Day Zero, Part 3

After Star Trek went off they watched an educational program about Penguins that had started. Closer to noon, Phoebe stood and stretched. "Do you lot have a family group chat?" she asked suddenly.

Morty stared up at her, perplexed. "Um, no," he said, confused. "Should we?"

"It would sure as hell be easier than either hunting everyone down manually or texting them each separately," she observed.

"Yeah, I guess so," Morty agreed.

Phoebe reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone. "I already have your dad's number. Give me yours and I'll text you, then you can send me Summer's and Beth's in response."

The exchange took less than a minute. Phoebe then had everyone's contact information in her phone except for one person, the only one she hadn't seen. "Do you have Rick's number?" she asked as she checked her messages.

"Um, gee, Phoebe, I don't think Rick would want me giving out his number."

Phoebe rolled her eyes. "It's not like I'm going to send him an unsolicited dick pic. It's just for emergencies. Besides, if someone starts a family group chat I'll be able to see it anyway."

"I doubt Grandpa Rick would want to be in a family group chat," Summer said as she came into the room, fingers flying across her keyboard. She somehow managed not to walk into anything without looking up or pausing once. She finished her message, clicked her phone to lock screen and pocketed it as she looked up at them. "He's not the family group chat type."

Phoebe's eyebrow quirked. "I take it he's crotchety and abrasive? Unless he hates tech."

Summer laughed. "He definitely does not hate tech."

"Summer," Morty said, shooting his sister a meaningful look.

"What? I'm not gonna spill the beans," Summer snapped. "If anyone will it's you. You're the weak-willed one."

Phoebe saw a collision course in their near future and she was smack dab in the middle of it. "Hey, hey, it's my first day here, let's not fight," she said, raising her hands in protest. "I get it, your grandfather is secretive. I gathered that from not being allowed into the garage."

"Is Rick already bothering you?" She looked to find Jerry at the door, a scowl taking up most of his face. His sharp nose, something he shared with his daughter, looked even pointier, if possible, with his lips tugged down at the corners. Paired with his ugly green shirt, for an instant she had the absurd mental image of him as a giant sulking parakeet and had to clamp down on her emotions before she laughed out loud and caused more problems.

"Not really," she said, meaning it. "I actually haven't seen him yet. Morty is the one who steered me away from his workroom."

This seemed to only marginally improve Jerry's mood. "Oh, alright," he said, arms crossing over his chest, making Phoebe question how much the family actually talked with each other past short, quick responses.

Phoebe changed the subject quickly. "So, uh, when is Beth coming back?"

Jerry's mood instantly lifted as soon as Rick wasn't a part of the conversation. The two obviously had problems, though it was too early to tell if they were one-sided or not. "She decided to run by the office and check on a patient of hers and then she'll be right over."

"Alright, well, what do you have in the kitchen? We can try to scrounge up something for a family lunch here, or if there's not much in the house right now we can go out."

"There's some, uh, lasagna leftovers from last night," Morty told her.

"There are, like, sandwiches and things," Summer continued.

"I think there's some potato salad," Jerry said.

Phoebe clapped her hands. "Wonderful. Do we want any of that?"

She looked around at the three of them, each looking varying degrees of conflicted. "Maybe the sandwiches and the potato salad?" she suggested. "Or we can wait for Beth to get back." An idea struck her. "Or we can text her like normal people," she amended. She grinned toothily at Morty. "I told you having a family group chat would be useful."

"I'll text mom," Summer cut in, whipping out her phone faster than a videogame character pulling a weapon out of hammer-space. A minute or so passed before her phone dinged with an incoming message. "She wants to know if all of us want tacos." Summer glanced up briefly at everyone.

"I love tacos," Phoebe said.

"Tacos," Jerry moaned, obviously in agreement.

"Uh, yeah, I'm down for tacos," Morty said after a moment, hand going to scratch the back of his head.

Summer sent a response at lightning speed. It only took a moment for her mother to reply. "She wants me to get Grandpa Rick."

"I'll ask," Morty said, turning toward the kitchen.

Summer blocked his way. "No. If you go you'll probably get sucked into some insane adventure of his."

"Then I'll ask," Jerry said, clearly displeased by the thought of speaking to Rick.

"No," she said even more firmly. "If you go you'll both just fight again. I'll ask myself."

She strode over to the connecting door and banged on it loudly. "Grandpa Rick, we're going out for tacos with mom. It's lunch time."

Silence.

Summer banged louder and longer. "Grandpa Rick, I know you're in there! Come meet Aunt Phoebe!"

This time a gruff voice issued out from behind the door, preceded by a belch that somehow managed to sound irritated. "God-Godf-fuckingdammit, Summer, y-y-y-you just, fuck off! Can't you—" belch "—can't you tell I'm—" belch "—working?"

"Don't you want to meet Aunt Phoebe?" Summer tried again, surprising Phoebe. Apparently Summer did like her, at least enough to want to introduce her to others.

"Summer I'm fucking busy!" he all but snarled back at her. What was the man doing in there, brain surgery? What could be that big of a deal?

"Ok, god, Grandpa Rick, no need to get all Old Testament, sheesh." She turned around and shrugged. "I tried. Let's go." She relayed Rick's response to her mother via text as she made her way to the door and exited the house.

