The two grappled for the gun, elbowing each other in the face, fingers and thumbs jabbed in eyes. It was the worst possible rematch of his life, in what he had optimistically thought was the most romantic place.

The .38 Snub slipped out of Walts hand's—they both dived for it. His partner managed to grab it with both hands and rolled on his side and out of Walt's reach, the gun clutched to his chest. It was only after Jesse unloaded a round in the side of a tree that Walter remembered he had not put the safety back on.

"Shit!"

Jesse snatched the gun up and scrambled inelegantly to his feet. Walt tried to follow suit, but his partner kicked him in the stomach and he fell down and rolled over pine needles, wheezing.

"Jesse—Jesse, give me that back!" His yell turned into a series of coughs. "You're going to shoot—your damn—foot off!"

Jesse scrambled backwards, panting hard. He put the safety back on and waved the gun in front of his face. Walt pulled himself out of the dirt, muttering profanity under his breath.

"Oh, you want this, bitch? Come and get it!"

Jesse turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, and it took two seconds for Walt to realize that he was heading towards the cliff, with the view of the waterfall that had seemed the most picturesque spot in the world to propose marriage to Skyler seventeen years ago.

No no no

He staggered to his feet and hurtled after Jesse, but the little shit had at least ten yards on him, and he was just rounding the tree line when he saw his partner hurl the .38 Snub off the cliff and into the churning waters of the river.

He stumbled and stopped at the cliff edge next to Jesse. Walt watched as it fell in a comically huge arc and plunked into the rapids below and out of sight. Jesse looked down at his handiwork with the kind of idiotic satisfaction he probably got from a high score in a video game.

"You…"

Jesse was small, but like the blowfish Walt had once compared him to, he could puff himself up when he needed to. Walt recognized that squaring of the shoulders well—Jesse was spoiling for a fight.

Which was good, because he wanted to rip the boy limb from limb.

"How could—why did you—"

He rounded on Jesse, arms stretched out, fingers balled into fists—

"Do you want some?" He tapped his chest. "Bring it, old man. I will gladly kick your ass again."

The memory of his head being smashed against a glass table, and worse, what he could remember of that conversation with Junior the next day, stopped him from following his baser instinct—wrapping his fingers around Jesse's neck and choking the life out of him.

Instead, he seethed in boiling hot anger in the junkie's direction for a few moments, which seemed to unsettle Jesse more than assault would have.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Walter demanded, through gritted teeth. "That gun was the only thing we had to defend ourselves."

Confusion rapidly overtook the anger on Jesse's face, and the blowfish deflated again.

"What if you were followed? What if one of Gus's goons is waiting for us at the trailhead?" He paced in front of Jesse. "Thanks to you, we're sitting ducks."

"No one followed me, yo!"

"You can't possibly know that. That junker you drive sticks out like a sore thumb."

"Good thing I took your wife's car, then."

It took Walter a second to fully comprehend his partner's words.

"You drove Skyler's Wagoneer here?" Jesse rolled his eyes. "You stole my wife's car—out of the driveway of my house—the house which Gus's men are undoubtedly watching?" He waved his hands in the air. "Brilliant move, Jesse! I'm sure that threw them off the scent."

Walt heard a faint rustling from the bushes, and immediately tried to duck behind a tree.

"Will you quit it with that shit? I did not steal it. Your wife had one of the dudes who works at your car wash pick it up and drop it there for me. Even gave it a wax and polish before I drove it out. No one saw me."

Walt poked his head out from behind the tree, just in time to see a chipmunk skitter up it.

"So Skyler lent you her car." Jesse pulled a face. "What, you're buddy buddies with my wife now?"

"If wanting to find you before you did something fucking retarded makes us buddies, then yeah, I guess so."

He stepped out from behind the tree.

"Do you have a gun with you, at least?"

Jesse eyed him in a way that reminded Walt of how you'd approach a crazed mental patient—or the unibomber. He did not appreciate being looked at like that by Jesse of all people.

"If I did," he said, cautiously. "I wouldn't tell you."

In other words, yes, he did. Walt eyed his belt and his jacket—there was no bulge in either, but that didn't mean Jesse wasn't carrying one on him. Maybe he was keeping it in the car.

His eyes flicked back to Jesse's face, calculating his partner's next move.

"Let me guess, you spent a few weeks with Mike and now you think you're—what, Quick Draw McGraw?"

"Who the hell is that?"

"If you have a weapon, this would be a good time to consider getting it out. We need to be thinking about defending ourselves in case you were followed. Do you think I want to be shot?"

"Uh, yeah. You came out here to do it yourself, what the hell does it matter who pulls the trigger?"

"If I have to explain that to you after all this time—"

"Oh my God, do not give me one of your speeches about, like, the right time to die. Newsflash—there is no right time to die. Dying sucks!"

