Is it possible; is it actually possible to fall in love in a span of time that rivals the shake of a lamb's tail? And he cannot think about a lamb wagging her tail without thinking about Skyler and her uniquely satisfying tail, shaking and or wagging. And there he is again, swallowed up by some kind of mental quicksand, being sucked down into thoughts of her, her body, her smile, her mouth, the way she moves beneath him, above him, beside him, behind him, against him, the strange promises she doesn't make but that he knows she's promising him. He closes his eyes and goes under willingly.

Lightly he bangs his forehead against the steering wheel of the Caddy. He is parked at the car wash, wondering what in hell he's doing but unable to do anything else.

"What in the hell are you doing?" he asks himself. He has been consistently leaving "sleeping with another man's wife" out of his answers whenever he questions himself.

This week, with Mike gone across the border, he has no moral center, no wagging finger, no narrowed gaze, no shaming cock of the head. It's just him and Skyler and the conflagration they've set. Walt is clearly getting quickly to the end of a rope of his own making and Saul can't find a good god damn to give about it. He secretly wants Walt to come to the bad end of a short fall and break his own neck.

He is caught in a tornado like some single wide parked on a Kansas plain. And being ripped from his foundations, battered and bent, was enough without adding Walt into the mix of this particular storm.

And the metaphors won't stop.

"Get a grip, buddy," he says aloud to no one but himself. And jumps when the gentle rap comes on the passenger door window. It is Skyler, of course. His car has never been cleaner. He leans across the seat and thumbs up the door lock.

She settles in beside him. "Let's go," she grins and he grins back, keys on the car and pulls into the car wash itself. He feels the front tires lock into the trolley mechanism, shifts into neutral and before he can turn hungrily to her she's straddling his lap and he slides over into the middle of the bench seat and runs his hands up under her blouse, pulling her to him, and she grinds down into his lap. The warm friction of the flesh of her back against his palms electrifies him and he believes that if she opens his fly and so much as begins to touch him with a well-manicured fingertip he'll be shooting sparks out the end of his dick. He moans and lets his head fall back against the seat and she begins kissing him senseless.

Outside the jets and brushless rollers wash and wax his car. No charge but it will cost him everything.

He is waiting. And the wait feels like an indefinite thing, stretching out to an impossible point that he knows full well is going to break everything, just every single damnable thing, and possibly snap the life out of him. He's let his anger go, it was misdirected anyway, but now he's wrestling with a bad and volatile monster of fear and anxiety. He'd pop an Ativan but he wants to have all his edges sharp, he's got a feeling….just a feeling…that this thing could work out in his favor.

He feels like a magician on amateur night and he's wondering if he can really pull a rabbit out of his hat. He truly has got nothing up his sleeves.

But in his pocket he's got a business card.

He sighs and rolls over on the bed and stares at the peeling wallpaper on the wall of the shithole Motel 6 he's waiting in on the outskirts of town. And then "Days of Our Lives" is interrupted by breaking news and he doesn't need to turn back and look at the tv to know this is it. In some strange way, this is what they've all been moving towards. This place of blood and bone and tears. The doorway that White has blown open, the gaping hole in the wall of all their fucking boxed-in lives. He's ready to step through it and walk away.

An hour later, his pay-as-you-go-phone rings. He sits up on the bed and the phone is drooling sound, a living rabid thing in the palm of his hand.

He flips it open and it seems to take a lifetime to lift it to his ear.

"Saul?" she whispers and he forgives her the use of his name in Hank's house because the sound of his name in her mouth suddenly makes everything okay. It's going to be alright.

"It's going to be alright," he tells her, his voice breaks the tiniest bit and he pretends it's a bad connection.

"Is it?" she whispers and he shakes his head no.

"I think so," he says.

"This is what you were trying to tell me, isn't it? This is it?"

He nods. This is definitely it. "Doll…." He trails off he has no idea what to say. He must be quiet and let her say it, let her decide it.

"Your plan," she begins and his heart stutters and he presses the heel of his hand hard under his left nipple, "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

His heart slams against the inside of his ribs, against his hand, and his eyes shut, and his head feels as though molten lava has been poured into some kind of gaping hole in the top of his skull.

"I love you," he says, but he thinks she has already ended the call.

There is a dark silence in the space between the phone and his ear and then, "I love you, too."

He stands at once, breaks the phone in his hand, tosses the pieces into the garbage bag on the bed, and leaves. The imaginary clock counting down all their futures has begun blinking, the red LED numbers moving towards zero.

She has gotten to the carwash first and this surprises him but there is no time to be surprised.

"Whose car is that?" he asks when he walks into the office.

"Marie's. I'll leave the keys here on the desk." She is pulling stacks of money out of the safe and tossing them into a gym bag. The diaper bag is empty and he crouches and begins filling that beside her. The baby is asleep in her car seat.

"Where's Junior?" he asks, slotting money into the bag.

She sniffs and shakes her head and he stops and reaches over, pulling her by the shoulders to look at him. "Skyler, where is he?"

