Thank you for all the reviews on my previous chapters. This is the last one in this story. I hope it's a conclusion you'll all approve of:

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Chapter 6

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Rick closed the drawer under his workbench and turned back toward his grandson. "You better buy me a new screwdriver since you-" He stopped himself in mid-sentence when he noticed Morty seemed to be passed out on the garage floor. "Shit." Rick winced as he paced across the floor and knelt down.

Putting his fingers against Morty's throat, Rick felt for a pulse. It was there... just rather slowed down. A side effect of the plebworm's slime, no doubt. He put his hand on Morty's chest. The boy was breathing, but each breath was very minimal - so small he could barely even detect his grandson's chest rising and falling. Morty seemed to have a more noticeable reaction to the plebworm slime than Rick did - probably because Rick's had been absorbed through his pant leg, and Morty had been attacked by the worms twice. Rick also tended to need more of most mind-altering substances than the average person to get him the same amount of high. He was too tolerant to drugs at this point.

"Damn it, Morty." Rick grumbled to himself. Why did his grandson always have to get attacked by everything everywhere they went? He stood and paced across the room to a small cabinet which held a lot of the resources he used for quick fixes of serious injuries.

Morty didn't actually have any serious injuries, really, but the sprained ankle would be too annoying to let heal naturally and the scrapes and bruises would definitely get Rick in trouble with Beth and Jerry. So he found a bottle of fluid that, when injected, realigned bones and healed breaks, cracks, and sprains instantly, along with a jar of cream that healed cuts in the skin and a third concoction that helped bruises disappear twice as fast as normal. The effects of the plebworm slime, Morty would just have to sleep off. Rick couldn't fix that... and he certainly didn't want to in his own case. He felt so fucking relaxed - besides being a bit worried for Morty's sake, of course.

With careful hands, Rick lifted Morty up off the garage floor and laid him down on one of the tables he had set up down here. It wasn't unheard of for Rick to work on human experiments, and Morty had been his test subject on more than one occasion, so he was pretty well-prepared for something like this.

Rick felt around in his lab coat, which Morty still wore, until he found his flask. He took a long drink from it before sticking it back inside the coat, frowning when he felt something small and cold inside the pocket. He took the flask back out and dug his hand into the coat's pocket, bringing out a small handful of the plebnarstones - the valuable resource they'd been surrounded by, but which he hadn't ended up having time to collect.

Rick felt a small smile pull at his lips as he looked down at Morty's face. The boy's eyes were closed, he had a bruise on his cheek, a gash across his forehead, and dried blood caked on the side of his face, but he looked otherwise content. It warmed Rick's cold heart to know that even while his grandson had been sitting next to him, cowering in pain and fear, he'd expended the effort to collect some of the stones. He certainly didn't have to, and Rick hadn't expected him to, but Morty had done him the favor anyway.

Placing the handful of stones carefully on the table-top, Rick put his hand softly against Morty's face, brushing his thumb carefully over the bruise the other Rick had made there. He needed to get to work fixing this mess before he got yelled at by his daughter or son-in-law. He also wanted to make sure whatever pain his grandson felt wouldn't last longer than it had to.

Carefully, Rick pulled Morty's limp body up off the table enough so that he could remove his lab coat. The ordinarily white garment was stained with dirt and blood and even some purpleish slime from the plebworm that had attacked them. It was also torn in several places. Rick frowned and tossed the garment to the side. It wasn't like Rick hadn't ruined countless lab coats already.

Now that Morty wasn't wearing Rick's coat, the old man could see his injuries better. In the darkness of the tunnel, they hadn't seemed like such a big deal, and they really weren't, but they still made Rick angry. He was particularly pissed off about the finger-shaped bruises on Morty's arm, circling around his little wrist and forearm.

Being nice wasn't something Rick often did, but he was a saint compared to this other guy. The bruises on Morty's arm were pretty dark. There were even more bruises than Rick had fingers, indicating that the guy hadn't just grabbed the kid too hard once. There was really no need for anyone to be so forceful with the boy.

Rick wished he could kill the other Rick again now that he could see the guy's handiwork in a better light. The thought of anyone hurting his Morty made his blood boil. It kinda hurt his heart that Morty hadn't known the man wasn't him. He went to great lengths to make sure Morty didn't ever feel too appreciated, as he didn't want the kid getting cocky, but Rick would never physically hurt him on purpose. He thought Morty knew that... He shook those thoughts out of his head and focused back on the task at hand. It didn't matter that the other Rick had been too rough. He was gone now, and Morty's injuries were about to be.

First, Rick filled a syringe with the fluid to heal Morty's ankle. That was the most important injury he needed to fix - the only one that really mattered that much. Rick jammed the syringe into Morty's leg, pressed it down, and then removed it, watching as Morty's swollen ankle resumed its normal appearance. He tossed the empty syringe to the floor and looked Morty over. His other injuries were minor, but probably still painful, and definitely something he didn't want to get yelled at for. There was an awful lot of dried blood in the way of seeing exactly where two of the cuts even began and ended though.

