Skyler gave a high-pitched squeal as her body began to shake with soundless sobs. Marie began to shake also, a shudder shooting through her entire body as she turned and stumbled through to the kitchen. Her hands fell heavily on the back of a dining chair as her shoulders hunched and her face spasmed. Skyler slid from the toilet onto the floor between it and the wall, her body curling up tightly, her face between her knees and her hands gripping the back of her neck and she rocked and wailed. Marie made some truncated gasping and wailing sounds. They remained like that for some time.

Skyler's phone rang. It was still sitting on the kitchen table, and the sudden light and vibration made Marie jump. She looked at it. "Flynn," said the screen. Her face spasmed again. She looked at it for another moment, then quickly picked it up. "Hi."

"Mom?"

"No."

"Aunt Marie. Y-your phone is off. What's happening?"

"It's ok, I'm dealing with it."

"Dealing with…what? Is Mom ok?"

"Don't worry."

Marie hung up the phone and threw it back onto the table. She sat heavily on the chair and breathed in and out. She could still hear her sister wailing in the bathroom. She closed her eyes.

She had to call someone. Who would she call? Ramey? Remembering that her phone was still broken on the floor of the bathroom, Marie winced and turned around. She really didn't want to go back in there. She turned back to the table. The screen of Skyler's phone was still lit up. She grabbed it and pressed a button. Flynn's phone call had unlocked it. Opening the contacts, she scrolled down to the entry marked "Kim Wexler". Her finger hovered over the green call button. Then she clicked on the message button.

Hi Kim. Marie Schrader here on Skyler's phone. If you are awake or available please give me a call ASAP. I was worried about Skyler tonight so I came around and found her self-harming. Then she told me that she told Walt to kill Jesse Pinkman and Walt hired a gang of killers to do it. He called them to To'hajiilee because Pinkman was there. They murdered my husband and Steve Gomez instead. Skyler says that's her fault. I need to take this to the DEA.

She hit send and threw the phone back on the table. Her right heel began bouncing up and down in a rising crescendo that made the whole house shake. She listened to it. Skyler hiccupped.

Skyler's message tone went off and the screen lit up. It was a message from Flynn. What's going on? it said. Marie didn't open it.

Then the phone rang again. Marie looked at the screen and saw it was Kim. She picked it up, stood and walked into the living room. "Hello?"

"Marie?"

"Yeah."

"Where's Skyler? Is she ok?"

"She's indisposed."

"You said she hurt herself."

"Yeah. I patched her up."

"Are you ok?"

"No. Not at all." Marie shook her head and began pacing the living room.

"Tell me what she said to you exactly."

"She said that Jesse Pinkman tried to burn down their house because he was angry with Walt. I didn't know about that. Did you know about that?"

"Yeah, I… I think I read it in one of Skyler's interviews."

"I didn't know that." Marie looked shocked. "She said that she was afraid he was a threat to the children so she told Walt to kill him. And Walt hired Jack Welker and his gang of assholes to do it, except they didn't kill Pinkman, they killed Hank." Marie put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. She breathed in and out. In and out.

"What do you plan to do about this?"

"I don't know! I don't know why I'm calling the defence lawyer! I should be calling the DEA! Why am I calling you?"

"I can help. I can help both of you. Where are you?"

"Skyler's place."

"Ok. Sit tight. I'm on my way. Does she err...does she need medical attention?"

"I don't know," Marie spat.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. Just sit tight."

Marie had no sooner hung up the phone than it rang again. There were now three unopened texts from Flynn on the phone. She reluctantly hit the answer button.

"What is going on? Aunt Marie? Y-you are not gonna do this to me, y-you are not keeping me in the dark again!"

"I'll tell you later. It's complicated."

"Don't say that! I'm an adult now, y-you do not get to tell me that it's...complicated!"

"I am dealing with it."

"Is Mom ok?"

