'ABQ'

Hello again! So naturally, as the finale comes nearer, more changes have been made to the last chapter. No huge plot points have been taken away (e.g. plane crash) but obviously Jesse doesn't go to rehab, nor does he end up in a drug house, but hopefully everything plays out well! Also, I am going to be selling my computer and the shipment to get it to my buyer takes about 2 weeks, so I won't be able to start season 3 until I get everything set up with my new computer. Anyway, let me know what you thought of Season 2 and enjoy! :)

Charlie and Jesse had been in the hospital for a total of three days before Mr. White checked in with them. The doctors had placed Charlie on a form one, declaring her a threat to herself and kept her in inpatient for 72 hours whilst they tried to convince her to attend rehabilitation upon release. Although Charlie had agreed to nothing, she managed to convince them on her release date that she was well enough to leave the hospital, and that she would no longer be using heroin. Although doubtful, the ward staff released her on the third day into the waiting arms of her Jesse, who had been sleeping outside of the doors of the ward for the past three days. He looked like a wreck; having only existed on coffee and egg sausage rolls whilst he waited for the day Charlie got out, which was coincidentally the day Mr. White rang on Jesse's cell phone.

"Yeah?" Jesse didn't even bother to check the caller ID as he picked up the call, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend and leading her towards the bus stop.

"Jesse?" Walter White's distinct tone filled Jesse's right ear, cause relief to flood through him. "What happened?"

"Mr. White," He began, smiling at a wide-eyed Charlie. "She's ok – we just got out of inpatient."

"Are they going to put her in rehabilitation?" Walter's voice was low, most likely meaning that he was somewhere near his wife and family and was calling out of courtesy to make sure that Charlie was alright.

"No," Jesse shook his head, even though Walter couldn't see it. "They tried to push for it, but she doesn't have to."

There was a moment of silence before Mr. White spoke again. "Don't you think that would be best for her?"

"That's up to her man," Jesse glanced at his partner, pulling knuckles away from her mouth. "She says she wants to get clean."

"Well," Another moment of silence, then Mr. White was heard sighing audibly. "I guess we'll have to see about that."

"I would have a little more faith in her," Jesse smiled, getting out bus fare as the vehicle arrived and loading both him and Charlie onto it. "I think she knows what she wants."

"I'm glad she made it," Mr. White admitted. "Holly is home."

"Congratulations," Jesse murmured, smiling slightly as he realized that Mr. White had most likely understood that missing the birth of his daughter hadn't been Jesse's fault, and that he had at least partially forgiven him for the incident with the product.

"I should go," Mr. White began to say his goodbyes. "Give my best to Charlie, and I'll contact you soon."

"Hey," Jesse stopped the man from hanging up. "Wait!"

There was silence on the other end, indicating that Mr. White was listening and wanted to hear what Jesse had to say. The younger man paused, concentrating on how to articulate his sentence so that he didn't come off as ungrateful or misunderstanding in any way, and then spoke.

"I wanted to say thank you," He started, licking his dry lips and locking eyes with Charlie. "If you hadn't woken me up, she might not have had a second chance…so we owe that to you."

"Jesse," Mr. White stated, deciding to tell the boy the truth but to avoid explaining the conversation with the man at the bar. "I was there because I wanted to apologize for my previous behavior."

"Seriously?" Jesse managed to hide his laugh with a cough. "You? Apologize?"

"Yes…" Mr. White's tone turned patronizing. "Something that you should learn to practice every once in awhile."

"All I know is that we didn't do anything wrong last week," Jesse shook his head again. "But kudos to you for pulling it off man."

Mr. White sighed, giving up on the conversation as soon as he sensed an argument coming and prayed to the skies that the two would become more responsible with their drug habits, and then ended the discussion with an excuse about having to attend to his newborn child. Jesse hung up the phone just as the bus dropped them off near their house, where they walked with ease – Charlie was still having some withdrawals from the overdose – until they reached their front door.

