Chapter Text
Kim rarely watched the news.
All it did was stress her out, and she’d always had enough stress in her life as it was already, so why add to it? She didn’t get the appeal. She read the paper and online articles to stay informed, but that was it.
That was it.
That night she’d left it on by accident, absently turning on the TV as she arrived home from work that evening. It was something she did often- flip to a random channel, usually some crappy comedy, and let it run in the background while she went about her nighttime routine. It was better than sitting in the quiet, alone with her thoughts. The added noise helped to fight off the loneliness.
There was a young broadcaster on the channel she’d switched to; all white teeth and tightly coiled hair. The woman’s voice was sharp, professional, and it took Kim a moment to realize she must’ve flipped to the wrong channel.
“Breaking story from Albuquerque, New Mexico,” she said, just as Kim had moved to switch to something lighter. “New developments have been made in the story of the local meth kingpin known as ‘Heisenberg.’ Here now is-”
The reporter kept talking, and Kim’s hand faltered on the remote. Albuquerque. Even though it had been multiple years since she had left, the name still made her pause, hesitate.
The reporter spoke of two DEA agents found dead out in the desert, a tip from “Heisenberg” himself, who’s identity had apparently been recently uncovered. One of the missing was this “Heisenberg’s” brother-in-law, along with his partner, and…
“Walter White’s lawyer, Saul Goodman.”
Saul Goodman.
There was a light buzzing in her ears, a distant hum that seemed both far away and close nearby all the same. Slowly she lowered herself onto the seat of her couch.
“There have been no tips as to Goodman’s whereabouts, and the raid of his office at 9800 Montgomery Boulevard left authorities empty-handed. His current whereabouts are unknown. If you have any information on anything related to Heisenberg, Pinkman, or Goodman, please call the tip-line at 1-”
She shut the TV off. The hum stayed.
In the reflection of the now-darkened screen, Kim could see herself. Her hair was undone, she’d pulled out her ponytail and strands hung limply around her face. She’d smudged her lipstick at some point, and a slight streak ran across her cheek, which she rubbed off with a hand. Her eyes, though, were wide. Anxious.
She wasn’t going to get much sleep that night.
A few days passed, which turned into weeks. Part of Kim wondered if the authorities would even come to talk to her, if they would track her down. They were still legally married, after all. But for whatever reason, it didn’t happen. It wasn’t as if she’d be able to help, anyway. They had been long over with by the time Jimmy had wrapped himself up in this mess, and she was almost half-grateful for it.
Before, when they’d finally split, those angry words and overwhelming guilt and grief coming to a headway, she’d thought that they’d hit rock bottom. With every shovel of dirt into that deep, deep desert grave, she’d thought that this was the worst either of them could ever sink.
She could almost see herself, hair pulled back in a loose ponytail to keep the stray hairs from her face, shovel slick in her sweating hands, as she drove the metal blade into the soil over and over and over. It was funny, after the terror and tears of Howard’s death, she’d almost felt a keen sense of relief.
This is it, she’d thought back then. It can never get any worse than this.
The newscaster said that the men Jimmy had been involved with were also suspected in the murder of a young boy. Drew Sharpe. A photo of a bright and cheery kid, all buck teeth and freckles, filled the screen.
She’d been wrong, she realized. It could get worse.
Jesus, Jimmy, she wondered to herself. What did he get himself into?
She kept up with the news every night after she returned from work, flicking on the channel to watch for any sign of him. Praying, and yet dreading any mention of discovery all the same. As the weeks passed, mentions of the criminal lawyer, Saul Goodman, slowly faded into the backdrop in the news. Walter White and Jesse Pinkman were still all over the news, of course, but it gradually became clear that the majority of the world assumed that their lawyer was dead and buried, along with the two DEA agents that had met their demise.
The night the newscaster outright stated such, though, was potentially one of the worst nights of her life. All the journalists had danced around the idea before, alluding to the possibility that the “shady” lawyer of the now-late Walter White and still-missing Jesse Pinkman was dead somewhere, nothing but a corpse now to rot unto eternity. Dead, dead, dead.
“Surely he’s dead,” some man brought in to share his opinions on screen had said. “Keeping him around would be a liability for the two. I’m sure he’s probably gone, alongside the two DEA agents- rest their souls. The authorities have just yet to find his body.”
She’d wanted to vomit. She hadn’t any more tears left to cry, hadn’t had any for awhile, yet her stomach tossed and turned like she’d downed a thousand glasses of wine.
She wouldn’t let herself believe it. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. Not the man that she knew, all trickster with a million ideas of how to pull himself from any dire situation. Any time that she allowed her mind to drift there, to think of the possibility that he was no longer around, walking among the earth, she caught herself. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.
She went in to work the next morning, suit all crisp and pristine as always, but on the inside she felt hollow. Mel, her paralegal, gave her an odd look as she passed.
“Everything alright, Kim?” Mel asked. Her tone was perfectly friendly and polite.
“Yep. Just tired,” she replied.
Lie.
If there was one rule that Kim had lauded above all else, it was that she didn’t tell anyone about her personal life. Getting close with someone before had resulted in nothing but pain and destruction, and so now she was perfectly content to keep her own thoughts to herself. It was better that way. She was happier that way. She could spend her time at home mulling over her emotional turmoil, and at work she would put on the mask of Wexler: Attorney at Law and be nothing but professional and clinical all day, and she was a better lawyer for it, and her peace of mind was better for it.