Walter realized that staring at the river Jesse had thrown his gun into was not going to miraculously retrieve it, so he turned and stalked back towards the clearing.

"Impressive philosophical observation. In addition to sucking, do you know what else death is? Inevitable. A universal fact of life—and rather more immediate for middle-aged men with stage-3 lung cancer."

Jesse followed him, practically jogging to keep up.

"Shut up! You're in remission."

"That does not mean I am cured." He stopped and turned on his heel. "Statistically I have a year or two at the most, outside chance."

"So, beat the odds!"

"I'm a meth cook who was just fired by his sadistic drug kingpin boss—you remember him? The one who hates loose ends? I think my odds are somewhat shortened from that."

Jesse's expression went from defiant anger to worry in a flash not unlike a gunshot.

"So, like…that's why you weren't at work this morning? Gus fired you?"

"Among other things." There was no point in repeating those other things, because between Saul and himself, Jesse had enough of the picture. "He told me not to go back to the laundry and not to contact you. It's why I had Saul call in the tip to the DEA. I don't know how long they'll be able to hold Gus off, but it was my only option. Hank doesn't deserve any of…this."

Jesse stuck his hands in his pocket and rubbed his toe into the dirt, looking every bit the chastened kid that had always been Walt's most familiar and comforting image of him.

It occurred to him that Jesse didn't deserve any of this, either.

Walter sighed.

"How long have you been back, anyway? I know you were cooking the day before yesterday in the lab without me."

"Since…that morning."

"I cannot believe you didn't even call to let me know you made it out of Mexico. I had to resort to asking Hank for information about what was going on with the cartel." He let the indignity of that sink in for Jesse before continuing his lecture. "Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

Jesse scowled at him.

"Uh, the last time I saw you, you told me you hoped I ended up buried in a barrel in the desert. So no, I didn't!"

The irritating fly of guilt creeped over Walt's spine. He tried in vain to shove it away, along with the memory of that fight.

And what had happened after.

"You are never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"And you're never going to say you're sorry," Jesse shot back, his resentment palpable. "So I guess we're even."

"I did say I was—" Walt stopped himself, remembering that it had not been Jesse that he admitted that to. He raised his arms in a magnanimous gesture. "…Look. Things were said in the heat of the moment. Things neither of us meant."

"Speak for yourself. I meant every damn word."

Walt sighed, too tired to argue. Anyway, nothing Jesse had said to him had not been deserved.

"Well. You obviously didn't end up buried in a barrel in the desert, so I suppose you were fine without my help after all."

A funny look of satisfaction crossed Jesse's face. Walt didn't like it one bit.

"That kills you, doesn't it? You would have preferred it if I had."

The sharpness of it cut through him. Rarely had Jesse hit on the truth with such devastating accuracy. Walt used every ounce of self-control he still had not to let on how right his partner was. Him seeing through Walt that way had probably been an accident—he certainly wasn't about to hand Jesse that kind of a weapon now by admitting he was right.

"I am relieved you're alive." It was the truth—or half of it, which would have to do. "Did Gus really have you show the cartel chemists how to cook my formula?"

"Yeah. They even tested the purity. With some like, little machine thing." He rubbed the back of his elbow. "Mine was, uh—96.2."

Walt nodded—then he realized Jesse was waiting for him to say something more specific about this, with one of those intense looks of expectation he occasionally got.

"Well, that's—very good," said Walt, trying to keep his voice out of the neutral chemistry teacher, honestly evaluating his students' work. "Especially considering you were working in an unfamiliar laboratory."

"Yeah, thanks." Jesse kicked a nearby stump. "You don't have to be a condescending prick about it."

"What do you want me to say? That it's not a good number?" He made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat. "Then you'd be complaining I was being too critical."

"Aren't you at least going to ask what I did wrong, how I screwed it up, 'like I always do'?"

This throwing back of his words in his face wasn't helping the situation, but there was a small part of Walter that was glad their fight had apparently been weighing as heavily on Jesse as it had on him. Walt decided to take the tact of forced patience.

"Well, not having been there myself, I can hardly evaluate your work. Unless you know what it is that you did wrong. But if you knew what it was you had done wrong, then you wouldn't have done it, correct?"

"Their lab was dank." Jesse rubbed the back of his head—one of his awkward, fidgety movements that usually set Walt's teeth on edge but here and now felt…strangely comforting. "The whole time we were down there I kept thinking about how apeshit you would go if I let the RV get half as dirty as that place."

"It's hardly surprising. I have been in legitimate industrial labs that cut corners. Even the smallest contaminant can cause chemical impurities."

"Oh yeah, you should've seen all the flies."

Walt's lip twitched.

