#lost scenes

looking back, i can see it as an interesting parallel for his future fate of becoming the fork and being so close to Kurt but i just did not go through with this route at all. Instead, Aunt K just placed a small spell on him and that was part of how she was able to save him from death but he did not go on an epic adventure lol.

Instead the aftermath of the fight basically was that he was left alone in the field after the vision with the red water. Nail just was like "ok that was weird" and ran off to go find Simon & didnt think much on it. Stranger things have happened.. but if he HAD gone on some crazy heart world adventure and encountered a giant's ghost - he would have something to say about it. or at least remember/think of. That is not the case in what ultimately happened in canon.

anyway...when i go through rereading i'll occasionally recall stuff like this that i almost forgot about.. or minor details that were left unused or unimportant. Its interesting too when I remember discovering/including new elements in the story or where my goals were at various times in the growth of the story. That also lead to certain things that I planned to have sooner get "pushed back" way further than planned but it was not always a bad thing that happened.

Usually, it made the scenes better in the end - even if I still wished I would have organized the pacing of certain scenes/ideas in a less "stretched out" way. That being said, it did teach me a lot and I am glad that I had the experience as an author to like.. know what could happen if I just ran with impulse. I am still like this! But I have a greater diligence when it comes to like, not getting TOO caught up with new ideas. That sounds hard to believe but it really is not as extreme as I used to be lol. In recent years, its more like a scene is just longer than I expected it to be for drawing, vrs including brand new scenes that weren't intended. If new scenes do get included, its more so just a transition scene of the same characters at the time. (like with mouse/mop in the previous chapter, i added a few more conversations to help establish a little more motivation behind their new friendship and partnership.)

And.. here is perhaps an even more baffling concept. originally knife was going to shoot this gun at scissor from a far distance but also have a warning message on the paper for him. Then, i also toyed with the concept of this was the way he would propose to Simon LOL. but that quickly made no sense since he didnt know scissors true identity. So that was scrapped, even if I did think it would be insanely funny and definitely in character for him to do this. However, the angle of the emotions there also didn't really make sense - as Knife would be desperate to apologize to Simon for faking his death/disappearance. So a gesture like that might not really be the smartest move to show his genuine feelings of regret for abandoning him. Just on top of it not making sense that he wouldn't know Scissor's identity. 

Technically, i could figure out a reason that lead him to discovering the truth - but I enjoyed the mutual shock they both had to their reveals. It felt a bit more balanced that way that they'd both have to unpack their own reactions to the confrontation and on the spot too! So included with that change, Barfy was not going to be squished and offered as a symbol of his apology, or the controversial bargain of killing Kurt for Simon. Imagining the comic without those moments for Knife and what it highlights about his personality feel like.. That would have been such a loss to be without! As upsetting as they were, I think they were an incredibly important turning point - both for his character and the audience’s reactions to the kind of person he can be.

Anyway, in the OG version - getting shot was going to alert Scissor that Knife was alive and he would change course to go after him instead. I also wanted the shot to go through Scissor’s arm - severing it. I cannot remember which arm it was, but I am assuming the one with the scissor blades. When Scissor would arrive, he would end up having to intervene with Pluto attacking Paper instead - faking that he was arriving to her rescue. He would carry Paper & do his ice skating away from Pluto’s attacks. Knife would then instead step in to distract/fight Pluto to allow them to escape, with the two exchanging glances as they crossed paths. This was drastically changed in the final version but I do still enjoy how this all would have played out too, especially visually speaking. 

In the canon version, we got the tunnel instead. I also really love this scene and the interactions specifically with Knife/Rome. The panel of Scissor seeing Knife at the end of the tunnel is memorable to me as well. Having Knife confront Scissor, not knowing who he actually is and Scissor attempting but failing to escape is almost sort of like.. I guess, tragically poetic about his own relationship with Knife. He couldn’t really escape his grief & past with Knife, no matter how many things he tried to replace/run away from in his life. Regardless, its super bizarre to remember how the intended order of events were planned to be, even as I flip flopped on certain details - many things stayed the same until.. I changed something slightly earlier which would disrupt all the following plans & they would fall apart like a house of cards! 

For a while after changing this huge section of scenes, I was stuck with a problem of not really knowing where, who or why Knife was shooting at now. It was kind of in a limbo for a long time because I also.. Sort of forgot about it lol. I still wanted to include it somehow - but I was stumped with how to make it connect to anything else. Until it made sense that it was Mirror he was aiming for and could deliver a threat to her instead. He has history with Mirror & mentioned it with Locket in the new tunnel scene and it was basically her who orchestrated the attack on Knife in Wibbleworld. That attack suppressed his healing temporarily but still long enough for Nail’s poison to spread in his timer/body and progress the illness to the point where he cannot fully stop it from developing. 

