I don't respond to every comment (or even in a timely manner), but trust me, I read every one of them, and I appreciate the feedback. Putting your work online can be an anxious and lonely experience. Knowing there are people out there willing to spend their time engaging with it makes it all the more worth it. Thanks to everybody for sticking it out this far. Only two chapters left after this one before we hit volume two of the Moonfall saga!

Chapter 25 – The Ride

"What did you do to Moon!?"

Jimmy winced. The gorilla had a death grip on his collar and held him close enough to be bombarded with every unpleasant blast of breath from each demand shouted at him.

"That's between me and that little lowlife!" Jimmy managed. "Who are you? And what's it to you?"

"Maybe this'll jog your memory," the gorilla said, reaching into his back pocket. Even with one hand, Jimmy couldn't break his grip. When the gorilla slipped a bunny mask over his face, Jimmy was stunned with outrage.

"You!"

"Yeah, me!" Big Daddy said. "You got some nads showin' up in my city like this. Rich tossers like you think they can do whatever they want!"

"Wealthy," Jimmy corrected, and received a good jostling in response.

"You think I care!? And don't even think about calling your security unless you want a repeat of what happened last time."

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" Jimmy yelled and regretted it almost immediately when Big Daddy pulled him in closer than ever, close enough to see the uvula at the back of the gorilla's throat.

"That's it! You have no idea how much I bloody hate that movie!" Big Daddy bellowed in Jimmy's face. "Since you don't learn your lesson, I'm gonna have to teach you one. You like throwing people from high places, don't ya? You don't realize how close I was to throwing you from that catwalk like you did to Moon, but I didn't want to do anything like that in front of my boy or your daughter." Something wicked traced the gorilla's lips. "But they're not here now... lucky for you, this theater's not that tall. So, I'll do somethin' different. Break an arm here, a leg there... and if that don't work, I'll keep breaking things 'til you learn your lesson, or I run outta things to break."

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to desist," Cleo said, stepping into the lobby. All eyes were glued to her. "Buster Moon is fine, and we were just leaving."

The gorilla looked Cleo over with a mixture of annoyance and disbelief. "Miss, you really throwin' your hat in with this bellend?"

"I can take care of myself. Maybe you should think about taking care of yourself."

"What did you just say?"

Cleo made a pinching motion with her fingers. "Walter Kilborn was this close to fully outing your role in the theater seizure and potentially dragging your son into the inevitable fallout." She pointed at the gorilla's jumpsuit. "From what I can tell, this little community service stint of yours is part of your parole... you don't want to do anything else to jeopardize your freedom, do you?"

Big Daddy's nostrils flared. "Izzat a threat?"

"A warning. Many people have been making poor choices lately. Don't be one of them."

Muttering under his breath, Big Daddy let Jimmy go with much reluctance, but he stood his ground, his broad back straight and his arms crossed like a mountain of muscle and disdain keeping the wolf from leaving the theater lobby.

"My boy has the voice of an angel and he hasn't been able to use it 'cause of you," Big Daddy growled.

Jimmy readjusted his suit while barely paying the gorilla any attention. "I don't really care what your kid does with his voice, he just can't use it in a show I got conned into." He tried to step around the gorilla but was thrown back with enough force that he nearly toppled over and onto the Alice in Wonderland standee.

"You don't understand, mate. You ain't leavin' until we settle this matter."

"I'm not negotiating with some classless meathead convict that crawled out of a grease pit."

"Never said anything about negotiatin'," Big Daddy said, cracking his knuckles. "I ain't a refined bloke. Diplomacy is new to me and doesn't feel all that natural right now. Where I come from, we settle things with our fists. So, we can do this the easy way, or the fun way."

Cleo was at her wits end. "Did you already forget what I told you?"

"I'd do anything for my son. I'll get him his voice back, even if that means a trip back to the pen."

The snow leopard let out an exasperated sigh. "I am surrounded by people destined to be incarcerated!"

"Put 'em up," Big Daddy said, driving a fist into his open palm with an audible smack and an excited grin. "I won't let anybody say I didn't give you a fightin' chance!"

Jimmy watched with disinterest. "You know, I'm tired of people telling me I don't learn. If there's one thing I did learn, it's not how many guys you have, it's which one you bring." He snapped his fingers. "Jerry, do the thing."

In all the commotion, Big Daddy completely missed the rotund, suited cat that entered the lobby. He turned around and his eyes lit up upon seeing Jerry. "Aww, look at this lil' chonker! Ain't he cut—"

CRACK!

