Dusk in the Sandia Mountains had always been beautiful.

Walt drank in the sight of the peaks against the desert sky, the distinct pinks and reds which produced a visceral feeling in him, for which there was no scientific explanation.

He used to bring Skyler up here, in the Porsche, when he was young and still had licit, non-forbidden dreams—a future. Hair.

As beautiful a place as any to spend one's final moments on earth—or at least the best place within easy driving distance. There was a spot, about twenty yards off from the clearing where he stood now, a cliff from which you had a clear view of the waterfall and river below.

That was where he would do it.

This wasn't a great plan. In truth, it wasn't much of a plan at all, though it was better than sitting in his house waiting for Gus's men to show up. He'd spent too long waiting for things to happen to him to have that be the last thing he did.

There'd been another option on the table, of course.

When his survival mode had kicked in, and Walter had realized the one thing he needed—what he'd counted on, taken for granted, and then pushed right into his enemy's hands without even realizing it—another plan, dark and desperate, and come to him. It had emerged from his mind fully formed, as if from some divine (devilish?) inspiration.

Two plans. Two possible courses of action.

One gun.

Walter had never been a religious man, let alone one prone to superstition, but when he had spun that gun once, twice, three times—and each time, despite the difference in the starting point and the force applied, the barrel had landed on him—well, that felt like a sign. Of what—who knew? Judgement, damnation.

The universe telling him there was only one way this ended.

It had also served as a mocking, statistical improbability—and the disappointment Walt had felt shed any doubts he had over what he was willing to do to stay alive, to guarantee his family's safety.

To not let go of control.

And yet…

Something Jesse had said came back to him, as often happened at the strangest moments.

"Coin flip is sacred."

To him, the spin of that gun was as close to sacred as he came. Three times could not be random, could not be overlooked. Maybe Skyler hadn't been too far off the mark when she'd cast him in the role of high-stakes gambler.

(No Lily of the Valley. Not after three spins. That was betting big and losing.)

So, he was here. Honoring whatever respect for the sacred he was still capable of.

Walter looked down at the .38 Snub with the dispassion of the scientist he still was, at heart. He hadn't thought this was how he was going to use it when he had bought it from Saul's "guy." It was supposed to be for self-defense, not self-destruction.

No more prolonging the inevitable.

If this was the one thing he had left to do, then he was going to do it himself.

He lifted the gun, traced the barrel with his thumb. As soon as sunset was over, and the light had faded…then he'd do the deed.

Walter just wanted to enjoy the moment, the light and the tranquility of a New Mexico twilight, before it all went dark forever. He wanted to remember Skyler as she'd been then, not terrified, holding back tears, begging to know when he'd be safe again, when he would be able 'work this out.' When he was dead, Skyler and the kids wouldn't be in danger—no, surely not. Gus had no reason to go after his family, it could draw attention to a retired chemistry teacher he would rather the world forgot. That was why Walt never told her the details of his work, he reminded himself—it protected her. That was why the lies and secrets were necessary. And they had the car wash now—his ill-gotten gains had given Skyler that security, at least.

Now, Hank was another story. He wished he could've done more for Hank.

How long would the DEA protection hold? If only he had done a better job of throwing him off the scent, if only he would let up, but Hank was like a dog with a bone…once he got his teeth in, he'd never let go. All Walt had to rely on was Marie's overbearingness, but he knew in his heart that if his brother-in-law believed that Gus Fring was Heisenberg, he would not stop until he had proved it.

And if he did—if by some miracle the protection held, and Hank lived long enough to actually expose Gus…

What would happen to Jesse?

Jesse's fate had been the one thing weighing on him more than Hank. He had money to spare, at least. Saul could set him up with the disappearer, if he was smart enough to ask and was actually thinking of his own future. Of course, he never could count on that from Jesse—that's why Walt did it for him. It was his responsibility, one of his strongest motivations to stay alive up until this point.

Who else would look after the little idiot?

Walt's fingers clenched around the metal. He lifted it up, stared into the barrel itself, in what anyone would say in a rudimentary gun safety class was a terrible idea. Who the fuck cared, at this point?

He should get it over with.

"Really? This is the spot you pick?"

