February

"Hey, Rick," Phoebe greeted as she stepped into the garage. He was leaning over fiddling with something.

"Phoebe," he acknowledged.

"Just wanted to let you know I won't be back until late. I'm going to be in the Hurston labs for a few hours doing some research and supervising some undergrads."

"Alright." Without looking at her he held out an energy pistol. Despite the fact that he knew Phoebe to be a dab hand with blades, he still insisted she take one of the pistols when she went out alone.

Phoebe took it but ducked her head so her hair would fall in the way and hide her amused smile. Rick did care, he just showed it differently than others. If she were leaving a different friend she might have given them a hug as she passed by them. Instead, because this was Rick, and Rick wasn't a hugger, she briefly touched his shoulder for a few seconds and then let her hand fall. That was their farewell ritual now, that and him insisting she take any of the various weapons. "I'll see you," Phoebe said, exiting the garage. She got a grunt of acknowledgement in response.

XXX

Barely two hours later, Phoebe knew something was wrong. It was not yet time to supervise the undergraduates, so she was in the lab building alone. She was taking notes on an experiment of hers—the hair serum that started as a project for Rick but quickly became something that would make her untold amounts of money—when her phone started ringing. She had it set on Do Not Disturb, but with the option to knock DND mode off if the same person called twice in a row within three minutes. She didn't like being disturbed during a lab, but wanted people to be able to reach her in case of an emergency. She reached into her lab coat pocket, absentmindedly pulling her cell phone out, unlocking it, and raising it to talk without glancing at the screen.

Before she could say a word, Rick's frantic voice came on the line. "Phoebe," Rick said, and it was the first time she'd heard anything approaching panic in his voice. "Are you all right?"

"Rick?" She held the phone out and looked at it to double-check the caller ID before bringing it back to her ear. "Why?" She said suspiciously.

"Because we're in some serious shit this time. I might have screwed up a love serum that hijacked the flu virus to spread from person to person, resulting in the entire world wanting to bone Morty and everyone who smelled like him."

"Everyone who smelled like h... pheromones!" Phoebe said, thinking quickly. Pheromones relayed information that included how related two individuals were, and non-human animals had a much sharper sense of smell in general than did humans, but apparently the serum allowed those infected to hone in on those scents as well. "Fuck. And since I'm so closely related to him they might mistake me for him." Phoebe blinked. "Wait, did you say love serum? Why the hell would you make a love serum?"

Implicit in the question was the disbelief that Rick would ever, at any point, make something even remotely like a love potion. "Morty wanted to attract this girl he went to school with so she'd notice he existed. But it backfired. I used oxytocin from a vole which caused obsession, then because they're obviously opposites as far as mating habits I tried to counter it with praying mantis DNA—"

"Rick," Phoebe tried to stay calm. "Did you seriously tamper with DNA and hormones without asking me?"

Rick growled defensively, "I can conduct experiments without you holding my hand, Phoebe! I did it all the time before you came into our lives!"

"But your specialty is physics and technology. My specialty is biochemistry."

Rick was quiet for a moment, then said, "Look, we're flying toward you to pick you up right now. We have to leave."

"Leave? To live in space or something? Aren't we going to try and fix this mess?"

"No. Everyone might have...genetically mutated further with the addition of koala, rattlesnake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur DNA…"

"Oh my god," Phoebe whispered. "I have no idea how long it would take to try and untangle the mess you made."

"Fuck it! I'm not sure if we can. The mutations might be permanent. At least the Cronenbergs won't try to mate with us then brutally murder us anymore. I fixed that."

"So we're just abandoning everyone and everything we've ever known to a fate as mutated monsters? Life on earth as we know it is over?"

"Life on this earth is. I found a suitable replacement dimension. It's just like this one but without the genetic mutation disaster."

"Rick—"

"Don't argue, just come outside. Keep the energy pistol drawn. Unless it's us, shoot first and ask questions later."