Big Daddy seized up and Jerry pulled back the stun baton from where he shoved it into his gut, watching the gorilla drop like a sack of potatoes before writhing on the floor. Hugging the baton, Jerry gave Jimmy a bright, pleading look.

"Did I do good, Mr. Crystal?"

"Beautiful work, Jerry! Ten outta ten!" Jimmy motioned for the baton and Jerry passed it to him. He studied Big Daddy as the initial effects of the electroshock wore off and the gorilla let out a pained moan against the floor. Jimmy pressed the baton against the gorilla's thigh and sent another earsplitting crack of electricity into the object of his contempt.

Big Daddy let out a restrained scream, fighting back against the sensation of flaming hornets buzzing under his skin and through his veins, of every muscle in his body spasming and defying him, of his brain fogging up.

Cleo made an audible gasp of distaste. "Was the second shock really necessary?"

"I was gonna let you get a turn at him, but not with that attitude," Jimmy said in condescending tone, as if scolding a child. He tossed the baton back to Jerry. "We're done here."

"Sir, what do we do about...?" Jerry motioned toward Big Daddy.

"I don't like littering, but this garbage is exactly where it belongs." They left the New Moon Theater, with Cleo lingering behind just a bit to watch Big Daddy suffering a few residual spasms. She felt like they were on the precipice of disaster. People on both sides were starting to get harmed for real. She'd have to make one last play to stop everything soon before someone or something else was added to the already explosive situation.

"Ugh, this is a designer suit!" Jimmy complained once in the sunlight. "You can see the grease stains he left on it!"

"You have a dozen of those suits," Cleo said.

"Doesn't mean I want any of them caked in grease from some loser that smells like motor oil and dollar store cologne."

"You know what a dollar store is?"

"Unfortunately."

By the time Buster entered the lobby to investigate the commotion, Jimmy was nowhere to be found, and Big Daddy was a heap on the marble floor.

"Oh no! Marcus!" Buster sped to the downed gorilla's side. "Marcus, are you okay?"

Big Daddy sat up with a pained hiss, his bunny mask askew, and tried to play it off. "Don't worry your little head about me, mate. Ain't been knocked off my feet like that since I first met Johnny's mum." The truth was, the physical pain would pass, but his ego would be bruised for a while. He was taken down by Jimmy Crystal's meek little assistant. Barry and Stan would never let him live that one down.

"What are you doing here?" Buster asked.

"Johnny called, wanted me to check in on you." He got a good look at the koala and realized that, although he was the one that got shocked, Buster looked worse for wear. "What was that wolf doing here? Did he hurt you?"

"Oh, it's nothing serious. He's abandoned trying to kill me and decided to ruin my life instead. It's the more socially acceptable option."

Big Daddy got up with a growl of contempt. "The bloke just won't stop, will he?"

Buster didn't want to think about it. "I don't know about you, but I could use some fresh air. It's been that kind of day."

Jimmy watched pastel-colored buildings cruise by the window as the limousine made its way through town and back to the airstrip. He'd never admit it aloud, but Calatonia was not what he expected as the Podunk town that spawned a con artist like Buster Moon. It was far from the dusty, ratty crater of misery, treachery, and hopelessness he imagined. Maybe all so-called "Podunk" towns weren't quite like the one locked away in his memories.

Not a word had been spoken since they left the New Moon Theater, and Jimmy knew what was eventually coming next. Cleo was only ever this quiet when she was pissed. He glanced over at the snow leopard, with Jerry awkwardly seated between the two of them.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Jimmy said. "We both know you want to let me have it."

Cleo almost bit her tongue. She wouldn't be compelled by Jimmy to speak her mind. But then she remembered the stakes, and her ego would have to step aside. "I told you not to do anything rash and you drag me here to watch you blackmail Moon with prison! You don't think this is overkill?"

"He did it, didn't he? You were the one that said I should've called the cops when I found out he lied about Calloway!"

"In that exact moment! Doing it now is cruel! He apologized. He doesn't want to be in conflict with you."

"He created this mess. He doesn't get to decide that."

"And if Moon delivers Porsha, are you going to throw out that dossier?"

With a dismissive chuckle, Jimmy said, "What do you think?"

Cleo was taken slightly aback. She didn't know why; Jimmy could be ruthless when he wanted to be. "This is far beyond accountability or getting your life back. All the money put into the show, if this leads to a criminal trial, Moon is getting put away for years. What does that give you?"

