Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

August 1992

“I fail to see why you, Howard, need to be involved in the interviewing of candidates for a position in the mail room. Surely your time could be spent in more fruitful pursuits. The mail room can handle the mail room, don’t you think?”

“Father, this firm needs to be more considerate of its employees of all stripes. I don’t know why you can’t see that. No, don’t interrupt me, Father, I won’t let you talk me out of this one. I’m a partner here too, now, and I have equal say in how this firm is run. And this is something I find worthwhile.”

“Someday...someday you’re going to see that there’s only so much time in the course of a business day, and that decisions must be made about how to spend that time. And those decisions cannot be made…idealistically. They must be made practically. Still, I won’t stop you. I hope you enjoy your conversations with the fascinating people you are sure to meet in the…mail room application process."

“Oh, I assure you I will.”

Howard did, in fact, enjoy his conversations with the applicants. His life was so insular, mostly isolated from people whose annual incomes were less than $100,000, and it frankly made him want to tear his hair out at times. About once a month, he’d go to McDonald’s or Los Pollos Hermanos and simply watch the clientele, immersing himself in something…different. (Even if he couldn’t quite bear to eat the fast food.)

This particular applicant, in fact…well. He was very much enjoying his conversation with her. Kimberly Wexler, the final candidate. The other interviews had spanned 15 minutes each, but he’d already been talking to Kim for half an hour. Everything about her was fascinating, from her law school goals to her personal history: the way she’d struck out on her own, forging her own path and resisting what the fates seemed to have determined for her.

Howard could only dream of having such courage.

“And when exactly, Kim, did you decide that the law was the right profession for you?” he asked, feeling his face settling deeper and deeper into an enduring smile. He was thoroughly enjoying every answer she offered; he could listen to her talk for hours, and she seemed to have eased into the conversation. She seemed comfortable with him. It was gratifying.

Kim thought for a moment, and then smiled softly to herself. “If I’m being honest, it may have been my mother’s doing. But...not necessarily in a good way. She taught me to be mistrustful of authority, to subvert it. And for a long time...well, I thought she was right."

She was lost in thought for a spell, and then returned from her mental digression. "But when I was old enough to make sense of the kind of life she had chosen to lead, and when I began to envision something else for myself, I became drawn, more and more, to…justice.” She quirked up a reflective eyebrow. “I guess I should be interested more in the prosecutory aspect of the law, given that description. But I’m so much more drawn to defense. You know, I guess I’m more like my mother than I usually admit. I do try to subvert authority, but only unjust authority. My mother…she stood up to the powers-that-be by trying to cheat the system. I intend to do it by working with the system. Helping to steer people back on the right path, using the tools that the legal system has given us…”

Kim looked up suddenly, straight into Howard’s eyes. “Wow. That got…a little personal.” She laughed nervously.

Howard chuckled and shook his head, putting up a hand. “Not at all, Kim, it’s fascinating. I’m very impressed with the trajectory on which you have taken your life." He folded his hands again. "Can you tell me more about your goals as a defense attorney?”

She dove right back into it, bright-eyed and animated. She already knew so much about the law; she was an autodidact, clearly, and she'd learned it all even without having finished her undergraduate degree yet.

He watched her, letting her words wash over him.

He wondered if anyone else would be able to tell that her suit was secondhand. He could, of course, but it only added to her charm. Howard had been raised to be a snob — and he was, of course — but he was an equal-opportunity snob, as willing to look down on the pretentious as the crass. 

Not that her suit was crass; it was lovely. It didn’t fit quite right, but it was a good suit, one he would have considered the height of female business fashion three years ago. Her hair was pulled into a half-updo, blonde locks falling onto her shoulders. Her makeup was subtle, but well done — not that that should matter. He’d taken a women’s studies course as an undergraduate, and he was quite sympathetic to the idea that it was mightily unfair that women were expected to do themselves up in the workplace in ways that men were not. But such was the way; he attempted to compensate for it by doing himself up as much as possible. As an equalizer. Howard adjusted his pocket square.

Her lipstick shade was very flattering: not too dark, but not so light that it washed her lips out. Her lips… They were lovely…

He realized that he’d lost track of what she was saying. Refocusing on her face, he saw her take the briefest glance down at her wristwatch.

He processed it all in a heartbeat: She’s not going to work here. It’s not enough money. She has to save up for an entire law school tuition, and she wants it to happen fast.

Howard cleared his throat. “Um. Hem. Kim, you know…” 

He really didn’t know what he planned to say. He took a moment to formulate his thoughts. He was impeccable at readjusting his ideas on the fly; nevertheless, he preferred to know what was about to come out of his mouth before he said it. He couldn’t improvise word by word, but rather beat by beat. He smoothed out an imaginary napkin on his desk.

“You know, Kim, we have a scholarship program for promising young people who are just starting out in their legal studies."

He held his breath, feeling a heady rush. The thrill of taking action.

“Really?” she said, looking up. “I had no idea.” She frowned in curiosity. “I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about it. I’ve been looking into programs like that, and I would have thought I’d have encountered it in my search.”

Blast.

Howard restructured his thoughts again. “Well, in all honesty, it’s not one hundred percent off the ground yet. It’s been in discussion.”

In discussion. That was a bit of a stretch, but it wasn’t an outright lie. Howard had floated the idea all the way back in his law school days, as he watched the less wealthy members of his class drop out as they became unable to keep up with the payments. His father, of course, had been highly dismissive.