"Guh," Jesse scrunched his nose up at the foul smell that greeted them. "Smells like something rotted."

"Maybe it's that cheese that you bought three weeks ago?" Charlie murmured, slipping her sweater off and throwing it onto one of the lazy boys.

"I threw that stuff out baby," Jesse assured, checking inside their fridge and being unable to find the culprit of the smell. "Fuck, its like it's ingrained in the walls. It didn't smell like this three days ago."

Charlie did a brief tour around the complex, checking for mold and looking into crevices for any dead animals. With the hole in their back door, it was probable that an animal could have broken inside and gotten trapped, but since Charlie couldn't find such a thing, the possible situation was ruled out. Next she checked for vomit – nobody had been in their home since the overdose, besides Jesse who had run to get her spare clothing without touching anything. Still, she saw a small trace of vomit on the sheets, and threw them all in the wash anyways.

"Maybe it was just the sheets," She reported, hoping that the smell would go away sooner or later. "We can get the air ventilator going tonight and then let Jane know if it's still bad tomorrow morning."

Jesse sighed, nodding his head as he realized that it would be the best option they had at the moment. He didn't want to live with the stink, but there was nothing they could do until the morning when their landlady was awake. So, they shut the bedroom door, opened their windows and both lit cigarettes before retiring for the night. It had been a long, stressful week, and both were looking forward to a good nights sleep. Unfortunately, both were too tired to realize that Charlie's black box was missing from the side table, and slept soundly unbeknownst to the fact that they had been robbed.

"Honey," Charlie grimaced as she woke, stirring Jesse awake as well. "Wake up – it still smells terrible."

The smell was now overwhelming in the house, causing an already nauseated Charlie to run to the bathroom and unleash torrents of vomit into the toilet. The smell was indescribable; a mix between what smelt like burnt eggs and dog shit. Charlie heaved again, waking Jesse fully and causing him heave as well before rushing to the bathroom to help her with her situation. There weren't any words as Charlie tried to expel whatever nastiness she had left in her stomach, and Jesse covered his nose with the neck of his shirt. Even the stench of cigarettes couldn't mask this hellish scent, and so after Charlie recuperated from her session of sickness the two slid on shoes – Charlie could care less about pants at this point and settled for one of Jesse's t-shirts – and quickly made their way over to Jane's house.

"Ugh," Jesse wrinkled his nose yet again. "It's worse over here."

"Maybe the septic tank broke?" Charlie rasped, voice hoarse from all of the vomiting.

"Maybe," Jesse knocked on Jane's back door forcefully. "Jane?"

There was no response, so Jesse knocked harder. Still nothing, so Jesse slammed on the door in frustration, and was surprised to see it swing open. As soon as the door opened, the stench overwhelmed them, and Charlie veered backwards to promptly vomit on Jane's back steps once more. Although it was just stomach acid at this point, her body couldn't take the horrible smell, and she shook her head back and forth as Jesse curiously poked his head inside, discovering the horrible reason for the smell they had arrived home to yesterday. Jane's dead body was laying face up, dried vomit dripping out of her mouth and her eyes wide open. At this sight Jesse almost hurled himself, but managed to hold it in as he kept his t-shirt over his nose. Charlie did the same, forcing herself inside the house after listening to Jesse's noises. She, instead, took one look at the corpse and let out a gasp, placing a hand on her forehead in shock as she took a look around and spotted the needles sitting on Jane's side table.

"Wait a second," Charlie muttered, leaning down to look at Jane's 'tool kit' and recognizing Scott's insignia on the box. "This looks like Scott's stuff – he always gives everyone these black boxes with an 'S' on them."

In a sudden moment of realization, everything connected in Charlie's head, and with another gasp she went tearing back towards her and Jesse's side of the duplex. Ignoring her partner's cry of confusion, she burst into their bedroom and looked everywhere for the little black box that she had just realized had gone missing from her side table. After searching the floor, underneath the bed and in the bathroom drawer, she confirmed her suspicions and whirled around to face a very discombobulated Jesse.