"A good night's sleep, for one."

"We both know that's not true. You just keep escalating this feud. No matter what you do to him, it's never enough. You're already entertaining the idea of suing him and taking his theater after he gets arrested. Where does this end, Jimmy? When will you be satisfied?"

"When he suffers like I did! I want him to lose respect, I want him to lose his career, and I want everyone close to him to look at him like he's a monster! I want to see him walk away in handcuffs!"

"But Moon didn't even call the police. That was Suki Lane!"

"Thanks for reminding me of the next person on my list."

Cleo took in a sharp breath, kept her composure. This was quickly getting out of hand. "No one heals themselves by harming another. That hole you're trying to plug won't go away no matter what you do to Moon."

Jimmy gave Cleo his undivided attention, a flicker of outrage in his eyes. "Don't do that. Don't psychoanalyze me!"

"It's not hard to do for anyone that's been in that shrine to yourself you call an office! This narcissism is a twisted defense mechanism. The reason you can't let this go is because you're focusing on the wrong thing. The only person you hate more than Buster Moon in this situation is yourself."

"That's cute. It really is."

"It's not. You forgot how close you let me get to you, how deep into your world I was before we broke up. You have high expectations for everyone around you, but none as high as yourself. You can't forgive Moon because you can't forgive yourself for letting him in, for letting him humiliate you and outwit you at every turn."

"Keep rubbing it in!" Jimmy growled.

"I'm not rubbing it in. I see your pain. I understand it. But what you're doing isn't helping. That's why we're here now. You built an empire in the entertainment mecca of the world while raising a daughter and coping with the death of your wife. You've done amazing things with your life. But... that feeling of being a failure is haunting you, isn't it?"

"I'm not a failure."

"I never said you were, but all the signs of stress are there. Being on the top means you have to stay on the top. That's why you've spent the last few months obsessing over a koala that admittedly did a number on you. You're behaving like a shadow of the mogul that reinvented Redshore City."

Jimmy turned away, focusing on the sights beyond his window once more. Jerry was compressing his very existence, his eyes bouncing between Jimmy and Cleo like a scared child watching two parents going at each other, helpless to stop the impending train wreck.

"You reached a point in your life where you felt killing another person was an acceptable solution to your problem," Cleo said. "Doesn't that scare you? It scares the hell out of me!"

"It made sense in the moment," Jimmy murmured.

"Something like that should never make sense," Cleo said, reaching inside her purse to produce a card that she handed over to him. "Jimmy, you have enough issues to fill the Grand Canyon. You need real help, professional help."

Jimmy reluctantly took the card, then his muzzle curled into a snarl after reading it. "You're sending me to your therapist!?"

"God, no. Not my therapist. You're the kind of person that makes therapists need therapists. But Maxine, I've heard great things about her. She can—"

"I knew it. I knew it from the start. I asked you if there was some ulterior motive to all this and you lied to my face. This was never about getting back at Moon or fixing what he did to me, it was about you trying to fix me."

"That's not entirely true! You know this."

Jimmy scoffed. "I'm not another one of those sad, broken projects for you to fix. If you want to fix something, look in the mirror. You're always pointing out what's wrong with everyone else and how they should follow your advice, how you always know what's best, but the sad truth is you're trying to fix everybody else because you couldn't fix what happened in your own life. I'm not part of your sob story, Cleo."

Cleo clenched her teeth, her voice dropping low. "I've only ever been thinking about your well-being."

"I don't have to believe a word you say. You're just another traitor." Jimmy ripped the card in two and let the pieces drop. Cleo felt like her hopes were dashed along with the pieces, abandoned on the floor like trash.

"Helping you get back at Moon wasn't supposed to make you worse. You were supposed to— this wasn't..." Cleo trailed off as she felt the fur on the back of Jimmy's hand rub affectionately against her cheek.

"I know that look," he cooed. "Feel like you're losing control? Don't worry—you never had it." Cleo pushed his hand away. Jimmy made a motion for the driver and said, "Stop the car. The lady will be getting out here."

The limousine pulled over to the side, leaving Cleo to stare at Jimmy in pure skepticism.

"You're just going to dump me off here? In the middle of nowhere?"

Jimmy pointed across the street. "You're not in the middle of nowhere. Look, it's a shopping center. You can mingle with the masses, get yourself some souvenirs to remember Catagonia."