Mirror's character and spying abilities also was developed in connection to the way FFAK is presented, with scenes jumping around in a nonlinear way - sometimes in the middle of conversation. I liked the idea that.. without realizing it, you were watching things unfold like how Mirror "changes the channels" and gets distracted by random connections made or being bored with a scene. It can be annoying when a scene changes outside of your control - just hand me the remote already!! These are really only a couple that have crossed my mind recently but I know there’s likely many more.. And some I truly have forgotten as I did not write a lot of things down - for years! And even if I did, it was often not in a very reliable or organized manner.

 I’ve learned a lot of things working on FFAK - but in a strange way I find that one lesson that has been most valuable is the flexibility to find solutions to self created problems like this.. Even if you might not be perfectly satisfied with the result - the purpose is to keep going. I think its also important to know when to let go of mistakes or not follow every intended plan because sometimes, you discover another along the way you had no idea was there at all. Even now as I do more and more script writing, i always have to operate with the understanding that.. So much can change, sometimes in small ways and others with bigger effects due to the type of “narrative butterfly effect” that large-cast stories tend to have. I find it sort of illuminating too when I feel I can sense these things in other stories I have read/watched before, where it feels like something got disrupted and altered in some way - unseen to the audience on what else might have happened.

Is it bad to change plans? Maybe sometimes. I have certainly caused plotholes by accident because of it (Dylan’s lack of knowledge on Hektatonkheires is a strong example of a huge plot hole, simply because the story was still so new I had not developed SO many things by the time that happened.) And other times, the plan is changed simply because of distractions and the natural flow of a story getting in the way.. I never planned for the Rock vrs Spoon scene, first introduced in ch8 to finally conclude after an exceptionally long time in ch14! There are many examples like this, when it comes to the present day events in FFAK that went.. You know, really long to get back to. I wouldn’t do it again and I’m glad to be past that, even though exploring the story/characters/plot that way was really like.. I dunno, just the way things happened and I cannot imagine how I would have written the story otherwise?

As I continue further into ARC2, I am faced with reflecting on a lot of choices made in my first arc. I still am not totally married to this “ffak must be 3 arcs” idea, which has been sort of a place holder guide for writing/organizing the outline and scenes for the story. I understand that like.. Its more of a guide that I may or may not adhere to (more so numbers wise, as I always underestimate how long scenes can be drawn vrs written.) Part of me also considers the idea that arcs should be more defined by the IRL span of time, where each arc is framed by the span of about 10 years and wherever the story is at that time - the chapter would resolve and mark the end of that arc regardless of the place in the plot. In any case, I am not near that stage (thank gawd) but its sort of like.. Whatever! I will have to decide when I get there! kind of thing.

Zim, hearing most of her side of the conversation, rolled his little pink orbs skyward in exasperation.

She disconnected the call. She lowered it from her ear, and then looked down at the Irken resting against her chest. She gave him a little cuddle. “He said to tell you that he’s on his way.”

He nodded.

After giving back the phone to the professor, she headed for the double doors. They were made from heavy oak, and were used as flood shutters in case of stormy weather. She stepped out into the open sunshine. They were inundated with bright, cheery birdsong, and amongst the uncut waves of deep green grass were early April butterflies that glanced along the stems like aerial dancers.

Zim’s remaining antenna became attentive to these outdoor noises.

“It’s beautiful out here. Didn’t realize it was so warm.” Clara mused. She didn’t follow the stone path. Instead she headed across the grass in just her plimsolls. There was the wooded area, and the rockery. Midges were flying in the air in roaming clouds. She was careful to keep the flies off him.

“Isn’t it...dangerous o-out here? Won’t someone s-see m-me?” She felt him tremble.

“No, don’t worry! This place is closed off; it’s all private, see? And no one’s getting over the brick walls that surround this place. It’s secure.”

She wondered how much he was caring to see, or if he was just looking at it all with closed indifference. Sometimes it was hard if not imposable to read what was going on behind his eyes.

They reached a stone bench that had green lichen growing along its lion-like feet. She lifted him from her lap and perched him on it. He could lean back if he wanted, thanks to the wooden backrest. He sat there a moment, looking startled as if he’d been teleported to a different world. Then he looked around, seeing the diaphanous butterflies and the fat, lazy bumble bees that hovered over a patch of tangled jasmine. The sunshine made him look paler, giving him a haunted look.

