There was a knock at the door before she could even turn the shower on.

"Just a sec!" she called back, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her body before opening the door and peeking around it. "What's up?"

"I want to tell you...what happened to me," Jesse said, standing awkwardly in the doorway, his hands fidgeting with a stray thread at the end of his shirt. Charlie stepped aside and let him into the bathroom. He stood just inside the doorway, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the bright bathroom lights, before sitting on the lip of the tub and hanging his head in his hands.

When he finally looked back up, Charlie saw the pain and exhaustion etched in the lines of his face. With Jesse perched on the edge of the tub and Charlie sitting on the sink, the whole story came pouring out.

Emilio and the first DEA bust. Buying the RV. Their first cook. Tuco and Gus Fring. Jane and Andrea and Brock and Tomas. The superlab and the train heist. Mike and Victor and Gale. Todd and the Neo Nazis. Working with the DEA to nab Mr. White. The final shootout in the desert and being forced to be a meth slave. The shootout and choking Todd with his hand cuffs. Once he started, it all came out in a stream of consciousness.

"So...if you want me to go..." he finished, actually looking straight at her instead of at the wall or the inside of his eye lids. His eyes were vacant and rimmed in red.

Charlie let out a deep breath. "If you want to go and start over somewhere else as someone else, I won't stop you and I won't rat you out," Charlie said evenly. "But if you want to stay here and stay Jesse Pinkman...you can stay here as long as you need to."

Jesse broke their eye contact, focusing on something or someone Charlie couldn't see, as he nodded. She hopped off the sink, reaching around him to turn on the taps. He got the hint and left the bathroom without a word.

Charlie managed to get in the shower before she started crying, hoping the pounding water would drown out her sobs. For six years, she hoped Jesse would reappear in her life. One morning, she'd walk down the stairs and find him sitting on her couch, grinning away. She didn't expect to find an unsmiling, jittery person with gashes marring his face. He could barely look and her; when he did, all she saw was pain. It everything she had in her to not cry when she looked at him.

And he'd only been back in her life for twelve hours.

"Your hair looks fine like that, anyway," Charlie assured him as they drove away from the barbershop. There was a car in the parking lot that looked identical to Todd's. Jesse froze when he saw it, adamantly refusing to get out of the car. He couldn't even explain why when Charlie asked; he just sat in the car as violent tremors overtook his body.

In that moment, he hated himself. If she had been smart, she would have called the cops as soon as he stepped foot in her kitchen last night. If he had been smart, he would have sped away from her house and removed himself from Charlie's life for good. Good things didn't happen to people Jesse Pinkman cared about.

He took out his anger on Charlie's passenger side dashboard, punching it and reveling in the sting that ran through the knuckles of his right hand.

"Hey," Charlie said, glancing over with concern while trying to keep her eyes on the road. "Hey, that's my car you're trying to Hulk out on!"

"Sorry," Jesse mumbled, rubbing his now bruised knuckles.

Charlie sighed as they slowed to a stop at a light, "No, I'm sorry," she said, resting her head against the wheel. "I pushed you to go out. I'll drop you off and then go just pick out whatever. It's better than what you have, right?"

Jesse remained silent the rest of the drive. He could feel Charlie's eyes sliding towards him, saw out of the corner of his eye that she was biting her lip, a tell-tale sign that she was holding back from saying what was on her mind.

They pulled into Charlie's driveway and she put the car in park before turning to him. "You need to go to the DEA. Immediately," she said.

"No." Jesse shook his violently. " . Fuck no."

"Jesse-"

"The last time I went to the fucking DEA," Jesse said, "I got sold into fucking meth slavery."

"That's why you need to go to them before they come looking for you."

Jesse shook his head again and started to speak, but Charlie put her hand over his mouth. He winced at her touch.

"Listen, you were in that hell hole for what? Five months? Six? How long do you think you have before they realize that you were there? A finger print, a hair, anything can connect you to that scene."

"So?"

"You go to them, and you tell them exactly what you told me. Every detail you can remember, you tell them. Tell them the color of that DEA agent's shower mat if you have to. Prove to them you were cooperating in the end."

Jesse started fidgeting, closing his eyes and shaking his head. Charlie grabbed one of his hands, steadying it as she looked at him.

"This is the only way, Jesse," she told him. "You either do this, or we bust one of the windows in my house and you take off in my car. I give you a twenty minute head start before I call the cops."

Jesse stretched out his bruised knuckles, feeling the pain radiating up each finger gave him an odd sense of relief. Spitting out his whole story to Charlie, someone he trusted implicitly, was an ordeal. One he was not looking to repeat. Especially in front of several angry DEA agents in a cold interrogation room.

"You're not going in alone," she assured him. "You're gonna go there with a good lawyer and tell them everything you know-"

"You're not paying for a lawyer..." he objected.

"Who said I was paying?"

"Then how..."

Charlie glanced at him sideway and titled her head in a way that immediately gave away who she wanted to walk into the DEA's office with him.

"No," he said shaking his head again. "The last time I saw your sister, she was getting a restraining order against me."

"It's the best option," she replied with a note of pity in her voice, handing him her house key.

"Livi, I need a favor," Charlie said hurriedly, her cell phone wedged between her ear and shoulder as she backed out of the driveway.

"What now?" her sister asked with annoyance.

"I need to you walk into the DEA and represent someone, pro bono."

"What did you do?"

"Not me," Charlie replied, flipping off the driver of the car that was tailgating her. "Jesse Pinkman."

Her sister said nothing, but Charlie could practically hear her lips pursing in disapproval on the other side of the phone.

"Please tell me you met another Jesse Pinkman in the six past six years," Livi finally said.

"Livi, please. Just listen to what he has to say," Charlie begged. "I'll pay you in tacos."

"Fine," Livi replied. "Your house as soon as I leave work. One shot, that's it. If you're not there..."

"I know, I know...and Livi?"

"Yeah?"

"Please don't tell Mom and Dad, not yet."