muttered quietly, grudgingly, "We need fuel."

For a while, Dib couldn't say anything, only rubbing Hope's back comfortingly as she snuggled her face against his chest and sniffed. "…Is that the only other reason you didn't leave me behind?" he asked then, managing a bit of ire past the sudden exhaustion he was feeling; he'd already been feeling strangely tired, grumpy after two days of Zim in a cramped space, and all this just made it that much worse.

The Irken was similarly quiet as he took his time answering, gaze anywhere but on Dib. Even when he did answer, the teen had to strain to hear it. "I was going to come back," Zim mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and seeming to find his toes quite interesting; he wished GIR had at least left him his boots… Finally glancing up to his companion, he added, "It was only meant to scare you, Dib-smell."

"That doesn't excuse you," Dib grumbled, slouching down in the seat. "Jerk. You scared Hope, too." This had the alien shifting uncomfortably, eyes focusing on the tiny girl as antennae flattened and lulled to one side; another motion that Dib couldn't properly identify. He figured Zim felt appropriately bad, though, as the Irken was almost hesitant about plucking her from the other boy's lap, and in fact even allowed her to stay there (albeit huffily) when the action only pulled a high-pitched whine from her.

Clearly, she wanted to be absolutely certain that Dib wasn't about to get left behind, and clearly, staying on his lap was a surefire way to go about it.

Grumbling to himself in his native tongue, Zim shook his head a bit and turned away to press a seemingly random sequence of buttons, pulling himself from the cockpit once the small task was completed (and grimacing when his bare feet hit the metal flooring; cold and filthy). He glanced back at Dib only briefly, antennae still locked in that unreadable position, before he simply scoffed and stalked towards the filling station doors once more.

Entirely clueless as to what Zim was up to, Dib gave a shrug and slouched down against the command chair, unconsciously taking each toy that Hope offered up to him, her tears long gone to be replaced with a goofy smile. Though his thoughts were elsewhere, centered mostly on what they were going to do now that the ship was out of fuel, he supplied a tired smile of his own, getting a cheery babble from her as she tugged on one of the toys in his grasp. "Your new mom's crazy..." Dib heard himself mumble, barely registering Hope's responding blank look.

"So is her new father. He talks to himself," the computer piped up, though it quieted quickly when Dib kicked the console, having tired of snarky comments.

Unfortunately for him and his current dislike of snarky comments, Zim took this moment to reappear, some unknown object tucked under one arm and the strange (almost guilty?) expression gone from his face. Now, he just looked grumpy and bored, which was a very bad combination, especially when one added on the factor of Zim having to coexist with Dib in a tiny space, and even more so when one tacked on the fact that Dib was already tired and feeling rather grumpy himself.

He only realized that Zim had returned when his dropped backpack was tossed at him, only barely missing to land with a heavy thump against the pilot seat; had it actually hit him, it probably would have hurt a lot. Ignoring this for the most part (or at least trying to), Dib leaned to keep his so-called ally mostly in sight as the Irken crouched down in front of the ship to mess with something. After a while of listening to Zim's grumbling complaints and the grating of some unknown mechanism, he spoke up hesitantly. "So, um...what are we going to do about fuel?"

He quickly realized that that was probably the wrong thing to ask at this particular time.

Zim peeked up over the edge of the console, one eye squinted nearly shut before he gave an imperious-sounding half-chuckle; it was the kind of sound that Dib really didn't like hearing from him. "We're at a filling station, Dib-monkey," the Irken told him, equally imperious (and equally obnoxious), but with an added lazy flick of an antenna that – once again – Dib couldn't understand the meaning of.

This, of course, only made it that much more annoying.

"Yeah, so I've heard," Dib snapped irritably. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Then came the imperious smirk to match everything else that Zim had done imperiously so far, including lifting up the foreign whatchamacallit – the imperiousness with which he lifted it was second only to the imperiousness of his following words. "Obviously, as it is a filling station and not some other place, it has everything to do with this fuel cell Zim has just acquired. I mean, why else would it be called a 'filling station' if it does not exist to 'fill up' a ship's fuel supply?"