“This is nice!” She said, leaning back beside him, watching his reactions carefully. “You forget how dark it is inside buildings until you go out into the sunshine.”

They shared a serene sort of silence. Clara started to wish she’d brought a book with her, something to take his worried mind off things. Zim was looking around and was picking up on everything. This fresh air was the best he’d had all month. Always he seemed to stoop and shrivel beneath the weight of his own shadow, so it was good to see him sit up a little more and become alert to things he’d usually ignore. But. He was still frightened of pain. She could see it on his face.

A butterfly circled them, gliding on a lofty warm breeze. But when a bluebottle landed on Zim’s shoulder, she grew angry, and flicked it off him. He smelt of medicine, antiseptic and fresh linen, but beneath it all there was still the cloying smell of illness.

The moment of serenity seemed to leave him most suddenly, as if a cold wind had blown into his soul. He looked down, and his right antenna stopped picking up the slightest feather-sound of butterflies.

“Zim? Hey? Are you cold? Should I bring you back inside?” But she knew the depression would follow him there too.

He said nothing; just stared at the grass below his dangling little boots.

She knew to watch him for any signs of a seizure. The Irken hadn’t shown any such signs, not to her, and she hoped never to witness it. If they always started with a nosebleed, it gave them forewarning before he went down.

“Dib’s on his way I promise.” He was always the cure to Zim’s gloom. He’d bring a deck of cards, and they’d play games on the bed.  “Hey,” she began, hatching an idea, “how about we collect flowers? Whoever gathers the most, wins!” It was so lame really, anybody would see straight through her attempts, but Zim’s unfocused gaze began to clear.

She got off the bench, and he slid down, following with more caution in his step. The tall grass was a little bit difficult for him to navigate, his right antenna bobbing with every step. When it looked like he would fall she scooped his hand in hers and kept him balanced. But there was more determination in his step than there had been in the lab. Out here there were no bars for him to look upon: no reminders that he was in a cage. The gloom of it had filled his eyes: the cage was now inside.

But out here his eyes seemed to drink in the light. The blue of Earth’s sky was something he appreciated. No longer was he slouching with a dismal frown crowning his sadness.

Slipping out of her hand, he limped to a thick glen of grass where he had a choice of flowers. He gave them a brief look of intensity, his militarism always shining through. Then he stooped and picked out a daisy. He seemed unusually hesitant to pluck it from its long stem. Dib often said that Zim was a destroyer, and cared not for what he smashed and ruined.

His claws snapped the stem, and he lifted it up, gazing at its white petals.

“That’s a daisy.” She told him. “Many people see them as weeds, but I’ve always liked daises. I used to make a chain out of them for a necklace when I was little.”

He baulked, as if he found the idea ridiculous, and stared at the daisy as if he could see where the Velcro was hiding. She laughed, hoping he wouldn’t take offence. He did cock his head at her, and look dismayed, as if he was trying to suss mockery, but then he gave her a relaxed, happier look. “Don’t you have a better use for your t-time?” He asked.

“I can make one for you.”

He looked back at the flower, suddenly crestfallen.

She didn’t want him to think that he had lost a part of himself just because he’d lost parts of the machine on his back.

Don’t let the PAK define you, Zim. You define the PAK, not the other way around.

His raucous coughing cut short the moment, and dark fright was in his eyes again.

“It’s okay. I’m here.” She rubbed his shoulder, giving him time and reassurance. He was frightened of pain and how it made him feel.

He kept hold of the daisy, passing it to her, as if silently asking her to make something out of it.

Clara stooped and plucked a red tulip. When Zim reached for a big purple thing bristling in barbs, she gently pushed his hand away. “That’s a thistle, honey. Leave it be.”

“Why are these things so different?”

“Well, they are different types, for different purposes.”

And that’s when he found it. It was growing in shadow and under the ivy clasping the rightwing of the building. It was as beautiful as he. He crouched low, looking at it in something that might have been wonder.

It was a rose so dark that it looked like it had been stained in blood. He went to touch it, hold it maybe, or pull it up, and he suddenly shied back, jabbing his claw into his mouth. A green droplet of blood hung from one of its thorns.

“That’s a rose, Zim.”

“A r-rose?” He asked, looking up at her. He took his claw out of his mouth and inspected the prick.

