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According to the digital clock on Rick’s nightstand, which looked like the one he’d always had, it was about four in the morning when there was a soft knock on his bedroom door.
“Dammit,” he muttered, “can’t a guy get any sleep around here?”
He rolled over, resolving not to answer the door, but then the knob turned and, behind him, he could hear little feet softly padding across his floor. Tiny little feet. When was that kid gonna have a growth spurt?
Rick grumbled something unintelligible even to himself, and Morty said, his voice strained, “Uh, Rick?”
Then he was quiet.
Rick rolled over again and glared at his grandson as he snapped, “What is it, Morty? You woke me up, you—” he stopped to burp and then continued “—you might as well tell me what’s so important that you needed to wake me up to tell it to me.”
“Uh, uh—" Morty stuttered. “Are you sure you were asleep when I knocked on the door? I could hear you breathing, and it didn’t sound like—"
“Geez, kid, creepy much?”
“They’re not them,” Morty blurted out, his eyes going wide and panicked after he said it.
“Morty, what the hell—"
“No, you let me talk,” Morty said. “Those people aren’t my parents or my sister. They look just like them, but, but—they—I mean, am I supposed to—to just have dinner with them every day, and—and act like these, like these lookalikes are—are—"
“Morty,” Rick said in a hushed voice as he reached toward his grandson, like that could calm the boy when he was this worked up. “Morty, you really want to make a scene when everyone’s trying to sleep? Y-you think that’s how you’re gonna explain it to them? You think you’re ever gonna explain it to—oh, fuck!”
The sound was more from surprise than from pain when Morty’s fist came up and socked him in the jaw.
Morty, seeming to realize what he’d done, burst into tears.
“Geez, kid,” Rick repeated. “Hey, no, get your ass over here. You’re not going back to your room right now.”
He wrestled Morty until the wriggling teenager was squeezed against his chest. Just to contain him so he wouldn’t lash out again, Rick told himself.
Morty was whimpering now, his little body shaking against Rick’s. He felt cold, too.
“Hey, little guy, Grandpa’s gotcha,” Rick said, awkwardly patting Morty on the back.
Morty laughed, maybe at Rick’s clumsy attempt at comfort, he wasn’t sure.
“How do you do it?” Morty asked, his voice a little hard to make out with his snuffles.
Rick opened his mouth, and closed it again. He wasn’t about to tell Morty he’d been lying awake himself, thinking—not about the same things as Morty, but just thinking—when Morty had knocked on the door.
So he just said, “Gets easier with age, kid. You like when I call you kid? Should I do that now?”
“Rick,” Morty groaned, “I’m sorry I hit you. It’s just so much and—and I have trouble sleeping sometimes, and I—"
“Well, do it again if you want to see how hard I can kick your ass,” Rick growled, rubbing little circles along Morty's spine. “You’re okay, okay? I mean, this dimension is so close to our own, it—most of their memories match up with ours, and—look, Morty, these are still essentially your daughter and son-in-law, uh, I mean your parents and sister or whatever.”
“Yeah,” Morty whispered.
“Look,” Rick said. “Do you wet the bed anymore, kid?”
“What?” Morty practically shrieked, jolting away from him. “What the hell? No, Rick, no, I—"
“Okay,” Rick said, scooting back on the bed and lifting up the covers. “Get in here. But this is just a one-time thing so you can sleep and stop bothering me.”
“A-are you sure, Rick?” Morty said as he crawled in next to him, snuggling against his chest once more, closer to the middle of the bed than to the side Rick had offered him. “I mean, thank you.”
“Sure thing,” Rick said, “kid.”
Morty’s warming body against him reminded him of when he’d met Morty as a baby. The little pudgy-faced kid loved him way more than Summer ever did, Rick could tell. It had almost been creepy the way those little baby eyes had stared up at him while he cradled little Morty against his chest that first day.
“I only ever wet the bed, like, once, you know,” Morty was protesting now.
“You know, you really are the—” Rick paused to burp again— “Mortiest Morty in the universe.”
“Mhm,” Morty murmured, his voice quiet now, like he was bordering on sleep.
Huh, Rick thought, wondering if the punching incident had calmed Morty down. It was nicer to wonder about that, because that way, he didn’t have to think about whether an identical Morty from another universe would be close enough to his Morty or if—
“I love you, kid,” he said before he could stop himself.
“Love you too, Grandpa,” was the last thing Morty said before his breathing slowed, and he went to sleep.