Chapter One: Welcome Home
It all starts when Jesse gets home from Mexico, and his eyes are a little wider, his voice a little raspier.
He knocks on the door of Walt's condo and blurts out: "Gus and Mike are both dead."
Walt knows it wasn't the ricin, wasn't Jesse's doing, and he feels a renewed pang of guilt for giving Jesse this job, this next irredeemable deed.
"How?" he asks, and he ushers Jesse inside and watches as the younger man shakes his head from side to side but comes in anyway, staring at Walt's couch as if he's no longer sure what its function is.
"Mike – shot. Gus – poison. I dunno." Jesse can't elaborate on the details, doesn't understand all of them and doesn't want to understand the ones that he does. He shudders and stares at Mr. White, the man who he told to get the fuck out and never come back. And here he is, coming back himself. But it's better to swallow his pride than be alone.
"Poison?" Walt echoes, and Jesse just nods, still shell-shocked. How he got here in such a state, Walt figures he will never know.
"Can I crash here a few days?" He doesn't say the obvious this time, hopes Mr. White gets it this time, the way he didn't with the go-kart offer.
"Sure, no problem." Somehow, he does. The days without Jesse have made him acutely aware of how much he needs his thick-headed young partner.
"Really?" Jesse looks shocked, then ecstatic. "I'm just gonna… go grab my stuff… from my place… Clothes and stuff."
"How did you get here?" Walt inquires, leaning his head towards the window and not seeing Jesse's car parked out front.
"Walked."
"Walked? Jesse, it's two miles from your place to mine. I'll give you a ride back. Just take a seat for a second, you need to sit down." Jesse looks around as if the floor is falling out from under him, and scurries to the couch, sitting tentatively as if he'll be ordered to get up at any moment for tracking dirt on it or something similar. Walt sighs; this is what this has become, what his constant emotional haranguing of Jesse has led to. "Do you want a soda – water – anything?" Jesse shakes his head, but Walt gets up anyway and returns with a glass of water. "You should drink. You're probably dehydrated." Jesse accepts, passively takes the glass from Walt and drinks, his eyes not leaving the older man.
A firm hand is what Jesse needs.
"We're going to go out to your house and get your things," Walt tells him with calmness that he desperately wishes he felt. "We're going to take my car." Jesse nods. Walt remembers that look of shell-shock – it's usually due to something that had to do with him. He lets the younger man sit for a little while, not speaking, before he extends his arm and helps Jesse up before making his way to the door and opening it. The motions go slowly, haltingly, and neither speaks. Walt begins to drive, knowing the way to Jesse's house as well as he does his own by now.
When they arrive and park on Jesse's street, Jesse lets him in – the old threat and promise lingering between both of them but not mentioned by either. Jesse circles the room, looking confused and gazing behind his TV and speakers a few moments before walking up the stairs. Walt wonders if he should follow him, as Jesse seems completely lost – but a few moments later, he emerges with a duffel bag slung over his arm filled with clothes, blankets and a pillow. Jesse wonders whether, if he looked around hard enough, he'd find one of the teddy bears from his youth (as much as he hates to admit it, he could use one right about now), but then he recalls how his parents repossessed all of his things and either kept or sold them. There's no use worrying about that.
They walk out; Jesse locks the door after a few tries, drops the key and Walt picks it up, hands it to him silently and he pockets it. He pulls the bag over to the Aztec as Walt ducks inside and pops the trunk.
That's when it happens, when Walt has his head stuck inside the car and Jesse tosses the bag in, steps back and to the side as he slams the lid down with all the remaining energy he has.
The car comes around the corner way too fast – it's bright red, a convertible, and its headlights seem to be right behind Jesse before he can jump out of the way.
Walt sticks his head out when he hears the crash, just in time to see the doors to the convertible open and hear a female shriek.
"Chad!" the brunette wails. She turns and looks at Walt, guilt and panic in her eyes. Those same eyes narrow as she says, surprised, "Mr. White?"