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It had been nearly a year since the last time Jesse found himself in a car bound for the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, the sky and the land stretching to meet each other at the horizon, miles away on all sides.
It had been almost as long since he'd seen the man driving the car.
They'd left civilization behind an hour back, during the quiet pre-dawn time when newspapers thumped onto driveways and birds began chirping. Currently the only sign of man in the gradually lightening landscape, besides themselves, was the dirt road which Walter was maneuvering the car down, a sparse pathway beaten through the brush.
Walter steered with his right hand. In his left, he held a gun. Jesse's gun—which until that pre-dawn time had been tucked halfway under the second pillow in Jesse's bed, where it slept every night.
He'd woken abruptly, as if someone had grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him up. Instinct made him scramble for the gun, hands swiping under both pillows and the sheets, but it wasn't there. Then he looked up at the window, the moonlit window, and realized why.
Against the pale light stood the silhouette of a man, silently facing the bed, just looking, as if he'd been waiting for that moment when Jesse's sixth sense or whatever it was kicked in and clamored for him to wake up.
And then the man spoke, in that voice Jesse had been dreading, hoping he'd never hear it again—and also dreading what it would mean if he didn't ever hear it again—ever since the day Jesse had hauled a bag with five million bucks worth of cash inside from where it had been left on his porch.
"Jesse. You're in danger. You need to come with me right now."
Given that Walter then hefted Jesse's gun, clearly outlined in the moonlight, he hadn't really had a choice.
A rock hit the undercarriage of the car, a big one from the sound of it, but Walter didn't swerve from his course. He drove in grim silence, jaw set in that mulish clench which Jesse had also been hoping—and dreading—he'd never see again. Whack-ass shit tended to happen when Walter got that look.
"Look, Mr. White," Jesse began, eyeing the gun nervously. "Can you at least, like, say what you think's going on? Cuz I'm kinda freakin' out here."
It was a moment before Walter responded. "People are after you. I'm trying to keep you safe from them."
"People. What people? Cuz I haven't felt any heat lately, from either the street or the cops." Not since you skipped town, anyway, he thought but didn't say.
"My distributors," Walter said. The car crunched over some gravel. "Declan and his network. Apparently, they've lost their cook."
"Wait—what? What cook?"
"Todd," Walter practically spat out. "He's been their cook. Ever since I...left. But apparently Todd did something to displease them. Overstepped his bounds. I don't know."
Jesse's thoughts whirled, putting it together. "Is he...is he dead? Did they kill him?"
Walter's silence affirmed it.
It was on the tip of Jesse's tongue to say Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. But there were more important concerns right now. Instead he said, "So why does that put me in danger?"
Walter glanced at him, his eyes sliding a little wildly in their sockets behind those ugly glasses. "They need another cook."
And Jesse remembered: another location in the middle of nowhere, white rocky country and Walter bragging to the guys Mike had hooked them up with, talking shit about classic Coke and 99.1% purity and how it all came from the two best meth cooks in history, turning to look at Jesse as he said it, dragging the cold eyes of all those other guys to Jesse's face as well. Shit.
"And they want me? Why not you? Why do I have to be involved in this shit?"
The car hit some kind of dip in the road, throwing Jesse forward against his seatbelt and making Walter drop the gun in his lap. He cursed, fumbling it back up again. "Did everything we went through with Gus Fring teach you nothing? Redundancy, Jesse! Two cooks are better than one."
"So why don't you just go back and cook for 'em, go and teach someone else, huh? The great Heisenberg."
Walter gave him a withering look. "Unlike some people I know, Declan doesn't make the same mistakes twice. He wants the original cooks. He's made that abundantly clear."
"Fucking bullshit!" Jesse exploded. "I'm out, remember? I got out of this mess a year ago. I got my money and I'm not going back."
"Yeah? Try telling that to them and see how far that gets you," Walter spat.
And he remembered: Mike's wry, knowing smile, before they shook hands and Mike drove off forever to his peaceful ending in the sunset. Kid, Mike had said. Just look out for yourself.
"So, like," Jesse began, trying to keep his voice calm, mindful of the gun and Walter's agitation, "what's the plan, here? Where're we going? You gonna meet up and try to make a deal?"
