I'm gonna move to the southwest, and, I don't know...

"Dad, what's going on?"

They had just pulled Morty out of his weekly counselling session at Harry Herpson, walking down the hallway of Summer's old high school, and she'd finally decided to start pressing him for an explanation.

"We’re going to Alaska," he told her.

"What?" asked Morty. "Why?"

( Just rip the Band-Aid off! )

"Dad," said Morty, gently attempting to turn him away toward the mouth of the cave, "you just got handed an Ex Machina. You’re taking it."

*********

Back at the house, Summer and Morty all but sprinted inside.

"We’re ho~ome!" Summer sang as they headed toward the dining room, ready to slip into a little bit of normalcy again.

( A Suprisingly Wholesome Conclusion )

"By the way," he said quickly, "that wasn’t time travel. There were just a couple pizzas on the counter. I grabbed them."

Just to be clear for the pedantic.


[[and fin! More S03E09, "The ABC's of Beth." What's a holiday break without a little canon trauma, right? Summer will be back tomorrow, but for now she's reachable by text or call if you'd like]]

As Summer pulled the junker jeep into the driveway of her post-apocalyptic suburban home, she braked just a little too hard, toppling over the grocery bag filled with the spoils of her raid: some wilted lettuce, a shitty orange, some sticks, an honestly really spindly arm, and some half-eaten meat on a bone. "Ugh," she muttered, sweeping down to pick it up as she climbed out of the car, including the jawless head that fell out onto the driveway. "Goddamn it."

"Hi, there, Summer!" called Eli from the lawn next door, pausing his mowing to give her a wave. "How were the ruins today?"

( I was a monster when you met me! )

Summer reached up to take the metal shoulders from her sweet raider ensemble and threw them to the ground. "Oh, cut the crap, Rick, okay? You proved your point, I get it. Let's just go home."

"Coolsies." Rick shot a portal into the ground, and Summer and Morty wasted no time in jumping in. Rick was soon to follow, but not before grabbing the small core of Isotope 322 in the generator that ran the electricity throughout the town, plunging it into an electricty-less darkness. And over the darkened streets and ramshackle homes, a shocked cry of realization emerged from Hemhorrage like an animal cry.

"Noooooooo!"
_____________________


Back at the Smith household, Beth eagerly tossed a pair of dice from a shaken cup onto the the table, took a look at her roll, and smacked her hand down on a button at the center of the table shared with the robot version of her daughter, her son, and her father. "Downbeat!"

"I enjoy this game," said Rick as Beth turned her bright grin toward them. It was a grin that fell quickly when a small beep drew their attention down to the watches on their wrists all in unison.

"We must go into the garage," Rick announced.

( I want to taste ice cream, but not just put it in my mouth and let it slide down my throat, but really eat it! )

"Ah, I'm sure it was nothing," Rick said, turning. "I'm gonna go, uh, work in the garage."

"We're not gonna finish playing Downbeat?" Beth asked.

"What," said Rick, "that dice game where you shake dice and yell out, 'Downbeat'? No, thank you."

"Mom," Summer asked, "would it be okay if I went to visit Dad?"

"Sure," she said with a small, uncertain smile.

"Thanks."

_________

Summer stood outside her dad's apartment, comfortable again in her own clothes, but not so much with her surroundings. She lifted her free hand, as the other one was holding a three-eyed skull with teeth and horns, knocked on the door, shifting a little as she waited for him to open it.

"Summer." The surprise was evident in Jerry's voice, but she didn't give him time to make a big deal out of it. She had her own big deal she was trying to make.

( Dad? I wanted to give you this as a reminder not to look back. )

"Soooo..." Summer said cautiously once she let go, glancing briefly over her shoulder to the parking lot of Jerry's shitty apartment complex, "lots of hookers outside, huh?"

"Is that what they are?"

Oh, Jerry. And you were doing so well...

[[ and fin! transcribed from S3;E2 of Rick and Morty, "Rickmancing the Stone." open for text and calls if'n you'd like! Summer will be back and normal (relatively speaking) tomorrow! ]]

The Death Stalkers seemed to flourish in that one day between Rick's Abandonment and his Return, with Hemorrhage at the helm and Summer at his side. She had adapted, as she would always do, fully embracing this new wild kingdom. She felt, sometimes, that she now understood the version of herself she had met in Dimension C-137, letting her hair down, letting it get messy, donning an outfit truly worthy of a post-apocalyptic queen, a cool new silver face tattoo to match her big metal shoulder pads and steel grey dress. She'd gotten wind that Rick had returned to this land, so, naturally, they would ride out to meet him, but he'd better be ready. Rick Sanchez had hell to pay.

"The reason I wanted this," said Rick, approaching Summer and Hemorrhage with Morty (no longer with his monster arm) in tow, the ball of Isotope 322 in his hands, "is because....it can do this."

He took a light bulb from his pocket and held it to the glowing green mass. And the light bulb shined brightly, buzzing faintly.

"This is a really special thing," he continued. "I mean, you could use it to power all your vehicles. You wouldn't be reliant on gasoline. You'll be the most advanced tribe of radioactive cannibals in the whole...this version of....the world."