"She stole it!" Charlie exclaimed, almost unable to believe it. "She stole my fucking stash! She must have broken in when we were gone!"

The two dashed back into Jane's apartment, being careful not to touch anything and regarding the needles carefully.

"Those aren't my needles," Charlie breathed, unable to believe that Jane would do such a thing. "But this is definitely my fucking heroin. Why would she do this?"

She hadn't even realized that Jane was into heavy drugs – they had never spoken about them, never seen each other using, and Jane certainly hadn't shown any signs of drug use around Charlie. She seemed like a perfectly sane, fine, healthy woman. Nonetheless, her and Jesse were the first on a crime scene of an overdose, and if anything that meant that when the police showed up declaring a missing persons case, they would be the ones at fault.

"Oh my god," Charlie shook her head as she fully realized what had happened, placing two hands in her hair . "She's dead – she's gone, and off of my drugs! What the hell are we going to do?!"

"Hold on," Jesse picked up his phone, trying to contain his trembling at the sight of another dead body in his lifetime, and dialed Walt's number.

"Yeah?" Walt's gruff tone greeted his ear.

"Yo, Mr. White," Jesse started, relief flooding through his stomach upon hearing the man's voice. "We don't know what to do here, man – there's a body, it's like three days old and she stole Charlie's stuff and her body's rotting, and the cops are gonna show up, and -"

"Slow down," Mr. White tried to comfort the boy, who had placed a hand in his hair in stress. "Slow – slow down. What happened?"

"Jane's dead – our landlady who lives next door," Jesse explained, shaking his head and close to tears. "She must've broken in when we were in the hospital – remember, cause of that stupid hole you left? She broke in and stole Charlie's heroin. Her back door was open so we went inside a-and….and -"

Mr. White held his breath, waiting for the next part of the story although he knew it already. Charlie was taking enough of a risk staying with Jesse as it was, but now that her drugs had unwillingly killed someone else, if she was found in possession and searched for any more illicit substances, the police would find the blue meth, and link Jesse to it once again. This could mean prison for many years, and the demise of Heisenberg and the entire business that they had worked so hard to build. So, it was inevitable that Mr. White had to care about the situation they were in – his alter ego's career depended on it.

"She overdosed," Charlie was now on the phone, breathing heavily. "On my drugs! Mr. White, what do we do?!"

"Listen -"

"I mean, we can't call the police – they'll see Jesse and arrest me too and we'll go to prison and -"

"Listen!" Mr. White tried again, this time hearing only heavy breathing as a sign that she was paying attention. "Everything is going to be ok – I promise. No one is going to prison."

"Mr. White, there's a body here!" Charlie practically screeched, beginning to erupt into tears. "I basically killed her!"

"Listen! Calm down!" He finally snapped. "You didn't kill her – no one killed anybody. This was an accident."

Charlie was silent again, only trembling slightly as she stared at the body below her and waiting for Mr. White's next words as she held back more tears. Her partner had crouched on the floor, staring at Jane's limp corpse in a dazed state. There had been enough drug related deaths in her and Jesse's lives as it was, so to see yet another body related to their troubles was extremely traumatizing and bringing back loads of nightmarish memories.

"Everything is going to turn out alright," Walter promised them. "It'll be okay. Just sit tight – I know who to call."

He hung up without another word, causing Charlie to commence crying again and cover her face with her hands. Jesse took a hold of her, springing to action at the sound of her distress and leading her back towards their apartment. Neither of them knew what to do in a situation like this, so until Mr. White's apparent contact arrived, all they could do was sit in a large pool of anxiety and wait. Charlie didn't even want to think about the corpse lying in the bed next door; she didn't want to be the cleanup for the horrendous accident, and she certainly didn't want to think about how the unintentional overdose had been completely off of her own drugs. Jane's body could have been hers three days ago if she hadn't been given another chance. A rumble from outside interrupted Charlie's thoughts, and she peeked behind the curtain just in time to see a 1988 Chrysler Fifth Avenue pull up in front of the duplex. A middle aged man clad in black climbed out, taking in his surroundings and then making his way towards the front door of the duplex in front of him. At this point, Jesse had also taken a look from the curtain and had spotted the car, opening the door to greet the man just about to knock.