Walt's insides froze up. For a moment he wondered if he had pulled the trigger and this was the afterlife.

It would have to be hell.

"The place where you proposed to your wife? That is—seriously messed up."

The sound of shuffling feet over pine needles, the clumsy gait—that could only be one person, and he was certainly not dead yet—through no self-preservation instincts of his own, Walt's acerbic inner voice could not help adding.

Walter turned around.

"...Jesse?"

His ex-partner stumbled out from the trail which lead back to the parking lot. Winded, Jesse grasped the knees of his ill-fitting pants to catch his breath. It took a second for Walter to realize that wherever the hell Jesse had come from, he'd run.

From that place…to here. To him.

Walt stared at him, dumbfounded. This was the one thing he had not predicted—a scenario he had not accounted for.

Jesse Pinkman was always the one scenario Walt had not accounted for.

"What are you doing here?"

"Yo—" Jesse caught his breath and straightened up. "—I'm the one who should be asking that."

Despite the fact that Walt believed he had come to terms with his own death, the old paranoia that had dogged him for the last few months returned with a vengeance. It was like a bad habit he couldn't shake, even now, when it no longer mattered.

"Did Gus send you?" His eyes darted around the clearing, searching for a gunman—was Mike here to finish the job he'd started in the laundry? "Did you follow me?"

Jesse rolled his eyes.

"Are you gonna ask if I put a bug on your car? If I'm wearing a wire?" Jesse snorted. "No, he didn't, I didn't—and I'm not. How retarded are you?"

His face contorted into the look of incredulity that only Jesse Pinkman could elicit. His partner (ex-partner?) took a few cautious steps towards him.

Jesse eyed the gun in Walt's right hand with trepidation.

"So you really were gonna do it."

Walt ignored the question, as he often had where Jesse—and questions he didn't want to answer—were concerned.

"If you didn't follow me and Gus didn't send you," he said, irritated. "How the hell are you here?"

"Your wife."

"What?"

The kid shrugged. Once he'd seem Walt, the urgency he had sensed in Jesse seemed to have ebbed somewhat. His breathing was calmer, he seemed almost—normal, at least for him, except that he kept staring at Walt's right hand.

"I went by your place and found that note you left. I figured out you'd let her know where you'd be with some code in that last bit, so I called her and she told me what it meant—where you were going. This hiking trail in the back-ass end of nowhere." He waved his arms about. "You proposed here, right?"

Jesse looked around the clearing.

"Guess it's—kinda pretty. Fucking far, though. You were a bitch to find." He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, with the old twitchy Jesse energy he seemed to have lost since Gale. "I thought you might be…you know…"

He trailed off, and Walt realized that the emotion his partner was trying and failing to mask.

Relief.

A far cry from what he felt, now that the surprise had worn off. Jesse's presence drained all romance out of the clearing for Walter, leaving him with nothing but burning frustration. Now the last memory he would have of this place would be him yelling at Jesse for yet another fuck-up.

"You…called my wife?" Walt's voice turned into a low growl. "You thought you had the right to call my wife?"

"Uh—yeah. No shit."

"Where did you—" He paced in front of Jesse. "How did you even get her number?"

"Saul gave it to me, duh."

Saul. Goodman was lucky he would be dead before Walt got a chance to fire him again. Attorney-client privilege his ass.

"And you actually spoke to her? You spoke to Skyler."

"Uh…yeah."

It shouldn't have, on the day he expected to die, but this fact—Jesse talking to Skyler on the phone, and being so blasé about it—felt like the pièce de résistance of all disasters.

"What—what did you say to her?"

Jesse said nothing, instead staring at Walt like he had grown two horns. As if it wasn't the obvious next question he needed an answer for in the circumstances. It was a look that Walter knew well, and it never failed to annoy him. He was not the insane one, here.

Pistol still in his right hand, Walt rushed forward and grabbed Jesse by the lapels of his leather jacket.

"What did you tell her, you little shit?"

"Relax, geez! I was just trying to find out where you were." He shoved Walt away. "There wasn't a lot of time for chit-chat, yo. What, you think I was in the mood to wax poetic about us melting Emilio and Krazy-8?"