"There was a moment there I thought…that Gus and Mike had really fucked it up by bringing me and not you."

"What happened?"

"They—expected me to synthesize the phenylacetic acid myself."

Walt narrowed his eyes. Who were these people? Synthesizing in a filthy lab? No wonder Jesse had not been able to get the highest purity possible.

"Gus managed to get us out of that one by convincing them that I'm some big shot who expects it to be done for him."

Walter's chest tightened. He imagined how he would've felt, had Jesse never returned from Mexico—all because he didn't bother to teach him something a high school chemistry student should have been able to do. Of course, he would never have known that was the reason, what he would have blamed himself anyway.

And he would have been right.

"I'm sorry, Jesse. It never occurred to me that you would need to do that. I could always—"

Walter stopped himself. There was not going to be any time to teach Jesse how to synthesize the phenylacetic acid on his own. He had come out here to die.

Why was Jesse so good at making him forget that?

"You mentioned something before. About Gus poisoning the cartel." He had other things on his mind, and it had sounded like an absurd Jesse-ism, so he hadn't thought to follow up on the details. "What the hell happened down there, exactly?"

Jesse told the story, in his usual rambling style. He was clearly irritated every time Walt stopped him for clarification on a point so absurd he could not believe it, this shoot out and car chase high on the list, but eventually he got through it. Righteous indignation—a welcome feeling, after all the horror he done this past year—swelled in his chest.

"So let me get this straight," Walt said, in a tightly wound voice. "He brought you down there to teach them my formula and then offered to sell you to them as their captive cook. Their slave."

"It was just a ploy," said Jesse, and to Walter's immense irritation, he started to defend Mike, of all people.

"'Just a ploy'? And what is this ploy hadn't worked?" A million horror situations flashed through his mind. "What if they had not drunk Gus's poisonous tequila? What if they'd made you drink it? What if he died along with them?"

"Then I guess you'd be happy, asshole, considering you've been trying to get me to poison the guy for like, a month!"

He was not going to point out the profound stupidity of this statement, how the time and place of Gus's death mattered, and how it would be all for nothing if Jesse was stuck in Mexico because of it, in danger, away from his protection and not capable of helping Walt clean up the ensuing mess.

It wasn't worth it.

"Did he explain to you why he poisoned these men, at least?"

"Some kind of act of revenge, yo. He took me to that nursing home where the dude in the wheelchair with the bell lives—you know, Tio, from out in the desert? Taunted him, saying he killed his whole family. He told me after it was because those people killed someone close to him."

An act of revenge. Gus was so icy, cold-hearted, reptilian, it had never occurred to Walter that such a passion stirred in the man.

"And this," he said in a heavily sarcastic voice. "This man, is the one that you want to work for."

This is the man you are siding with over me, a small, pathetically jealous part of him said—to himself, of course, because damned if he was going to ever admit that to Jesse.

"Want to work for him? You were the one who brought me into the lab, remember? I was happy doing my own thing, I was free of you! You asked me to be partners again."

Walt rubbed his temples, wearily.

"Oh God," he groaned. "I should never have done that. I should never have brought you into this."

"What do you mean?" Jesse demanded.

"We would not be in this situation if I had not brought you into this—whole thing, with Gus."

"So you're saying this is my fault?"

"No, I'm saying it's my fault. If I hadn't done that, none of this would've happened. Gale would be alive and still in the lab, Hank wouldn't suspect anything about Gus Fring. My family would not be in protective custody right now. You would…"

He trailed off. Jesse would—what? Like most things in his life, Jesse was the one thing he couldn't predict. The fact that he couldn't predict what Jesse would do was the reason that he had made that offer in the first place.

And he had walked away from that hospital room thinking that he'd miscalculated, that the wayward partner he'd sacrificed parts of his soul he'd never get back for had slipped away from him for good.

He hadn't ever been worried about the possibility of Jesse turning on him, oddly enough. That had been the farthest thing from his mind.

"…I should have given you the money. Just offered to give you the million and a half."

Walt knew him well enough to see that he had set Jesse off.

"You think I would've taken it? That you could've paid me off?"

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Let me see: a twenty-five-year old gets offered one point five million dollars, no strings attached. Yes, I think you would have taken it! Anyone would."

"No strings attached?" Jesse repeated. "Since when is anything with you 'no strings attached'?"

"What, are you going to pretend like you're the Dalai Lama, now? I seem to recall you pretty adamantly wanting your $480,000."

"That was money I earned."

"What sane person would be willing to work for a man like Gustavo Fring but not be willing to take the same amount of money for nothing?" Walt moaned in despair for what might have been. "Right now you could be anywhere, doing anything you wanted."

