A/N: So this is what's happening from the Summer's point of view. Sorry it's so short but I have to leave it where it feels right to leave off...also, it's the only one like it, and I'm probably not going to do each one respectively. There will be two more chapters left. Next one takes place right before Pseudorick's story, and the last one takes place after (the Epilogue). Sorry for the depressing material but ah well what can you do...depressing story is depressing.

Silence had engulfed the Smith residence in Rick's absence.

The remaining members sat together in the living room. They might have been in the same place, but each of them couldn't have been further apart. Neither one was looking at the other, and each of their faces were drawn and blank, unblinking.

Beth's eyes had long since dried, her face a mess of smeared mascara; now, she sat staring out at nothing, and didn't say a word. She never smoked, but she was holding an unlit cigarette (she had managed to request one, and Jerry had immediately retrieved it from her 'hidden' stash without question). Somehow the cigarette didn't fall but every so often her fingers would shake, though each time she kept holding it in position.

Jerry's face was as blank as his wife's, but even Summer could see the conflict in his hardened, cemented vision-the constant battle that was ongoing on beneath the surface. Every now and then, a shadow would cover the grief in his eyes. He was angry, she knew, but he was also still in a steady amount of shock; she knew better than to rattle that cage; really, she was more concerned for her mother, because she had never seen her have a meltdown quite like that before.

Even as she had heard Beth mouth the words "Oh, Morty…oh my boy," and start sobbing hysterically, she hadn't realized what was happening until she somehow managed to snatch the letter out of her mother's grasp, and read the truth for herself.

The letter said quite simply in Rick's horrible, barely legible, chicken-scratch handwriting:

Morty is dead. And it is my fault. I crashed the ship. He didn't make it. I saved a piece of his shirt if you don't believe me, but I wouldn't lie.

PS: I tried to save him but there was nothing I could do. I tried.

PPS: I am sorry.

-Rick

"Oh my God…." was all Summer could say. The piece of paper dropped from her hands and fluttered weightlessly to the ground. She stood there, staring at the piece of paper, then her eyes traveled slowly to a flash of yellow that had cought her eye.

"What the hell does it say!?" Jerry was torn between trying to comfort his wife and desperate to know the answer.

It was there, just like Rick had said. She knew what it was, but she didn't want to believe it. "No….." Tears forming in Summer's eyes, she picked up the bloodied fabric, her fingers shaking as she clutched it in her hands. "M….Morty…." Summer choked up entirely then, and sank to the floor sobbing. Her father was next to read the letter, and his sobs soon mirrored her own. The next thing she knew her father was storming out the door, and a heated battle broke out before her eyes.

"Dad!" Summer, horrified, scrambled to her feet to try to prevent her father from what he was about to do. She could see the dazed, shocked look in her grandfather's eyes, and she knew he was in no state to be able to defend himself.

"STOP!" Beth cried out, through her sobs, "DON'T!"

It was too late. Rick went down like a sack of bricks, and crumpled at Jerry's feet. Summer rushed to Rick's side, staring down at her grandfather in disbelief, then back up at her father in horror. "What's wrong with you!?" she screamed at him.

"HE'S what CAUSED this!" Jerry looked ready to kick Rick in the side, but Summer rushed at him.

"Dad-you don't really believe that, do you!?" Summer couldn't believe her own ears. "I mean-it clearly was an accident-"

"NO!" Jerry was shaking, his fists clenched, staring down at Rick with murder in his eyes.

"STOP!" Beth croaked one last time, "LEAVE MY FATHER ALONE!" She shoved her husband away with a force Jerry hadn't known she possesed. She crouched down beside Rick who lay on the floor, unconscious. "He's my FATHER," she hissed darkly up at Jerry. "And you've HURT him!"

Jerry looked as though he'd just been slapped in the face. "BUT-" he stammered, "but but, but he-!"

"Not NOW, Jerry!" Beth spat, and then burst at once into tears, sobbing into her father's chest. "Leave me alone," she wept. "Just...leave me alone."

She had stayed there with her father until her husband and daughter had retired to separate rooms. Then, she had numbly returned to her own, knowing her father wouldn't want anyone there to debase his pride further when he awoke.

She should have stayed.

Because now, he was gone.

And there was no telling when-or if-he'd come back.