.
.
"Whoa! Oh shit, J-19. Y-y-you were right about those telomeres. Damn."
Rick holds the newly-formed clone in his hands: instead of the same blue-ish gray hair Rick had, the newborn's hair is fine and dark, and instead of the sickly pale-gray skin, its skin is red and clear. J-19 beams at the clone, who's wailing and crying like a typical newborn, so Rick tucks it under his arm and walks toward his suspension vat.
"W-w-what are you doing, Rick?" J-19 says. He follows Rick toward the vat.
"I'm gonna put him in this suspension vat, then I'm gonna point a laser at him to make him grow. W-what'd you think I was doing?"
"But...but if you make him grow now, he won't...his mind won't have developed," J-19 says.
"Duh," Rick says. He starts to lower the wailing baby into the liquid.
"Wait! No! Don't! Stop!" J-19 grabs the baby from Rick's arms.
"The fuck are you doing, J-19? It's just a clone-"
"He's a baby, I'm not gonna let you kill him!"
"I'm not gonna kill him, J19! I'm-" Rick rubs his face, exasperated. "I'm just gonna put him in this vat, put him in suspended animation, and force his body to grow to an adult size. I-i-it's standard Operation Phoenix stuff, and considering the bullshit I went through last time, I figure I need at least one clone standby to be operational."
J-19 rocks the baby. The baby coos up at him.
"Oh, shit," Rick says. "Fuck, are you kidding me?"
"Hello, baby Rick," J-19 says. He swaddles him in a labcoat. "Hola, baby Ricardo."
"Oh fuck no, don't tell me-"
"I-I'll raise him," J-19 says.
"What?!" Rick says. "That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard! A-a-and coming from you, that's a fucking achievement!"
"H-he's hungry, we should portal to the store and get formula-"
"Dude, when we did this, we were just testing if your telomere thing would work! I-i-if you wanted a companion, you could've adopted a fucking dog."
J-19 cups the baby's ears. "Please don't swear in front of the baby," J-19 says.
"Oh, Christ."
"C'mon, little guy, let's get you some formula."
xXx
.
Doofus Rick is sitting in the living room, feeding the clone baby a bottle of formula.
"Okay, first of all, I get that you're lonely, you want some meaning in your life, some pathetic excuse to keep fucking going, but need I remind you, we're fucking OLD. You're not fucking Mick Jagger, okay, you don't have a hot 20-something wife who'll take over when you fucking croak. I mean, unless you use gene therapy to alter your own telomeres to artificially extend your life so you can finish raising him-" Rick pauses. "Fuck. That's what you're gonna do, isn't it?"
"Look at him, C-137! He's so cute!" J-19 kisses the baby's forehead.
"Okay, so how are you gonna name him? How are you gonna get a birth certificate? There is no mother. How are you gonna explain how your geriatric ass got a random newborn, huh?"
"W-w-what about Sharon?" J-19 says.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I mean, the people at the university knew we were dating, i-i-it's conceivable I could have, could have gotten her pregnant..."
"Dude, she was designed to be around sixty. No one's gonna buy that you fucking knocked her up!"
"I mean, h-honestly? She looked more like forty-"
"Ew."
"-a-a-and you already forged a lot of her documents. Just, just change the birthdate on it."
Rick groans. J-19 coos at the baby, who's sleeping, wrapped up like a tiny burrito.
xXx
.
"Is this the baby?" Summer leans over the crib. "Oh my god, Grandpa J-19! He's so cute!"
"W-w-what's his name? Can I hold him?" Morty says. J-19 beams at both of them and carefully lifts the baby.
"Like this," J-19 says, showing them. "Y-y-you need to support Junior's neck with your hand, see? Like this."
"Oh my god, are you calling him Junior?" Summer squeals.
J-19 is beaming. At the corner of the room, Rick is rolling his eyes with his arms crossed.
The crib is in J-19's room, so he can hear him cry in the middle of the night. When he goes out, he wears the baby on his chest in a baby carrier.
"I-I-I've always wanted to have a baby," J-19 says, beaming. Rick smacks his forehead and loudly groans.
xXx
.
"Rick, can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" Rick is putting stuff away on his workbench. J-19 rocks the baby, stepping forward.
"That...that memory eraser thing. I-it works on you too, right?"
"Yeah? So?"
"So..." J-19 hesitates. "Would it, would it be possible to, you know, erase my memory of knowing Sharon is a robot?"
Rick turns. J-19 doesn't look at him.
He wants a family. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. J-19 wants someone to come home to, a wife who loves him and will help him raise their baby. A family of his own, even if it's a robot and his alternate self's clone.
"That's a terrible idea, because you know why?" Rick says. "You'll figure out she's a robot all over again, but this time it'll blow up an entire family. Just raise baby Rick, or Junior, or whatever, by yourself. But if you ever get sick of it, lemme know, my clone vat is still operational."
xXx
.
Rick re-builds the Sharon robot. The whole thing strikes him as sad, but it's better than being lonely and it doesn't take much for Rick to need convincing. The robot goes online, her silver hair dyed dark and with noticeably fewer wrinkles, the archived memories of her encounters with J-19 rounded out with a few false memories to pad out the gaps.
"How long was I sick?" Sharon asks, as she goes online. Rick stands back as J-19 lays his head on her chest, then starts to cry.