“Yes,” said Howard, with determination. “Yes, it’s happening. Frankly, I think the other partners have been waiting for the right test case, if you will. It is my position, if I may be so bold, that you just might be the right one.”

“Mr. Hamlin! This…”

“Howard. Please.”

“Howard, this is incredible. What makes you think that…” Something passed over her face, something with the barest hint of darkness in it. Something that was almost akin to suspicion.

But it passed. “What makes you think that I would be the right candidate?” 

Howard sighed and smiled ruefully. “You know who my father is. As such, I’ve been around lawyers my whole life. I know who would make a good one and who would make a bad one; call it a gift. And you, Kim, have what it takes to be a fantastic lawyer. I’m looking at your résumé and your personal statement, and from what I can see, you’ve done an incredible job making the most of every situation you’ve been given. Kim…” Howard rose, back straight, holding out his hand. “Would you like to be the first recipient of the Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill Educational Grant?”

Kim looked up at him with wide, bewildered eyes. “So…does that mean I have the mail room job?”

Right. Howard had almost forgotten what she was actually applying for. 

“Yes! Yes, Kim, indeed you do. Of course you do. Can you start Monday?”

Kim took his hand and stood up. “Yes, I am absolutely free. I am absolutely available. Absolutely.” She winced at her third use of the word, which was charming. Her hand was soft and tingly; her handshake was firm.

“Excellent. If you pay a visit to Maude just outside, she’ll get you set up with the paperwork.”

“Howard…thank you so much.” Kim looked like there was more she wanted to say, wanting to ask for more details about the scholarship, but she didn’t want to seem overeager. 

Howard took the reins. Despite his misgivings, he felt reasonably confident that he could convince his father of the merits of the program.

“I’ll be speaking to the other partners about your receipt of the educational grant this very afternoon. I’m sure there will be no trouble about it.”

“Thank you...so, so much!” Kim said, her eyes shining.

That smile…he’d never seen anything like it.

“...and what better recipient than Miss Wexler? Ms. Wexler?” Howard ended his pitch to his fellow partners, after a barrage of words that he couldn’t bear to stop, lest Chuck or his father take the opportunity to interject. He had stood up at some point, and was talking with his hands far more than he usually did.

George Hamlin was shaking his head. Chuck remained enigmatic, looking down at the desk with his fingertips steepled against his chin.

“The nerve of you,” George said, finally. Softly. (He’d never needed to raise his voice to spit his bile.) “You offered this to her already. It’s done? Just like that. No discussion, no concurrence. How much is this going to cost the firm, Howard? That question is rhetorical, by the way. We both know how much, given the fact that I rather recently paid for your law degree.”

Howard pursed his lips, carefully sculpting his ire into a coherent argument. “Hear me out. I’ve brought this up before. I never stopped thinking it was a good idea, so I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Think about it: it will be beneficial for the firm’s PR if we take on some apprentices, the less fortunate members of society who would make excellent lawyers, if only they had the money to afford the education. This is good, this is an opportunity for us—”

“Howard, we nixed this years ago. What we had potentially landed on, in a hypothetical capacity, was the potential of offering a scholarship program — not a full tuition scholarship, mind you — to promising youth. High school students.”

Howard glanced to Chuck, who remained silent, his eyes shifting from father to son and back. Howard swallowed and pressed on. “Certainly, that was discussed, but did anything ever happen with it? It did not. And I stand by full scholarships being on the table, whether for youth or adults; if we only offer a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, the only kids who'd be eligible would be the ones who are already privileged, already able to afford most of the tuition on their own. It’s not enough, Father, and I’ve always felt that we should be doing more to—”

“It’s far less money and it sounds better on paper." George leaned forward, grimacing. "It's times like this that I wish we hadn't banned smoking in the building. Look, son: you want to talk PR? People like teenagers. They like kids. They don’t like washed-up wastrels who couldn’t get themselves together enough to go to law school when it was their time.”

“Pardon me, Father, but I…” He rolled his eyes internally, as he did every time he heard himself say “Father.” It sounded like the 1850s. His lip twitched, but he continued. “...washed-up? She’s 24. Solely through her own mettle, she scraped together enough money to attend college. True, she started at 20 instead of 18…or 16, or whenever you and Chuck started college, prodigies that you were… And she’s on track to finish her degree a semester early, mind you, even while working full-time and pursuing her education through correspondence, which must contain its own set of unique challenges. Even without this scholarship, she might enter law school at…what, age 28? This is not an unreasonable time for a person to begin their advanced education, Father. Nor is age 38, or 48, or 88. Just because you—”

George held out a hand for silence, and looked hard at his son. “Cut the crap, Howard, and tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

There was that look. He’d gotten this same look on his face the night Howard had brought home Tiffany Gallucci for dinner during his third summer home from boarding school. George Hamlin had very definite ideas about the kind of woman his son should be interested in.

George gave him a withering look. “You met this girl today, correct, Howard?”

“‘Girl,’ Father? You’re calling her a ‘girl’?” Howard laughed out loud. “Which is she…a child, or washed-up and too old for law school? I’m confused here.”

"Can she possibly mean this much to you? This...individual?” he asked, indicating Kim's résumé. George’s face was steely.

Howard stood tall and adjusted his jacket. “I refuse to confirm or deny whatever imputations you may be making. I think that—”

Finally, George stood up and leaned over the conference table. "If you're thinking at all, it's not with your head, and I would advise you to wise up before you—"

They were interrupted by a brisk, modest cough. Howard swung his head around; he'd almost forgotten about the other party in the room.

