Chapter Twenty-One

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Maybe it's—y'know—the exhaustion, but when Morty walks into the greenhouse and sees that one of the earlier sessions had apparently finished digging the hole, he very nearly bursts into tears. The emotions just seem to come out of fucking nowhere; a fluctuating strobe light of hysterical joy blended together with an overpowering sense of melancholy. It pricks at his eyes and twists up a ticklish knot somewhere deep inside his chest that makes him itch, and Morty can't quite stop the fit of laughter that bubbles out of his throat—brittle and high-pitched in those first few exhales of breath, then dragging down into something more ragged and manic that tears free from his lungs in explosive ha-ha-HAs.

It's the frenetic music of a faltering mind, the opening chords of his mental breakdown. Do-Re-Mi—ha-ha-HA! His shoulders shake as it ripples through him, and Morty's fingers find their way into his hair, twisting up into brown locks and gripping tight like that alone will keep him grounded, keep him stable.

He gasps, breathless under the wash of conflicting chemicals his brain's pumping out in a flailing panic, and it's in that moment that Morty realizes just how much he's been dreading this task—that despite his petulant grumbling and detached denial about it just being a hole he was digging, the thought of having to force his failing body through another two hours of hard manual labor had left him more than a little frayed at the edges.

Stumbling forward on unsteady legs, Morty stands at the edge of the hole. Three-feet-deep and eight-by-eight-feet all around with concrete blocks set inside, lining the outer edges to create some sort of shelf—concrete blocks that he would have had to lift and carry and set into place—and suddenly Morty needs to sit down, because jesus, he feels lightheaded. Disconnected. Like he could just float up to the greenhouse rafters and slip through the vents.

Delirious euphoria packs a hell of a punch.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Morty wavers on his feet and then sinks to the ground, perching himself right at the edge of the hole with his legs hanging down over the side and his shoes pressed against the concrete blocks. Absentmindedly, he rubs at stinging eyes, wiping away the remnants of mirthful, overwhelmed tears. It's pathetic that he's this happy over something so small and unimportant. At the same time though, he can't help but look down at all the work done and think about how he's never seen a more beautiful hole in the ground in his life—like seriously, whoever finished digging this hole did a fucking amazing job and Morty could not be more grateful.

Of course, that's not to say that the work is completely done for him today. While he might not be doing anymore digging, this water garden is far from finished. The pile of large flat rocks and the massive roll of some kind of black rubber lining sitting next to the hole is proof of that enough.

'Still though,' he thinks vehemently, 'not a single fucking shovel in sight.'

A much smaller, more controlled chuckle escapes him, thoughts of 'How has my life come down to this?' briefly flickering through his head.

The distant sound of ship engines catches his attention soon after, and Morty leans back, his palms braced against the walkway behind him. He turns his gaze skyward, watching as the shuttles containing his classmates jet off to various off-world destinations for the second day in a row now.

'Leaving me behind again.'

And yet the thought doesn't bother him as much today, not after he slips one hand into his pocket and curls his fingers around the Mars rock.

Altaynx comes weaving into the greenhouse about five minutes later to find him, her clawed legs a fluid tattoo of clicks against the walkway, and Morty bolts to his feet in a clumsy scramble. It's the last session of the day before he can finally go home and take a thirty-hour nap, and he doesn't want to start it off with Altaynx thinking he's already slacking.

As Morty is quick to find out though, standing up that fast when you're feeling this shitty is a surefire way to send all the blood rushing from your head. He has to dart one hand out and grab onto the nearest plant bench just to keep from face-planting onto the greenhouse floor—because the human body and all its failings is just the gift that keeps on giving.

'Yaaaaaay…' he thinks in a lackluster drawl, blinking rapidly to clear the black spots from his vision. They dance in such a dandy way, tiny little inkblots swooping and swaying and morphing from one Rorschach test to another.

Or maybe Morty's the one who's swaying, what with the way his body starts to tilt forward—like the greenhouse floor has suddenly angled down a few awkward degrees and his shaking arm is having a little trouble holding up his full body weight. His grip tightens around the plant bench, the steel edge biting into his palm, and he shuts his eyes tight and flattens his free hand against his forehead with a groan.