Walter chose that moment to begin coughing.
It was a fairly horrible cough, wet and rasping at the same time, seeming to come from deep within Walter's chest. It lasted a long time. Walter covered his mouth with the back of his hand, the one carrying the gun, and occasionally scrunched his eyes shut from the force of it.
Jesse felt a dark, cold brick of feeling sink through his own chest and settle in his gut. When Walter finally finished coughing, the hacking sounds softening to little wheezes and trembling breaths, Jesse said, "Cancer's back, isn't it?"
The sides of Walter's eyes drooped as he glanced over at Jesse—hell, his whole face seemed to have lost the strength to hold itself up, his skin sagging and tinged with gray. "Yes," he said flatly.
"H-how long you got?"
It took Walter a while to answer. "Couple months. If I take care of myself."
Which he wasn't, obviously.
When Jesse's aunt had been in the last stages, she'd been in pain, yeah, and she'd prayed every day for a release from her pain in whatever form the Lord chose to give her. But it had seemed to Jesse that she'd also acquired this...well, a kind of peace. A kind of acceptance. He'd take breakfast up to her room and the sunlight would touch her worn face, and her eyes would flutter open and she'd give him a tired grateful smile. And Jesse would think she almost glowed.
Walter, on the other hand, looked like shit. Like a homeless man who'd spent most of the past year sleeping outdoors, coughing and crapping into newspapers. Jesse wondered who'd been taking care of him. He guessed Walter had taken his money with him when he skipped town, but all the cheddar in the world didn't make up for family. Jesse's family was a bunch of assholes, which was about like having no family at all, so he knew.
Once, he'd driven past the Whites' house. Just to see. Their cars had been in the driveway: the big wagon Mrs. White drove and the brand new muscle car that was their kid's. The curtains had all been drawn. Jesse slowed his own car to a crawl as he approached the house, heart beating fast. He thought he saw the side of one of the curtains twitch, and he damn near left rubber on the pavement he gunned it out of there so fast.
He knew from Saul that Walter had left them behind when the heat from the DEA got bad, that Skyler had flat-out refused to take the papers the vacuum guy had put together for them, that the showdown they'd had in Saul's office had been ugly. "She started threatening to give up the whole thing to that brother-in-law," Saul said, shaking his head. "Total conflict of interest between two clients. Don't ever get married, kid, especially not if you're gonna break federal law. If she wants to screw you by waiving her spousal privilege, she can and she will. Women! Fearsome and awe-inspiring creatures when the law's on their side."
My wife is waiting for me to die, Walter had told Jesse, while he choked down meatloaf and green beans at their dining room table.
"God," he said now, lamely. "I'm sorry, man. That...sucks."
Apparently he hadn't gotten any better at giving Walter consolation or comfort over the past year.
Walter just grimaced. "To answer your question about what the plan is: I don't have a plan. The object is for them to never find you. They know you exist, but what do they really have to track you down? Your name? Your address? They never got any of that from Mike, did they? Not Declan or anyone?"
"Not my full name, I don't think," Jesse said. "You don't think they'll go after Mike to get at me, do you? Shit!"
Walter gave him another sidelong glance. "Mike's well and truly disappeared, as far as I know. But these guys have a huge network, and other people we used to work with could potentially point the finger at you. We're lucky Todd fucked up in such spectacular fashion—in all the mess I don't think anyone had the presence of mind to pump him for information about you."
Jesse gulped, remembering a box cutter, Gustavo Fring's silent, dead eyes, a spray of blood and the jerking body that had been Victor.
"So, what?" he said. "We just disappear like Mike? Because that doesn't exactly work for me. I can't just up and leave my life behind."
The words were out of Jesse's mouth before he could think them through: Walter, of course, had done exactly that. No surprise then that Walter lashed out now: "Your life? Your life? By which you mean, what, sitting on the couch smoking weed?"
"Hey, man—"
"The luxurious life of unemployment, hmm? I'm surprised you didn't go back to the harder stuff with nothing else to keep you occupied. How do you keep yourself amused, anyway? What fulfills the gaping waste of space that is Jesse Pinkman these days?"
