Rick and The Loud House

It was the day before Thanksgiving. Lori arrived home from work as she was talking to Bobby through a video call. "OMG, Boo-Boo Bear, I am so excited for turkey day."

"Me too." Bobby replied. "We haven't spent it with the Casagrandes in like five years. Plus, Mom doesn't have to work a Thanksgiving shift at the hospital this year."

Upon entering the house, Lori said. "Hey, Bobby, check out all the cool stuff my family's doing for Thanksgiving." She entered the dining room where Rita was setting up some decorations with some help from Rick (begrudgingly). Lori then noticed that her mom seemed rather down. "Mom, are you okay?"

"I'm fine honey. It's just..." Rita sniffled. "This will be our first Thanksgiving without Lynn Jr. No one in our family has ever missed a Thanksgiving before." She then turned to Rick. "Rick, are you sure you can't just bring Lynn back just for tomorrow?"

Rick groaned in annoyance. "I told you Rita, if the guys in charge find out Lynn left, she'll be instantly disqualified."

Rita huffed. "Well does it matter? Is this softball tournament really that important that she has to miss holidays with the family over it?"

Rick shrugged. "Hey, you know how overly competitive she gets. You really wanna ruin her dreams of being an intergalactic sports star over a holiday that's built on lies anyway?"

Rita sighed. "I guess not. I swear though, this tournament better not last until after Christmas!"

A troubled frown appeared on Lori's face which Bobby quickly noticed. "Is everything okay, Lori?"

Lori quickly gave Bobby a reassuring smile. "Oh, don't worry about it. We're fine." She then decided to quickly move on and go into the kitchen where she saw Lynn Sr., wearing an apron and chef's hat as he was cooking. "How's the turkey coming, Dad?" She asked.

Lynn Sr. laughed. "Turkeys are for amateurs, Lori-lou, I'm making a turgooseon." He and Lori then looked inside the oven where the 'turgooseon' was cooking. "A pigeon stuffed inside a goose, stuffed inside a turkey. Three times the bird, three times the deliciousness."

"Squawk! Triple homicide!" Sergio squawked as he flew by Bobby.

Lori then decided to see what was cooking in the pot. "Ooh, mashed potatoes!"

"Scram!" Both Lana and Lola shouted as they bursted out of the cupboards. Both of them were wearing sunglasses.

"Ah!" A startled Lori yelped as she fell to the floor.

Lana and Lola got out of the cupboards and went over to Lori. Both had stern expressions on their faces. "Nice try, sister, but as officers of the Feast Force, it's our job to protect this food till tomorrow." Lana explained.

"I was just-" Lori tried to explain before getting interrupted by Lola.

"We said scram!" Lori scurried off while the twins exchanged a fist bump.

Meanwhile, Bobby had walked into his own kitchen. "Babe, we got a lot cooking on our end too."

Lori smiled. "Oh, show me."

Bobby went over to a plate of tamales on the stove and picked one of them up. "Oh, I wish you could smell Abuela's famous tamales." He took a sniff of the one he was holding before Rosa opened the kitchen shutters and smacked the tamale out of his hand with her wooden spoon. "Ow!"

Rosa pointed her spoon at him. "No, Roberto, there are only enough tamales for dinner."

Carlitos then popped in next to Rosa, waving a spatula at Bobby, who yelped and fell to the floor before crawling out of the kitchen. "Abuela doesn't need guards. She's her own one-woman Feast Force." Bobby explained to Lori, who laughed in response.

Lori went back into the dining room where she saw Leni giving a pillow to Lincoln. "Here's your pass-out pillow, Lincoln."

"Oh, every year, Lincoln eats so much turkey, he falls asleep at the table and misses dessert." Lori explained to Bobby.

Lincoln smirked confidently at Lori. "But not this year. I've got a plan." He picked up a bucket of ice water. "If I start to feel sleepy, I'll just dip my head in this bucket of ice water, like so." He then dunked his head into the bucket before screaming in pain due to the cold texture. "Argh! Need a new plan!" He then ran off, throwing the bucket aside.

"Dumbass." Rick snarked, earning a glare from Lori. Rick shrugged in response. "What? Come on. You were thinking it too."

"Rick, haven't we talked about talking down to people before?" Lori reminded him.

Rick sighed. "Fine. Fine. I get it. Sorry."

Meanwhile, Bobby had entered the living room where Frida was behind an easel, ready to paint while Carlos was sat down, dressed as a yellow pepper while reading a book. "Carlos, put the book down. I need to see your eyes." Frida directed. Carlos groaned in annoyance before putting the book down.

"Tia Frida paints a family portrait every year, and this year's theme is 'Emotionally Raw Vegetables'." Bobby explained to Lori before Carlota came up behind him and put a corn costume onto his head. "Huh?"

"How's the fit?" Carlota asked.

"Uh, a little tight."

"I can make some alterations." Carlota then took the costume back from him.

Both Bobby and Lori then heard an acoustic guitar playing. "Ooh, is someone playing guitar?" Lori asked.

"That's Abuelo. He serenades the family every year at Thanksgiving." Bobby explained as he went over to Hector.

Hector raised a critical eyebrow at the sound his guitar was making. "Let me just tune my guitar. Sergio, give me a G."

"Squawk. G~." Sergio squawked as Hector attempted to tune it, only for a string to break loose.

...

Bobby then went down to show Lori what was going on in the bodega. "The Mercado does a canned food drive every year." Bobby explained as Lori could see CJ and Ronnie Anne handling the canned food.

"I call it 'Yes, we can'." CJ added.

"Very clever, CJ." Lori complimented.

Ronnie Anne put an arm around CJ. "And now that I'm joining him, we're gonna double last year's donations." She then noticed something outside. "CJ, look, it's Mr. Goldenfold. He hasn't donated yet."

"Get him!" CJ exclaimed before he and Ronnie Anne ran outside.

Lori was currently in her bedroom, sat on her bed when she heard Lisa shouting. "Wait, come back, GravyBot!"

GravyBot then entered Lori's room before approaching a rather confused Lori. "Gravy?"

"Excuse you?" GravyBot then squirted gravy onto Lori and her bed, causing her to yelp. "Gaaah!" She then glared at the robot.

Lisa then ran inside. "Apologies, first born sibling." She pushed the robot away. "Just doing a test run with GravyBot, the robot I built to ensure equal gravy distribution."