Far in front of him, the clicking sound of claws against concrete grows more rapid. Altaynx makes the strangest crackling-whirr noise as she crosses the greenhouse—a sound so foreign that not even her translator can seem to decipher it—and before Morty can fully process the faint shadow that sweeps over his closed eyes, there are claws hooking onto his shirt and pulling him upright.

He startles at the contact, both arms flailing out around himself and his eyes snapping wide open. His hands collide with Altaynx's limbs in a fight or flight reflex, but they're weak kitten swats against the strength of her exoskeleton and she holds him steady with little difficulty. Her claws move with a kind of swift precision as they fan out over him, tugging at his shirt and his arms to better support the increasing deadweight of his flagging body.

She walks him over to a nearby potted plant—one that's massive in size with long, twisted fronds—and sets him down forcefully against the pot's curved side. The breath punches out of him in a quiet oomph when his ass hits the ground, and despite all the painkillers he's been taking, the body aches bleed back into his joints and his muscles and it leaves him wanting to curl up into a ball on his side and wait for school to be over—not even because of the ache, which isn't really all that bad, but more because he is just so fucking done with this day and everything it involves.

But that would be unnecessarily dramatic, and Altaynx seems worked up enough as it is—so in the end, Morty simply settles for slouching against the large pot and going mostly limp. On a positive note though, the glazed ceramic is pleasantly cool against his back, and Morty finds a small degree of comfort in pressing his hands back against it.

Arched over him like a cobra, Altaynx points her antennae down at him and clicks her mandibles in that guttural crackling noise that her translation device only picks up every other word of. It all sounds like nonsense to him. Morty blinks blearily up at her, his head resting sideways against one shoulder.

It's a little hard to tell if her rough treatment had been intentional, like maybe she's pissed off at him or something. Raspy bug screeching doesn't have much emotional inflection to it, at least nothing that humans can pick up on, and their facial expressions don't give much away either. At the same time though, Morty's noticed that larger insectoid species tend to underestimate their strength when it comes to soft, fleshy humans like himself—so really, her mood could be going either way here.

Keeping his own face on the neutral side, Morty goes for the innocuous platitude of "I'm fine" to settle his instructor's ongoing tirade on… whatever. It's enough to give her pause—a short breath of silence that allows her translation device time to reset and recalibrate.

"'Fine?'" she finally echoes in a sharp grunt of mechanically filtered English. "In my species, offspring who are 'fine' like you get eaten by stronger, more healthy siblings in spawning clutch. Keeps genetic lines stable."

"Y-yeah," Morty says on an exhaled breath, not really fazed by the comment given all the shit he's seen. He shrugs, "Sibling rivalry is rough for humans too."

Altaynx doesn't look amused—but again, Morty would have a hard time telling if she was even on a good day. The gritty grumbling noise she makes does sound pretty annoyed though, and Morty has to press his lips together tightly to hold back a smile. He'll admit that it's kinda fun messing with her—with any Federation official really—especially when it comes their preconceived notions about humans. The lack of sleep just makes it seem even more funny than it is.

Her staring is a little unnerving though, and she does it for an uncomfortable twenty-seconds before Morty sputters out another assurance of, "R-really. I'm fine."

She doesn't look convinced, but also doesn't seem to care enough to press the issue. Instead, she flattens her antennae back against her head and straightens upright.

"If you are fine, then you will work," she says, and her body twists away from him as she clicks her way back over to the hole in the ground. She's muttering quietly to herself as she goes, but her translation device only manages to pick up enough of what she's saying to filter out the words 'healthy children work for benefit of Federation,' and other fragments of bullshit propaganda they've been spoon-feeding humans for over half a year now.

Sighing, Morty decides not to even bother getting back to his feet to follow after her, and instead he just sort of shuffles along the walkway on his hands and knees until he reaches the hole—because he's reached a point in his exhaustion where he has no fucking shame. Setting his ass down right next to the hole and about a foot away from Altaynx's large looming form, he leans back on his palms and looks up at her for direction, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

Clicking her mandibles decisively, she wastes no more time in starting the lesson. As expected, it's more manual labor on his part, though not as difficult as all the digging had been yesterday—and unlike yesterday's session, for some strange reason, Altaynx sticks around in the greenhouse with him instead of leaving him to do all the work. It's possible that she just doesn't trust him to do the job correctly, but Morty's certainly not complaining—especially when she does some of the work for him.