"It's Calatonia! CA-LA-TONIA!"

"Whatever. By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, you're fired. I'm doing what you couldn't with the Moon situation. Your services are no longer required. This is where we part ways."

Keeping her poise, Cleo gathered her belongings and climbed out of the limo, leaving Jimmy alone with Jerry's almost horrified expression.

"Don't look at me like that!" he complained to his assistant. "I don't have a lot of generosity for people I don't trust, okay?"

Folding his hands, Jerry looked away and, as he had many times before, kept his mouth shut.

As Cleo stood on the sidewalk, blindsided and awash in humiliation, the limo's window rolled down. Jimmy passed a roll of cash to Jerry, who got up and handed it out the window to Cleo.

"Bus fare," Jimmy explained. "Don't say I never did anything for ya." The window abruptly shot back up and the limo peeled out down the road in ways limos weren't meant to.

Years of tempered emotions, disregarded feelings, and a carefully crafted public persona began to crumble as Cleo allowed herself to feel, to seethe, to experience failure. The dam didn't just break—it was blown apart with dynamite.

"DAMN YOU JIMMY CRYSTAL!" She screamed at the racing limo. "YOU ASS!"

She knew he heard, because everyone in the shopping center certainly did.

For Buster, life became filtered through a camera lens constantly shifting in and out of focus. As he stood outside his theater, signs of the city were a blur passing him by at a startling pace. Then small things would slam into focus, like citizens going about their day. An antelope prattling away on their phone, the smell of garlicky snacks as an elephant trudged by, the bickering between a giraffe and a rhino trapped in a traffic jam further up the street. It all seemed so trivial and yet, Buster felt like a man outside of time watching Calatonians with envy.

People like to say they want to know their future, but they don't realize just how devastating that can be. Jimmy Crystal shoved an hourglass into Buster's hands and forced him to watch the sand deplete. He had no idea how much time he had before it all collected in the bottom bulb, but once it had, life as he knew it would be over.

"Look like you've seen a ghost," Marcus said, startling the koala. He forgot the gorilla was even there. "No, you look like a ghost. What exactly did Crystal say to you?"

"It's nothing! Don't worry about it."

"Mate, that look on your face is the opposite of nothin'."

"That obvious, huh?" Buster wrung his hands as he began to explain. "So, you know how I initially lied about Clay Calloway to get the show in Redshore off the ground?"

"Yeah, Johnny filled me in."

Buster sat on the curb in front of the theater, and Marcus joined him. "Soooo... it turns out that was technically a crime. Crystal wants me to reconnect him with his daughter or he'll file a criminal complaint and ruin my life."

"Figures," Marcus said, with much less vitriol than Buster expected. There was something conflicted in his face, a sort of reluctant understanding, and it dawned on Buster that Marcus was likely empathetic with Jimmy's situation—a father desperately wanting to reconnect with their child. "What are you plannin' to do about it?"

"I haven't decided yet, but I can't do anything from here. I have to go back to Redshore ASAP."

"Tryin' to do everything on your own is how you get into these messes."

Buster let out a nervous laugh. "Oh no, not you too. I've been getting lectured by everybody."

"Alright, we'll skip it. Not one for lectures myself."

"Thanks. I promise I'm not doing this alone."

"You can prove it by lettin' me give you ride."

Buster agreed, and after packing his suitcase, he hopped in Marcus's truck for a ride over to the Redshore City Bus terminal. Along the way, the gorilla dropped a seemingly spontaneous thought on him.

"Trust me, prison ain't the end of the world."

Buster knew there was truth in Marcus's words, but he still had no intention of exploring a future where he was known as a convict. After they parted ways, Buster bought his ticket and got on the first bus out of Calatonia. As he made his way down the aisle, he saw a familiar snow leopard sitting alone in the back and decided to take a seat next to her.

"If you're here, you've either got good news, or very bad news," Buster said. Outside a glance from under her shades, Cleo barely reacted to his presence. Something was different about her, an aura of tension, and Buster started to wonder if it was a good idea to sit next to her after all. Once the bus started moving, her demeanor changed a bit. They hit a bump in the road, and it was like the words were dislodged from her mouth.

"I couldn't get through to him," she said. "He threw me out of the limo."

Buster nearly fell off the seat. "Oh my god! Are you okay?"

Noticing his overreaction, Cleo added, "He stopped the limo first."

"Oh, that's good."