“If I may interject,” Chuck said, “This line of questioning seems not entirely relevant to our current purposes." He looked up at the Hamlins with eyebrows half-raised in what could only be called critical amusement. Howard's neck felt uncomfortably hot.

Chuck continued. "I believe that we have already come to an agreement here, an agreement that seems fair to all parties. Ms. Wexler will be our initial recipient. I see no need to rescind an offer that has been made in good faith, to a candidate who seems quite keen and capable. In the future, however, it will indeed be more cost-effective and marketable to do a complete overhaul and implement a more limited scholarship program for young people who are still in high school. I suggest we take our time in green-lighting this program, however. We’ll form an exploratory committee to work out the potential complications. How does this sound to you?”

Howard breathed into his deflation. He knew this tone of voice. Chuck would make the process take so very long that it would, for all intents and purposes, never happen. It would remain in the "exploratory committee" phase indefinitely, and while Chuck would make approving noises about it sometimes, it would never actually happen.

Well. At least Howard had secured a position, and a grant, for a candidate who seemed to be highly qualified. And vibrant, and charming, and…

Howard blinked several times, regulating his heartbeat, smoothing out the knot in his gut. Surely the feeling would pass.

“And now, if we are in agreement,” continued Chuck, “I’d like to move on to the other matter on the agenda. My brother. Now, I’ve explained his situation to you both, and frankly I would understand if you have reservations about his—”

“Hire him,” Howard said, his words clipped. He was in high dudgeon, and was not to be deterred. “I’m sure he’ll be a great asset to the firm. We need a little unconventionality around here.”

Chuck looked to the senior Hamlin, eyebrows raised. George shrugged and sat back in his chair. “Makes no difference to me. Whatever makes you happy, son,” he said, tilting his chin up at Howard.

Howard barked out a single laugh. The amount of bullshit he had heard from this man over the course of his lifetime could fill a Rolodex.

Chuck’s younger brother charmed Howard immediately. He had a rascally persona, as Chuck had said he would, but he was far more likable than Chuck had led anyone to believe. While Howard didn’t imagine they could ever be friends, he could envision popping down to the mail room from time to time and sharing a laugh with Jimmy McGill, possibly even at his older brother’s expense, when the stick up Chuck’s rear was particularly prominent.

But he refrained from saying as much in the interview. Because even as he had the instinct to say it — the instinct that told him that it would soften up the nerves that were clearly jangling throughout Jimmy’s body — he could tell that Jimmy was clearly in awe of his brother. Howard didn't want to offend him.

So he kept it inside. Kept it formal. But he reserved the right to loosen up his manner with Jimmy at some point. Surely it must happen eventually. Jimmy was an engaging guy, and Howard believed himself to be a good sport.

After the interview ended, with Jimmy pumping his hand enthusiastically, so much so that Howard couldn’t help grinning and patting him on the back, Howard trotted down to the mail room, as he’d done much more often these days.

“Kim!”

“Hi, Howard! What’s up?”

“Well, we did it. We’re hiring Chuck’s younger brother.”

“Really? That’s actually happening?” Kim made a mock-nervous grimace. “I’m gonna have to really be on my toes, I guess. Anyone related to Chuck is gonna be a stickler for following the rules to the letter, I’m guessing.” Then she furrowed her brow. “Not that I don’t already, of course…”

Howard laughed and patted her arm genially. “You have nothing to worry about, Kim. Not only are you doing an impeccable job, but Jimmy McGill…well, he doesn’t seem to have quite the same disposition as our esteemed Chuck. I doubt you’ll have any trouble with him. Actually, I think you’ll quite like him. I believe I do.”

“Oh!” Kim smiled pleasantly. “Well then, yes, I’m sure I will, too.” She took a breath and sighed into her mail cart. “Well, I’d better…get back to my sorting.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll see you on your rounds.”

“Sure thing. 2:20 on the dot, I’ll be there!”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Howard said, smiling broadly before turning and striding away.

I wouldn’t miss it for the world? Was that too much?

No, no, he was fine. It was a perfectly respectable thing to say to an employee.

To Kim.

He had a spring in his step as he bounded up the stairs.

Chapter Text

November 1992

Jimmy, of course, turned out to be an excellent worker. He was perfectly suited to a job such as this; Chuck had been right to bring him on. It was unlikely he’d ever rise any higher in life, of course, but this had been a fine decision.

One fall day, Howard heard him in the vestibule complimenting Maude’s lovely earrings (he really did have quite a way with the older ladies). Jimmy had a bit of a tendency to linger and chat with everyone, but he managed to get all his work done with time to spare, so Howard didn’t mind. And sometimes Howard wasn’t opposed to joining in on the Jimmy McGill Social Hour. 

Howard called out from his desk. “Charlie Hustle! There he is.” Howard left his desk and leaned on his doorframe convivially, before realizing he didn’t have anything scintillating to say at the moment. So he stuck to business. “I was wondering if there’s been any sign of the Buchanan discovery documents that we’re expecting.”

“No!” Jimmy said, animatedly, and Howard was once again impressed with how much passion he seemed to put into the firm’s affairs, despite not having any real investment in the cases. “No, I’ve been looking out for them too. All that paperwork, I know you guys need it so you can…discover things. I’m holding my breath right alongside you. I know how important that shit is — pardon my French, that stuff.” Jimmy bowed nobly to a simpering Maude.