The paranoia receded like the tide. Walt took several calming breaths, to steady himself. It didn't work.

"What did she—is she alright? Did she make it to Hank's okay?"

"Yeah, she's been with your douchebag brother-in-law for hours. Which you would know if you would pick up your damn phone."

Jesse's scolding reminded him, unpleasantly, of Skyler at her most passive-aggressive.

"I left it in the car," he said, in a tight voice. "I am not getting reception out here, anyway."

"Have you been out here since this afternoon? Because you sure as shit didn't pick up my calls."

Walt watched Jesse cross his arms, and his own incredulity rose like bile in his throat. The little ingrate had the temerity to be—what, upset with him right now?

"Why would I answer your calls, Jesse? You made where we stand abundantly clear last night. Thirty seconds after you kicked me out of your house, Gus's goons tased me, put me in the trunk of a car with a sack over my head, took me out in the desert and threatened to kill my entire family."

Under the fierceness of his anger, Jesse wilted—chastened. It gave Walt a brief, flickering fillip—cold comfort now, but it was better than nothing.

"So, I'm sorry that taking your calls was not high on my list of priorities. For all I knew you were only calling me on his behalf—to find out where I am."

"Do you think I would do that?" Jesse asked, voice indignant. "Rat you out?"

"Why not? Aren't you his guy, now?" Walt tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failed. "You're cooking for him without me."

Jesse stared at him, with that wounded look that always reminded Walt of a dog with a tail between his legs. He could tell the boy felt guilt for the situation, and though that should have given him a perverse sense of pleasure, all it did was make Walt feel guilty himself—no one wanted to be the man who kicked the dog.

Guilt. He was sick to death of that emotion. Soon, maybe literally.

Jesse rallied quickly.

"So, what? This is it? This is the great Heisenberg's plan? Go out in the woods, blow your own brains out after giving your wife a clue where your corpse can be found?"

When it was put like that, in Jesse's typical slang-ridden, inelegant style, it sounded—well, pathetic. But he was not going to waste his breath justifying himself to this—this—

"I do not owe you an explanation for my actions."

"Don't owe me?" Jesse laughed, hysterically. "Bullshit you don't owe me. After what I've done for you—"

"—I am not having this argument with you again—"

"—You make me waste Gale to save your sorry ass, then two months later you waste your own ass, and you expect me to be cool with that?"

"What I—asked you to do—was as much to save you as it was me. Do you really think if Gale were alive and I had let Mike kill me that night, Gus would have let you go free?"

Jesse said nothing, merely glared at him, looking more and more like the kid Walt would always think of him as—a teenaged punk who, when faced with the clear proof of the wisdom of his teachers, scrunched up his face and doubled-down on whatever idiotic rebellious fancy he had taken.

"He would have hunted you down. You saved your own life, Jesse—"

"—That's not why I did it."

When he looked into Jesse's eyes, saw the same burning resentment that he had seen a week ago, when Jesse had said those words—"After everything I did for you—"

He knew, deep down, that even if it was true, saving himself had been the last thing on Jesse's mind that night.

"Look, I was perfectly willing to…do the deed myself," Walt said, in a gentler voice. "But Mike intercepted me before I could make it to Gale's apartment. If I had known the effect it would have on your state of mind, believe me, I would have left my house sooner, and I never would have called you that night and asked—"

"—What the hell does—"

"—And God knows I would have used the ricin on Gus myself, too, if that was an option for us."

"'State of mind'?" Jesse repeated, in an incensed voice. "What was my state of mind?"

"Let's see: between turning your house into a drug den, getting back on meth—and clearly not giving a damn whether you lived or died—I think the word for it would be 'fragile.'" He let out an exasperated sigh. "I can't believe I thought there was even a chance you would give it to him, after what a wreck Gale made you. This is what comes from listening to Saul's advice."

Walt meant the comment more as self-recrimination than anything else, but Jesse, in his typical touchy way, took what was meant to be an honest and objective statement of the facts as a personal affront.

"Oh, I'm sorry that I don't get off on killing people like you do!"

Walt jabbed his free hand into Jesse's chest.

"Is that what you think? Do you think I enjoy all of this? You think running over those gangbangers was a thrill for me?"

