Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

By rabbitrun

BONUS

Chapter Text

By loveleee

“Never have I ever…tried crystal meth.”

Kim nearly chokes on a forkful of lo mein. “Jesus, Jimmy,” she snorts, gesturing vaguely at his torso with her free hand – get on with it. “Are you even trying?”

“Hey, I don’t know what you kids got up to in farm country.” With a sigh, he tugs his undershirt up and over his head. “I never would have agreed to this if I knew what a goody two shoes you are.”

It had all been her idea – though she'd floated it in that patented Kim Wexler way that made it sound as though Jimmy himself had been the pervy one, suggesting they play strip never-have-I-ever. 

“Yeah you would've,” she says dismissively.

She's right; it may be fun to play up his indignation, but the fact that he's down to his boxers while Kim remains fully clothed – sans one sock – means things are about to get interesting in precisely the way he'd hoped when she'd invited him over tonight, noting offhandedly that her roommate was out of town for the weekend. 

Jimmy tosses his shirt over his shoulder and grabs a handful of wonton strips from the bag on the coffee table, popping one greasy chip into his mouth. “Go ahead.” 

Kim's gaze darts from his face to his bare chest to his face again. “Never have I ever been on an airplane.”

Jimmy's hand is reaching for his beer before she even gets all the words out, but he freezes midair. “No shit?”

“No shit.” She nods towards the beer. “Drink up.”

He takes an obedient swig, then asks, “How come? Are you scared of flying?” 

He’d been on a plane just a few months ago, for his yearly winter sojourn to Cicero. It wasn’t his favorite thing in the world – cramped seats, crying babies – but the alternative was a day-long drive across the endless Midwest that neither he nor the wheezing heap of metal he called a car were up for.

An odd look crosses her face. “I don't think so? I never thought that much about it.” Kim pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “We never really had anywhere to go.” 

There’s no flicker of shame or regret in the way she says it, but he feels a twinge of guilt anyway for even mildly pressing the point. Kim takes no spur-of-the-moment vacations, traverses no well-trodden path home for the holidays. She spends them in this apartment, stretched out along the couch they’re both sitting on right now, paging through textbooks and watching movies and eating Chinese food. 

He wonders if she’s ever seen the ocean before.

“Yeah, no. Makes sense.” Jimmy clears his throat. “Okay, uh. Never have I ever, uh…Jesus, I don’t know. Never have I ever milked a cow.”

“Are you sure?” She narrows her eyes, tapping a finger against the neck of her beer bottle. “You never went on one of those field trips down to the farm…?”

“I am sure because we did go on that field trip and Sister Alice didn't trust me to do it without squirting another kid in the face,” Jimmy informs her. “A regret I carry to this day. Now drink.”

Kim giggles again, falling back against the arm of the sofa. “Oh my god. Were you literally Dennis the menace?”

Jimmy just smiles. In her goofy pajama pants with dogs on them, hair loose around her shoulders, face bare and bright with laughter – she's fucking gorgeous. 

She's fucking everything. 

He’s waiting for her when she comes back to bed, arm already stretched out so she can tuck herself up against his side. Kim slides her palm across his ribcage and hooks her leg over his thigh and rests her cheek just beneath the hard ridge of his collarbone. Familiar movements given fresh meaning by the fact that he is her husband now, and a few weeks ago, she nearly lost him. 

For a while they lay together, their breathing just out of sync. 

As usual, Jimmy breaks the silence first. “What’re you thinkin’ about,” he murmurs, fingers stroking lightly through her hair. 

His near-death in the desert; what it says about her, that she can time Howard Hamlin’s golf game down to the minute; whether she quit the firm too soon to be fully vested in her 401k. Her own creeping sense of mortality, manifest in the dark, looming shape of Lalo Salamanca in their doorway. Take your pick. 

But Jimmy’s on a knife’s edge already. “I’m thinking…” She traces one slow fingertip up the side of his torso. “That once all of this is over, we should go on a trip.”

His eyes widen. “Oh yeah? Dare I say it…a honeymoon?”

She cracks a smile. By then they’ll have so much more to celebrate than just their marriage. “Doesn’t really matter what you call it.”

“Then I’ll call it a honeymoon.” Jimmy turns onto his side to face her, propping his head on his bicep. “What have you got in mind?”

“I don’t know yet.” She pauses. “Somewhere fancy.”

