Day Nine

A little over a week passed before Phoebe caught a glimpse of Rick. It happened during her morning routine. She usually got up early to pray, meditate, and burn incense when it wouldn't disturb anyone. Sometimes she would use the time to do Pilates exercises, or go for a run. Afterward she would grab a quick shower, and, if she had class that day, Jerry would take her to campus. Unlike undergrad, most of her "work", barring lab work, was researching, reading and discussion. Luckily for her she could speedread 20,000 word a minute and enjoyed the content, otherwise the long passages would have been torture. Having a vested interest in the material on top of an eidetic memory virtually ensured she could never forget any useful information she might need for later, and she rarely took physical notes (and when she did, they were written in a weird combination of English and Mandarin).

Phoebe was just finishing up a Pilates circuit when she thought she heard light footsteps in the hallway. She paused, and when she heard nothing more she decided she was imagining things and that she was still the lone soul awake at that early hour. She continued her movements, keeping her breathing slow and even as she slowly slid into a downward facing dog. The muscles in her right leg were a bit tight, and since no one was around she didn't bother to hold in her moan as they let her know exactly how unhappy with her they were for her infraction. She eased her heels down to lay flat on the floor and let loose another moan. No matter how long she did this, the burning itch and pain of a muscle stretching would always be uncomfortable.

She shifted a little, tightening her hold to get a good stretch, then fluidly released it by walking out into a plank, doing a push up, and walking back up into down dog. Her leg was still tight, and for the third time she moaned. This time she held the pose for far longer, forcing herself to stay still and ignore the strange, hellish burn-itch sensation until the muscles loosened. She unfurled from her position and stood, ending her session. She pulled the front of her shirt up as she turned around to wipe at the sweat on her face. When she lowered the fabric she nearly jumped out of her skin as she became aware of the presence of a strange man at the entrance of the room. He was leaning against one side of the doorframe, tall and all limbs, willowy like a tree, hair wild. He wore a lab coat over a blue shirt and brown pants. When she got to his eyes, she relaxed a little out of the tense stance she had taken upon finding a strange man watching her. His eyes were familiar, though she was used to seeing them in the faces of Summer, Morty, and Beth. His eyes were silvery just like theirs, but somehow more intense, brighter, uncanny. It only made sense if they all came from him. He might be strange, but he was no stranger. This had to be Rick. The footsteps...just my imagination my ass she berated herself.

They spent an uncomfortably long moment staring at each other, Phoebe uncertain what thoughts were passing through his head. "Your eyes," Phoebe finally spoke, "they all have your beautiful eyes: Beth, Morty, Summer, all three of them." She took a step toward him and held out her hand. "You must be Rick. I'm Phoebe."

Rick's eyes, which she belatedly realized had been tracking up and down her body, shot to her face, completely ignoring her outstretched hand and forcing her to drop it. "Beautiful eyes, huh? You think I have beautiful eyes?" His voice, which was a little rough, sounded as if he found something funny about it.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Phoebe replied honestly, sensing surprise from him. Surprise that she found them beautiful? Surprise that she was honest about it? She had no idea. "I've never seen anything quite like them." She swiped her face with the bottom of her shirt again, not noticing Rick's face as he gazed at her. Her beautiful dark flesh glistened in the low light, slick with sweat. By the time she looked at him again he had schooled his features. She felt like she was melting, but that hardly mattered with Rick standing in front of her. What she really wanted to do was reach the refuge of her room and lay on the cold floor naked until her body cooled down, but that was impossible. At least she didn't have to go to campus that day, so she could spend as much time as she wanted trying to speak to the elusive Rick.

"Yeah, well, get used to it," Rick shrugged.

Phoebe smirked, feeling playful. "I think I could."

Rick's eyebrow quirked upwards, then he belched. "Y-you're not like Jerry, are you?"

"Not white?" Phoebe asked, not sure where he was going with his question.

Rick rolled his eyes. "No, not an idiot. I can tell. You're—" belch "—not nearly as stupid as he is. Then again, that's a—" belch "—low bar. Doesn't really prove anything."

"Pfft," Phoebe said cockily, jutting her chin, "I'd like to think I'm not stupid at all."

