Chapter Text
There are too many.
Morticia ducks and slides to the left, missing a hailstorm of bullets by only a second. She presses her back against the side of a fighter craft, squeezing her eyes shut as a cloud of dirt wafts over her. Hurried footsteps approach her and she readies her pistol, training it on the open space beyond her cover.
Rick hurtles around the side of the fighter craft, coming face to face with Morticia’s blaster. She fires on reflex but redirects her aim to the wall behind Rick’s head at the last possible second.
“Jesus, Tish. Trigger happy much? A-a-almost took my -shot my head right off!” Rick scolds Morticia, scurrying behind the jet to huddle beside her.
“S-sorry! I just... t-t-there's so many out there.” Morticia dislodges the spent helium canister from her pistol and takes a full replacement from Rick in one smooth movement.
“O-only two canisters left, Tish. Better get your head in the game,” Rick warns as he allows the half-spent gas canister in his rifle to pressurizer.
“Yeah, I... Yeah, I get it, Rick!” Morticia loads her pistol, flicking a switch to make it pressurize with a hiss. "With no -no portal gun we really can't get into -get any trouble on us."
"Exactly. Shoot to kill, Sweetie." Rick moves to fire out from their cover when an ominous, high-pitched whirring fills the air like static.
"Shit!" Morticia snarls. "It's gonna blow!"
Rick snatches Morticia's wrist and launches to his feet, pulling her away from the craft. Not a moment later, an ear ringing boom shakes the air; Morticia watches in open-mouthed awe as the fighter craft explodes into fire and shrapnel. Red-hot splinters of metal arch high in the air and rain down like the flames of Gehenna all around them.
Rick twists around and trips Morticia up, wrapping his arms around her chest as they both fall to the ground. He cocoons Morticia's body with his own. Mangled metal rains down around them.
a curved door, flung off its hinges, crashes against the ground a mere foot in front of Rick's head. Other pieces of junk metal plonks on the dirt around their huddled forms. Plumes of red dirt float up and fill the air like a dust storm. Rick holds his breath, head down and shielded. Morticia trembles beneath him.
Next comes the cannon blasts.
A barrage of tiny metal spheres kick up dust on the ground. Core-Shells, Rick recognizes. Nasty marble-like bullets slung from a Jaarlaien Core-Shell Cannon. These Core-Shells are used to lodge in a victim's body and expand indefinitely until all that's left is crushed bones, a whole lot of blood, and one giant metal ball.
Rick risks a quick glance behind him. Three larger aliens carry Core-Shell cannons, the kind that launches tens of these tiny death balls with terrifying force. A number of other lower ranked officers hold jaarlaien Core-Shell Rifles. Using the same ammunition, these rifles shoot quicker, one bullet at a time, while the cannons must charge.
Rick leans back on his knees and shovels Morticia up using an arm around her middle. They rise in unsteady unison, Morticia covering her ears against the cannon blasts. Rick slides to her side and grasps her hand. They start at a fleeing pace, Morticia struggling to keep balance with Rick's long strides and the pull of his grip. Her sunflower yellow dress flies up around her legs.
The Core-Shells start to expand, each at their own rate, growing like landmines from the soil. One balloons to the size of a boulder in front of Rick's feet. He skips over it but his foot catches on the top and he stumbles sidelong into another Shell. This one is a quick grower, already the size of a VW Beetle.
Morticia skids and heaps onto Rick's other side, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He sputters and coughs in short exhales. He grips at Morticia's shoulder, fighting for breath in the dusty smog.
The Core-shell Rick tripped over grows in unison with a third on their open side. All three Core-Shells expand equal distance apart, in a triangle configuration. They close in on Rick and Morticia.
Morticia looks around at the shells surrounding them, a wild look forming in her eyes.
"Rick! They're gonna-"
Rick sees it.
"Fu-" Rick tries to speak with the little air he has. "Fucking go," he hisses. Rick shoves Morticia away and through the small path between two Core-Shells.
She slips through just before the shells touch at their fastest curves. They continue to grow into each other, unhindered. The barrel of Ricks rifle jams between the two Shells on the other side. They eat up the gun like an industrial crusher.
Rick's lungs finally agree with his brain and he manages to inhale long and deep. He curses under his breath, wild eyes scanning his shrinking surroundings. The walls are closing in.
He jumps at one sphere and scrambles at the smooth surface. With nothing to grab onto, he slides back down. Rick regrets not getting that grappling hook augmentation a sales-Rick in the Citadel offered him.
"Rick!" comes Morticia's faint shrill from the other side of the death balls. Rick turns on the spot, his movement already restricted.
"Shit, Fucking piece of shit- Morticia! Get out of here!" Rick bellows. The Core-Shells press in all around him, less than a meter away from meeting all together in the middle. If Rick can't get out in the next minute, he'll be in the middle too, squeezed out like a tube of toothpaste.
Something thwomps Rick on the head. He yelps and digs his fingers into his skull, furtively searching for another tiny Core-Shell that might be the roof to his terrible prison.
His finger grapples with a steel cable hanging from the dip between two spheres. That little scamp.
"Climb!" Morticia howls and Rick wastes no time. He scrambles up the cable until he finds purchase at the top. He then throws himself to the ground outside and lands in a roll at Morticia's feet.
Morticia is at his side in an instant, grasping his arm to help him up. Rick spins his head around to get a look at her. She's relatively unscathed by the Core-Shells but her eyes are wild with fear and the cold traces of tears. In her eyes she tells Rick a scathing message: that was too close.
Rick pulls himself to his knees and looks around for a new strategy. Core-Shells surround them, spread out over the military training field. Through the heavy dust haze he can see openings between them but not far enough ahead to make sure they're not walking in more spheres, or even another troop of officers waiting to ambush them.
KSAAH!
A blast rings out right next to Rick's head. Pain juts into his brain as the sound flairs into tinnitus and sends his internal language translation unit on the fritz. It emits a terrible electronic scream only he can hear.
Rick pivots around, first to look at Morticia -her stance is raised, arms outstretched with her pistol in an iron grip, poised and ready to fire a second shot— Then to her target.
An alien quadrupedal perches on the top of a Core-Shell, a rifle wrapped in the grip of its sentient hair. It's right foreleg sizzles from Morticia's first shot. It's mouth is open, probably screaming -Rick wouldn't know; all he can hear is the faint, static filled voice of the automated translator demanding an update.
