Sometime in Albuquerque
The trip from Boston, Massachusetts to Albuquerque, New Mexico lasted six hours and forty minutes, if Dr. Jack Morrison counted the layover in Houston. He couldn't remember how long the layover had been, but it hadn't been long. He'd been rushing the whole time, he knew that much. Afraid of being left behind.
He had chosen Albuquerque in that most irresponsible and transient way, the way that people claimed that they'd use to figure out where they wanted to go, were they to win a million dollars or something in a lottery. He had closed his eyes and spun a globe, and when he had opened them again, there it was – Albuquerque.
He didn't know much about it. He had gone to medical school down in Mexico, so maybe New Mexico wasn't that far off – a lot of Mexican immigrants, culture, restaurants – maybe he could actually learn Spanish this time.
After all, he didn't know how long he'd be staying.
He walked off the plane and smiled sadly, envisioning the people he'd left behind somehow waiting for him in the airport, with signs intended to usher him back.
But he was just fooling himself. St. Eligius would turn like a clock, like those perfect synchronized clocks that Dr. Craig had made such a big deal about putting in.
It was up to him to work on himself, now.
The hospital wasn't going anywhere.
He was leaving more than a hospital behind, of course – but right now, he wouldn't think about that.
He needed to clear his head.
The cab came relatively quickly, and he found himself half-dozing to the steady-gentle torrent of Spanish from the driver to his cell phone. When he was dropped off in front of the leasing office, a big red building with a strange-looking arch over top of it, he felt as if he were in some kind of Old West film.
It was breathtaking.
"Well, Dr. Morrison," the leasing agent told him, "Here are your keys. The house is yours for the next… you said, two months, initially?"
"Yes."
"Well, let me just let you know," the woman lowered her voice conspiratorially. "There have been some complaints in the past about the young man who lives next door. He's been known to have loud parties on occasion."
"It's fine," Jack told her. "I'll talk to him myself. I'm sure we can work it out and learn to get along."
That plan seemed fairly logical until he got to the actual house. There was the mental image he had had in his head of his neighbor when the agent had talked to him – a young kid, out on his own for the first time, cheeky like Ehrlich or irresponsible like Fiscus, but with a good head on his shoulders – and then there was the image that was hitting him now. An image of a rough-and-tumble ex-con who might be young but was already well-versed on taking out people he didn't like.
But he wouldn't know until he actually went to see the damn guy, so he might as well suck it up and just go see.
He found his own house, opened the door and peeked inside, finding everything in order – it was furnished, which was a nice plus, he didn't feel like buying a bunch of furniture when he was only staying until this all blew over – and finding the house more spacious then he had envisioned it.
A good bang for his buck.
Then, he locked up and crossed over the walkway to the house next door. The gate was open…
And this all had to be a mistake.
Jesse Pinkman smiled, handing off his controller to his girlfriend, Andrea, as the doorbell rang.
"Always people bothering us," he joked, but he couldn't stop from feeling the tenseness in his chest, the reminder that last time they had been interrupted like this, it had been Mr. White at the door, and he'd chased him away and then later Brock had gotten sick and it…
No. This was probably just somebody with the mail or something.
No big deal. None at all.
Eager to prove to himself that it wasn't a big deal – not to mention, to get back to Andrea and Brock, who were playing an epic game of Tetris which Brock was winning single-handedly – Jesse crossed the living room and opened the door. He raised an eyebrow as he found himself faced with a curly-haired man who only looked to be a few years older than him, wearing a button down shirt and khakis.
"Uh… Hi," Jesse said, his eyes widening a little bit. Of all the people he had thought he would encounter, this guy was not on the list, and who was this guy, anyway?
"Hi, sorry," the visitor replied quickly. "I just wanted to… uh… I'm renting the house next door, and I just wanted to introduce myself, I guess… Jack Morrison."
"Uh… Hi, Jack," Jesse said, "Nice to meet you. I… uh…" He turned and looked back towards the couch, where Andrea and Brock were still playing. "Listen, my girlfriend and her son are over, so I… gotta go, but… if you want to, I don't know, go have a drink or something… Let me know?"
"How about tomorrow? I don't know anywhere around here so… I'd like to get to know the bars, I guess," Jack told him.
"Sure! Sounds great… Hey, uh, how about Paul's? It's on 5th Street… Tomorrow at six?"
"Sounds good. Nice to meet you."
With that, Jack turned and walked back towards his house. Jesse stood there a moment, staring, still a little confused at how friendly the man had been and wondering whether there wasn't some ulterior motive. Maybe he was DEA – well, if he was, it wasn't as if Jesse was going to tell him anything.
There was some stuff that didn't exactly just pop up in conversation.
Jesse shrugged it off and shut the door. No need to waste time thinking about that – there was a game to be played.
"So, have you always lived in Albuquerque?" Jack asked, tipping back his cup and taking a sip of his gin and tonic.
"Yeah, born and raised, man," Jesse replied. "What about you?"
"From Seattle, originally. Right now my family's living in Boston."
"Boston, huh? What brings you all-the-way out here?" Jesse questioned. He hadn't touched his own drink, a Jack and Coke, yet. He was still suspicious of the stranger and figured that intoxication was one way to get in way too over his head. He'd sip it, eventually – but not right now. Now it was time to figure this out.
"I needed to get away," Jack said simply.
"Away from what?"
The man shook his head, and Jesse realized he wasn't getting any more out of him on that subject, at least not for now.
