A/N: not a ton going on physically in this chapter. It's mostly dialogue, some feels if you know where to look, and set-up for the next two chapters.

March

There was dirt underneath her fingernails. She'd chosen not to wear gloves because gloves dulled the sensation of earth on her palms and she wanted sensations to ground her. The last week she'd only walked the house barefoot, taken hotter showers and eaten spicier food. The day was cloudy, the sun barely kissing the top of her head. She dug, planted, watered.

This expanse of grass would be part of a garden someday. There would be herbs nearer the back door, and further up there would be vegetables and things, like tomatoes and cucumbers. She'd planted a small peach tree in the corner, and here there would be flowers just for show. She couldn't only plant over their bodies, because it would look odd to have a garden grow only in the shape of a grave, and people might think they were serial killers.

The second day after they buried their own bodies, Phoebe thought about a garden. The third day she took measurements of the yard before class, then jotted down ideas all day and the next. The fifth she'd spent planning it out spatially, then finally she'd started buying all the things she needed on the next. Today she'd gotten up before her usual time to start working on it, thankful not to have business on campus so she could begin her work. Phoebe had been out since the early morning, long before the sun rose above the horizon. When she was done, there would be the skeleton of a garden.

The sliding glass door opened. The sound of feet on grass, a soft shuffle, then a tall shadow fell over her. "What the hell are you—" belch "—doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Phoebe said without looking up at Rick. Phoebe could practically feel Rick's scowl even if she couldn't see it.

"Why?" Rick seemed genuinely puzzled on top of not seeing the purpose or usefulness of gardening in general.

Phoebe hesitated. "You'll think it's silly since it's not for any scientific reason."

"You're probably right," Rick agreed.

Phoebe decided to tell him anyway. "I wanted some life out here to balance the death. It's also a practical thing to do on top of being an enjoyable hobby."

Phoebe looked up at him at last when he didn't respond immediately. He was standing directly behind and to the left of her looking down at her. Instead of his flask he had an entire bottle of vodka in one hand, the top screwed off as if he'd been drinking from it non-stop. "It's also a good way to work out my grief instead of trying to drown it," she said, very deliberately looking between him and the bottle.

Rick scowled. "Whatever. I'll be in the garage. Come in when you're finished."

Phoebe sighed and wiped her filthy hands on her worn jeans, the one she used for cleaning and painting and now for gardening, she supposed. "I'm pretty much done anyway. Nothing more I can do now, and that's everything I wanted to put out." She bent to pick up a few things to put in the shed. "What did you have planned?"

"A little outing, later, but right now, work on a new project," Rick said, not offering more details at the moment.

"All right. I won't be long," Phoebe assured him. "I just need to put my equipment up and then shower."

Rick nodded, looked at the place where she knew their bodies were, and tipped the bottle to his lips. "Don't—" belch "—take too long," he said once he lowered it.

He left her alone, and Phoebe set about storing her tools and getting ready. It didn't take her long to get clean and dressed, and soon she was going down the stairs humming softly to herself. Phoebe snagged an apple for each of them from the counter on her way through the kitchen to the garage. When she walked through the door, it was to the sight of Rick leafing through her journal of ideas for future projects.

"Rude," she said, but only after first taking a minute to stand and simply stare at him: at his long, deft fingers turning the pages, his nails short and his fingertips calloused; at that wild blue hair of his, sticking up in every direction as per usual; at his equine legs, slender and long like a racehorse; at the way his silvery eyes tracked over the pages in her journal, sharp, hungry, quick; at his pursed lips, which though thin looked softer now somehow; at the way the lab coat hung off of his frame. She would never have called him an ugly man, but neither would she have described him as conventionally desirable—but, she noted, he was quite handsome in his own way. Sure of himself, talented, highly intelligent, and more caring than he'd ever admit. It was obvious to her that Rick's life had made him the jaded and cynical man before her, and yet she could tell that some part of him was still affected by the Cronenberg genetic apocalypse. You didn't fall to the bottom of a bottle of hard liquor because you just felt so damn good about things, you did it to drown out the things that wounded you, to smother your problems the way they smothered you.

She cleared her throat and fully entered the garage.

"You could have just asked you know. I don't mind sharing my notes with you."

"Where's the—" belch "—where's the fun in that, Phoebe?"

Phoebe rolled her eyes, coming to a stop by his side and glancing down at her open journal in his hands. He'd stopped at the section on her ideas about the creation and integration of nanotechnology, specifically nanobots, in biological systems for purposes of healing injuries to a wounded party. "I was going to bring them up eventually," she said, "they're not something I could work on alone. I have the biological and chemical knowledge, but not the technological knowledge. That's where you come in."

"What makes you think I want to—" belch "— work on something so—" belch "—something like that?"

Phoebe shrugged one shoulder. "You're the one thumbing through my notes, Rick, you tell me."