Lori raised an eyebrow at the robot. "Why does it look so much like C.O.N.R.o.Y.?"

Lisa smirked. "I may have used some parts from C.O.N.R.o.Y. to build GravyBot. Do you need assistance in cleaning up?"

Lori shook her head. "I got it." Lisa shrugged before pushing the robot out of Lori's room.

"Your Thanksgiving looks awesome, babe." Bobby complimented.

"So does yours." Lori then sighed. "I just wish we could spend it together."

"Me too."

Meanwhile, Lincoln had just left the bathroom after taping his eyelids open. "This ought to keep me awake till dessert." He said to himself before he started overhearing the conversation between Lori and Bobby.

"Sorry we haven't been able to go out as much lately." Lincoln heard Lori say before he put his ears up to the door. "It's just so hard to find the time nowadays."

Lincoln then heard Bobby sigh. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Lincoln started to feel bad for Lori. Due to her job, Bobby's new job and Lori coming with him and Rick to try and find Lynn, she and Bobby had barely much time to hang out with each other outside of school. This may call for a family meeting, Lincoln thought to himself before the tape suddenly came off. "Ow!"

...

Apart from Lori and Luna, everyone was gathered in the living room as Lincoln explained the situation to them. Once Lincoln was finished, Rita sighed. "Lori has seemed kind of down lately but what can we do?"

"We could, like, let Lori spend Thanksgiving with the Casagrandes this year." Leni suggested.

Lynn Sr. then gasped. "But what if Lori likes spending Thanksgiving there so much, she'll want to spend every Thanksgiving there? Or every holiday?"

Rick gave Lynn Sr. an unimpressed look. "Wow, don't have much faith in your own celebrations, do you? Seriously, what kind of leap in logic is that?"

An idea then came to Lincoln. "I might have a better idea. What if, just for this year, we all celebrate Thanksgiving together?"

Rick raised an eyebrow at Lincoln. "Jesus, isn't this house clustered enough as it is?"

Rita, on the other hand, started smiling. "That's actually a great idea, Lincoln." She then got out her phone. "Let me see what Bobby's family think of it."

After making the call, Rita waited for a moment before she was answered by Maria. "Hello?"

"Hey, Maria, it's me, Rita. I was wondering, since Lori and Bobby haven't been able to spend much time together lately, what if we all spent Thanksgiving together?"

Maria's eyes widened as she was also aware of how little the time spent between Lori and Bobby had been lately. "Ooh, hang on. Let me see what everyone else thinks."

Maria then entered the living room where everyone was gathered. "Mom, what's going on?" Bobby asked.

"The Louds called to ask if we'd like them to spend Thanksgiving together with us."

Bobby gasped. "That's a great idea!"

Hector smiled. "We'd be happy to host the Louds here. We certainly have enough food here for them."

Rosa raised an eyebrow at Hector. "I wouldn't say that." She then smiled at Maria. "But I'd be happy to cook for the Louds as well."

Maria smiled as she talked to Rita again. "We just discussed it and we'd be honoured to host your family here this Thanksgiving."

Rita's smile then disappeared. "Oh...well...actually, we were thinking of hosting your family at our home."

Upon everyone hearing this, both families then started arguing about who should be hosting who until Rick spoke up. "For Christ's sake, just flip a coin or something! Jesus!"

Maria then got out a coin from her purse. "Bobby, do you want to call this?" She asked before flipping the coin into the air.

"Heads! No, wait, uh, tails! Uh, uh, heads! Yep, definitely heads." Bobby stammered.

The coin landed in Maria's palm. She sighed as she saw the results. "It's tails." The Louds cheered while the Casagrandes looked somewhat disappointed.

Carl folded his arms. "Of course this one would call heads."

...

Once the meeting had concluded, Rick and Lincoln decided to pay Luna a visit. She had been rather despondent ever since the incident with Sam and had spent most of her time sulking in her room since. Lincoln knocked on the door. A moment later, he and Rick heard a sigh before Luna said. "Come in." They entered her room to see her lying on her bunk bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Her appearance had changed a bit since the incident. Her pixie cut was now even shorter while she let bangs grow out a bit and she was now wearing black ripped jeans instead of her usual skirt. She also appeared to be wearing purple eyeliner.

"Are you okay, Luna?" Lincoln asked.

Luna shrugged, still staring up at the ceiling. "'Bout as much as I can be. What's up?"

"We just want to tell you that the Casagrandes are gonna be spending Thanksgiving with us this year."

"Cool."

"So, does this mean you'll be joining us tomorrow?"

Luna was silent for a moment before replying. "Sure."

Lincoln sighed, deciding that it's probably best to leave her alone as he left the room. Rick stayed behind, giving Luna a sympathetic look. "You know, you really didn't need to do this to yourself. You didn't have to tell your girlfriend what happened. In fact, you still have the option to take it back. I could go over, wipe her memory right now and put everything back to normal."

Luna sighed before jumping down from her bunk to speak with Rick, face to face. "Rick, it doesn't matter that I could've gotten away with it. I still feel bad about doing it in the first place. I tried to do something horrible to her and I can't ever take it back. I needed to be honest with her and if she didn't like that then there's no way we could work together. Maybe I'd be better off if I was like you and didn't care. But even if nothing really mattered, Sam still mattered to me."

Rick sighed. "Look, I get it but you know there's infinite Sams, right?"

Luna narrowed her eyes. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? She's still Sam isn't she? You said that we didn't lose anything when we moved universes right? If that's the case then it doesn't change the fact that I wronged her. Even you said what I did was wrong."

Rick was starting to feel frustrated. "So what? This Sam didn't remember any of that. You're just punishing yourself for no reason. You don't have to do this."

Luna turned away. "Yeah. I do. I'm not gonna hide things from Sam. If she hates me for what I did then so be it."

Rick stared at Luna for a moment, unsure what to say. "Alright well...I guess if this is what'll make you happy then." He then left her room, deciding to drop it as he probably wasn't the best person to get advice about this situation anyway. This was why as far as he was concerned, attachments like this caused nothing but trouble. They cause people to act completely irrational.

And they caused unnecessary pain.

...

Apart from Bobby, all of the Casagrandes were having a family meeting in the living room. "What are we going to do?" A panicky Frida asked. "If Bobby likes having Thanksgiving with the Louds so much, he might want to spend every Thanksgiving there!"