Rick walked across the garage, over to a sink he kept here for practical purposes, and grabbed a paper towel, wetting it before making his way back over to the table. He would be able to work on applying the creams for the cuts and bruises better if he got all the dry, crusted blood out of the way.

Rick made quick, somewhat careless work cleaning up the spots of blood that mattered and then put the creams over each of the injuries that seemed to need it. Once the job was done, Rick celebrated with an extra-large gulp from his flask. He was starting to feel pretty fucked up... It seemed the slime, while producing a really awesome affect on him right away, was hitting him harder now. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. Rick liked getting abso-fucking-lutely wrecked.

With an exaggerated exhale, Rick sat down on the edge of the table next to Morty and stared at the wall. It almost seemed to be visibly vibrating as he stared at it. It even appeared to reverse-melt, as if it was expanding up from the floor. Rick stared with his mouth hanging open as shadows on the wall seemed to dance without aid of light, the clock, which hadn't worked in ages appeared to start ticking backwards, and Rick's own breathing and heartbeat seemed to echo through the room.

Maybe the plebworm's slime had an after effect he wasn't previously aware of. That would explain why Morty hadn't passed out after the first worm attacked him, but seemed so fucked up now - it was all catching up with him at the same time. And now it was catching up with Rick too.

Rick leaned back against the table, pushing Morty slightly over so they'd both fit. He stared up at the garage ceiling. The room seemed to almost spin around him. He was definitely going to have to go back and wrestle one of those worms to get more of this shit. He'd learned long ago that the slime was a sort of sedative, but he never knew it was the awesome kind.

As he lay against the table, hearing his own heart slowly beating in his chest, he stared up at the ceiling that slowly seemed to become the floor. Rick's eyes widened as he gripped the edge of the table so he wouldn't fall off into the ceiling.

"Gah - Holy shit, Morty!" Rick shouted as he swung his arm out over Morty's chest so he wouldn't fall off the table either. It took Rick a few seconds to realize the table was actually still quite grounded. There was no fear of anyone falling off. "Fuuuckk..." Rick blinked slowly as he turned to face his grandson, who was still unconscious next to him.

Whatever sort of high this was, it seemed to come on really slow, and then really, really fast. Rick felt exhausted. He closed his eyes and joined Morty in unconsciousness.

... ... ... ...

Morty groaned as his eyes fluttered open. For a moment, he wondered if the long ordeal he'd just been through was real life or a dream. It became apparent that it had indeed happened, however, when he was awake enough to understand where he was right now.

He wasn't in his room in his own bed. Instead, he lay against the surface of a table in the garage. Rick was very sound asleep next to him, snoring slightly and drooling. His hair was an even bigger mess than usual and his arm was draped over Morty's chest as if trying to protect his grandson from something.

As he continued lying still on the table, it occurred to Morty that he wasn't in pain anymore. Bringing his hand carefully up to his temple, he felt the spot where there had previously been a rather nasty gash along with quite a bit of half-dried, sticky blood. The injury was gone now, along with most of the blood that had come from it. His scraped up arm was healed as well. Morty stretched his leg, smiling when he felt his ankle no longer hurt either. Rick must have fixed him up while he was asleep.

For a man who so often claimed to not care about anyone, Rick sure was careful when it came to Morty. Even though Morty knew Rick was bound to hurt his feelings again probably sooner rather than later, and have him wondering if Rick ever cared about him at all, in this moment, Morty felt rather content. Rick had come to find him when he went missing, had given him his coat, protected him from harm, and mended his injuries. The other Rick hadn't cared even half as much. Morty's Rick was something special.

Morty smiled and yawned as he stared tiredly up at the garage ceiling. The exhaustion he felt now was different than what he'd felt before. He no longer felt drugged and emotionally drained. He just felt a sleepy sort of tired.

Rolling over, Morty curled up under Rick's arm as his grandfather continued lying still next to him. He was so glad to have his own Rick back. Whether the man could admit it or not, he cared about Morty. Rick obviously didn't want that to be known, but it was too late. Morty knew it. He snuggled closer. Even lying against the hard table with no pillow or blanket, Morty felt comfortable here. He felt safe.

Closing his eyes, Morty exhaled tiredly. He didn't know what he'd done right in his life, but somehow he'd ended up with the Rickest Rick of them all...

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THE END

Hope you liked it. :)

I'm still not sure if I'll upload my other Rick and Morty story. It's very violent and traumatizing and I'm really conflicted about it. For now, I'm just going to work on my Will and Grace one. You might see more Rick and Morty stuff from me in the near future. I haven't decided. I keep going back and forth - I re-read what I've written and I think "Oh, damn... This is so fucking good. I've got to show the internet..." and then I think about it more, and I think "this is really fucking dark... The internet is going to be disturbed and judge me in a bad way..." I don't know if it'll ever see the light of day... I'm so damn conflicted. It's possibly simultaneously the worst and best fanfiction I've ever written. I'm fairly certain a lot of people would really, really not like it... but I'm also quite certain a lot of people really, really would like it... I don't know what to do with it... We'll see...