What If I Had

twenty six - rick and gwen

We're trapped. Under a landslide, in a foreign dimension, with no means of getting back home.

The panic's already set in. There's no going back. I'm past the point of no return. Way past it. I've lost my sanity, every last bit of it thanks to the stress of the situation I'm in.

Silently thinking to myself, cradled up against rock, I realize I've been bottling a lot of this stress up.

My spike in age, the loss of my parents, losing Rick to the intergalactic confederation, the wool being pulled away from my eyes in the revelation of Rick's garage. Just everything. Pushed deeply away to collect dust in my subconscious just ready to overflow and spill out in an uncontrollable fit.

The icing on the cake had to be the moment Rick called me a dog.

I watched from afar as he paced around the cave, with each footstep that he took echoing and bouncing off the walls. He was trying to think up a way out of here. I watched as he pulled things from his coat pockets in a scramble and quickly cut through some rick using a miniature laser pen.

I felt my lips purse together in disgust. It dawned on me that I was stuck underground with a highly neurotic Rick. One little slip could topple his facade over and he could snap again.

But like I cared at this point. Rick had pushed me too far.

"Are you proud of yourself?"

He didn't give me an answer.

"You've managed to not only estrange yourself from your timeline's Gwen but you thought, 'Hey! Might as well burn this bridge, too, because I'm a sour miserable old man living with the family I abandoned because I'm cowardly and desperate for social interaction—"

Rick threw his handhelds to the cave floor in such a harsh and sudden manner that it caught me offguard. "You know what your problem is, Gwendolyn?" He seethed, marching right up to me. "You've gotten way too comfy living here with us. You know you don't belong here with me."

I scoffed, folding my arms over my chest. "Yeah right, like you really think that. God, I know you, Rick. I lived a whole lifetime with you! I didn't forgive you for what you did in the other life and I sure as shit don't forgive you now."

"Oh, what? You want an apology from me? Is that'll what make you happy? I'm sorry you feel the need to be held by the hand for every second you exist. I'm sorry you think that I'm miserable. Guess who made me that way, sweetheart?"

I laughed in his face. "Keep trying. It's cute watching you attempt to make me feel worthless."

Rick raised his eyebrow at me before relaxing his face again. He sat down across from me, resting on his knees with both hands in his lap. Rick rubbed the nape of his neck, sighing heavily, before he spoke again.

"It's not easy having you around, you know. I'm always reminded that I could lose you again at any time, and it scares me. You were the first thing I ever cared for." Rick sighed. "... as if that wasn't obvious enough to you already."

I processed his words, giving us enough silence for both of us to breathe it all in.

"I'm... not at all the first thing you cared about." I pressed him on. "You had your work before me."

"You know me much better than that. You remember me from my youth. If I had any love for the work I did, you most certainly encouraged it. Working with you..." Rick leaned in forward with a slight angle to take my hand gently. "... in your father's garage." I felt my cheeks flush and heat up as I struggle to sustain that bashful smile that wants to plant itself on my face.

"But," He let go. "Love was never meant for me. I let myself become so vulnerable when I was married, and Rick Sanchez shits on the very idea of vulnerability. Rick Sanchez was never meant to have a weakness."

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. But he continued.

"The only regret I have in life. I've contradicted my title of being the smartest man in the universe. I wasn't smart enough to dodge that bullet."

"So you regret ever meeting me. You regret ever falling in love with me, ever bearing me your kid, watching her grow up. Just—" I groaned, dragging my hand down my face before taking a deep breath again. "Does that regret equate to you wishing you never had me as your wife and your family existing?"

"From my moment of vulnerability, which I hated—" I shot him a look. "Initially. From that moment blossomed something beautiful, something I realized I never knew I ever wanted."

Rick moves closer to me, reaching out for both of my hands. "I can't thank you enough for giving me my daughter, Gwen."

He looked me in the eyes. His dark, sour eyes now soft and sorrowful with such passionate remorse, as if he spoke without speaking. Apologetic, wishing he could take back all of the pain he's ever caused me. In this life, and the next life over.

"I'm sorry."

I smiled weakly at him. Placing the palm of my left hand down on the rigid floor, I try pushing myself up onto my feet to stand. My knees are weak and my legs unsupportive, but not from the amount of time I've spent sitting awkwardly in the floor.

This came like a gunshot to the back of my knee. It ached like it had been aching for decades.

With a yelp, my legs gave out. But Rick has caught me just in the nick of time as he was standing up. I shortly embraced the feel of his arms as he lifted me up, throwing my arm around his waist as he wrapped his own around mine.

"Wh—what's wrong with me?" I couldn't bear it. The pain had stung me terribly, it was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. "Rick, I've been wanting to tell you this since the day I found out: I'm growing old fast. It's completely out of my control and I—"

Rick flashed me another look of sorrow.
"I know."

"I've known since the moment I figured out you were my Gwen. This is why I never wanted you to find out." He looked down at me. "Once you found out who you were, I knew the dimension would physically react by aging you up to your appropriate age."

I felt my eyes widen with each second that it sank in. I'm Gwen Bouvier, and I've accepted that, so now the universe is forcing me to accept my actual age.

"So... the longer I stay here, knowing what I know about myself, that means very soon I'll...?"

Rick nodded. Burying my head closer into his chest, I felt my chest rise and fall with every breath he took.

Before I can really react to the revelation, I feel rubble fall from above onto the crown of my head. Pulling away from Rick, looking up I watch as the ceiling begins to crack and crumble. The sounds of rock moving and teutonic plates both above and below us is practically ear-deafening. I shriek, realizing what's happening, but it's barely audible.

I hug Rick tighter as I hope for a deus ex machina.

Suddenly.

The sound of a portal opening up right underneath us is so sudden yet so familiar that I welcome it with open arms and feel relief sweep over me like a wave.

We land, our arms wrapped around each other, right in the middle of the Smiths' living room with Morty wielding Rick's spare portal gun from the garage.

That'll do.