Disclaimer: I don't own "Rick and Morty."

Author's Note: This chapter is pretty dark, and mercifully short...and if suicidal tendencies disturb you, don't read any further.

After downing an entire spare flask, Rick paced back and forth in the garage. She was dead...Summer was dead...all because they didn't get there in time. A couple months ago, he might not have cared what happened to Summer...but he had gotten to know her a little, and he could no longer call her a stranger. (Except, she would have been better off if they had never met at all.) It was not lost on Rick that, if he had never created the love potion for Morty-because he was in love with that school girl-the same one that went corrupt, due to sick season, and transformed everyone into hideous monsters-Summer never would have gotten killed.

It was also not lost on Rick that Morty had just lost three members of his family in one week...and that, especially being so young, he might likely never fully recover. His grandson might find some solace in reuniting with the original Summer...but it didn't change the fact that the "new" Summer-whom Morty had bonded with for almost an entire year-was now lying dead on the ground in their original dimension, that he and Morty had run from like the cowards they were.

Like the coward he had been...and still was, because he was going to do something, now that he was alone, that he hopefully wouldn't regret. Except: he wouldn't be able to regret it, because he wouldn't be around to regret.

Rick chugged a full bottle of beer before going upstairs to the second floor bathroom. (This was where the medicine cabinet was, where his daughter had kept her antidepressents.) He tore open the cabinet, popped the cap, and stared down at the full bottle of pills. They looked so pure, so...innocent, designed to relieve the sadness that had followed his daughter while he was away. She wouldn't need these any longer; better put them to some good use. Resigned, Rick tilted his head back, and shut his eyes...

...but his hand shook, and he dropped the bottle. Pills scattered everywhere, all over the bathroom floor, and he lunged for the floor, scrambling to retrieve them. With trembling fingers, Rick shoved several pills into his mouth, choking them down his throat, which was painfully dry.

They wouldn't miss him anyway. He was toxic. Morty would-

Morty would-

-HATE him for doing this-

Bracing himself, Rick swung around towards the toilet and stuck a finger deep into his esophagus, forcing vomit up his throat. He heaved several times, coughing and gagging until he was certain that all the pills were expelled from his system.

He then slid to the floor, completely spent, his throat swollen and dry, and filled with bitter taste. Any normal person might have broken down and cried their heart out by this point...but Rick Sanchez was anything but normal.

FUCK. He just couldn't do that to Morty; the kid had lost enough people in one week. He didn't want to lose institutionalizing his grandson to the list of unforgivable, irretrievable mistakes he'd made. He would have to go back now, and bury his granddaughter, and try to figure everything out...

...because he was Rick Sanchez, and Rick Sanchez always figured things out.

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Morty tried not to look at the body lying out on the ground as he sat inside the fort with "the other Summer" and his father, who he still couldn't believe was there. They were waiting for the appointed gravedigger-but Rick still hadn't returned, and Morty was beginning to wonder if he ever would.

"Where's Mom?" Morty dared himself to ask, as he sat hugging a cup of steaming hot tea that his father had heated up for him.

He froze as his father's shoulders and back grew rigid, and Summer looked quickly away; Morty was horrified to see tears in her eyes.

"Son...there's...unfortunately, something I need to tell you." Jerry took a seat next to Morty, resting the palm of his hand on his son's shoulder.

Morty looked into his father's sad and tired eyes, and knew immediately what the 'something' was. Jerry could see in his son's eyes that he knew, too, and Morty felt his eyes fill with tears once again. He couldn't believe it-first his 'new' parents, then his sister, then his original mother, too. He wasn't sure how much more he could take. "Dad..." Morty whimpered, placing his face in his hands, forcing back a sob.

Jerry held his son close to his chest for quite some time. Summer went outside to stand over the dead body of herself from another dimension. She knelt by the body and ran her hand over the other Summer's face, tracing a finger down the side of one cheek, trying desperately not to cry.