Chapter Text
She’s never seen the ocean before.
Kim has always figured it would be something like the vast prairies she’s seen in the boonies of Nebraska and Kansas, the only places she had ever been until she moved away for higher education. Even in the severest of storms, there was a peace to the wide, open fields, rooted to the earth beneath the whipping, waving tendrils of wild grass.
It’s only the years of dreaming of moving away that made her curious about what the ocean might look like, though it was not always this way.
As a kid, she used to have nightmares about the sea, the way it crashed wildly onto weather-beaten rocks, carved into craggy, alien shapes. Or the way it would swirl in its depths, dark and frighteningly cold. It’s the home to her most secret monsters, the ones who terrify her dreams.
And now, those nightmares are back.
She dreams she’s married to its untamed wildness. The saltwater lashes at her skin, she begs it to calm itself, it only whirls and wheels faster around until there is no direction of movement, only chaos. It exists, all around her. She breathes it down by the lungfuls, and she fights not to drown.
She always wakes up gasping for air, struggling against the suffocation of the blankets. Next to her, Jimmy slumbers peacefully.
The hotel is fine accommodation for the time being, but Kim is getting itchy. While Jimmy goes out to work, she’s stuck in this room, unable to overcome this fear that pitches straight down from her temple to the pit of her stomach. Around every corner is Lalo, and with no candle to oracle his approach, she’s not sure she can muster the courage to step outside.
She’s already called into the courthouse, asking to push back her client’s hearing by a few days. She puts on her teariest voice and whispers Howard’s name as quietly as she can, so as not to disturb his ghost. It doesn’t stop the shiver from running down her back or the shaking in her hands as she grips the receiver to her ear. The administrator on the other end makes sympathetic sounds, and all Kim can hear is, “Alright, I’ll get that pushed back for you.”
She’s still holding on to the phone even after the call is over, listening to the long, lone tone, like a mourning song.
When Jimmy does come back home, Kim sits on the edge of the bed tentatively while he makes dinner. He’s bustling around the cramped room, whistling. He notes her still presence.
“What’s up?” He tilts his head, leaning against the do-it-all counter with the TV, lamp, and coffee maker. The microwave hums with effort behind him.
“We should go back to the apartment.”
“You need something? I can go get it—”
“No, Jimmy!” Kim presses her teeth into the inside of her lips. “I’m suffocating here. I think… we should go back. I want to take a shower in my bathroom, sleep in my bed, and— and get the rest of my makeup, eat my food, and…” She’s rambling now, about the most petty things. She doesn’t like the way Jimmy tilts his head in the other direction. Like he’s fucking empathizing with how she feels. How would he know?
“I don’t want to show up to Howard’s memorial with bags under my eyes.”
The microwave beeps, making Kim flinch. Jimmy turns and takes out the food with careful fingers.
“We can go back then. Let’s go tonight. After we eat, okay?”
He hands Kim her TV dinner with a plastic fork on top. She takes it.
“Okay, thank you.”
So then why doesn’t she feel relieved?
The bags under her eyes don’t go away, painted there by neverending nights of aqueous terror. She tries to pat it away gently with concealer, but there’s simply something bruised about her gaze itself. Half-dead and waiting for the rest to go. Even blush and lipstick doesn’t seem to bring any life back to her face.
“You ready?” Jimmy leans into the bathroom.
There’s that look again.
He steps in, empathetic hand outstretched. He hugs her, and she can smell his cologne, the fabric softener on his shirt, the shampoo in his hair. He smells like Jimmy, and for a moment, she’s comforted.
“I know, Kim. It’s been rough. Remember what I said. There’s a light at the other end of this tunnel, okay?”
Kim nods her head, and Jimmy lets her go. He smiles at her. He doesn’t know.
Honestly, Kim doesn’t know what came over her when she stepped forward and said all those words to Cheryl. She doesn’t know who even said that. It couldn’t have been her.
Jimmy’s saying something comforting as they walk through the garage, actually proud of her, and it makes her nauseous. They’re getting away with it.
He stops because she stops, hanging back, unsure of what’s going on with her. She wishes she could tell him about the dreams, the yawning, screaming abyss carving itself into her chest. She wants to make him look into the darkness, too, but she knows he never would. He’s not like that, her Jimmy.
So she ignores the questioning quirk in his brow, steps forward and kisses him— both hands on his face just like they always do. She tries to tell him this way, with all the telepathic effort she can muster. And maybe even asks him to stop her, too.
