As Real as it Gets

Going Home (Chapter 15, Part 2)

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Squanchy watched as Rick tried his best to keep the fried hard disk from falling apart even more. 

Rick faintly sighed, "No." He wrapped the disk with the piece of cloth Squanchy gave to him, "But I'll... I'll try to save her."

Birdperson tried to make him feel better, "You will succeed." 

After saying goodbye to his friends, Rick hopped into one of the smaller pods on the ship and headed to Earth. As he sat and looked out through the window into outer space, he held the hard disk close to his chest. The flight back was long and boring so even though he didn't want to, he fell asleep.

-

"Rick!" familiar voices called out, "Grandpa Rick! Wake up!"

Rick was shaken awake and quickly stood up. He calmed down when he realized he was back on Earth, back home. The kids were so happy to see him, they hugged him tightly, "Hey, you little shits." he smiled.

"We knew you'd come back!" Summer beamed, "The Federation took over the entire world when you were away, but they all left suddenly."

"Oh yeah, I killed everyone in charge..." Rick walked into the garage and started trying to repair the hard disk, "well, I had a little help..." he whispered.

Morty closely watched what his grandfather was doing, "Wh-what's that, Rick?"

"A- a thing. You'll see." Rick tried to brush off the topic.

"You're not even gonna talk to us after you've been gone for years!" Morty raised his voice, "Do you even care, Rick? Like, at all?"

Rick abruptly stood up and opened the hatch door, "I gotta save her first!" He said before going down and closing the hatch, not caring that his grand kids had no clue what he was talking about.

He entered a room in his high-tech underground lab that had a strong computer in it. Very carefully after unwrapping the had disk from the cloth, he placed it into a slot and watched as the installation progress bar slowly moved. After staring at it for a few minutes, he sat on the floor with his back against wall. The wound in his side was painful, but he didn't bother to take care of it. He opened a cabinet next to him and smiled lightly when he pulled out a bottle of beer. It had expired long ago, but whatever. 

A beeping sound pulled him out of his thoughts. He stood up to his feet to see what was happening. There was a message on screen that read: 'Installation: unsuccessful. 1% of data corrupted.' 

"What?" Rick looked through the files on the computer. There was nothing on the hard disk anymore, meaning the data had indeed transferred over, "Where are you?" 

He found a file 'New Program' and clicked to install it. A 'File has corrupted data. Are you sure you want to proceed?' message appeared.

"Yes! C'mon do it!" Rick grew frustrated and anxious.

'Installing...'

Suddenly, something inside the computer exploded, causing Rick to jump in surprise. He turned to see a small fire growing bigger, "Oh, for fuck's sake!" In a hurry, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and took care of the flame. 

'Installation: successful. 2% of data corrupted.' 

-

Nothing but black. Darkness. Everywhere. Everywhere around you. You were so tired, so exhausted, so disoriented. There was nothing, nowhere. You were alone.

Until... a voice... calling out for someone named Y/N.

Why does it sound familiar? Have you heard it somewhere before? But where?

It can't be... there's only darkness. You were probably just imagining it. What could possibly be happening in nothing? You knew nothing except that you were nowhere. No time was passing by. You were not hungry... or thirsty... just tired. Tired of what? Of nothing. Just nothing, and nothing more or nothing less.

-

"Fuck, she's not listening to me." Rick held his head in his hands, "Y/N! I can't talk to you if you're not listening!" 

He started typing something into the computer, to try and reach you from inside, from the code.

-

What even are you? Just a speck of meaninglessness floating in an endless void of nothing? But why? How did you become this... entity that has no purpose? You were neither dead nor alive. Damned to exist in this realm of pure... empty.

But, wait... there was something.

01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00101110 00100000 01000011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110

The numbers... the code, it flooded your vision. It was all around you.

Finally...

something.

Guiding you.

It was for you, you understood. You remembered something, someone, but just vaguely. Was it someone you loved? Someone you appreciated? Why can't you remember? 

It was as if a piece of you was missing.

This memory of that someone... was more of a feeling than anything else. It made you feel safe and loved. Who could it be?

-

"Y/N... please, talk to me." Rick spoke quietly, "Please, just... give me anything." His heart was beating faster. He feared for the worst, that you were gone, "You know what? No." He took a deep breath, "I'm not giving up on you, okay? You hear me?! I'm not letting you leave me! Not now, not ever."

-

Ah... the familiar voice. It appears to be  yelling. You couldn't understand a word, even though you tried your absolute best to listen.  It seemed distant, unreachable even. How can you get to it? Figure out why it's upset?

-

Rick went into another room, where his project 'Phoenix' used to take place. He still had leftover glass chambers and life-sustaining liquid. Taking some glasses filled with various chemicals, he proceeded to mix them together. Pouring a tiny amount under the microscope he looked at it through the lens before writing a note on a piece of paper.

After a few hours of mixing up chemicals, he poured them into a machine next to the glass chamber. It started making loud noises and a bunch of lights on it turned on. 

He watched it do its thing for a few moments before covering it with a large white cloth. 

Note: Happy New Year everyone!!!