Chapter Nine: Don't Say a Word

"Walt, you ought to go home and rest for a little while." They've been standing and staring at Jesse, not speaking a word. Walt wants to touch him, but he knows he can't, or he would risk hurting him.

"No, Skyler," Walt replies, "I am not going to leave him."

"He'll be okay, Walt. I'll watch him." She looks at her husband. "I promise I will call you if there's any change."

She is cut off by two sets of footsteps rushing into the room.

Looking over, Skyler sees that the footsteps belong to a woman in her early twenties with curly, long black hair, who is leading a little boy by her hand.

"How is he?" the girl asks frantically. When neither replies, she presses. "Jesse. How is he?"

"Critical condition," Skyler replies, as Walt continues to stare at the girl with obvious distrust.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"Andrea. Jesse's…" she pauses a moment, "girlfriend. They had on the news about the accident – I wanted to make sure that he's okay."

"He's not," Walt shoots back tersely. Skyler can see Andrea's eyes beginning to tear up, but the girl turns away before Skyler gets a chance to chastise Walt.

"Okay, well, I… Can you let me know if he wakes up?" Andrea pulls an index card from her purse and scribbles down her number, handing it to Skyler. "And can you tell Jesse that Andrea and Brock stopped by?"

"Sure, okay," Walt replies brusquely, "Andrea and Barack." Skyler shoots him a look.

"Brock. Like the Pokémon character," she corrects. Walt gives her a quizzical look before Skyler turns back to Andrea. "We'll be sure to let him know."

Andrea steals a worried glance at Jesse before turning and ushering Brock back out the door. She doesn't look back.

"Gale," Jesse's mouth forms the word, but he can't get it out, his lips are too dry and it hurts too badly. He shakes his head and tries desperately to look away, tries anything but to remember that moment in time, suspended, when he pulled that trigger and watched abject fear turn into… nothing at all.

"In the flesh," Gale Boetticher replies with a smile, "Well, sort of."

"Gale," Jesse repeats softly. "I'm sorry, I…" He turns, turns to run, can't stay here, can't – his legs won't move and he feels a hand on his shoulder, soft and careful, as he's turned to face Gale.

"Jesse," the man says quietly, "It's okay. No one hates you, no one is going to hurt you." From his other side, Jane gently snakes her arm around him and hugs him.

"I'm gonna go," the blonde says from behind him.

"See you later, Amber," Jane replies pleasantly, before hugging Jesse again. "No one will hurt you, Jesse. Gale and I are here to help you."

"But I…" Jesse begins, feeling the salt leap to his eyes, feeling his stomach clench painfully.

"I know," Gale whispers. "I know why you did it. And it's okay."

"But I…"

"Shhh." It was Jane this time, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "It's okay. It doesn't matter now. There's more important things to worry about, now." She holds him tight, like she's never going to leave him, not ever again.

"Effective, Walt. Way to snap at some teenage girl," Skyler says as she rolls her eyes.

"The type of people Jesse associates with, I would rather not have here," Walt retorts.

"She seemed nice."

"She would," Walt replies darkly.

"All right," Skyler cuts in, "You're going home and taking a rest."

"Sky…"

"No. You are. Time to go home, Walt. Come back in an hour. Nothing is going to happen in an hour. But you need to sleep." Skyler's look showed no room for argument, and Walt threw up his hands.

"Okay. But only for an hour. You'll stay here?"

"Walt. Yes. I promise. I won't move from this room."

"If Jesse wakes up…"

"If Jesse wakes up, I will call you. Now go."

Walt doesn't go home. Instead, he goes to the hospital chapel and slumps down in one of the pews.

Walt's never been a religious man, not really, but he figures that right now he needs all the help he can get.

He claps his hands and apologizes for everything he's done – for Jane especially, for Wayfarer 515, for even Krazy-8 and Emilio and Tuco and most of all, for the things he said to Jesse, for everything he's done to the boy who is like a son, no, more than that, like a part of him, a part of him that he would do anything to get back. He can't think of anything he wouldn't do, any line he wouldn't cross to bring Jesse back.

He hasn't slept, really slept, since Jesse left for Mexico, and every time he had closed his eyes, he had been haunted by visions of Jesse, his Jesse, dead and left behind, another one of Gus' discarded pawns.

But Jesse was here – crumpled and unconscious, yes, but here, not in the Mexican desert where Walt could never say goodbye, never apologize. Now he could go back to his old ways, be his old dickish self, or he could change – he'll swear to change.

I can change. Just save Jesse.

Alone with Jesse Pinkman again, Skyler has no idea what to do.

So she thinks of what she'd do if it were her own son.

She remembers when Walt Jr. was little, when he'd eaten some berries off a flower growing in their yard, and he'd been rushed into the hospital, Skyler and Walt both out of their minds with worry.

She could remember sitting by the 5-year-old's hospital bed and singing to him softly.

Barring any better ideas, she does just that:

"Hush, Jesse Pinkman, don't say a word

…Walt is gonna buy you a mockingbird…

And if that mockingbird don't sing

Walt's gonna buy you a diamond ring…"

Walt will buy you anything, she thinks to herself as her voice lilts of its own accord. He has to. You're all he has left. All we have left.