Phoebe shrugged and followed her, calling over her shoulder to get Jerry and Morty to follow her.

"This is why you should have a family group chat," she remarked as they piled into the car.

"Are you kidding? My parents are embarrassing enough in person!" Summer objected.

Phoebe snorted, amused. "Well, whether that's true or not it would make your life easier."

"I don't know if I want to be in a chat with Rick." Jerry scowled.

Phoebe fixed him with a skeptical look, wondering what in the hell was so wrong with this Rick person. "Is he going to say anything he wouldn't in person?"

"...Well, no," Jerry conceded, hunching his shoulders. "That's the problem," he muttered the second part under his breath.

"Okay then," Phoebe shot back, still baffled. What kind of situation did she walk into? She could just picture those two memes in her head, the one with the dog sitting in the midst of a fire and saying "this is fine" and the one where the man carrying pizza walks into a clusterfuck of a disaster. "Since I have all of your numbers I'll start it and someone can add Rick."

"This is going to be a nightmare," Summer sighed dramatically, crossing her arms over her chest, hands tucked. The position didn't last. As soon as she got a text, her arms came down to type.

"Rick's not gonna like this, Phoebe," Morty warned, sounding far less dramatic than Summer.

"He'll get over it," she said nonchalantly. "I hope," she added as an afterthought. She looked at Jerry again. "So do you have two cars or are we picking up Beth?"

"Rick has a car, but no one else uses it," Morty piped up.

Jerry's hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, clenching and unclenching. "We'll pick up Beth."

"O...kay then…" Her family was a little strange. "I'll have to swap seats with her." Currently she was riding shotgun.

She turned to Morty and asked him about school, which only seemed to make Jerry more upset. She gathered it had something to do with Rick and Rick taking Morty out of school from the comments he made. Phoebe decided to switch to a safer topic, which was, as it turned out, dogs.

Their conversation devolved into their favorite dog breeds by the time they pulled up to the house of a friend of Beth's who lived a few streets down from them. Phoebe got out, waiting to greet Beth. She could see Summer texting through the window and guess she was letting Beth know they were outside. Two minutes later a blonde woman of average height emerged. She wore a V-necked red button-up, the collar folded and pressed against her shoulders without a wrinkle in sight, and blue pants. There was something of Summer there; Summer clearly favored Jerry less. With a start phoebe realized that Beth, too, possessed those uncanny silvery eyes. The children had clearly gotten the trait from their mother.

Beth extended her hand and they shook. "Phoebe," Phoebe told her, "obviously. It's a pleasure to meet you, Beth. I don't know if you're aware, but Jer's crazy for you. I could barely get him to shut up about you." She winked.

Beth laughed and smiled, though there seemed to be more emotions behind it than just happiness. "I'm sure he did." She gestured to the car and they got in together, Phoebe sitting in the back this time. "What exactly are you studying at university?"

"I'm getting a Master's in biochemistry," Phoebe replied.

Beth made a small noise of approval in the back of her throat. "Impressive," she hummed, and she seemed to mean it. Everything about her facial expression said she was indeed impressed. "What got you interested in biochemistry?"

Phoebe grinned happily. Talking about her passions always made her feel like she was glowing. "I've always loved science—in fact I excel at my work," she confessed, " but originally I only saw it as a hobby. I only went into getting official degrees in Chemistry and Biology when I realized people didn't take me seriously, whether because of my gender or because of the color of my skin or my age. I wanted to force them to show me some respect and pay attention."

She saw a flash of understanding light up Beth's eyes. "I can relate, at least as far as not being taken seriously enough. It's so frustrating when people don't acknowledge your accomplishments or hard work." She nodded, and Phoebe noticed that Beth glanced rather pointedly at an oblivious Jerry while speaking. Ouch, not subtle at all. Apparently Jerry really needed to get his shit together and work on the relationships in his life, unless his wife hated him for no reason.

The conversation thankfully turned away from her after the small inquiry. They ordered their tacos to go and ate lunch at home. After the meal, Jerry went into his man cave, Summer went to a friend's house, and Beth went into the living-room to read. Morty very noticeably had nothing to do, alerting Phoebe by dragging his feet and glancing anxiously at the door leading to the garage. "Hey Morty," she said, pausing by the door to look at him as he pushed his chair underneath the table in slow motion. "Want to send some quality time with your new favorite aunt?"

Morty jumped. "W-what would we be doing?" He asked, eyes widening.

"Nothing too risky," Phoebe said in a teasing tone to alleviate some of his anxiety. "Maybe play some video games or look at my crystals go over which of your local plants are safe to touch and which are poisonous."

"Um, I guess that sounds okay," Morty scratched at the back of his head.

Phoebe gestured for him to come over to her. "Wonderful. It's so nice I have a nephew with whom I can share my video games and crystal collection."

"Uh, yeah, sure Phoebe," he said, sounding considerably calmer. She put her arm around his shoulders and guided him upstairs to her room.

A little while after they left the room, the door in the kitchen that led to the garage opened and one silvery eye peered through the crack. He slipped out, quietly making his way to and from the downstairs bathroom. He had no desire to encounter the latest resident of the Smith house until he could no longer avoid running into her.