When he chanced a look over at Jesse, he did not find a similar emotion on his partner's face. Instead of wistfulness for this imagined, limitless future, he saw a look of disgust and…some other, less obvious, but clearly negative emotion Walter couldn't quite identify.

"What am I, your stupid, bastard kid you think you can just pay off and send away to like, boarding school in Belgium or some shit?"

Not fear or anger, but—

Oh. Oh.

"Switzerland," Walt corrected, quietly. "Switzerland is famous for boarding schools."

"Whatever, man."

Hurt. Jesse was looking at him with confusion and hurt, and Walt felt his irritation grow, because he had not done anything to merit this wounded puppy dog look. Did the truth hurt? It was time for Jesse to start stop being a child and grow up.

"If you think I partnered back up with you for the money, you never knew jack shit about me."

As he stared into those eyes, brimming with unshed tears, he remembered how young Jesse really was. And that yes, perhaps he did not know anything about Jesse, besides what had been immediately useful to getting what he wanted out of the boy.

Then why? He thought. Why would you throw your life away for a man who told you he hoped you ended up buried in a barrel in the Mexican desert?

And Mike's words came back to him.

"Walt—you got a good thing going, we all do. You want to risk it all on one junkie?"

"Why did you come out here, Jesse?" Walter broke eye contact and looked down at the forest floor. "Why, for once in your life, could you not leave it alone?"

"Because I—" Jessie's voice cracked. "I…I really thought you were going to do it."

Walt looked up from the pine needles he had been contemplating straight into Jesse's eyes. Those cobalt blue, piercing eyes, swimming now with tears—and something else, something he had been desperately trying to hide ever since he found Walt with the gun in the clearing and let out that sigh Walter now realized had been of relief.

Fear. Genuine terror.

Where was this last night? Walter thought.

Truly, Jesse picked the most inconvenient time to start caring about his life.

"Would you have?"

Walt did not reply.

"Yo, if I had not gotten here, would you have done it?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Probably. We'll never know, now."

Jesse made a sound suspiciously like sniffling.

"That is so…messed up. How could you do that to your family?"

"Really, Jesse?" Walt shook his head in disbelief. "After everything I've done, this is the line you think I can't cross?"

"I spoke to her, you know. Mrs. White. She was freaking out, okay?"

"I wish you hadn't told her about the note."

Walt had not counted on still being alive to hear Skyler's reaction to it.

"Yeah, well, she's not on board. I promised her I would bring you back, and that's what I'm gonna do."

"You promised her?" Walter repeated, snorting. "Well, God forbid you should ever lie to my wife."

He lay down on the ground and started to laugh, the memory of being in the crawlspace coming back to him with visceral force. All he managed was a weak chuckle. The absurd humor of the situation was gone, replaced with…exhaustion.

"This is pathetic, do you know that?"

Walt tried to remember if he'd ever had as much energy as Jesse did now. Oh, to be young. Maybe if Jesse ever made it to his age he would understand what it was to have reached your limit. Of course, knowing Jesse's track record for self-preservation, it seemed doubtful he would make it to twenty-six, let alone fifty. Particularly without Walt around to protect him.

"I don't recall inviting you. Do you remember where you parked my wife's car? You can show yourself back."

Jesse stared down at him, with a look of intense disgust and almost—was he seeing that right—disappointment?

"Whatever, man. You want to die? Fine, just die."

It made him think of Junior. Why had Jesse suddenly started to remind him so much of Junior? The two of them bled together in his mind.

Jesse reached into his jacket and pulled out a battered cigarette box. He chucked it as hard as he could at Walt's head. The box bounced off his shoulder and onto the ground.

"You want to die so bad? Then take it. It's still in there. Just swallow it like that asshole Socrates!"

He leaned over, turning his head towards the box on the ground. Why was he thinking so much of Walter Junior? Jesse was nothing like his son, in personality, in temperament—he was just—inexplicably Jesse.

Then he realized.

"Then why don't you just fucking die already? Just give up and die."

"That was hemlock, Jesse."

"What?"

"Socrates. He took hemlock. I'm surprised you know about that."

"I watch the History Channel. I'm not an idiot, you know?"

"At any rate—" Walt propped himself up on his forearms and picked the box of cigarettes up. "If you wanted to kill yourself with poison, ricin would not be a particularly good way to do it. Works too slowly. And besides—" He opened up the box. "It's not even in here."

Jesse stared at him, incredulous, then he snatched the cigarette box back and rooted through it.

"Where—that's impossible! It was—it was here this morning. I don't mess around with that shit, Mr. White, I swear—"

"—Calm down," Walt interrupted him. Jesse wasn't listening and he didn't obey.

He started to tear each individual cigarette apart, looking for the poison.

