[ video ]

[hostage]

[The video's shaky when Jesse starts transmitting. He's at the baseball diamond and it's the middle of winter and he's shivering, dressed for a New Mexico summer in a hoodie that's barely thicker than the t-shirt he's wearing underneath it.]

I'm here.

[He's saying that to the NV, but his attention is away from the camera, directed to the road.]

Where's a goddamn taxi...

[He stops walking for a second and raises the NV so he can talk to it properly.]

I'm here. I'm okay. How long's it been? What year is it?

Comments

[hostage]

[He'd been pushing her to say it, but when she finally does, he's taken aback. He's become used to Walter White's reassuring hands on his shoulders and the whispered praises and the we're in this together lie. Now the wind's all knocked out of him and it takes him a second to find his footing again in this argument. Lisbeth isn't Mr. White. She's telling the truth. She's giving him what he deserves.

He jerks his head in a slight nod, as if he's satisfied instead of heartbroken.]

[hejhej]

[She's waiting for a reaction, some kind of retraction of what he's said, but none comes. It hurts her even more.]

Then we're agreed.

[Lisbeth then turns away to make her way back to the living room.]

[hostage]

[Jesse stays right where he is, pressing his fist to his mouth when she's left the room so he won't cry out or beg for her to come back. His eyes fill with tears and he tries to keep it all in - but a second later he throws his arm out and sweeps everything off the island and onto the floor, shattering ceramic and glass and whatever the fuck else was there.]

[hejhej]

[By the time she reaches the front door, she hears the noise coming from the kitchen. Lisbeth pauses with half the mind to go back in there, but no. She opens the door and steps outside. She needed a cigarette badly.]

[hostage]

[Fifteen minutes later, Jesse's in the car and pulling out of the garage, a duffel bag full of money and guns and clothes in the passenger seat beside him.]

[hejhej]

[She'd smoked half her pack by then, still standing on the stoop when the garage door began to open. She wasn't expecting the sound so she looks around confused for a few seconds before she sees the car back out of it. Her cigarette nearly drops from her lips as she walks down the last two steps before she's on the walkway.

Lisbeth could recognize they'd had a fight and it was bad, but a part of her didn't expect him to leave. With her hands in her pockets, she slowly began to make her way to the driveway. Her steps may have seemed rush as she got closer.]

[hostage]

[He brakes when he sees her coming. He didn't expect that. He rolls down the window for her, though, in case she has something to say. He doesn't know what. Maybe she'll tell him not to come back. And he'll tell her he doesn't plan to.]

[hejhej]

[She slows down as she reaches the driver side window. Quite the opposite. Lisbeth wants to tell him to stay. She never understood why people immediately apologized when the other person was leaving, but for once she could understand how. But would he think her petty? Would he think she didn't mean it at all?]

Where are you going?

[She lightens her tone so that it sounds more curiosity than it does accusatory.]

[hostage]

To finish something.

[As long as he's being honest, he might as well be honest.]

[hejhej]

[She doesn't press any further.]

Come home safe. The last week was a pain in my ass.

[hostage]

[He almost doesn't hear her. His brain had already filled in her response. When it does register, he raises his eyes to her in confusion. "Come home safe"?

He reaches over and puts the car into park. If he goes where he's going, there's no coming home safe. A barrel of acid. That's where he ends up. And, honestly, he isn't in a hurry to get there.]

I thought...

[hejhej]

You're right, we're not the same. If we were, I couldn't live with you because I can't imagine what it's like to live with someone like me.

[She looks down at the ground briefly.]

What you said in there is a whole different story, but I don't care about it. I don't know what your home is like to make you do those things. But you don't know what my home was like that makes me the way I am.

Yet you stayed.

[It's the most she's ever said in one go about anything. She can feel her ears get hot and turn red with embarrassment.]

[hostage]

[He's still confused, but he opens the door and climbs out of the car so he can face her properly. Part of him hopes that he's understanding her right. And then there's the other part, ever-present, that's telling him he doesn't deserve the sympathy.]

I love you.

[He means that. He says it with regret, though, like it's a death sentence.]

[hejhej]

I love you too.

[He really was all that she had here, but she felt that if she said it aloud, he would leave. What she was thinking was clingy, wasn't it?]

[hostage]

[He takes a step forward, stops, and looks back at the car. A moment passes while he looks torn between two directions. Then he takes another step and reaches for Lisbeth, to gather her into his arms.]

[hejhej]

[Lisbeth watches him quietly as he looks back at the car. She's keeping him from something. She opens her mouth to tell him to go, but he's soon wrapping his arms around her. Lisbeth returns the gesture, gripping him tightly.]

[hostage]

[He shuts his eyes and buries his face in her hair, holding her just like that, in no hurry to go. He whispers something that sounds like:]

I don't wanna lose you.

[hejhej]

[She feels the pang of her heart and it's deep. Someone wanted her. Lisbeth couldn't remember the last time she'd felt that, if she ever did. She grips Jesse even tighter.]

I don't think you can.

[hostage]

I'm gonna hurt you. You know that, right? The shit I'm in... The kind of person I am...

[hejhej]

[She usually has something to say, something to fall back on, but she isn't sure what to say to that. It wasn't in the cards that Jesse would hurt her because he wanted to - it was in the cards because that's how her whole life usually played out.

Instead, she hugs him tighter.]