"Okay… So, what do you do up in Boston?"
"I'm a resident."
"Yeah, you live there, I get it."
"No," Jack corrected, a half-smile creeping across his face. "A medical resident. Like a doctor, but… early."
"Aha!" Jesse exclaimed. "Like on House."
"Well, yeah… But those are fellows, technically, but… yeah, like on House."
"Sweet, man." Jesse finally ventured a sip of his drink. "Sounds interesting."
"It is. Sometimes. What about you? What do you do?"
Jesse smirked. What did he do, nowadays?
"Well, I was working at a laundry for a while," he said at last. "But it closed down." We burnt it down, actually. "So… right now it's kinda… I'm trying to find my place."
"Who isn't?" Jack quipped, smiling. "I know I am. So, you never wanted to get out of Albuquerque? See the world?"
"Yeah, I guess," Jesse said, taking another drink. "My girlfriend and I… my… not the one I have now… we wanted to go to New Zealand."
"Sounds nice." Jack took another drink. "How old is your girlfriend's son?" Jesse's face lit up.
"Brock's six."
"My son Pete is five."
"That's awesome." Jesse grinned. "I love kids. So how's your wife feel about you being out here on your own?"
"Well, my son is with my parents right now… I have a girlfriend but it's… complicated," Jack explained, "And my wife passed away…"
"Is that what you're getting away from?" Jesse inquired, not wanting to pry. Jack shook his head.
"That's only the beginning." Jesse gave him a sympathetic look.
"I'm sorry to hear that, man. My girlfriend I mentioned earlier… the one I was gonna go to New Zealand with… she died a while back," he said, taking a deep breath. If this guy was DEA, Jesse was giving him a lot of… well, something. But it was looking less and less like that was the case and more and more like this guy just needed someone to listen.
And Jesse was good at listening. It'd been a while since he had had anyone to listen to, aside from Mr. White and their constant need to get out of dodge before getting caught or killed. This was, fact that it sounded like Jack had a pretty depressing life aside, a relaxing alternative.
"Sorry to hear that," Jack replied, raising a hand to order another round of drinks.
Hell, Jesse decided, why not?
"So tell me about your hospital in Boston."
"Well, it's called St. Eligius, but the locals have a nasty nickname for it…"
The next day, Walter White stopped by Jesse's house, for what seemed the first time in an extremely long time. Jesse considered reminding Walt of his demand that he "get the fuck out and never return", but he hadn't listened the last time he had stopped by, begging and pleading for his life, so what was the use in thinking he would ever listen?
"How's life, Mr. White?" he asked instead, yawning and sticking his hands in his pockets as he opened the door. "Come in."
Walt walked in, not responding right away, before pulling up one of Jesse's chairs and taking a seat, as the younger man rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, and hello to you, too," Jesse murmured.
"We need to cook," Walt announced, without preamble. Jesse rolled his eyes.
"You may need to cook. I'm fine for the foreseeable future. I'm still recovering." He narrowed his eyes, hoping that Walt wouldn't retort with a flippant question about what in Jesse's life was so very hard.
"Well, I'm not," he responded instead. "My wife gave away most of my money." Jesse's eyes widened.
"To what? She becoming a nun or something?"
"No," Walt snapped. "It's… a long story, the point of which is that we need to cook."
"Okay. So we need to cook," Jesse reluctantly agreed, throwing his hands up. "Where are we going to cook?"
"The car wash."
Jesse rested the balls of his knuckles under his chin.
"What car wash?"
"My wife and I… bought a car wash… We can cook there," Walt replied, speaking slowly, as if talking to a child. Jesse flipped him off.
"And your wife will be okay with that?"
"She'll have to be."
"Okay, yeah, 'cause you totally wear the pants right now… Sorry for doubting you," Jesse said sarcastically.
"We need to go out on Saturday. Get things set up, figure out what we need."
"Can't." Jesse's lip curled into a smirk, and he couldn't resist feeling a burst of exuberant, slightly malicious delight at the words. "Got plans."
"With who?"
"With a friend."
"You rented a Monte Carlo?" Jesse inquired, his jaw dropping. "Can I marry you? In like, Iowa or some shit?"
Jack burst out laughing.
"It's just a nice car. I needed something to get around. I didn't realize that it would be that impressive!" he exclaimed. "And no, you can't marry me in Iowa – but legally you can, back in Massachusetts." Jesse ignored the good-hearted jibe in favor of running around the red Monte Carlo yet again – if Jesse hadn't known any better, he would be sure it was his own car, back from the DEA impound lot – and who knew, maybe it was. And here it was, parked right in front of his house, being driven by the newcomer. The fiction was quite pleasant, even if it were fiction nonetheless.
"Can we drive it around? I'll show you where to avoid," Jesse offered, and the doctor grinned widely.
"Sure." He stuck his head a little further out the wind and gestured with his hand for Jesse to get in the passenger's side, which he did with no reluctance.
"Okay, listen," Jesse began as they pulled on to the road. "You probably won't need a hotel but if you do, you probably want to stay outta the Crystal Palace. Well, it's called the Crossroads Motel, but it's… everyone calls it the Crystal Palace, 'cause, well…"
"Meth addicts?" Jack finished, turning a corner. Jesse nodded.
"Doesn't really sound like your type of crowd."
"Doesn't sound like yours, either," Jack replied, and Jesse blinked, unsure whether the doctor was joking or really that naïve. Or maybe Jesse actually looked put-together these days – it had been a while since he had gotten a good look at himself in the mirror. He settled for laughing as opposed to telling Jack that he'd be surprised or something similar.