"Saul Goodman sent me," The man regarded the two behind his sunglasses, remaining neutral as Jesse opened the door further to let him in. Charlie used his body to shield herself, only peeking her head out to examine the visitor.

"Latch the door," He said once inside. "Where is she?"

"Next door," Jesse swallowed, wringing his hands in his pockets.

"Any drugs in this apartment?" The man turned back towards them, taking off his sunglasses. The two partners in crime locked eyes before shaking their heads in denial, knowing fully well about the drawer in the bathroom where their meth stash was held.

"Think hard," The man pushed. "Your freedom depends on it."

Still, the two shook their heads in denial, prompting his next question.

"What about guns?" He looked around. "Got any guns in the house?"

They shook their heads again, causing the man to sigh and proceed to remove any evidence of heroin usage from their apartment. He took away Charlie's needles, spoon and wiped off the countertop, placing everything inside a clear durable bag and dumping it into the duffle with the four hundred and eighty thousand dollars inside. He took a look around the living room, collecting the bong that sat on the countertop and placing it inside the duffle as well. He then proceeded to lead Charlie and Jesse towards Jane's apartment through the back door, poking at the cardboard that covered the hole that Mr. White had made as they went.

"We were at the hospital man," Jesse explained. "Charlie overdosed and she was in there for three days – Jane broke in when we were gone and stole her stash. It's not our fault."

"I'm clean, I'm clean," Charlie kept repeating, lower lip trembling as she tried to establish what had just happened and stay out of Mike's way. Her friend – someone who she had thought was completely untouched by these kinds of issues, had basically died at her hand, and Charlie hadn't even known about it. Mike was silent, entering Jane's side of the duplex and not even flinching from the smell, whereas both Jesse and Charlie covered their noses once again as they watched him remove all the evidence from her apartment. The black box, baggy, needles and belt were all removed from Jane's apartment and placed inside another clear durable bag, which Mike zipped up and passed to Jesse whilst he wiped all the surfaces down. The three then proceeded back towards apartment 323, where Mike instructed Jesse to drop the clear bag inside the duffle. After doing so, he took both purple gloves off and put them in the duffle as well, before turning towards the two twenty three year olds.

"She's lucky to be alive," He pointed towards Charlie, whose already wide eyes widened even further. "We could've had two dead bodies to deal with. Now listen, here's your story: you two came home and ignored the smell for a night, but knocked on her door this morning when it got worse. You looked inside her window, saw the body and called. That's all you know."

"I'm gonna say that again," Mike spoke again after a beat of silence. "You two came home, ignored the smell for a night, then knocked on her door this morning when it got worse. You looked inside her window, saw the body and called. That's all you know."

Charlie and Jesse nodded, still in partial shock and trying their very best to remember Mike's words. He zipped up the duffel bag, tossing it off to the side and then facing the two again.

"Once you call in," Mike started to explain the process. "The people who show up will be with the Office of Medical Investigations. That's primarily who you'll talk to. Police Officers may arrive, they may not; depends on how busy of a morning they're having. Typically, ODs are not a high-priority call. There's nothing here to incriminate you two, so I'd be amazed if you got placed under arrest. However, if you do, you say nothing. You tell them you just want your lawyer, then you call Saul Goodman. And do I need to state the obvious? I was not here."

"You," He pointed at Charlie whilst grabbing the cordless phone and holding it out to her. "Put on a long sleeved shirt and cover those track marks on your arm. It's better if the female calls – the operators are more likely to convert to shock tactics instead of investigation once they hear her panicking. Now – one more time: You two came home, ignored the smell for a night, then knocked on her door this morning when it got worse. You looked inside her window, saw the body and called. That's all you know."