She shakes her head no and his heart sinks. He stands, furious, he wants to kill something. She stands and takes his hands. "It's fine, it's better probably. Hank and Marie will take good care of him. He's safe. I know he wouldn't be okay with this. I need him to be okay. Do you understand that? I need him to be okay." And she's crying and he pulls her into his arms.

"He doesn't know?"

She shakes her head against his chest and he holds her tighter trying to remember the mechanics of breathing.

Outside they are nearly sprinting to the pickup truck, she has the baby car seat swinging by the handle and he has the money and he rips open the passenger door and helps her settle Holly and the cash and herself amongst his two garbage bags lumpy with cash. And they peel out; gravel spurting like blood from a mortal wound.

"Where's the Caddy? "she asks.

"Gone," he says and thinks about the car inside the crusher just that morning. He reaches under the seat, fingers scrabbling, and pulls out a pay-as-you-go still in the packaging and hands it to her, across the sleeping baby, watching the stoplights ribboned down the long straight length of road. They're going to hit every one of them green on their way out of town and he takes that as an omen. He stomps the gas pedal. She tears open the plastic and pulls out the phone. He leans back, reaches into his pocket and hands her the card. She punches in the numbers and he flips the card over in her hand and points at the words on the back.

"Hello?" she says into the phone, her voice shaking.

"It's a machine," he whispers across the cab of the truck, and she nods and then visibly steels herself. "Good girl," he says and looks back at the road.

Skyler takes a deep breath and then calmly says into the phone, "I need a new dust filter for a Hoover Max Extract Pressure Pro Model 60."

Weddings aren't cheap and they had saved for this one for over a year. Smart girl, the bride, she's like a human iPhone app, just totally precise and on task. He admires this in her. She's worked hard and has paid for the more extravagant touches. He also had his own super stash and was able to gift her a diamond solitaire necklace for her "something new" and it shines at the base of her throat and he likes that. He likes to spoil his girls.

Right now he's holding her in his arms and he marvels at how that has changed over her twenty-six years, from him learning how to rock her to sleep while dancing around the living room, to the toddler standing on the tops of his feet, to her girlish need to lead, to the somewhat surly and uninterested teen years when he would insist on waltzing her through the kitchen, and during the month-long ballroom dance lessons she signed them all up for before the big day. Now that day is this day, the spotlight is on just them, and he squeezes her tight and she squeezes back and then whispers to him, "I love you, Big Poppa." And he closes his eyes and when her new husband breaks in he reluctantly lets her go. And stands forlorn for a long moment until his own wife, her mother, finds him on the dance floor and pulls him towards her and they join the other couples dancing at their daughter's wedding.

"She looks so beautiful," she whispers against his cheek and he nods but then pulls back slightly and looks at the woman in his arms, really looks at her. Time has been kind to her and she has been kind to herself. And she still revs his motor unlike any other woman on earth.

"Just like her mother," he says and surprises them both with a deep kiss. She lies her head down on his shoulder, her cheek against his collarbone, and they keep dancing. They love to dance.

Beside them there is a friendly and loud scuffle when the bride's kid brother attempts to break into the dance between the newlyweds and he secretly urges his son to it. The young man succeeds in stealing the bride away and in an effortless kind of tango move he has his sister in his arms and they are hamming it up as couples move to the side. His grace and rhythm are natural gifts, his good looks suit him, his personality is a high octane mix of manic energy and an overwhelming need to make everyone around him happy. His father admires this in him. Both of his children look just exactly like his wife and that makes him very happy.

He stops dancing, holds his wife tightly against him, and watches their children move through what is quickly becoming an obviously rehearsed and choreographed salsa piece. Wedding guests are clapping and hooting. And he claps and shakes his head and is overwhelmed by joy.

A little while later he sees that the photographer is packing up. He walks over.

"Did I get my money's worth?" he asks and the young man straightens up from the bags of gear on the floor and smiles.

"I think so, Professor McTearny. I hope so."

"Hope? Did you just seriously tell me you hope you did your job? He who lives upon hope will die fasting."

The man laughs then nods. "I definitely got what the bride wanted."

Saul considers this, nodding. The photographer is one of his Business Law students at the local junior college and he worked a trade with him for the wedding album. "Good. I have one last request."

"Shoot."

"I'll meet you out on the veranda in five." And he turns purposefully and begins scanning the ballroom for his family.

It is quiet and very cold outside and it has begun to snow again. The party is inside on the dance floor and he will return there and maybe even get a little bit drunk before the evening is called to an end. But now he's directing the photographer and together they are setting up the shot. He wants a picture of his family. He has nothing against the groom, the new son-in-law is perfect for his daughter and he knows this but he wants a photograph of just the four of them. The family he built from bone and blood and tears.

He pulls his wife under his left arm and nestles her against his beating heart. Their daughter is on his right and their son joins his mother on her left and they sling arms around one another, they have always been overly affectionate, and his son gooses him but he doesn't jump, very much, and then he's telling the photographer, take it, this is the shot I want, take a few, everyone smile, nobody blink, Seamus cut it out already, make your Old Man happy, okay, everyone say "sheep shit" and the flash fires and Saul Goodman who has been living Sean McTearny's life for twenty-five years smiles.