"So tell me about your hospital. What kind of cases do you get?"
"Oh, a little bit of everything."
"Tell me one of the interesting ones." Jesse reached over and began to tap on the glove compartment, nervous energy threatening to turn into another rendition of one of Twaughthammer's songs if he didn't redirect it.
Jack looked over before putting his eyes back on the road, and took a deep breath.
"All right. Here's one. This guy came in with really bad liver failure. I'd seen the guy before, during a walk-in clinic, told him to come back, but wouldn't. It turned out that the guy was trying to purposely drink himself to death so his family could get his life insurance."
"Damn!" Jesse exclaimed. "That's… depressing." Jack nodded.
"It's sad what some people think they have to do for the people they love… When their family just wants… well, them."
"Did you talk the guy out of it?"
"No," Jack replied. "I couldn't… But… an older doctor did."
"What if…" Jesse began, "What if the family wasn't going to get him, regardless?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like what if… hypothetically, the guy were going to die anyway? Is it… okay to do, like, whatever for your family then? Like… something that's illegal? Dangerous?"
Jack turned and looked back at him.
"I don't know, Jesse… I just hope I'll never be in that situation."
They were cut off by the sight of flashing blue lights in the side-view mirror.
"Shit," Jesse murmured, "We better pull over. It's probably one of those speed traps." Jack pulled over, and Jesse noticed that the man's hands were shaking on the steering wheel. He blinked a moment, wondering why he was so nervous, just at the prospect of being pulled over and given a ticket. He ought to be more worried, after all – but he hadn't touched meth in… months, now, it must be, and some regular state trooper or Albuquerque cop probably wouldn't know anything about whatever Jesse had been involved with.
It'd be fine.
Or at least, he would keep telling himself that.
The police officer, an older man with gray-going-white hair and a thick moustache, walked over and rapped on the window, which Jack rolled down.
"Hey, do you guys know how fast you were going?"
Jack blinked and swallowed hard – this was just a cop, this was nothing, why was he shaking like this… but the undeniable little voice in his head kept singing out you'll get arrested go to prison, prison and then you'll be back and you'll turn around and it'll happen and it'll –
"Sorry, I didn't realize…"
"License and registration, please." Hands still shaking, Jack fished out his license and got the glove compartment open, handing over the rental registration. The officer looked down at the license and a frown crept across his face. "Your license just expired last month," he pointed out, tapping the card.
"Shit," Jack murmured, "They must have sent the new one to my house in Boston… I'm sorry…"
"We'll have to impound the car, and you can come down to the station to get it out," the officer began, before his eyes narrowed and he looked past Jack, who had started shaking anew, over to Jesse. "Hey, you're Jenny's nephew, aren't you?" Jesse looked up, surprised, and nodded.
"Yeah," he replied, "Jesse Pinkman."
"I was so sorry to hear about what happened," the officer continued. "She was a great woman."
"Yeah," Jesse agreed, "She was."
"Well, listen, Mr. Pinkman – Jesse – can I see your license?" Jesse fished open his wallet and handed over his own license card to the officer, who nodded. "Well, since your license is current, I don't see any problem if you were to drive this car back. Then get your license updated, Dr. Morrison." The officer made a tsk-ing sound with his tongue and handed Jesse's license back to him. "And tell your parents hello."
"Will do," Jesse replied, his eyes wide.
"Have a nice day." The officer walked back to his car, as Jack continued shaking and Jesse was left staring at his own window.
"Well, I guess we better switch," Jesse spoke up after a moment.
"Yeah," Jack echoed. Jesse reached over and unlocked his door, getting out slowly and moving around to the driver's side before opening that door.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Jack repeated, but didn't move from his spot. Jesse waited, unsure of what to say, until Jack unbuckled his belt and finally climbed out and around to the passenger's side. Jesse got into the driver's seat and closed his eyes a moment, resting his head on the steering wheel before turning back to the other man.
"You gonna tell me what happened there?" When he didn't get an answer right away, he sighed. "Okay, so, like… apparently not."
"I'll tell you when I can. Now… do you want to go do something?"
"Like what?" Jesse inquired.
"Well, what's there to do in Albuquerque?"
"We could do go-karts," Jesse suggested.
"Go-karts sounds good."
They arrived at the go-kart place a bit earlier than they would have if Jack had been driving, due to the fact that Jesse was more familiar with New Mexico's roads and the series of informal signals that seemed to indicate "it is now okay to drive like a maniac"; in Boston, Jack had always been convinced that someone was likely to smash into his car if he took his eyes off the road for a second, but Jesse seemed completely willing to have conversations, scratch his nose and face, and play with the radio, all while cruising over the speed limit.
"Go-karts," Jesse said excitedly as he climbed out of the car and gently slammed his door. "The last time I was here…" he trailed off, not wanting to finish that thought, and stuck his hands in his pockets instead.
"I've never actually been go-karting," Jack admitted.
"How do you live?"
"Well, blood flows through my body, to my heart…"
Jesse flipped him off and walked off towards the ticket counter.
"So, I've told you about what I do all day," Jack said after they had each gotten their ticket. "What about you? Any stories of the day-to-day life of Jesse Pinkman?"