Phoebe bit her lip. "Okay," she said. "I'm coming." Her hand slowly lowered until her arm hung limply at her side. She stared around the room, at the equipment and workspaces and chairs. She looked down at her own experiment. She straightened and carefully folded her notes and tucked them into the lab coat she had on. She decanted what she had at the moment and slipped a vial into the same pocket. She took off her gloves and goggles, grabbed her bag and jacket, and slowly made her way out of the building with the energy pistol ready to fire. She called Rick back once she reached the ground floor. "Which entrance are you by Rick?"

"The parking lot side."

Phoebe made her way over to that entrance and cautiously opened the door. Rick and Morty were only a few feet away, the parked space cruiser not even in an actual space, but rather parked haphazardly. She ran to them and threw her arms around them both. "You two are such idiots," she said. "But I'm so glad you came."

She backed up to see Rick wincing. "Are you hurt?" Phoebe said in concern, hand extended.

"No, I just didn't think you'd touch me," he said, looking disturbed. Ouch.

"Oh. I mean I'm glad you're not murdered, so…" she hid her mortified blush by looking around. Something was missing. "Where are the others?"

"They're not coming. Just us," Rick replied, which confused her.

"What? Why not?"

Rick sighed. "Just trust me, Phoebe."

He opened a portal, grabbed her and Morty by their lower arms and hauled them through the green energy...right into the middle of a gory scene. It was the garage but covered in blood, and in the floor lay three familiar looking bodies, burned and bloodied: her own, Rick's, and Morty's. Her stomach lurched and she felt dizzy, a sudden sense of vertigo overtaking her. She suddenly understood everything: why Rick didn't bring the others, why he didn't bother fixing their old reality. They were going to replace their clones in a parallel universe without anyone the wiser. The realization made her feel like she was floating, like she could see the room outside of herself. When Morty spoke she heard him as if from afar, as if she had her head underwater, the sounds distorted.

"Oh, my god, Rick! Is that us?!" Morty screeched. "W-w-w-we're dead! What is going on, Rick? I'm freaking out!"

"Calm down, Morty! Look at me! Calm down, Morty!"

"No, I can't deal with this!"

"Calm yourself, Morty."

"I can't deal with this, Rick!"

"Calm down, Morty."

"This can't be real!"

"You got to calm down, Morty."

"W-w-w-w-we're ripped apart!"

"No, we're not," a dazed Phoebe interrupted Morty's panic and Rick's attempts to calm it. She was unnervingly calm, not quite Vulcan-like but totally closed off in a way that wasn't normal for her. "They are. The us that died. They're torn apart, we're okay."

Rick glanced at her, his face concerned. He looked at Morty, reached out, and slapped him. It tended to work on hysterical people, and it worked on Morty, who fell silent. "Shut up and listen to me! It's fine. Everything is fine. It's just like Phoebe said. We're not dead, they are. There's an infinite number of realities, Morty, and in a few dozen of those, I got lucky and turned everything back to normal. I just had to find one of those realities in which we also happen to die around this time. Now we can just slip into the place of our dead selves in this reality and everything will be fine. We're not skipping a beat, Morty. Now, help me with these bodies."

"We should get the Meeseeks to clean up the blood," Phoebe blurted tonelessly, still not quite herself. A part of her clinically noted that she might be dissociating.

"That's a good idea, Phoebe, good thinking."

Numbly she walked over to the shelf, her movements robotic, and got the box down. She pressed the button twice and two Meeseeks appeared, complete with the usual greeting. "Clean up the blood," she said in an emotionless monotone. "Don't make a lot of noise. Don't let anyone see you. When you're done, take anything with blood on it that can't be cleaned off and use the vaporizer on it. It's this one—" Phoebe pointed it out.

Morty, who had been watching her in growing horror, and Rick, who was looking at her intently and with great interest, both watched as the Meeseeks got to work.

"This is insane, Rick," Morty said as numbly as she felt.

Rick, trying to be the voice of reason, said, "Look, Morty, I'll grab myself, you grab yourself, Phoebe grabs herself, okay? I mean, t-t-t-that seems fair to me I mean, that seems like a fair way to divvy it up."

"Rick, what about the reality we left behind?"

"Burned," Phoebe said absentmindedly as she walked over and stared down at her dead body.