"Quickest way to discover your current interests."

"Quicker than asking me? It's not like I'd lie."

"Everyone lies, Phoebe, and everyone screws up now and again—the Cronenberg mess case in point. The two constants of the universe."

One of Phoebe's eyebrows tilted into a slant. "What an inspiring proverb. Cheers, Rick."

"Anyone who believes otherwise is either an idiot or painfully naive." Rick said as he closed her journal and laid it on the table.

"You're right," Phoebe said, picking up a sonic detonator—a device that let out waves of ear-splitting sounds only within the hearing range of certain alien species (such as Gromflomites)—that Rick had taken apart with her to help her get better with manipulating tech. They'd reconstructed it together, though Phoebe did most of the physical work with Rick guiding her through it and telling her the various functions of each part. "Blind faith in a perfect world where people always tell the truth and don't make mistakes is the height of naïveté. But leaning in to earned trust isn't. It's a practical application of trust that's been built between two people through experience. It's how you know I won't turn around and stick one of my knives into you instead of our enemies."

Rick took the sonic detonator out of her hands, his fingers brushing against her skin. "A third constant is that people will always inevitably disappoint you," Rick said, turning the detonator over and over in his hands. He leaned against the work table, his hip pressed into the edge as his arms crossed. "Some of the ones who disappoint you will betray you."

"Some will, some won't," Phoebe disagreed, crossing her own arms. "Some people are loyal and honest to a fault—"

"—and some people would sell their own mother down the river for a single crust of bread, Phee. Most people are in-between: honest sometimes, loyal when it suits them, which brings us back to our constants: everyone lies, everyone screws up, and everyone will, at some point, disappoint you."

"I can see where your sunny disposition comes from," Phoebe replied sarcastically. "No wonder you're such a delight. You're filled with such hope and faith."

Rick's lips twitched but he said nothing more about his 'constants', merely twisting around for something just behind and to the left of him. He straightened back around and thrust a page filled with sketches and notes at her. "Fuck you. Anyway, I—" belch "—I started working on the tech part of your stupid nanobots."

Phoebe tried not to laugh and only just succeeded. She couldn't stop her smirk, though she did manage to pull it into a deadpan after a moment to say, "I thought you didn't want to work on something like this?"

Rick glared at her. "Do you want the damn things or not?"

Phoebe rolled her eyes and accepted the notes, eyes scanning over his untidy scrawl faster and faster as she read on. "I definitely needed you," she muttered, catching his smug smirk in her periphery. She matched his smirk without looking up. If Morty had been in the garage he might have noted how eerily similar to each other they appeared, like reflections in mirrors. "If we put our heads together we might have something viable by this afternoon."

"Are you—are you kidding, Phoebe? We can do this in two hours," Rick challenged.

Phoebe eyed him. "Three, and you're on."

XXX

With their combined genius they had something viable in the two and a half hours, then spent five minutes arguing over whose estimate was actually closer. They were still arguing when they entered the kitchen for lunch. It was a school day, so Summer and Morty weren't at home, and Beth was at work. Even though almost a month had passed by, she had forgotten about Jerry being fired from his advertising job, and therefore that he would be at home. He mostly lurked in his man cave/ "office" when not looking for and applying to jobs, though he'd taken on more housework when Beth subtly brought it up to him. They'd mostly avoided him, both versions of him, since that fateful day in early January. Today, however, they would not be so lucky. He was making himself a sandwich, the materials spread across the counter, but he looked up when they came from their session of experimentation. His eyes darted between them, settling on Rick as he scowled.

"Afternoon, Phoebe." Jerry passive-aggressively glowered, eyes narrowed. "I see you've been busy."

At her side Rick smirked.

"Yeah, we've been working on another project," Phoebe said with forced cheer, determined not to allow the situation to escalate into a fight between Jerry and Rick—if anyone could even call it that. Usually it was a one-sided struggle that ended in slaughter, with Rick's smooth sarcasm and biting remarks often flying over Jerry's head. He understood the tone and body language enough to know he was being sneered at, but he couldn't keep up with Rick.

"Have you thought about spending more time away from the house?" Jerry said as he spread mayonnaise onto one side of his bread. "I know you have a few friends from the University. Maybe you could go out with them more often? It's not normal for someone your age to spend so much time on your own."

"I'm not alone, I'm with Rick," she pointed out, going to the fridge to pull out the egg carton. She handed it to Rick and reached for the milk.

"That's part of the problem. I don't want Rick to hold you back from having more of a social life," Jerry continued. He pressed the top slice of bread onto the waiting mound of meat covering the bottom slice, raised it to his mouth and sank his teeth into it. Rick was surprisingly quiet, though he watched the two siblings converse with keen interest.

Phoebe's fingers faltered on the handle as she turned her head to stare at Jerry. "I don't see it as a problem, Jerry. There aren't any rules saying all of my friends have to be my same age and gender."

