"Rick," Stan pleaded. The dust had settled, and the two of them shuffled toward the ramshackle spaceship at the edge of the driveway. The Mystery Shack loomed gloomily in the autumn starlight.

"Fuck off," Rick mumbled into the cold metal mouth of his flask.

"Aren't you glad to have him back?"

Rick sighed wearily. "Do you want me to say yes, Stanley? That everything is hunky-dory a-a-and we can all live together, happily ever after?"

"No."

Rick stole a look at him. The simple, honest answer caught him off guard. Stanley crossed his arms, looking meaningfully up at the taller man.

"Then what do you want?"

"I don't know," Stan said very quietly and after much thought. "You. Probably."

Rick shot him a baleful glare. "That's low. Coming on to me, a-after all this?"

"Not like that," Stan replied with a shake of the head. "Not right now. I just mean generally."

The scientist appraised him thoughtfully. "You want to have a, a relationship again?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Ah." He looked at the ground. The night air was cool and Rick's lab coat butterflied in the light breeze. He shivered.

He whispered, "Yeah. Me too. Maybe."

"I'm still mad at you."

"I know."

Stan reached up and touched Rick's collarbone. "Yo siempre te ame, Sanchez." He smirked. "Even when you disappeared."

Rick looked straight into his soul. He didn't say a word - he didn't have to. He simply nodded. Stanley caught his drift.

"Ah, Rick," Stan breathed.

"Hm."

"You're the worst person I know."

"Right back at you, Pines."

"Aw, Dipper, look," Mabel whispered, pointing out of their shared attic window.

"What is it?"

"Just look, you dingus."

Dipper looked.

Outside, at the edge of the long gravel driveway, Rick and Stanley shared a long but chaste kiss. After a few seconds, they pulled apart, allowing their foreheads to meet. The position was awkward; Rick's gangly limbs and Stan's stocky build were not a perfect match. But the sentiment was there, and the two old men held each other for a long time.

The twins shared a smile.

"You owe me a dollar," Mabel whispered, though it was practically impossible to be heard from their vantage point.

Dipper chuckled. "Yeah," he agreed. "You were right. Grunkle Stan is definitely in love."

It was grossly unfair, Rick thought to himself for the fourth time that morning, that he should manage to outlive as many people as he had.

A full week passed since he'd promised Stan he would leave the Mystery Shack. Much to Rick's dismay, Stanley had suggested a funeral for Beth, and being the sentimental teenager that he was, Morty had agreed to it. Rick wanted very badly to bail on the whole affair, but his grandson wouldn't hear of it.

Morty dressed nicely for the funeral, of course, putting on a brave face and a suit that fit him eight months ago (Rick had bought it cheaply off another Morty in another dimension). The hem of his pants traveled two inches too far up his ankles, and the shoulders of the jacket bunched themselves into lumpy ridges no matter how many times Rick tried to smooth them down.

"You – eurgh – ready, kid?" he asked, sneaking another sip from his hip flask.

Morty frowned but nodded. He wasn't quite as forgiving of Rick's drinking habits these days. The dark circles rimming the boy's eyes shoved daggers into Rick's chest, pinning his soul somewhere just behind his heart. He capped the flask.

"A-all right. Come on." He clasped a frail, pale hand on his grandson's shoulder.

Morty sniffed and rubbed at his nose with the back of a hand. Rick held open the heavy chapel door for him, and watched with the strangest mixture of pride and pain as the kid walked down the aisle, squaring his shoulders against prying eyes and pitying stares. The old man followed slowly. His customary lab coat had been traded for a rather more solemn suit jacket, and it rubbed claustrophobically at his skin. No one stared at him.

He swallowed a smirk. Was he jealous of the attention Morty was drawing? Not particularly. Losing a parent left no blame. Losing a child, on the other hand, made you irresponsible. Careless. A bad father.

He told himself that this was Gravity Falls, and that no one knew him here. He told himself that no one was judging him.

The pair reached the front of the chapel. A heavy pearlescent casket dominated the altar, as if it had sat there its entire life. The lid was closed, giving the illusion that it was not empty. Rick imagined his daughter's body neatly tucked away inside, and he looked away.

"C-come- let's go," Rick whispered to Morty. The boy nodded without really meaning to, and let himself be steered into a pew. They sat side by side, shoulders brushing. Stanley and the twins sat respectfully in the pew opposite.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming," began the pastor. "Elizabeth Smith, nee Sanchez, was…" Rick settled in for a long morning, crossing his arms over his chest. Who was this stranger, deciding in a few short words how Beth had lived her life? He knew enough about funerals to know not to listen to whatever pathetic eulogy was coming. It would only hurt in the long run.

He stared up at the stained glass.

Morty sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Rick glanced over at his blotchy red face, the boy trying to hold it together for a group of people he barely knew in a chapel he had never visited.

Morty's grandfather realized that he and his grandson had not touched, had not hugged or shared a conversation, for the entire past week.

Suddenly, it was Rick who was crying.

Morty, bless his heart, didn't miss a beat. He didn't look at Rick with scorn, or disgust, or even pity. He took his grandfather's hand.

