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The ship was quiet in its artificial night cycle, the only sound the low, constant hum of machinery that passed for a lullaby. Rick hadn’t been sleeping. He never really slept, not in any way that mattered. He just occasionally powered down his consciousness for a few hours, and tonight, even that was a no go. His brain was a tangled knot of equations, regrets, and the lingering taste of whatever he’d drunk earlier.
He shuffled out of his room, bare feet cold on the metal grating, aiming for the kitchen and whatever half rotten condiment he could turn into a digestible depressant. He stopped in the doorway.
The main overhead light was off, but the soft glow from the stasis-unit under the cabinet lit the room in a pale blue. Beth was silhouetted against the main viewport, a bottle of wine and a half-full glass on the counter beside her. She was just standing there, staring out at the meaningless swirl of subspace.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Rick’s voice was a dry rasp, cutting through the quiet.
Beth didn’t jump. She just took a slow sip from her glass. “No.”
“I could whip up some sleeping pills for you. Non habit forming. Well, less habit forming than that,” he said, nodding at the wine.
“I’m fine.” A pause. Then, without looking at him, she asked, “Dad...do you think I’m a good mother?”
Rick leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “Why are you suddenly thinking about that?”
She swirled the dark liquid in her glass, watching it cling to the sides. “I’ve been making a lot of fuss. About you. About you not being there. How it… affected me.” She finally turned her head, her expression unreadable in the low light. “I sometimes wonder if Morty thinks about it the same way. About me.”
“Morty?” Rick let out a short, airless laugh. “He thinks you’re a good mom. He worries about you.”
“But what if I’m not?” Her voice was tighter now, a thin wire of stress.
“Why do you suddenly care about Morty’s opinion?” Rick pushed off the frame and walked to the fridge, pulling out a beer. The hiss-crack of the tab was violently loud. “It’s not like you. You’re usually more… self-involved.”
The barb landed. Beth’s posture stiffened. “Summer and I have always been close. We talk. We… get each other. But Morty and I?” She shook her head, a bitter smile touching her lips. “The only real heart-to-heart we’ve ever had was when he was sobbing over that ex girlfriend of his. Planetina.”
Rick took a long pull from his beer, saying nothing. He didn’t like the direction this was going.
“I’m worried about him, Dad. About his future. Summer… Summer’s tough. She’ll land on her feet. She could always just get married or something.” Beth shrugged, a cynical, Beth-ish gesture.
Rick raised an eyebrow. “Can’t Morty do the same? Get married? Settle down in some boring suburban hellscape?”
Beth looked directly at him, her eyes glinting in the blue light. “You won’t let him.” Her voice dropped. “I fear he’d die before he got to live.”
“You don’t have to worry about Morty,” Rick said, his tone flat, final. “I can look after him.”
Beth took another sip, then turned fully, leaning her back against the cool viewport. She held the pause for a long, uncomfortable moment, her gaze drilling into him. Then she asked, quiet and clear:
“Dad. Do you have a thing for Morty?”
Rick’s head snapped up. He looked at her with pure, undiluted annoyance. “He’s my grandson. What the fuck, Beth?”
“Sure. You’re dating… Buganne, or whatever, at the moment. But she’s just another emotional fuck-train for you, isn’t she?” she pressed, her words slightly slurred from the wine but their aim deadly accurate.
Rick’s knuckles whitened around the beer can.
Beth laughed then, a sharp, hysterical sound that didn’t reach her eyes. “There’s no way you have a thing for her.” She steadied herself, the laughter dying into something cold. “Then again, You always tell us how Mom is the only thing you can’t replace. Yet, despite the fact you don’t want her as much as you wan—” She stopped, seeing his expression.
“Beth,” Rick’s voice was low, dangerous. “Watch your tone.”
“Oh, am I wrong?” she challenged, pushing off the window. “Would you rather have your wife more than your grandson? Or should I say… you prefer Mom more than Morty?”
Rick’s jaw clenched. He looked away, his gaze fixed on a scorch mark on the ceiling. The silence was an admission.
Beth’s smile was triumphant. “You both remind me of what true soulmates would look like. For every Rick, there’s a Morty. And for every Morty, a Rick. You said Ricks bred Mortys to hide their own genius brainwaves. But Ricks hardly use Mortys for that, do they? Mortys are used for Ricks satisfactions. Am I wrong?”
Rick didn’t answer. He just crushed the empty beer can in his hand.
“You were right, Dad,” Beth whispered, her voice suddenly tired. “I’m smart. And that’s dangerous.”
“I’m not responsible for every fucked-up Rick out there,” he growled, tossing the crumpled can aside. It clattered across the floor.