Marie remembered with a jolt that she had left the knife in the bathroom. Her heart jumping into her throat, she power walked to the bathroom door and looked in. Skyler was still curled up between the toilet and the wall. She wasn't making any noises anymore. Marie looked at the bathtub. The knife was still there. She quickly moved to grab it and to grab her phone and its battery off the floor.

"Aunt Marie? Just tell me what's happening!"

"Yep. I just checked on her. She's fine."

"Are you still at our house? You're not in the h-hospital or…. You would tell me if she was i-in the hospital, right?"

"She's not in the hospital."

"Then why do you sound so w-weird? And why is your phone off?"

"I'm just fixing it now." Marie sat at the kitchen table and pressed the battery back into her phone. "It fell on the floor and the battery came out."

"When? I texted you and called you l-like three times before I…tried to call Mom!"

"There. I have just turned my phone back on. It's fine."

"Ok. Now tell me what's happening!"

"Flynn. I am dealing with it."

Hearing his name, Skyler started to wail again.

"That's good, but it's n-not fun for me to be here by myself not…knowing what's going on! Just do-do me the courtesy of telling me!"

Marie hunched forward at the table, running her hands across her forehead.

"What's that noise? Aunt Marie?"

Marie breathed in and out.

"I-is that Mom?"

"No," Marie lied. "It's something outside. Look, I gotta go."

"You sound really weird! I'm worried!"

"Look Flynn, I need you to respect the division of labour here, ok? Your job is to look after your sister. Just leave me with mine. Believe me, you have got the better end of the deal."

"Are you ok?"

"Ask me tomorrow. I gotta go."

Marie hung up the phone and looked towards the bathroom. Skyler had stopped wailing and gone back to quiet sobbing again. Marie put her arms on the table and buried her face in her elbow.

Twenty long and quiet minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Marie stood up and glanced into the bathroom. Skyler still hadn't moved. Marie went to the door and answered it. It was Kim and a stout middle-aged woman with red hair. "This is Heather," said Kim as the two stepped into the apartment. "She's a nurse friend of mine. Heather, this is Marie."

"Hi Marie," said Heather, holding out her hand. Marie took it. "Where's your sister?" She spoke with a British accent.

"In the bathroom. She's got three cuts on her thighs, about this long." Marie held up her fingers to show her. "I patched them up with butterfly plasters and antiseptic."

"What were the cuts made with?"

"Kitchen knife. It's in the sink if you wanna see. Kitchen sink."

"Ok."

Marie gestured to show her where the kitchen and bathroom was. Heather looked like she expected Marie to go with her, but Marie remained rooted to the spot and looking down. With a glance at Kim, Heather moved off by herself.

"Are you ok?" asked Kim.

Marie slowly shook her head. "I'm more ok than she is, though."

Kim nodded. "Self-guilt is… It can destroy you. If you let it."

"She said she wants to be punished."

Kim nodded again.

"Sorry. You were doing so well."

"Are you up to answering a couple questions?"

"Sure. Looks like we'll be stuck here all night, so we might as well have something to talk about."

Kim rested her briefcase on the arm of the sofa and took out a notebook. "Can I ask you what happened exactly tonight?"

Marie gave a long sigh. "I came by because I was worried. She wasn't answering her phone. And I went all over this place calling for her and she didn't answer that either. Eventually I realised the bathroom light was on. And she was in there with quite a bit of blood." Marie fell into the sofa.

Kim took a more measured seat next to her. "And she…she just told you, just like that, or….?"

"Well earlier she'd sent me a text saying, 'I killed him. I'm sorry.' I brushed it off. Told her it wasn't true. That was when I really knew she wasn't ok, I mean I suspected it earlier - she wasn't right after court this afternoon either. Anyway, then she stopped replying or answering the phone, so I came over. And yeah, it was pretty much just like that, I suppose - I mean first I was freaking out about her physical injuries because at first I thought she was cutting her wrists, so once I'd stopped freaking out about that, I figured out it was her legs and I held this towel down over the cuts to stop them from bleeding. Then I started fixing her up with the butterfly plasters and stuff. She told me while I was doing that."