Morticia sends another shock wave through Rick's head as she blasts the alien in the chest. It teeters off the side of the ball as its life drains.
Morticia turns her back to her victim and looks at Rick, smiling in victory.
The alien's rifle fires.
Rick launches to his feet but he's too late. In a moment that could have lasted forever, Rick watches in abject horror as Morticia falls to the ground, a bullet lodged in her backside.
Morticia sprawls, arms and legs kicking out in every direction as she wails in pain. She writes in agony, her face painted with anguish. The back of her dress darkens to a sickly brown color as her red blood blends with the yellow fabric.
The air in Rick's lungs leaves him once again winded, but for an entirely different reason. Could it be vision brought on by stress? Rick's own imagining conjuring up frightful scenes in response to the deadly situation? The crackle of Morticia's wailing that cuts through the flaring sounds in his ears tell him otherwise.
In only a moment, Rick launches to her side and pulls her stuttering body away from the clearing. He drops her behind a fully grown Core-Shell.
She says something -maybe pleading for help, as Rick shoves her onto her front and yanks up her dress above her hips.
Morticia squirms, trying to grab at the hem to pull it back down. Rick swats her hands away. "Let me see, Tish. T-t-this is more serious than your f-fucking modesty!" Rick scolds. He pushes her flat to ground, painting her face with dust. His hands fly to fondles at the source of blood.
A bullet wound about the size of a penny opens her skin just below her ribcage. Luckily the Core-Shell missed the vital ligaments beside her spine, sparing her from losing function in her lower body. Even still, other organs could be damaged.
"Shit!" he howls, bearing over Morticia. He stills, mind buzzing with fear. This could kill her for real. "H-how the fuck did you let this happen? You had one damn job: don't get shot!"
Morticia wails a reply, her voice arriving at Rick's ears in static tones. "... Know I..." he manages to decode. "Sorry, I just-"
"Shut up! I-I don't give a flying fuck, Tish!" Rick rebounds. The longer he looks at the wound, the worse it appears. That Core-Shell is in there, expanding. It'll crush her. Rick kneads her skin, feeling for the deadly marble growing inside her skin like some terrible reenactment of the movie Alien. Morticia reacts to the touch, thrashing her torso around.
"Stay fu- stay still!" Rick shoves her down with a hand between her shoulder blades, hooking his shin under her knees to stop her kicking.
"It's gonna get bigger," she wails as sobs catch on her words.
"I fucking know."
With his one free hand, Rick fumbles in his coat pocket for something, anything he could use to get that thing out of her. His fingers brush against something sharp and an idea forms in his head. He pulls out the portal gun, mangled and ruined. The glass casing supposed to house isotope 322 is ruined, smashed to pieces, but a few glass shards still jut out from the machine.
Morticia sees the portal gun and cleans enough information to guess what Rick is planning. "Nooo, no, no, no..." Morticia babbles, shaking her head back and forth in the dirt.
"Morticia! Tisha, look at -look at me," Rick commands as he pins her right cheek to the ground to stop her movement.
Morticia's wild, wet eyes flit to the side as far as she can see toward Rick.
"This is gonna hurt bad, just-just grit your teeth. Remember what I told you Baby, just-just breath through it. A-a-and you'll be fine."
Morticia gains enough control of herself to nod resolutely. She trusts Rick.
Rick returns his gaze to the wound. It has stopped bleeding. Morticia's skin bulges outward like a tumor. The Core-Shell is acting as a plug. The bullet wound is the drain and Morticia's blood is the water. What's worse is Morticia's lowest rib is bowing outward too. The Core-Shell is hooking under her rib cage.
Rick must be quick. He works a thick and long glass shard out of the portal gun's casing. It pops out and Rick grips it tight.
Morticia paws at the dirt, grabbing and dropping handfuls of dust with trembling fingers.
"You're gonna fucking hate this." Rick brings the knife-like edge of the glass to her skin. Morticia shivers at the contact, goosebumps breaking out over her shoulders.
Rick presses down.
Morticia howls.
Rick blocks out her sounds as best he can and focuses. He digs the shard straight in until it hits metal. The bulge in Morticia's skin starts tearing either side of the cut from the release of pressure.
"Please, R-R-R-Rick. K-k-quickly."
With trembling fingers, Rick pulls the shard downward. now free from the tension of the Core-Shell, Morticia's tight skin springs open. Her flesh squelches and tears and strains and Rick's stomach churns. The glass digs into his hands, pricking gashes along his fingers. Droplets of his blood drip down the shard.
Morticia babbles in broken whines. Her chest clicks up and down, interrupting Rick's work.
Rick pants, his hands shaking, as he finishes the incision at the bullet hole. Rick drops the glass shard and immediately shoves one hand into the red, fleshy insides of his granddaughter.
Morticia keens, high and long, ascending in pitch as Rick pokes his fingers inside.
His fingertips brush against the shape of the Core-Shell but it's slick with blood and embedded deep.
"Hur-hurry!" Morticia begs, shaking.
Rick moves his hand around the ball, cupping it delicately. He can feel intimately Morticia's lungs stuttering below his hand. He hooks a finger under the ball and achingly slowly wriggles it to the surface. Between when Rick cut Morticia open until now, the ball has increased in size. It jams at the entrance wound, too big to come out.
Rick grits his teeth and winces. Thinking fast, he grabs the shard again with his left hand. He quickly wipes it on his pants to get off the dirt from the ground. This is infection city, he frets.
Rick jabs haphazardly at Morticia's skin below the Core-Shell. Each incision he makes is followed by a heart-stopping scream.
"Almost there. A-a-almost got it!"
Finally, the Core-shell pops out. It's grown to the size of a baseball and feels like stinging acid in his hand. He hurls it far away.
Morticia groans in relief as the intrusion leaves her body. The skin around her wound drifts closed without the Core-Shell and Rick's wrist pulling it apart.
"Now, get up!" Rick shifts away on his haunches and hoists Morticia up to her hands and knees. She falls heavy on her bottom and seems to melt into the ground.
Rick shimmies off his coat, bunches it up longways, and then throws it around Morticia's front. He pulls the two ends tight across each other to close the wound the rest of the way. Morticia gasps and pants because of the lab coat restricting her ribcage.
"You really done it this time," Rick grumbles as he ties the lab coat in a thick knot. "The one time, Morticia. The one time you-you couldn't get shot and what do you do?"
Morticia snaps and she keens loud. "I'm sorry, Rick! I-I-I-I do-don't know!" Tears stream down her face in rivers.