A determined look appeared on Rosa's face. "Nonsense. The Louds may have won the battle, but we will win the war. We just need to bring our Thanksgiving to them."

"If we show Bobby and Lori that we do Thanksgiving better than the Louds, they'll want to spend it with us next year." Maria added.

"And every year after that." Hector continued.

Ronnie Anne nodded. "Yeah! Watch out, Louds, 'cause it's on!"

...

The next day, as everyone in the Loud house was preparing for the Casagrandes' visit, they all heard a horn honking as the Casagrandes' van pulled up outside their house. Lori gasped as she ran down the stairs. "It's the Casagrandes!" The whole family gathered around her as she opened the door.

"Hi, I'm CJ." CJ greeted before lifting up his bag. "Do you have any cans?"

Frida chuckled. "Also, happy Thanksgiving."

Everyone from both families exchanged greetings with each other as the Casagrandes stepped inside. Lori went over to hug Bobby. "Boo-Boo Bear!"

"Hey, Babe." Bobby greeted before Lori led him inside, following the everyone else into the house.

Ronnie Anne gave Lincoln a playful, light punch on the arm. "Punk."

"Loser." Lincoln gave her one back before the two followed everyone else, leaving only Rita, Lynn Sr. and Rick standing at the door as Rosa came in, carrying a dish.

Upon noticing Rick, Rosa's smile disappeared from her face. "Oh. Hello Rick." She greeted in an icy tone.

Rita raised an eyebrow. "Did something happen between you two?"

Rosa scowled. "Oh nothing much. I only invited him around for dinner, only for him to suddenly disappear after going out for some 'fresh air'."

Rick shrugged. "Hey, look, sorry about that but something came up. These things happen, you know?"

"You could've at least said something!" Rosa argued.

Rita gave Rick a pointed look. "Yeah, Rick sometimes has a problem with telling people what it is he actually does."

Rosa humphed before brightening up. "Well anyway, I know you said not to bring anything but I didn't want to be rude and show up empty handed."

Lynn Sr. waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, please, I think we can make room for one little dish."

Rosa smirked before shouting at something behind her. "ALRIGHT, BACK IT UP, BOYS!"

Lynn Sr., Rita and Rick's eyes all widened as a moving truck carrying a ton of dishes that Rosa had made then backed up onto the driveway. "Don't worry, honey, there's no way they're gonna upstage your meal." Rita reassured Lynn Sr..

The mover then entered the house, carrying an unroasted pig, much to Lynn Sr.'s shock. "Hi, this is a pig on a spit. Where would you like it?"

"Kitchen." Both Lynn Sr. and Rita replied.

Bobby entered the dining room, admiring the decorations. "Wow, look at this place. It's so festive, Mrs. L."

Rita laughed as she came into the dining room. "Well, Bobby, we Louds go all out for Thanksgiving."

Frida then stepped in between them, smirking at Rita. "These store-bought decorations are nice, Rita. Though as a professional artist..." Frida quickly set up an easel and placed an unrevealed painting onto it. "I prefer the handmade touch." She revealed her painting which appeared to be a bunch of vegetables with the Casagrandes' heads on them. Lori and Bobby were in the centre.

"Awww. You made Bobby and me two peas in a pod. That's so sweet." Lori gushed.

"And the room feels more personal." Frida added.

Rick then entered the dining room. "Hey, has anyone seen my-" His eyes widened once he noticed the painting. "Yikes. That looks horrendous. Did you guys pay for that? You should probably ask for a refund."

Frida let out an offended gasp. "Excuse me?! I painted this myself!"

"Oh. Sorry then. Probably shouldn't have given you the benefit of the doubt." Rick then walked off, leaving a fuming Frida while Lori let out a disappointed sigh.

...

As both families waited for dinner to be ready, most of them were waiting in the living room, taking the opportunity to get acquainted with each other. "Squawk! Why did I have to come here?" Sergio asked. "I hate Thanksgiving!"

"Ok, I'm not the only one weirded out by the talking parrot, right?" Rick asked out loud. "I-Is it just me?"

Meanwhile, Leni and Carlota were in the middle of a conversation. "So you, like, knit your own stuff too?" Leni asked.

Carlota chuckled. "Yeah. I'm kind of a fashion expert."

Leni gasped. "Me too! We have, like, so much in common!"

CJ was watching TV when Lucy approached him. "You're CJ, right?"

CJ turned to give her a friendly smile. "Yep. That's me."

This reaction surprised Lucy somewhat. "Huh. Usually people jump in fear when I try talking to them."

"Pfft. You don't scare me!" CJ said confidently.

"Oh really?" Lucy asked, now smirking. "Why don't you come with me then? I might be able to show you something really scary."

CJ grinned. "You're on!"

While CJ and Lucy went upstairs, Carl decided to take a seat on the couch next to Lola. He tried to put on a confident smile. "Sup, babe?"

Lola gave Carl an unimpressed look. "Excuse me?"

Carl then heard Ronnie Anne clearing her throat. He looked to see her shaking her head disapprovingly. Realising where he went wrong, he then said to Lola. "Uh, what I meant to say was...hey, I'm Carl."

Lola raised an eyebrow. "Lola."

There was an awkward silence for a moment before Carl spoke again. "Sooo, I heard you like...dancing?"

Lola sighed. "Why are you even talking to me? You know I'm the girl that turned into a demon on live TV, right? You probably wouldn't want to be seen hanging around me."

Carl shrugged. "Well, so what? I don't really care. Turning into a demon sounds kinda cool, actually."

Lola's eyes widened for a moment before letting out a chuckle. "Trust me, it wasn't exactly cool at the time."

"How did that even happen?" Carl asked.

"Well..." Lola started as she told Carl the events that led up to what happened.

...

"Dinner!" Rita called out as everyone then came into the dining room. "There they are!" Rita exclaimed upon noticing Lori and Bobby come in before Lynn Sr. imitated a trumpet playing. Lori and Bobby gave each other puzzled looks.

"Lori, Bobby, we saved you a spot." Hector said, offering the two seats with the rest of the Casagrandes.

"No, we saved you a spot." Lincoln countered, offering the two seats with the rest of the Louds.

"Um, how about we sit in the middle?" Lori said as she and Bobby sat in between both families.