Jesse snorted, trying to think of a story he could actually tell him. There's the time I had to shoot the guy to save my douchebag partner – and the time I had to shoot the guy to save my crazy-ass employer's enforcer – and there's the time I had to talk my way out of a DEA agent getting into my meth lab RV – and the time my parents threw me out on my ass…
"Well, I don't really have any stories like you. I mean, you're a doctor. You do cool shit all day. You save people. I sit around all day, smoke weed and play video games."
"I'm sure you do more than that," Jack countered.
"Oh yeah?"
"What about Brock?"
Jesse shook his head and looked away.
"Brock's different. That's… different."
He was saved from having to continue the thought as they both approached their respective go-karts.
He could remember coming here after Gale, while the party he had long since lost control of (just like everything in his life, then, at that point) raged on in his – his aunt's – house. But those days were over now, it was fine – he turned the steering wheel, closed his eyes, felt the wind against his face.
It was freeing, now, more than it had been then. Then, it had simply been energy in motion, as he tried desperately to reconcile what he had done, what he had had to do. Gale's face, his pleading, his…
He was not going to think about that now.
He was going to think about nothing, actively, in fact – not about Gale or Mr. White or this strange newcomer and what it all meant.
It felt nice to not have to think about a single thing.
"Today was fun," Jack said as they climbed back inside the car.
"You should come over mine," Jesse suggested, not ready to be alone with himself – again – right away. He had forgotten what it was like to have another person around, just a peer, just someone to talk to, as different as Jack might be from him.
"Sure," the other man replied. He wasn't ready to go home yet, either – thoughts of all he was fleeing from had been beaten back, somewhere behind his temple, his brain, and he wasn't ready to have them creep back as of yet. With Jesse he felt safe in a way that he wasn't sure he could put a name or reason to as of yet.
They drove back to Jesse's house in silence, and when they walked through the door, Jack made a mental inventory – it was sparse, as if Jesse had just moved in, and looked to have been repainted not very long ago.
"So, what did you do for fun back in Boston?" Jesse asked.
"Didn't have a whole lot of time for fun," Jack replied, "We used to play Ehrlich… My friend Victor Ehrlich's… copy of Trivial Pursuit at lunch."
"I always lost at that," Jesse said with a grin, "I played against some friends in high school once or twice… I guess I haven't really had much time for fun, either. Been busy."
"Working at the laundry?" Jack prompted, and Jesse sighed.
"Hey, what do I have to do to get doctor-patient privilege or whatever they call it?"
"I guess I'd just have to… be your doctor… I mean, it's all kind of subjective when you're not in a hospital setting, but morally I'm not going to repeat anything you tell me to anyone else unless you told me you were going to hurt someone."
Jesse fished twenty dollars out of his pocket and extended your hand.
"Give me a check-up."
Jack widened his eyes.
"Well, obviously something's coming… and you obviously need to tell somebody, so…" Jack began, opening his own hand and taking the twenty. "Sit on…" He gestured around, "Your couch. I don't have any equipment with me, but I guess I can tell you if you're in any immediate danger of death as far as I can tell."
Jesse moved to sit on his couch, and Jack, feeling equal parts strangely nervous and a bit silly, checked Jesse's pulse, his eyes and ears, and basic heart rate.
"I think you're okay, Mr. Pinkman. What do you want to tell me?"
Jesse smirked.
"Jesse's fine. Even if you are my doctor," he teased. "I… didn't work in a laundry. I… I'm a drug dealer."
Jack's eyes betrayed the fact that he wasn't quite as surprised as Jesse might have liked him to be.
"Well… you're seemingly unemployed but yet have a house and a car… And you haven't mentioned your parents supporting you financially… What kind of drugs? For my medical opinion… of course," Jack inquired, a small smirk appearing on his face. Maybe he shouldn't have anything to do with this kid, maybe this was all a bad idea, getting mixed up in Jesse's business – except he wasn't. He wasn't helping him to deal drugs any more than he had helped any other patient do anything that was detrimental. He could find out the facts and warn him of the costs…
Like he'd tried to warn Peter White all those years ago.
At the name, an involuntary chill raced up Jack's spine.
"Meth," Jesse admitted. "Speed. Crystal. Whatever you call it in Boston."
"Do you wear masks?" Jack asked. "You know it's dangerous to inhale those fumes…"
"Yeah, we always wear masks," Jesse replied, before biting his lip at the slip of the tongue. "I have a … lab partner, kinda. We worked together."
"Ah," Jack replied, "Well… just… not to be a mother hen, but… be careful. There's a lot that can go wrong, medically, without working around dangerous substances."
"Yeah," Jesse said, getting up from the couch and beginning to pace, trying to get rid of the nervous energy. "I'm out of it for now… I think."
"So, your 'friend' – female friend?" Mr. White inquired the next day, as they met in the basement of the car wash.
"No… he's a dude," Jesse told him, gazing around at the concrete walls and wondering whether this would actually work as a lab, or whether Mr. White just wanted to convince himself that he didn't actually need anybody, that he could be as big as Gus, better than Gus. "He rents the house next door. He's a doctor. In Boston."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah, asshole," Jesse retorted, "I saw his medical ID. It's… plastic and shit. He works for a hospital called St. Eligius. Why?"
Walt shrugged and took another few strides across the basement.
"If we could get the same sort of equipment that we had in the other lab…" he began.
"Yeah, and no one's going to notice those big ass deliveries to a car wash?" Jesse fired back. "Why don't we just set it up like we did at the RV? We'd just need more methylene."
"And how do you propose we get that?"