"I'll be the judge of that," Rick sneered.

"Oh? And your opinion matters because…?" she looked at him innocently from underneath her long lashes.

Rick snorted derisively. "Because someone has to be the smartest guy in the room, and that will always be me."

Phoebe stepped even closer to him. "Prove it then," she taunted playfully. "Wow me. Dazzle me with your intellect."

Rick smirked diabolically. "Oh, I plan to."

"Good." They were...clicking, it seemed. He didn't seem nearly as bad as she feared. She swaggered to the door, mat slung up on one shoulder, and slipped by him into the dinning room. "Don't disappear on me," she said, turning to him. "I want to get to know everyone and you're no exception."

Rick scoffed and crossed his long arms. "Don't hold your breath. I don't babysit Jerry's family."

"Oh, you won't have to babysit me. I don't need adult supervision," Phoebe shot back smoothly.

Rick rolled his eyes. "Whatever. What do you know."

"I made and flew a hovercraft when I was fifteen. I think I can handle myself."

Rick actually seemed vaguely impressed. "Definitely smarter than Jerry," he remarked. "At fifteen he couldn't find his own asshole to wipe."

"Eww Grandpa Rick, don't be gross," Summer's voice broke in, heralding her arrival. Glancing over, Phoebe saw her enter the room along with Beth and Morty. "Hey Aunt Phoebe," Summer added.

Beth smiled at Phoebe. "Have breakfast with us," she invited her.

"I will after a quick shower," Phoebe said. Just then Jerry entered the room. As soon as he saw Rick he scowled. He greeted Phoebe, but not Rick, and sat down.

Phoebe readjusted the mat, then addressed Rick again. "I really need to go shower, but it was nice to finally get to meet you, Rick."

Rick shrugged, the picture of indifference, but Phoebe could actually see his face, and so saw the small smile that twitched into place for less than two seconds. His eyes were on Jerry, glaring hatefully. Those two clearly had some fucking issues. She left to go shower, leaping up the stairs two at a time. A shower really would be nice, then she could be clean and cool and not sticky anymore. She could always hunt Rick down later.

Phoebe rushed through the shower at lightning speed, not wanting to waste her day and especially not wanting Rick to sneak out of the house instead of just out of the room. She wasn't sure she'd ever washed her body or finished rinsing conditioner through her hair quite that fast. She practically threw her clothes on: a long pleated skirt, knee-high black boots, a loose blouse made of breathable fabric that fell in folds, a shimmery scarf. She grabbed her phone and tucked it into her pocket, then grabbed her knives and tucked them into place. With a last glance around the room, she walked back downstairs for breakfast.

XXX

Breakfast was an interesting affair. It revealed even more things. Apparently Rick took Morty out of school a lot for field trips and science experiments, at least from what she could tell. Not to mention he apparently kept Morty out at night too. Maybe for Astronomy? She intended to ask. She had too many unanswered questions from offhand comments and vague references. Phoebe always had to have her answers. She hated not knowing something. She did the dishes and cleanup since she had the day free, finding that cleaning by hand helped her think. Maybe she felt guilty for wanting to laugh at the disparaging remark that Rick made about Jerry earlier. It was funny, goddammit, but it made her feel like a bad sister for not doing more to defend him in the moment. It's not as if she were short on comebacks, if she used her banter with Rick as a means of measurement.

Phoebe got her Nintendo 3DS from the room and claimed a chair in the kitchen as her own. Her oh-so-clever plan was to wait for Rick to come through the kitchen. Either he would come out of the garage into the kitchen, or he would come into the kitchen from some other part of the house to get there. She mindlessly played through Ultra Moon for a few hours, every once in a while glancing at the forbidden door. At some point she suddenly got the feeling thatshe needed to get up and move. She saved the game in a rush and closed the powered-down DS, laying on the table flush to the wall. Maybe she should just go in and see if he was there? If he wasn't she could come right back out without touching anything.