And it was then Rick realized that he wasn't crying for Beth. Even though she carried his blood, she was still a stranger. Rick was crying, he knew, because Morty would face his remaining teenage years – the rest of his life – without a mother. He wondered when Morty had become more of a child to him than his own daughter.

"R-Rick?" Morty whispered to him.

"What?" Rick hissed, cognizant of the crowd around him. He refused to wipe his tears away. Better to pretend he wasn't crying, he thought to himself. Moisture ran in uncomfortable ticklish rivulets down either side of his nose.

The pastor droned on. Rick stared at the casket (which he knew was empty), and he stared at the flowers, and he stared at Stanley. The Pines family listened respectfully to the pastors' words. Something was said about Jerry, and something was said about Summer. Rick, who continued to tell himself he wasn't listening, grimaced whenever one of their names was mentioned.

Eventually, he couldn't listen any more. He stood quickly, ducking his head and beating a hasty retreat. He didn't care who saw. He just needed to be out of that chapel, and he needed to be out now.

He made it as far as the hallway.

He leaned back against the wall, legs only supporting his weight for a moment before he sank to the floor and tucked his knees into his chest. A panel of stained glass caught the evening light, reflecting red across his face. He sucked in a spasming breath.

"Rick?" Morty's voice called out hesitantly.

The kid had followed him? Christ, Rick thought, covering his eyes with a hand.

"God damn, just give me a m-minute," he snapped, voice sounding foreign to his own ears. "Go back inside. You don't want to miss your own mother's funeral."

"Sh-she's your daughter too," Morty said after a minute, without a trace of anger. "And it's not a real funeral anyway."

Morty sat on the ground next to him and awkwardly snuffled up against his chest.

"God… Morty…" Rick whispered.

"Mhm," Morty agreed, pillowing his head on his grandfather's bony shoulder. Rick's polyester shirt smelled faintly of cigarettes, but it was clean.

"I'm… s-so sorry, Mort."

"I-I know Rick."

"God." He sniffed loudly. "Your grandpa's pretty pathetic, huh."

"No. You aren't."

"You were right, though."

"About what?" Morty asked into Rick's chest. His breath was warm.

"It was. Indirectly my fault. Their deaths, I mean."

Morty tensed. "I... know."

"No?"

"No, I... I know."

"You know."

"Yeah. I know."

"What do you know?"

"I know about the explosion. I know how they died."

Rick froze, unable to do anything but breathe for a long moment. "Who told you?" he asked, features ashen.

"The Council," Morty said, seeming surprised. "They said the garage accident is pretty common... it happens in most dimensions."

"It does?" Rick squeaked. He felt nauseous.

"You didn't know?"

"I guess I just... I-I thought I could prevent it, Mort. I thought I could stop it."

Morty started to say something, but was interrupted by the soft whisper of the heavy chapel door against the carpeted floor. "Rickster? Everything all right?"

Stanley's reassuring bulk pressed warmly against Rick's side. Joints creaked and popped as the two old men settled next to each other. Morty buried his face in Rick's cigarette-smoke shirt.

"You're missing the funeral, Morty," Stan said gently.

"But Rick-"

"I'll take care of Rick. You need closure, kid."

Morty pulled back and looked up at his grandfather. Rick swallowed. "Go on," he said. "It's for you anyway."

Morty sniffed, stood, and backed away into the tiny chapel hall. He pulled the door open and let the pastor's practiced comforting speech lull him back to normality.

"Sanchez," Stan's voice muttered darkly.

Rick said, "I know."

"You're hurting him."

"I fucking know, Stanley."

Stan opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. He hummed a soft note against Rick's hair.

"What do you propose I do about it?" Rick asked bitterly.

"I don't know, Rickster."

"I'm trying to be truthful with him."

"I admire that. But this isn't the time or the place."

"Then when?"

Stan scooped Rick into his arms. "You'll know."

Rick scrambled out of Stan's grip. He felt even more claustrophobic than he had before. "I need a cigarette." He pulled a pack from his jacket pocket and stood on shaky legs. By the time Stan got up to follow, Rick was already halfway out the door.

"What's wrong?" Stan asked. Cars drove by at a respectful twenty miles an hour. The early afternoon sunlight reflected from the pavement, causing him to blink.

"You telling m-me how to parent, for starters," Rick growled. He flicked his lighter a couple of times, fingers unsteady.

"You aren't his parent."

"The fuck, Stanley?"

"You're not."

"Tell his dead mother to get her ass resurrected, then we'll talk."

Stan crossed his arms, regarding Rick sadly. "You're his grandfather. And his friend. But he's almost grown up. And..."

"And his mother is dead. I am aware." Rick's hands had begun to shake. The cigarette dropped ash, which floated lazily in the breeze.

"Yeah," Stanley agreed with a frown.

"So why are we having this conversation?" Rick asked exasperatedly.

"He won't replace her."

"I... what?"

"Morty. He won't replace Beth. For you."

Rick's face twisted into something ugly. "Morty has always been a kid to me. This doesn't change that."

"Just be careful," Stan offered. "You're volatile."

"Oh, big word coming from the self-proclaimed psy-psychoanalyst here."

Stan's eyes narrowed angrily but he did not dignify the prod with a response. He repeated, "Just be careful." Then he walked back inside.

Rick smoked his cigarette.