“They’re beautiful, but they have thorns.”

“W-Why?”

“To protect themselves. Not all flowers are defenceless.”

He looked for more roses but there was only the one. It stood, as if defiant: alone, but vibrant even as it existed in shadow. It looked parts fragile, its delicate petals all blood-red silk, but its thorns could not be mistaken.

Zim sat back, admiring it. She thought he might try and snap it from the stem in the ground, but he did not. Clara watched, thinking he was so like a rose, slender and graceful, but prickly beneath.

“It grows from dirt.” He summarised, as if this was what confused him.

“It does. All things grow from it.”

“So how can this thing be so...?”

“Beautiful?”

He grunted.

She pushed his boundaries again by squeezing a comforting hand on his birdlike shoulder. He gave that childish look of trust. One day she hoped he’d look at her in the same way he looked at Dib.

“The Earth can grow and nurture beautiful and delicate things that are found nowhere else in the universe.”

He pouted, finding her claim hard to believe when he’d seen that universe, however partial. But he could not deny her either. In all his travels, he had never found something as beautiful as a rose.

He went to reach for it, and drew away again.

Dib had explained to her that he had meant to hand this planet over to his leaders. Failure meant execution or exile. It helped to explain the weight he seemed to carry.

She could see it on his face that he was struggling to accept the beauty in front of him, but he was seeing it.

“But they grow f-from dirt.” He insisted. “How do they do that? What’s in the dirt? What’s so special about it?”

“Earth’s soil is fertile, and it has all the minerals in it that plants need to grow.” She supposed that even if she took the trouble of drawing him up a chart with diagrams to help explain it, he still wouldn’t get it.

His mouth set stubbornly, wanting to understand, yet disbelieving how anything could be that simple.

He had a childish wonder, but also an insistent need to understand and uncomplicate things, even when things were perfectly okay to let wonders be.

He stood up, and precariously wobbled a moment before he chose to leave the rose perfectly where it was. He went back to picking other flowers, and always so daintily did he take from the stem in strange reluctance.

Soon he had a little bouquet of many different things; a clump of jasmine, a dandelion, buttercups, lavender, bluebells and tulips. He was attracted to all things colourful, and the unkempt garden was quite full of these treasures, but it was the deadly rose he liked most of all.

A little while later he sat warming himself in a patch of sunshine on her lap with his eyes closed as she worked at lacing daises together. He had been attracted by the magic of watching her weave daises at first, but he’d soon grown tired.

With half a daisy chain complete, she soon heard someone calling. The Irken’s antenna jerked and then rose higher, his eyes cracking open.

“Hey you two!” Dib’s boyish and cheery voice called to them across the grounds.

Zim looked round immediately, and sunshine filled his eyes. “Dib!” He called back in his broken voice.

“Been looking all over for you guys!” He returned, shaking his head as he plodded across the grass, hands in his pockets. “Dad said you were mooching out in the garden.”

“We’ve been enjoying the sunshine.” Clara said with a smile.

Dib noticed their collection of flowers, and the tidy string of daises his fiancée was making. “What have you two been doing?”

“Picking flowers.” Zim piped up.

The human sat next to him.  “The space boy has been picking flowers?”

“Hey, don’t tease him.” Clara defended in all seriousness. “We’ve been enjoying it.”

Dib chuckled and rubbed the little guy’s shoulder. “Uh huh. And how’s my favourite alien today? Not got the blues, I hope?”

“I’m green.” Zim said in stupid innocence.

Clara said as she joined the last daisy. “Here you are. A daisy chain of your own!”

She lowered the white ring of daises around his neck. He straightened a tad and touched them with a claw. “Thank you!” He said. “Gir made daisy chains. But I... I never....”

“Maybe you should have made him a crown, Clara.” Dib joked to dispel Zim’s moroseness, “It might have suited him better.”

They walked back to the building. Zim looked over Dib’s shoulder and watched as the rose grew smaller and smaller until it became a speck of red under dark pools of shadow.

Scene: Zim’s second night with his humans at home

Surviving this unfamiliar dystopia exhausted him.

He pushed the door open, expecting to see that silly bathtub for dolls filled to the brim, and found it hard to hide the dismay opening on his countenance when he saw her sitting, waiting there by a basin of hot bubbly water. Stacked close by were soft fluffy towels, and placed by her knees was one of those water-proof mats that was large enough for him to lay on. She was dipping her hand into the bubbly water, testing its temperature.

Clara looked over at him, her eyes impossible to read. She smiled, trying as she was to appear reassuring, and he hoped the expression was as genuine as her intentions.

