So, hey! *waves* Welcome to my first (and probably last) foray into the Breaking Bad fandom. I kept watching the hospital scene in 1.06 and something inside of me just thought that the scene deserved more closure. So here it is! Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Nope. Nada.
Jesse is still.
He lies on the hospital bed completely unconscious, with a neck brace and an IV tube.
Walt shudders deep down inside.
At first, Walt kind of thinks it's a joke, because in all the time he's known Jesse Pinkman (high school included), Jesse has never been that still before. Walt expects his partner to open his eyes at any moment and say some badass, wannabe gangster comment that'll make him get a migraine but at the end of the day, they've cooked meth, sold it, and he'll return home to Skyler and Walter Junior with a bundle of cash stuffed in his pocket.
Walt's smart, though. The illusion fades. This isn't a joke. Jesse's hurt. Bad.
"You the guy?" asks some skinny gangster who's sitting by Jesse's bedside...("You know that guy we were talking about, Tuco?" Jesse had asked while Walt had been sweating and trying to keep Hank from connecting the dot about his missing lab stuff. "Turns out my boy Skinny Pete was in the same cellblock with him over at Los Lunas...") This must be him, the Skinny Pete Guy, Walt thinks.
"Yeah," he says hoarsely. "I'm the guy." The rest of the sentence is implied. I'm the guy who got you into this mess, Jesse, I'm the guy who should be lying in this hospital bed, I'm the guy who cooks meth with him to help my family once I pass in a few years from now...I'm the guy who's so unbelievably sorry for this, Jesse.
Walt, out of reflex, reaches for Jesse, then pulls his hand back as if he's been burnt. "How is he?" Walt asks Skinny Pete, who responds immediately. Obviously this guy cares about Jesse, and that makes Walt feel a bit better. "Got some busted ribs and like that. Got messed up pretty good," Skinny Pete says, and Walt fights the urge to say no shit, Sherlock, because his partner looks like fucking death warmed over. Skinny Pete continues. "I was all like "Damn, Tuco, chill, ese." I don't know what got into him. Seriously," he adds quickly, like Walt had any doubt the first time around.
Walt leans closer to Jesse, thinking he sees a slight flicker of his eyelids, and, "Oh, he's out, man, way out," Skinny Pete explains almost sympathetically. "They got him doped up big-time." Walt thinks, on a subconscious level, that Jesse is "doped up big-time" probably more than half the day, but this time, he's not doped up on crack, pot or meth. He's doped up on life-saving medicine.
Oh, the irony, thinks Walt.
"So you're the cook, huh?" Skinny Pete asks casually, as if Jesse isn't lying on that hospital bed unconscious and he and Walt are just meeting up at the mall. Walt feels like he has to sit down, and he makes toward the chair at the other side of Jesse's bedside. "Yo, I didn't catch your name."
Walt considers giving this guy his name, after all his life's already completely insane, why the hell can't he give this druggie friend of Jesse's his name? It's not important now, he thinks logically, looking at the prone figure of his partner. His mind is already racing, working overtime to try and think of a solution, like this whole thing is just a hard problem on a chemistry quiz or something. But it really isn't. The only problem that he can see is Tuco: Tuco, the druggie kingpin, who had beaten Jesse to an inch of his life, is the problem.
"Tell me about this Tuco," Walt finally says to Skinny Pete, who looks back at him with wide eyes, like he's impressed Walt can speak. "Tell me everything about him."
And Skinny Pete starts to explain, the chemist in Walt begins to plan, and scheme, and formulate.
Whoever this Tuco was, he wouldn't get away with hurting his friend.