Lynn Sr. then went over to put some food on their plates. "Here, try my turkey skin-infused stuffing. You're gonna love it."

Rosa then went over to do the same thing. "But first, try my tamales. I added an extra kick."

Lynn Sr. chuckled condescendingly. "An extra kick, that's cute. They don't want heat, they want sweet." He then picked up another dish and continued piling food onto Lori and Bobby's plates. "Here, kids, taste my marshmallow covered potatoes."

"Feh, how do you know what they want?" Rosa then picked up another dish and did the same thing. "They're clearly craving my homemade shredded turkey mole."

Lynn Sr. and Rosa continued piling food onto Lori and Bobby's plates, glaring and growling at each other as they did so. Eventually, Lori and Bobby could barely see past the mountain of food in front of them. Rick gave both of them an annoyed look. "God, does every chef have an inferiority complex?"

Lori then suddenly stood up. "Rick, could I talk to you in private for a sec?"

Rick sighed as he got up and followed Lori out of the dining room. "What is it?" Rick asked irritably.

Lori folded her arms. "Look, my family's already acting weird enough today, you don't need to make it worse."

Rick shrugged. "Honestly, I don't see how this could get much worse.

Lori pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, you said that you'd try to be better right? Why don't you start by just not letting today turn into an adventure or a huge drama. I just want to spend Thanksgiving normally today. Is that too much to ask?"

Part of Rick couldn't help but turn his nose up at the idea of doing something so regular but on the other hand, he could still see Lori's point. "Guess not."

"Then please, if you don't have anything nice to say, then just don't say anything at all."

Meanwhile as Lori and Rick were talking, Sergio flew into the dining room. Feeling annoyed and disgusted by the whole Thanksgiving experience, he decided to take out his frustrations on Bobby. As Bobby was about to eat a tamale, Sergio suddenly snatched it from him. "Hey! That's mine."

Sergio chuckled as Bobby got up and began chasing him. Maria started to get concerned. "Oh dear. Kids, could any of you go after them? I don't want Bobby to accidentally hurt himself."

"I'll do it." CJ said as he got up and followed after Bobby.

Realising how dangerous the Loud house could actually be, considering Rick lived here, Ronnie Anne decided to get up and follow them. "I better make sure they don't get hurt too."

Wanting to join in, Carl got up to follow them as well. "Me too!"

Carlota sighed and decided to get up and follow after Carl. "I'll make sure Carl doesn't get himself into trouble."

"Give that back!" Bobby shouted as he followed Sergio into the garage. "Whoa!" Bobby then tripped over some kind of hatch door on the ground. Upon recovering from his fall, both he and Sergio stared at the door in curiosity. "What the?"

"Bobby, are you okay?" Ronnie Anne asked as she and CJ ran into the garage.

"I'm fine." Bobby said as he got up. "But I think I found some kind of secret door." He then snatched the tamale back from Sergio. Sergio responded by hissing at him, causing him to flinch.

Carl then entered the garage. His curiosity had piqued upon hearing the conversation. "A secret door? Do you think it leads to a secret lab or something?"

Carlota then entered, looking somewhat nervous. "Guys, I don't think we're supposed to be in here."

"Squawk! What are ya? Chicken?" Sergio taunted.

"Yeah, I wanna see the secret lab!" Carl exclaimed before running over and opening the hatch.

"Me too!" CJ exclaimed as he followed after Carl.

"Guys, I don't really think this is a good idea." Ronnie Anne argued. Her warnings were ignored as Carl and CJ climbed down the hatch while Sergio flew down into Rick's secret area. Ronnie Anne, Bobby and Carlota gave each other unsure glanced before deciding to follow them.

...

The Casagrande kids and Sergio eventually found themselves in a large, circular room filled with vials across the room. There also appeared to be a large computer. "What is this place?" Bobby asked out loud.

"This is kinda creepy." Carlota remarked.

Upon taking a closer look at the vials, Ronnie Anne noticed that each of them had a name labelled on them. Most of them had the Loud siblings' names on them (though there didn't seem to be many with Lucy's name) though she also noticed a couple names of people around town. "What are these things? Why do they all have names on them?"

CJ picked one of them up. "This one has Bobby's name on it."

"What are you even supposed to do with these?" Carl asked.

CJ looked around for a second before noticing a hole under the computer monitor that looked just the right size for the vial to fit in. "I know!" He went over and inserted the vial into the computer. The monitor turned on as a video started playing.

...

Bobby was dressed in his mall cop uniform. He was carrying a shrimp platter back to the mall cop captain after being ordered to get it for him. Upon returning to where the captain was however, he froze in shock as he saw the captain unconscious on the floor, the inmates out of their cells and a strange bird man and cat thing in the room. "Hell yeah, I'm down to squanch!" The cat said.

"I suppose it could be enjoyable." The bird man then said.

"Uh, what about him?" Clyde asked, pointing towards the captain.

Rick shrugged. "Eh. Nothing a bit of memory wiping can't fix."

"Uhh..." Bobby then said as he gaped at the site before him. He then got nervous as everyone's attention was now on him.

Rick groaned in annoyance. "Speaking of memory wiping." He then got out some kind of device.

Frightened, Bobby then dropped the shrimp platter and tried to make a run for it. He didn't get far before he was suddenly tackled to the floor. "Get off me!" Bobby shouted.

Bobby struggled, trying to escape but Rick managed to hold him down. "Relax kid, this will all be over soon." Rick then fired the memory wiper into Bobby's face. There was a flash of light before the video turned off.

...

Everyone stared at the screen in shock apart from Bobby, who gasped in realisation. "So that's how I ended up blacking out back then."

"You don't remember?" Ronnie Anne asked.

"No." Bobby then held his chin in thought. "All these vials must be people's memories!"

There was a moment of silence as everyone let this sink in before Sergio squawked. "Let's play another one then!"

"You guys sure we should really be looking at these?" Carlota said nervously. "We shouldn't even be down here."

Ronnie Anne frowned. "Maybe we should. Who knows what kind of secrets that Rick could be hiding."

Sergio had flown over and picked up another vial to give to Ronnie Anne. This one had Lana's name on it. Ronnie Anne inserted into the machine and another video started playing.

...