“Whenever you’re ready Zim, you can take off your robe.”

But he wasn’t ready.

He stood rooted like a statue as he held the opening of the purple robe tightly to his chest. He felt the cool of his nakedness under there, and the uninviting chill beyond the cocooning fabric. Why couldn’t she just leave him be?

“Zim?” Her question made his right antenna ring. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head, hardly believing he was suffering human help and kindness he was still so afraid to trust in. He’d believed that if he kept moving, if he kept going forwards, he’d be unstoppable. Now he could not move for fear of pain.

He clung on to whatever he could when defeat had him sink to the deepest depths. Looking back, even slightly, filled him with horror, but a glimpse that way also revealed what he had overcome.

Clara maintained her smile despite his stony silences. “It’s okay, Zim. I won’t bite.”

Zim peered over at the bubbly water in the bowl. He’d suffered their sponge-baths over the weeks, and not once did the water sting or burn him. The sight of it however still filled him with the instinctive distrust of it: being on Earth had stamped many fears and uncertainties into his heart, and he was not familiar with what was safe and what wasn’t without the sanctions of his computer.

“Here. Let me.” Clara walked over, knelt down by his indisposed form and slipped off the long and soft purple robe. His eyes took on a frightened, miserable cast, as if being naked opened up new ways of being disgraceful. It didn’t matter how many times he was stripped and then clothed again; whenever he was bare before them, self-loathing and shame crowded the colour in his eyes.

He tried to hide himself behind skinny arms and skinny claws.

Hands touched his shoulders. He tensed, emitting a squeaky growl.

Her gentleness was unreal. Every time she touched him, his defences rose to the rafters, expecting something malignant beneath her contact. Life was hard edges, mistrusts, hate and pain. Without Membrane’s protection, he was adamant that Clara would change from her superficial gentleness into something else.

She guided him over to the water-proof mat. “Sit on the mat, honey, and relax.”

He gave her that sharp, assertive look, and she knelt beside him, waiting, showing infallible patience. Her smile was fading at the edges, her eyes more confused than anything.

“Leave m-me.” Please. “I d-don’t n-need y-your h-help.”

“Being stubborn isn’t going to help you, Zim. And just because you’ve left the lab doesn’t automatically mean you’re out of the woods. You are still convalescing. Now, are you going to argue, or are you going to sit down?”

His eyes shifted to the mat, and back to her.

Fighting her, he could see, was going to get him nowhere.

Stiffly, he sat down, making sure to keep his bony legs over his crotch area.  

“After we get you clean and snuggled up, I’ll make you some soup. How does that sound?” He nervously watched as she dunked the sponge into the bubbly water. She lifted it up and he instinctively tensed, eyes screwing shut, fists clamped. “You carry so much tension in your shoulders.” He felt her knead the sponge into his back under the PAK’s mantle. He’d expected the water to be tepid, but the sudden heat of it was a wonderful surprise. Then she worked the sponge into and around his neck. The moan came out before he could stop it in time.

This is really... really nice...

There was little use resisting the flexes of his right antenna. As a cat communicated joy through its ears or tail, he did the same thing with his antenna.

Her eyes were looking him over as she cleaned him, checking for any new bruises or marks that would indicate bedsores or signs of self-harm.

Though he was not answering, she chatted away with the same attention and care. “Is there anything you want to work on first? Or what you’ll want to build?”

“Se-security.” He choked.

“You don’t need to tackle everything at once. You’ll still get it all done, Zim. Just enjoy the day as well.”

He began to lean a little more into the sponge-massages, eyes lowering from the soporific heat. The sponge-baths were usually brisk and quick affairs so that they didn’t exact too much energy from him and so that he didn’t get too cold.

She threw a towel over his shoulders and proceeded to massage him dry.

Zim had to secretly admit that they were providing a damn good service even if their help was still making him tense with shame, but for a moment he allowed himself the comfort.

She was careful with him as he was mostly all bone, with little to no insulation protecting his organs.

Clara had fresh nightwear ready just an arm length away. He woodenly replied, stretching out each arm as best he could, and felt the fluffy soft material cloak his littleness. He knew he would sweat through this too, and he sighed.

“There. That’ll soothe those shivers away.”

How did she never find this strange? Perhaps in the lab there had been a sense of displacement, of surrealism when you had a fantastical scientist hurrying about with his fanatical machines and caring for an exotic otherworldly creature, but here, in an ordinary house, she acted as though she was looking after someone she had known for a long time. He tried to see past her affections, her warmth to spy the truth. But he could never find anything other than her sincerity.