"We could just steal it again," Jesse replied. "It's easier than trying to ship a bunch of equipment we don't have the money for and thinking that no one's gonna notice big-ass chemical shit rolling in to, I don't know… a car wash. Or maybe it's just time for this to be over, Mr. White."
"It's over when I say it's over," Walt snarled. "I still don't have the money. I have barely anything to leave to my family…"
"Do you really think it's still about that?" Jesse's voice was quiet.
"What the fuck do you mean?"
"I mean… When you get the money, you're not going to be able to stop." Jesse knotted his hands together. "I have the money. I can't stop, either. It's not about some noble goal – for you it was, at first maybe, but it's just… now it's just about being the best, can't you see it?"
"What the hell would you know about it?" Walt snapped, and went back to surveying the basement. "When I get the money, then this can be over. For me. For us. I don't care what you do when all this is over."
Jesse smiled sadly and thought to himself, Yes, he does. I think he does.
"And I mean, I just feel like he doesn't ever listen to what I say, or take me seriously. He treats me like I'm some little-ass kid and it's fucking annoying," Jesse complained, lying back on his bed, as Jack sat on a chair off to the side in Jesse's room. "I mean, I've helped him out of so much shit, and he can't ever be bothered to just say 'thank you'. That shit ever happen to you?"
"It did, sort of," Jack replied, running a hand over the arm of the chair and looping his fingers around the woodwork. "I had a friend… a resident. Named Peter. Peter White." Jesse's lips curled up. "We were close. He had problems in his marriage… he stayed with my wife and I for a while. Eventually he got a drug addiction. I had to bail him out of jail. He was obsessed with his wife cheating on him…" He took a breath and laced his fingers together. "Things started to… happen to women at the hospital. Doctors and nurses… were… attacked…" Jesse rolled over and stared at Jack, raising an eyebrow. "It turned out he was behind it. He'd done all of it… One of the nurses ended up shooting and killing him."
"Holy… shit…" Jesse exhaled. "I never knew working in a hospital could be so dangerous." He curled one hand into a fist and rested his chin on his knuckles. "What happened to the women that got hurt? And the lady who shot him? Was that… I mean… shooting someone…" He swallowed hard. "Has got to do something to you."
"Shirley seemed… all right… I think," Jack replied, "But… well, the two doctors, one had a … breakdown of sorts, I haven't seen her in about a year and the other… she killed herself."
"That's horrible!" Jesse exclaimed. "That's really… damn. And… after all that you'd done for that guy… he did all of this… that's crazy. Seriously."
"My advice to you, Jesse," Jack told him, his voice getting a bit dark. "Is if you're in over your head, get out. Or else toxic people will take you down with them."
Jesse nodded, but he couldn't really think of Mr. White as toxic. Screwed up, yes, an asshole, yes… but toxic, no, he, Jesse, had been the toxic one. Still was. He was the bad guy. The toxic person who will bring everyone down. Get out…
But how do you get out from yourself?
"Jeez, Jesse, I think you need a few more bottles of vodka in your fridge. Are we seriously drinking all of this tonight?"
"Yes," Jesse replied with a grin, sticking his hands into his pockets. "It's time I showed you how we drink in the ABQ."
"How do you all not end up with alcohol poisoning?" Jack inquired, counting the bottles mentally before closing the fridge. Jesse shrugged.
"Endurance, I guess. My best friend Badger taught me how to drink when I was still in high school… I've been more… like, clean, over the past few months but it's time, y'know? Let's throw down." Jack cocked his head to the side.
"Should I be frightened?"
"Nah," Jesse replied with a wink. "Well… Maybe. You and your doctor friends never get wasted?"
"Well, we usually have to be up in another few hours, so that kind of… tempers it. I remember my friend Victor joking about how he used to fantasize about sex, but after he became a resident all he thought about was sleep."
"I am never becoming a doctor," Jesse announced with a grin. "Damn… I couldn't even do that."
"That's what I said at first, too," Jack admitted, blushing slightly. "At first I wanted to be a lawyer…" Jesse burst out laughing, unable to imagine the clean-cut man working alongside someone like Saul. Jack looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Sorry… Just can't imagine you as a lawyer!" Jesse explained, "You're so… I don't know. You're such a good guy. You just… seem like a doctor. Like it's what you were always meant to do. Like fate." Jack stared down at Jesse's floor and shuffled his feet. "I mean… You are going back to being a doctor after all this, right?"
"I don't know."
"Listen," Jesse replied after a moment, opening up his fridge again and taking out a bottle of pineapple vodka and placing it on his counter. "I think you need to vent. I told you about me dealing meth, you gotta tell me something too."
"I…"
"A-ha," Jesse said with a smile. "Here." He put a shot glass on the counter and poured a mix of vodka and coke into it. "Have a shot."
"I…" Jack began.
"You need it. You're wound way too tight. There's no hospital you have to be at tomorrow. You can just, like, sleep in if you want – relax a little." He placed the shot glass in Jack's hand. "I have weed, too, if you're into that. Do they drug test doctors?"
"No," Jack replied, shrugging before tipping back his head and drinking the shot before pulling up a chair and sitting.
"That's kinda scary," Jesse said, before pouring himself a shot and thinking to himself not to tell that to Mr. White, before deciding that he probably already knew. "Do you smoke?"