Of course, that worked when every bone in her body wasn’t aching to be back in the apartment, glued to the six o’clock news for any sign of him. That worked when her mind was traveling at a hundred miles a minute, and her heart was pounding over and over as a carousel of thoughts raced through her head.
He’s dead. Was he dead? Where was he? Was he dead? He’s dead.
“The authorities have just yet to find his body,” that damn news report had said. The man’s voice was crystal clear in her mind. Oh god, she couldn’t think.
Thankfully, that day was a busy day. She had to be in court at one, and it was distraction enough, and she even made it fifteen minutes without thinking about Jimmy. And then, of course as soon as she arrived back at the office, and the doors shut closed behind her as she slunk low into the seat behind her desk, the thoughts started back up again. She was going crazy, she thought, positively insane.
Mel had come back at some point, and stood by the foot of her desk with some papers in hand. Kim almost jumped with a start when she finally noticed her. Mel’s eyebrows were knit together with concern.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
Kim swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Yeah. Yes.” she replied.
Outside the window it was sunny, almost off-puttingly nice outside. And yet here she was, sitting inside her office, mellowing in her thoughts. And every day that passed was one that left her further and further away from finding out what happened to Jimmy.
“The authorities have just yet to find his body,” the newscaster had said.
Kim looked up to meet Mel’s gaze. She straightened in her seat.
“Mel, actually, there is something you can do for me. I want you to clear out my calendar for the rest of the week. I have some business I need to attend to.”
“S-sure,” Mel blinked. “Anything else?”
“I’m going to need you to book me a plane ticket to Albuquerque, the soonest flight possible.”
XXxxXX
The air of New Mexico was just as dry and arid as she’d remembered. She stood in front of the airport, shoe tapping impatiently as she waited outside the main doors for her taxi to arrive. She felt that itching urge to light a cigarette at that moment, but she’d dumped the habit not all that long ago, and wasn’t in any rush to pick it back up.
Why was she even doing this? A small part of her posed the question, niggling in the back of her mind. Why go to such lengths for a man that she wasn’t even with anymore? They’d broken up. They were done, finito, hadn’t spoken to one another in years. It had been messy, words thrown, feelings hurt. Blood had been spilled across the floor of her apartment, blood she’d scrubbed so tirelessly until her palms were raw and knuckles were red. It was never able to go away. He hung like a looming shadow over their relationship even after Lalo had left, presumably dead for real this time, until it caused them both to crack and bend and give.
Out, damned spot!
She felt like Lady Macbeth, unable to rid herself.
And yet that newscaster’s voice still echoed on a carousel loop in her head, and she couldn’t stop thinking of Jimmy’s eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners, the way his hand held hers. It was like he was haunting her. If he really was dead, god forbid, he was her ghost.
Plus- she remembered as she watched the cars go by- in the end, in the eyes of the law, he was still her husband, and she his wife. Those papers had gone unsigned, and if anything, she probably still had them, as well, tucked away somewhere.
She’d tried fighting off the guilt at the time by telling herself she was simply too busy with the private practice she’d opened up once she moved to the east coast. Divorce papers were something that required time and dedication, true thought. So she waited for the right moment to come. And waited, and waited.
He’d never signed them back, either, that voice in her head whispered.
Damn. She’d really kill for a cigarette right then.
The taxi took her to a nice hotel, where she paid for a quiet room with a king-sized bed on the first floor. That night she changed out of the sweaty outfit she’d worn the entire day and switched into more comfortable clothes, lying on the still-made comforter of the bed and staring up at the ceiling above. There was a crack in the upper right corner, where the walls met. She traced it with her eyes, and willed herself to take a short nap.
The alarm she’d set on her phone went off before she even felt as though she’d closed her eyes, and she pulled herself out of bed, showering in the bathroom and putting on one of the plain black suits she’d brought along with inside her suitcase. It was only about two hours later. She’d barely slept at all the past few weeks, waking up every so often from exhausting dreams that fled her as soon as her eyes opened, but it was nothing that a couple cups of coffee couldn’t fix. Besides, she had a busy evening to attend to, so hopefully all the moving around would wake her up.
First things first, Kim rented a car. It was a shitty little thing, but it didn’t matter. It was cheap and it would get her places.
Back before she’d left, she’d looked up a couple of people she could contact for information. There weren’t many– but at the very least it was a start.
First on the list was Huell.
He hadn’t ever been mentioned on the news reports- just not important enough, her guess, but a little bit of online sleuthing had told her that he’d been hired as Jimmy’s bodyguard at some point last year, and that after Jimmy vanished, he’d stayed afloat in the mass of investigations and arrests that had followed.
She’d also learned that he’d gained a new job as a security guard for a local grocery store. As for what the right way to approach him was, she’d have to figure that out.
Eventually she decided on this: she would head over to the grocer at a quarter-to-eleven, when the store closed for the night. She waited outside, jacket pulled tightly around her even though it wasn’t all that cold, waiting for the last of the employees to filter out. And then, him.
He recognized her almost immediately.
“Kim!” his eyes widened. “Didn’t expect to see you out here.”
She smiled. “Yeah, well, I… some important matters came up.”
He nodded, and his expression turned very grave. “Jimmy.”
“...Yeah.”
Both of them stood on the corner block in silence for a long moment, the only light coming from the streetlamp across the road. She shifted from one foot to another.
“Let's go somewhere more comfortable to chat,” she said, “If you don’t mind, of course. I think there’s a Denny’s nearby we could go to.”