"I never asked you to do that!"

"Oh for God's sake—" He looked up at the sky, the stars just visible. "What did you expect me to do, Jesse, just let you die?"

He realized he had fallen into the trap before even Jesse did, which showed that it had not been deliberately set for him. But as the kid was not actually as stupid as he looked, even his idiotic partner figured out Walt had stepped right into it.

"No—" Jesse said, in a quiet voice. "I guess not."

Walt felt his shoulders slump. All the energy that arguing with his young partner had rallied in him drained away.

"…It's not the same thing."

"Who says?"

Walt lowered the gun. He was suddenly exhausted. Only Jesse had this effect on him. More than the cancer, around this little punk he felt far older than his nearly fifty-one years.

Jesse Pinkman was bad for his health. How the hell had he gone into remission working with him?

He collapsed onto a rock, clutching his gun like a life preserver.

"Jesse…let me tell you something."

"I'm really not in the mood for one of your—"

"—Just—let me talk, okay?"

Jesse nodded at him and sat down on the grass in front of him. He gripped his knees, and Walt was reminded painfully of Junior curled up in front of the fireplace when he was a child, waiting for Skyler to read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.'

Jesse was nothing like Junior, but he kept—making Walt think of him. Why was that?

"When we first started working together, you asked me why I was doing this. Why after fifty years on the straight and narrow, I would decide to…go this direction. I told you I was awake. Sometime later you discovered that I was in chemotherapy, and you inferred that my motives were altruistic. That I was doing it for my family—to leave them money after I'm gone. The truth, Jesse…is that that was one reason, the major reason, but it was not the only reason."

He rubbed his bald head, suddenly not able to meet Jesse's eye.

"The truth is I would never have done any of this if I did not know that there was an end date. That I have an end date. The last year I have never felt more alive, but that feeling has come…at a high price. I made choices, and I have to live with the consequences of them. But I will not let my family face those consequences, do you understand me?"

His voice darkened, and he felt a strange sort of calm. Resolution.

"There is only one way this ends, Jesse. There has always been only one way that this ends, and I realized this morning that I still have a choice. I could sit in my house waiting for someone else's choice to happen to me, or I could go out, and for the last time make my own." He held up the gun. "I need you to respect that choice. Do you understand?"

It was a version of the speech that he had given Skyler, and if Walt had been expecting Jesse to dramatically tear up as his wife had, he was disappointed to get a flat, sarcastic shrug, instead.

"Whatever. You got a death wish, fine. Do it. I'm not gonna stop you."

Walt hated how honest he was feeling, because honesty forced him to admit that Jesse's apparent indifference to his fate actually bothered him.

"Thank you. I…appreciate that."

Jesse didn't move.

"So…yo, are you gonna do it, or what?"

Walt squinted at him.

"I'm not going to shoot myself in the head in front of you."

Jesse got to his feet, brushing the dirt off his pants with deliberate casualness meant to set Walt's teeth on edge.

"Why not? If you're feeling all self-sacrificial and shit, I figured you'd want an audience."

"This is not a joke."

"You know, I'm not sure you even have the balls to do it," Jesse continued, as if he hadn't heard him. "But I'm not gonna pull my trigger until you pull yours. So, I'm staying"

"Pull what trigger?"

He had known Jesse had low points, when his own fate mattered very little to him, but he hadn't gotten the impression that was what this was.

"You got a plan—well, I got a plan, too."

Walt stood up, alert to the danger. Jesse and plans…like Jesse and thinking…was a bad combination.

"What plan?"

"Simple. When you kill yourself, I'm gonna drive to your douchebag brother-in-law's house and tell him and the rest of your family—everything."

It was such a nonsensical, bizarre thing to say in the circumstances that Walt was rendered momentarily speechless by it.

"Do you hear me? I am gonna march right in there and tell your son that you've been cooking crystal for the last year. I'm gonna confess—for the both of us."

"What are you talking about?"

"Everything, Mr. White. Emilio, Krazy-Eight, Tuco. I will tell them everything. The feds will Rico the shit out of your house, your new car wash. Your family will know the truth and they will have jack shit to show for it."