Howard laughed. “That’s all right. I speak some, ah, 'French' myself, sometimes. As does Maude, if I’m not mistaken.” Maude raised her eyebrows in mischievous admission. “At any rate, I appreciate your eagle eye, Jimmy.”

Jimmy made a sweeping, grandiose gesture with his hands. “That’s me. Eagle-eye mailman.” For a moment, Howard wondered if Jimmy could possibly be sincere. Could anyone be this keenly devoted to a mail room job?

He’s devoted to his brother, Howard reminded himself.

“Well, dearest Maude, I must away to my rounds,” said Jimmy. “You’re not hiding those documents from me, are you, dear?”

“I would never hide anything from you, Jimmy!” she said.

“That’s my girl,” Jimmy said, winking at her, and he turned to leave. “Catch you later, Howard.”

“You know,” said Howard, amusing himself, “Maybe the papers were stolen by pirates who thought they were labeled for the Buccaneers.”

Jimmy looked blankly at him. “Huh?”

“Oh. Buccaneers, instead of…Buchanan.”

“Oh. Right. Sounds similar,” Jimmy said. “Good pun.” He shot some good-natured finger guns at Howard, although there was a subtle, internal glance that Jimmy gave himself that suggested that Jimmy didn’t actually think the pun was any good at all.

“Well…thanks,” Howard said again.

Jimmy tipped an invisible hat to Maude, who beamed at him, and then left the office to return to his mail cart. Howard stood in his doorway, watching him go.

It was all right. They didn’t need to be friends or anything.

Jimmy was leafing through the envelopes in the cart, bending over intently, when Kim appeared nearby; Howard could see her through the still-open door. 

Damn. 

He felt a pang of annoyance and regret that he hadn’t seen her before he’d seen Jimmy, and had thus wasted an opportunity to ask her about the Buchanan papers. His interactions with Kim never failed to be delightful. She would have liked his pun.

The way she looked at Howard…well. He wasn’t sure. It might be mere gratitude at the fact that he — that the firm — was paying her way through law school, or at least, they would be when she got accepted (when, not if). They had already given her an advance on her application fees. So yes, it might just be appreciation, but Howard couldn’t shake the sensation that there might be more behind her eyes when she looked at him.

He tried to manufacture a reason to call her in. There really was nothing reasonable, and he felt Maude’s eyes darting up to him.

“Howie, dear, do you need something?” she asked. Howard barely heard her.

Maybe, well…maybe he could ask her how her LSAT studying was going. Never mind the fact that he had just asked her about it on Monday, and there was no reason to assume anything drastic had changed since Monday…

Before he could come to a decision, Kim sidled up to Jimmy, who hadn’t seen her there yet, as engrossed as he was with his envelope search.

She…oh.

She tickled his waist. 

Oh.

Jimmy let out an abbreviated yelp. He turned around, eyes wide with feverish excitement, like a puppy whose master had just come home. Ready to play. His eyes focused on Kim as he looked at her with amazement — amazement! How could that be? He must have just seen her half an hour previously, down in the mail room. And yet he looked like he had just found god or discovered the sun.

Jimmy made a growly face, wiggling his fingertips at her. “You little—” Jimmy said, screechily, and then, in a lower voice, “I’ll get you for that.”

“Bet you can’t,” Kim replied, and she leapt back, giggling delightedly as he swept at her, but then he made a second pass and his hand landed at her waist for just a moment as they locked eyes and she arched her back into his touch. Kim’s face was turned just enough that Howard could see her in profile.

So that’s what Kim’s infatuated face looked like. Not the way she looked at himself. The way she looked at Jimmy. There was no other possible interpretation of that look.

The moment was over almost before it began; Jimmy’s hand didn’t linger, and they moved away with the clear intention of returning to their assignments, although their eyes stayed glued to each other even as they began to move along.

Howard flinched; he felt sour and petulant.

“Jimmy? Kim?” Howard found the words leaving his mouth before he’d made a plan. Again. He was only this incautious and impulsive when it came to Kim.

Their faces snapped to his, guiltily. They’d done nothing wrong, of course; plenty of people displayed a reasonable amount of physical familiarity with each other at work, as per the employee Code of Conduct. He had told himself as much multiple times, and had pored over the Code of Conduct studiously once, after he had reached out to pat Kim’s shoulder and then had a moment of discomfort about it. No, he had reassured himself, gentle touches of encouragement were allowed. As were office relationships, if declared to HR.

If declared to HR…

Howard found his face unable to summon anything except frosty stoniness as he walked to the door and looked from one deer-in-the-headlights face to the other.

“Just as a reminder, office relationships must be declared to the Human Resources department. Otherwise, keep it professional.” He sniffed. “Back to work.” He turned on his heel and returned all the way into his office, past Maude, leaving Jimmy and Kim looking chastened and ill at ease.

Well. Now Jimmy would have to admit to her that he didn’t want a relationship, and that would be the end of that. 

Sure, Jimmy was a fun guy to have around, but Kim could do a lot better. Howard was doing her a favor.

December 1992

The Christmas party (holiday party, Howard corrected himself) was being hosted on the mail room floor this year; the different floors of the firm took turns hosting, in contrast to their usual “night out at a restaurant” celebrations that took place at other times during the year. He wasn’t sure how the tradition had started, but so it was.

Jimmy seemed to have been the ringleader in the festive decorations. It was a fascinating mix of the incredibly tasteful (the holly swags on the walls) and the garish and gaudy (the dancing Santas on every table). Somehow, he made it work.