And so they both sat in the booth of a nearly-empty Denny’s, Huell with a small plate of pancakes before him, and Kim sipping her own mug of coffee– decaf.
“I just wanna say,” Huell leaned back in his seat. “I was real sad when I heard you two split. I thought you two were gonna be a “forever” type thing.”
Kim’s nails tapped against the ceramic of her coffee mug. “Me too. Things came up.”
Her reflection was visible in the liquid, no longer steaming, below her. Her hair was frizzy, pulled back in a loose bun. She tucked an errant strand behind her ear.
Back to business.
“I just have a few questions I want to ask you. I’m… just trying to figure things out. Piece things together,” she said.
“About what happened to Jimmy?”
Kim tilted her head. “Pretty much. I know the essentials. He worked for Walter White, things turned dirty, he hired you as his bodyguard, and then he vanished, not long before White and Pinkman.”
Huell sucked in a breath. He stabbed the pancakes with a fork. “Walter turned up not too long ago. Died from a gunshot wound. Jesse ran off- on the lam now, I guess.”
“Last month. I heard. No news of Jimmy, though.”
He shook his head.
The waitress appeared at their table, offering to refill Kim’s coffee, or to fetch her anything to eat. She thought about it– it had been nearly twenty-four hours since she’d last put any food of real substance in her belly, but the idea of eating just made her stomach toss and turn.
Kim gave the woman a polite smile and declined. “No thank you.” Coffee and the occasional granola bar would cut it for now.
The waitress nodded and left. Kim waited for her to duck behind the employee doors of the kitchen before turning back to Huell.
“Do you have any idea where he would’ve gone?” she began, voice hushed.
Huell shrugged. “Not a clue. I didn’t even know he had left for good until after. I was held up by these two agents who told me that the kid, Pinkman, had died and that I was next. Put me in a room and never came back.”
Kim’s brow furrowed. “Agents? DEA?”
“Yup.”
She leaned back in her seat. “And you never heard from Jimmy after that.”
“Nope. Don’t think he’s dead, though. My guess is he’s hiding out somewhere for this all to blow. Can’t see him going down that easy.” Huell tapped his plate with the fork.
She mustered a slight smile for him at that affirmation, but inside her mind was racing, trying to connect all the dots.
“Do you have any idea where he might’ve gone to hide?” she asked.
“I don’t know anything beyond that. He didn’t really tell me a whole lot. Sorry.”
She sighed. “No, no, it’s okay. I appreciate you telling me even this much. Can you think of anything else?”
Huell stared off into the darkened window beside them for a long moment, as if thinking deeply, but ended up shaking his head.
“Nope. Oh! You should talk to his secretary, though. Francesca? She might know more.”
Kim nodded. “She’s on my list to talk to next, but I appreciate it anyway. Thanks so much for meeting with me, Huell.”
“It’s nothing. Good luck.”
She bid him goodnight and left, returning to where she’d parked the rental. She kept her hands tight on the wheel the entire ride back to the hotel, white-knuckled, almost. Meeting with Huell had been nice, a little helpful, even, but she still felt like she’d left with more questions than she’d entered with.
Back at the hotel she slipped off her heels and fell into the bed. She rubbed a hand over her face. Oh, she was so tired.
When she opened her eyes, she was back at the mailroom. She turned, and he was there. About ten years younger, the wrinkles smoothed, blue eyes twinkling, and hair all shaggy around his face. God, she’d forgotten about the mullet. Not at all flattering, and yet something about the terrible haircut and his dopey energy had drawn her in back in those early days, smitten from almost their first conversation. Everything had been so much simpler then.
“Hey, Kim!” he said, lifting the mug that was in his hands, white chipped porcelain. “In early today, huh?”
“Sure seems that way,” she said on instinct.
He smiled back at her, and her heart gave a tug. Oh, that smile. That damned smile.
She woke up with a slight gasp, hand gripping the blanket so tightly it was as though her fingers were intertwined with the fabric. She let go and got up and out of bed. She grabbed her toothbrush- since she was up, she might as well begin to get ready for the day. When she slept, when she dreamt, there was no chance in hell she was ever falling back asleep.
It was a dream that came often, at least once a week, repeating ever since that night at her apartment. Sometimes it was peaceful, calm, just a quiet moment shared between her and Jimmy. Other nights it was worse, violent. He would be there, upright and alive, but the blood would be caked on his bright blonde hair, and his eyes would be just too blue, and his smile just too wide.
“Hey, Kim!” He’d say, all chipper, like he wasn’t a dead man standing before her, a reanimated corpse. “How’s law school treating you?”
And other nights it was horrific. There was one dream in particular where Lalo had been there, at HHM in the mailroom with her and Jimmy. A shot was still fired, only this time Howard wasn’t its target.
That dream had come the first night after they had broken things off, when she’d been left alone in that great big apartment all by herself for the first time in… well, years. She’d tried stemming the blood in the dream, tried putting her hands over where he’d been shot, but oh, it only kept coming and coming, and the light in Jimmy’s eyes had dimmed before she could even do so much as scream.
She’d woken up sobbing and alone, and there wasn’t anyone on the other side of the bed to comfort her, to hold her in his arms and tell her that it would be alright. It was the closest she’d ever come to calling him after they’d split, tears blurring her vision as shaky hands lifted the cell phone from the bedside table and thumb hovering over the keypad before she could stop herself. She’d wanted so badly to hear his voice, to know he was okay, but something had held her back. They wouldn’t be okay, she knew. Nothing ever would be again.