"What did she say?"

"Pinkman tried to burn down their house. She was scared. She told Walt to kill him. He said no. He didn't want to. So she thinks she convinced him to or something. And then she thinks he hired Jack Welker and his gang."

"She thinks? She doesn't know?"

"No. She mentioned a couple pieces of evidence the DEA have, the phone call between Walt and Pinkman when Walt was on his way to To'hajiilee, so Skyler said he thought only Pinkman was there so he called these people that he had hired to kill Pinkman. Then she said the DEA have a record of that phone call, but not what was in it, just that it happened. Well of course we know that happened - we know Walt called them there. Why else would they've been there? So the question becomes, why else would he have called them? Could there be another reason, what do you think?"

"I don't know. But I know that conjecture has no place in criminal prosecution."

"Does that mean she can't be tried with it?"

"Not sure. They'll have to investigate it… and they'll have to assess whether it has a bearing on the evidence that's already been presented or not. They decide it doesn't, they might finish this trial off and start another one later. If they decide it does, they'll throw everything out and start from scratch."

"Ugh."

"Yeah. Definitely the most challenging pro-bono case I've ever done."

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I called you out here at nearly midnight and you're not even getting paid!"

"Oh, that's ok. I was just sitting in my motel room doing nothing."

"Oh god. You have to pay for a motel as well? Because you know we could do that - my nephew came into some money and-"

Kim nodded. "He's paying for it now. He offered me that and I accepted. He said I'm not to tell Skyler though. He offered to pay me for my time as well, but I have a budget for pro bono stuff. It's basically a tax write off." Kim yawned. "And if I can get a good result for Skyler I'll never have to advertise again. That looks less likely now."

"You think you bit off more than you could chew with her?"

"Oh no, I can handle it. What I'll do is I'll speak to the judge in the morning, she'll probably call an adjournment straight away. She'll advise me to tell the Prosecution and the DEA, who'll want Skyler to make a formal statement. Possibly you as well. And they will wanna jump on it pretty quickly, so that will happen tomorrow. And then they'll have to decide what to do about the charges."

"Do you think they will? Charge her with it?"

"How would you feel if they did?"

"Umm." Marie looked down, and then back in the direction of the bathroom. Kim watched her closely.

"I don't know. I… Not good. Definitely not good, but… everything I thought I knew has just been thrown up in the air again, so... I don't know what to think. Why would she say this now, anyway? The trial's nearly over!"

"That's exactly why. The trial's been going well, and I've been telling her so. I made sure that your husband's death wasn't even mentioned, because... Well and I stand by that, because she still wasn't involved in his death, she wasn't. There is nothing she could possibly be charged with that would connect her to that. You can't charge someone with stealing a necklace because they asked someone else to steal a watch, and then that person asked someone else to steal the watch and then that third person of their own volition stole a necklace instead. Even if the second person told them to steal the necklace, you still couldn't charge the first person with it if all they said was, 'Go steal a watch.'"

"Yeah. Yeah, I...I did think that."

"So legally there is no basis for her to be considered at fault for your husband's death. What is going on with her tonight is her own personal feelings of guilt about it. Which can be really hard to deal with, but I want you to understand that just because she blames herself does not mean she was at fault."

Marie looked at Kim with wide eyes, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. "Go on," she said.

"Skyler is suffering from crippling self-guilt - that was obvious to me from the start. I've been trying to coax her away from it, because obviously I can't do my job properly if she stands up in front of the court and says, 'It was all my fault, Your Honour.' There are a lot of things that weren't her fault that she blames herself for. This one has obviously been pressing on her and tonight it tumbled out, but her wanting to be punished for it doesn't mean she's actually guilty." Kim paused, still studying Marie's face. "Do see what I mean?"