But when she pulls away, he stands there. He doesn’t stop her from getting in her car. He doesn’t stop her from driving away. He doesn’t even watch her car disappear around the corner. So it might have worked. Maybe he finally knows.
Leaving the law is quite possibly one of the most difficult things Kim Wexler has ever done. Harder than graduating from UNM, harder than passing the bar. Maybe even harder than admitting to Jimmy she wants him to stay at her place, because that would mean they were a thing .
Leaving the law is harder than admitting you’re in love, that’s for sure. The bureaucracy hurts the most— the mundane in and out of offices, carrying random papers to sign here, here, and here. There’s the letter she had to draft, with barely any time to fuss over the wordage. And so her hard-earned, storied career dies with a whimper.
The part that replays in her mind the most as she smokes on the balcony is the people who looked sorry about it. The unconcerned 9-to-5-ers she doesn’t mind, but the ones with the audacity to ask if she’s alright, to be fucking concerned for her starts to piss her off more and more with each drag of her cigarette.
Kim flicks the burned, ashy end onto the balcony. There is a long trail, along with the used-up butts in alternating fashion. The third cigarette is not feeling as good, as satisfying, and Kim angrily grinds out the fresh smoke. Flicks it over the edge and sweeps the evidence off the balcony. Jimmy’s home.
She goes inside, waiting in the living room as Jimmy walks in. Arms crossed over her chest, half-hugging herself, half-bracing.
“You did what ?! Why, why!” He sounds furious. Kim reminds herself to breathe.
“Alright, I know, I know,” he’s pleading with her. “But Kim—”
“Jimmy—”
He shushes her. “Lemme say my piece, okay? Let’s just take a breath here.” Jimmy looks frantic, trying to take deeper breaths to calm himself, but it’s not working. “Kim. After everything that happened, Jesus— I get it! You wanna climb out of your own skin, that’s natural. Kim! You don’t throw everything away. This is your life! You’re a lawyer!
“What about your clients, huh? What about that, uh, poor guy, Mr. Yarborough? What about the kid in foster care, huh? You give them everything you’ve got. Who are they gonna find that’s half as good as you? No one! They need you.”
“It’s already done.”
Jimmy groans. This is bad. This is really bad. He’s holding back tears.
“Okay, what’s done can be undone.”
Not Howard’s death, not the innocence ripped from her chest. What about those?
“All I’m saying is let’s just— just take a week or two to think it over. For now, we’re gonna take some time off, god knows we need it. We’re gonna put it behind us. Things will look brighter, I guarantee it. But first, we have to fix this. So we’re gonna go back to the hotel room, and you’re gonna write letters— you’re gonna write a letter to the Bar, you’re gonna write letters to your client. Y-you dictate, and I’ll type. We’re gonna roll this thing back. I’ll order pizza, we’ll pull an all-nighter because— because we’re in this together.”
Jimmy’s on a roll. It’s his superpower, this ability to come up with a shifting plan on the fly, and he’s following it straight towards what he hopes is turning back the clock on her decision.
“Okay? So I’m gonna get your printer, and then we’re gonna get the hell outta here.”
He heads for the door.
“Wait. Jimmy—”
But he’s not stopping.
“Just… Jimmy!”
Kim tries to go after him, but it’s too late. He opens the bedroom door.
Her suitcase is on the bed. Half-full boxes open all over the floor. Jimmy looks over to the open closet, where his side is still full of his suits. His suitcase is still up on top of the closet shelf.
Well, it’s not like she could have hid this from him all night. She just wish she had more time to get the words out of her mouth before he was hit with the realization on his own.
“You asked if you were bad for me. That’s not it. We are bad for each other.”
Jimmy shakes his head, trying to deny it, trying to roll it all back. C’mon, Jimmy, don’t you see?
“Kim. Don’t do this,” he’s whispering. He’s pleading with her. “Kim, please.”
“Jimmy, I have had the time of my life with you.” And she means it.
It sinks in for real now. Jimmy looks…. shocked. She sees his brain actually short-circuit and stop working, stop fixing for the first time in a long, long time. She keeps going before his panic sets back in tenfold. God knows he could convince her of anything if he tried.
“But we are bad for everyone around us. Other people suffer because of us. Apart, we’re okay, but… together, we’re poison.”
“No, no, just— tell me what I need to do to change, okay? Just tell me what it is, and I’ll do it.”