This memory seemed to have happened all the way back at the previous winter, as evident by the snowy weather. The Loud siblings were at the Burpin' Burger, sat around a table looking rather full. There had a been a contest there where anyone that found a burger with a tire mark wrapper got to be an honorary member of famous racer, Bobbie Fletcher's pit crew. After three rounds of burgers, Lana finally got lucky. "Ew! Someone wrapped my burger in this dirty old rag!" Leni said as she held the winning wrapper away from her.

Upon seeing this, Lana was overflowed with joy. "LENI! YOU FOUND IT! YOU FOUND IT!" Lana took the wrapper, laughing mirthfully.

"Finally." The cashier said as he put on his bike helmet and began to close shop.

Lana laughed some more. "Finding this wrapper means the world to me! Thanks for all your help, guys."

Everyone smiled, happy for Lana. "Alright, now let's get home so I can let 'em rip in privacy." Lynn said, causing Lucy to gag.

"Can I bunk with you guys tonight?" Lucy asked Luna and Luan.

As the siblings were about to leave, Leni opened the door, only to walk into a pile of snow, causing everyone to gasp. "Oops. This must be the closet where they keep their snow."

"No, Leni. We're snowed in." Lincoln stated.

"Aw, man. Are we gonna be stuck here all night?" Luna asked.

The cashier then came up with his bike, only to be devastated upon hearing the news. "No! I just worked a twelve hour shift! I can't take another second in this greasy dungeon!" He attempted to cycle through the snow, only to get stuck. The siblings pulled him out and sat him down.

"Sorry, buddy, there's snow way out!" Luan joked to the cashier who began to cry in response.

Suddenly, everyone heard a loud engine outside followed by tires screeching and a thud. The snow then came down as a short, overweight, elderly man with a grey moustache came into the restaurant. "Guess who just earned a bunch of cheddar digging stranded suckers out of the snow?" Flip said as he held out his money. "Lay a dozen burgers on me, bicycle boy!"

"You can save your cheddar. I already found the winning wrapper." Lana said smugly.

"What?! Bull hockey!" Flip exclaimed angrily. "That baby was gonna make me a fortune! I'm out!"

"Flip wait!" Lincoln shouted as Flip started to leave. "Can you give us a ride home? We're stuck here."

Flip smirked. "Stuck, are ya? I can help you out...for a price. Let's say, uh, I don't know...one winning wrapper?"

"What? No way!" Lana exclaimed before turning to her siblings. "Guys, we worked so hard for this. I'll get us home, I promise!"

Flip shrugged. "Suit yourself, but this offer expires the second that door hits my keister."

The cashier then frantically latched onto Flip. "Wait! I'll give you anything! My employee discount!"

"Throw in a jumbo sack of curly fries and you got a deal!"

The cashier ran back to grab a sack before jumping outside. "I'm free!"

"Catch ya on the Flip side!" Flip said to the siblings before leaving.

"Well, I hope you know what you're doing, Lana, because I am literally not sleeping on hamburger wrappers." Lori stated.

"No worries." Lana reassured her. "Flip's truck cleared the path, so we just need to make it to Vanzilla."

However, out of spite, Flip backed his truck up into the restaurant, causing more snow to fall down blocking the way again. "Whoops!"

As the siblings groaned, Rick, who had been in the bathroom the whole time, finally left. "Yeesh, whatever's in those burgers did not agree with me." He then noticed the restaurant was snowed in while the siblings were looking down. "Hey, what happened?"

"We're snowed in!" Lincoln exclaimed.

Lola glared at Lana. "We could have gotten a lift out of here from Flip if Lana had just given him the winning wrapper."

"Wait, wait, hold on, you're telling me Flip try to extort Lana's winning wrapper in exchange for saving us from getting stuck in here?"

Lana frowned. "Yeah and when I said no, he ran his truck into the restaurant to make sure we were stuck in here."

Rick stared at Lana in surprise for a moment. "Holy shit, what an asshole!"

Lori glared at Rick. "You know, I really wish you'd stop swearing in front of our younger siblings."

"What are we even supposed to do now?" Lynn asked. "We're stuck in here!"

"Uh, you guys remember that I have this, right?" Rick asked as he got out his portal gun.

Lori sighed. "Oh right. You could just portal us out of here." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I swear, I am never going to get used to all this sci-fi junk."

...

After dropping off the cashier, Flip was driving down the road before hitting the breaks once he saw Rick and the Loud siblings stood in the middle of the road. He then got out of his truck to confront Rick. "Hey, what's the big idea?! Gah!"

Rick got out a freeze ray and fired at Flip, freezing him in a block of ice. "Dick."

"Is he going to be okay?" Lori asked.

"He'll be fine." Rick said as he leaned against the block of ice. "He'll thaw out in a few hours or more. Whoa." Leaning against the block of ice caused it to tip over before shattering on the floor, along with Flip. The siblings stared at the pieces of ice with Flip's body parts in them before screaming in horror.

...

"Squawk! That's messed up!" Sergio squawked once the video ended.

"So that's what happened to Flip!" Bobby remarked.

Carlota stared at the screen in horror. "Rick killed someone?! Sh-shouldn't we call the police?"

Bobby scratched the back of his head. "To be fair, Flip was kind of a criminal. And a pretty big jerk."

"I don't know if the police could even do anything to Rick." Ronnie Anne said as she went to look for another memory. Her attention was then drawn to a glass box with a lock on it. Inside were two memory vials. One was labelled Lisa. The other was labelled Rick. "Wonder what happened in these memories."

CJ went over to take a look. "They must be pretty bad if they're locked up like that."

"Yeah..." Ronnie Anne couldn't help but shudder. She then decided to pick up a vial with Lincoln's name on it. "I wonder what Rick's made Lincoln forget about." She went over to the computer and inserted the vial.

...

Rick was giving Lincoln another flying lesson in his cruiser. This lesson involved flying over towns. Instead of flying over their own town though, they were currently in alternate universe where people had yellow skin instead of white and were currently flying over a town called Springfield. "Remember Lincoln. The key is to not only look where you're going but to also be aware of how high or low you're flying. You don't wanna go too low."

"How come we're doing this here instead of flying over Royal Woods?" Lincoln asked.

"Oh this is just so there's no real consequences if you crash and accidentally kill someone or something."

Lincoln stared at Rick in shock. "Wait what? I don't want to put people's lives at risk like that."

Rick's eyes widened. "Lincoln, watch where you're going!"