“You wanna go for some homemade soup?”

They were always propelling food his way.  “Not r-really hungry.”

“That’s okay, just manage what you can.” She picked up the basin and sluiced the used water down the big human-sized bathtub’s plughole. Seeing that as his cue, he woozily climbed to his feet. The floor tilted just a little before righting itself again, but the fleck of dizzying colours took longer to leave his vision.

She noticed. She came over, knelt down and wrapped an arm around him. “Do you feel okay, honey?”

The question was so very simple, and yet it entailed too much.

Zim only leaned into her, tired and dizzy. His lower legs were shaky. He had been dependent on his self-sufficient self-healing PAK - and he had never needed to give pause and regard his injuries – only to ever see them as novel and irrelevant inconveniences.

Living in this mortal hell without this reliability made him that much more careful and that much more timid. Every little bit of pain was much more terrifying and much more intimate.

They told him that he’d get stronger, with time. He didn’t believe them.

“Let me take you to bed, Zim. It’s no trouble.” Her arms went around him. He fetched a set of claws into the fabric of her cardigan to hold on when she spooned him into her arms. Her hold was secure, and there was never a moment where he felt she might drop him, but for insecurity’s sake he held on anyway.

She carried him back into his softly lit bedroom. The nightlight was painting the ceiling with dappling colour. When she set him down on the bed, she immediately bundled up his legs and torso, and shored up the pillows so that he could lean against them. He had long stopped stiffening or shrinking away whenever she went near or touched his PAK.

“I’m going to heat up your supper. You snuggle down and rest.”

“Cl-Clara h-human?” His choke was filled with what sounded like water.

“Yes, honey?”

“Can I h-have something to d-drink?”

“Of course. Do you have anything in mind?”

He shook his head.

“That’s okay, I’ll get you something.”

His wrinkled fuchsia eyes were drawn to her with a heavy intensity.

“Zim. Everything will be okay. Just remember that we’re here to support you, and protect you. This isn’t a limited affair. This is for life.” She reached out, and stroked his cheek. His fear cooled: sliding away like shadows after the lights had been turned on.

When she left, he sat, cupping the blanket to his chest. He sipped in breath, gladdened when there was no wall of pain. Lying down all night made the coughing worse and he had scrunched up, hacking and spluttering until he was coughing up blood. Now he was breathing easy – and the scary event seemed far, far away.

He waited for her to return, looking for her company. Being alone wasn’t quite as welcoming as it used to be, so he tried to hide the smile when she returned with a little tray of food.

“Just manage what you can, honey.” She set the food on the bed tray after positioning it over his lap. Though hardly hungry, his spooch grumbled.

He reached for the cup of honeyed milk, and he slurped it down, his thirst seemingly increasing with every gulp. Before he had scarcely begun, she was prying the cup out of his little claws. “Not so fast, Zim! You can have some more in a little while. Wait for that to go down first.”

“Who d-do you t-think y-you a-are?” He rasped.

She frowned at him, as if she had hoped their relationship wouldn’t backtrack like this, and that she might be spared his anger. “The voice of reason. Be my guest if you want to vomit down your nice new clothes and bed sheets.”

A dangerous glitter intensified in his eyes as he looked up at her, stupefied by her sudden sharpness. She didn’t back down. His right antenna bobbed up and down, and the querulous fire in his eyes dissipated. “You su-sure are bossy.”

“Well, someone’s got to look after you. We both know you’re terrible at it.” She said with more kindness. “You can bark at me all you like, but I’ve got a job to do, and nothing you say or do will stop me from doing it.”

That made him cock his head slightly, expression softening.

“Now try some soup. It isn’t all that bad.”

“D-don’t stand there – w-watching me.” He grunted.

She couldn’t help but shake her head, smiling at his stubbornness. “All right, all right. Just don’t forget to use your napkin.”

He gave her a long look to make sure she was leaving him in peace before he lifted up a spoon and dipped it into the soup.

  Scene: getting some private time

“Zim, stop messing with the power! For five minutes!” He leant back in his desk chair, waiting for any affirmation, but it would be a miracle if the Irken had even heard. Blowing out breath, he returned to the computer and continued typing up a few measly sentences for his loosely constructed CV. He had poured over the keyboard most of the day, lost for words, and distracted by noises from a construction of a different sort. They had given up trying to stop the former soldier from ‘improving’ the house, learning quickly that there could be nothing that would stop an Irken’s wilfulness.