Rick screws his brows up with regret. "Fuck... D-don't worry, it doesn't matter. But we have to get out -get away from here, ok?"
Morticia nods rapidly.
Rick reaches out and wipes her cheeks dry. "Good girl."
Something heavy hits the ground from the way they came -several somethings, followed by footsteps. Rick would guess that at least five more armed military personnel just climbed over the Core-Shell wall.
Moriticia babbles something incoherent, somewhere between words and gripes of pain.
Rick shoves the useless portal gun in his belt and takes Morticia's pistol from the ground. He pushes up onto his feet and pulls Morticia alongside him.
She stumbles, kicking at the dirt with unsteady feet.
Rick hooks an arm around her chest above the wound and holds her as steady as he can. “Come on, jus-,"
Morticia howls and stamps at the ground, being absolutely no use in running away.
"Get your shit together, Tish!”
“It hurts, Rick,” she whines in an unbearably high pitch.
“I fucking know. Let’s go.”
Morticia takes a deep breath in, planting her feet firmly on the ground. She screws her eyes shut and holds her breath as she tenses her whole body. Her fingers dig into Rick's arm. In a final, resonating moment, Morticia howls loud and deliberate, letting out all her anguish.
Rick winces. Even when she's raging her sound is so shrill. She yells for a long minute before her voice, ragged and raspy tapers off.
"Finished?" Rick asks genuinely.
Morticia nods once.
Rick leads her through a maze of fully grown Shell-Cores, the spaces getting tighter and tighter the further they go.
Morticia struggles to keep upright. She pants heavily, her body growing uncoordinated. Rick keeps a close hand on her but she grows weaker by the second.
Morticia falls to her knees, kicking up dust around her and forcing her into a coughing fit. Even with Rick trying to pull her up she doesn't budge. Rather, she sinks closer to the ground.
Rick kneels down and frantically grabs her shoulders. She sways, her eyelids lowering and breaths coming short.
"Morticia, c-come on, s-s-stay here," Rick rambles. He grabs her chin and forces her to look at him. She splutters again, spittle landing on Rick's hand.
"I... I can't," Morticia breaths.
"Like hell you can't, Tish! We are getting out of her, together. A-a-and that's final."
"But-"
"NO! Stand up, Tisha. Right now!"
The footsteps come closer, weaving in and out of the Core-Shells from the way they came. Morticia's eyes flit toward the sound. She licks her lips in thought before deciding to go on. She grabs onto Rick's arms and pulls herself up.
Rick keeps a hard grip on her, carrying as much her weight as he can as they scurry further on.
They come to another blockage, two Core-Shells three feet apart. Rick pushes Morticia through first. She stumbles through and lands heavy on her knees. Rick shimmies between the tight space directly after her.
From here Rick can see how red soaked the lab coat is. She's losing blood rapidly. Rick must get them somewhere safer so he can close that wound before she bleeds out.
Rick helps her back to her feet. Directly in front of them is a building. A squat thing made of brick. Rick and Morticia stumble along the wall side until they come to an exit door. Rick tries the handle but it won't budge.
A cannon blast rings out from behind them. A handful of tiny Core-Shell lands on around them. In a wobble of limbs, Rick kicks as many away from the door as they start to grow. Morticia loses her balance and falls hard on her bottom, dragging Rick to his knees with her.
Rick glaces back to see what they're dealing with, two more dog-like creatures weave around the larger Core-Shells. Rick shoves the pistol into Morticia's hands.
“Deal with them!”
Morticia raises her firearm but her arms shake like leaves in the breeze. She unloads half a canister toward the aliens. She's not as good a shot as she was. She fights hard to focus on the figures in front of her while her vision swims so terribly. She downs those two but then a third rounds a Core-Shell. Morticia wastes no time in shooting the entire area around it.
Meanwhile, Rick skips to his feet and rams his shoulder against the door. It doesn't budge. He checks the locking mechanism. It's simple but tough. Rick ducks down and grabs Morticia's pistol from her hands. He shoots the alien in the head, downing it in one blast. Quickly, he turns to the door and shoots the lock right off. The door flies inward.
Plasma blasts scorch the wall beside Rick as even more aliens make their way to the building.
Morticia scrambles to her feet and takes wobbly steps inside while Rick retrieves a soccer ball sized Core-Shell and follows her.
Once inside, Rick drops the Shell-Core on the ground and barricades the door with his person. Morticia slumps against a wall, curling over herself.
The door booms with impacts from the other side, the metal denting inward. Rick braces with all his body weight.
excruciatingly long minutes pass as the impacts from outside become stronger.
Finally, that Core-Shell is big enough to root itself in the doorway. It digs into the walls and melds with the structure of the hallway itself, becoming one with the building. No one's getting through that. Rick clambers over it, panting and flushed.
Morticia grapples at his arm as her legs give out. Rick shoots his hands out to catch her. The poor girl's going to have to keep going.
"Just try, Sweetie." Rick's soft voice guides her. Morticia shifts her weight just enough for Rick to take her.
Rick wraps both arms around her chest and picks her up, taking most of her weight so she needn't carry herself as they struggle down the hallway.
They pass many closed doors. Rick jiggles the handles but to no success. Toward the end of the hall there's a window. It looks into a cramped room. Inside is a short-range teleporter.
That's what they need.
The door is locked, but Rick has just enough power left to shove it inward.
He drops Morticia to slump on a wall while he fiddles with the teleporters controls. After a moment of furious button touching and switch flipping and keyboard clacking, a murky gray portal opens in a doorway structure next to the controls.
Morticia looks up, hope brimming in her tired eyes. "W-will that take us," she gulps down the lump in her throat, "take us home?"
Rick comes to her side and lifts her to her feet. "No. But-but it'll get us out of here." he guides her to the portal.
"Go through," Rick tells Morticia, shuffling her over to the portal.
She wobbles on her feet and turns to rick.. "But you...?"
"I gotta make sure they don't find us." With a not a glance to spare Morticia, Rick scurries around the room, looking for something.
"But!" Rick catches her fear-filled eyes.
"I'll be right behind you," he says, voice hard and sure.
Though Rick and Morticia's relationship is not one built on trust, there are certain moments when they simply must. So Morticia steals her face and nods, brave and resolute.
She turns to the portal and steps through.
Left all alone in the room full of beeps and flashing diodes, Rick steps back and thinks. He scans the walls, the shelves filled with miscellaneous electrical junk.