Howard hadn’t detected any additional signs of excessive familiarity between Jimmy and Kim, but he nevertheless scanned the room to see where both parties were when he entered. Kim was talking to Jessamyn, a newly hired young attorney, and Jimmy was chatting with a small group of people while refilling the punch bowl, which had apparently been depleted once already. Howard, of course, had still been working.

Howard skipped the punch, opting instead for the seltzer he’d brought from his office. He positioned himself strategically so that he’d be conveniently placed to take Jessamyn’s place when she finished her conversation with Kim. And it worked swimmingly: he slid right in when Jessamyn went off to get a drink, and even though Kim cast her eyes around the room expectantly before falling into conversation with him, their conversation was easy as ever.

“I know, intellectually, that poli-sci is a smart precursor to a law degree,” she was now saying, “and I like the legal-adjacent courses, but to be honest, I find politics mind-numbing.”

“I know exactly what you mean, Kim,” he said, feeling a familiar sluggish disinterest manifest in his sense memory. “I had the same feelings.”

“Really!” Kim got a mildly teasing expression on her face. “You know you would’ve made a great politician, though. You’ve got the look, the mannerisms, the cheeriness…I can just imagine you on the campaign trail.”

He almost asked her what a politician’s “look” entailed, but contented himself with the fact that it was presumably positive. It was quietly thrilling to know that she was thinking about his looks, in any capacity…

Howard had no expectations about the night, but he couldn’t help being glad that his father had decided to skip the party this year, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with the third degree. Just on the off chance…

On the off chance…anything happened. Anything at all.

Kim laughed. What had he just said? Apparently it had been funny. That laugh…

There’s simply no one like her…

“KARAOKE!”

Howard was rocketed out of the amiable flow of conversation with Kim by the voice of (who else) Jimmy McGill. He’d jumped up onto a chair — a spinning chair — and was balancing himself carefully as the chair rocked and repositioned itself under him. “We…are doing…karaoke. It’s happening, folks. The place is here and the time is now.”

Howard wondered how he was going to pull off karaoke without a karaoke machine, but apparently Jimmy had flexible requirements for what this particular art form entailed. There was a boombox stored in the supply closet, and Jimmy had brought his collection of mix tapes with songs he’d taped off the radio. In lieu of a microphone, he grabbed a plastic spoon and held it aloft.

Howard looked down at Kim’s face; their conversation was clearly over. She looked breathless with anticipation at what Jimmy might sing first. Howard pushed down a surge of annoyance.

But Jimmy chose to pass the “mic” to someone else first; to Howard’s surprise, his own secretary Maude got up and began to sing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” in a raucous belt. The older woman’s voice was cigarette-burned and throaty, but it was a spirited, go-getting performance. Howard tried to enjoy it thoroughly, putting a broad smile on his face as Jimmy settled himself in next to Kim and whispered in her ear, showing her three of his mix tapes. Kim looked at him, and then shook her head. He made a pouting, pleading face at her, but she shook her head again, and he shrugged with a lopsided grin.

Good, then.

Jimmy then pounced on his next target: his brother. Chuck put on a show of reluctance, but Howard knew that both brothers were ultimately unable to resist showing off.

When Maude finished, to whooping and wolf whistles, Jimmy hopped back into the center of the room, where he’d set up the boombox. He retrieved the spoon and made his announcement.

“Next up, folks, we have a duet, I repeat, a duet. Between whom, you ask? It’s between your esteemed legal partner Chuck McGill and the black sheep of the family, the intellectual runt of the McGill litter…myself, Jimmy McGill!”

They sang the old song “Moses Supposes” as Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly had sung it in Singin’ in the Rain. Jimmy took O’Connor’s part, of course, not that it made that much difference for this song.

Howard folded his arms and smiled. It was nice to see the brothers so in sync. He really couldn’t make sense of their relationship, which was less overtly adversarial than his own with his father, but with an underlying layer of unspoken discord that Howard could never quite pin down the nature of (even as it unnerved him).

They sang, loud and peppy:

Mose is a mose is a mose is a moses

A rose is a rose is a rose is a roses

Couldn't be a lily or a daffy, daffy dilly

It's gotta be a rose 'cause it rhymes with Mose

They even attempted a modified version of the tap dance from the movie; they had the distinct air of an instructor and a student, and Chuck had clearly helped Jimmy learn the dance in their childhood. Well, Jimmy’s childhood. They’d barely ever been children together. Jimmy kept glancing at Chuck’s feet to remind himself of the steps.

It really was quite charming.

He turned to say as much to Kim, but was stopped by the look on her face.

There it was again. The infatuation. Howard zipped his lips and smoothed out his suit jacket. 

Apparently it wouldn’t have mattered if his father was here after all.

Howard watched the next few singers with detached geniality, declining Jimmy’s entreaty to perform himself (Howard had a fine voice, in fact, but he had nothing to prove), before realizing that Kim had gone rummaging through Jimmy’s tapes and selected one, brought it to him, and apparently astonished him with her choice. Howard couldn’t hear their conversation, but Jimmy’s response to her song choice was something along the lines of “really, this one?” And then Kim nodded.

Well. Apparently they were going to sing a duet.

The time had come for a drink. Howard visited the punch bowl.

Jimmy wasn’t able to manage a theatrical introduction for them; he just brought Kim to the center of the room and started fast-forwarding the tape to the song Kim had chosen, having to stop and start the tape multiple times to locate it. Conversations had begun to pop up during the preceding performances, but now that Jimmy was getting back up there, people quieted down again. Jimmy, of course, could be counted on to put on a good show.