With her long body curving down the walkway behind her and her front half arched above the hole, her limbs move in an even and methodical pace as she shows him what to do and directs him where to go. They lay out the black rubber sheeting first, the two of them unrolling it all and pressing it down into place. She instructs him on how to fold the corners here and there until the entirety of the dirt pit has been lined with it, making sure the water they'll fill it up with won't be going anywhere.

Things get a little wet after that. While Altaynx is busy unwinding the hose and carrying it over from the other end of the greenhouse, Morty takes off his shoes and socks and rolls his pant-legs up past his knees. Someone needs to adjust the liner as the pond is filled up with water, and out of the two of them, he's the better one to do it considering that his limbs don't end in a sharp point—or at least that's what Altaynx tells him. Morty can see her reasoning, but part of him thinks that she just doesn't want to get wet.

As Altaynx points out what spots need fixing, Morty shuffles around the pond with his arms stretched out for balance and his bare feet pressing into the liner here and there to straighten it out. Cold water sloshes around his legs with each step, rising up past his ankles to his shins and when it reaches his knees, he steps up onto the shelf the concrete blocks made around the outer edge and presses that all into place too.

When the water level reaches a little bit past two feet, Altaynx goes to turn the hose off and Morty climbs out of the pond to let his legs dry out. She tells him that they'll fill it up the rest of the way later, after they've finished everything else, and from there, she shows him how to lay the flat rocks out to create a stone edge around the pond. There's a lot of excess rubber lining extending over the lip of the pond, so you take that and fold it under and back over one rock, then place another rock on top of that to hold it in place, and repeat until you've gone all the way around.

It's a bit like assembling a puzzle, trying to find the right rock that will fit on top of the others and leave very little wiggle room after—which sometimes means you'll have to wedge smaller rocks in between all of the gaps and creases. The end goal is that it needs to be stable enough to lean onto with one hand or a knee, that way there's not as much risk of someone toppling in when they have to reach into the pond for any reason.

It's also just as much of a bitch to do as digging the hole had been. A lot of the rocks are big and heavy and before they're even halfway done, the muscles in Morty's arms and upper body are practically screaming.

"So wh-who even finished digging this?" he huffs, leaning heavily against the rock he just set down, his arms shaking. "Not that I'm complaining, I-I just thought I was the only one gr-ground—banned from trips."

On the other end of the pond from him, Altaynx sets down two large rocks like it's no trouble at all for her. She fiddles with their placement and positioning obsessively, and makes a noncommittal crackling noise as she says, "Is two older children. One convict child like you—other is… stupid loyal companion."

"Ohhh-kay…" Morty says after a pause, blinking slowly down at his own rock as he shifts its placement until it's more secure.

He doesn't really absorb the words at first. Chalk it up to his increasing exhaustion and having to put whatever remaining strength he has left into moving these damn rocks around, but it takes him a good ten minutes before his brain actually makes the connection. 'Two older children' being two seniors, and if one is a 'convict child' like him—well, they did say at the assembly that anyone caught protesting would have their fieldtrip privileges revoked. It wouldn't surprise Morty if there had been protestors arrested that night at the Tourist Control Center—that senior worried about singing being one of them—which would make the 'stupid loyal companion' his friend who had been doing the more dangerous job. The same kind of job Summer had been doing.

Pressing half of his weight against the section of rocks he'd been working on, Morty deems it stable enough and drags himself back to his feet to go get more for the next section.

'If they're here by themselves for all of first session, I could sneak down here to talk to them. Try and get some information.'

Of course, he'd be running the risk of Altaynx catching him. That would also mean waiting until tomorrow morning—and tonight could be the night Summer decides she's healed up enough and slips out to go see her psycho cult group.

Glaring down at the pile of rocks, Morty hefts a stack of three up against his stomach and carries them the short distance over to the pond. The loud crack they make echoes though the greenhouse when he practically drops them down by his work area. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Altaynx snap her head up in his direction in clear disapproval. She doesn't say anything though, so Morty ignores her—just sinks down to his knees and gets to work on the next section.