The pain had dulled with time.
And last night’s dream had been peaceful, at least.
They’d been so innocent then- he’d been all wide-eyed and wet around the ears, eager to go out and become something in the world. She’d been desperate to achieve more, more than what she ever would have found back at Red Cloud, desperate to make “Kim Wexler” into a name she’d be proud of.
And what good had it gotten them, she wondered as she brushed her teeth in the hotel bathroom sink. Where had they even gone? In the end, was Wexler a name she’d made herself proud of?
The water of her toothbrush softly plinked into the ceramic of the sink as she stopped, watching her reflection.
What, will these hands ne’er be clean?
XXxxXX
Today, her target was Francesca.
She, strangely enough, had been hard to track down. There wasn’t much about her online, any searches only coming up with swarms of articles about her job as “Saul Goodman’s secretary.” Kim had known that she’d stayed with Jimmy all throughout this Walter White fiasco, and had gleaned from one of the news reports that she’d been questioned, but ultimately let go due to lack of evidence.
After a solid amount of work and searching, she'd finally pinned her down. She was back at the MVD, Kim noted, and had a nice house in town. Unlike Huell, it was probably best if she didn’t meet up with Francesca at her job.
Kim was also slightly more anxious about what trajectory their meeting would go. Huell had been mostly in the dark about the whole operation from the start, whereas Francesca had always known more, and had known Kim more.
And so was how she found herself standing on Francesca’s doorstep, one hand tightly gripping the handle of her bag, the other one poised to push on the doorbell. It was a Sunday afternoon, so she would hopefully be home, and there was a car parked in the driveway, so assuming that she lived alone, she’d be there.
Kim pushed on the doorbell. It was a polite little chime. And then she waited.
And waited.
After a few long seconds, the door creaked open, and there she was. A few more wrinkles on her face, and dark circles under her eyes, but looking largely the same as Kim had seen her last.
Francesca stared at her a moment, brows furrowed, and then her face paled.
“Kim…?” she said, her tone quiet, as if in almost disbelief.
“Hi, Francesca.”
“I…” she glanced quickly up and down the street, biting her lip, before stepping back to open the door fully. “Come in. You never know if law enforcement’s watching.”
Kim did so, stepping into the foyer of Francesca’s living room. Her heels clacked slightly against the hardwood, and the door shut behind her.
Now inside, Francesca took a few steps back, almost as if she needed to create space between the two. She ran a hand over her forehead.
“I admit,” she sighed. “I didn’t think I’d see you again. It’s been what… four years?”
“Five.” Kim quietly corrected.
“Oh. Sorry.”
Silence sunk in, and Kim glanced around the room, at the plain decor and untouched furniture. The whole place looked as though it wasn’t lived in. Brand-new, perhaps.
She could feel Francesca watching her.
“Kim, why are you here?” There was a note of exhaustion in Francesca’s voice that she’d never heard before, a level of tiredness as though she’d been through this before, and knew what to expect. Her tone wasn’t aggressive, per se, but drained. Fatigued. “Saul- Or Jimmy, I suppose, had told me you’d left town. Moved.”
The fact that he’d apparently paid enough attention (cared enough?) to notice that she’d left, struck a chord with her. She hadn’t known. She’d moved from Albuquerque quietly.
“I did. Pennsylvania.”
“Why come back?”
Kim’s eyes fluttered shut. “I think you already know.”
Another long breath of silence.
The windows in the living room had long white curtains draped before them, all pulled tightly shut. Even then, slivers of light managed to slip through, casting long beams of sunlight to the pristine white carpet below. It was a quiet house, a silent one.
Francesca moved past her, stepping onto that pristine carpet and settling down on the couch set against the wall. After a few moments Kim shucked her heels and stepped in after her, settling down on the opposite side.
“I just-” Francesca began and then stopped, exhaling a sharp breath. “You’re going to be disappointed in what I have to say.”
Kim’s expression remained solemn. “I just want to know what happened. If he’s alive. I spoke with Huell yesterday but he didn’t know anything. I’m assuming you have more information.”
Francesca turned to look at her, leaning back slightly in her seat.
“He’s alive, I can tell you that much.”
Her hand gripped the cushion underneath her tightly, the only outward expression she would grant herself of the explosion of emotions that her words triggered within.
Kim steadied her breath. “You know this for sure?”
“I saw him the day he left. Unless something happened to him after, which I doubt, he’s still alive.”
“You saw him the day he left.”
Francesca nodded. “He didn’t tell me much, was in too much of a panic, but said something about having to call someone. He had a lot of contacts, people who could help you disappear. Since the police haven’t found any sign of him yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the route he took.”
Something chimed in the back of Kim’s mind, something familiar that she couldn’t quite grasp ahold of.
“Do you remember the names of any of these contacts?” Kim asked.
Francesca inhaled, as though trying to think deeply, but eventually shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t think he ever mentioned them by name. He probably kept them all somewhere, but the office was raided and his house was foreclosed, so no luck there.”
“I see.”
Kim sighed and smoothed out the wrinkles on her pants. Before she could stand up, however, Francesca spoke again.
“If you don’t mind me asking, though… why are you doing all this?”
Kim turned in her seat. “What?”
“Why are you doing all this? Searching for Jimmy? The two of you broke up. Jimmy never said much, didn’t mention you often… but from the sound of it, it was really messy. Clearly it was bad enough for you to leave the state. So… why go to such lengths for him?”