Lincoln looked forward, only to scream as he crashed into someone's house due to flying too low. After Lincoln and Rick recovered from the crash, the two got out into the living room to see yellow splatters on the floor. "Oh my God, Lincoln, what did you do, you killed the Simpsons, Lincoln!" Rick exclaimed.

Lincoln stared at the yellow splatters in horror. "I-I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"

Rick pointed at one of the splatters. "Oh God, look at the baby one, oh my God, Lincoln. You killed the entire Simpsons, Lincoln. They're a beloved family, Lincoln! They're-They're-They're-They're-They're a national treasure and you killed them. They've been on the air for thirty two years, Lincoln. They make your five years look like nothing!"

"What are you even talking about?!" A distressed Lincoln asked.

"Don't worry about it, Lincoln, that bit won't age well in a year anyway." Rick reassured him. "Now relax, I'll take care of it." He then got out a vial and scooped up some of the yellow goo and handed it to Lincoln. He then picked up a portrait of the Simpsons hanging on the wall. "Ok, I want you to take that vial of Simpsons' goo and this picture to this address." Rick fired a portal before writing down the address on the back of the portrait and handing it to Lincoln. "They'll make us new Simpsons-you understand me, Lincoln?"

"Me?" Lincoln exclaimed. "What are you going to do?"

"I've got to clean this place up before somebody comes snooping around." Rick explained. "You know how many characters there are in The Simpsons, Lincoln? There's, like, a billion chara-characters. They did an episode where George Bush was their neighbour."

Lincoln had no idea what Rick was talking about but sighed as he decided to just go along with it. "Fine." Lincoln then went through the portal and ended up on an alien planet. He then followed the address into some kind of building.

Meanwhile, Rick decided to waste his time by rummaging through the house. He was in the kitchen eating a donut before opening the fridge and picking up a can of Duff beer. He spat out the donut before taking a sip of the beer. He frowned before getting out his flask and pouring some of the alcohol from that into the can.

After waiting in line, Lincoln was eventually served by a garblovian. "Agah blahg blahg?" The garblovian asked before Lincoln handed him the vial and the portrait. He put some glasses on to get a good look at the portrait while Lincoln grinned nervously.

After rummaging through the son's room, Rick then rummaged through the daughter's room, stuffing whatever he wanted into his pockets. He also tried on a necklace he found, checking himself out in the mirror.

The garblovian connected the vial onto a machine that resembled a printer before scanning the portrait on it. More yellow goo then filled up some kind of injector before the garblovian picked it up and went over to an odd, cow-like alien.

"Hi-diddly-ho, neighbour!" A bespectacled, moustached man, wearing a green sweater greeted as he came into the house through the hole in the wall. "Looks like you got a spaceship in your..." The man paused once he noticed Rick. "Who are you?" Rick got out a freeze ray and fired it at the man, freezing him in a block of ice before he proceeded to play a saxophone he had found.

The garblovian came back to Lincoln, handing him a black bag full of strange, alien eggs. He returned to the Simpsons' home through the same portal to find Rick asleep on the couch. Lincoln gave him an annoyed look. "Seriously? Rick, wake up!"

Rick's eyes snapped open as he quickly got up. "Geez, it's about time, Lincoln. Give me those!" He took the bag from Rick and emptied the eggs out onto the couch. He then turned the room temperature up to 110 AC. Lincoln then watched in horror as the eggs slowly hatched and formed a new family of Simpsons. Though something seemed to have gone wrong as the Simpsons resembled Rick for some reason. "Huh, wow. Hey, Lincoln, a little tip. Don't clean DNA vials with your spit!" Rick then shrugged. "Ah well, it's no big deal. The Simpsons were pretty much zombies at this point anyway." Rick then noticed Lincoln staring at the 'Simpsons' with a disturbed look on his face. "This is something you probably want to forget, isn't it?"

...

Once the video ended, the Casagrandes all stared at the screen in confusion. "What the heck even was that?" Carl asked.

Bobby scratched his head. "How did we even see what was happening with Rick?"

Carlota shook her head. "You know what, I don't think I want to think too hard about that one." She then picked up another memory vial. This one also had Lincoln's name on it. "Let's just see what this one is." She went over and inserted it into the computer.

...

Rick took a seat next to Lincoln on the couch while he was playing a video game. Rick noticed on the screen that there appeared to be what looked like an anime teenager with spiky hair, wearing a way over the top outfit that involved way too many belts and carrying some kind of sword that was shaped like a key. The anime character also appeared to be talking to a cartoon hippo. "Onto the next dominion, my cartoon pal." The anime character said. "We have 459 more Dream Balls to coalesce."

"What is this shit?" Rick asked.

"I'm playing Imagine Balls." Lincoln explained. "It's a game where-"

"I know what Imagine Balls is." Rick interrupted. "Your beloved 'cartoon crossover' is nothing but a desperate byproduct of late stage capitalism! It lazily strings together a bunch of dead but still very copyrighted intellectual properties to goose nostalgia and distract you from society's inevitable collapse. I've seen it on a thousand planets. First, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, next thing you know, you're riding dune buggies to scour the continent for its last source of water."

Lincoln glared at Rick. "Do you seriously have to try and ruin everything I enjoy? Ugh, just forget it." Lincoln then got up in a huff and went upstairs, leaving the game on.

Once Lincoln left, Rick raised an eyebrow at the TV. "Is that Heff Hippo? Man, they must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel." Out of curiosity, Rick then picked up the controller. "How do you even play this shit anyway?"

...

About two hundred hours later and Rick was still playing the game in the middle of the night. "I'm finally here!" Rick exclaimed. "The Divine Chapel of Dominion! Fuck yes!"

Rick was now watching a cutscene where the main character, Aros, was now talking with Ebenezer Scrooge. "Welcome Ball Master." Scrooge greeted. "Now you have earned the Wisdom of Elders."

"And what is that, Ebenezer Scrooge?" Aros asked.

"Friendship. Family. Cosplay."

Rick's eyes widened in realisation. "Of course. It all makes sense..."

Scrooge continued. "These are what TRULY matter. To hurt those close to us is the greatest crime against balls. I will explain more in the next game!"

Rick stared at the screen as the credits started rolling. "Lincoln was right about this transcendent piece of art all along. How can I, uh, make it up to him?" An idea quickly came to Rick as he got out his phone and looked up 'Totally sick Imagine Balls cosplay'.

