"Are you recording this?" A shaky black screen lifts, the lense blurry with smoke and campfire lights. Evidently a bonfire under the night sky, a small circle of light in what else could be black nothingness. The screen flecks onto Rick, who sits on a lawn chair hunching into his bong, and his presence on the camera is soon accompanied by smoke fogging up the film. He laughs and nods his head, passing the glassware to the next man in the circle, before he looks at the camera and slurs "T-This isuuUUrp my night with Beth. That's right, my night with Babygirl Number 2! Baby B!" He hoots as though he calls out the name of a wrestler, or an athlete of that aggression, instead a four year old girl with flaxen hair comes sprinting over to him and grabs at his legs. She is having fun getting the attention, as her scruffy father picks her up and rains down on her face with kisses. There are adult voices speaking, and somewhere in the background Rick's own voice with "Sweetie, mind the fire." and some shrill snark response from the little girl.
"Woah, Rick! I can't believe you smoked around Mom." Morty paused the home video, looking back to the couch where Rick sat drinking a beer. He was unimpressed, simply shrugging as he clicked play on the remote to counteract Morty's tinkering with the VHS player.
Blackness. Suddenly the picture comes into focus...
Rick is filming, he stumbles with the camera on Beth, who is running in the muddy yard. Her pink rainboots slosh obnoxiously, as flecks of dirt land on her white dress. The dry firewood from the garage was the only reason this bonfire happened in the first place, and it created the best combination of cold night and cozy fire. Also... Messy kid. The blonde twirls, egged on by her father who imitates her movements and mocks her between burps and snickers. Then she falls over, flat on her face in the mud, and Rick is laughing; his friend takes the camera to show Rick, still maintaining a hearty chortle, stoop his lanky body down to scoop up his soaked daughter. The four year old is evidently upset, but she merely rubs her eyes with her grimy hands and strains to hold back tears. It's pretty funny how she already tries to be daddy's tough girl.
He carries her inside, dim lights of some moderately conservative home. They tread massive footprints on the kitchen tile, but no one says anything or seems to mind. Rick is helping Beth out of her dress and boots, lifts her small body up, and even though he is baked, drunk, and high, he is able to support her as he puts her under the hot sink water. Once the mud washes off, she is cloaked in Rick's hoodie. He rolls up the long sleeves and plucks her up, she rests her head on his undershirt and mumbles "Daddy when will Mumma come home?" Rick rocks back and forth on his hips, unibrow furrowing as he raises his red eyes to the ceiling, Rick merely groans and ignores the question. "When is she coming back?" The voice behind the lense asks, Rick rolls his eyes as he shifts Beth higher on his chest; his hair is wild and tousled, his face graced with a 5 o-clock shadow. Continuing to move in little awkward sways, he responds with a gruff "Sheee'll be back, just got all pissy about work shit." He smirks, playing off the fact he did not care.
"Gee Rick, I-I mean wh-what was going on?" Morty asks, now situated on the couch.
"Uuh. I don't know, MOrty. Sh-She must've gone out after we got in a fight. SLept at her mom's." He grunted, brows furrowing as he fast forwards through what is wasted film of Beth walking around the house and trying to talk to her dad while he's drunk. There is little point to the film, most of the videos of this memory box are pointless and have a random, almost, improvisational tone. Rick kept this box of old videos in his ship, Morty had been the one to fuck with its secrecy by not knowing where Rick kept advil. But Rick actually hadn't been against a walk down memory lane, most of the videos are just little snippets of Beth getting excited by mediocre things; to which Rick says, "Beth's always been impressed with boring, th-that's why she's with your dumb dad."
Morty turns to the box, pulling out a photo album, to which he sees his grandpa's form tense. He would've been more mindful of his grandpa's feelings had he not been so curious, and opened the dusty old album open. There are a lot of blurry first-expedition pictures of experiments and space, and it's a while before Morty first sees some photos of what he assumes is Rick in his boyhood. Eventually he comes to some photos of parties, strip clubs on other planets, and boyfriends and girlfriends galore. He finds his way to the small section of pictures with a woman he assumes must be his grandmother. She looks like the kind of bitch Rick would fall for, and in the best way possible. He saw a fire in her eyes, a cunning little passion that carried down to his own mother. They were rather young, the stereotypical bar-hopper attire, his grandmother was smoking a cigarette. She was lovely, she looked somewhat like his mother, but had a less friendly appearance. There are a few pictures of seemingly irrelevant portraits, marked for unknown future use; including 'flower in the sun', 'boy across street', and 'cat in hat'.
Then come pictures of the hospital, newborn photos, and the same woman looking exhausted holding baby Beth. He closes the album, and looks to see up at Rick's expression. Instead, he sees that Rick has hidden his face in his hands, buried them. He then stands and runs his hands through his hair, wiping his wet face, "Y-You need to be better than I was, Morty." His brow furrows and he draws his face into a w shaped pout, looking back at Morty. The boy nods solemnly, "L-Listen Rick whatever happened between y-you and grandma doesn't matter, you still came back, didn't you? Just that sh-she didn't end up apart of our lives now, I'm sure she forgives you, after all, she's out there somewhere."
Rick looked down and finally began to cry.