"Are you listening to me? It's not here. This is bad. That shit could kill someone—"

"—Relax! You didn't lose it. Saul has it."

Jesse dropped the cigarette he'd been dismembering to the ground.

"What?"

"When you went into Saul's office today, that bodyguard of his lifted it off you. He switched the box with the ricin with the one you're holding."

"Why?"

"Because I told him to."

Even after the gun had landed on him three times, the devil on his shoulder had not been able to resist. Keep your options open. There's no other way to get everything you want.

"Why the hell would you do that?" Jesse shouted. "Were you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Not…exactly." Walt sucked in a breath. "I had a…different idea of how I might use the ricin."

A flicker of trepidation crossed Jesse's face.

"What idea?"

"It doesn't matter now. That plan is off the table."

He looked up at Jesse, whose expression had softened, like it always had in the worst of his cancer days, when his coughing fits had presumably reminded his partner of his dead aunt.

"…Besides, I don't think that plan would've gotten me anything I didn't already have to begin with."

And the cost might've been too high.

"Oh."

To his relief, Jesse didn't press him for any more details. Perhaps he correctly sensed that he didn't want to know.

"So…Saul has the ricin."

"Yes. As I very much doubt he could get it to Gus any better than you or I, it no longer matters. It's not a variable anymore."

Jesse took one of the remaining cigarettes and jammed it in his mouth.

"I really didn't get a chance to do it that night, okay?" He mumbled. "He never left the room."

"Sure. Right. Maybe I should've asked Gus. He apparently is more willing to poison himself than you are."

"Screw you, man."

Jesse pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the cigarette. Dark at almost fallen, so the small red ash tip stood out against his face, emphasizing the lines around his eyes. Jesse looked so much older than he had just a few months ago. Their partnership had aged him.

Walt didn't move from the spot where he lay on the ground. He half-expected Jesse to take a cigarette and wander back off towards the trail, but he didn't move.

He also didn't say anything. They both just sat in awkward silence. Finally, as it seemed like Jesse would not put him out of his misery unless he demanded it, Walt held his hand out.

"Give me a smoke, would you?"

"No," said Jesse, exhaling.

"Come on. You've got a whole damn pack."

"I'm not giving you one, yo."

"Why the hell not?"

"Hello—" In the fading light Walt could still see the look of dumbfounded incredulity. "—Have you heard of a thing called lung cancer? You know, the thing you got?"

"Even if I was going to live long enough for it to matter, one cigarette wouldn't make a damn difference."

"How do you know that?"

"Current scientific research, for a start."

"What research? You got some proof, some numbers?"

Walter rolled his eyes. God, give him patience.

"I'm not giving you a peer reviewed study, Jesse. You wouldn't even be able to properly understand it if I did."

"Yeah, well, you're in remission. I'm not going to contribute to bringing the cancer back."

It took all his self-control not to stand up and snatch the cigarette pack out of Jesse's hand. Instead he let his head drop back on the ground.

He hadn't really wanted a cigarette, anyway.

"I hope you brought a flashlight with you, since otherwise I don't know how you're going to get back to Skyler's car."

Jesse continue to smoke his cigarette in sullen, rebellious silence.

Walt sat up.

"Wait a minute—what time did you leave the lab today?"

Jesse gave a non-committal shrug and muttered some thing about the late afternoon.

"And you're in the middle of a cook?" Jesse shrugged again. "What time do you have to be back there?"

"I don't know, a couple of hours, I guess."

"You guess?" Walt repeated. "I would hope as my replacement you know the exact time you have to get the next step of synthesis going."

For all his screwing around and listening to thrash metal on his headphones during work, Jesse was actually quite fastidious and precise about timing. Walter had a distinct impression his partner was now pretending like he didn't care for the sole purpose of annoying him.

"You're really going to bust my balls about the cook? Why the hell does it matter to you?"

"Where does Gus think you are right now, Jesse?"

"Probably at home, I don't know. He doesn't own me."

"Are you so naïve that you don't realize he must be keeping tabs on you, especially if you're his only cook? I'm sure he has someone monitoring your house. What do you think he's going to assume if he can't get ahold of you?"

"That I'm at a strip club with shitty cell reception?"

"He's going to assume that you're with me, Einstein. You need to go back to your car right now, and drive down the mountain in case he's calling you. Reassure him you're coming to work and not skipping town."

Jesse flicked his cigarette onto the ground and stomped it with his heel.

"I don't wanna be out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere freezing my ass off, so I'm happy to do that when you get your sorry ass up and come with me."

"I'm not going anywhere, Jesse, I thought I made that clear."

"So I guess we're like camping out, or something. Maybe you should've brought a tent…or a blanket."

The temperature had begun to drop, and his body shivered, treacherously. If it wasn't for Jesse, of course, he would no longer be part of this world. He would've shuffled off this mortal coil, and the issue of body heat would no longer be relevant.