“That’s what I like to hear. First class and caviar, baby.”

“First class, definitely.” She’s not so sure about caviar, she’s heard it’s very salty – has Jimmy even tried it? “Oh – we’ll have to get passports.” 

“Interesting. So we’re globetrotting, in this scenario.”

She hadn’t even thought as far as a specific destination, but now that she’s spoken it out loud, the idea of going somewhere international sends a delicious little thrill through her. Two million dollars. Even after starting up her practice, even if they do buy a house – they could easily afford it. 

Kim raises her brows. “Why limit ourselves, right?”

“Great point.” 

Jimmy shifts a little closer, close enough that she can feel the heat of his thigh between her legs. She bites her lip. She’d cleaned up in the bathroom thinking they were done for the night. Now, she’s not so sure. 

“What are you thinking – we go tropical? An exotic beach retreat? Maybe something all-inclusive?”

Sudden laughter bubbles up from her chest. “Oh, god – d’you remember when Howard…?” 

1993, or thereabouts: the furious sunburn he’d suffered on a scuba trip to the Caribbean had sustained more than a week’s worth of jokes in the mailroom.

Jimmy chuckles, no further explanation needed. Of course he remembers. “You’re right, too risky for a couple of pasty Midwesterners. So we hit up Europe instead. Take the Grand Tour?”

“Paris,” she says. Wine, coffee, baguettes. Sidewalks crowded with people instead of broken glass. A place where they could be anyone, doing anything. Who would question it? Who would question them?

“Paris,” he echoes.

They let it sit, and yeah – it feels right. 

“Jimmy –”

“Oui, mademoiselle?”

Hands on hips, Kim stops still, nostrils slightly flared as she scans her gaze across the bedroom. “Did you pack the adapters already? I can’t find them.”

“Oui, mademoiselle. Je…packed them. Avec plaisir.” Jimmy pats the hardware in question where it sits in the corner of their suitcase, nestled beside one of the packing cubes she’d dug out of the closet a few days ago.

I haven’t used these since the last time I flew out to see you, she’d said casually, tossing them onto the bed. Like there was nothing remarkable about that now, all of the years and miles and hopes and fears that once stretched between them. 

Now, unamused, her eyes stay trained on the pile of clothes and toiletries strewn across the surface of their dresser, as though staring at it hard enough will force whatever it is she’s looking for to reveal itself. Jimmy wants to put his hands on the tight slope of her shoulders, work the tension out, but he’s not sure she’d welcome it.

“I put your charger in your backpack,” he adds, dropping the execrable accent he’s been torturing her with all morning. “In case you want it on the plane. And the passports are both in mine. If we forget anything else – toothpaste, whatever – I’m pretty sure we can buy it there. Honestly, Kim, I think we’re good.” 

She meets his eyes in the mirror, and nods once. “Okay.”

But she still doesn’t move, her mouth pulled tight at the corners – an old tell.

Jimmy rises from the bed slowly, his hand finding the small of her back as he joins her beside the dresser. “Nervous?” he asks gently. 

Kim folds her lips into her mouth, exhales sharply through her nose. “Maybe.” 

He brushes his thumb gently across the base of her spine, patient. It only took three decades and a twelve-year stint in prison for them both to understand that silence wasn’t the same thing as support. 

Kim meets his gaze directly. “It’s ridiculous. It’s not like I’ve never been on a plane before.” 

“Yeah, but this is a lot further to go. All the way across the ocean. And it’s a foreign country,” he says reasonably. “Plus everyone there probably hates us.”

She snorts. Success. “Thanks. I feel better now.” 

“You’re welcome.” His hand glides up her back to rest at the base of her neck, the soft ends of her hair brushing against his fingertips. She keeps it just a little past chin-length now; he likes it, and tells her that often, though it’s not like she’d change it if he didn’t. It’s one of the things he loves most about her. 

“You’ll eat some mediocre plane chicken, and watch a bad movie, and then you’ll go to sleep.” Years of all-nighters in the office had bestowed Kim with the superpower to sleep anywhere, anytime, including the middle seat of economy class. He’s eager to finally witness it himself. 

“And then you’ll wake up somewhere new,” he tells her. “And I’ll be there, too.” 

“Shit, I forgot to tell you.” Kim nuzzles against his shoulder. “I’m actually taking my other ex-husband with me. Sorry.” 

