I told you I'd be back with the rest of the update. :3 Behold, the next 16, 700 words concerning our Science Duo.

Definitely a tw for mentions of substance use/abuse for this chapter and the next two, but no graphic descriptions. It's only mentioned in passing.

Oh, and two important details, the first being that 'Diane' is Máte, in case that's confusing (I did go back and change the one name-explicit mention I made of his wife in the fantasy world arc, which is...chapter ten, I think?). It's canon that the memory he showed the galactic government operative was a false memory, so I kind of took that and ran with it and used it as a loophole to change her name. I figured Rick wouldn't have told them her real name. The second thing…is that this is a Rick chapter!

Summary: Taking Blue Fire didn't go quite as planned for Rick.

PS: Consider listening to Talia by King Princess in relation to this chapter. Parts of it just hit so hard.

:)

Enjoy.

...

The worst side effect of coming down from Blue Fire, Rick discovered early on, was the dreams it caused. Sure, it lowered inhibitions and brought the world into sharp focus, but it also drudged up things that might better be forgotten, bringing any repressed feelings or memories to the surface. It consequently gave those old memories new clarity while the emotions brought forth tended to rage in intensity. In Rick's case, it meant he had nowhere to hide, nowhere to stuff down all the things he didn't think about, all the things for which alcohol dulled the edge of and made bearable. He couldn't escape from his feelings for Phoebe, and he couldn't escape from the heartbreak of losing Máte. The Blue Fire would make everything surface for twenty-four hours as it left his system, even after he officially crashed from the initial high.

Máte.

Before Morty, he didn't have anyone to block out his brainwaves. Instead he had to rely on stealth, on devices that only worked half of the time, and on not staying in the same location for longer than necessary. He made sure he saw Beth and Máte often, but it was never enough for Máte, and who could blame her? There was no amount of money or gifts that could alleviate the isolation of raising a child mostly alone. But he couldn't exactly ask them to come with him every time he risked life and limb, could he? He couldn't endanger them that way. Risking himself was one thing, but risking them? Unthinkable.

He could feel the dream world taking shape around him. When he opened his eyes in his dream, he found himself in his old apartment, sitting on his sofa. His dream-self had a double shot glass in one hand, with a bottle of whiskey in the other. He only had a second to consider which memories he would relive when her voice cut through the quiet. "You care for her quite a bit, don't you?"

Rick found himself on his feet without even thinking of it. His grip went limp, and the shot glass and whiskey fell to the floor in an explosion of glass and alcohol as he turned to the speaker. Máte sat calmly at the kitchen table, her expression neutral behind her familiar cat-eye framed glasses. She was wearing her usual pastel outfit, all of her hair falling over one shoulder. How many times had he taken something for moments like this—to hear her voice again, to see her face, to touch her? Except this time, he hadn't taken anything to bring them together. He hadn't consistently in a long time, not since he'd started getting closer to Phoebe. He'd taken the Blue Fire to lower his inhibitions and heighten his senses, and now he was dealing with the other side-effects of it. He knew she wasn't real, that she was just a weird combination of his memories and a hallucinatory dream, but he answered her anyway. "Nothing matters."

Máte got up from her seat and crossed the small distance between them to get to him, reaching out to touch his face. "She does. She matters to you. I can see it in your eyes no matter how much you want to hide it." She cupped his jaw, and he leaned into her hand. "Remember, Richard, she's not the only one who can read you."

Máte most often called him Richard when she wanted to make a point, when she had something incredibly serious to tell him, or when she thought he was hiding something. Interesting, to be manipulated by your own subconscious. Rick pushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "You mattered, too." There was no reason not to say it here, to allow that truth room in the open air, where no one would know but him and the drug-induced hallucination of his dead wife.

Máte smiled softly at him. "I know."

Rick knew logically that he wouldn't get any real answers. He could only get whatever his subconscious postulated about Máte's reasons. Still, he had to ask her. "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you let me know?"

Máte bit her lip and looked at him between her lashes. Instead of some semblance of an answer, she returned a question of her own. "Would that have changed anything, Rick?" She tilted her head to peer intently into his face. "Would it have made anything less painful?"