"What is it going take to get you to leave?"

"You coming with me. It's the reason I came out here in the first place."

Walt contemplated Jesse for a moment, and his options. He could see that his protégé had entered the stubborn, defiant phase of the conversation, and had dug his heels in. Reason was not going to be a strategy that worked to get Jesse to do what he wanted him to do. He would have to try a different tactic.

"Right. Well, don't say I didn't warn you when Gus decides you were just as much of a liability as he thought you were and puts a bullet in your brain."

His partner's jaw tensed. Walt breathed in, preparing himself for twisting the knife with the necessary vigor to drive Jesse away. If there was anything he knew how to do, it was that.

"Since that's clearly how it's going to end anyway, you might've spared me the trouble and just ended up in that barrel in the desert after all."

Just as he intended, a flash of hurt crossed Jesse's face. Walt closed his eyes, feeling a sick sense of satisfaction at having wrested some small bit of control over the situation back. He waited to hear the retreating footsteps of his ex-partner for the last time, leaving him here to his fate.

Hypothermia was probably not the most pleasant way to go, but there would be a certain point where he no longer had the energy to move, and he would just freeze to death—it would be beyond his control to stop, even if he regretted his choice.

Out of his control once again.

"…You're unbelievable, you know that?"

He opened his eyes. Jesse was, against all logic, reason, or past experience, still standing there, above him, looking down—pissed as all get out.

"In what respect?" Walt asked, dryly.

"I just can't fucking believe—" Jesse seethed. "—That you put a bug on my car."

"Oh, God." Walt got to his feet. "Is that why you're still here? You really want to hash all that out again? Do you desperately need an apology from me before I die? Because you'll get it when hell freezes over!"

Jesse got very close to his face, and Walt found himself almost hoping for another punch to the face.

"What I want is for you to admit it."

"Admit what?"

"Admit that you're an asshole. Admit it's a shitty thing to do to your own partner. Admit that maybe I had earned more trust than you gave me."

"Trust? Do you wanna talk about trust? You lied to me!"

"You mean like how you lied to me about having cancer? About the methlamine going bad? You're in no place to judge me for that. You're like, the da Vinci of lying!"

It might've been true, but it was hardly relevant now, so Walt ignored the accusation entirely. He turned away and skulked out of the range of Jesse's fists and his irritating, piercing looks.

"Why did you even agree to do it if you didn't want to? I never asked you, you volunteered."

"Please, you were winding up your fucking sales pitch. I agreed to get you to shut up, because I knew you'd never stop nagging me about it if I didn't."

"Nagging?" He repeated, incredulously. "I did not nag you. This is not the equivalent of me asking you to clean your room or do the dishes. This wasn't a chore. It's the difference between the two of us living or dying!"

"Yeah, well, so is what I'm doing now."

"I'm not going to apologize for the car bug. In the long run, it's better that I found out, even if the circumstances by which I did so were—not ideal. Gus has been trying to drive a wedge between us, and if the worst come to pass, better he think that he succeeded."

Walt didn't add the question he was really wondering about…had Gus succeeded?

Jesse's temper, quick to flair—was also quick to cool, particularly when he was confused.

"How do you figure that?"

"It secures your position. The fewer excuses he has to question your loyalty the better."

Jesse snorted, perhaps at this time as aware as Walt was of the futility of selling himself as a careful pragmatist where self-preservation was concerned.

"Sometimes it's better if the truth just comes out. For clearing the air, anyway. I'm not sorry for doing it, and—I think hurling the bug at my face and breaking my glasses means you more than got your own back. So that's all I'll say on the matter."

"What about the other thing?"

"What other thing?"

"What you said to me! Don't act like you don't remember."

Walt gripped his forehead—the migraine really was setting in. Or maybe this conversation had caused the cancer to move to his brain.

"God, Jesse. Really? Can't you just forget about that?"

"It happened like a week ago, yo. No, I can't forget it! Did you mean it?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"One I want a fucking answer for. Did you mean what you said?" Jesse's eyes smoldered with righteous anger. "And do me a favor, will you? Don't be sarcastic, or start listing off all the reasons why I'm a fucking idiot for thinking it's possible, and just answer the damn question."

Walt made several sputtering noises, but as Jesse had correctly predicted his next rhetorical strategy, he was forced to shut his mouth again.

"…No, I did not mean it," he said, at last.

"Then why do you say it?"

He tried to come up with a lie. Funny, how he'd gotten so good at that, become the da Vinci of lying, as Jesse called him, and now, in this moment, nothing came to him. It felt more like talking to Skyler. He never could fool her.

