Chapter Ten: Here and Back Again
"You have to go for now, Jesse," Jane tells him quietly, when she's stared into his eyes for what feels like equal parts forever and not a thousandth long enough.
"No," Jesse pleads softly, clinging to her. Not this, not now.
"Not forever," she replies, "Just for now. I'll see you again soon." The look in her eyes convinces him that she's telling the truth, making a promise.
His hand falls away from her shoulder and now he's standing back in the place he recognizes as purgatory, looking into the eyes of another familiar face.
"Uh…" he stammers out. "Mister…" he pauses. "Margolis." He resists the urge to call him "Mr. Jane's Dad" or something of the sort.
"Jesse," the imposing man replies. Donald Margolis. The air traffic controller. He committed… oh, God, Jesse thinks to himself.
"It's my fault," he blurts. "I'm… sorry." Even if he evaded Gale's judgment, there's no way that he can hide from this man. He can still feel the eyes boring holes into him, cutting him away. The memory of standing there, hanging limply and somehow staying on his two feet, as Mr. Margolis had come in and seen what had happened… what Jesse had done.
"Jesse." The word is firm, stern, and Jesse stands up a little straighter after hearing it. "Listen to me. I know one thing, in… the duplex, that day. I know that what happened was tragic. Life destroying." The man's voice catches in his throat a moment, and he pauses before continuing. "But I know it had destroyed you as much as it destroyed me." Jesse shakes his head, shudders.
"You're not a bad kid, Jesse. It's taken me a really long time to realize that… I wanted to blame you. I wanted to hate you." Donald fiddles with his coat before looking back at him. "You're just a lost kid, like Jane is – was. People make mistakes. You didn't want to hurt her. You loved her, you were just a stupid kid. Everyone is."
"But what I did…"
"What happened went beyond your control, Jesse," Donald tells him. "You had no way of knowing what would happen. It was an accident. Listen to your own words – it wasn't your fault, or even hers."
"It's easier to say than to believe," Jesse mumbles. He jerks slightly when Donald reaches out and takes one hand in his.
"You're not a bad kid, Jesse," he repeats, shaking his hand. "I forgive you for anything you think you did. Now, work through this and get back out there. Who will keep Jane's memory alive if you don't?"
"Am I… me, though?" Jesse asks. "What about… anyone better than me? Anyone less responsible than me?"
"Who is still around who loved her more than you did?" Donald asks in response.
"Walter," a low-toned, feminine voice sings out against the acoustics of the chapel. "Walter…"
Walt jerks his head and looks around, but he can't see anyone. For a moment he thinks he's dreaming but he knows, knows the cold wood beneath him is real and knows that if this whole horrible situation was actually a dream, then… well, he would give anything. He can't see where the voice is coming from; he does, however, recognize the voice, and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Jane. It occurs to him that he didn't manage to learn her name until after…
Maybe he ought to keep track of that new girl's name. What was it?
Adrienne? Ariana? Ariadne?
Andrea. Andrea and her little son, Brock. Jesse the family man, who would have thought? But it makes a certain amount of sense, sense that Walt hasn't seen until it's been too late. His neglect of Jesse, his inability to save him, won't just shatter him, it will rip a family apart. Just like his own death will, just like his own choices have.
"Walter."
Walt squinches his eyes shut. Hallucination is a side effect of not enough sleep, his science brain reminds him.
"Walter… You watched me die, Walter. What would Jesse think?"
Against his will, Walt curls up in the pew, his eyes still shut, and forces himself to count down. Need to sleep, can't do this right now… Can't have this voice rolling around in my head. Need all my wits together, can't do anything if I don't have all my wits together. Can't be caught off-guard.
Sleeping will knock him off-guard temporarily, but staying awake he could miss… something. He remembers Jesse telling him about meth-heads he's seen, awake for days on end, paranoid, who end up killing the people closest to them. Remembers the tale Jesse told him about the couple and their child, the couple where the wife crushed the husband with the ATM machine.
He keeps counting 10, 9, 8… thinking to himself that this method probably never actually worked for any one, considers counting sheep instead but he keeps seeing Jesse's face instead until finally he feels like going under, like dying, and falls asleep.
In every dream, he's standing, watching the RV crushed, before he realizes that the stubborn Jesse's still inside, and he hears the blood-curling screams from inside the twisted metal as Walt screams at someone to stop, stop, stop, but then he realizes that even if Jesse survives, he'll have been torn apart, so all he can do is stand and listen as Jesse screams –
He jerks awake and rolls off the pew, colliding with the floor with a painful thud.
His phone vibrates and he reaches out, grabbing it, half-expecting to see Jesse's name appear on its face.
It's a text from Skyler – come back. He reads the words, makes sure he isn't hallucinating those, too. He tries to reconnect the words to an event, to news. It can't be good news. It never is.
He rushes to his feet and runs towards the ICU, hoping he won't be too late…
He can't be too late…