Clara was waiting upstairs. ‘Just a few more minutes’ he had said to her.

Dib stared at what he had painstakingly written. The skills and experience he could list all day; it was the passion that was so hard to put into words.

Just as he was about to save his work, the power died, the house fell into darkness, and so did his computer screen. “Zim!”

The power came on within seconds, the house bursting back into life. Muttering and cursing, he found Zim connecting the fuse box down in the basement with a handheld construct of his own, mostly alien in design, but made with a lot of used parts he had cobbled together.

He needed two seconds of the Irken not-getting-into-trouble or throwing the house into some sort of mode while he spent time with Clara. The lost work on his CV would have to be forgotten.

“This primitive homestead of yours is inefficient in every way.” Zim was saying before Dib had got a word in. “It’ll be months before I can get this place in working order. You just let things fall apart around you, don’t you Dib stink?” One eyelid curled down, his look sly.

Dib ran a hand across his face before sobering up and putting on his best smile. “Look, urm... there’s this really good cartoon on. You gotta see it!”

Zim hardly looked interested. “Recess can wait.”

“But it’s a special episode!”

“Then record it!”

“But...” He was running out of options. Fast. “I have no one to watch it with. Clara’s just not interested...”

Zim looked once at his handheld circuit board before reluctantly setting it down, “Very well, human, if my presence is that desperately required.”

“Good!” He put his hands on Zim’s skinny shoulders and practically steered him all the way to the lounge, the squeak coming from the heels of the Irken’s loafers dragging along the floor.

Switching on the TV, he flicked through the channels, hoping that there would be something to save him. Zim sat on the sofa using the stepping stool. “It had better be a short episode of whatever this... thing is. Work doesn’t get done by itself you know.”

“Ah here it is!” Dib said sheepishly, turning to give him a weak smile. It was a cartoon of a blue hedgehog. “Trust me! You’ll enjoy it. It gets really good!”

“It had better.”

With no time wasted, Dib flew up the stairs.

Clara sat up in bed, looking frustrated. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry! Urm, work, and Irkens.”

Before long the bed was squeaking against the wall. Zim came up less than ten minutes later, and Dib and Clara had to disengage in a tangle of limbs while he looked in on them from the doorway, holding the Gir doll. “W-What are you doing?” He croakily chirped from the doorway, eyes impossibly wide. “You’re b-both so...sweaty and noisy!”

  Scene: Holograms

He left the kitchen, but returned minutes later with his laptop and electronic tablet. With the kitchen curtains drawn to dim the light, he had a number of devices laid out on the table, and when Clara came in to join them, she was impressed to see a hologram pouring out of the computer screen.

In his element, Zim drew up more schematics as easily as laying down paper and more holograms appeared. It was reflected in Dib’s glasses as he studied the projections. Clara could make neither heads nor tails of it as she stood watching them. The holograms showed vast columns of numbers, and everything that was written were in strange symbols, like runes. And accompanying these alien hieroglyphs were diagrams of a machine.

Even Dib wasn’t sitting pretty on the same page. Zim was aloof in his plans and his approaches, and even had an ingrained habit of keeping Clara and Dib at a distance as if he still had trouble trusting them. Zim had done things by himself all his life, and sharing that control wasn’t an easy thing for him.

The alien scarcely looked their way. Strips of code glowed in his bright fuchsia eyes. It was good to have him focused on something. Though he always worked there was a certain distraction in his efforts and in his focus. Now he sat with his back straight, his shoulders firm and his chin raised as he sought key coding in the stratum of alien mumbo-jumbo.

Dib forced the panic from his voice. “Is this for recreational fun, or is it for something else?”

Zim registered the English word ‘fun’ even if he did not know exactly what it meant. That word went into the same ambiguous category of words he struggled to understand the meanings to; such as sex, happiness, human humour and babies.

Dib went under the scrutiny of another long cold look.

“Earth needs protecting...” The aged Elite paused, finding the answer hard to dig up and reveal as if he had crushed it down there, inside, for so long that it was now hard to find and hard to pull it out. “Membrane will take measures to protect this dirt ball by following my instructions.”

Dib kept staring. “Did I just hear you right?”

“Oh s-shut up and stop with your g-gloating!” He snapped, rubbing at the side of his head, both eyes wincing as if working with his protégé was a real headache. After a moment he raised his stylus and drew dots and lines on a hologram that painted them in pink. Clara couldn’t stop staring as Zim drew magical lines into a magical screen. He did not seem to mind his audience, perhaps because he was expecting them to not understand a single thing he was doing.