"I suppose there was a part of me that felt…" Betrayed. "…Look, there's no reason people say things they don't mean. It happens under stress all the time. Human beings are complicated and often irrational. There's no one reason that is going to satisfy you, so just suffice it to say—I didn't mean it."

That was the best that Jesse would get. He had no intention of groveling or reenacting moments that he wish the drugs had blocked out.

Luckily for him, Jesse was content with the bare minimum of what Walt was willing to give him.

And he hadn't lied, after all. He hadn't meant it.

"How are you doing, by the way?" Jesse pointed at his forehead. "Still kind a looks like shit. You, um…recover okay?"

Walt could see there were still bruising on Jesse's face, as well—though considerably less. He'd come out the loser in that fight by a country mile, and in every way.

"Yes, of course. I was…I went back to my condo and slept it off. No harm done."

He tried to keep his voice light, but he could see that Jesse wasn't buying it.

"Did you have to explain—" He tapped his forehead. "—That to your wife?

"No, actually. After the whole black eye incident I think she's given up asking. My—son did come over. The day after was actually his—16th birthday. So when I slept through the family get-together he drove the new car we gave him over and he—saw my face."

"You missed your son's birthday party?"

"It was—more of a small family thing. He wanted to keep it simple."

Jesse shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"I'm sorry."

"Why should you be?" Walt snorted. "You're not the one who missed it. That was my fault."

It's all my fault.

"Of course, when he saw me—he asked what happened."

"So what did you say?

"That I was gambling. That's the story we're going with, by the way—did I tell you? That's Skyler's idea. I count cards at casinos—anyway, that's where I told him I was the night before. And that I—got in a fight."

"Did he ask you what happened?" Walt nodded, clutching his head. "What did you tell him?"

"I don't remember," he lied. "I was hopped up on painkillers. Besides, it's impossible to keep all the lies I've told him straight."

Not like the lies I've told you. Those I remember.

"Did you tell him you won?"

Jesse looked like he was almost on the verge of laughing.

"Not that I recall," Walt said, testily. "I didn't get into the finer details of the fight itself."

"'Cause you got your ass kicked." Walt snorted again. "What did you tell him it was about?"

"Obviously not the truth."

"You must've told him something."

Jesse was watching him so closely that he felt uncomfortable, so he turned his face towards the rising moon. Almost full. Gibbous moon.

"I think I said something about—me…starting it and…having it coming. It being my fault, that is." He twisted his wedding ring around his finger. "I mean—that was the story I gave him."

"Right. The story." Jesse nodded. "Did he…buy it?"

"I think so," he said shortly. "I think it sounded…plausible."

"Da Vinci of lying. Right."

God, after all that, maybe that would be Junior's lasting memory of him. At least you were being real.

He'd given him some version of honesty on his birthday.

"Jesse…please don't."

He so rarely used that word with Jesse—the most commonplace word of polite society, a word that had no place in their relationship—that its use now threw him off. It was like he didn't know who this strange, Mr. White-shaped person in front of him was.

"Don't what?"

"Please—don't go to Hank's house and tell them. I can't…it's bad enough Skyler knows. I can't have my son know the truth. When she's old enough I don't want my daughter to know…any of this."

"Yo, I don't think there's a way to avoid it, at this point."

There was, Walt said inwardly. There was but you wouldn't let me take it.

"Would it be so bad? If they knew."

"If my son despised me? Are you really asking if I could live with that?"

"Mrs. White doesn't hate you." Walt groaned. "For real, she doesn't hate you. She is worried as shit about you. If she hated you, don't you think she'd have just let you go through with this?"

Walter actually thought about that. It was an interesting point, to be fair—that was rare, from Jesse. It had almost seemed as though they were heading towards a real reconciliation for a minute…the smell of the new fabric softener still lingered in his mind, that brief moment when they had felt like husband and wife again.

"Skyler is one thing, my son is…a totally different story. We're talking about a sixteen-year-old who practically worships his DEA agent uncle. If he knew everything I've done…"

He couldn't even imagine what Junior's reaction would be. It had been the one scenario he'd refused to let himself imagine. Junior was still so innocent…

He couldn't picture forgiveness—not for something he wasn't all that sorry for, even now.

"I don't."

His head snapped up—back to reality—to Jesse, still standing there, unmoving. Stubbornly refusing to do what he was told.

"Don't what?"

"I don't—hate you."

The words tumbled out of his mouth, as if they'd gotten caught on his teeth and Jesse had to spit them free. Walt stared at him, suddenly irritated at Jesse's old habit of bringing up meaningless non-sequiturs at critical moments.

"What does that—how is that—a relevant comparison?"

"I don't know," Jesse said, almost defensively. "I just…I have a lot more reason to he does, and I…don't."

"'A lot more reasons'?"