Cleo started to pay more attention to the koala, like she was examining him, and it made Buster a little uneasy.

"You look a little calmer since the theater," she said.

Buster twiddled his thumbs a bit before answering. "I've decided that maybe... this is what needs to happen."

Cleo slid her shades off to give him one of her most incredulous looks. "You can't be serious?"

"The thing about blackmail is that it never really goes away. Crystal can always yank me around with that dossier, make me perform based on his whims. Today he wants Porsha, tomorrow... who knows? He owns me. But in a court, in front of a jury, I can explain myself. At least I could plead my case."

"There's nothing to plead. This is clear-cut."

"They have to know that I gave him the show of a lifetime. I came through—"

"Let me be very clear about this, Buster, so I know that we're on the same page. I'm not a lawyer and even I know fraud is defined as the purposeful misrepresentation of facts. You purposefully misrepresented the fact that you knew Clay Calloway, had access to his music, and could get him in the show, with the express intent of getting Jimmy onboard. Every cent of the show's budget he signed off on was done under false pretenses. He greenlit your show based entirely on lies. This is fraud on a basic level, and it is very, very illegal." Cleo leaned back into her seat with a sigh before adding, "Selling the show after the fact to The Majestic Palace Theater did you no favors."

"When you put it that way..." Buster choked back a bitter laugh. "But if I were to serve time, wouldn't that satisfy him? He'd have no reason to come after me or my friends anymore, right?"

"I'm not sure that's true..."

"Some people feel like I have this coming. Maybe I should just take my punishment with dignity... look at Johnny's dad, he's doing better since prison. Maybe incarceration will do wonders for me!" Buster forced a smile, though it was obvious from the amount of strain that he didn't believe a word coming out of his own mouth.

"I don't know what strings the gorillas pulled to get that kind of deal, but with the millions put into Out of This World, you could end up with a decade or more in prison. Does that sound like it'll do wonders for you?" That wiped the smile right off Buster's face. His eyes were nearly bulging once Cleo continued. "Not everyone's journey through the system is the same. It's not equipped to deal with certain issues and can in fact make things much worse. That's why I felt like it was no place for Jimmy... or for you."

Cleo's back straightened, her body language tensing up as if bracing to endure something painful. She looked Buster deep in his eyes and began to recount a personal tale of days past.

"I had an uncle named Marley, he was a huge fixture in my life when I was kid. He was bright and full of life, always had big plans and big dreams... never really got them to come to fruition, though. He was really proud, too. When the job he was working for years suddenly evaporated, he refused to ask for help, and started to steal to make ends meet. Not for fun, or greed, or anything like that. Just to survive. He got caught eventually, and they made an example out of him by giving him a few years in prison. When he got out, he was a different person, a worse person...

"Prison is a different world, this alternate realm where the rules are all screwed up. You have to change to adapt, if you don't you won't survive. But then there are some prisoners that can't reacclimate to civilian life after their sentence is up, Uncle Marley being one of them. Prison didn't fix any of his issues, it exacerbated them and created a litany of new ones. He kept getting into trouble. He didn't know how to make it outside the pen anymore. Theft, assault, you name it. And so, he was in and out of prison. A stranger looking at his rap sheet would probably think his incarceration was for the best, but a rap sheet isn't a person. All Uncle Marley's dreams and accomplishments went up in a poof of a smoke. The core issue was never addressed, he just became a statistic swept under the rug by the system. And then the worse came to pass during one of his stints in prison... they found his body in the showers. Never found out who killed him. My family will never get justice for his murder. All we have are memories of the good times."

"I'm so sorry about your uncle," Buster murmured. He found it challenging keeping eye contact with Cleo as she told her story. Despite her steely eyes, there was still a gamut of emotions swimming behind them.

"That's why I couldn't look the other way when Jimmy was arrested," Cleo said. "I tried, then Jerry came to me in tears. I didn't think incarceration would fix Jimmy's issues, and I was right. When I went to see him, he was obsessed with you. He was reliving those days up until his arrest. He lost his empire, his reputation, and his daughter. All he had left was his hatred of you."

"I never wanted those things to happen to him, but I know how hollow that sounds in the aftermath," Buster said. "Especially considering how I kicked off this entire chain of events and forced him into a bad situation. He really does see me as the villain of his story."