The teen made a face, tried to say something, failed, then looked around pathetically, as though looking for someone who could help him find the proper words. Sadly, there was only Hope, and at this point she appeared more interested in finding out if she could fit a whole jingle-toy into her mouth (answer: no). Eventually, Dib gave up looking, and when Zim had finished swapping out the old fuel cell for the new and plopped down into the pilot seat next to him, starting up the ship's engine and preparing them for take-off, the teen only asked flatly, "So what you're telling me is that this place is just some kind of advanced gas station?"

"Yyyyyyyep."

The vessel lurched a bit, humming in a way it hadn't before which apparently (at least, according to a relatively ignored panel off to the left) had something to do with the engine getting used to a new fuel cell after years and years of the same one, but other than that the lift-off went quite smoothly. The only difference between this lift-off and the last few was that Zim and Dib weren't currently arguing, as Zim was set on cramming one of his brand-new snacks into his mouth, and Dib was too busy trying to find the appropriate words to describe his new understanding of what a 'filling station' actually was.

Eventually, once the ship had stopped humming and Zim figured out exactly why the G-force compensators had decided to malfunction, leaving everything in the cockpit to float about aimlessly until it was fixed, Dib found just the words he was looking for.

"...That's just stupid."

"Yyyyyyyep."

Of course, it should be noted that, by this time, Zim had no idea what Dib was talking about.

He figured it had something to do with the bagels.

Thousands upon thousands of light-years away, bored and slouched in front of a large panel, on which millions upon millions of little symbols scrolled, an Irken Elite-in-training suddenly found himself finding a group of symbols that weren't supposed to belong on that particular panel.

And at first, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

This, after all, wasn't even part of his actual training, just a mindless exercise – find this number, find that number, and maybe if you're feeling particularly lucky, you can look for this number, too. You'll never find it, but go ahead! Look for it anyway!

Instead, he'd found a number he knew very well – there wasn't a person existing in the Empire who couldn't recognize it – and he knew equally well that it wasn't supposed to be there.

Helplessly, gold eyes searched the room for a superior; a deeply ingrained Irken trait that even the youngest of smeets adhered to. It was always the first thing one would do if they found themselves in a situation they were unfamiliar with. It helped to avoid unfamiliar situations later in life, as, in the words of a great past Tallest, 'Unfamiliar situations can often lead to stupid decisions, which will generally lead to stupid results.'

When the quick search turned up nothing, Elite-in-training Vol immediately got to his feet and jogged out into the main commons, catching the attention of, as luck would have it, one of the Tallests' own personal advisors. The tall, green-eyed female was only there for a brief visit, checking up on the status of the trainees (that is, ensuring they were actually following the training schedules and not goofing off, as well as deciding the percentage of persons who needed to be shipped off into the nearest sun and fast), but if there was anyone who would know what to do in this situation, it was her.

She swept to his side wordlessly, somehow already knowing something was dreadfully wrong, and when he led her to the panel, scrolled through all the millions upon millions of little numbers to find that one short sequence once more, still she said nothing. Her thin lips pursed, curled antennae slicked back and trembling somewhat, but she said not a word. Eventually, it became too much for the trainee to bear.

"W...what do you make of it, Advisor Seln?" he questioned nervously.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she seemed to take the next few moments to process the question. Then, she gave an airy exhale and turned to leave; Vol only barely caught her quiet words. "The Tallests must be informed."

As the door slid shut behind her, he found himself desperately hoping – actually hoping, such a wasteful thing for a would-be Elite! – that it had been nothing more than a brief glitch in the system.

Surely, he hoped in the very way he knew he shouldn't, things like this just happened sometimes.

And even more surely, he continued to hope in a way he hoped wouldn't happen again because he really wanted to become an Elite soldier and couldn't afford that sort of thing, the programmers didn't at all mean it when they said their system was perfect.

Hopefully, despite the possible obviousness of this thing, I'll be able to surprise you (two or three) readers with what I have planned. Mmhmm.

Anyway, for those wondering, yes, Vol and Seln are incidental characters, and will have little importance to the plot. If my writing gets as far as I plan, though, they will be a part of their own little story with a couple other OCs of mine. Not that anyone will care, because the only thing that matters in this fandom is Zim and Dib. Preferably making out.

If making out is what you're hoping for, by the way, you might want to read some other ZADR, because you'll be seriously disappointed with this one. ;)