"Yeah." Marie nodded. "Yeah. Sh-she… she just had a conversation with Walt one time. What he did with it is not…. And if the third person went and did something completely different, that's-that's not…."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Y-yeah, but it's still… it's killing somebody. Even if it wasn't Hank - I know she never meant any harm to Hank, but it's still, it's…"

"Someone who tried to burn down her house. I bet she was terrified. People lash out when they're afraid. Especially when they have to protect their children."

Marie took a long breath, her foot tapping on the floor. She looked in the direction of the bathroom again. "That nurse is taking a while."

Kim walked over to the edge of the kitchen. "The door's closed," she said, turning back and taking a seat on the sofa. "So how would you feel. What would you think ... if the whole trial up to this point was thrown out, and then there was another delay while more evidence surrounding this confession was gathered, and the entire trial was done again with it overlying everything. With one conversation that Skyler had with Walt when someone had just attacked her home and tried to burn it down, right at the end of the piece, after she'd been a prisoner in her own home for months and months, after she'd been made to do all sorts of other things she blames herself for, after she'd been raped… If one conversation she had right at the end, when she was absolutely at her limit, was superimposed back over everything else that happened. If every lie she was told, everything she was conned into doing, everything she was made to do, every time she was afraid and all the evidence of that was presented behind a preamble saying, 'This woman ordered a murder.' What do you think would happen if that was superimposed over everything went before? What would a jury would make of that? Compared to what they would make of the way I've presented everything up until now, and then right at the end she's reached her limit again and she's collapsed and she's really not well, and her own self-guilt got the better of her and this just tumbled out. She herself has superimposed her self-guilt over everything she feels about it; it clouds her head, she can't see it clearly. I've argued with her about it several times. She thinks she's guilty of so much more than she is."

"I know."

"Marie. Skyler is not even close to having anything to do with the death of your husband."

Marie leaned back on the sofa, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek. "Do you, um… You… It's your job to make arguments about this stuff. Not only this now, I mean everything you've said throughout the trial, and the way you've said it and the witnesses you've chosen. You have to ram the same message home over and over again, that she's not guilty. Do you believe it?"

"Yeah. Absolutely. You're right, it is my job to argue that, and I have had several clients where I did not believe they weren't guilty - I've even had some who told me outright that they were guilty, but they still wanted me to try and prove that they weren't - and if they want me to do that, I'm not allowed to refuse! I've argued black and blue things I didn't believe, and I've done a good job of it. But Skyler I do believe. I chose her. I'd been watching the case for a while, I'd read everything I could about it, and all the facts that were there, and everything she was quoted as saying, and every look she wore in every photograph said this is a woman who was conned into doing something by someone else, and if she doesn't have a good defence, she'll be the scapegoat for all of it. For a range of horrible crimes that someone else did, not her. But she would've accepted that. In her mind, she is guilty of all of it - she's told me so several times. And she's told me marginally more than she's told the authorities, because she's very astute and she knows she is meant to defend herself, she knows she's not meant to roll over and accept everything they throw at her. But there's another part of her, the part that's controlled by her self-guilt, that thinks that she should. Most of the time she's a cool cat - if her intellect is in control then she's keeping everything close to her chest and she's defending herself. But if emotion takes over, all that collapses and…"

The bathroom door clicked open and Heather appeared. She walked straight to the kitchen sink, filled the kettle and put it on the stove. Marie jumped up and walked over to her. She wanted to ask her something, but she had no idea what.

"Hi Marie," said Heather kindly. "I'm just making Skyler a cup of tea to warm her up. And a hot water bottle. She's a bit cold - would you be able to go up to her room and see if you can find a sweater or a nice warm dressing gown? I've got her wrapped in towels at the moment."

"Ok," Marie nodded, her eyes filling with tears again.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm… is Skyler ok?"

