Chapter 30: The Ghost of a Mother

The silence on the suburban street was so thick it seemed to have its own weight. Rick's question—"Why do you know that name?"—was not a shout, but a deadly whisper that demanded an answer. His entire family watched, paralyzed. They had seen their father/grandfather face gods and destroy civilizations with a sarcastic joke, but they had never seen him so... naked. The name "Diane" had stripped Rick Sanchez of his armor of nihilism, laying bare the raw core of pain beneath.

Kaelen, feeling everyone's gaze on him, took a deep breath. The truth was all he had left.

"I don't know how it's possible," Kaelen began, his voice a low, sincere murmur. "I can only tell you what I know. My life, before I woke up on Naboo, was in a different universe. On a planet called Earth."

"Yeah, yeah, the ghost in the machine story, skip that part," Rick snapped, though his voice lacked its usual bite. It sounded... fragile. "Get to the point. Diane."

Kaelen nodded, his thoughts drifting back to a life that seemed like a distant dream. "My mother, Diane Ror, was a single mother. I never knew my father. She always said he was a scientist, the smartest man she'd ever met, but that he was... inconstant." A small, sad smile touched Kaelen's face. "She said he was a man who loved the stars more than he could love any person on Earth. He left before I was born."

Beth gave an almost inaudible gasp. Jerry looked at her, confused.

"Describe her," Rick ordered, his voice a low growl, almost a plea.

Kaelen closed his eyes for an instant, visualizing the face that only existed in his memories.

"She was... blonde," he said, opening his eyes and looking at Rick. "She almost always wore her hair in a ponytail, like she was ready to roll up her sleeves and fix an engine at any moment. She had the warmest smile I've ever seen... but her eyes were sharp. They saw right through any lie."

The flask in Rick's hand trembled.

"She was brilliant," Kaelen continued, a wave of affection and sorrow in his voice. "A mind as sharp as yours. She could discuss theoretical particle physics at dinner and then teach me how to build my first toy rocket. She encouraged me to explore, to invent... but she always brought me back down to Earth."

His gaze drifted into the memory. "I remember she once told me, 'Kaelen, the universe is fascinating, but don't lose yourself in it. Real life, the people you love, that's all that matters in the end.' She... she was my anchor."

The silence that followed was absolute. Kaelen had just described, with photographic precision, not only the appearance, but the very essence of Diane Sanchez. The woman who had been Rick's wife and Beth's mother.

Beth's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes welling with tears. "That... that was my mom," she whispered, her voice broken with emotion. She looked at Rick, expecting an explosion, a denial, anything.

But Rick didn't explode. He shrank.

It was an almost imperceptible movement, but for those who knew him, it was like watching a mountain collapse. His arrogance vanished, his posture slumped. The man who faced the multiverse with his middle finger raised seemed, for an instant, an old man overwhelmed by the weight of his own grief. The coincidence was too impossible, too cruel. This stranger, this anomaly bearing his genetic signature, not only knew the name of his dead wife; he carried the living memory of her personality, transmitted by a version of her from another universe.

The puzzle in Rick's mind reconfigured with a new and terrifying implication. This wasn't just a knowledge thief. This was a ghost. A living echo of the life that had been snatched from him.

Rick looked up, and the intensity in his eyes had returned, but transformed. It was no longer the anger of an inventor who had been robbed. It was the feverish obsession of a man facing a miracle and a nightmare at the same time.

He raised his portal gun, but he didn't aim it at Kaelen as a threat. He aimed it towards the garage.

"You," he said, his voice a hoarse but unbroken whisper, gesturing to Kaelen with his chin. "And your space opera wife. Inside. Now."

Padmé tensed, but Kaelen squeezed her hand, signaling her to comply. He knew the situation had shifted from potential execution to something far more complicated.

"The interrogation isn't over," Rick said, his gaze fixed on Kaelen, ignoring the rest of his own family. "It's just truly begun. And this time, you're going to tell me every detail of your pathetic life on Earth, down to the last memory you have of her."

Kaelen and Padmé, under the stunned gaze of the Smiths, walked into the garage, the most chaotic and dangerous place in that universe. They weren't being led to a prison. They were being led into the heart of Rick Sanchez's grief. And he wasn't going to let them leave until he had dissected every part of the ghost Kaelen had brought to his doorstep.