He's been stagnant for nearly three days now, so distracted by everything going on around him and by his own exhaustion that he's been doing absolutely fucking nothing to get answers. Christ, he's barely even been keeping an eye out in the halls for the two seniors. For how effective he's been, he might as well have been sleepwalking these past few days. He needs to actually act—needs to make a move here, because his sister had been fucking mauled and he wants to know more about whatever the hell she's diving back into before it happens.

As much as he hates the idea of waiting until tomorrow though, he's not seeing a better plan here. Whether it was the two seniors who dug the hole or not, if they are actually in school right now, they'd been in their own third session, and all seniors have Federation Education for their third session. That pretty much closes the book on any possibility of getting to them there. There's no way he'd be able to sneak past whatever Federation instructor is teaching their class, and considering that he doesn't even know their names, there's not too much he'd be able to do to get them to leave class early.

Compared to all of those obstacles, getting past Altaynx without her noticing would be a lot easier, and maybe by the time tomorrow rolls around, he'll have a plan on how to do that—none of this last-minute, flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants bullshit.

'I could try and catch them at the end of class,' he thinks.

But that wouldn't really work either, would it? Federation Education classrooms are two floors up and all the way on the other side of the building. Even if Morty ran as soon as the bell rang, he still wouldn't be able to catch them before they left—and on the rare chance that he intercepts them along the way, what the hell could he even do then? Have this big secret conversation in the middle of a busy hallway where any other student or instructor could hear them?

Yeah, great plan, and as an added bonus, he'd miss his bus ride home too. Summer would be thrilled—being the only one available to come get him since Mom would still be at work and Dad would be in a medicated coma.

'So… tomorrow then…'

Morty huffs out a frustrated sigh, rearranging the next set of rocks he'd just put down. His palms feel rough and his fingertips scraped, and every new stack of rocks he picks up from the pile seems heavier than the last. By the time they finish the damn thing, third session is over halfway done, the timer at the head of the greenhouse counting down from thirty-three minutes.

The pond looks fucking awesome though; a nice big in-ground water display that fits so perfectly with the rest of the greenhouse. Morty can't stop look at it for some reason, that sense of accomplishment feeling like a warm glowing ball in his chest despite how sore and tired he is.

He doesn't even notice Altaynx leaving until he sees that the water level is rising and the hose has been turned back on to fill up the pond the rest of the way. The sound of her clicking legs fades into the distance as she leaves the greenhouse entirely, and Morty takes this opportunity to find a clean, dry spot on the walkway where he can still see the pond.

At first he just sits there, then gradually he sinks down until he actually is curled up into a ball on his side, his head pillowed on one arm. It's not at all comfortable—the ground is too hard and one of the nearby plant species keeps reaching out to brush against his neck and thread curiously through his hair—but fuck it all, he is too worn out to be bothered, and he is very adamant about the fact that he will not be moving from this spot for at least ten minutes.

Clicking claw-steps return soon after and Altaynx's shadow falls over him. The large insectoid looms over him, staring down, and Morty's only half-sure that she's joking when she says, "Not dead, hopefully?"

He tilts his head sideways, looking up at her with a wry smile, "No, not yet."

She trills contemplatively, her front limbs fiddling with something, and that's when he notices the large plastic container clutched carefully between her claws. It's filled with some kind of dull green powder, and as she twists away from him and clicks over to the pond, she says, "Sit up. You will be wanting to see."

Curious despite his earlier assertion that he wouldn't be getting up or moving anytime soon, Morty sits up and shuffles closer to the pond on his knees, watching the way she shakes the plastic container and then flips the top open.

"W-what is that stuff?" he asks, sitting down next to the pond's stone edging, but also making sure to keep several feet of distance between him and whatever that green powder is that she's holding.

"Water is different between planets," she explains, leaning over the pond. "This is treatment for that—lets extraterrestrial plants survive. Is fun part."

When she upends the entire container-full of powder into the pond, it's like dropping in a bath bomb. Immediately, the water starts to bubble and froth as a cloud of murky green billows outwards. It honestly kind of looks like a chemical spill—not at all the sort of thing you'd expect any plant to do well in—but Morty's seen enough of the universe to know that there are zero rules when it comes to nature.

