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“Turns out my New Mexico bar card doesn’t have an expiration date,” I breathe, watching as Jimmy stands and stares in shock. There’s something about his surprise that makes me feel confident, almost as if for once in the last three years, I’m proud of myself.
He smiles weakly at me, a sadness swimming in his eyes, but I can tell more than anything that he’s happy I’m here. “I like your hair.”
“Thanks,” I say as I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. I lift one out before holding it in my outstretched hand, offering it to him gently. He stares at it, so tempted to pluck it from my hand, but he resists — for once in his life, Jimmy McGill resists. Maybe it wasn’t just an act, then, his show in the courtroom. He’d taken the fall for everything he’d done, sure, but a piece of me still thought he’d done it for his own gain. But, then again, maybe he had. Who was I to know? He’d wanted me there, he’d wanted me to witness his theatrical unraveling. Whose benefit was that for?
“Can we… just this once, can I be open and honest with you? I know you don’t want to hear it. I know you’re done with me, and I’ve done nothing but be a painful thorn in your side for a long time. I understand if you don’t want to hear me out, but—”
“Jimmy,” I cut in, putting the cigarette to my lips before lighting the end. I suck in a deep inhale, letting the smoke roll in my mouth and down into my lungs, and exhale. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to hear what you have to say to me.”
He watches me for a long moment, the cigarette end’s cherry flame reflecting in his eyes. “Put it out,” he finally says, his voice sterner, almost angry. Since when did Jimmy care if I smoked?
I narrow my eyes at him as I take another puff.
He moves quickly, and despite his prison attire and the things I’ve come to learn he did after I’d left, I don’t flinch. He crosses the space between us in less than a second before plucking the cigarette from my mouth. He presses it to his lips, taking one long, deep inhale as if this might be his last chance to consume nicotine — and considering his current situation, it could be — and then stubs it out on the table.
He exhales, the smoke clouding what little space there is between us. He looks as if he wants to say something, everything, and honestly, I’m half expecting him to. But before I can question him, he’s hooking an arm around my waist and dragging me towards him, almost closing the distance but stopping short. “Tell me to stop,” he whispers, his breath fanning across my face. Somehow, despite the hellhole he lives in and the lack of a suit, he still smells like home. How?
I want to tell him to stop. I want to push him off me, to walk away like I had after Howard. But I’d be lying to myself if, for one moment, I wasn’t hoping for this when I’d come here. So, instead, I say nothing.
He takes that as an invitation. He isn’t wrong.
His hand flexes against my suit jacket, splaying across my back and side. He fights with himself for a moment, his eyes flickering between my lips and my eyes, before finally taking that plunge and pressing his mouth to mine.
My heart leaps, thudding against my ribcage in a way it hasn’t since that night. God, of all the things Jimmy has been — a liar, a thief, a conman, one of the greatest lawyers I’ve ever known, most of all, he’s always, always been mine.
I return the favor, parting my lips enough to let him in, enough to taste him. His grip on me tightens in response, his free hand finding my face and cupping it along my jaw. I stumble backward onto the table, the one meant to separate attorney and client, knowing that even if I had kept my license this table would do fuck all between us. He follows, his hands never leaving me.
“Jimmy,” I gasp, tearing my lips from his for a second to breathe, but he doesn’t stop. He takes it as an opening to explore my jaw, my neck — soft spots for me. Soft spots that he knows will make me crumple. “Jimmy,” I say again, my voice weaker, reality beginning to set in as I look down at us: me in my suit and him in his uniform.
He freezes, his face buried in the crook of my neck. “Kim.” He says my name matter-of-factly, making my heart skip a beat. “Tell me to stop,” he repeats, his fingers digging in against my side. He doesn’t want to let go.
I want to. For some unknown reason, likely buried somewhere in my mind, filed away under drawer after drawer of green flags, I want to say it. I want to tell him to stop, to let me go, to let us both go on with our lives. But I’ve always been drawn to Jimmy McGill, even when he was Saul Goodman, even when he was Gene Takavic. The one time in my life that I’d said no to him, I’d regretted it every second afterward. It's why I was here. I couldn’t let him go, no matter how hard I tried, no matter what he had done. He was always my Jimmy.
I hold my tongue, feeling his breath splay against my skin. Slowly, so goddamn slowly, he moves, but not in the way I’d accepted he would.
He lets go.
“What—” I start, but he retreats a full step, and then another, and another, until he’s more than an arm's length from me. Had my silence not been enough? I thought I’d been clear, I thought he’d wanted it as much as I had.
“Come back and see me, Kim,” he says, his voice so quiet I can barely hear him. It feels like a knife in the chest, but I know what he’s doing. “If you still want me. You don’t have to.”
“Jimmy—”
“We’re all done in here!” He shouts, his knuckles rasping against the heavy iron door.
I take the moment I have to settle my heart and breathing. I push the spare strand of hair that had fallen into my face back, grabbing my briefcase and pack of cigarettes in the second it takes for the guard to open the door.
Jimmy turns his attention back to me, restraint playing hard against his features. Come back, he mouths, the smallest of smiles twitching his lips upward. My lip trembles, the backs of my eyes burning, but I blink them away and give him a nod in response.
I’d be lying if I tried to tell myself I wouldn’t be back here the second I could be.