Jesse slammed the palm of his hand on the dashboard. "Jesus! Fuck you, asshole! You don't know shit about me."
Walter snorted. "Right."
"And you know what? You never have." He thought of Andrea, their last desperate lonely fuck a couple months ago and how she'd pulled her clothes on immediately afterward and said, Jesse, you can't keep coming around here—not unless you're going to stay for good. Every time Brock sees you...I just can't keep doing that to him.
And how he'd thought but didn't say, No, me staying for good would be the worst thing you could do to Brock.
Walter had done that to them, pierced the bubble Jesse had been living in where Andrea brought groceries and made dinner and they played video games with Brock and Jesse never told her anything about the other half of his life, never told her how he'd killed Gale, never planned to tell her. I know you'll make the right call, Walter had said. And what that had left Jesse with was Andrea pulling her clothes on, covering her nakedness from his eyes for the last time, the hurt on her face still as fresh as the night he'd broken it off with her. And if he ever wanted to not put that look on another woman's face again, this other half of his life would always have to remain under lock and key, as if it had never existed.
Walter was making a dismissive hmmph sound in his throat, and Jesse felt the old anger building, the storm clouds that flicked a lightning bolt down his spine whenever Walter got under his skin with his condescension and verbal barbs, making him snap and fight back.
"You're a goddamn asshole," Jesse said, but as was so often the case, his anger against Walter lacked any power and was just a tired retread besides.
"I'm the asshole?" Walter snapped. "Did you ever think that maybe I had to leave something behind to come back here and save you? Hmm? Did you ever think that maybe once you decided you were out of the meth business, I decided I was out of the Jesse business? What a relief that was, I'll tell you, not having to run around anymore extracting you from all the messes you managed to get yourself into."
"That I got myself into—"
"But here I am anyway, once again doing everything I can to preserve your sorry excuse for an existence. You're welcome, you ungrateful quitter."
Jesse drew in a breath to unload every last goddamn thing he'd ever wanted to say or thought of saying to Walter ever since he'd showed up in his driveway with a ridiculous, clearly doomed-from-the-start plan to cook crystal together.
But then he looked at Walter, really looked at him, at the pink spittle still flecking his chin from his earlier coughing fit. And just like that, the storm clouds dissipated.
He'd forgotten how Walter could turn on a dime, the way he'd just snap and unleash a tidal wave of hate vomit, how Apply yourself! suddenly became You are a pathetic junkie too stupid to understand and follow simple rudimentary instructions! He remembered when Mrs. White had shown up in his driveway that time to rag on him about selling her husband weed, how he'd thought it was no wonder she was such a ball-buster—she probably had to be, to put up with that asshole 24/7.
But then, he also remembered that back at Valley High, nobody'd ever thought Mr. White was packing much between his legs to begin with. He used to come into chemistry class with a vaguely resentful expression, shoulders hunched like he'd been carrying something heavy and his back was still sore.
Once, in the middle of a lecture about like, dilithium crystals or something—Jesse had been flicking paper footballs at Valerie Nader—Walter's eyes had flashed and he'd suddenly straightened, his voice getting more resonant, his hands gesturing excitedly as he talked about whatever it was that he thought was so cool. Jesse had left the paper footballs alone and just watched him, mystified at the transformation in dried up old Mr. White, the guy he'd once doodled a cartoon of with the caption Saggy Balls Man.
Then, as Mr. White took a breath in the middle of his speech, someone in the back of the room snickered and muttered, Cocksucker. The voice was low but it carried all the way to the front where Mr. White stood. And just like that, just like Jesse's anger a moment ago, whatever had been animating Mr. White disappeared. His eyes shuttered, his shoulders hunched again, and he turned and shuffled to the board to write their homework assignment.
Jesse wished now he could remember what Mr. White had been talking about.
Walter had been a nothing man to begin with, just one of a cadre of defeated middle aged teachers droning their bullshit in classroom after classroom. Jesse might have gone to the end of his days without giving the man a second thought, if they'd never met again.
