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His grandfather dies on a Wednesday. He isn't even sure if Wednesday's exist in the dimension they're in, d-18something. He had been drifting off mentally when his grandfather entered one of his long tirades about what they were doing, why it was important, urgent, etcetera. Morty had drifted off until his voice was just a drone in the background-
“Hey, earth to Morty,” a slim hand waved in front of his face.
“You should be thanking me, really,” he said. Morty looked up into his own face. Well. Kind of. The eye patch was different, for one thing. There was also something about his eyes that was so foreign to him. The way he glanced at the cooling body next to him with clinical disinterest.
“You,” Morty began. He clenched his fist, the motion breaking the dam and unleashing the torrent of raw emotion inside him. “Killed Rick!”
With that he's lobbing a punch so sloppy, the other Morty doesn't need two eyes to see it coming and lazily side steps him. Morty stumbles a bit forward and turns to face eye patch, panting hard.
“I have killed many Ricks, it's a bit of a hobby by now I'd say,” he finishes with a wry smile. He takes out the laser gun, the one that had burned a hole in Rick's forehead a mere few minutes ago and turned it over, looking at it with mild disinterest. He polished its already spotless surface on his black shirt before tucking it into the hem of his pants.
“Why,” Morty asked, tears brimming in his eyes. Rick would be ribbing him about it right now if he…. He wipes the dripping snot from his runny nose with the back of his hand which he then wipes on his shirt. It leaves a smear that will crust over later and leave a stain.
“Why? Well I think about it like this,” his clone or alternate self or whatever approaches him. Morty tenses defensively. The Morty laughs.
“Oh come on, don't be dense, if I had intended to kill you, don't you think I would have done it sometime during the five or so minutes you've spent gawking at a dead body?”
The words make sense but Morty can't find himself relaxing. There's something in the other man's step that makes it come across as more of a prowl. Something about him that's cold and metallic and he can't quite put a finger on it but something is off. Terribly off.
He seems to feed on the silence, letting it stretch out dramatically before responding.
“I freed you.”
The words echo around in the empty space station which had been emitting a false distress signal that had probably been designed specifically to pique Rick's niche interest.
The blinding rage was back and he wants to throw another punch but every voice in his head is screaming for him to get as far away from the man standing a few feet from him, smiling so gently, so benevolently, speaking sincerely but it's his eyes. Or well, eye.
This deadset black little pit that don't have the childish naivety of his fathers, the layered grief of his mothers or the deepset disatisfaction of his grandfather's. There's nothing to it and it's that realization that causes every muscle in his body to stiffen.
“I want to go home now,” he says and inches towards Ricks body. The portal gun is just inside his jacket on the right side. He takes another step closer, keeping his eyes locked on the other Morty.
“By all means, be my guest,” he says and Morty stoops down, fumbling blindly for what he's looking for without daring to break eye contact. He feels it he pulls it out. He can't help but look at it for a long moment. Holding it up and pulling the trigger, he summons the green void that wavers and swirls benignly.
He grips the back hem of the coat. He turns and looks at him one last time.
“You'll see, someday, when you've reached a potential he would have never even let you know you had, you'll see.”
He clenches his jaw and drags the literal dead weight forward with him. His feet step onto wet grass. His backyard is full of fog because its early morning thursday back home and he's got school in a few hours. The portal closes behind him and he is hit by a wall of silence and the dense weight of being alone. He goes into the garage. Today it's just him and the shovel. Digging and digging. When he's done he lays sod over it and he goes into his room to lay on his bed and stare at the ceiling for a few hours.
Rick said they'd be back by midnight. It was no big deal. Just a little stop and go. They had arrived at the station at midnight.
Rick lied about a lot of things. He had spent all this time with his grandfather after he had just magically come back into their lives. It had been weird and awkward and altogether a steep learning experience for Morty.
And now he was left with this rough sketch of a human being with all these flaws and intricacies he expected to explain themselves and somehow unfuck into an understandable human being.
But Rick died. Rick died and he didn't know what he was supposed to do with all these half answered questions and memories of someone who just fundamentally didn't matter anymore. His grandfather was worm meat decomposing in the backyard just like the two other bodies had been for the last year or so.
Morty's alarm goes off and he hits it. He gets up and the whole day his eyes are on the floor. He eats breakfast trying to ignore his mother's rare upbeat disposition and how easily she accepts the lie that Rick “Had a late night”. Not exactly a lie but.
He goes to school. Some kid comments on his stained shirt. It's probably an insult but Morty only half hears it and just passes on.
Jessica says something to him and he just nods dumbly and sits down at his desk. Eyes on the scuffed linoleum floor. The bell rings. He changes desks. Repeat. Repeat. Lunch. Repeat. Repeat.
He goes home. He lays in bed. Staring up at the same ceiling. His mom comes in the room and asks if he's heard from Rick all day. He gives her some fib about him saying something about a week long trip to another galaxy.
She asks if he's alright.
He lies.