"We've come a long way so far." Heather gave a half smile, and then turned back to the kettle. Marie walked slowly to the stairs.

Kim joined Heather in the kitchen. "Is she lucid?" she whispered. "I'd like to talk to her, but I... I can't really advise her if she's…"

"She's not in a good way, Kim. Really not at all."

"What if I tell her something that might help her calm down?"

"What sort of something?"

"That I don't think they could charge her with it. They couldn't prove it. There's just her word and her conjecture. It might not even be true."

"So, something that would help her case."

"Yeah."

"She is very determined to be blamed and punished for everything. So I don't think that's the sort of something that would help right now."

Marie reappeared with a thick sweater, a pair of flannelette pyjama pants, a blanket and some slippers.

"Thank you, Marie," said Heather. "Would you like to take them in to her?"

Marie took a breath, then nodded. She stepped falteringly towards the bathroom door.

"And would you like a cup of tea?"

Marie turned. "Yeah, c...chamomile."

Heather smiled. "That's what Skyler wants too. Good choice."

Marie pushed the half open bathroom door and braced herself. Skyler was sitting on the floor under the window with two towels wrapped around her shoulders and another around her feet. She looked up, and froze like a deer in the headlights.

"Here," said Marie, handing Skyler the sweater and then sitting down opposite her holding the slippers, blanket and pyjamas. Skyler stared at her.

"Put it on," said Marie.

Skyler gingerly removed the towels and pulled on the sweater.

"Are your pants wet?"

Skyler continued to stare at Marie, her body beginning to shiver. Marie handed her the blanket. "Your pants are wet, right? You wanna swap them with these?" She held up the pyjama pants.

"You're not."

"Not what?"

"Y-you're not, you're not…after what I told you, you're not still being nice to me?"

"I wouldn't say that. I'm just trying to make sure you don't freeze to death."

Skyler slowly pulled the blanket around her body and up over her head. She pulled her arms in close to her chest.

"Swap your pants. Your whole body is cold if your legs are cold."

Skyler slowly shuffled into a kneeling position, and then stood. When she had got one pant leg all the way down, she almost fell over because the other leg was shaking too much to support her weight. Marie jumped up and grabbed her arm. The two of them worked together to remove Skyler's blood-soaked pants and put on the rainbow-adorned pyjama pants in their place. "Tea's ready, ladies!" called Heather from the kitchen.

Marie threw Skyler's slippers in front of her feet. She stepped into them, and the two of them shuffled slowly into the kitchen.

"It's much warmer in here than in the bathroom!" Heather announced. She handed Skyler and Marie a mug each. "I tried to make it not too hot, so you can wrap your hands around it." She looked inquiringly at Skyler. "Do you want to sit down? Or would you rather go to bed?"

Skyler looked uneasily between the two other people in the room.

"I'm going to tell them just a couple of the things that you said to me. Or I can tell just one of them if you'd rather the other one didn't hear. I can tell them in front of you or away from you, it's up to you. But I don't want you to be left alone tonight, so I need at least one person to stay with you who knows what's happening. Are you ok with that being one of these two?"

"Wow, she's good," said Marie to Kim. Kim nodded.

Skyler nodded gingerly, her fingers moving up and down the handle of her mug. "I'll go to bed," she said.

"Ok. Oh wait, here's your hot water bottle."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Thank you," Skyler said again. She turned and shuffled towards the stairs.

Kim and Marie watched her. Heather looked at them. "Would you like to sit down on that lovely sofa over there?"

Kim walked purposefully to the sofa. Marie finished watching Skyler disappear up the stairs and then shuffled to the sofa slowly. Heather picked up one of the kitchen chairs and placed it in front of them.

"I'll stay with her," said Marie.

"Thank you," said Heather. "I'm going to recommend that you stay in the same room with her. I would rate her risk of suicide as high."

Marie's heart began pounding. "Did she say that?"

"She said that the only reason she hasn't done so already is her daughter."