It was the same question that bit and whispered inside her mind so very often, as well. And to tell the truth, Kim wasn’t even truly sure of the answer herself. Because of all they had shared together? “That’s the fallacy of sunk cost,” she could still hear his voice in her mind, from all those years ago.
Was it guilt? Was it her inability to let go of the past?
Was it because, even after everything, after all the bloodshed and tears and mistakes, she still loved him?
In the end, Kim never said any of those things. Instead, she simply shook her head, put back on her shoes, and left.
After that, Kim found the closest bar nearby, and sequestered herself away in the darkest corner she could find, sliding into a booth that felt slightly sticky and cold and smelled distantly of chicken wings. She let out a shaky breath, running her hands over her face, pressing against the bridge of her nose. Oh, god.
Francesca had confirmed her suspicions that he was alive, and the news left her both exhilarated and yet weak at the same time. He was alive, somewhere out there, breathing and walking and living. Kim ordered herself a drink, whether it was celebratory or conciliatory, she had no idea.
Now what? Was the thought that whispered in the back of her mind as she sipped on the glass of wine, staring off into the darkened and empty tables of the room. Very few other people were drinking at- what was the time?- a quarter past one on a Sunday.
She’d done it. She’d gotten information. Huell had suspected he was alive, Francesca had confirmed it. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted? Hadn’t she done everything?
Why did she feel just as sickened and lost inside?
It was only later that night, when she’d arrived at her hotel, watching some crappy comedy play on the tinny television in the room, that it finally struck her. She’d almost forgotten, because it had been so very long ago, but she distinctly remembered that little leather book they’d viewed at the vet all those years back, when they had been in the thick of their plan against Howard. Jimmy had been much more intrigued with it than she- he’d been more familiar with the darker aspect of sketchy people for hire than she- and had gone ahead and bought it in the wake of his death.
She hadn’t quite been in the right place mentally to care much about it then. But she did explicitly remember the little vacuum card he had shown her, flicking the thick paper of the card with a finger. “This service you won’t believe,” he said to her. “You call this number, ask for some specific part- a Hoovermax, I think. He wrote it down for me, anyway, and this guy will come, pick you up, and whoosh you away into a new identity. It’s witness protection for criminals!”
If this contact was truly the person Jimmy had called, then everything that Francesca said would make sense. Only one issue came with this: she had no idea who the hell this man might’ve been. It had been so long ago when she’d seen that little contact card, and the name of it had long slipped away from her.
The laugh track on the comedy she was watching boomed, momentarily drawing her focus away, but inside she only felt sicker and sicker. Who the hell else could she turn to? He’d kept the dark side of the “Saul Goodman” aspect of his life so separate, doing his best to protect her from those types of clients, that any names she could ever potentially turn to were long gone, a lost case.
There was always the man from the desert. Michael Ehrmantraut. Jimmy had told her his name after she’d finally disclosed that she’d met him, fairly quickly after Howard had been killed and Lalo had left them. Oh, he’d been so furious, so angry.
“You knew?” he’d yelled, and there was a glimpse of terrorized desperation visible in his eyes that had left her shaken. “You knew for weeks, and you never told me?”
That had been the beginning of the end.
Anyway.
Michael Ehrmantraut.
She’d written his name on the list, but she hadn’t ever looked him up. Perhaps a part of her still wanted to avoid anyone who’d been around during then and all the bad memories that it would stir up, and even as she’d scribbled his name in with pencil when she’d first begun her plotting it had just been a “just-in-case” sort of idea. After Lalo vanished (died? she never fully allowed herself to believe it) he had mostly vanished from her life, and even more so when she and Jimmy broke up.
He hadn’t been mentioned on the news, not in any of the reports she’d caught. Perhaps he’d been mentioned prior (it had been quite a few months since White first disappeared, and she was sure the media had probably been up in a frenzy then) but she herself hadn’t seen anything.
Kim had brought her laptop with, and she had it balanced on her lap while she did a quick search. Just as quickly, however, her heart fell.
He was dead, too.
There went that lead.
The laugh track bubbled again on the comedy she was watching, and her fingers tapped absently on the case as she stared at the screen. If he was dead… a man who had appeared so strong to her, someone who had lasted so long in a business where most died young… what exactly did that pose for Jimmy?
Francesca had said he had gotten away, escaped somehow, but who’s to say that nothing happened to him afterwards? What about those months where White had been missing, completely off the radar? Could something have happened to him then?
All these thoughts and all these worries overwhelmed her for a second, and Kim had to suck in deep breaths, fingers pressed to her temple. Calm. Calm.
If she could just see Jimmy, know if he was alright…
When she opened her eyes again, she was back in the desert. It was night, the wind blowing around her in a frenzy, cold and nipping. The sky above her was inky and black, not a single star visible to guide her way, and the only illumination came from the bright shafts of light beaming from the headlights of the car Jimmy had rented. Dust particles floated in the air.
She was dreaming.
Jimmy was beside her just then, clad in the same button-up she remembered from that night, torso streaked brown with dried blood– though not his own, she knew.
And the body was on the ground. All slack-jawed and blank-eyed. They’d had to move him from the backseat of the car, and now dirt covered the suit that he’d always kept so immaculate. Howard had always been one to keep his appearance so neat and tidy, shoes always perfectly polished and hair always perfectly done, and now blood was splattered all over his shirt and blazer, and mud clung to his hair and shoes.