There.
Rick grabs a USB-drive and a mini-computer. He opens the mini computer and a low res screen flickers to life. He creates a document and writes a code from memory. It's a simple code that will work on just about any device. He saves it to the drive and immediately plugs the stick into the teleporter controls.
He pockets the mini-computer and waits for the teleporter to read the note.The lcd screen goes blank before it displays a message: "Downloading update", accompanied by a progress bar.
It worked. When the teleporter finds no update to install, it will restart. With a portal active during shutdown, the system will fail to record the last use, therefore deleting the data of where they've gone.
Rick hurries through the portal just before the machine shuts down.
Apparently, Rick didn't compensate for the height axis when he imputed the coordinates. Rick falls from five feet above the ground and lands in a crouch, shock striking up from his feet. He keels forward on his hands and knees, willing the pins and needles to dissipate.
Morticia fell from that height too. She curls up on her side, hugging her chest and sobbing. The impact would have been terrible.
Rick lifts himself to his knees and crawls over to her.
"Rick," Morticia whimpers. "Rick, it... Fuck. Rick, please, I n-need help."
Her pitiful cries cut through the ringing in Rick's ears. "I'm here, I'm right here, Tish-Tish. Don't worry, " Rick babbles. He pulls her shoulder until she sits up. He unties his lab coat from around her chest. It sticks to her back, caught in clotting blood and sticky gore. Rick carefully pries the fabric away.
A terrible knot forms in his gut. It's much worse than he thought. A new trail of blood, irritated by the removal of the bandage, seeps out of her red and bruised skin. The entire site is swollen, radiating heat.
Rick grits his teeth. He's seen gore, he's seen blood, plenty of it. But it's different when it's hers. Anger flames in his chest.
"Fucking hell, Tish. You've gone years without g-g-getting shot and you -you had to do it now, when we have no portal gun?"
"I-I didn't do it o-o-on purpose!"
Rick takes off his shirt and bundles it into a ball, leaving him in his sweat stained tank top. He carefully lifts her dress above the wound, her bare legs button exposed to the cold evening sun.
"You didn't even check, Tish. You didn't even check it was dead, Morticia. Any fucking, f-first year merc knows that."
"I forgot," Morticia whines, pitifully.
"What did you think would happen, it would have, i-i-it wouldn't shoot you if it got the chance?"
"I shot it twice..." Morticia mutters, her voice strained and raspy.
Rick presses the shirt against the seeping wound, earning a gut sinking wail. Blood paints the shirt. It needs pressure.
"You've seen aliens that -that don't die after a fatal hit. You-you've seen aliens who fucking respawn after death."
Rick spins around and leans his back against hers, trapping the makeshift bandage between their combined weight.
"I-I know, Rick. I could have died." Morticia mumbles, her voice filled with regret. Rick grits his teeth, a knot forming in his gut. He is not letting his baby girl die out here. He untwists his lab coat and spins it around in his hands, searching with frantic eyes for the pockets.
“Can you fix it?” Morticia pants.
“Of-of course, I can,” Rick rushes to say, his voice void of that steady reassurance it usually has. He needs a plan, anything.
Rick dumps the measly contents of his pockets on the damp ground. With trembling fingers, he sorts through the odds and ends for something he can use.
A cigarette lighter, A flask, Rick's wallet, a hydrogen canister, some pocket lint...
"Fuck..." Rick mutters. He needs to think of a way to fix this and quickly. Morticia weeps. It's a soul-breaking sound.
"Wwwould you shut your, s-shut the fuck up!" Rick shouts.
Morticia finches, closing her mouth on a whimper. A pang of guilt shoots through Rick. “I need to think.”
He scans the area and finds a piece of metal laying a few feet away. He formulates a plan in his head. A shitty, haphazard, dangerous plan, but a plan nonetheless. Rick reaches around and pushes his hand on Morticia's bandage to apply pressure while he kicks his foot out. He draws the metal nearer with his toes. It's the remains of a large, broken pipe, snapped in half long ways.
Rick leans back on Morticia again, taking the spare ammunition canister with his now free hand. He twists the pique open, letting the gas within slowly release pressure with a wheeze. He sets the stream of gas on fire with the cigarette lighter and it bursts into a wild flame. Rick tunes the pique so the flame burns low, blue and hot. An improvised bunsen burner made from a plasma canister; one of the first tricks Rick learnt in the rebellion.
"What's... what's that for?" Morticia asks, meekly.
"Shush!" Rick reprimands.
Morticia's body slacks forward and Rick leans back harder, pushing her over.
"Oh, ow, ow OW, Rick." Morticia whines.
"Shut up! I have to do this."
Rick hovers the scrap metal in the flame, letting it scorch black for a good while before he takes it away again. He grabs the rest of his tattered lab coat and scrunches it up. With it, he wipes away the grim and burnt char from the metal, revealing shiny steel underneath. He's frantic, hands shaking. His palm grazes against the hot steel and he shrieks, recoiling in pain. He licks the burn and blows on it until he regains composure. With his good hand, he sticks the metal back in the flame.
"What are you doing, Rick?" Morticia asks, shaky and scared, peering over her shoulder.
Rick snaps to look over his shoulder with another command of silence on his tongue. But he stops when he sees her pained and tear soaked eyes. Rick licks his chapped lips in thought before reaching for his flask. He holds it with his ring and pinky fingers to avoid his burn and uses his teeth to unscrew the cap.
"I'm gonna cauterize it."
"What?!"
"It's fine, it's gonna be fine. I can- when we get home, I can fix it. Won't even l-leave a scar. You'll be fine." He holds the flask out to Morticia.
"W-w-wont it-it hurt?" Morticia splutters, snot running over her lips.
"Like a motherfucker. Drink this." Rick wobbles the flask in front of her face.
She grabs the flask, her hand shaking like a leaf. She sips hesitantly, grimacing at the toilet-water-laced-with-acid taste.
"Dr-drink it all. Have it all."
Morticia braces herself and gulps down the almost full flask, pausing to sputter and cough before going back again. She hates it, but she hates everything about this situation, including the burning pipe that's about to brandish her wound closed.
The heat seeps down the scrap and bleeds into Rick's hand. He grabs at the remains of his lab coat and wraps it around the end of the metal like an oven mitt.
Morticia wretches and spits a slimeball of bile out of her mouth. Her coughs turn into painful cries.
Rick hisses through his teeth as empathetic sensations coil in his throat. "Just... Just keep drinking," Rick says, at a loss for words.