But they had. And suddenly Saggy Balls Man had become a force of nature, tearing up Jesse's life and throwing the debris in all directions, like one of those mile-wide tornados those crazy dudes used to chase on the Discovery Channel. The Great Heisenberg: overflowing with all the facts and knowledge he'd kept under wraps at Valley High, his eyes flashing like a crazy lightning storm, a guy who killed with his own hands and with other people's hands, a guy who'd been convinced he was building an empire.
The blow fish puffs himself up four, five times larger than normal... Because it makes him intimidating... Intimidating so that the other scarier fish are scared off... Don't you see? It's just all an illusion. It's nothing but air.
It was weird seeing Walter like this now, the illusion stripped away, bony frame hunched behind the steering wheel, flesh shriveled up by cancer and bitterness. The nothing man again. It was weird to think in a couple more months, he wouldn't even be here at all anymore. That everything Walter White had been—everything he'd tried to make himself into—had come to this.
"Fuck," Jesse muttered. "Forget it. Just drive to wherever the hell you're taking me."
"Well. I'm so grateful you've finally given me permission to save your life."
Jesse bit back a venomous retort, glaring out the passenger window at the flat landscape. They'd left civilization behind; he could only hope they'd find it again on the road ahead.
*
"We'll regroup here," he said shortly.
The house's door sagged open after two swift kicks. Inside it was almost completely empty except for a tired two-seater couch left oddly diagonal on the dusty floor of the living room and an equally dusty table in the kitchen, beside the ancient oven range. The windows turned the New Mexico sun weak and pale.
Jesse stomped through all four rooms of the house, the other two being an empty bedroom and a bathroom. For some reason, the toilet in the bathroom had been removed, leaving only a dusty—of course dusty—hole in the tile.
He stomped out to the living room, where Walter was leaning against the couch with his eyes closed, gun clutched on his knee.
"There's no working toilet and I need to piss," Jesse announced.
Walter's eyes fluttered open. "So go outside."
Jesse didn't wait to be told twice. For a moment he thought Walter was just going to stay where he was, propped up on the couch while Jesse escaped into the fresh air, but when he got the front door open again Walter got up and followed him out.
The grass all around the house was dry and brown. Jesse chose a patch of it to water and let loose.
He was aware of a tickle between his shoulder blades which was, he supposed, from Walter watching him. "See anything you like?" he called over his shoulder.
"Not for miles," came Walter's dry reply. "Come over to the car when you're done."
"What, we takin' off again? But this place is like, four-star accommodation."
"Just hurry up, Jesse."
He shook off, zipped, and went to where Walter was standing by the open trunk of the car. Jesse looked into it. "Holy shit!"
First of all, there was a big fucking gun in there. Like the kind of thing military dudes used. Or, Jesse supposed, Scarface. Even the cartel guys didn't pack guns like that, as far as Jesse had seen.
"Where the hell'd you get that?" he said, when Walter lifted the gun out of the trunk. He spotted what looked like a manual underneath where it had been. "Do you even know how to use a gun like that?"
"Get that bag there," Walter directed, ignoring him.
Now that Walter had two guns, one nearly as big as Jesse himself, Jesse felt even less inclined to poke the bear. He reached in and grabbed the green canvas bag. It was heavy and bulky, slung over his shoulder, hard objects with sharp edges digging into his back and side. When he went into the house after Walter and dropped it on the wooden floor, he heard telltale metallic thunks.
Sure enough, when Walter instructed him to unzip the bag, he found it was mostly full of canned goods: beans, noodle soup, tuna, more beans.
"You raid an Albertson's or what, huh? Planning for a long siege?"
Walter raised his eyebrows. "You know the word siege?"
"Yeah, from Lord of the Rings, yo."
Harumphing, Walter bent to sort through their provisions.
Thinking about Lord of the Rings always brought Jesse down. It was the associations: Jane and their plan to ditch ABQ for New Zealand. The details were hazy in Jesse's head, but he remembered thinking about those white-capped mountains and huge rolling vistas—no flat barren landscapes like the one he and Walter currently occupied—and feeling awestruck at the idea of being surrounded by so much crazy beauty, 24/7. He and Jane would draw everything in sight and neither of them would need the junk anymore.
