Mike is descending the spiral staircase again, but he pauses on the first step. He hears noises. It couldn't be –
He cranes his head around the banister and sees them – Jessie and Walt, shoved up against the far counter. Her head is down, so Mike can't see her face, but he can hear the small grunts she's making with Walt's every thrust. Walt is curved over her, wrapping her body in an embrace and craning his head over her neck. Thank Jesus in his fucking cradle they aren't facing Mike.
He backtracks so fast his heel catches on the metal turreted stair, and for a moment Jessie's head snaps up toward him. But Mike is up and out, closing the lab's hidden door as silently as possible. His mind reels with memories of Jessie and Walt's relationship. The first time Walt approached him for help. The time Jessie dodged between him and Mike's gun.
So many things, which Mike had written off as codependency, were making more sense now. Their inexplicable attachment to each other, their unwillingness to screw the other over.
Mike remembers the one time he showed up unannounced at Jessie's house, in the middle of the night. Their long day of pickups had not gone well, to say the least, and Mike was fulfilling the either half of his job. He was checking she wasn't using again. But instead it was Walt who answered the door, unkempt and angry.
"What?" he snapped.
Mike paused, surprised and suspicious. "I came to see Jessie."
The two men eyed each other across the doorway, both aware that they were caught in an unusual place at an unusual time of night. Walt closed the door slightly, it's opening blocked effectively by his body. He was wearing only an undershirt. Warning signals were beeping quietly in Mike's brain.
"She's fine," Walt said finally. "I checked on her myself."
Mike wanted to check. He wanted to sweep Jessie's house for - he didn't know what - but it's dark and silent and the middle of the goddamn night, and really, what right does he have? Beyond that, what obligation does he have? It's not his problem, Mike had told himself. It's not his problem.