Without hesitation, Hemorrhage grabbed the Isotope and pulled in into his possession. Without another word, Rick aimed his portal gun at the ground and stepped forward, ready to disappear again with Morty, though Summer was clearly not making any move forward to join them.

But Hemorrhage stopped him. "Wait. Can you stay to show us more?"

"You don't have to ask me twice," Rick said happily, pocketing the portal gun. "Home is nuts right now. My daughter's going through a divorce, and I am not dealing with it in a healthy way at aaall."

[[FIN]]

And so there was another chase across the barren landscape of what used to be the Pacific Northwest, only this time, it was just Rick and the giant ball of Isotope 322 being chased by the Death Stalkers and his grandkids.

"Grandpa," Summer shouted from the passenger side of Hemorrhage's rig as they nearly pulled up next to him, "you're being stupid! Just surrender, and our friends will give you mercy!"

( Kiss my ass, Summer! )

Rick shot his portal gun into the ground. The front end of his vehicle fell in, while the tail end remained, sticking out just enough for the vehicle behind him to crash into it and spin up into the air. Because there hadn't been enough trucks and cars spinning wildly and crashing gloriously into the ground yet that day.

Leaving Summer and Morty behind. Possibly forever. Because fuck that noise.


______________________________________________

There they were. Summer and Morty Smith, stuck in post-apocalyptic Earth, abandoned by their Grampa, dealing poorly with their parents divorce and Morty had a monster arm with a mind of its own. Summer was just....going to let Morty deal with that for a moment. That arm had a lot of pent up aggression and a vendetta it needed to fulfill, but he seemed to be doing okay with it in the ThunderBlood Dome. Summer thought it might be best if she did a little damage control, with the one person left that she thought maybe she could depend on in this Rick-forsaken world.

( Do you guys have the phrase 'a hat on a hat'? )

"Hey, I'm doing a coffee run--" he started, but he didn't get far before noticing the hot and heavy make-out session going on. "Neeever mind," he sang, quietly backing right back out and giving them their privacy.


[[ Part 4 of 4! Continued from here, here, and here! There's more tomorrow, but I figured I'd leave ya'all on the cliffhanger. Can be open to any calls, texts, or ooc, though Summer might be a little, uh, distracted for a bit, ahem]]

A portal opened in the ceiling of the garage of the Smith house, spitting out the bodies of Rick and his two grandchildren. They had barely landed on the cold cement before Morty started complaining. "Summer! Next time we're hiding in a Chlorkian echo nest, can you do me a favor and turn your ringer off?"

( Carp'en all them diems. )

Leaving Jerry nothing left to do but turn around and leave as well, into the driveway, with his U-To trailer waiting with what meager belongings he had left to his name. And as he stood contemplating all the things that had gone wrong, finally, seemingly destroyed once and for all, a wind stirred, disturbing a wind chime in the neighbor's yard, causing the leaves to dance and brush against the concrete, almost like they were whispering softly.

Looooooserrrrrr.

"What? Hello?"

But no one was there.

[[oh boy, here I go canon catch-uping again! Part 2, electric catch-up-a-loo. This here's part one of ??, pretty much transcribed verbatim from Season 3, Episode 2, "Rickmancing the Stone," so spoiler warning is firmly in place.]]

"Guess who dismantled the government!"

Rick, Morty, and Summer walked into the living room of the Smith residence, and Beth made a straight beeline for her father to embrace him, leaving Jerry in her wake. "Please don't leave me again."

"I never will, baby."

"I was right!" Summer announced. "He turned himself in on purpose, it was all part of his plan!"

"Jerry," Rick said over Beth's head, as she was clearly not planning on releasing the hug anytime soon, "is there any light beer left? It's insane what you miss in prison."

"Um, okay," said Jerry, and a sudden imperviousness filled him. "No. No, no, no. Foot down time."

"No, you're right," Rick allowed. "Where's the vodka?"

"Beth," Jerry said. "It's him, or me."

And cue them all staring at Jerry like he'd grown a second head or something.

"Seems like you guys need some privacy," Rick eventually said. "I, uh, I'll be in the garage."

And Summer and Morty took a cue from Rick and went along their own way, too, upstairs to their bedroom, where their looks said it all. "Oh, geez, Summer," Morty said, "is this finally it? A-Are Mom and Dad gonna get a divorce?"

"Are you kidding me?" said Summer, now paying more attention to her phone, sending off a text to BDG with the good news, while her friends her at home flooded her with their own messages. "Probably. I mean, how many times has this happened, Morty, who knows? One of them always gets cold feet and can't go through with it. It's fine. It'll be fine...Ohmygod, Nancy says they're drawing and quartering aliens in the school courtyard, and it technically counts as patriotism. I've got to go check this out."

In a way, it felt a little weird, that this was all she was thinking about for practically three months, and now it was done, it was over. It didn't matter any more, and maybe things would go back to normal. Her Grampa Rick was back, he had saved them and brought down the Galactic Federation. She didn't even need to tap into all those resources she'd built up, but it was nice to know that they were there. And, man, she couldn't wait to tell everyone about it once she got back to Fandom.


[[ and that's a wrap for today, but we're far from done! Continued from here, here, and here! Open for calls and texts, if'n you'd like!]]