“No,” Beth agreed softly. “You’re responsible for you. A bigoted, nihilistic terrorist who has sex with planets and anthropomorphic animals. Who has vividly traumatized Morty on multiple occasions. Neglected versions of his family. Killed… so many people. I never said anything because I always thought… I thought you wouldn't leave me if I handed morty to you.” She took a step closer. “You’re just a lonely old man who tries to fill his own void with Morty, but your toxicity constantly pushes you away. Isn’t that right?”
Rick’s patience, a threadbare thing at the best of times, snapped. He slammed his fist down on the counter, making the wine bottle jump. “Are you saying I’m grooming Morty?”
Beth didn’t flinch. “It’s not for sexual reasons,” she said, clinical, like she was diagnosing a sick animal. “But grooming isn’t always sexual. Mortys on the Citadel were trafficked. It says a lot. It’s… emotionally incestuous. A grandfather and a grandson ‘breaking up’ isn’t a normal familial thing.” She was on a roll now, years of observation and unspoken dread pouring out. “You’re using him to fulfill the role of your dead wife.”
She met his livid stare head on. “Your coverting Morty into incest. Adultification. Like a mother forcing her teenage son to sleep in her bed. Even if nothing happens, it’s still… it’s still wrong. It’s sick.”
Rick was trembling with a rage so pure it felt like static. He couldn’t form a sentence, couldn’t hurl a counter-argument that wouldn’t sound like a confession.
Beth saw it. She saw everything. “What about the marriage, Rick? Hmm? The one only you two seem to be in.”
That was it. He couldn’t be in this room with her, with her sharp eyes and sharper words that cut down to the rotten core of him. He turned and walked out, leaving her standing alone in the lit kitchen.
He didn’t go back to his lab. The hum of his machines felt accusatory. He stood in the corridor, his gaze drifting up the dark staircase leading to the kids’ rooms.
He moved on autopilot, his feet carrying him up, silent on the steps. He stopped outside Morty’s door. For a long minute, he just stood there, listening to the soft, even breaths from within. Then, gently, he pushed the door open.
The room was dark, lit only by the standby lights of various discarded gadgets. Morty was a lump under the blankets, one arm dangling over the side of the bed, his face peaceful in sleep. He looked young. He was young.
Rick closed the door behind him with a soft click. He knelt beside the bed, the metal floor cold against his knees. He stared for a moment, then, with a tenderness he showed to no other living thing, he reached out and took Morty’s limp hand in both of his. He bowed his head and pressed his lips, dry and chapped, against Morty’s knuckles. A feather-light kiss.
Morty’s breathing hitched. His eyelids fluttered open. “R-Rick?” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep. He tried to pull his hand back, but Rick held it gently. “Rick, are you drunk?”
“Hey, buddy,” Rick whispered, his voice rough. “You’re my little buddy. You know that, right?”
Morty blinked, confused and wary. “Y-yeah? What’s going on?”
“Morty,” Rick said, his thumb stroking over Morty’s hand. “Do you love me?”
Morty’s face screwed up in discomfort. “W-what? I… I guess? Yes? Rick, you’re scaring me.”
Rick seemed to consider this. “What are your future plans, Morty?”
“Aw, geez, Rick, why are you asking me this in the middle of the night?” Morty tried to sit up, but Rick placed a firm hand on his shoulder, pressing him back down.
“Shhh. Just answer.”
Morty sighed, giving in to the bizarre late-night interrogation. “I-I dunno. Get a job, I guess? Maybe a-a nice house? Live… live with you.”
“Morty…” Rick’s voice cracked. He brought Morty’s hand up, cradling it against his own cheek. The gesture was unbearably intimate. “You’re a good kid.”
“Rick…”
“It’s you and me, Morty,” Rick breathed, his face inches from Morty’s now. His eyes were desperate, hungry, full of a love so twisted it had no name.
“For-for a hundred years…” Morty finished weakly, the old refrain.
“No.” Rick’s voice was absolute, a vow carved in stone. “It’s you and me for a thousand years.”
And then he closed the distance.
He kissed him. A disturbing, passionate thing, a soft lingering press of his lips on him.
Morty froze for a second, his brain short-circuiting. But then, something in him… settled. A deep, shameful part of him that had always known, always understood the unspoken rules of their universe, quieted. He didn’t pull away. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, he kissed back, just as softly.
It wasn’t about sex. Beth was right about that. It was about them. About being the central, irreplaceable fixture in a god’s lonely, ruined life. Morty knew, in a way he could never articulate, that Rick was his soulmate. Beth, in her clarity, knew Morty was Rick's soulmate.
But only Rick knew the truth at the heart of the infinite.
He hadn’t found his soulmate across the multiverse.
He had made Morty his soulmate across infinity. Morty couldn't die like Diane did. His consciousness was archived, his DNA sequenced and saved in a copy so flawless it transcended the idea of a duplicate.
And as Rick finally broke the kiss, listening to the boy’s shaky breath, Rick Sanchez knew he would burn down every last reality before he let that go. A thousand years was just the beginning.