Charlie took the phone from him, tiny fingers trembling as she sniffled a bit. Mike touched her gently on the shoulder, able to see – from his own personal traumas – that Charlie had been through a great many ordeals. Just like Tuco had been able to, he could see a certain darkness in her sunken eyes that revealed a large amount of hurt that had built up over the years. It wasn't the first time she had dealt with a drug related death; that much he could tell. Gus had already told him a fair bit about Jesse and Charlie, and judging on their relationship, they were all they had left in the world.

"Count down from 20," Mike told her softly. "And then you dial."

He left the duffle bag in the corner of the room, doing one last look around to make sure that there were no more baggies hiding around anywhere that may have been able to reveal the couples drug habits.

"Hang tough you two," Mike assured, exited the complex. "You're in the home stretch."

After the nameless man's departure, Charlie did his bidding and waited twenty seconds, leading her forehead against Jesse's and trying to collect herself, before dialing 911. It wasn't difficult to act out panic, as Charlie was still suffering from the initial reaction and shock of seeing Jane's body, so instead of trying to calm herself down, Charlie let herself get worked up. The operator, just as the man dressed in black had assumed, reverted to a shock tactic and tried to calm Charlie down whilst gathering information from her. The tiny girl repeated exactly what had been recited to her three times as Jesse sat in one of his chairs, rubbing his face repeatedly with his hands.

"Ma'am, we've got an ambulance on the way," The operator tried to assure her once Charlie had given all the necessary information on the phone. "We need you to stay calm – is there anybody else in the house?"

"Y-yes," Charlie looked over at Jesse, who had perked up at the operator's question. "My boyfriend."

"Okay, we need you to both stay where you are," Nothing changed in the woman's tone as she continued to speak with Charlie, who had gotten a little calmer. "Our Medical Team will speak with you once the ambulance gets there."

There was a faint squeaking of tires as a car was heard pulling up in front of the duplex, and Charlie peeked out the window to see a large ambulance stopped on the sidewalk. At the same time, a white car pulled up at sat facing the ambulance for several minutes before a timid-looking man clambered out, shocked to see the ambulance. He questioned the EMTs, who were in the process of dragging a stretcher out of the back, and upon hearing a response, stumbled back a few feet in surprise. Charlie quickly deduced that this man must have been Jane's father. She had heard a few things about the man, but had never met him in person, and could imagine somewhat of what he was feeling at the moment. Charlie had had almost everyone close to her die due to drug related issues, so it was easy for her to relate to the loss of a loved one.

"They're here," She spoke into the phone, voice cracking. Jesse quickly threw a coat over the large brown duffle bag containing most of the evidence inside, and went to grab two long sleeved shirts for him and Charlie whilst the emergency medical team gathered their supplies.

"Alright," The woman on the phone replied. "I'm going to hang up – make sure to tell the people you talk to that you've been on the phone until now, alright?"

"Okay."

There was a beep, and as soon as Jesse saw her discard the phone he shoved her into the long sleeved shirt. Still pants-less, Charlie seemed to still be mildly affected by the shock, so Jesse opened the door when the knocking was heard. He was greeted by 3 EMTs; two men, who asked about the location of the body, and a woman with a clipboard who needed to know further information about his discovery of the body. A fourth man, who had identified himself as the father of the victim but seemed to have fallen under shock, followed the EMTs into Jane's apartment. The woman stood on the porch, listening to Jesse's perfectly recited story whilst he held his dazed girlfriend in his arms.

"We came home late last night – it smelt pretty bad but we turned on the ventilator and ignored it," Jesse muttered. "It was still bad this morning, so we knocked on both her doors to let her know."

"She didn't respond," Charlie butted in, finally making eye contact with the woman and heaving an unsteady breath. "We kept on knocking until we looked in the back window a-and…"

"Ok," The woman jotted the rest down, already having been told that Jane had owned the duplex and had been renting it out to Charlie and Jesse. "And her date of birth?"

