"Good morning!" said ASAC Hoffman to the office at large as he walked briskly through it.

"Sir?" called Agent Martinez. "No luck."

"No, I didn't think so." ASAC Hoffman walked into his office and began his day by opening up his emails. There was a courtesy one there from Central Records about evidence and records drawn by the criminal court. Usually he found it quite interesting to be in that email group, but this week he had come to open those emails with dread. "Oh, you're kidding me," he grunted.

"What?" said Martinez, who had followed him in.

"The jury has requested any and all records relating to Skyler White's self-harm attempt when she jumped into a swimming pool two years ago."

"What? I didn't even know about that!"

"Oh, Marie mentioned it in her testimony, so."

"Really?"

"Yeah, the tabloids loved it."

"I don't read tabloids."

"Well then I don't blame you for not knowing about it - it's not remotely relevant to the criminal case against her."

"What is it?"

"Apparently she wanted to ask her sister for help but couldn't bring herself to actually say anything against Walt, so she sank to the bottom of a swimming pool while Marie and Hank were watching so that they would offer help."

"Hank was there?"

"Yeah, do you know if he said anything about it to anyone? This is when he and Marie took the kids apparently."

"Oh, I didn't even know they did that. He didn't mention anything about it at work."

"Mmm."

"Well do we have any evidence on it?"

"According to Records we do." He looked at the computer. "Interview with Marie Schrader, March 17th 2010. Well that's not gonna tell them anything new, they already heard Marie's opinion on it. Interview with Skyler White, April 7th 2010. Why such a gap there?"

"Do you have to approve this? Cos you shouldn't."

"No, Jesus, I don't have any power over it! What the jury wants the jury gets."

"Damn. Why would they want that?"

"They've already requested a few interview transcripts, actually. I think they're wanting to compare them with the testimonies they heard, see if there are any inconsistencies. I know I would. Anyway, on the attempted conspiracy charge, without any proof or any other charges or any state support, we really have nothing."

"What about her car?"

"What car?"

"Her car. Beat up piece of crap she drives to court. I'm pretty sure she used the drug money to pay for it."

"To pay for a beat up car?"

"Well it'd be too obvious if she bought a good car."

"She's practically bankrupt at this point."

"Yeah I know, she got this car after we took her other one, but we had also already frozen her accounts at that point, so how else could she pay for it?"

"Where'd she buy it?"

"Private sale."

"Well, if you can track whoever sold it to her down and they say she paid $5,000 cash or something, then yeah, ok... Looks suspicious, but the cash itself won't still be around at this point for you to check for Walter White's fingerprints. And if you could, well, that would prove that she had profited from a felony, which is something she was previously charged with and the charges were dropped as part of a deal, so we actually cannot charge her with that."

"Deals are unofficial. They're not legally binding."

"Yeah, but no other criminals will tell us anything ever if they think we break them!"

"God dammit. Why did they make a deal on that?"

"Because they wanted to find Hank and Steve."

"She would've told them anyway! It was GPS co-ordinates, right? We could have searched her house and found them, or just waited her out - Hank was her brother-in-law, she wanted to find him. Or we could have gone through Marie. She definitely wanted to find him."

"We did wait two or three weeks and negotiated a lot."

"I just think that's a bad deal."

"Look, it's over now, Joe, and so is this conspiracy thing. It's a non-starter. I want you to drop it."

"Alright, so let's just charge her with conspiracy to commit murder now."

"Without District Attorney support? That would go nowhere."

"Build support after."

"I've already asked him several times! Anyway, you can't arrest someone who's already on trial!"

"Yes you can. It's a good way of letting this be heard by the jury after all."

"Joe, give it up. We built a strong case for this trial, it's too late to add to it."

"What if I search her house and find some cash with Walter White's fingerprints on it?"

"Are you going to find drugs? Because the last time I checked, you work for the DEA."

"I'm gonna find drug profits."

"Joe. She's nearly bankrupt. If she had any of that, she spent it months ago. Give it up. In fact, I'm ordering you to give it up because I need you to do something else for me. Anderson is cracking into that new crew and he needs your help."

"What new crew?"

"Thirteen ounces of dyed blue meth we netted last week? Have you been paying any attention?"