Cleo was the one to break eye contact, slipping her shades back on and turning her sights to the window. "I think I judged you too harshly," she admitted. "When I researched you so I could help Jimmy, all I could see were your actions with none of the context. The lying, the cheating, the exploitation... I filled in the blanks and assumed you had this long history of conning people because you saw everyone as stepping stones, expendable things to be used in your relentless quest for success."

"If it makes you feel any better, looking back at a lot of the things I've done over the years... I can see how you reached that conclusion."

"You're more... oblivious than malicious," Cleo said as if considering her own words. "Severely ethically challenged for sure, which isn't great, and you were definitely in need of facing some accountability, but you're not a monster. But now I've given Jimmy the tools and motivation to destroy you... I can't help him. I've tried, but... he..."

Buster didn't need to see behind the shades to know Cleo's eyes were growing misty. The raw emotion flooded her voice. And though Cleo's hand dwarfed Buster's, he still took it with both of his and squeezed.

"Please don't give up on him. This little chat has convinced me more than ever that you should keep fighting for him." There was a twinkle in Buster's eye, something Cleo was in short supply of: Hope. "Look, I've never been on great terms with Crystal. I've never had a conversation with him where he wasn't expecting something from me or didn't just outright hate my guts, so I'm in no position to judge what he's like on a normal day. We've never discussed our dreams and aspirations, our fears, our regrets. I don't really know him at all. But I have gotten to know some of the people that know him, and I think he can be saved because... he is loved. Even after everything, you and Porsha still love him. That tells me there's something in him worth loving. I haven't quite experienced it, but that doesn't mean it's not there."

Suddenly, with all the exuberant energy he was known for, Buster was standing on the seat, hands on his hips, projecting his voice. "And you know what I always say: I stan optimism!"

Cleo looked at Buster as if he were speaking another language before she broke into deep, guttural, uncontrollable laughter. She rocked back and forth, shades falling into her lap, raucous laughing suffocating the bus. Buster nervously tugged at his collar as a few inquisitive and annoyed heads turned to see what all the racket was about. Cleo's laughs finally subsided into bursts of giggles

She wiped at the moisture under her eyes and said, "I needed a good laugh. Thanks."

"Glad I could... help..." Buster muttered against his embarrassment.

"There's one thing we haven't tried yet, and that's working together."

Buster blinked in surprise, wondering why he hadn't thought of that first. He gave a sly smile. "I'm open to collaborations."

"Alright, but there's one more thing you might not like. We've been missing a piece of the puzzle, and at this point I think it's unavoidable. We can't keep Porsha out of this anymore."

Frowning, Buster said, "Desperate times, I guess. Maybe it takes a Crystal to stop a Crystal."

"Not stop, heal," Cleo said, letting that last word linger. "Hurt people hurt people. He'll never move past this if he doesn't heal."

"I get it," Buster said, his tone contemplative. "Let's... let's help him."

A/N

Cleo Keller, Jimmy's Advocate

I have an approach when it comes to OCs: I only use them out of necessity. I never introduce an OC in a role a canon character already serves or can do better. And this is why Cleo NEEDED to exist. The simple fact is... Jimmy has no support.

Look at Buster – he's surrounded by people that always have his back, always support him no matter how badly or how many times he screws up, whether you think he deserves that support or not. Now look at Jimmy – Suki tiptoed around him, likely trying to preserve her career, but didn't do or say anything until he almost killed Buster a second time, which was waaay after things spiraled out of control. Porsha stabbed him in the back and bailed the first chance she got. And depending on your interpretation of Jerry, he's either a sycophant or deeply in love with his boss, but either way he's an enabler. Nobody in Jimmy's life was holding him up or holding him accountable, calling him out when he crossed a line, challenging him to be better and find better solutions, etc. All the things you'd expect people to do when someone they care about is screwing up.

I created Cleo to be that advocate for Jimmy. In many ways, she is his life raft, a safety net for a man that doesn't think he needs one. The little nugget of tragedy in her backstory about her uncle also sheds light on why she's so hellbent on "saving" Jimmy. She's seen what happens when someone doesn't get help. Punishment and help aren't the same thing. Several people left Jimmy high and dry, Cleo made a choice not to be one of them.

Also, Fun Fact: Cleo telling Buster he could get decades if convicted isn't some exaggeration for dramatic purposes. I don't think people understand how much hard time you can get from a criminal fraud conviction depending on the severity. If Buster and Jimmy were convicted for their crimes around the same time, Buster could theoretically get more time than Jimmy (and that's before taking Jimmy's clout, money, and privilege into account).