Jimmy just smiles.

Chapter Text

By BookishPower

Kim is still tucked into his shoulder, dozing soundly as they streak across the night sky that blankets the Atlantic. Jimmy dozes fitfully here and there. Either he’s actually the nervous one here, or the dry air inside the cabin is getting to him. Perhaps he’s gained the ability to absorb her worry and absolve it. If he could choose a magical gift, that wouldn’t be a bad one to have. 

He bends his bad knee cautiously, warming it up for movement after being locked in the same position for hours. The lights inside the airplane have been turned down, and he is alone with his low-frequency anxiety in the glow of the aisle lights.

Spending years in the correctional system accustomed one to long waits spent in line, shifting weight from one leg to the other. Getting out meant you became used to presenting your papers, all forms of ID, accounting for where you’d been and what you’d done, and praying that everything added up.

The number of places that would hire an ex-con, especially one with some notoriety on their name, was extraordinarily short (though it did include Cinnabon, to his chagrin). The list of requirements for entry into another country…would he come up short?

He’s going to have to stand in front of a customs official soon, present his paperwork, and pray that they let him in, at least temporarily. Normally, Jimmy wouldn’t care if they let him in or not.

But this trip was important to Kim. All those years ago, high on the thrill of being newlyweds and co-conspirators, she’d told him she wanted to honeymoon in Paris. 

Through the tears and the heartbreak and everything that followed, Jimmy remembered that. He could walk through the same halls as he had with her for years and not flinch. But when Francesca sarcastically mentioned the city when he asked her about her weekend plans, he’d slammed the door to his office shut and blasted Deep Purple until his sense of equilibrium returned.

Over a decade later, they’re fulfilling that wish. And he doesn’t want to screw it up.

He inhales, taking in the fragrance of Kim’s shampoo and the overdone cologne of the man seated in front of them. Nothing to do but let the plane take them there, he supposes, leaning his head against her own, and watching the sky outside the window lighten.

Hours later, a muted chime goes off, and the lights in the cabin slowly turn up. Kim inhales deeply against the bulwark of his shoulder, blinking in the light.

“Welcome to somewhere new,” Jimmy murmurs in her ear. “What do you think?”

Kim ducks her head back onto his shoulder. “Hold onto that thought until I get some coffee. I’m exhausted.”

He looks at her fondly. “Such an exhausting nap. Let’s get some petit déjeuner in you.”

The coffee comes, along with croissants and marmalade, and Kim revives like a watered houseplant. The coffee does little for him except to make him more jittery, and he sips it medicinally to avoid the withdrawal headache.

Touching down at O’Hare and Albuquerque so many times had given Jimmy a rather inflated sense of what arrival should look like - a triumphant pass beside the skyscrapers and a loop across Lake Michigan before touching down in familiar territory. By contrast, touching down at Charles de Gaulle Airport doesn’t pass by the Eiffel Tower or cross the Seine - it’s too far north of the city.

But once they’re on the ground and reunited with their luggage, after an eternity of shuffling in line, customs was there, waiting. Kim is looking up in wonder at the Parisian sky though vaulted skylights, and all he can concentrate on is the customs official before them in a sharp navy suit and professional grimace.

They present their passports to the young man, and wait while he reviews them. It’s fairly standard, the official asks for his name, address, his date of birth.

“Purpose of your visit?” His voice is only slightly accented, and Jimmy hopes that this clear line of communication will help him.

He flushes. “A long-delayed honeymoon!” he proclaims, with some fluster, then realized his mistake. “I promised her years ago that we’d go, do it proper. Then life got in the way…”

The official looks at his passport, then at Kim’s. “It says that neither of you are married.” 

Kim speaks up then, a little twinkle in her eye that only he recognizes. “No, we got divorced ages ago. But we really wanted to go on this honeymoon, so we’re doing it. So…tourism. For both of us.”

The man looks at them both, mouth half-open. Then he closes it, shakes his head, and stamps Jimmy’s passport. Approved . He exhales a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

Kim’s passport is stamped a moment later, and they are ushered forward and into foreign lands, luggage trailing behind them. 

“You were really nervous,” Kim says, as they walk together through the airport hall. It’s not a question.

“Guilty as charged,” he replies. He’s tempted to stay silent, let it be, but he’s learned better. “I was…concerned that my legal status might cause…difficulties.”