Howard glanced at Chuck, whose mouth twitched in quasi-fond amusement at his younger brother. Usually Howard had the urge to defend Jimmy against Chuck’s deprecation; at this very moment, he felt inclined to remind Chuck of his brother’s failings.

The unmistakable opening riff of a recognizable song began to play. Kim brought her hand to her eyes momentarily, then down to her mouth, and then she steeled herself and held her plastic spoon like a microphone.

Howard knew this song, of course; everyone did. What was it called again? That Meatloaf song…

“Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”

Yes. That one. 

Howard’s face was frozen in a smile of ice as it began, with Jimmy taking the first verse.

Well I remember every little thing

As if it happened only yesterday

Parking by the lake

And there was not another car in sight

He was a dreadful singer; it was even more pronounced on this song that in the previous one, and Howard felt his eyebrow raise in smug superiority. But he couldn’t deny that Jimmy was fun to watch. Or would have been, if Howard’s critical faculties hadn’t been somewhat compromised by the identity of Jimmy’s duet partner.

And now our bodies are oh so close and tight

It never felt so good, it never felt so right

Howard forced his eyebrow to return to a neutral position. At this point, to his astonishment, Kim joined in with a harmony:

And we're glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife

Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife

Howard wouldn’t have expected Kim to go through with this, but such, apparently, was the allure of Jimmy McGill. Even now, watching her, he could tell that she was self-conscious and tense.

But she was happy to be singing with Jimmy.

Surely just as a friend…really, Kim, you can’t be…

It was fascinating, he noted: they weren’t in tune with the song, but they were in perfect harmony relative to each other’s (incorrect) pitch.

They sang together:

Ain't no doubt about it we were doubly blessed

'Cause we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed

Classy. Really classy song, this one.

There was a fair amount of clapping and titillated laughter from those who were paying attention, which was almost everyone. Chuck wasn’t doing anything so uncouth as synchronized clapping, but his head nodded to the beat of the song. Howard thought he saw Chuck’s eyes dart inquiringly in Howard’s direction, but he might have imagined it. 

The song was practically interminable. It was over eight minutes long, as Howard remembered from his high school days when he and Tiffany had sung it together in her car the year it was released. This promised to be a long eight minutes.

Oh, and then there was the whole part with the crudest baseball metaphor in history; they'd just gotten to that part. Jimmy and Kim were cracking up hopelessly, they couldn’t get through it at all. Their laughter was infectious (to everyone else). Howard reminded his body to move occasionally, so as not to look like a department store mannequin. At one point, Jimmy's baseball announcer commentary was so ridiculously over-the-top that Kim covered her face and then looked straight at Howard, shrugging at him — a "what's going on" shrug. Howard rallied and gave her a smile and a nod. You've got this.

Kim had a captivating solo part next: her voice was pitchy, but she sang with determination and intention, just as she did with everything else in her life. As she sang, she swept her loose hair up into a ponytail, the first time he'd seen it like that. It made his heart do something entirely new.

And then…hm. Howard remembered the content of the final verse before it arrived:

So now I'm praying for the end of time

To hurry up and arrive

'Cause if I gotta spend another minute with you

I don't think that I can really survive

Dark stuff, that. Howard cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, interested to see how they’d approach it.

Jimmy and Kim turned to each other dramatically and dove into it:

“So now I’m…”

Kim actually got all the way to “end of” before she cut out, but Jimmy’s voice had already faltered. They were staring into each other’s eyes, chests rising and falling from performance exertion (or, Howard’s brain nudged him, intense emotion), and they couldn’t sing the disdainful words to each other. 

The moment lasted a very long time in Howard’s mind. But in reality, it was only a second or two before Jimmy had grabbed Kim’s spoon and redistributed it, and his own, to the onlookers. In fact, he emptied the bag of plastic spoons and tossed them to the crowd, shouting, “Microphones for everyone!” Kim was smiling gratefully behind him, two fingers grazing her chin.

Karaoke was over after that.

In the minutes that followed, during which Jimmy looked regretful about the spoon frenzy and tried to round them up (with Howard stooping to help him), Howard realized that he could no longer locate Kim in the crowd. He’d hoped to compliment her on her performance, to tell her she’d shone up there. Because she had.

But she was nowhere to be found.

And by the time the spoons had been collected and tossed in a plastic bin for subsequent washing, Jimmy had vanished as well.

It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it?

Some time later, when Kim reappeared from somewhere upstairs, she looked very put together, but with a deep flush on her face and a look of utter complacency. Jimmy, for his part, was a mess when he emerged approximately 45 seconds after her. Tie askew, fly undone, expression wild. Kim looked back at him and nodded down to his fly. He made a face like a gerbil and pulled it back up.

Charlie Hustle indeed.

There was a wild moment when Howard thought about dragging out a printed copy of the Code of Conduct and throwing it in their faces again, but he stopped himself.

Unwise, Howard Hamlin.

It would pass. There was no possible way this could turn into a long-term relationship.

He watched carefully to see if they’d leave together. And while they shared a number of significant glances for the rest of the party, Jimmy left first — rather early, to be honest. Howard saw Kim look at Jimmy curiously, mouth open, head tilted, as though she was about to ask him something, and then she gave him a little wave as he said goodbye to the whole group she was talking to, although his eyes stayed fixed to hers as he left the room.