Zim flicked a hand, and the screen’s current information and jungle of symbols was replaced by weapon blueprints. They stood tall and leaned slightly forwards like masts.  “Earth is a backwater planet full of toxicity. It’s hardly worth much, but it’s still up for conquest, as is this pithy little solar system it’s in. The Earth’s sun would make a great source of fuel. It’s how energy cores are made. My Tallest may take an interest.”

When he next looked to Dib and Clara, there was relief in his eyes.

For so long he had never belonged anywhere.

Zim looked again to the hologram. He flicked his wrist, and the jumble of symbols magically metamorphed into English. “Your Membrane will build these anti-ship turrets once I provide him with the design. Their range will blanket the planet and that of your horrible star, keeping you filthy critters safe.”

Dib stood there, taking it in. He hadn’t thought of the Armada paying a visit someday. It was unlikely, but it had obviously been on Zim’s mind.

Since when had this snarling alien pulled his talents, energy and recourses into DEFENDING something?

The Irken smiled. “Wouldn’t it be funny if all they ever did was blow asteroids to little itty bitty bits? The planet’s measly existence would continue to persist until that awful sun of yours finally implodes. Humans. Thriving for evermore. Now that disgusts me.”

Dib was about to speak; to begin verbalizing his shock and disbelief when Zim again flicked his wrist and the screen swapped out weapon blueprints for the ship’s coding. He pressed some infinitesimal transparent button on this transparent screen and a 3D image of Tak’s ship popped into existence. Dib’s heart fell heavy and it fell hard.

Zim’s plans were never that humanly plain. He was clever, and he also liked to keep his real thoughts and real plans close to his chest. He never usually did something unless he reaped the benefits, and he was a sneaky little guy. Not that Dib suspected him of doing anything underhanded with the ship.

Zim. You can’t fly. What do you intend to do?

Just nod and smile at him. Creative outlet and all that, yes dad I remember. This had better not bite me in the ass.

Using a stylus, Zim reached up, and traced a line around the front of the vessel.

“Ooh, that’s pretty. What does that do?” Clara pointed at something that almost looked like a metal flower of alien grotesquery. It spun slowly in the hologram, looking like some hellish rose. It was probably the main core engine, with all its tapering pipes and elements.

Zim, bathed in pink from the screens, gave her an amused, beady look, and quite happily and croakily bragged about core drives, their compounds, auxiliary turbines, a feln guard, plasma charging cells, a hubbard, and so on. Clara looked bewildered in under three seconds of his wistful explaining.

There was no mistaking the fact that this little bastard loved attention. If he so much as looked at Clara the right way, she’d pick him up and cuddle him.

“Hang on a second. What’s this thing back here?” Dib pointed at the hologram of the fuselage. “We could move that, and expand the cockpit.”

“That shouldn’t go there.” Zim’s voice was dusky and small. His hooded eyes could barely stay open but he always led the debate. If anything, Dib was the one trying to keep up with him.

“Why not?” Dib leaned back slightly. He wasn’t a complete novice when it came to repairing and redesigning machines. Irken technology was a huge leap in science and brains, but he was more or less knowledgeable on the parts, and where the power had to go. Yes, connecting it all, and hoping they’d be no leaks would be a bitch. Working with plasma would be a lot different than say, oil or fossil fuels. Zim knew how to make more plasma, and he apparently knew how to recharge the cells in the ship too. Usually a ship worked for centuries with just a power core, but Tak’s power core was too badly damaged to be used. And a damaged core was a dangerous core.

“The ship will explode, that’s why.”

“Zim. I know how to build a ship.”

“No you don’t! You don’t know anything about anything!”

Clara disappeared to make some iced tea for them, and when she returned with a tray loaded with drinks she said, “Don’t forget that Gaz is coming later.”

The very name made Zim’s antenna drop.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know him. Their paths had interwoven with Dib at the centre. She was just like any other enemy he’d had to contend with, except that she could outwit him in one breath, and leave him and his ship battered and smoking. He’d done everything to avoid her since he’d put Dib in a hospital bed – of which he’d done quite a few times. Maybe she’d be okay with his – state – and situation. Or maybe she’d barrel past Dib and Clara and hang him on the wall.

“Let’s not.” Zim said openly, carefully watching their reactions.

“She’s family, Zim. She’s got to come.” Dib patted him on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”