Morticia raises the flask one last time and when it's empty, she flings the offending metal container at the brick wall.
"Good girl..."
The metal is now piping hot, red through to the middle. With it still in his clothed hand, Rick leans forward on his haunches. The shirt falls away from Morticia's back. Rick scoots over to Morticia's front. He pushes on her shoulder until she sits upright, then straddles her legs. Morticia slumps onto his chest.
"Put your -raise your arms," Rick instructs as he snakes his free hand around her ribcage and hoists her arm on top of his shoulder. Morticia minicks on the other side, careful to avoid the terrible hot metal.
"Hold onto me. Hold tight, S-Sweetie; this is gonna f-fucking hurt," he warns on a breath in her ear.
"How -h-h-how bad?" Morticia whimpers.
He could lie and say it will be fine, but it's a moot point now. "Worst thing to ever happen to you."
Morticia's chest heaves with a great sob.
With a desert dry tongue, Rick asks, "ready?"
"No!"
"You'll be, y-you'll be fine, baby. I got you, you'll..." Rick falls utterly short. No amount of sweet words could comfort this. “You’ll live.”
"On three." Rick brings the metal piece up, getting a tight grip on the end. Morticia tenses.
"Three." Morticia scratches her nails into his back.
"Two."
"One."
Rick begins the cautery.
Morticia screams, shrilled and agonizing right in Rick's ear. Her fingers grapple with his top, bundling fabric and skin in her grip as her whole body shakes.
Ricks keen eye watches her skin melts and chars. The sound, like sausages on a barbecue; the smell, like burnt hair and everything foul and dead, pulls Rick's insides out through his senses. It's horrifying. Ricks hands shake as he tips a finger on the other end of the scolding metal to fully cover the gash.
Morticia howls and sputters, her mind gone. She's left only with pain. Rick's heart breaks for her. Tears drip from his eyes and his breath stalls. He doesn't inhale again. Morticia doesn't deserve this bodily torture. Her broken, spit-filled cries fill the alley and Rick's fried brain.
"Bite me!" Rick yells above her shrills but it doesn't get to her. Rick nudges his shoulder against her open mouth. "Fuckin' bite me, Tish!"
She locks her teeth in on the bundle of nerves stretching from his shoulder to his neck. Her teeth sink in, all her agonized passion spilling into her clasp on his skin, connected like two shaking, feral animals grasping to survival.
The operation is almost done. Just a few more moments. Rick presses the metal so hard the tips of his fingers turn white. unfortunately it sears healthy skin aswell. Morticia slobbers over his front but that's fine, it's fine. Rick couldn't care less. And...
It's fucking done.
Rick hurls the metal far away. It clatters with a deep sound that echoes around the alley and mixes with the whimpers of the injured.
Rick finally takes a full breath. Morticia keens at his shoulder, hyperventilating in rapid, little breaths. He wraps his arms around her upper chest and hugs her tight. He buries his face in her hair so maybe he'd smell her odor; her shampoo, her sweat, her natural and heady scent instead of the stench of her tortured skin.
But she goes silent. And limp. She blacked out, the pain too much for her delicate mind to bear. Rick will have to wipe her memory of this. The mar it will leave on her mind will be far more destructive than the scars on her back. Rick takes the moment of silence to heave heavy, broken sighs; clearing his head of the image, his eyes of tears, and chest of the sting of uncomfortable emotions.
Morticia comes back in little pieces, regaining control of her limbs and mouth. She detaches her teeth from Rick's raw and bruised skin, then starts whining again. Torrents of tears run down her face and wets Rick's neck as she cries an unfettered cry.
Rick holds her closer, screwing his eyes shut against her frightful sounds.
"Rick..." Morticia wails like a dying animal and Rick feels like he's dying with her.
"It's ok, Morti-ticia. It's over. It's ok," Rick repeats, on and on, his voice scratched and throat constricted. "You did so well. It's fine now, you'll be fine, Baby. I-i-it'll all be ok." He wonders who he is really comforting. Rick keeps her close until her cries dwindle to dull whimpers, and then her body goes lax with exhaustion.
The evening heads rapidly for dusk. The temperature steadily drops as the crimson red sun dips halfway down the horizon.
"Come on. Let's -it's-it's time to go," Rick urges, a weariness slipping through his teeth.
Morticia silences, a dead weight emanating off her. As slow as a slug or a sloth, she peels herself carefully away from Rick's chest. She sways from the alcohol and the experience of her flesh burning to a crisp.
Rick packs up the entirety of their small haul: the pistol, the broken portal gun, the lighter, and Rick's wallet into a bundle inside his bloodied shirt.
"Come on. Get up." Rick wriggles his forearms under her armpits and hauls her to her feet. She wobbles, unsteady, and latches to Rick's shirt front. Rick slings a long arm around her torso, coming to rest at her side.
"You can walk, right?" He asks.
"I... Maybe." Morticia manages a few tough paces before Rick deems her invalid.
Dry tears stain her frightfully pale face. Rick catches her wrist and examines the protruding blue veins rapidly thumping beneath her skin. The blood loss is devastating to her tiny body.
"No, you can't. Won't even -even get to the end of the street like this."
"I can," Morticia wheezes, trying to stand up tall, to be the brave girl she always is.
"G-give it up, Tish. You -you can't be the big -big hero type now." Rick steadies her on her feel before he kneels down and presents his back to her.
"I don't know if-if your parents ever did this for -for you, but you gotta get on my back."
Morticia doesn't move for a good few seconds. She just looks down at Rick, face screwing up in confusion.
"Hurry the fuck up before I deci -change my mind and make you trek all the way to a fuckin' 7-11."
Morticia daintily leans onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck. Rick hooks his arms under her knees and lurches to his feet.
"There's 7-11's here?" Morticia mutters as Rick starts a slow pace.
"7-11's are like a plague Morticia. They're the corner store of the universe."
"....Wow," Morticia hushes with a wistful curiosity, head tilting to land on Rick's shoulder.
Rick trudges through the city. Morticia hisses and keens every few moments, reminding Rick of the terrible injury she endures. She slurs in his ear about her walking capabilities but Rick refuses. He won't go another second with Morticia complaining about her sore feet, or aching wound or whatever the fuck else the kid can find to complain about. Morticia needs to spare her energy, while Rick has energy to spare.