They’d made sure the grave was very deep, deep enough to reach up to her chest, so no wild animal would go after him. And she’d wanted to do something to mark the grave, but knew it was likely better not to. “Leave nothing that could trace us to him,” Jimmy had quietly said. In the end, she’d pressed a hand to the lone tree nearby as a memorium of sorts. It would have to do.
And then they left. Jimmy had driven back, and she remembered looking back at the tree in the rearview mirror, watching as they drove farther and farther away, leaving Howard forever alone in that small patch of desert. Eventually the dust cloud behind the car obscured her vision, and she was forced to look ahead.
After that they’d gone to a seedy bar and sat in the far back where cigarette smoke fogged up the air and the lights didn’t quite reach. Jimmy had ordered a beer, and then another, and then another. Kim only drank water. Anything more made her want to gag.
“It’s not our fault,” Jimmy had slurred towards the end of the night, when she’d finally had the sense to pry another half-drunk bottle from his fingers before he truly was gone for good. “We didn’t mean for it to happen. It’s not our fault.”
She hadn’t said anything to that.
Weeks before that night, when they had rented the fancy hotel after Lalo had broken in the first time, Jimmy had sat on the bed and looked up at her, face exhausted and eyes pleading.
“Am I bad for you?” he’d asked. She had denied it. No, he wasn’t bad for her. She’d made her own decisions, always had. She was an adult.
And the plan to take down Howard had always been hers, anyway.
In the end it had been her that left. Jimmy, while devastated, had been willing to try and fix what wasn’t able to be fixed. She had known better, known that this time there were no words that could make things right, no grand proposal either of them could make to remedy the situation, and sometimes the sunk cost fallacy had grown too wide and caught up to them at last, and for then the best thing they could’ve done was let go.
Kim was wide awake, now, and the clock showed that she’d only been out for less than an hour.
But she hadn’t let go. She’d left the apartment and moved to the east coast and opened her own practice, and she had made a name for herself and found a circle of people who all thought she was perfectly nice and professional and didn’t know a damn about her, and for a time it had been fine, and for a time she had been able to sleep, and for a time she had been able to pretend that she hadn’t left her entire heart thousands of miles away. But it had never fixed it. Hiding had never fixed her.
And she couldn’t run from everything, and running from him had never resolved anything.
Perhaps that was why she had found herself in this dogged pursuit to find him again. Only then…
Perhaps only then could she finally begin to breathe again.
XXxxXX
She met with Francesca again, this time within a coffee shop, a place that Francesca apparently went quite often. It was a cute little establishment, where the baristas were friendly and smiling, and the
grand windows along the wall let in copious amounts of light. It was cheerful. Kim felt decidedly out of place.
Kim herself had opted out of wearing her usual put-together professional clothes in favor of jeans and a sweatshirt, and she was almost glad for the comfort of the cozy clothes as she leaned back in the booth, leg bouncing beneath the table.
“We didn’t really get to chat much, yesterday,” Francesca said. She had ordered some sort of breakfast sandwich, but hadn’t touched it at all. “What have you been up to? I admit, I missed seeing you around.”
Kim nursed a steaming cup of espresso, “Extra caffeine, please,” she’d told the barista.
“I’ve… not been up to a whole lot, really,” Kim frowned. Her nails tapped the side of the porcelain coffee mug.
She looked up to see Francesca watching her expectantly.
Kim exhaled. “Opened my own private practice. Business has been good. I’m doing well.”
Francesca was always an expressive person, and it was easy to see from the light tilt of her head and slight raise of an eyebrow that Francesca was not completely in agreement with that last line. Of course, Kim wasn’t all that surprised. “I’m doing well” was not quite convincing when she had dark circles beneath her eyes, and when she was drinking from her fourth cup of caffeinated coffee that morning already and it wasn’t even eleven.
Still, Francesca didn’t say anything. She simply pressed her lips together and pretended to momentarily appear distracted by the uneaten sandwich before her.
A few long minutes passed. Eventually Francesca let out a sigh.
“After our conversation I looked through some of the boxes I still had hidden away. Most of the really important information was shredded, but I guess I still had some old papers laying around. Anyway, I found this, and I thought you might want to see it,” she said, and reached down into the purse lying beside her. A few seconds of shuffling around, looking for something, before she let out a soft “ah-ha!” and pulled out a thin, small calling card. She held it out to Kim, who picked it up, tilting it to the light.
Best Quality Vacuum Repair.
It took a moment for those words to set in.
Francesca’s eyes were dark and serious when Kim lifted her gaze to meet her again.
“I’m fairly certain that’s who he called. He never said for certain, but he’d had a couple of those cards laying out at some point. I’m sure along the way I must’ve picked one up to throw out and forgot about it.”
Kim shook her head. “Francesca, I… thank you. This is a big help. Really.”
Francesca nodded, and then shifted as though she had something else to say, but wasn’t quite sure how to get it out.
“I do just want to say, though,” she began quietly, “That if you do find him, he may not be the same as you remember. Jimmy was… changed. Certainly different from who I was first hired by back in… well, forever ago now, I guess.”
Kim simply smiled at her. “I know.”
A while later, after Francesca had left, Kim remained behind in the booth. The calling card was still in her hands, and her thumb brushed against the worn edges of the card.
(505) 842-4205, the number read.
Kim sighed, and ordered herself another cup of coffee.