Kim fumbles a moment with her rolling carry-on, switching it to her other hand so she can take his own hand with hers. It’s awkward, given their cases and backpacks, but she’s determined, and he’s not about to dissuade her.

“Then we would have had a wonderful time in a Parisian detention center. We’d play on their sympathies, and they’d bring a bottle of wine and baguettes in for us before they knew what got into them. Hell, it’s France. That might just come standard.”

Jimmy blinks at her, stopping in his tracks. They’re a rock in the stream of travelers, who flow around them with some annoyance. “You’d still be able to go.”

She shakes her head. “Not when the whole appeal of going there was going with you.”

Not for the first time, he marvels at what a lucky man he is.

He lifts her hand to his lips. “ Mon amour .”

A group of students nearly collides with them, and they push forward towards the light, holding hands, dragging their baggage behind them.

_

For being one of the cheaper options, the hotel room they booked is surprisingly nice. Nothing like cheap hotels that he was used to. Away with the stale odors of beer and sweat, and in with the scent of lavender. Out with the custom-built hotels that were built with a smile and a dream and had come to overdoses and gunshots. In with a repurposed building that might have stood as an apartment building to Parisian families when Napoleon marched.

Jimmy lies back on a soft coverlet, stretching out his long limbs.They’re in Montmartre, and he can hear the yearning melody of a busking violinist outside. Nearer at hand, there’s a soft rush of water from the bathroom, where Kim is washing the airplane sweat away.

He could fall asleep very easily here. His body is unsure at the difference in time, teetering between needing a catnap and catching a second wind that would propel him out into the Parisian streets.

At the sound of a creaking door hinge, Jimmy looks up, and Kim walks out, wrapped in a white towel, skin dewy in the late morning light. It’s a shot of espresso in his veins.

“Catherine Denueuve,” he croons, drawing out the syllables with relish. “What are you doing in my hotel room?”

Kim smiles ruefully, tossing two balled socks at him from her open hand. “Fairly sure her hair is longer.”

“But yours is much more French.” He rolls to his side as she sits beside him, runs a finger across her hand, up the angle of her arm, over the slope of her shoulder, and has the pleasure of watching her catch her breath on a gasp. He reaches up from there to caress the damp strands. “Don’t they call this a French bob?”

“My hairdresser calls it layered. I call it low-maintenance.” 

“And I call it tres chic .”

“Really hope you remember how to ask for the water closet in French.”

“ La salle des baines… uh …dónde está? ”

She grins, maneuvering herself to lay next to him, warmth radiating from her like an ember. “Close enough.”

Jimmy hums in contentment, drawing her near. His hand palms the slick expanse of her shoulder blade, then slides under the towel to caress her naked waist.

“We can go out and explore Montmartre,” Kim murmurs in his ear, tucking herself into his embrace, nose tickling his jaw, lips brushing his bobbing Adam’s apple. “We could take a nap here. Or we could…honeymoon.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it now?”

“I think that’s what the kids back in the 1820s called it.”

“ Touché .”

She draws back a little. “Now that’s not even close to the right form of French.”

Jimmy dips his head to gaze at her, flushed from the shower and their flirting, towel slipping quickly down to her waist. Lucky, lucky man.

“It is. It means, ‘yes, touch!’”

This time, she cackles, and he joins her. The towel eventually finds its way to the floor.

-

Hours later, after honeymooning, napping, and a quick shower, Jimmy feels like a new man. 

A hungry new man. They venture out in the late afternoon in search of sustenance, emerging into late afternoon sunlight. The winding streets are thronged with tourists - guidebooks called this early fall the “shoulder season” between tourism peaks, but there are more people on the sidewalks than he’s become used to.

“Any preference?” he asks Kim, who lifts her face to the sun and takes a deep inhale. 

“Wherever that delicious smell is coming from. We can get something to take the edge off, then figure out dinner.” She’s as eager to explore as he is. Jimmy catches the scent, some kind of baked good, butter and cinnamon and something else reaching them.

If they follow their noses to a Parisian Cinnabon, he’s going to have a fit. 

But no, it’s an open-air cafe where a waitress brings them coffee and some kind of brioche with strawberries in the middle. They dig in, famished, while around them conversation buzzes and a busker plays guitar, a languid melody he doesn’t know. Somewhere nearby, a church bell tolls, and he hears the echo of a Chicago cathedral from his childhood answering back.