Rick looked down and away from her. "We both know that in the end it doesn't matter why you did it. You're still..." He trailed off, unable to say the word. Dead. She was still dead.

"That's what I thought."

Even in his subconscious mind, he tried fighting the tears that wanted to fall. "It doesn't matter why because you still left me. You—you couldn't just tell me so I could have—could have done something. You chose to die without saying a word to me about it."

Máte—the vision of Máte, both—leaned in against him, laying her head on his shoulder. "We both know that you left first, Richard."

Rick couldn't help but stroke the blonde head flush to his chest. Her hair felt in his dream just the way he remembered it: silken, thicker than his. He found himself using her full given name as he felt the familiar surge of grief-driven anger. "Don't give me that crap, María-Teresa. I couldn't just—I couldn't just take you and Beth with me every single time I did something dangerous. I had to protect you."

The memory-vision hybrid hummed. "Right, by never being there for Bethany."

Rick held her at arm's length. "Do you really think I ever left her alone? That I'd ever leave the two of you alone? I spent hours on the surveillance and security I put in place. I made an entire pocket dimension for Beth."

Máte sighed, tipping her head up to look at him. She uttered her reproach quietly. "It wasn't the same without you."

Rick's arms tightened around the apparition of the former astrophysicist, the woman who regularly greeted him with paint on her cheek or brushes in her pocket. Rick could still remember when he'd tracked down a few of Frieda Kahlo's paint brushes to give her for her birthday. "It was a calculated decision, Máte, one I don't have to make now. With Morty and Phoebe, I can stay in the same place for as long as I fucking feel like it."

He expected more from her than the single self-satisfied word she offered. "Good."

Rick rested his chin on the crown of her head. The vivid scent of her shampoo wafted into his face. Blue Fire could do that, could make any sense heightened and make phantom senses indistinguishable from current ones. "Good? That's all you've got to say, huh?"

She didn't respond immediately. They stood in silence for what seemed like several minutes, but could really only be milliseconds. Then Máte spoke again, her hand going to the side of his neck. "They're good for you, Rick. She's good for you. Don't take that for granted and let them slip through your fingers. Don't push her away. We both know what she means to you now, what this family means to you, even if you'd rather die than say so."

"And what do they mean to me, exactly?"

"You tell me, Rick."

"Shouldn't you know already?"

"How would I? I'm not you."

"No, you're just—a chemical reaction initiated by the Blue Fire, a misfiring of synapses."

He believed it, and yet in an enmeshment of memory and hallucination and dream, in a vision world that probably didn't extend past the confines of his old apartment, she felt real, even though every fiber of his being understood that she wasn't. Her skin, her hair, her clothes—sights and sensations excavated from the bowels of his most deeply buried memories.

Máte gazed at him lovingly as she used her thumb to draw circles on his chin. "Maybe that's what I am, if that's what you'd like to believe. Or maybe that's the comfortable lie you tell yourself. You were always good with those."

Rick stared down at her, lips drawn into a thin line. "So this is the oh-so-important message my subconscious wanted to pass onto me? That I'm insane or haunted? That these moments we have aren't somehow manufactured by all the crap I've taken just to see you again?"

"No. I came to tell you that it's okay to let me go," she whispered into the shadow of his throat. "You've been carrying around my ghost all these years. There's a void with my outline in your heart. You don't have to keep living at the foot of my grave. Promise me you won't, Rick."

Rick swallowed thickly as he gently separated their bodies to hold her at arm's length. "Save this sappy crap for some other Rick."

Máte chuckled. "You're the sentimental one, querido. You said it yourself, I'm just a chemical reaction happening in your brain, a misfiring of synapses—and somehow I'm the ghost your mind conjured."

Rick had to look away from her again. "So what? What if it did?"

Máte's hand sought his. "Have I ever misled you?"

Rick's shoulders slumped. "No. You never lied to me."

Máte let go of his hand to place her hands on either side of his head. She coaxed Rick into looking at her until she could see his face. "So will you promise me?" Máte prompted again, then planted a tender, familiar kiss on his mouth.

A heavy exhalation left him as he held her close. "Yes, I promise," he agreed when her lips left his. A single tear fell from his eye as he felt her disappearing from his arms. "I promise," he whispered again to the empty room as the walls dissolved around him.