"I have," Jack replied, setting his glass down on the table and watching as Jesse walked over to take it and refill it. "Not recently. I went to medical school in Mexico, and well, there I smoked a bit. The school wasn't really that, um, well, advanced, I mean… I learned everything but it probably wasn't the best education. I got bad grades in college so that's the only place I got accepted. I don't even speak any Spanish! I had to buy two copies of all the textbooks." Jesse grinned.
"I've been to Mexico… I don't speak Spanish, either. When I was down there I was, well, most of the time everybody was talking about me and I had no idea what they were saying. I was so glad to get my feet back in America, I could have kissed the damn ground of this shitty-ass state," he recalled. "The only thing I remembered is 'salud', you say it before you, like, drink, and stuff."
"Yeah," Jack replied, as Jesse handed him his glass back. "It means 'health'. Like a toast."
"Well," Jesse said, raising his glass as he tried not to let his mind flood with other memories of Mexico – of Gus, Mike… (Was Mike still down there? He hadn't heard from the man but he didn't know if he would, ever, even if he had returned.) "Salud."
"Salud!" Jack echoed, clinking glasses with Jesse. "To two people meeting up at random and becoming friends."
"To the fact that they don't drug test doctors," Jesse replied, grinning widely. Jack chuckled.
"Well, I'll be pretty dried out if I go back."
"If you go back?" Jesse inquired. "I know you say you don't know, but I thought this was just, like, a breather."
"I don't know," Jack repeated, and this time he walked by to fill his own drink. Jesse, meanwhile, rose and walked to the other room, opening a drawer and taking out a wooden box filled with a bag of marijuana and rolling papers, along with a few lighters, given that he was constantly misplacing his. His curiosity was winning out and if nothing else would lower Jack's inhibitions, this combination ought to. He had to make sure not to lower his own, though – if he opened his mouth and started talking about Gale…
He just wouldn't. He wouldn't talk about that. He couldn't talk to Mr. White or Mike about that, and they both knew, so why would he have the illusion that he'd tell anyone – utter those words, I shot a man, an innocent man who wasn't doing shit to anybody, to somebody, to anybody who wasn't there? It had been hard enough when he'd uttered his "problem dog" story, the looks he'd gotten, the judgments, all well deserved.
Maybe he didn't deserve Jack as a friend but he couldn't lose him, not now.
He knew enough… but Jesse didn't.
Maybe there was something…
He didn't finish that thought and continued back into the kitchen, placing the box on the table.
Silently, he opened it, rolled up a joint and lit it, before passing it to Jack.
"Let's do this."
Seven shots and two joints later, Jack and Jesse had moved into the living room. Jesse was sprawled on the couch, while Jack had taken up residence on a cushy chair in front of the TV, which was playing some program on the Discovery Channel about insects eating each other.
"You wanted to know why I left Boston," Jack began, staring into his empty glass and looking at the reflection which gazed back at him, equal parts judging and spurring him on.
Jesse, at the words, turned to the other man, laying his head on the arm of the couch and watching him as he spoke.
"A few months ago, Dr. Westphall… he's the Director of Medicine at the hospital… started this community outreach program. Like, have you ever had to do community service for school?"
"Yeah," Jesse replied, "I had to read to some kids in senior year." He didn't mention that he had only gone once, another thing he had neglected in high school in favor of drugs and partying.
"Well, this was like that. Except… for doctors. My friend Wayne visited people who couldn't get to the doctor, some other people worked in free clinics… I, well… I was assigned to do work at a local prison." Jack reached up and placed the glass on the stand next to the TV before climbing off the chair and moving to sit cross-legged in front of Jesse.
"Okay," Jesse acknowledged, keeping his eyes on Jack.
"There was a riot. Everything went crazy. The prison went into lockdown, but two prisoners got into the clinic." Jack gazed down at the hardwood floor, unable to meet Jesse's eyes. The younger man watched him, unable to look away, beginning to regret his insistence on knowing. He didn't know what he was about to hear, but he knew he was not going to be able to un-hear it. Like some of the things he was unable to un-know, in his heart, about the things that had happened this year. Maybe he should just tell Jack that he didn't know, to keep it to himself, but maybe he needed to say it as much as Jesse, somehow, needed to hear it.
"What happened?" he prompted softly.
"One of them knew me. A guy whose… his wife was killed in a bombing and I was the doctor for… the guy who did it, the bomber, and the guy… had shot the bomber and was in jail for it… I… the other guy, I didn't know. He was just… I don't know. They wouldn't let me leave and it just…" He looked up at Jesse and seemed to lose his nerve; his eyes returned to the ground. "The first guy… he held me down and the other…" His fingers twitched and he raised a fingernail to his mouth. He closed his teeth around it and bit it for a moment before continuing. "Broke my jaw… Beat me up and… worse."
Jesse's eyes went wide.
"Worse?" His voice was soft as he looked down at the other man.
Jack's teeth bit into his lip a few moments before he got up the nerve to say it.
"The guy raped me."
Jesse's eyes went impossibly wider as he sat up straight and continued staring.
"I was there… awhile… got rushed to the hospital… my hospital… Westphall wanted me to go home but I couldn't… I just wanted to go somewhere else… so I came here. Albuquerque. Now I don't know how to go back." Jack looked up and finally met Jesse's eyes. "That's why I left."
The rain hit Jesse's windows with a rhythmic tapping as the two men watched it in silence, the little droplets exploding against the glass.
"Dr. Auschlander told me once that rain depresses a lot of people, but that it invigorates him," Jack said quietly.
"Makes sense," Jesse replied, "It takes everything away… and it doesn't rain very much, here."