He scoots his chair over to sit next to Kim, and they gaze out into the street. This must be that people-watching that everyone talks about doing in Paris.

A young woman walks past, an armful of books in one arm, a harried expression on her face.

“She’s a student at the Sorbonne,” Jimmy says suddenly. Kim looks at him questioningly, fork full of strawberries halfway to her lips, then follows his gaze. “Her passion in life is veterinary science, which her entire family, who are bakers, can’t understand. And she can’t stand that the skills she picked up working in the family bakery are what’s getting her through university.”

Kim nods, understanding at once. She finishes her bite before casting around and settling on a touring family. A moment, then she begins.

“They booked this trip over a year ago, and they’re bound and determined to enjoy themselves,” she begins. “The mother is fairly anxious - she’s lactose intolerant and everything here is mixed in cream or sautéed in butter, and she doesn’t know enough French to ask about it, and doesn’t want to come off as a loud American. The husband, he’s actually having a good time, didn’t know he’d enjoy the Louvre as much as he did. Except now he has hemorrhoids, walking is torture, and he’s got another kilometer to go before he can collapse in the hotel.”

“That was a novel," he grins, looking at her sidelong. Kim turns her head to regard him, that same searching gaze she's fixed him with since they first met. She reaches out and brushes a nonexistent crumb off his arm, an excuse to touch him in public, a little reminder that she's with him.

Both of them understand what they aren’t doing - there’s no crafting scenarios to take down someone a peg. They’ve learned their lesson and pay for it still. But they can still have a little fun.

Later, they’re ambling through winding streets and giggling at the stories they continue to make. They seem to be flowing in the same direction as a gaggle of tourists, and Jimmy can’t help but notice other couples, likely also on a honeymoon. It feels only logical that they go the same direction.

They emerge atop a hill, beside an enormous cathedral made of stone so white that it seemed to glow in the dimming light. Three domes, two smaller flanking an enormous one in the middle, thrust upward towards the evening sky. The Basilica of Sacré Cœur de Montmartre.

“The Sacred Heart of Montmartre,” he reports to her, a Catholic boy to his core. “I’m loyal to home, but that certainly has one up on Our Lady of Sorrows.”

Kim nods, but follows the gaze of some of the tourists around them. “Oh!” she exclaims.

Jimmy tears his eyes from the basilica and turns to see the cityscape of Paris, laid out serenely before them, lights beginning to glow in the evening air like a field of fireflies. A gap snaking through buildings - the Seine. Beside it, the unmistakable peak of the Eiffel Tower, the immovable bulk of Notre Dame.

Arms around each other’s waists, they stand and watch night close over the city. 

“It’s going to sound weird, but it kind of reminds me of Albuquerque,” Kim posits, apropos of nothing.

He knits his brow. “Why’s that?”

“No skyscrapers. That’s deliberate, and they’ve got to have some great laws tying that up. You and I both know how hungry developers are.” She sounds impressed, and almost as if she wants to stop by the local law library to see if she could do the same for them in Colorado.

Jimmy knows. He also knows that Kim will be a lawyer until her last breath.

“Probably good legal reasons, but I think there’s a good physical reason, too,” he replies.

“The guillotine?”

“That, and the catacombs.”

“They’re that big?” 

“Have to be. Not just the dead people, but the Court of Miracles.” At one time, he’d have done well there himself.

“I didn’t know you saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“I did…just not the classic version.” She grins, and he knows that she has a vision in her head of him watching the Disney movie, either in prison or on a date back when they were working in the mailroom and dancing around the possibility of a future relationship. 

Kim’s attention is drawn back to the vast hulk of the Sacré Cœur, but Jimmy’s eye is drawn back to the spindle of the Eiffel Tower, just beginning to sparkle in the evening dim. 

He’s been thinking about that spot a lot. Back in their hotel room, there’s a small box tucked into his backpack to prove it.

“I’m pretty sure it’s closed to visitors for the day,” Kim’s voice breaks into his thoughts. “Dinner?”

“Dinner.” His hand finds hers again, and they follow the music of some unfamiliar stringed instrument through the Parisian streets.

Chapter Text

By IngridGradient

Montrose, 2023

When it came to her first real movie night in decades with a certain Jimmy McGill, a somber tragedy about a mistreated French bell ringer wouldn’t have been Kim’s first choice.