Jerry swallowed and chuckled nervously. "I know that. I'm just saying maybe you should...expand your social circle, maybe get some variety in what you do outside of lectures and lab work."

Phoebe straightened up and faced Jerry with a scowl of her own. "Jerry, there's nothing wrong with my social life. I can spend as much time as I like with whoever I want to."

"But does it have to be with Rick?" Jerry whined. "I'm just saying…"

Phoebe huffed in annoyance. "Oh, I know what you're just saying, Jerry, and as much as I love you, this is me asking you to butt out."

"I'm just worried about you!" Jerry burst in, clearly not knowing when enough was enough.

"And I appreciated that," Phoebe forced her voice not to rise higher like it wanted to. "Noted, really. But I'm not a little girl, Jerry. I know you missed out on a lot of years of being an older brother, but I can honestly say I can take care of myself. If I want to go out with different people, I will, but right now I want to spend my time with Rick working on our projects."

Jerry looked as if he'd swallowed a whole lemon. "I see he's gotten to you, too," Jerry said.

"Oh please, Jerry, it's nothing so sinister. We're friends and we work well together, that's all."

"That's what worries me," Jerry said.

"Well stop," Phoebe hissed, finally losing her patience, grabbing the milk and slamming it down on the counter.

"Fine," Jerry muttered. "I was just trying to look out for you." He snagged a bag of chips out of the cabinets and was gone, from the sound of it to his office.

Phoebe let out a frustrated sound as she put away the items he left out and pulled out a pan, butter, salt, and pepper. Soon she had scrambled eggs cooking, absentmindedly coaxing them to be fluffy and light before scooping the steaming mass onto a waiting plate. Phoebe, still feeling a little agitated from her fight with Jerry, got the bread back out for toast and muttered, "You were noticeably quiet during that family discussion."

Rick, who had eaten lunch meat straight out of the pack then grabbed a banana from the fruit basket and peeled it as he leaned against the counter, shrugged. "Once I saw where it was going, I knew he would talk himself into hole."

"Still, you're usually the first to criticize Jerry or jump in to shame him or make him feel like a fool." Phoebe heaped her still warm eggs onto her buttered toast, staring at Rick contemplatively. "Then again, maybe you knew things would go over better if you didn't come off as controlling as Jerry did." She shook her head and bit into her own sandwich, gesturing at the leftover egg on her plate. "Have some."

Rick didn't pass up the opportunity for more food. He was likely as starved as her. She knew she would need more than her sandwich to fill her up, maybe some Pringles and an apple.

Rick got a fork out of the kitchen drawer and stabbed it into some of the remaining egg. "Maybe, or maybe I know Jerry well enough to know he's an idiot who would stick his foot in his mouth sooner or later." And the more Jerry tried to keep them apart, the more she would resent him for it. Rick could sit back without doing any work, because Jerry would push them together and make her even more adamant in their friendship, she thought. Not a bad plan at all. She couldn't even call it manipulative, since it wasn't some diabolical plot of his. It wasn't some grand machination to get them together, not like with Morty and the Mega Seeds. It was half common sense and half an understanding of human psychology, and even though she could see it for what it was she didn't care. She didn't need pressure from Jerry to make her lean into her friendship or make her feel closer to Rick. The truth was that she and Rick spent more time together and had more in common than she and Jerry had in the first place. She still made an effort to have brother-sister time, and she never looked down on him for his limitations the way Rick did, but there was a definite difference in what each of them offered. Jerry might be family, but Rick was Rick, and she would stick with him no matter how much Jerry whined, howled, or despaired.

"He hates you anyway, but he hates it even more that we're close," she said as she finished her sandwich and reached around him for an apple. Their sides pressed together very briefly and her stomach did something odd. She frowned down at her apple as she pulled away from the basket. She brushed it off and bit into the yellow-green flesh. "We should make more," she said around a mouthful of golden delicious. "If you're still hungry. You can get the bread ready and grab the chips, and I'll scramble some more eggs."

Once they'd assembled more food, they cleaned up and took the food with them into the dining room.

They worked their way through half of the fresh batch of eggs and toast before Rick spoke. "I need a device for something else I'm working on."

Phoebe swallowed two gulps of orange juice. "All right, I'll bite. What is it?"

"I need a defraculator," Rick said, snatching up a chip between thumb and forefinger. "We'll need to go to an off-planet pawnshop for it. We can go grab Morty first then start looking."

"Sounds good," she said, reaching for chips herself. She and Rick tried taking the same cluster of five chips, and their hands touched. That odd sensation returned, but she pushed it down, worried she was coming down with something. "You take it," she said, scooping up a different cluster to the right instead. Rick eyed her but didn't comment. They wrapped up lunch in silence that lasted until they were in the space cruiser and on the way to Morty's school.