"You really want to hear me list all the ways my life sucks more since we hooked up?"

Walt waved his hand—the speech he'd given in the hospital had made that clear, if the countless times he'd seen Jesse get beaten up or threatened weren't enough.

He'd never wanted to see Jesse hurt. And yet, at the same time, every time he had, it had only made him care more for the boy, want to keep him closer, watch out for him, protect him from his own worst impulses.

"It would be faster for me to just list the ways my life is better, actually. Way shorter list."

"You happen to be a millionaire, thanks to me."

"Big deal. A million bucks is not worth much if you're not alive to spend it. And that's what helping you is going to get me."

Which he hadn't asked for, of course—not that that mattered to Jesse.

"You still haven't explained why you're here."

"I just…am." Walt sighed. "Why did you come after me that night, and run those two assholes over?"

I was afraid you were going to get yourself killed, and I couldn't live with myself knowing it would have been my fault. That I could have saved you and did nothing.

"I just did."

That would have to do, for them. Neither of them knew how to say anything more, or wanted to hear it. When Walt met Jesse's eye, a mutual, strange understanding passed between them, as it often did. A pact without words.

The sun had completely set by now. Walter stood up.

"You're not going to be able to find your way back to the car if we don't go now. Come on."

They walked back to the cars in silence, Walt leading the way with the penlight on the keychain of his borrowed car. Skyler's Wagoneer and the Toyota Yaris were still the only cars in the lot when they arrived. He supposed that meant Jesse was right, and he hadn't been followed. Unless Gus's assassins had parked on the road and were waiting to ambush them…

No—no, that didn't make sense. They wouldn't risk losing Jesse's loyalty by killing him right in front of his eyes.

Jesse kicked one of the tires of the white Toyota.

"This thing is almost as shitty as your Aztec."

"It's a rental."

They both stood in front of their respective cars, neither moving.

"Well?" Walt gestured at Skyler's car. "Get in."

Jesse mirrored the gesture.

"You first."

"There are two cars, there are two of us. Ergo, we each take a car."

"I'm not really in the mood to have a car chase in this piece of shit station wagon."

"Don't be ridiculous. There's only one road off this mountain. Come on, Jesse, Gus could be calling you. You need to get somewhere with reception that's—safe."

"There's a Denny's down the way, about ten miles. I'm starving. I'll call him from there, if he even cares."

"Good idea."

"It's not like I even have his number—it'll be that asshole Tyrus who calls." Jesse gave him a sideways look. "What about you? Are you hungry?

"Not really."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"I don't remember," he said, honestly. "This morning, maybe?"

Had Skyler forced him to eat a bowl of cereal after she dragged him out of the crawl space? No, they were way beyond concerns like breakfast and cholesterol.

"Yo, you need to eat. You can get a grand slam. Senior special, whatever floats your boat."

"I'm not yet fifty-five, Jesse."

"You're close enough."

His partner shoved his hands in his pockets.

"It's safe, Mr. White. No one is going to be looking for us there. We can…figure out our next move."

Walter hesitated. He had no intention of going to Denny's—who wanted their final meal on earth to be Denny's?—but this could be the opening he needed.

"That's not a bad idea." Jesse perked up. "I'll…follow you."

He avoided meeting Jesse's hard stare.

"Maybe I should follow you."

"Don't be ridiculous," Walt brushed him off, lightly. "I don't even know where this Denny's is. I might get lost."

"We could just go in the same car, if your sense of direction sucks that hard."

"This is a rental car, I'm not going to abandon it. And I'm certainly not going to let you leave my wife's car at this trailhead."

"I don't think returning that piece of shit to Enterprise was high on your list of priorities when you drove it up here."

"Look, that's not—I thought you were hungry."

"I am."

"Then why aren't you getting in your car?"

"Cause I don't trust you to do the same."

"So, you think you deserve unfailing trust, but I'm not worthy of the same courtesy?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, I guess you're going to have to act on faith, Jesse. I will get there in—my own time."

Jesse looked between him and the two cars, and because Walter never really knew what he was thinking, when push came to shove, he could only wonder at the internal calculus going through his partner's brain.

"You know what? Screw this."

Jesse yanked the passenger door of his car open and pulled out a gun from the front seat. Surprised, Walt stumbled backwards. For one wild moment he thought that after all this, it was the end—that Gus had convinced Jesse he was the one to trust, that Walter was expendable, and he had sent an assassin who would make his last moments on earth even more painful, a monstrous betrayal on top of the ignominy of being shot and buried in the woods.

Then Jesse walked straight past him, lifted up the gun, and shot out the two back tires of the Toyota Yaris.

Walt stared at his car, then looked back at Jesse.

"Now will you get the fuck in the car?"

Walt did.