Over the years, she had become less tolerant of watching pain and suffering in fiction, even as she embraced it more and more in her legal work. She hated the fact that there was nothing she could do to help the characters she was spending her time with. When she tried watching something that was too melancholy or where justice was not fairly apportioned, she experienced a visceral, skin-crawling discomfort and had to stop.

She hadn’t even been able to get through To Kill a Mockingbird since before everything went wrong. The DVD sat there in a place of honor on the shelf under the TV, one of a few select films she displayed, but the box hadn’t been opened in ages. Watching Atticus Finch fail to exonerate Tom Robinson was unbearable to her now, while it had once fueled her fire to right the world’s wrongs.

But she was determined to fulfill Jimmy’s first post-prison movie request — how could she deny it? He was home, and he could damn well watch whatever he wanted. So she dutifully rented The Hunchback of Notre Dame — the classic 1939 version, of course — on YouTube and attempted to get it to play on her TV.

“I miss Blockbuster,” she said, as she sparred with the remote control.

“Here, let me,” Jimmy said gallantly, but it quickly became clear that was even less competent than she was.

“Sorry,” he apologized, returning the remote. “We’re still on the DVD-and-broadcast-TV model at Montrose.” He didn’t seem to notice that he was using the present tense when referring to the prison. He’s not used to it yet. Being home.

“It’s okay. I think if I…” She got it to work, finally, and the movie started playing automatically. She paused it over the RKO Radio logo, trying to tell herself she wasn’t prolonging the watching experience, which she feared would be downright depressing.

“So…” she asked, “have you seen this before?”

“Yeah. Long time ago.”

“Hm. I’ve only seen the Disney one, but I’m pretty sure it was very sanitized from the book. Quasimodo and Esmeralda both die at the end in the real story, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “but Disney wasn’t about to go that route, of course.”

“Not without some angry letters,” Kim agreed. She thought back to when the Disney movie had come out — mid-’90s, she was pretty sure. “How did we not see that movie together?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh, um…” He looked down sheepishly. “I saw it on a date.”

She raised her eyebrows, preparing to tease him about this. But just as soon as she opened her mouth, she closed it again — belatedly remembering that she, too, had seen it on a date.

“Oh well,” she said, flicking away the memory of her date’s pomposity. “Doesn’t matter. I’m the one who snagged you in the end.” She twisted the wedding ring around on her finger; they’d been remarried for years now, and she had almost given up hope that she’d ever be able to live with her husband, at least while they both had all their teeth. Well, Jimmy still had his teeth, and every other wonderful part of him. And he’s home. She kissed him quickly.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready for all the death and despair.”

“I feel like I remember that it wasn’t all death and despair…” Jimmy offered, unconvincingly.

“But they die,” she said.

He looked over at her. “Did you want to watch something else?” he asked.

The honest answer was that she wished they were watching Bringing up Baby instead. She just wanted to laugh with him — she was greedy, she had him all to herself now, and she didn’t want to give up a single moment of hearing that laugh.

But as honest as they were with each other nowadays, there were things it was just kinder not to mention. Kim shook her head rapidly and readied the remote. “Nope. I told you it was your pick. And you’ve picked it!”

She could tell that he knew she wasn’t that enthusiastic about the selection, but pressed play before he could offer something else. She wasn’t about to deny him his choice.

She let herself sink into the couch, and into his side. It immediately made her breathe easier. There was an ancient and familiar sensation of comfort in this act, nestling against him on the couch as the orchestra swelled and the title card glowed in front of them.

Within the first few minutes of the film, she was intrigued by the plight of the Roma migrants, who had been banned from entering Paris. She got a bit distracted from the plot by constructing a legal case for them, fancifully ignoring the fact that she knew little to nothing about the 15th century French legal system. But even though she was a lawyer again now, being without the law for more than a decade had left her with the feeling of constantly playing catch-up, making up for lost time; she often found herself building cases in her head as though this cerebral exercise could retrieve the lost opportunities.

Maureen O’Hara, playing the Roma heroine Esmeralda, was introduced. As she performed a dance with a tambourine, Kim sighed. She loved old movie beauties, and didn’t even care if Jimmy felt the same.

“God, she’s beautiful,” she remarked.

Jimmy scoffed. “Nah. Too young, she was like 18 here, can you believe it? I prefer her in the John Wayne movies.”