“Jimmy—”
“No, Kim.” She’s never seen him look so devastated. “You make me happy. We make each other happy. How can that be bad?”
If only it were that simple . Kim has to close her eyes, blink back the tears threatening to fall.
“Hey…”
His voice is quiet, soft. She almost misses it through the pounding in her head. Oceans, rocks, dark and sharp shapes. Kim opens her eyes to see Jimmy peering at her.
“I love you.”
The words are gentle but poised. They hit their mark.
“I love you, too.” She manages to get those words out before the tears start to flow. Her throat feels thick as she keeps going. “But so what?”
“No. No. No, Kim, you’re wrong! This is about Howard! What happened to him wasn’t on us. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault!”
He’s standing over the place where Howard fell, where Jimmy had to watch the blood from his temple pool out and soak through the cracks between floorboards, drench the area rug, where it creeped closer and closer to him over the hours he was forced to lay there, tied to a chair.
“It’s that fucking Lalo Salamanca! That psychopath came back from the dead. He walked through that door, he did this, not us— him!”
It’s time for the truth to come out. Why they can’t stay, why she has to go.
“I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I knew he was alive.”
“What? No you didn’t.”
“It was about a month ago. I saw that car following me again, and it turned out Mike Ehrmantraut had guys watching both of us, watching for Lalo.”
“Mike told you Lalo was alive?”
Kim nods, swallowing down the tears. She regains her composure, she can do this .
“And you didn’t tell me?” She watches Jimmy’s face go from hurt and confused to determined. She watches him forgive her in real-time, all within the span of a few seconds. He turns, away from the betrayal in their bedroom.
“I thought it was a one-in-a-million chance he’d come for us! I thought he would be caught if he did. And I told myself I was protecting you.”
The same excuse Jimmy used when he didn’t tell her about his petty Mesa Verde stunt. They’ve sure learned from each other, haven’t they?
“But that’s not the truth. The real reason I didn’t tell you was because I knew what you would do.”
Jimmy turns to face her. “Wh- what would I do?”
Here are all the things she’d known, deep down with her monsters, the things she didn’t want to surface and ruin it all. “You’d blame yourself. You’d fear for me. You’d want us to run and hide until you were sure I was safe. You would pull the plug on the scam and then— and then, uh…” It’s time to face the moment. This is the moment of the truth at the core of all of this, the years they’ve known each other, the times they were together then not, the thing that bound them together over and over and over again. All laid bare in it’s tiny, raw, insignificant glory.
“We’d break up.”
Like they would have— should have— so many times over.
“And I didn’t want that because I was having too much fun .”
Kim spits out the last word like it’s the poison that’s been churning in the pit of her gut. And it’s true, it’s the very, sulfuric thing that’s been hurtling her faster and faster towards her (and their) demise. This, with the lights turned down low, the blood scrubbed from their floors, the new fridge humming quietly behind her, this is where it all leads.
Kim turns to go.
And Jimmy stops her. He has her arm in his grasp, staring at her intently.
“I forgive you.”
“What? No, Jimmy, it’s not about that.”
“I know why you did it.” He pulls her into a tight hug. He smells like cheap cigarettes, faint cologne, and a long day. “I don’t care, okay? Just… god, Kim. Please… St—”
He doesn’t cry, but his shoulders shake. The last word cuts off even though she feels his lips move against the side of her neck. Stay .
“Jimmy, I—” She needs to tell him why she has to go, but she’s already done that. She needs to tell him why they can’t be together, but she’s done that too. All her reasons have been laid out, and yet Jimmy’s still not seeing the big picture. He’s still holding onto her, begging her to stay.
She pushes against his chest, but he holds on fast.
“Jimmy—”
Kim wants to struggle against this forgiveness, tell him it’s not something for him to forgive. It’s her decision to make. Tell him…
The reasons are slipping away quickly. She can’t go another round over the same points. Round and round they go, where they’ll stop? Nobody knows. It’s the same story with them time and time again, isn’t it?
The fabric of his suit jacket smothers her. Wild waters toss and seethe at her edges. She can’t breathe.
“Wait, Jimmy. I can’t—”
Married to the sea.
“Let me—”
The monsters are freed from the watery depths. They come up for air, swallow her whole. Kim stops struggling. She takes a deep breath, lets the flood perfuse through her.
She drops her hands and lets Jimmy hold her.