Walter passed Jesse a can of tuna fish, a can opener, and a plastic fork, interrupting his brooding thoughts.
"This all you got?" Jesse asked.
"Yes," Walter said flatly. "They were all out of caviar at the gas station. If you're not hungry, don't eat it."
"Just, you know, normally for breakfast I have like, eggs and stuff. Toast."
"They were out of that too."
Sighing inwardly, Jesse got the can opener clamped on and slicing around the rim. The pungent scent of tuna hit the air and made his stomach growl, in spite of himself. When he forked a bite of it into his mouth, it burst on his tongue with that weird, dry-but-oily fish flaky texture.
They ate in silence, sitting on either end of the couch. Jesse emptied his tuna can first, scraping the tines of the fork around the bottom groove to get the last pinkish-brown bits. He had no idea how long they were going to be hunkered down here—doubted Walter had any idea either—but he still had all-too-clear memories of the time the RV's battery died and they'd lived on Funyons and candy for days. You had to make sure you got what you could, while you could.
"You really think of me as an ungrateful quitter?" Jesse said into the quiet, before he knew he was going to say anything.
"You quit, didn't you?"
"Ungrateful, though. Like, what exactly was I supposed to be grateful for, huh?"
For a moment Walter just kept chewing, his entire expression shuttered like a boarded up house. Then he said, "Jesse, I am well aware that you and I saw our business through different lenses."
"No shit." He knew he should just let it go, just wait Walter out through the silence until the end of whatever this was, until he could get back home, close his front door on the world, smoke a bowl and start forgetting he'd ever seen Walter again. But he was like a dog worrying a bone. "But I mean, seriously, man. Grateful? For what, all the people we killed?"
"How about all the money you made? How about the skills and know-how you acquired? How about learning how to be useful for once in your life?"
"Yeah, I am also well aware what you thought of me before I started taking Mr. White's extra credit special class in cooking crystal, but you know what? I didn't need the business to be useful, man. I had a decent life before I met you. A whole lot of people did, as a matter of fact. Maybe I was small-time, maybe I didn't exactly have an empire, or whatever. But at least I didn't have shit to feel guilty for."
"Well, it's hard to argue with the self-righteous."
Amazingly, Walter actually sounded bitter. Jesse shook his head and tossed the tuna can to the floor, where it landed with a metallic clatter.
"So what've you been doing with your life?" he asked. "You skipped town, but Saul didn't know where to. I guess not far if those distributor dudes found you."
Walter hesitated. "New Hampshire, actually."
"New Hampshire?" Jesse grimaced. "What goes on there?"
"Well, for one thing there's no desert. For another, it's small enough geographically that it's easy to cross into a handful of other states—not a completely worthless advantage if you happen to catch the attention of local law enforcement. And they don't have an income tax or a sales tax. So your money can go a bit further."
"Dude, why would you pay taxes anyway? Aren't you like, a ghost now? Fake name, fake papers, fake everything. Like, who'd even know to come after your cheddar?"
Walter skewered him with that Heisenberg stare. "I can't live entirely off the grid, Jesse. I have health concerns."
Right. Jesse flexed his fingers on his knees. "So how'd they find you? I mean, Declan and his people."
"I honestly don't know. I can only conclude that Saul's guy had a price and they met it."
"Do you think they know you're back in town?"
"If they don't already, I have to assume they'll know eventually. And then they'll come after me. And Jesse, what they did to Todd..." Walter's voice trailed off. "I highly doubt they'll take no for an answer."
Jesse's palms had gone sweaty; hands still on his knees, he tried to rub them dry against his jeans. Conversely, his mouth had gone dry and it was hard to swallow. There was also a weird rushing noise in his head, like wind blowing.
"Mr. White," he said, "I can't go back into this business. I can't."
For a long moment, Walter just looked at him, his eyes half-shadowed in the weak sunlight from the cloudy windows. "I know, Jesse. I won't let that happen."
*
It's okay, Walter said. He got the cancer. Bullseye.