“Really? You’re not usually a Western guy.”

“No, but a lot of my fellow inmates were. I have now received my Classic American Western education.”

“Noted,” Kim remarked; she wouldn’t mind spending an evening or two with John Wayne.

“Shh, we’re about to meet Quasimodo.”

And indeed they met him, played by Charles Laughton with a relatively impressive make-up job for 1939. He appeared to be a widely despised figure, an object of disgust and ridicule; an inexorable queasiness brewed within Kim.

A crowd of rowdy Parisians elected the disabled Quasimodo “King of Fools,” planted a crown on his head, and paraded him around town. There was a knot in the pit of Kim’s stomach. She hated this, could barely watch it, when there was nothing she could do about it. She was on the verge of detaching her mind completely from the film and trying to think of other things for the next hour and a half, when she caught sight of Jimmy’s eyes.

He was listening, in rapt concentration, to the words of the song on the revelers’ lips:

All you rabble

Scum and scavengers of France

Mark you the fool

With crown upon his ugly brow

Hail to the idiot king,

Shout and sing…

Hail to the idiot king, she repeated in her head, and unwillingly her brain began to perform some armchair psychology on her husband. Hush, not now, she told herself, and tried to watch the film without ulterior motives.

The people of Paris visited the Notre Dame cathedral to pray to God for various selfish propositions:

“Give me a rich husband.”

“Give me beauty.”

“Give me prosperity.”

The noble Esmeralda, meanwhile, prayed selflessly:

“Take all I have, but please help my people. They are in great need, in great danger.”

Kim shifted in her seat. She had always been rather annoyed when characters in films were spotlessly saint-like, but she was particularly allergic to it now. She couldn’t relate to a flawless character. 1939… It was 1939… she reminded herself. But she couldn’t help wishing that Esmeralda had just one selfish bone in her body.

Soon enough, Esmeralda fell for a man who clearly didn’t have her best interests at heart — okay, so she has one flaw: falling for rakish scoundrels. Kim could almost relate to this, except for the fact that her rakish scoundrel actually loved her and was faithful to a fault, unlike Phoebus of the movie.

Esmeralda ended up marrying a different character, however: a poet named Gringiore, in a hasty, informal marriage of convenience. The characters drank from the same cup, then smashed it, and voila! They were married in a matter of under a minute.

Kim and Jimmy looked at each other at the same time, mischief mirrored in their eyes. “Hell,” Jimmy said, “I thought nothing could be more rushed than our first wedding…”

“...until our second wedding…” Kim finished, thinking of the scowling prison chaplain. “But this…”

“...beats them both!” they concluded together. Jimmy guffawed and put his arm around her.

But the laughter faded in Kim’s throat as the grim nature of the film returned. Due to a misunderstanding, Quasimodo was arrested, reviled and dismissed by all who saw him. He was sentenced to be whipped and displayed on the pillory in the town square, shamed and jeered at.

It was all incredibly hard for Kim to watch — she knew that she’d have to talk to him about her distress, because Jimmy wouldn’t want her to be uncomfortable. But once again the look on his face, seen through her peripheral vision, gave her pause from mentioning it now. She hadn’t seen him from this angle in ages — the couch and movie angle. She was reminded of how much she had always been able to learn about him from this vantage point.

The armchair psychologist returned in full force, and she embraced it.

Jimmy held no reverence for Saul Goodman anymore, and had in fact referred to himself as Albuquerque’s “court jester.” And here they were, watching a man who was the laughingstock of the town, publicly humiliated, an object of revulsion who ended up arrested and dismissed as a joke by society.

It’s him. It’s Saul.

She found herself impressed by his growth, as she often did these days. Jimmy had made a conscious choice to confront his past. Remembering when he had so actively fought against therapy, she felt her lips turn upward in a pleasant smile. And if Jimmy was able to face his own pain through fiction, then maybe she could, too.

She settled in again; she was confident she’d found the reason he had selected this film, and was thus more able to enjoy it. But that wasn’t quite all. She soon discovered another reason.

“Water!” cried Quasimodo, as he was spun on the pillory. The townspeople simply mocked and parroted him, until one solitary soul ascended the platform and brought him a canteen of water to drink. It was Esmeralda.

