Where could my heart go
Where you wouldn't be
Where you wouldn't go to find me?
Far, far from here
Still you are near
Still you are near to me
And I see
Everywhere I go I see your face through the crowd
Everywhere I go I hear your voice clear and loud
Everywhere I go you are the light that I see
Everywhere I go you've found me
(Everywhere I Go – Five Iron Frenzy)

It hurt to breath. Dib wondered how he could have slept with such pain in his side. It wasn’t as sharp and piercing as before, but it was still there, a painful reminder with every intake of precious air. Who ever it was on the street must have taken him to get help, he decided, finding himself laying on a much more comfortable padded surface than the concrete he’d crawled across before. How long ago had it been? Time seemed such a fictitious thing to someone who had slept it away. Dib cracked his eyes open, keen on finding a nurse and asking for some answers. His eyes opened to very familiar surrounding though: scenery from the past. Computer screens, wires and cables of immeasurable length, bleeps and blips of light and the hum of automation. A laboratory. Dib put a hand to his side, wondering if these were visions induced by blood loss. Doubtful. He could smell it in the recycled air, the calculated temperature and with every instinct he held dear. This was real, this was now, and this was Zim.

He looked around, trying to spy the green-skinned alien. Zim sat in a corner, eyes wide and trained directly on Dib’s. The human gasped, a reaction he soon regretted as pain slid up his side once again.

“You should lay back down and rest some more,” Zim said coolly from the other side of the room. “It won’t do you any good to try and move until you have your strength back.”

/What is this? Consideration? Worry? Kindness?/ Dib’s eyebrow quirked. “Why did you bring me here instead of a hospital?”

Zim stood, arms placed at his sides. “You’re my prisoner now. I will tend to you as I see fit. And I see no reason to take you to a human hospital when I have more than adequate tools here.”

“Your prisoner?” Dib managed to sit up a little more. “You can’t imprison me! I work for the government! You’ll just attract more like me here to arrest YOU!”

“Not likely, Dib.” The alien walked towards the exit. “Get some rest. Perhaps after that we shall talk. Oh, and I don’t think paranormal investigations and investigators fall under any primary government concern.”

Dib’s retort was swallowed by the hiss of air as Zim was teleported out of the room.

“I’ll show you governmental concern!” he shouted anyway, falling back against the padded table when the charade was over. He really was weak and tired still. Not that he would let Zim think he was right about anything.

As Dib fell back to sleep, a smile stretched across his face. Just like the good old days.

Zim frowned as he reappeared in another level of the lab. He’d done it. He had actually done it. He hadn’t intended to find Dib lying on the concrete bleeding, but no matter. He was safe, he was contained and he was right where Zim wanted him. Things were as he intended them to be, even if the means wasn’t. He’d almost looked forward to a kidnapping. He’d worn his best spying gear, all black with nice black boots to tread through the wet streets, a stun gun in his back pocket and rope to restrain the human in the other pocket.

Unconscious and pretty much throwing himself at the alien’s feet, the use of the aforementioned equipment was nulled. Pity. It felt like ages since he’d gone on the offensive and luck was dealing him a perfect deck anyway. Certainly luck was blind because it seemed to be tripping all over his plans.

Zim turned one of the screens to broadcast Dib’s location from the surveillance camera in the room. He was lying back again, one land resting gently over his wound while it seemed he slept. His eyes twitched and face quirked as dreams passed in his mind’s eye.

/In all my years of running, I haven’t had time to sit back and enjoy looking at him,/ Zim noted, zooming the camera’s view to glimpse better at Dibs face. /He still looks as wonderful as when I last saw, him at graduation./

Painful memories of their last “friendly” encounter played before him. Hopes drowned as Dib announced his acceptance into the field of paranormal investigation as the black caps were thrown into the air and congratulations were passed from one smiling ex-student to the next. One golden stare and a challenge was made.

“When I’m through, Zim, I’ll find you, and the world will know what I’ve always known. You won’t be able to hide from me. I’ll always find you, Zim.”

Zim pushed back the fateful memories, leaning forward on the computer console to get a better look at Dib’s slumbering face. And as it happens when one person yawns, Zim fell asleep watching the human.