Rick winds down a maze of streets. Shops line the street sides, cars rolling on compact caterpillar tracks meander down cobblestone. Regular shops -fashion stores and cafes and thrift shops- are in the process of closing for dusk, while restaurants and bars open.
Locals get about in human-like clothing. Most aliens choose to stand on their hind legs, bringing them to towering heights while others lumber on four legs. They clad in dresses made of fine fibers, suits tailored to the local trends, and showy, colorful street wear. The fashion alone puts Earth to shame. Rick gets an unnerving sensation of being under-dressed, which is a given since he is covered in blood and dust and whatever other weird shit he picked up in the back alley today. And Morticia looks like a drowned dog.
What a sight they must be.
The city is much like Earthan cities. Rick wrote a paper when he was in the rebellion. 'The Creation of Society.' Rick detailed how when a civilization progresses their society follows an intrinsically similar path to that of humanity, regardless of their alien form. Rick's long disputed therum still holds up today as he looks around at the brick walls, and steel fencing, paved roads and sign posts.
An alien -a harsh looking creature, with a history of fight written on Its features - peers at Rick and Morticia with beady pinprick eyes. It's poorly maintained teeth jut out of Its long and scarred muzzle at odd angles. Rick glares back and absently wonders if these aliens have such a thing as braces. Before long, Rick and Morticia move forward out of It's sight, but Rick keeps close tabs on his six.
Finally, Rick spies what could be a general store a few paces down the road. He struggles into the mouth of an alleyway between two restaurants and sets Morticia down against the wall behind a stack of packing boxes, out of range of prying eyes who might be too curious for their own good.
Morticia doesn't take her own weight. Rather, she slides on her side down the wall and slumps, exhausted.
"There's a shop just over there. I'm gonna go-go get some things."
Morticia's eyes flirt to his face with panic. "You're leaving m-m-me here?"
"It's right there, Mort-Morticia. You'll be fine for a few fucking seconds."
Morticia's eyes dart downward and she finds a few hairs on her forearm to anxiously pull on.
"Fine," she mutters.
_________________
Rick goes around the entire store, grabbing everything that looks useful, including clothes, medications and bandages, drinks and snacks, and a large duffel bag. Most things are labeled in the local language, but he finds some products he's familiar with, as well as a prize few things from Earth of all places.
Rick dumps his loot on the front counter. A fat looking alien waddles over on four legs. When It arrives at the register, It rises on two legs, standing to a plump seven foot. It puts each item through at an excruciatingly slow pace, gently and meticulously packing everything into the duffel bag.
Rick shifts from foot to foot, wringing his hands with nervous impatience.
Once the alien clerk finishes processing the order, it gestures with a strand of hair toward a large machine sitting to one side of the bench. It looks to be some kind of scanner. It has a simple screen, a few buttons, and an area to put some kind of document to be reviewed.
"What?" Rick jitters.
The alien says something in the local language, a guttural growling sound only a mouth with a lot of teeth can manage.
Rick's translation unit feedbacks static into his ear, still pissed off about that incident with the gunshot reverb next to Rick's head. Rick presses his temple, cycling through his presets until the unit shuts up and plays back a translation. The unit translates the phrase into many different languages, some Rick has heard in passing, others he has never heard before. Finally, he finds Shakksa, an alien language Rick is versed in.
"Identification," the alien said.
"I don't have any," Rick replies in English. Understandably, the clerk is unimpressed by the foreign gibberish. Rick tries again in Shakksa, hoping he would be understood.
The clerk sighs, dramatically. It turns away and drops onto his forelegs, then lumbers to the backroom.
Rick eyes the stuff he wants to buy, and then the door, and then the store room. He does not know anything about security measures on this planet, but the shop looks second rate enough to not have a police alarm. But with Morticia so injured and so close by, he won't get far with stolen goods. Rick's train of thought dwindles away when the clerk returns with a hefty machine grasped in its hair.
It drops the machine on the table. It is triangle shaped, with a long side on the bottom. On the two outward facing sides are screens and interfaces. One side for each person. The alien plugs it into a power source under the counter. The unit powers up sluggishly, as if waking from a deep slumber. It plays a little tune that might have once been a happy one before the archaic speakers inevitably failed over time. Now, it sounds sickly, like a memory of joyful times past. The machine is covered in dust and cobwebs from a life of sitting in a store room.
The screen in front of Rick flickers to life. It displays a list of languages in numerical order, as is the norm for Galactic Federation databases. Rick flicks through, trying to find the decimal code for Earthen languages, way way down in the hundreds.
The machine hasn't been updated in a while. It lists only five Earthan languages; Mandarin, German, ancient Grecian, Latin, and Portuguese.
Rick recalls his Portuguese lessons in high school. He never paid much attention to it, being so engrossed in learning astrophysics instead. However he retained passable proficiency, enough to understand. He selects it.
The alien calibrates its own side of the machine, and a green light flickers on.
"I don't have identification," Rick says in Portuguese. The machine translates it into the local text on the other side.
"You need to scan your ID." The alien gestures to the scanner machine, as if Rick would magically materialize the required document.
"I don't have ID." Rick's stern tone might not translate to text, but his sour look will surely get the point across.
"You don't have one?" The alien grumbles, possibly rhetorically. "How are you here, then?"
"Not your business," Rick warns.
The translation unit fizzles a quick death, putting an end to their conversation. Rick knows the routine though. He pulls out his wallet and offers a large sum of Flurbos (far more than the worth of the merchandise) to the clerk.
The alien hesitates a moment, weighing up if the risk of tricking the books is worth the huge tip. Greed wins in the end, as it often does. It takes the cash and shoves the brimming duffel bag at Rick.
Rick leaves in a hurry.
___________
The sky outside grows dark as the red star sinks below the horizon. Morticia hasn't moved since Rick left, except to curl her knees up to her chest. She picks at a trail of dried blood sticking to her arm. Rick drops the bag with a loud clatter.
Morticia sluggishly turns her head to face him. Her eyes are hollow and red. "D-did you get w-w-what you need?" She asks, putting on a brave mask and a resolute smile.
"S-sure did, Sweets. Some-sometimes you get lucky on these developed planets, you know. Y-y-you can find just about anything out here." Rick kneels down and unzips the bag. He brings out 'Karzookadook: all your energy needs', the caffeinated drink from a planet whose entire ecosystem consists of native supercharged coffee trees, and shoves it into Morticia's idle hands.