Despite her instincts screaming at her to rush she approached the door with caution. She felt a little silly, but she also felt a bit like the first character in a horror movie to bite it. She was standing an inch apart from the door before she really processed moving, and then she was grasping the doorknob. To her surprise, when she tried it the knob gave and the door slid open a little. In front of her she watched as Rick pulled out a strange gun, aiming it at the open air in front of him. A large, glowing green circle of energy appeared. Rick started to step through it. She wanted to call out and ask him about it, but something told her to stay silent and still, to wait. One leg and arm sank into the green energy, and she tentatively inched forward, all of her muscles tensed to spring. As he leaned in and his second leg began lifting away she forced herself to move as quietly as she could. As he pulled his long leg the rest of the way through, she touched the swirling green energy with both hands, stepping forward into it.

A tugging sensation near her middle, and she was yanked through. The journey didn't last long. Somehow she was now standing in the shadow of a building that Phoebe recognized immediately as Morty's school. She felt a bit dazed, taking a second to adjust. When she did, she saw that Rick had already stalked off, only just catching sight of the edge of his white lab coat as he went around the corner of the building. She hurried to make sure she wouldn't lose him. He slipped into the building with Phoebe hot on his heels only thirty seconds later and just out of sight. Phoebe kept her eyes trained on Rick as he navigated the area with practiced ease and purpose. Phoebe had only been inside the school once, and she never went past that first hallway. She tried not to follow too closely, conscious of just how exposed she was. If he turned around he would see her! It turned out that her worry was short-lived. The bell rang for class change and students spilled out into the hallways, making it infinitely easier to follow Rick without worrying about exposure. She was young enough to blend in, and it reassured her nerves a bit that he had yet to see her in the clothes she wore. Maybe he wouldn't spot her immediately.

She still had no idea why her gut told her to follow him, but she could feel this leading up to something. Her mind whirled, piecing two and two together and making connections as she walked. Rick clearly had a device that could create portals, enabling instantaneous travel. The man really was brilliant. Why he would use the device only to go to Morty's school puzzled her, up until he turned a corner and they came upon Morty. Who, she realized, was being crushed against a locker and held at knife-point by a tall, thuggish, gothic looking kid. His voice floated down the hall to her. "You telling me how to bully now? Big mistake, Morty and now I'm gonna cut you, 'cause my family's rich." Panicked, she started to rush in and help him, but Rick was already on them, his hand pulling something out of his pocket. As the thug pressed the knife to Morty's throat, Rick touched something to his back and he suddenly froze solid. A fucking freeze-gun? Oh my god, just shit a brick and fuck me with it. What would he be able to do next, dimension hopping and space travel? Cloning?

Rick stepped around the solid block of bully as if he did it every day. For all she knew, he did. Things just got stranger and stranger. "There you are, Morty," he said conversationally, stowing the small freeze-gun in an inner pocket of his lab coat. "Listen to me. I got an errand to run in a whole different dimension. I need an extra pair of hands." Phoebe stopped dead. A whole different dimension. Poseidon's nipples, when I said those things I was being sarcastic for fuck's sake! She held her breath, hoping neither Rick nor Morty would notice her standing there. She was fairly certain Rick had not intended for her to follow them.

Morty's fretful voice kept her from sinking too far into her own thoughts. "Oh, geez, Rick. W-w-what'd you do to Frank?"

Phoebe could practically hear the eye roll in his voice as he drawled, "It's pretty obvious, Morty. I froze him." Rick put a hand on Morty's shoulder, then took him by both shoulders. "Now listen. I need your help, Morty. I mean, we got—we got to get—get the hell out of here," he pulled him back and forth for emphasis, "and go take care of business." Belch, belch. "It's important. Come on, Morty."

Morty wrung his hands, clearly conflicted. "I don't know, Rick. I can't leave school again. My parents are pretty worried about my grades."

Nevertheless, Rick persisted. "Do you have any concept of how much higher the stakes get out there, Morty? What, do you think I can just do it all by myself? Come on!"

At last, Morty relented. "Aw, geez. Okay. I guess I can skip history. What about Frank? I mean, shouldn't you unfreeze him?"

Rick brushed that aside as if it were a minor detail. "I'll do it later, Morty. He'll be fine. Let's go."

Seeing them start to whip around and come her way she hastily back-tracked and ducked down by a group of students at their lockers, pretending to be tying her shoe. She gave them twenty seconds to speed past her, and then she straightened and followed them.