They stood, watching and listening, until Jack raised a hand to his cheek and realized that he was crying.
"Do you think I can go back?" he asked, his voice pattering against the walls, just like the rain.
"I think you can. You can always survive," Jesse said. He turned and looked at the other man, swallowing hard. "Back when I first went into business with my partner, we made a deal with a guy named Tuco. He was crazy, fucking psycho… When I met him the first time, he beat the shit out of me and left me bleeding to death. Then, he kidnapped us. Held a gun to my head… He could've… done anything to me, then. To us. I was like… insignificant in the world. A fuckin' speck of dust for him to flick. We only just got out, we lucked the fuck out…" He swallowed again. "There was nothin' you could've done. It wasn't you. There are crazy, fucking psycho, horrible people out there who do… horrible, fucking shit. And it wasn't you."
"But then why me?" Jack asked. "My wife died, my son was kidnapped for days before I got him back, this happened… I'm a magnet for… every bad thing in the world…"
"I know," Jesse whispered, staring out the window. "But at the end of the day, what are you? You're a doctor. You save people's lives. You… kinda need to, like, accept that. You can either run from who you are or face it." He turned to look at Jack and put his hands in his pockets. "I'm a drug dealer. I need to accept that. I've done horrible things. I need to accept that. You're someone who people rely on. Who people need. That's a lot… that's a fuck of a lot of responsibility. But you can't just hide."
"You're right," Jack began, meeting Jesse's eyes. "But if I'm… meant to be a doctor, you think, then maybe you're not meant to be a drug dealer. I've seen you, talked to you – you're a good person, Jesse. You could be more."
"Like what?" Jesse inquired. "Like… I mean… I don't know. I'm not good at anything else." A small smile crept across Jack's face.
"There's someone I'd kind of like to meet."
"Brock, this is my friend Jack. He's a doctor, in Boston," Jesse explained as he knelt in front of the six-year-old. Jack smiled gently and curled his fingers into a shy wave, which Brock returned.
"Where's Boston?" he piped up, looking at Jesse.
"It's in Massachusetts, honey," Andrea supplied, grinning.
"What kind of doctor are you?" Brock asked.
"I'm a resident," Jack explained, moving to crouch down next to Jesse. "It's like a learning doctor. You follow around people who are doctors already and they teach you what to do."
"I saw lots of doctors," Brock continued, nodding.
"Not anymore, though," Andrea cut in. "'Cause you aren't going to eat anything else that people don't tell you is okay to eat." She sighed and turned to Jack. "Somehow he got a-hold of some plant in somebody's yard, gave us all a crazy scare and this one…" she pointed at Jesse, "thought that he was poisoned by some weird… poison he saw on TV… and the FBI was out and everything."
"It happens more often than you might think," Jack told Andrea. "My friend's daughter ate mothballs one time… she only left her alone for a few minutes… Kids get into things really quickly." She smiled and looked from Jesse to Jack.
"I like your friend," she told Jesse. "How'd you end up becoming friends with a doctor, anyway?"
"He's renting the house next door for a while," Jesse explained. "Vacationing in the ABQ."
"Why would you want to come here?" Andrea asked with a snort. "Most people are trying to get out of here."
"You'd be surprised," Jack said simply.
"I want to be a doctor, too," Brock piped up. Jesse stretched out his hand and gave the little boy a high five.
"You can be anything you wanna be, Brock."
"You're good with kids," Jack pointed out when Andrea and Brock had returned home. "You could work with kids…"
"I'm a high school dropout," Jesse retorted, "My job for the past couple years has been 'meth dealer', it's not gonna look good on a resume."
"You could go back to school. You're good with chemistry. You could get a degree."
"Nah… I'm just… when… my partner tells me what to do, I can do it. I can follow… a process. That's not… being smart, not like you have to do. I could never, I mean, like… diagnose somebody, look at scans and go 'that's what's wrong with you'! I used to think what I do is art but really it's just a formula. I'm smart enough to not screw up a formula… most of the time." The words reverberated in Jesse's head – when you screw up like you always do and end up in a barrel in the desert… He shuddered. "Why are you trying to convince me that I can be anything more than that? You should… go back to being a doctor. You're good at it."
"You think I have great skills, Jesse?" Jack retorted, his voice soft and a little raspy, but not fully condemning or confrontational. "I told you… I went to med school in Mexico because I couldn't hack it in college. I have a colleague, Dr. Chandler, who always second-guesses my diagnoses because I have to come to him. He always reminds me 'Jack, diagnosis isn't your strong point.' I'm not like Dr. Westphall or Auschlander who can snap their fingers and figure out what's wrong with someone. I can't do a crazy, impossible operation without missing a beat like Dr. Craig can. When I match myself up against people like that, it does seem like all I can do is follow… a process. But it's more than that. I'm probably not a great doctor, but there's something that makes me a better one than someone like Peter White. I care. I give a shit. And Jesse, you do, too. You care. And you can either care about this product that, without even getting into what it does, if you want to live this life, it's a short one. That question you asked that one day, about… what if you were dying and had to do something illegal to help your family… that wasn't a hypothetical question, was it? That's what… your partner's doing?" Jesse sighed and, after a moment, nodded slowly. "But you're not dying, Jesse." Jack knotted his fingers together and swallowed. "Remember that. You've got the rest of your life ahead of you."
"So do you," Jesse replied. "So why are you here? Stop being afraid and go back to Boston…"
"I don't know if I can."