"This shit, Tisha, t-this is the -the good shit here, Morticia. It'll have you going for days, Baby. You'll be top of the world." Rick's excited tone is blunt, jagged at the edges as stress bleeds into his voice.
Morticia opens the bottle with a kssh. Meanwhile, Rick riffles through the bag. That drink will keep her upright for a little longer -counteract the pain meds he's about to give her. He pops out two pills and hands them to her.
Morticia opens her mouth to speak, perhaps to ask what the pills are, or protest eating them. But she closes it with tired acceptance and drinks them down.
Rick pulls out a few more things. He douses a hand towel with water. "Turn around," he commands.
Morticia scoots on her bum until she faces the wall.
Rick yanks up her dress above the burn and Morticia grabs the hem to hold it up.
Rick wraps the sodden towel around his hand and pats at her wound, careful to touch so lightly.
Morticia finches away, yelping in shock. Rick places his free hand on her hip, caressing the dusty skin there. "It's just for- J-Just a second," he assures her. Rick presses the rag to her back again.
Morticia tenses but she stays still this time.
Rick clears all the dirt, splattered blood, and thick sweat away from around her wound. He elicits hisses and whimpers from her. She shivers feverishly from the cold water and the subtle breeze brushing past the raw and hot burn.
Rick drops the towel in his lap and reaches for a jug of sanitizer.
"Gonna hurt," he informs her.
Morticia hisses in a lungful and holds it in preparation. Rick pours the water thin sanitizer over her charred skin.
Morticia keens and digs her fingers into her dress until the sting mellows. Rick takes a swig of the sanitizer, letting it evaporate on his tongue and slip his brain into a heady buzz.
Rick helps her take off her dress, leaving her in only her underwear.
Rick takes out a roll of cling wrap and tears off a large piece. He gently pads it onto her ravaged skin until it adheres. Rick then twirls a wrap bandage around her middle, pulling it taught but not tight.
"That'll... that's gonna help," Rick says. "Get up." Rick pulls Morticia up on her feet.
She leans heavily on the wall, front first, as Rick leathers a hand towel with water. He shoves it near her face.
She grabs it tentatively and turns around, leaning on her shoulder and giving him a confused look.
"You gotta clean off, you look like a Judas goat."
"Can't we find a place w-with a shower?" She drawls.
"You think a-a hotels gonna take you in looking like that?"
Morticia concedes the point and begins rubbing down her face. Meanwhile Rick towels off, noticing all the cuts and scrapes he accumulated on his skin over the course of the day. He then begins changing into his new clothes. Rick pulls on a plain looking outfit, brown trousers and a white t-shirt, covered by a loose trench coat. The clothes are meant for the locals, so they're out of shape in weird places.
Once Morticia cleans off completely, Rick hands her a soft, baby blue dress. She pulls it on, and it drapes down her frame like a nightgown.
"Is... is there even gonna be a hotel?" Morticia asks, voice soft.
"Of course, Tish. Since when have we, when did we ever go to a planet where we couldn't find a hotel?"
Morticia concedes the point with a nod.
"Let's get going."
Morticia latches onto Rick's arm and uses him to launch off the wall and onto her aching feet.
Rick kicks their old clothes and junk in a pile, hidden away from anyone who would be searching for them. He slings the duffel over his shoulder and wraps an arm around Morticia's chest. They start out toward the main street.
"How do we get back -get home?" Morticia mumbles.
"There'll be a-a transport ship going off-planet. All we got to do is get tickets and we're outsies."
Morticia hums in understanding. "That sounds easy."
Rick doesn't tell her about the galactic federation control on this planet, nor the hoops they surely will have to jump through to get tickets. She doesn't need to know. He'll rig it up in a night and Morticia will be none the wiser. She will be safe and tucked away in bed this time tomorrow.
_______________
Rick and Morticia wonder through the streets for a while, their feet stinging and eyes tired. The written language is unrecognizable, and the buildings they pass by have little familiar features beyond details telling them 'this is a clothing store', 'this is a restaurant'. Eventually, Rick spies a low and long building with many doorways spread out around a courtyard. It's sure to be a hotel.
Rick haggles with the manager of the hotel, explaining very crudely with frantic hand gestures and seething looks that no, they do not have IDs.
By now, the pills morticia swallowed take effect and she keens to the side, landing on Rick's hip.
The clerk gives her a small, almost unnoticed look. It breaths a sigh and finally allows Rick and Morticia to take a room.
_____________
The room is much like any other room on earth. There's a queen bed, a kitchenette, and a bathroom with a shower and a toilet.
While Rick paces around, taking stock of what they have, Morticia b-lines for the bed and crawls over the covers. She heaves a heavy sigh and sinks in, possibly for the night.
Rick stands at the end of the bed, overlooking the girl. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his trench and fiddles with the fraying hem inside.
What will he do now?
Rick huffs as he turns around on the spot.
This place must have been an office at one point. The staff, too lazy to clean it out, left boxes of general clutter - bookends, folders, pens, graphing paper, thumbtacks, used sticky notes, and other shit- laying haphazard in the corners of the room, on the kitchenette table, and all over the scratched desk tucked against one wall.
Rick clears the desk and pulls out a stack of used papers and a pen. On the clean side, he begins to write notes in a scratchy cursive.
"Getting Home."
A few hours after dusk, Morticia wakes up to the sound of Rick growling and gurgling. He holds the mini-computer in one hand and flicks a pencil around in his other. He paces.
"You're already learning the language," Morticia notes. She sits up.
Rick turns to her, nodding slightly. "I don't have, I don't have a cross-translation unit."
"Do you learn... a-a lot of languages?" Morticia says, trying to make conversation as she wriggles to the end of the mattress.
Rick huffs in annoyance. There are more important things on his mind. "You feeling better? " He asks.
"I think... I feel alright. Anything to eat?"
Rick flicks his hand holding the pencil to the duffel. Inside are a few packets of strange looking treats. Morticia chomps down on them, quickly depleting their supply.
Rick continues to grumble while Morticia wanders around for a while, picking up papers, looking at them, then dropping them. Eventually, she tires and crawls back under the blankets, leaving Rick to talk to himself.
When Rick feels like he has a decent grasp of the language, he turns his attention to the mini-computer and attempts to hack into anything he can.
Getting onto the net is a cinch but Rick flounders when he comes across "potentially confidential" material. Most every document falls under "confidential". If Rick ever thought censorship on Earth a pile of bullcrap, he pities this planet and their lack of freedoms. Rick manages to surpass a couple of administrative blocks on a travelers' forum. Usually users would need to input an entry permit number to access the site. Just like an ID, Rick doesn't have an entry permit.