By the time the water settles and the powder dissolves completely, the pond has taken on a dirty green hue and there's an oil-slick shimmer coating its surface—water conditions that only an alien plant could love.

And of course the very first thing Morty does is reach his hand out and dip two fingers into the pond, because he clearly has no sense of self-preservation—much like when he was four and had stuck his finger into the open socket of a nightlight to see if it would glow.

Luckily, his skin doesn't immediately melt off, or even start burning or itching. The water feels a little sticky and his fingers come back green, but otherwise it seems just like normal water.

Then Altaynx makes a grinding crackle noise above him that translates to, "Be sure you wash hands after. Best not to let sit."

'Awesome,' he thinks with a grimace, wiping his fingers off on his shirt.

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Socks and shoes on, his pant-legs rolled back down, and hands thoroughly scrubbed—Morty's all put back together by the time the final bell of the school day rings. He does end up keeping an eye out for those two seniors, just in case some kind of opportunity presents itself so that he doesn't have to wait until tomorrow, but the hallways end up being too crowded for him to have any luck spotting them. Freshmen and sophomores have all returned from their trips and are racing to their lockers to grab their things before they go, and juniors and seniors are trickling out of the classrooms at a more leisurely pace. It's like a Where's Waldo? game that he has no patience or energy to play.

Deciding to cut his losses and call it a day, Morty makes a quick stop at the closest water fountain to swallow down two more Tylenol tablets—just enough to keep his piece-of-shit body going until he gets home.

The call of "Morty, hey!" comes just as he's stuffing the pill bottle back into his backpack. He very nearly ignores it until he catches a flash of red hair out of the corner of his eye.

It's Jessica. He hasn't seen her since the assembly or even talked to her since that time on the loading docks however many weeks back—and now here she is, making her way quickly down the hall to him, smiling and waving. Morty half-raises his own hand in the air to give a confused wave back, a part of him questioning if this is even happening at all.

"We're all going to the library to work on our research projects," she says when she reaches him, and that's when Morty notices the other people standing behind her—what looks to be a mix of other freshmen and a few sophomores. None of them are people that he knows.

"There's not much in the school's library that's actually useful," Jessica says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and drawing Morty's attention back to her. "At least for this project, I mean. Most of it is just Earth books."

That… kind of figures, doesn't it?

"Our instructor said we could find information at any Federation library though, and their new big Intergalactic Library just opened up over in Seattle," she tells him, smiling. "We're all gonna take the bus over. Do you want to come?"

Depending on traffic, Seattle really isn't that far of a drive. Dad actually commutes there every day for his factory job. Plus, students get a major discount for public transportation. He knows this all intellectually, and he also knows that he needs to actually work on his project. The deadline is coming up soon and so far he hasn't done shit on it.

At the same time though, the thought of doing anything more than going home and collapsing into bed kind of makes Morty want to step in front of the bus rather than ride it. If his body could talk right now, it'd be saying: fuck no, please, god—

The battle has already been lost though—not even due to that nagging sense of responsibility telling him to just do it and get it over with—but because it's Jessica inviting him along. He may not feel this giant mind-numbing crush on her anymore and his life and everything going on around him is still way too fucked to even focus on something like that, but… Jessica's always been nice to him. He still likes her—would still like hanging out with her. There's not too many people in his life he say that about.

"Yeah, s-sure."

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TBC

Just to reiterate, there won't be any romance or any pairings in this story (save for references to past relationships), mostly because I really don't feel like writing romance. Morty wouldn't be Morty though if he didn't have some kind of warm regard for Jessica (and occasional hormonal teenage-boy thoughts), but yeah-no romance, no dating, no main characters getting together with other characters. The most there will be is Beth and Jerry attempting to make their marriage work.

Final note: If internet articles are to be believed (which is to say that this is still all just speculation), in about two months or so, Season 3 will premiere and this story will officially be a Canon-Divergence fic. There's still so much of the story to go, and there's no way I'd be able to finish it in two months time. I will still be writing it though, I just hope that you'll all still be interested!