XXxxXX
She first found Best Quality Vacuum Repair on the internet, and drove past it, parking across the street and watching the entrance through the windows of her car. Anxiety bubbled up within her. Sure, she could talk to whoever ran this operation, but who’s to say they will even listen to her, let alone disclose where Jimmy went?
Her hands flexed against the steering wheel. It felt like her stomach was tying itself into knots, but she sucked in a breath and pushed open the car door.
The inside of Best Quality Vacuum Repair was… well, normal. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d expected, but the place certainly looked like a perfectly normal vacuum store. Big, perhaps, and empty of any people, but still not the type of place she would imagine to be capable of whisking away a person into a new identity.
Perhaps that’s the point, she thought to herself as she walked down the aisle to where the front desk lay. No one would suspect a place like this.
She approached the front desk. There was a little bell set in the middle to ring for service, and she tapped it once with her finger. Beneath the desk, her foot tapped against the carpet. Impatience? Nerves? Too much caffeine? Even Kim wasn’t entirely sure what she was feeling.
After what seemed like an eternity, a man came from a side room, appearing on the other side of the counter. He looked fine, like he could be someone’s grandpa, really, and he crooked an eyebrow when she didn’t speak immediately.
“S-sorry,” she said, and cleared her throat. Stuttering, really? She reprimanded herself on the inside. You’ve done worse. Confronted worse.
Kim tilted her chin up at the man. Ed, the nametag on his shirt read. “I think you can potentially help me.”
“Sure. What can I do for you, ma’am?”
A quick glance around the room showed it was only them inside. Her index finger tapped twice against the countertop. “I think you may have helped out someone I know. ‘Saul Goodman?’”
Ed’s face gave nothing away. “I’m afraid I do not know what you mean.”
Her lips pressed together into a thing line, and she reached into her pocket to withdraw the calling card. She lay it down flat on the desk.
“I think you do. I received this from- from his secretary. She told me that he likely contacted you. This isn’t- I’m not here to be any sort of trouble. I’m his wife. I just want to know where he went.”
He looked down at the card for a long few seconds, before meeting her gaze steadily.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think I can help you.”
Ed began to turn away, heading back in the direction he came, and Kim turned frantic, rounding the desk and reaching her hand out, pleadingly.
“No, please! I’ll pay you for information, anything. I just need to know if he’s alright. I know about your- your “disappearer” business, he told me about it years ago. I know you used to be in contact with a vet, Dr. Caldera. That’s how we got your number. Please.” She swallowed. “Money. I can get you as much money as you want. I just need to know if he is alright. You… you don’t even have to tell me where he is. I’m just worried for him.”
Ed stared at her for a long moment. She still couldn't at all read the expression on his face.
“You can even look me up if you don’t believe me. Kim Wexler. I’m a lawyer.”
Finally, Ed let out a long sigh.
“I’m sorry,” he reiterated. “But even if this Goodman was a client of mine, I couldn’t help you. Have a nice day, ma’am.”
And then he left, leaving Kim standing all alone.
She slammed the door of her car shut behind her, breathing heavy and hands clenching. In a fit of anger she reached over and hit the wheel before her, a thick heavy thump with the palm of her hand.
Damn, damn, damn, damn!
It was hot inside of the vehicle, and sweat had her hair slicked back against her forehead. She ran a hand over her face, exhaling sharply, before roughly shoving the key into the ignition. Foot practically stomping on the gas pedal as she sped off, fingers wrapped in a vice around the wheel.
That had been it, her last tie back to Jimmy, her last lead in locating him. All of it gone, just like that. Her teeth grit together, and she was mad. Furious, even. Not just at Ed, per se, but at everything. Everyone. Walter White and his partner Jesse Pinkman for getting Jimmy caught up in this whole business. Jimmy for being stupid enough to get himself caught up in this whole business. Herself for not being there, for staying away for five years while she stewed and grieved halfway across the country. It hadn’t even been worth it, dammit. And now they were both alone, and Jimmy was in fuck-knows-where, and would she ever even get to see him again? Who the hell knew!
She’d been so distracted that she nearly missed the newly-turned red light up ahead, leaving her to hit the brakes hard enough to cause her tires to squeal on the pavement. As she sat there, chest heaving while giving the stoplight the hardest glare she could muster, something caught the corner of her eye from the sidewalk outside.
It was a shabby little movie theater, one with the old-timey overhead display showing the names of the movies currently running. She recognized one of them… some old detective noir thriller that she’d watched a couple times with Jimmy. The Maltese Falcon, a film about a private investigator who…
Kim’s hands loosened on the wheel.
A private investigator, she thought to herself.
Behind her, a car began to honk. The light had turned green. With an apologetic wave, she continued driving down the road, and passed the movie theater.
Back at the hotel, she quickly doffed her shoes, sitting herself down at the desk at the back of the room and opening her laptop. Finding a private investigator wouldn’t be an issue. She was a lawyer after all, she had her contacts, and she knew that quite a few of them revolved around what she would call unsavory circles of the criminal underworld. Right there, on a word document she had a list of phone numbers all ready for her to call and ask. The phone weighed heavy in her hand.
If this fell through, if even a private eye couldn’t locate him… then what would she do? Part of her didn’t even want to think about what the answer to that question would be. She’d come so far already, sunk cost be damned. She wasn’t ready to give up now.
She pressed in the numbers on the keyboard of her phone, and listened to it ring.
XXxxXX
“Jimmy McGill…?”
Kim nibbled on her bottom lip. “He’s known better as “Saul Goodman.””
“I see.”