"April 4th, 1982," Jane's father appeared at the door, capable of answering the question.

"And mother's maiden name and place of birth?"

"My mother?" The man didn't fully grasp the question, perhaps partially due to his shock.

"Your daughter's mother," The worker clarified.

"Bishop."

"And place of birth?"

"Phoenix."

"This is our card," The woman handed a slip of paper to him after several more seconds of writing. "Do you have someone who can drive you?"

"I can drive." The man assured.

"Well," She continued. "If you'd like to meet us there, we can complete the intake and take our samples, and then you can make your arrangements. Okay?"

The man was silent, but the woman didn't press it and instead turned to Charlie and Jesse. "Will you two need cards? Will you all be coming?"

Jesse shook his head, speaking for both him and Charlie. The man, who seemed as if he was going to speak, was quickly interrupted as the EMTs carrying the stretcher of his daughter's dead body rolled past him and down the front porch steps. He and the Medical Informations Team representative followed them into the ambulance, where the doors were shut once Jane was loaded inside, and prepared for takeoff.

"That could have been you," Jesse muttered as they watched Jane's body being carted away. The tiny girl didn't say anything, but held back her tears whilst fingering her hospital bracelet. Jane's death was merely another convincing factor to get clean, and reminded her that each time she had injected, she had been dancing with death itself. After the ambulance had driven away as well as Jane's father, Charlie turned towards Jesse and enveloped him as best she could in a hug, which he returned and pulled her as close to him as humanly possible. "That could have been my Charlie."

The two stayed on the porch for a while, smoking and trying to remove the tremendous incident from their minds before proceeding inside where Charlie turned on the TV and began to cook dinner. Jesse opened a beer and tried to relax himself, thanking the skies one last time that Charlie had been lucky enough to survive her overdose. And, just as if a certain someone had been thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time, Jesse's phone rang and flashed Mr. White's caller ID. Jesse sighed deeply before answering, about ready to explode after the day's worth of events.

"Hey," He began, knowing what Walter was going to ask first. "It went fine."

"Did the police come?"

"No," Jesse shook his head. "Whoever Saul sent – that bald guy – said that OD's aren't high priority. It was just EMTs."

"Well," Jesse heard a sigh of relief on the older man's end. "Good. Good – how about the money?"

"It's safe," The younger boy glanced at the large lump underneath the coat, which hid four hundred and eighty thousand dollars as well as any incriminating evidence. "So is the evidence."

"And Charlie?" Mr. White pressed. "How are you two holding up?"

Jesse was surprised to hear that amount of concern from his business partner, but reassured him that they were both fine and were planning on heading to bed early after such a stressful day. Mr. White however, further tried to insist upon Jesse that it was probably a good idea to send Charlie straight to rehabilitation in the morning, but Jesse fought against him once more, reminding him that he didn't know everything about Charlie and that he should have a little more faith in his ex-students. So, with a final thank you and a goodbye, the two signed off for the evening with the promise of getting in contact soon when Mr. White made further contact with Gus.

Jesse lit a cigarette as soon as he hung up, offering one to Charlie, who had just finished making chicken for him. He managed to feed her several bites before finishing it himself, and noticed that his brain became a lot more active with the extra nutrition. Many thoughts came to his mind, several of which were about moving he and Charlie's location once more so that they would have a safer home life and be rid of the negative thoughts associated with this location. Jesse thought for a long while, considering the fact that this had been their second move and that the first transition had been hard enough as it was. Aunt Ginny's house had a lot of horrible memories associated with it despite Charlie's love for the place, especially with Emilio and Krazy 8 that had been disembodied on site, and now in Jane's duplex there had been an overdose that hit even closer to home. He didn't want to put Charlie through any more stresses, but the fact was that this house now had a lot of horrible memories within it, and after Charlie's overdose and Jane's death, he figured that starting new would be more emotionally beneficial for them. So, with a last puff of his smoke, he proposed his idea to his loving counterpart.

"Charlie?"

"Mm?"

"Let's move."