For a minute all he could do was stare into that face.

Then the rage came.

"You're not going to do that, Jesse," Walt seethed at him. "Do you hear me? You will do no such thing."

"It's gonna be hard for you to stop me, since you'll be dead."

Walt reflexively went for his pocket, then he remembered.

"You left it in the car, remember? Besides, you're not getting a signal out here, and Saul's not going to side with you. I'm the one who has all the money now."

A surge of righteous outrage hit him like a tsunami wave, and Jesse must've seen it on his face, because he took a few steps backwards. Walt stalked towards him, waving his gun about like he used to wave magic markers at Jesse in fourth period chemistry.

"Even if you were stupid enough to do that, have you forgotten about Gus, genius? Do you honestly think he will let you get two steps into a house crawling with DEA agents?"

"Maybe. You'll be dead, so he'll need me."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Except it was Jesse logic, so—he could, in fact believe it.

"Gus can always find another chemist. If he thinks for even a second there's a chance you're going to blow up his entire business, you become a loose wire he will cut."

Walt squinted at him, a new suspicion rising.

"Is this a drug thing? Are you high right now? Is that where the death wish is coming from?"

"Seriously? You're going to lecture me about death wishes?"

Walter threw his hands up in the air, exasperated, but Jesse cut him off before he could speak.

"So what if I did have one? I got to respect your choice to off yourself, but if I want to do the same thing, that's not cool? How does that work?"

It was such an absurd false equivalence that Walt would not deign to respond to it.

"You know, you're so busy acting like this falling on your sword shit is noble, you're not even thinking about how it affects me. You dying is basically me dying by default."

"Excuse me? What universe do you live in? My death is the best thing that could happen to you right now. It is a guarantee that Gus will keep you alive at any cost." He shoved Jesse on the shoulder. "So long as you don't fuck it up by running to the DEA!"

"Until when? Until he finds a new Gale? Yo, if I can learn it, anyone can!"

The hair-trigger temper only Jesse could provoke flared up—along with his pride. Anyone? Anyone?

"You listen here, you ungrateful shit, you did not learn that formula from anyone, you learned it from me." He grit his teeth. "Just don't give him any excuse to get rid of you, and you will be fine."

"It's a little late for that."

The bottom dropped out of Walt's stomach. He grabbed Jesse by the shoulders and forced the boy to meet his eyes.

"What are you talking about, Jesse?" He shook his partner like a rag doll. "What—did—you—do?"

His partner jerk out of his grip and shoved him in the chest.

"I told Gus if something final happens to you I am not cooking for him. We never got into the specifics of how that final thing happens, so as far as I'm concerned whether it's you or him, it's the same. I made my position clear."

The logic was moronic, but the impulse to rail at him for that was overcome by another, more immediate and visceral emotion.

"…You told him that?"

"Yeah," Jesse said, with a look of defiance in his eyes.

He had of course known this to be the case. Walt had even said as much to Gus just this morning, because there was no logical reason for Gus to keep him alive if he thought Jesse could run the lab himself—except if he believed there was a chance Jesse wouldn't cook for him. In spite of all his bravado, though—or maybe because of it—Walt hadn't quite believed it himself.

After all, would he be here now, prepared to carry out this final, degrading act, if he had thought there was any other way?

(There had been another way—A voice whispered in his ear—you didn't take it. It would have worked.)

Maybe. But coin flip was sacred, as was the spin of the gun.

"And Gus really buys that? I mean, you made him believe it?" He kneaded his forehead. "That is—you're convinced that he believes you?"

"Let's see—I told him at our two hour and eighteen minute dinner—" Jesse checked one finger. "—I told him when we were in Mexico after I watched him poison half the cartel, and I told him this morning when some jack-off DEA agent raided the laundry. I don't think I could make it any damn clearer. If he doesn't believe me, that's his problem. I'm not getting a super homo Kill Mr. White And I Quit tattoo on my forehead."

The worst feeling in the world, thought Walter, was not being able to give the last word. Jesse had rendered him speechless, left staring at the younger man, unable to admit what that loyalty meant to him, not even at the end. Thinking he'd lost that loyalty forever was the reason he was out here in the first place.