...

Lincoln was asleep in his bed when Rick's voice caused him to slowly wake up. "Wake up, little Linky...Grandpa Rick's got a surprise for you."

Lincoln's eyes slowly opened, only to widen with shock as he saw Rick doing the absolute last thing he would've ever expected Rick to do. "WHAT THE?!"

Rick was dressed up as the main character of Imagine Balls and had even made a makeshift keyblade, which he was carrying as he stood over Lincoln's bed. "It was amazing Lincoln! I fought alongside my favourite characters from all the movies that used to air on basic cable! Then I bought the DLC pass and got to play through all the racist movies that used to air on premium cable!"

Lincoln continued to stare at Rick in shock. "I-I don't understand!"

"Imagine Balls, you idiot!" Rick snapped. "I'm into it now. Maybe the most into it." He then got out two con passes. "That's why I made these dope outfits 'cos I love to cos'! We're going to the rust belt anime and pinball expo baybeeee! I heard they're going to announce Imagine Balls 3.14159265359/0 there!"

Lincoln continued staring at Rick in frozen shock. His mind was unable to comprehend the idea that Rick would not only get into Imagine Balls but also love it so much that he would choose to cosplay as one of its characters. Rick noticed this as the smile disappeared from his face. "Well, this memory's definitely a wipe."

...

Ronnie Anne tilted her head once the video ended. "Rick likes Imagine Balls?"

"Squawk! What a nerd!" Sergio squawked.

...

Back in the dining room, both families had gone quiet and had concentrated more on eating since Bobby had left. Rick sulked quietly as he ate. He honestly hated doing things that were so normal and average. Though, one could argue having Thanksgiving with two massive families wasn't that normal. He supposed there was that. Still, if he could've left in his cruiser and flown to an alien planet to have an adventure, he would've much rather done that than stay here. What did Lori even see in this kind of stuff? "So, Rick." Carlos started. "I must admit, I'm rather curious about the idea of alternate universes. Could you tell me more about them?"

Rick raised an eyebrow, surprised that any of the Casagrandes would be interested in something that wasn't boring. "Well for starters, in case you didn't know, there's infinite alternate universes. Every single possibility that could exist, does."

Carlos held his chin in thought. "Fascinating. Uh, does that mean there's even universes where our family could be, say, living on the moon?"

"Carlos, there's universes where you literally are the moon. The possibilities are only limited to your imagination. Hell, recently, I went over to a universe where everyone that died in the past year was still alive but everyone else was dead."

"My goodness. The odds of that happening must have been insane!"

Rick nodded. "Oh, they were. The odds of a universe that specific are a billion to one. Though I suppose every specific universe is a billion in one."

"I'd love to visit one sometime." Carlos admitted.

Rick shrugged. "Eh, they're not all great. You could go to a universe where you're married to someone you don't even know and have a completely different family. Those can make you question your life choices. Then there's universes where you're way more successful than you are now. Or ones where you're a king or President or something." Rick started to frown. "Then, the more universes you see, the more you start to realise how minuscule and unimportant your own existence is."

At that last point, there was an awkward silence until Carlos eventually broke it. "Uh...you know, I've always wondered how time travel works. Does going to the past and changing it create an alternate timeline? Or would doing that completely erase everything that happened?"

Rick shrugged. "Depending on how you do it, it could go either way."

"Uh, what happened to Bobby and the others?" Rosa spoke up. "They've been gone for a while now."

Rick groaned and got up, realising that they may have gotten into his stuff. "I'll go look for them."

...

"I wonder what Rick's made Lori forget." Bobby pondered as he picked up a memory vial with Lori's name on it and inserted it into the machine.

The first thing the Casagrandes saw was what looked like a date between Lori and Bobby at some kind of restaurant. "Oh Bobby Boo-Boo Bear!" Lori gushed. "This is the most romantic date I've ever been on!"

Bobby smiled charmingly. "Anything for you, babe. I just have one question for you."

"What is it?"

The smile turned into a grin. "Could you take me to see your sister, Luna?"

"W-What?"

Suddenly, to the Casagrandes' horror, the Bobby in the memory mutated into some kind of insectoid monster. Lori screamed in horror as everyone around her also turned into monsters. She attempted to escape, only for all of them to surround. Lori could do nothing but scream as all the monsters swarmed her.

What the Casagrandes had just seen was just a dream as they then saw Lori wake up in a cold sweat. She took some shallow breaths before getting up and almost running out of her room and down the stairs. Lori then ran into the garage where Rick was awake, working on something. "How could you do this to us?!" Lori practically screamed at him.

Rick turned to her, raising an eyebrow at her. "Do what?"

"You-You ruined our lives! I thought it was bad enough that you'd do something like put a theme park inside Bobby's sister but you just had to top that, didn't you?"

"There's a WHAT inside me?!" Ronnie Anne screeched as the others watched in horror.

"Did you have a nightmare or something?" Rick asked.

Lori ignored his question and kept going. "Do you even care that everyone we knew turned into bug monsters? I thought I'd be fine just pretending that nothing happened and that we didn't just move to a different universe where that never happened but how am I supposed to forget something like that?!"

"Another universe...wait, the Lori I know isn't the same as the one I met?!" Bobby asked out loud.

Rick groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Really should have seen this coming. My bad. Don't worry, Lori, I can fix this." Rick then got out his memory wiping device.

Lori took a step back. "W-What are you doing?"

"Don't worry, Lori. I'm going to make sure you and your siblings don't have any more nightmares like these. Now go back to sleep." Rick then fired the memory wiper at her.

Even after the video ended, everyone was staring at the screen in shock. "Dios mío..." Carlota muttered.

"Seriously?!" Everyone then turned around to see Rick was behind them. All of them then nervously stepped away from him. "You guys seriously had to find the worst memory here, didn't you?"

"Y...You actually built a theme park inside me?" Ronnie Anne asked.

"What is wrong with you?!" Carl snapped.

"I thought you were cool but you're crazy!" CJ exclaimed.

"How could you do this kind of stuff to your own grandkids?" Carlota asked.

"Squawk! You're messed in the head!" Sergio squawked.

"Is Lori really not the same one I once knew?" Bobby asked, not wanting to believe what he heard.