As the hunchback looked at the girl, the expression on his face was a study in wonder, gratitude, and tenderness. Love. Kim almost gasped at the force of the feeling in his heart, which nearly leapt off the screen. Quasimodo accepted the water from Esmeralda like a man who had been left for dead in the desert and suddenly restored to life.

Left for dead in the desert…

Jimmy’s voice returned to her from the past:

I thought I was done. I was that close to giving up. And the only thing that kept me going was knowing you were there.

Kim squeezed his hand, wanting him to know that she understood. They remained locked together until the onscreen moment was broken, and the scene changed.

Jimmy sucked in his breath and let it out in a long exhale, then turned to her as the movie continued in front of them.

“That’s what it felt like,” he said.

She nodded. “Coming back from the desert?”

He blinked for a moment, as though witnessing a scene from a past life in a crystal ball. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “That, too, maybe. Jeez, I wasn’t even thinking about that. But what I really meant was… seeing you in that courtroom. Me in my silver suit, looking like an absolute jackass, every single person there just hating my guts. And you… you were there, existing. Being. I thought you might hate me, too, but you existed, and it was like the first drink of water I’d had in years.” 

He swallowed. “And that’s literally the main reason I wanted to watch this movie. Because I wanted to see that again.” His voice broke on the final word.

Kim couldn’t speak; she tilted her head up and kissed him. Wonder. Gratitude. Tenderness.

The movie was forgotten for a few blissful minutes.

But when they returned to it, Kim found that it was easier to bear the hardships of the film.

When the ending approached, Kim steeled herself for the main characters’ deaths. She felt prepared; she could face it.

But the deaths never happened. Esmeralda was freed and went off to a happy ending with Gringoire, while Quasimodo was left without the woman he loved, in the company of a stone gargoyle, but nevertheless alive.

“Oh,” Kim said. “They didn’t die.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy muttered, stroking his chin. He let out a half-laugh. “I forgot.” He watched the camera zoom out from Quasimodo to reveal all of Notre Dame. “It’s funny… this happened in the Disney version, too.”

“Well, of course. Disney’s not gonna kill off its main characters.”

“No, I mean Esmeralda getting together with someone who’s not the hunchback. Here, she ends up with Gringoire. In the cartoon, it’s that Phoebus guy. Even when the movies let them live, the beautiful maiden has to end up with some perfect pretty boy. Never with the outcast.”

Kim pressed his knee as the credits began to roll. “If we’re talking in code here, and if I’m the beautiful maiden — thank you, by the way — then I’m very happy to change the ending. I like my outcast a lot, see.”

He looked up at her, his eyes surrounded by lines but as bright as they had been for more than thirty years. “I can’t believe I’m here,” he said, with a hint of a breathless chuckle.

She smirked. “Believe it, buddy.”

Jimmy sighed in contentment as she snuggled up with him. “I could get used to this,” he murmured, playing idly with her hair.

“No reason not to.”

“So what’s tomorrow’s movie?” he asked, sounding a bit like an eager puppy.

She considered just throwing the name of the movie out there with no context, but no, they didn’t do that anymore. They shared now. Feelings and stuff.

She looked up at him. “Would you believe me if I told you I haven’t watched To Kill a Mockingbird in twenty years?”

His jaw dropped. “What? How’s that possible?”

She twisted her lip, then spoke. “I kinda haven’t watched anything this dark in a really, really long time. It’s been hard for me. I’ve stuck to lighter fare.”

“Jeez,” Jimmy said, looking back at the TV and frowning at it as though it had offended him, then back at her. “Then why did we watch that? We didn’t have to!”

“I’m glad we did, Jimmy,” she said firmly. “I think I’m good now. All I needed was some exposure therapy. And… y’know… it doesn’t hurt having you here with me.”

He blew air out of his lips. “You’ll be the death of me, Wexler,” he said. “I thought you were all done with martyrdom.”

“I am. I promise. I’m glad we watched it, because now I don’t know how I’m going to contain my excitement for Mockingbird tomorrow.”

He threw out his hands jauntily. “Why wait? It’s only 9:30. The night is young. Think you’re ready for Atticus Finch right now?”

Kim bit her lip. Tom Robinson couldn’t be saved any more than he could be during any other rewatch of the movie. And as she’d told herself many times, she couldn’t save everyone, either.

But she’d managed to free someone who very much mattered, and he was finally next to her.

She smiled softly.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Chapter Text

By Light_In_Dark_Places

Chapter Text