Before her sat the private investigator, a short-statured man named “Finn” with a long yet well-kempt beard. He was leaning forward in his chair, taking a look at the array of papers laid out on the desk in front of him. They were in the lobby of her hotel, sitting at a table at the back of the room. She’d printed and brought as many notes on Jimmy as she could think to print out, and now she waited to see what he’d say. Her nails tapped on the wood of the table.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more to offer,” she said.
Finn shook his head. “No, no, this is fine. I’ve had to locate people with less.” He tilted one of the papers up to the light of the lamp overhead. It was a photo of Jimmy, and the glimpse of those familiar blue eyes and slight smile makes her heart give a tug.
“So this is what I’ll do,” Finn set down the photo. “I got some contacts that I use to help me put together a list of men who might fit your guy’s description. Fortunately the information you’ve given me can help narrow it down a bit. My guess is he probably ran off somewhere rural. I imagine if you are running from the feds like he was, you won’t be going somewhere busy.”
His eyes met hers, steady and calm. “I’ll find him, don’t you worry.”
She let out a breath. “Okay. Oh- one more thing, you said that this process takes a while, didn’t you?”
Finn nodded. “Takes ‘bout a couple weeks.”
“Well, I don’t live in Albuquerque, I have to head back home tomorrow. I’ll give you my number and my office address… can you reach me there, instead?”
“Sure. No problem,” he said.
Kim watched him gather up the papers, and eventually he nodded his head towards her and headed out the front doors of the hotel. She leaned back in her seat. It was just a waiting game, now.
And as much as she would love to stay and do her best to continue looking for any clues here in Albuquerque, she did have a business to run, and she’d only been able to get extensions and court dates moved for so long. Tomorrow would mark five days since she arrived, and she had to get back home eventually and deal with all the work she’d left behind.
The idea of returning and playing “catch-up” wasn’t exactly a thrilling one. But for now Kim simply took a deep breath, flagged down a waiter to order a shot of tequila, and hoped she’d be able to catch at least a couple hours of sleep before her flight in the morning.
XXxxXX
That night, she had another dream.
It was a cool November night, and smoke from her cigarette plumed before her with every exhale. She watched the small puffs linger in the hair, almost hesitating, before eventually dissipating into the night.
She was on the balcony of her apartment. Behind her, the door leading inside was open, and she could hear Jimmy shuffling around within.
For a moment, silence. Seconds later the light flooding in from the open door was blocked out by his silhouette.
“Kim,” his voice was quiet, subdued. “I think we need to talk.”
She’d lifted the cigarette back up to her lips. They did need to talk.
Inside, in the living room, Jimmy had sat back down on the couch. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he watched her as she sat down opposite him. Neither spoke for a long couple of minutes. In fact, since that night, there hadn’t been much spoken at all. How much time had passed… two weeks? Three? It felt like only yesterday.
There was a tension that lay between them, a tension that felt so foreign, so unnatural, yet she had no clue how to ever cross it. It felt as though a wide chasm had been ripped between them for weeks now, a giant pit like the grave Howard had been buried in, and Jimmy was far away on the other side, so far away she could barely see him.
“Jimmy… I…” she’d flexed her hands where they laid in her lap. “I can’t do this. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, all I see is- is him. That night.”
“Kim, I-”
“Howard was there because of us, Jimmy. If we hadn’t- if I hadn’t- he wouldn’t have been there when Lalo came. We killed him. He’s dead because of us.” Her voice was choked with emotion, and it irritated her, at that moment. She didn’t want to be emotional. She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t seem to stem the tears.
And Jimmy didn’t say anything, that was the worse part. Perhaps it would have been better if he’d raged at her, yelled, argued. It was like being socked in the stomach, the way the resignation immediately sank on his face.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“We both made the plan,” came his response. “Not just you.”
“But I came back. If I hadn’t come back, nothing would have happened. We would have been fine. I was the one who pushed us to continue, that was all me.” She was full-on crying now, and desperately wiping the tears from her face even though it was a losing effort.
“Kim,” he said simply. “This isn’t-”
“Jimmy, stop. Can’t you see? All we do is hurt people. Each other. Everyone around us. Over and over and over, and now Howard is dead-” he looked down at the spot, and that slight movement only fueled her desperation, “And by god, I didn’t like him, but I never wanted him to die!”
Jimmy’s face was mournful, and she could see the way he blinked away that he was getting close, too.
Kim took a shaky breath, the words slipping out before she could even stop herself. It was like another person was saying them, another person speaking. Fallacy of sunk cost, she just kept telling herself. Chasing good money after bad.
“Neither of us can keep living like this anymore," she whispered.
Oh, that had made him argue. He’d pleaded, but in his eyes they both knew it was done. Eventually she left the apartment to calm herself down, and when she came back, he was gone, and so was his stuff as well.
That was the last time she ever saw him.
That night, the dreams began.
XXxxXX
She called in the anonymous tip on a payphone the following morning, just on the edge of town. Her rental car sat rumbling just feet away, and she closed her eyes as the 911 operator on the other end of the receiver repeated the numbers back to her. Kim had never forgotten the coordinates of where he’d been buried. Late at night, she would say them again and again in her mind, as though willing herself not to forget.
Kim hung the payphone up, and returned to her car. She grabbed a cup of coffee at a coffee shop nearby the airport, and the liquid tasted bitter and hot against her tongue.
Then she was on a plane back east, and watched the ground before her fall away, until Albuquerque, New Mexico melted into the endless stretch of desert below.