#just a bad prop mgmt company

[illogicalvulcans]

suffering (submitting a reasonable maintenance request for a problem that is absolutely my landlord's responsibility to fix)

[cloudydreams21]

No Turning Back

Chapter Song: Little Dark Age- MGMT

Check out my Archive of Our Own and Wattpad under the same username cloudydreams21 ☁️

Just a moment

Chapter 3|Part 3

He groaned rubbing his forehead before reaching into his lab coat to withdraw his portal gun.

He wasn't looking forward to heading back to his family. He felt like a stranger in the home, even though Beth had been so incredibly welcoming. Summer and Morty seemed to adore him, and he enjoyed fucking with Beth's idiotic husband Jerry. He had taken Morty on many of his adventures, it was nice to have company on the trips. It had only been a couple months since he had only chosen to impulsively connect with his daughter. But once he finally met her, he couldn't imagine not staying to get to know her.

He was one of the few Ricks that hadn't abandoned Diane and Beth, he had chosen them above all else. Rick had refused an alternate version of himself when he was offered the key to interdimensional travel. In retaliation the alternate Rick had chosen to kill his family, Beth had just turned fifteen. She never even got the chance to live.

Fuelled by grief, he barely slept or ate for months before finally cracking interdimensional travel for himself.

After a decade of searching, murder and revenge he had reached a dead-end, the Rick who killed his family had disappeared into the sea of infinite Ricks. Drowning in his own sorrow, he had spent the other decade inebriated and hateful. He used alcohol to stave off his failures. He hated himself and everything he had become in his pursuit for revenge. He was guilt ridden and alone.

The day he chose to visit the family he had lost in another dimension; alcohol was hazing his judgement more than usual. He had felt the intense urge to check the interdemensional goggles, to see if other Ricks were as fucked up as he was. He refused to use them, and instead pulled out his portal gun, typing in the coordinates to the dimension one of the Ricks he'd killed years ago had originated from. In his drunken state he finally admitted to himself how desperate he was to not be so alone anymore.

He had crashed into the garage of the house, as he crawled from the wreckage, a drunken mess, he had come face to face with his adult daughter. She was filled with emotion and threw herself into her fathers arms. Despite everything she had welcomed him 'back'.

Rick learnt more about her original Rick. That Rick had abandoned her when she was just fifteen, the same age his own family was murdered infront of him. He didn't bother informing her that he wasn't the same father that had abandoned her, even when she spoke of his abandonment of her with such anger. Even though he would never have abandoned her, or her mother.

At the end of the day Rick was still an asshole and a bad father, he couldn't save his wife and daughter, and was too much of a coward to even learn about his alternate selves lives.

That day, he chose to open up his heart again. Even just briefly, even just for a moment of comfort. He would always be a cantankerous prick. But he had never dreamed he would have his daughter back, that he would even get to have a relationship with his alternate grandchildren, his original family had never even got a chance.

He knocked back the rest of the vodka bottle before opening up a portal and stepping through into his garage. Not knowing the time and hoping the rest of the family would be absent he began making tracks to his bedroom, so he could pass out on his bed in peace.

He slinked into the house, determined to stay silent. But he failed almost immediately when he knocked over a broom which had been precariously propped up on a wall near the garage.

It had been perfectly positioned to trip him up, and he smiled to himself knowingly. Of course Beth would boobytrap the garage.

Before he could even react or try to sneak back into the garage Beth's voice came calling from the living room, "Dad? Dad is that you?".

Internally groaning Rick replied trying to keep his words neutral rather than laced with frustration and intoxication. "H-hi sweetie, j-just gonna-gonna head to my bedroom, I've been doing a l-lot of work."

Beth's reply was immediate, "Wait, wait! Dad before you do, come in here, there's someone I would like you to meet."

Failing to hold in his groan this time, he reluctantly changed course to the living room. "What-w- who did you want me to meet, it's- it’s just- I'm r-really tired swee-." Ricks sentence stalled in his throat as his eyes settled on her, she was sat next to Beth smiling pleasantly at him.

Notes:

The scene is set! Hopefully it starts to pick up some speed now! Rick's emotions are complex, I don't think he fully understands why he can't face other Rick's lives. I like to think he wanted to visit Beth sooner, but the pain of his past and the guilt he carries for his original families death held him back. I like the idea of the interdimensional goggles being a continued temptation he fights. His curiosity fighting his deeply ingrained fears. What's the worst thing that can happen looking at your alternate selves lives.