"I don't know if I can, either," Jesse fired back. "This is me. This is what I am. There's some lines that once you cross them, you can't go back to how things used to be, or how you wish they were."
"You think I don't know that?" Jack asked, tears flinging to his eyes. "Get out of this before… I don't want to see you end up in something you can't get out of."
Jesse swallowed. I think I'm already there. I killed an innocent man, what worse thing could I do?
But then there were his own words, If you just do stuff and nothing happens, what's it all mean?
He took a deep breath.
"Okay. You said there's something better. What?"
"I could talk to Dr. Westphall. Get you a job at the hospital. Nothing… flashy or exciting, but safe, and with decent pay. Paperwork, or something custodial, and then you could move up if you got more training… We have a guy who started out as an orderly who's doing training to be a paramedic. We always need people to be in charge of ordering supplies, making sure everything runs smoothly… I don't know if we made headway on it but I've been trying to get a daycare center started at the hospital. You're good with kids, you could work there."
Jesse considered it. A new life, not having to look over his shoulder all the time and after all, he still had enough money to make it work for quite some time.
"Could I work in Oncology?" he asked softly.
Jack looked up, surprised, sure that Jesse was going to tell him to shove off if he wanted him to clean floors after living large.
"Sure, yeah, I could see about that… I could talk to Dr. Auschlander."
"Then I'll go," Jesse replied quietly. "But not right now. After… after my partner dies. I'm not gonna… I'm not going to leave him alone. I'm all he has, aside from his family. He acts… like he doesn't need me, but… he does. I know he does."
Jack nodded.
"Okay. I respect that." At least he had gotten a "yes", even if it was a delayed one.
"Does that mean you're going back?"
Jack sighed.
"Yeah… I guess… I guess it does."
"You sure about this?" Jesse asked as he helped Jack lift his suitcase into the back of his car.
"I gave the landlady back her keys… I booked my flight… I returned the rental car…" Jack replied, smiling shyly. "I guess there's no going back now, right?"
"No, I guess not," Jesse replied. "I hope you have a good trip back… And… thanks, for everything."
Jack extended his hand and handed Jesse a small business card.
"Well, we're not saying goodbye yet," he reminded him. "But before I forget, I want you to have this." Jesse looked down at the card to see "Dr. Jack Morrison" written in blue print, with an address and phone number underneath it, and the name "Dr. Donald Westphall" written in what looked like blue fountain pen off to the side.
A smile crept across Jesse's face.
"Are you eager to get back?"
"To see my son, yeah," Jack said, "To get back to St. Eligius… I don't know. I guess I won't know until I get there." He walked around to the passenger's side door as Jesse opened the driver's side. When they were both in (and Jack had buckled his seatbelt while Jesse had openly neglected his), they exchanged looks.
"It meant a lot to me… Hanging out with you," Jesse managed to mumble. "I… I do want to take you up on your offer. I just don't know when."
"I don't think we'll be going anywhere," Jack told him. "St. Eligius will always be there… at least, I hope so."
"I think they'll be happy to see you."
"So this is goodbye," Jack Morrison said as he shuffled his feet in front of the gate.
"Not forever," Jesse told him. "I'll be flying in… sometime." He didn't want to say "any day now", because that would be… hoping for something he didn't want to hope for.
Jack didn't want to hope, either. There was just a good a chance that Jesse would turn around, rip up the card, and go back to dealing meth, end up dead in a ditch somewhere, and Jack would never hear from him again. Maybe it would be just a chance meeting, a Bloom Day, one that was never meant to be repeated and never meant to change Jesse. But it had changed him.
He didn't know if he could walk into St. Eligius again, like nothing had happened. But he was ready to find out.
"Stay safe, Jesse," Jack said, reaching out his hand and shaking Jesse's firmly. Jesse smiled, lowering his head slightly as he nodded.
"You, too. Don't trip over any gurneys."
"I'll try."
It was a non-goodbye, as Dr. Jack Morrison and Jesse Pinkman each turned and went their separate ways.
"Are you paying attention, Jesse? Then we put the reactor right here – we can say it's for a more economical car wash. Like… to be more green, or something… We hook this set up right here, and then we're ready to go. I'm already in talks with one of Gus' old distributors who knows the product and is willing to work with me, giving that Gus is out of the picture… Discreetly, of course. Are you listening, Jesse?"
"Yeah," Jesse replied, "We put the reactor there."
"Where's your head at? You've been drifting off all day."
"Just thinking. Sorry. I'll try and pay better attention, Mr. White." Jesse looked up from the chair he had carried down into the car wash's basement. He couldn't remember when he had done it, but he must have done it at some point… because he was sitting in it. Where was his head today?
"That's fine, Jesse. I'll do most of the planning, you just need to follow me here. I'm going to draw up more specific blueprints by Wednesday."
"Sure, okay, Mr. White."
Walt walked over to the small desk that Jesse was hunched over and tried to sneak a peek at what Jesse kept looking at. Jesse covered it up quickly and gave a bashful smile.
"Sorry, just, uh, doodling. Nervous energy."
"Well, don't!" Walt fired back. "This is important."
When Walt walked back to the other side of the basement, Jesse lowered his hand and stuck a look at the book before him.
He turned slowly to the title page:
Breakthroughs in Liver Radiation Treatment
Daniel Auschlander, M.D.
St. Eligius Hospital
Boston, MA 02118
Well, Jesse figured, only place to start is the beginning.
He turned to the next page.