Jesse woke up sore and cramped and crusty-eyed, huddled in the corner of the dusty, flat-cushioned couch. He woke up silently, without moving, some animal instinct holding him still and stealthy.
He heard Walter shuffling around the dusty floors, coughing low and quiet and persistent. Then he felt the couch shift as Walter collapsed on the other end with a sigh. Through his eyelids, Jesse could tell that it was still daytime.
After that time Jesse drove by the Whites' house, he'd had a rash of strange dreams about trying to save people from a Walter who was out of control, Heisenberg on a rampage. He'd dreamed about saving Brock, Andrea, Jane, Mike, Combo, the little kid Todd had shot. None of which made any sense, because Brock and Andrea and Mike were safe, and Jane and Combo and that little kid, well, they were beyond saving. But, whack as the dreams were, they were the only times any of those people still talked to Jesse, so they'd been okay in his book.
Still, he was glad when they eventually dried up and he could get a decent night's sleep for once. Walter hadn't featured in any of his dreams in months, until now. He wondered, if they got out of this alive, how long it would take to detox Walter out of his system again.
Walter heaved another sigh from his end of the couch, rough and rasping. And then—
...the fuck??
It took a moment for Jesse to register the noises he was hearing now: Belt buckle. Zipper. Rustle of cloth. And then the gentle slapping of flesh on flesh.
Jesus. Walter was rubbing one out, not two feet away.
It actually wasn't the first time Jesse had listened, sleep-dazed, to Walter's furtive fumblings. The first time had been when the RV's battery died, the two of them bundled up side-by-side in the cold desert night. Jesse had awakened in the middle of that session, when Walter was already far gone, huffing hard, his hand moving fast and rough and mysterious. Instead of interrupting him with a Christ, do you have to do that here? or something else snarky or angry, for some reason Jesse had just laid there and let Walter finish. It hadn't taken long: just a few minutes and then Walter's breathing halted with a grunt and a shudder.
It had been gross and pathetic the first time. In fact, Jesse had been almost...offended. Could a dude with cancer actually get horny like that? His thoughts had slid to his aunt, who'd lived alone her entire adult life and never once complained or indicated she regretted it. She'd practically been a nun in Jesse's mind, one of those saints or something who died too soon and deserved to be enshrined in a stained glass window.
Walter, on the other hand, had jerked off like a dirty old dude. And Jesse had let him do it, hadn't interrupted, had pretended he was still asleep and, the next morning, like nothing had happened. He still wasn't sure why, other than an instinctual sense that if he'd revealed himself to be awake, it would have dragged that ugly, weak moment out into the open and changed everything.
On the couch next to him now, Walter's breathing and movements had crescendoed. He was getting close. One more moment they'd never acknowledge. One more secret to bury in the shifting, treacherous landscape of their partnership. Any second now.
Jesse sat up abruptly and turned to Walter. They both froze.
Walter was looking at him, was already looking at him. Had, apparently, been looking at him the whole time. His hand was shoved down the loose front of his trousers, blessedly hiding his dick. Jesse's gun was shoved under his thigh.
The moment stretched and stretched, the two of them motionless on the couch, eyes burning into each other in the dimness.
Then Walter began moving his hand again, gaze never leaving Jesse's. It didn't take long: half a minute at most, and then Walter's eyes finally fluttered shut and he groaned.
Jesse bolted up from the couch to stand in front of the window, hunching his shoulders against the sound of Walter catching his breath.
Eventually, Walter's tired, raspy voice drifted toward him: "I'm sorry, Jesse."
"...sorry?" Jesse said finally. "You're sorry?" He tried to ignore the rustling of Walter adjusting his clothes.
"I'm sorry for dragging you into this. For making this your life. I never...thought about the consequences to you. Not in the long-term, anyway. I mean, I think it may be obvious why."
"Yeah, I'd say so," Jesse responded, but it was automatic, immediate, intended only to fill the silence and prevent it from stretching torturously longer. "Wait, what?"
"Several reasons. The first being, I didn't believe I'd live long enough to see or care about the consequences."
"Cancer's a bitch, so act like a dick. Is that it?"