Out of nowhere, he thought of what Junior had said the day after his birthday—that his son preferred to think of him as a weeping mess hopped up on pain killers than as the detached, soul-dead secret keeper he had become in the last year.

Why did he keep thinking of Junior?

"So…what's your move here?" Walt said, at last. "What exactly do you intend to do?"

"I told you. I'm waiting for you to do it, so I can bring your body back to your family when I go to explain to them everything that happened."

Walt gave him one of his patented are you insane? looks, which he knew had zero effect on Jesse, but we're almost a hair trigger response at this point.

"But you know what, I could also just trust that you're going to do it and you got like, stage fright or some shit right now. I might just leave and go straight there. It's getting dark."

Jesse started to walk back towards the trailhead, a dramatic swagger to his step.

"Wait a minute—stop—Jesse!" Walt clumsily lifted the gun. "You take another step, and I'll shoot."

He didn't really know if he should point it himself or Jesse, so he split the difference, waving it back and forth between the two. His partner looked over his shoulder, unimpressed by being held at gunpoint, which didn't shock Walt, as he'd never had a particularly reliable sense of self-preservation.

"You are not going to Hank and Marie's house, Jesse," he said, in a 'forcing himself to be patient' voice. "It would be insane to do that. You will go to jail for the rest of your life—and besides, you don't even know their address."

"Yeah, I do."

"Oh, really? Then tell me where they live."

"4901 Cumbre Del Sur Court—North East, bitch."

The color drained out of his face.

"Why are you doing this to me? Why?"

Walt glanced at the gun in his hand, then looked back up at Jesse—wondering if he could possibly get this idiot to believe that he would actually shoot him.

"You tell me your reason first."

Walt lowered the gun again. If he was not prepared to explain himself to his own wife or son, he was certainly not going to waste his breath on Jesse of all people.

"What is this, Jesse? Is this you getting back at me?" He held the pistol out, pointing at it with his free hand. "Do you think you can hold the threat of telling my family and getting the money taken from them over my head, to prevent me from pulling this trigger?"

His partner said nothing.

"Is this…blackmail?"

Jesse sneered, and Walt was disturbed to see some strange funhouse mirror version of himself staring back at him.

"What can I say?" He lifted his arms. "I guess cooking meth is not the only thing I learned from you, asshole."

Walt felt an unexpected stab of betrayal. This ungrateful little piece of—how could he do this to him, after everything that had happened? Everything they'd been through together?

As soon as the thought crossed Walt's mind, he realized—there was no way he was going to do this. Jesse was not cruel, it was not in his nature, and that's what this would be—an act of cruelty.

It was a bluff, it had to be a bluff.

Walter lifted the gun and held it to his temple.

Jesse would not actually let him do this right in front of him, and even if he did – and what was the problem, really, after all, that was what he had come out here to do, Jesse as a witness hardly made a difference, and if he could convince Gus that he'd been the one to pull the trigger, so much the better—even if he did watch Walt blow his brains out, there was no way Jesse had the stomach to drag his corpse to Hank and Marie's house and subject them to the added horrors of a full confession.

He cocked the .38 Snub.

"I'm going to do it," Walt said, somewhat feebly.

"Right. Whatever, man."

He's really going to do this to me, Walt thought, seething. He's going to make my last moments on earth as undignified as possible.

He slowly raise his finger toward the trigger, repeating the logic in his head, like it was a mathematical formula—there was no way Jesse was going to carry out that threat—it didn't make sense, no sane, rational person would do something so pointlessly self-destructive.

And as Walt stared into those unblinking, still-defiant blue eyes, he remembered Gus's warning, Mike's story of the murderous wife-beater and the danger of half-measures, what, in truth he had been telling himself, deep down, probably since the moment he had spotted Jesse rolling off that roof.

Jesse Pinkman was not a sane, rational person. He was an out-of-control, Funion-eating junkie.

Jesse Pinkman might do it.

Walter White cursed and dropped his .38 Snub to his side. His partner gave him a wide, shit-eating grin, and Walt would not have been surprised if the next words out of his mouth were "checkmate, bitch!"

Instead, Jesse sprinted forward and hurled himself at Walt.