He finds a page of off-world cruising vessels, each with a timetable and ticketing. The price is decent, the same as any other Fed aligned planet. However, when Rick moves onto the ticketing page, he's hit with a bombardment of forms, each requesting a different identification document aswell as a biometric data scan.
He gives up on that idea, and moves on to finding teleportation check points on nearby planets. The arriving is no trouble, but the leaving is. When Rick tries to book an appointment to visit the Intergalactic Teleporter Station in the heart of this city, the same forms pop up, with even more security checks.
Rick considers throwing the computer.
It's possible Rick and Morticia could storm the facility, or stowaway in an off-world ship. Rick searches for news articles, official websites, and video sources to scope out the viability of that plan. He finds out that these places are secured by military forces. There's no way Rick and Morticia, clearly foreigners with no papers, could get through the multitude of security checkpoints unnoticed, and they won't be able to fight their way through, not with Morticia in her state and a distinct lack of guns and ammunition.
The only viable option is getting forged documentation; federation passports, planetary entry and exit permits. Surely there's a handful of skilled criminals in this city who will tinker over a page in exchange for a hefty sum.
Rick folds the mini-computer closed and looks over his notes. Tomorrow, when the sun shows its face again, Rick will go out and find some people willing to cooperate with his wishes.
Morticia wakes in the night, groaning and whimpering.
Rick looks around from the desk for a moment. She seems fine, so Rick gets back to work. But when Morticia howls in a strained version of her "private time" sound, Rick swivels all the way around in his chair.
Morticia keens out loud, arching her back and absently waving her hands around. She looks like a turtle stuck on its back.
"What -what have you... You turned onto your burn, didn't you?"
"Yea~" Morticia groans. She pushes herself up to sitting. Her chest heaves. "It's really bad..."
"Come on, Tish. You -you've had worse," Rick dismisses.
Morticia glares at him. Rick glares back.
Finally, Rick huffs and strides over to the bed, sitting behind Morticia. He bunches up her dress and slips it over her shoulders. Rick grimaces. She irritated her burn a lot. The bandage is wet with congealed blood and clear pus from burst blisters. He removes the cling wrap and fetches a clean replacement.
"You can't... you have to stay on your side. No laying on your back."
"Well I know that now," Morticia snaps.
"I'm trying to help here. Just -just shut up."
"Sorry, Rick..." Morticia says half hardheartedly. She trembles so slightly. "It fucking sucks, you know? It's just... It's shit."
Rick pads at the wound with an antibacterial wipe, wincing whenever Morticia hisses with pain. The flesh beneath is red and raw, still hot to the touch.
"I had this happen to me back in the old days," Rick begins as works, "there was a.... an alien, big beast of a thing with -with all kinds of arms and limbs and heads. It got me, right in the chest. Pierced through my collar. Lucky, it didn't hit anything important. My troop though, all they had was scraps, bits and pieces."
Morticia stays as still as she can and listens intently to Rick's story.
"A boy, just out of training came up and he -he used a sign post to brandish my wound. It fuck- it-it-it hurt, like hell, Morticia. We were in deep, too deep. Lost half our men to that thing. I'm lucky I got out with -with just a burn."
"That sucks..." comes Morticia's small and highly eloquent voice.
"The point -the point is, Tish: I'm fine now. You'll be fine. I can fix it up easy when we get home."
"Can we get home?"
Rick's fingers pause the roll of cling wrap. I don't know...
"W-w-what the fuck are you saying? We -we always get home."
Morticia whimpers in her sleep when the red-ish morning sun glares through her eyelids. She paws a hand sleepily at her face, willing herself to wake. A hearty groan spills from her lips as she opens her eyes. "Rick," she murmurs into her pillow case.
"Morning, Tish," Rick replies from somewhere in the room.
"What's the time?" She asks.
Rick says something in a gravelly voice, making Morticia curious enough to glance up at him. She frowns.
Rick smirks back. He holds up the little computer thing. It displays something that could be time if time was recorded by lines on a riverbed stone.
Morticia chuckles lightly. "Nerd." she pushes herself up to sitting, feeling the edges of her burn flair up with the movement.
Rick stands, his body creaking. He stretches his arms above his head before he heads to the kitchenette to prepare two coffees.
He brings Morticia her cup and she takes it in her two hands, bringing it to her nose and sniffing. After a moment her brow crinkles. "This smells weird, Rick."
"The milk. It's not cows milk."
Morticia opens her mouth to speak but-
"You don't want to know." When Rick says that, Morticia has learnt its really best not to ask.
"So did you," Morticia begins on a yawn, "find a way to get home?"
Rick rubs his hand over his face, feeling the prickle of five O'clock shadow on his jaw.
"Maybe." Rick springs up from the bed and retrieves his multitude of notes.
"This place is -it's locked up, Morticia. Locked up tighter than a nuns cunt."
Morticia cringes at the imagery. "Jeez, Rick..."
"We need to forge documents to go -to get anywhere here, even the central districts of this city. We need permissions, and and planetary visas, and-"
"Planetary... Ahh, passports?" Morticia guesses.
"Federation passports."
"Oh," Morticia lights, pleased that she got it half right.
"W-w-we don't have any of that." Rick waves his notes around as he paces, sipping his coffee every few steps.
"So we need to make them?"
"Yep. I'm going to go out today and find, finding someone who can do it."
"Can't you do it?"
"Normally.... Yes, but I," Rick falters. "I don't have the right equipment." or forgery capabilities, but he doesn't mention that.
"Wow," Morticia begins, a smug smirk breaking out on her lips. "Y-you mean, the great R-Rick Sanchez, granddaddy of the universe can't do something?" she shakes her head mockingly and sips her drink.
Rick glares at her, debating whether starting a fight will benefit him right now. The answer is no.
Morticia gets up from the bed. Rick watches as she sways side to side, her eyes glazing over. After a moment she sits heavily back on the bed. "Jeez, I'm not very healthy, a-am I?"
"You just got shot up I can't imagine you would be," Rick comments as he moves to sit beside her.
"Yeah... How do you do it, Rick?" She asks. "How do you not get killed every-every other day?"
Rick glances at her. "I'm the granddaddy of the universe, Baby."
Morticia rolls her eyes and smiles. She slumps on Rick's side, slotting under his arm like a key to a lock.
"Yeah, you sure are."