Rick's eyes widened. He didn't really care what they thought of him but he couldn't help but think of Luna and how Sam reacted when she found out the truth. And what that ended up doing to Luna. "Yeah, you kids have heard too much. Don't worry though, none of you will remember this anyway." He then got out his memory wiper.

Seeing this, the Casagrandes tried to back away from Rick though there was no where to go. "Y-You can't do this!" Ronnie Anne cried out.

"Trust me, I can." Rick countered.

"You're a monster!"

Rick let out a deep sigh as he aimed the memory wiper at them. "Yep."

...

"Found 'em." Rick said as he came back into the dining room with the Casagrande kids. All of them had dazed looks on their faces.

"Are you okay?" Lincoln asked Ronnie Anne as she took a seat.

"I dunno." Ronnie Anne said as she rubbed her eyes. "I think I blacked out or something."

Upon hearing this, Lori glared at Rick. "Rick, can I talk to you in private again?" Rick groaned as he followed Lori out of the room. Once they were out of earshot, she asked. "Ok, what happened?"

Rick sighed. "I'm gonna be straight with you Lori. Sometimes I overestimate what you guys can handle on our adventures. So to make sure you guys don't end up completely traumatised, I use a memory wiper to make you forget all that messed up stuff. Unfortunately your friends stumbled upon the room where I keep those memories and saw some stuff they shouldn't have so I had to make them forget that happened."

Lori frowned. "So you just wipe our memories without our permission?"

Rick shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by that. A lot of the time, you guys are practically begging for a memory wipe. Besides, who cares? You can't exactly be mad or upset by something you can't even remember."

As much as Lori wanted to argue against him, admittedly, Rick did make a fair point there in her opinion. She didn't know how her siblings would feel about this but she personally would have preferred forgetting about all the messed up stuff that happened to her. "Alright, fine but wouldn't doing something like that cause brain damage or something?"

Rick scoffed. "Maybe if an amateur made it, it would. This is me you're talking about. It's one hundred percent safe. Granted I've never used it on a parrot before but since he's such an anomaly anyway, he'll probably be fine. Besides, you saw what happened to Luna, right? You don't want to end up like her, do you?"

Lori winced. "I...guess not."

"Well, then there you go." Rick said before going back into the dining room. A conflicted Lori soon followed after him. A part of her wondering if this was okay and another part of her wondering if someone like Rick could really change.

Once Lori took her seat back next to Bobby, he could instantly tell something was getting her down. "Are you okay, babe?"

Lori sighed. "Sorry, Boo-Boo Bear. Just having some family issues."

Bobby frowned. "I know what you mean. Feels like our families have done nothing but argue since we got here."

After saying that, Rita then stood up and clinked her glass. "I'd like to make a toast. Bobby, Lori, I just want to say how much it means to have you here with us." She started to tear up. "I don't know if I can't get through this."

Hector then clinked his glass. "Uh, excuse me if I might. I'm sure it means a lot to you, Rita, but with all respect, it means more to us."

"Well, Hector, that seems really unlikely because nothing means more to us, kay?"

As the two families began to argue, Lori and Bobby glanced nervously at each other before both of them silently snuck away from the table and out of the house.

...

The two had decided to hide out at the last place they thought their families would try looking for them. Anatomy Park. "I'm sorry, Boo-Boo Bear, I know you were looking forward to having a real Thanksgiving this year." Lori apologised.

"It's not all bad." Bobby admitted. "At least I got to spend it with you."

"Aww." Lori gushed.

"Lori! Bobby!" Both of them turned to see that somehow, both of their families had found them.

"Whoa, how did you guys find us?" Bobby asked.

"Tracking device." Lisa explained.

Bobby then realised something. "Wait, where's Ronnie Anne?"

"Well..." Maria started.

...

Earlier, after the Louds entered the portal to Anatomy Park, the Casagrandes were ready to go in, only for Dr. Bloom to hold his cane in front of Ronnie Anne. "Uh, uh, you can't go in. You're, um...banned!"

"What?" Ronnie Anne exclaimed. "What am I banned for?"

"For breaking park rules." Dr. Bloom explained quickly. For some reason, he almost seemed nervous.

Ronnie Anne's mouth gaped open in shock. "But I've never even been in that park before!"

Maria places a hand on her shoulder. "We're only going to be in there for a minute. Just wait outside until then."

"Ugh." Ronnie Anne then stepped out of the tent in a huff.

...

"You left before trying my twice-baked tart." Lynn Sr. said, looking upset.

Rosa scoffed. "They would prefer my flan."

"Flan, shman. Tart, tart, tart!"

"Stop!" Bobby shouted. "Don't you guys see, this is why we left. We couldn't stand the fighting and competing."

"We don't want to choose sides." Lori added. "So maybe from now on, we should just spend Thanksgiving by ourselves."

At this, both of the families started to feel guilty. "Well, nobody wants that." Rosa said.

"We certainly don't." Lynn Sr. added.

"Lori, Bobby, I'm sorry we've been acting so childishly." Maria apologised.

"We're sorry too, it's just so hard to let go of your kids." Rita apologised. Maria then tried to comfort her. "You know what? You should get Lori and Bobby for Thanksgiving." She said to the Casagrandes.

"Well, goodness knows we haven't done anything to deserve that." Hector admitted. "They should spend it with you."

"Hey, why don't you guys just rotate every year?" Everyone then turned to look at Alexander in his mascot costume, who had suggested the idea.

Bobby smiled. "Works for us, but what about today?"

Rick cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "I may have an idea.

...

Half of the two families were in the living room of the Loud house. While Hector was playing his guitar, Lynn Sr. was passing slices of tart to those that were there. "Who's ready for tart?"

Lincoln licked his lips as Lynn Sr. gave him and Ronnie Anne pieces of tart. "I can't believe I finally got dessert this year."

"You want any, Dad?" Lynn Sr. asked Rick.

Rick shook his head. "Nah, I'm good." He then got up and walked through the portal in the room that led directly to the Casagrandes' living room where the other half of the two families were, including Luna, playing a light song on her guitar. Rick went over to sit with Lori and Bobby while Rosa was serving everyone flan.

"What do you think, babe? Best T-giving ever?" Bobby asked before he and Lori clinked their glasses together.

"Literally our best so far. Thanks, Boo-Boo Bear." Lori said before both of them shared a kiss.