"Thirteen ounces. Wow, that's huge," said Martinez sarcastically.

"It is huge. It's not Heisenberg level huge, but it is huge, and he's gone so thank God. Let's go back to doing our jobs so we can prevent anyone else from ever getting that big."

...

Skyler unlocked the door of the hilltop cabin and looked around warily. This wasn't because of any particular danger, but just because she looked around most places warily these days, even her own bathroom. The cabin had been booked by Flynn using a new online platform called AirBnb, and Skyler didn't know what it would be like, but she loved the fact that because it was booked online and the key was just left in the mailbox, no-one had to know she was there.

Holly tugged on her hand. "Can we go in, Mommy?"

"Yeah, just keep holding my hand while we look around. Just gotta make sure there's no burglars hiding or anything."

"Ok." They walked through the small living room and looked inside one of the bedrooms.

"Do burglars go to jail, Mommy?"

Skyler's eyes snapped shut and she steadied herself on the closet door as she set down her suitcase. "Yeah," she replied.

"Will you meet some burglars?"

"I expect so, yeah."

"Are they nice people?"

"No. They won't hurt Mommy but no, they are not good people."

They moved back into the hallway.

"I think burglars are stupid people. The ones in Home Alone, they were really stupid."

"Yeah. I think you're right." They looked into the second bedroom. "All criminals are stupid, Holly. Even the smart ones."

Holly frowned. "Even you?"

Skyler gripped the door frame and stood still for a second. "I'm not… yeah. I'm not a stupid person, Holly, but I did a very stupid thing. Stupid stupid stupid." They walked back into the hallway.

"I don't think you're stupid, Mommy."

"Thank you. Yeah, well no I'm not, it's just I did a very stupid thing." They entered the bathroom. "Oh my god, there's a spa bath!"

Holly looked. "What's that?"

"It's a bath with bubbles. It's pretty fun."

"Like a bubble bath?"

"No, not exactly. We'll try it out, you'll see. Ok, I'm gonna let go of your hand now, but remember it's not our house, so we have to treat it with extra care."

"Ok." Skyler let go of Holly's hand and she stayed in almost exactly the same place with her as they walked back along the hallway. "Whose house is it?"

"I don't know. We don't know them. Flynn paid them money on the internet; I think he said they come here for holidays too."

"Are they coming?"

"No. We're here all by ourselves. I think we should have some lunch and then try out the spa bath."

"We're all by ourselves?"

"Yeah."

"Where are the neighbours?"

"The nearest neighbour is at least half a mile away." Skyler picked up the bag of groceries she had left at the front door and moved it into the kitchen.

"But aren't there other people in the parking lot and on the path?"

"No, no-one else lives here." Skyler took some bread and margarine out of the bag and began looking around for a knife and chopping board.

"What about in the laundry room?"

"There isn't a laundry room. There's a washing machine in the bathroom. We probably won't need to use it, though."

"There's a washing machine in the house?" Holly ran back down the hallway to check. Skyler's hands fell heavily against the counter and she stood looking unseeingly at the chopping board, shocked that this was a new concept to her daughter.

Holly came running back along the hallway. "There is! There's a washing machine in the bathroom and a dryer!"

"Yeah." Skyler remained hunched over the chopping board.

"Why?"

Skyler closed her eyes and didn't answer.

"Mommy, why do they have them inside their house?"

Skyler take a deep breath and turned to look at her daughter. "Because most people do, Holly. Aunt Marie does."

"Really?"

"Yep. You can ask her to show you."

"Not in her bathroom."

"No, they're not in her bathroom, she has her own laundry room."

"They wouldn't fit in our bathroom."

"No, that's why we don't have them."

"Ohhhh. Only the big houses have them!"

"Yep. That's right." Skyler dug a knife into the margarine and began spreading the bread. "Only the big houses."

"Why does Aunt Marie have a big house and we have a small house? There's three of us and only one Aunt Marie."

"Because she has more money than us."

"Why?"

"Because she doesn't have any children."

"But if you have children then you have more people, and then you need a bigger house!"

"Yeah, but that's not how it works. You only get a big house if you have money."

"Oh, ok." Accepting this, Holly moved off to look around the living room. Skyler sighed, remembering the time when she had just accepted that too.