Holly heard the car in the drive, the footsteps on the path and the soft scratching of the key in the lock. She looked at her brother, who was watching her with a curious expression on his face. "Who's that?" she asked. "Aunt Marie?"

"Aunt Marie's said she's…probably gonna stay out for dinner," Flynn replied.

"Is it Mommy?"

"Yeah, it must be." He could see Kim's car waiting in the driveway with its engine still on.

Holly jumped up and ran to the front door. It opened as she got to the hall, and she screamed, "Mommy! Mommy!" and ran into Skyler's arms. Skyler stumbled and leant heavily into the wall, her arms shaking as she gripped the child as tightly as she could.

Flynn appeared in the hallway. "Hey Mom," he said, and smiled.

"Where's your Aunt Marie?" asked Skyler.

"She went to a friend's house for…dinner. Well, he's U-Uncle Hank's friend, actually. You know…Tim Roberts?"

"Yeah."

"Mommy, can you stay with us now?" said Holly.

"Yeah. Um, do you wanna go home? I've still got things to do there, packing and cleaning and stuff and I just haven't... I've just, I've been struggling with it."

"We'll help," said Flynn. "Won't we, Holly?"

Skyler lead Holly to Flynn's car, which now had its own child seat in the back, and attempted to buckle her in. The combination of her shaking hands and the fact that it was a different car seat than she was used to made her want to scream in frustration. The buckle simply wouldn't go in. She was doing it wrong. She didn't know how to do it right. Flynn and Holly were waiting and she couldn't do it. She felt so useless. Her hands shook more, and just to make things worse, they began to sweat.

"Why don't you try this side, Mommy?" said Holly, pointing at the clip which was to her left, the opposite side of the one on the seat in Skyler's car. Scowling at the child seat makers for putting the clip there, she moved around and got in at the left side of the car, where the clip magically slid in on the first try. She buried her head at the side of the car seat and breathed. In and out. In and out. Flynn watched her in the rear-view mirror and bit his lip.

Holly, now happily buckled in, turned and began to stroke her mother's hair. It wasn't clear if she was showing care or curiosity, but her face when Skyler pulled her head back to look at her showed an innocent and perfectly adorable smile. A weight lifted, and Skyler gave a very faint smile back.

"Can you sit here, Mommy?" asked Holly sweetly.

"Yeah," Skyler breathed. "Yeah, that would be good." She buckled herself in and leant over as much of Holly as the child seat was not obscuring. She stroked her hair and kissed her forehead and said, "Time to go home, baby." She looked at Flynn, who turned the ignition key and set the car in motion.

...

Tim handed Marie a glass of wine, picked up his own and took a sip. "I don't know what I can tell you," he said.

"I know, I know you're not allowed to tell me what's happening, but I -"

"No I mean, well no I can't tell you what they're doing now - I don't actually know what they're doing now but if I did, I wouldn't be able to tell you - but regardless of that, I don't think there is any proof. I've investigated this before, I've explored it from as many angles as I could think of, and there doesn't seem to be any way of establishing for certain why those gang members went out there. We can establish that Walt phoned Welker because there's a phone record of that, but since both of them are dead, we can only speculate on why and what they talked about, and what happened when the gang arrived at To'hajiilee."

"He can't have just phoned him out of the blue, though. Welker showed up with at least four other guys and a lot of weapons. That sounds like it was planned."

"No, it can't have been planned: Walt was responding to a text sent by Hank masquerading as Pinkman - he didn't know that was gonna happen before it did. In fact I think the suddenness of it caused him to phone those guys when he wouldn't have otherwise - if he'd had time to stop and think about it, he might've realised that they would steal all his money if he invited them there. Generally the whole point of burying your money in the desert is that no-one will ever find it - you don't invite a gang of thugs out there if you've had time to think it through beforehand."

"Yeah. But if he wanted them to help him kill Pinkman, then no, he probably didn't think about it beforehand because that was just where he knew Pinkman was, so he had to get them there because Pinkman was there. He didn't know where Pinkman was before that because Pinkman was with us."

"Yeah I know, I agree with you - I came up with the theory."

"What theory?"

"The theory that Walt called Welker's gang there to kill Pinkman."

"You came up with that theory?"

"Yeah. The DEA were pretty dubious about it at first, but now they're charging all over Albuquerque trying to find ways to prove it, but they won't. It's a theory. It can't be proved because everybody who was involved is now dead."

"Skyler isn't."

"Well yeah, but she doesn't know anything about what Walt did after their conversation."

"But you have the phone record that shows he called Welker from To'hajiilee."

"Yeah, but it's just one phone call, and we have no idea what was said."

"There were no earlier phone calls?"

"Not between those two phones, no. Though that doesn't mean they didn't have other burner phones we don't know about."

"But they must have met before that. Or talked at least, otherwise why would Welker be ready to go with lots of guys and guns at a moment's notice?"

"Walt called Alquist a couple days before."

"Alquist."

"Todd Alquist. Walt knew him better than he knew Welker. So yes, he may have approached him initially; the DEA are currently tearing Albuquerque apart trying to find evidence of the meeting, but even if they find it, there won't be any proof of what was said."

Marie looked at her glass, a look of devastation on her face. "Walt called Alquist."

"There's no proof of what they talked about."

"You say you came up with the theory, why did you do that?"

"Because it's what makes the most sense. In fact, I can't think of any other reason."

"Neither can I."

"Walt knew Pinkman was there, he didn't know Hank and Steve were there, he didn't have time to think it through, the gang members were ready to go. Yeah."

"When did he call Alquist?"

"Ah I'm not sure - I can check that for you if you'd like."

"Yeah. Yes please. I wanna know if it was… if it was um…."

"If it was right after Skyler talked to Walt about it?"

"Yeah."

"It wasn't. That's one of many things that make this theory impossible to prove."

"It wasn't?"

"No. I checked all of that back when I was trying to prove it myself. I can't remember when exactly, but it was at least a couple days after Pinkman tried to burn down the Whites' house."

"So maybe… maybe if that's the case then Walt wasn't acting on what Skyler said. Maybe he was... doing it himself."

"If they never discussed it again and he never reported back to her on what he was doing, I think it's pretty clear that he was doing it himself."

"Oh yeah. Yeah. Good."

"Marie, did you call me because you want me to prove that your sister didn't do this?"

"I called you because I wanna know exactly what happened."

"Well… I feel for you, I do because I really wanna know as well, but it's just not possible. Everyone who knows what was said in those phone calls, or in any meeting if any meeting took place, is dead. There is no way we can ever know. I do think the most likely scenario is that Walt called the gang there to kill Pinkman, and Hank and Steve got in the way. That is the most likely thing to have happened."