She stayed for a while longer. It wasn’t the kind of five-minutes-later departure that would have been a clear indication she was going to his place. No, she was going home, he was sure of it. 

This was just a holiday hookup.

There was simply no way a classy lady like Kim would end up with a guy like that. Howard was a patient man. He would keep doing good work, keep treating her well, keep advancing in his career. Surely someday, after she tired of Jimmy and his antics, she would find reason to reevaluate her romantic future.

October 1993

Nearly a year later, at least one third of Howard’s prophecy seemed to have come true. She hadn’t tired of Jimmy; they appeared to be the best of friends. And she hadn’t exactly fallen into Howard’s arms. But she and Jimmy showed no indications that a romantic relationship was progressing between them, nor indeed a physical one, if Howard was any judge. And he believed he was. 

He wondered, periodically, what had happened between the Christmas party and the present time. Jimmy struck Howard as the cheating type; maybe infidelity was the culprit. Or maybe Kim had just…wised up. These were equally likely and not mutually exclusive.

As for Kim's friendship with Howard, it seemed as genuine as ever. And when Kim knocked on his door with an envelope bearing the cranberry red logo of the University of New Mexico, she looked genuinely happy to share her news with him. He smiled broadly at her and stood up from his chair.

He noted that the envelope was already open; he’d hoped that she would open it with him, but it was just as well that she’d gotten to open it by herself. She had earned this all on her own.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked. Kim nodded and pulled out the acceptance letter with the deepest warmth and joy behind her eyes.

Howard perused it in proud satisfaction and looked back up at her. “How does it feel?”

She thought for a moment. “Surreal,” she said. “This was never supposed to be…me. I was supposed to be a check-out counter girl.”

“Kim. You were always supposed to be a lawyer. You have one of the brightest minds I've ever encountered: this is all as it should be.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to—"

“Please don’t,” he said. “We’re just correcting the flawed trajectory of an imperfect world here, getting you your law degree.”

There was a moment, he thought, when he could have offered a professional hug. But he refrained. This, somehow, wasn’t the right moment.

So he shook her hand, and she placed her other hand over his, looking quite emotional (for Kim) as she smiled at him and left the office.

Howard didn’t date much. He wasn’t exactly waiting around for…anyone…per se. He just didn’t have the time to date, or even much inclination. Periodically, his father would invite some promising young woman and her parents over to dinner when Howard was also a guest, but he felt nothing much for any of them.

All right. Maybe he was waiting around to some extent. There was no rush.

And he remained an exceptionally patient man.

Chapter Text

May 1996

“One more semester,” Kim said, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe it.”

Howard beamed at her as the early evening sun slanted in through the windows of the restaurant, catching the highlights in her hair, making her sparkle. “I only wish we could have been going through it together,” he remarked. “It would’ve been fun to be classmates.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve been so focused on my work that I really haven’t made very many friends within the program. I mean, I went on a date with one of the guys once, but that was…well, ‘a disaster’ is putting it mildly,” she said, flushing slightly near her ears and on her neck.

Howard didn’t even feel any jealousy at this admission; it was to be expected that Kim would go on dates. He wasn’t exactly celibate himself. No, he was just pleased to receive more confirmation that she wasn’t taking up with a certain mail room employee. “Law school dates do tend to be disastrous,” he said. “Everyone’s so highly strung and laser-focused. I had my share; they didn’t take, of course.”

Kim nodded with a tight-lipped smile. “I really should try to make some more lasting connections in this final semester. For networking purposes, you know. But it’s not like I’ve been totally alone in the process, I mean I’ve had—” Kim gave a small smile, secretive, somehow. Howard’s stomach flip-flopped. Surely she must be talking about him; he’d been with her every step of the way.

As Howard cleared his throat, he caught a glimpse of the plate in front of her. Kim, he realized, was only picking at her salad. He’d been so intent on letting her talk that he hadn’t been letting her eat.

“Kim! You really must eat that before the duck gets cold. Really, eat up; it would be a crime for you not to experience it at its peak. Make sure to get peach and feta along with the duck; it will quite literally change your life.” Howard had insisted she try the duck salad; it was his favorite, and he knew she’d like it. This was the first time he’d taken her to dinner at Forque — the first of many, he hoped, even if it was only in a professional capacity.

Kim took a bite, and he was rewarded with a wide-eyed grin, a hand clapped to her chest, and a series of long, slow nods of approval.

Howard took a moment to reflect on their conversation thus far. It had revolved almost exclusively around the law, of course. She seemed to be particularly drawn to the neediest cases with the most impoverished defendants — which made Howard wonder, with a pang of fear, if he might lose her someday to a less corporate, more altruistic law practice. Might she, at some point, decide that being a public defender fit her mold more than working for the profit-driven HHM? 

Surely not. From what little he knew of her childhood, Kim had had enough of indigence; she would want to have a secure, steady income for the foreseeable future.

(Of course, if she had a wealthy enough husband, she could work pro bono cases…)

(Stop it, Howard.)

Howard was on the verge of asking her about her plans in this regard, but he didn’t even want to plant the seed in her head. Her presence and her mind would be too eminently valuable to him…to the firm…once she was hired there. No, he couldn’t bring himself to start that thought process within her. 

And so he instead started in on a litany of the firm’s most altruistic cases, the ones where they had accepted a slightly lower fee than market value, or had taken on a risky client who had been clearly wronged.

Kim followed along, eating her duck and peach and listening to the recitation. In the middle of his description of the Mueller case from 1985 — “my first case at the firm, that was” — Kim got a faraway look in her eyes.