"The second reason being," Walter continued, ignoring the jibe, "that I had a preconceived notion of you. A prejudice, if you will. One that's taken me a long time to shake."
Jesse swung around to face him. "Yeah, that is obvious. And you haven't shaken shit, actually. You still think of me as nothing. You've been making that clear since you woke me up and kidnapped me out of my own house. Nothing's changed—nothing except I see exactly what a lowlife, pathetic piece of shit you are."
"You don't know the half of it," Walter muttered.
The couch creaked as he stood, the gun tucked into his waistband. Jesse steeled himself—no way was he going to stand down for this asshole, not after everything Walter had put him through—but Walter approached him slowly, like a man trying to calm a wild dog.
"You're not nothing, Jesse," Walter said quietly. "You're strong. You're compassionate. Your first instinct is to take care of people, to make sure they're okay. And unlike me, you’re able to see past your prejudices. You believe in people."
As he stepped closer, Walter raised his hands to show they were empty. They were trembling slightly.
"Jesse. You're a good person, the kind who deserves good things in return."
"Fuck you," Jesse said feebly. "You're telling me all this bullshit now?"
"I'm going to give you three things. The first thing is your gun."
Jesse's eyes widened.
Slowly, with infinite care, Walter reached and drew the gun out of his waistband, then turned it, holding the barrel, handle facing Jesse.
Jesse snatched the warm metal weight of it from Walter's grip and aimed the business end directly at Walter's face. Walter didn't even flinch.
"Why?" Jesse whispered.
"Second thing is the car keys. They're in my pants pocket. Can I get them?"
Jesse swallowed and nodded. The keys jingled out, hooked on Walter's finger, and then they were in Jesse's pocket.
"The fuck are you doing, man?" Jesse demanded.
"Third thing is in my other pants pocket."
When Walter drew out the small, cylindrical vial and let it sit flat on his palm, Jesse had to lean closer to recognize it in the dim light. "Ricin," he hissed.
"Correct. Take the vial, Jesse."
The deadly little tube barely had any weight at all, but against the weight of the gun it was too much. Jesse let the barrel drop. "What's all this for?"
"You're going to get away," Walter said. "You're going to take the car—all my money is in a special compartment in the trunk—and you're going to drive. And you're not going to come back to New Mexico until Saul tells you it's safe. I hope it will be safe for you, very soon."
"What are you going to do?" Jesse whispered.
"I'm going to cook for them. I'm going to teach whoever they want me to teach. I'm going to tell them you're dead. Sooner or later, I will be dead. Then they won't come after either of us anymore."
As fucking full of shit for brains as ever, Jesse found himself shaking his head and protesting. "No way. No way, Mr. White. You can't."
"I can and I will. In fact, I already have. I called them while you were asleep. They're on their way right now."
Jesse stared into the muddy depths of Walter's eyes, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth. But then, he'd never really worked out how to do that with Walter, had he?
"You'd better get going," Walter advised.
"Come with me. Okay? Same plan as before, nothing's changed. As long as they can't find us, we're fine."
"Jesse. I'm trying to fix something here. I'm trying to whittle down a very long list of regrets. Do an old man a favor and let me, hmm?"
The sound of dirt and rock and gravel crunching made Jesse's heartbeat leap for the sky, but when he looked out the cloudy window all he saw was a bit of dead brown grass swaying, animal-height. "Jesus," he muttered.
"Jesse, go. I don't know where they'll be coming from. They could be here any minute."
Jesse swiped the back of his hand over his suddenly blurry eyes, the hand still gripping the ricin vial. "And what am I supposed to do with this?" he asked.
"In case they catch up to you after all," Walter said grimly.
"And...you?"
"If I need more, I can always make more." Walter paused. "Jesse. You can make anything you want of your life. You can and you should. Now run."
Half-blind, Jesse stumbled to the door, yanked it open and practically fell into the blazing New Mexico sun. Walter remained a dark figure in the doorway as Jesse got the car roaring to life, stuck it into gear, and peeled out toward the road.
It wasn't until miles later, about to hit a shining ribbon of asphalt which would take him back to civilization again, his hands shaking on the wheel, that Jesse realized: Walter had kept the big gun with him.