"What about the reality where Hitler cured cancer, Morty? The answer is don't think about it. It's not like we can do this every week, anyways. We get three or four more of these, tops. Now, pick up your dead self and come on. Haste makes waste. I-I-I don't suppose you've considered this detail, but obviously, if I hadn't screwed up as much as I did, we'd be these guys right now, so, again, you're welcome."

Somehow Phoebe kept making her body move. She made her legs walk, she made her back bend and her arms swoop and her hands grasp. She dug a grave for her dead self while Rick and Morty did the same beside her. Together they tipped their bodies into the waiting holes in the earth. Rick then quickly started to grow dirt over his dead self, but Phoebe stopped him. "Wait," she said quietly, almost too quiet for him to hear. The rushing in her ears and the fog in her head were abating somewhat, and she no longer felt as nauseous or dizzy. She was starting to accept it, she thought absently, although everything still felt surreal. It would be as if nothing had changed, and yet everything had. To see such familiar surroundings, such familiar faces, and for nothing to be discernibly different and yet actually be totally different…They were all in for a bit of a mindfuck. Rick paused, shovel held out over his grave with his next shovel-full of dirt. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue.

She laid her shovel down and picked up a handful of dirt. "Here lies Phoebe Johnson, biochemist, inventor, fencer, and lover of Harry Potter and red velvet cupcakes. May she Rest in Peace." She let the dirt fall, then picked up another handful and stood by Morty. She took one of his limp hands in her own. "Morty," she whispered. "It'll help. Let yourself mourn." She pressed dirt into his hand. "Here lies Morty Smith, beloved nephew, son, brother, and grandson, lover of Snuffles the dog and ice cream. You say it this time, Morty." She coaxed him to do it while Rick watched, then she finally moved to Rick's side.

"I'm not doing the stupid ritual," he said. "It's pointless and sentimental garbage."

Phoebe looked up at Rick, directly into his uncanny silvery eyes, with dirt smudged on her cheek and flecked on her lab coat. Something dark, something haunted, lived there. Had he been forced to do this before? Maybe that's why he was so jaded now. "It might be sentimental, Rick, but it's far from pointless. It's for closure, so we can grieve and let this go. We might be the ones who survived physically, but our old life is dead, it's gone, it's not coming back. We were uprooted. We have to acknowledge that if we want to move on."

She expected him to resist her anyway, especially after how he acted in the parking lot earlier in their doomed reality, but when she pried one of his hands off of his shovel and held it in her own, pressing dirt into his palm, he didn't pull away. His uncanny eyes we riveted to her. "Here lies Rick Sanchez," she said softly, "beloved friend, father, grandfather, and ex-husband. Lover of science and adventure, and a damn brilliant inventor."

"I'm not saying, the words," he said.

Phoebe shrugged. "Okay. It's your funeral." Oh gods did she really? Maybe she'd be back to normal sooner than she thought she would be.

Rick cracked a dark smile then allowed Phoebe use of his hand to release the handful of dirt over the other Rick. His hand lingered in hers before he pulled away. "All right, let's finish burying these losers," he said in a bright voice. "They're not getting any deader."

Phoebe almost grinned. Rick did. "And she's back," he said, and some of the haunted-ness washed away from them both.

When they finished covering up the bodies they trooped into the now-clean garage. Arguing could be heard behind the door. "We should go through the front. They shouldn't see us this filthy," Phoebe reasoned. "They might ask questions." They exited the garage and went into the house through the front door. It was scary how the hide-a-key was in the same exact place by the door in the same ugly-ass little gnome. Really—same ugly brown shoes, green pants, blue shirt, pointy red hat, and scrunched up face. She looked at Morty. "You go and shower first, Morty. Try not to take too long." He mumbled something but acquiesced, walking despondently up the stairs. Phoebe waited until he was out of hearing rage to say something to Rick. "If you don't bury the dead or your secrets properly, Rick, they haunt you," she said, not looking at him. "You should shower too."

She started up the steps without looking down at him. If she'd glanced back, she might have been intrigued by what she saw.