“And so you see, because I was so young and inexperienced, I didn’t yet think to…” Howard let his voice trail off. “What is it, Kim?”

She blinked a few times and refocused on his face. “Oh. Nothing, really. I was just wondering…I mean, thinking of young lawyers, I haven’t heard anything more about the scholarship program…my scholarship program.”

Howard’s heart dropped to his feet. He’d made a few more attempts to instate this program, attempts that were already several years in the past now; he’d lost the plot somewhere along the line and had grown complacent about the whole matter.

He took a sip of ginger ale as he collected his thoughts. “It’s still…in development. It’s being reworked as a program for youth candidates, actually, and apparently, that takes more…scouting. And red tape. To put it into place.”

Kim’s fork hung from her fingertips. “So…I’m still the only one who has gotten this scholarship, and is likely to for…an indefinite amount of time?”

Howard straightened up. “Correct.”

The word lingered between them heavily for a few moments. Kim looked…puzzled. Howard was not about to allow the moment to remain awkward, and he chose a course of honesty. Or at least partial honesty.

“Look, Kim, I’ll be frank with you: I jumped the gun a bit when I offered it to you. I was of the hope that by selecting a strong candidate and presenting it as a done deal to my father and to Chuck, it would be the catalyst for the full implementation of a program that I had been advocating for for years. Clearly, I was wrong, and…and I’m embarrassed. But I’m not sorry I made the attempt.”

He felt his lips purse together in displeasure as he recalled the last conversation he’d had with the other partners about it. Hopeless, just…  

“Look,” he continued, his throat growing tight. “I have great respect for my father and, if anything, even greater respect for Chuck McGill, but they are simply not humanitarians. Sure, my father will make the occasional contribution to charity, but it’s…it’s because it’s expected of him. I can’t speak for Chuck; he may well be more generous. They….really, mostly my father…he doesn’t spend time thinking about how to truly improve the lives of those around him…how to make meaningful, impactful change… It disgusts me sometimes. I feel like he went out of his way, when I was a child, to try to teach me how to be more selfish.” 

He realized he was getting worked up, and tried to temper himself, but Kim’s face was now filled with empathy. She was nodding along. “Kim…Chuck’s a good man. My father…” He shook his head. “I trust you won’t repeat what I’ve said.”

“Of course not, Howard,” she said, her gaze slipping into the past. “I don’t know my father,” she said, and Howard’s jaw twitched in an attempt to gape open. She hadn’t spoken of her childhood since her interview for the mail room job. “My mother…” Kim half-laughed and sighed. “Well. What you said sounds…incredibly familiar to me. Her lessons in selfishness were…detailed, and overt. She led by example and by instruction. I think she was trying to teach me how to get ahead in life, in her own way. She cared for me, also in…her own way. She was around a lot, you know…she didn’t work much, and I don’t even know how she got most of the little money we had, but even when she was around, she wasn’t really…there.”

After a significant beat, Howard remarked, “Absent, even when present.”

Kim nodded. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Kim laughed bleakly. “Parents, huh?”

“Parents indeed.”

“It may not be a coincidence that having kids isn’t on my agenda.” Kim sipped her lemon water, her eyes wide on the other side of the glass, looking suddenly surprised that she had shared so much personal information.

So Howard reciprocated. He huffed out a laugh and raised an eyebrow. “Nor are they on mine, now that you mention it.”

They smiled at each other grimly. The conversation had turned darker and more raw than he had intended, but his body thrummed with the revitalizing spark of genuine human connection.

They finished up their dinners and Kim was insistent on paying the check herself. It went against every chivalric urge of Howard’s, but he reminded himself that they lived in a more modern era now, and that Kim was not the type to accept any more charity than he had already given her.

The firm. That the firm had given her.

Howard drove her back to her car, which they'd left parked at HHM. They chatted about various and sundry matters, mostly about the law and Kim’s visions for its betterment. But there was a glow that hung between them, Howard was certain. An affinity that went beyond even what they had already established with each other.

His car idled next to hers for several minutes as their conversation lingered, refusing to be wrapped up. There was always more they could say to each other. Always. 

This was what she had needed. She needed someone serious, someone she could dig into the weeds of the law with over the dinner table every night. Someone she could feel comfortable enough with to talk about her past.

She was brilliant. This mind of hers! It worked differently from his, from Chuck’s, from his father’s. From any lawyer he had ever met. Watching her talk through the legal puzzles presented in her classes was mesmerizing. Her approach was often backwards and upside down: borderline crazy, sometimes, but she never crossed a line. Everything was ethical and aboveboard; she found the patterns no one else could see. 

Her solutions were brave, bold, and compassionate, and he told her as much. 

She turned pink, looking down at the impeccably vacuumed floor of his car. “Thank you,” she said. “Howard, I have to tell you again how much this all means to me. I wouldn’t be anywhere near law school right now without your generosity, and HHM’s. I’ve never been happier in my life.”

She looked radiant as she looked up at him. He blinked three times, one, two, three. Assessing her. 

Surely, surely that was a look of invitation. Surely, the parting of her lips…

Her hand rested on the storage compartment between them. Howard met her hand with his, resting it on top with assurance.

“Kim…would you…”

He leaned in, knowing she would follow, expecting at any moment to feel her lips meet his. 

He closed his eyes.

“Howard?”

Shit, shit.

He pulled back, wracked with burgeoning nausea, and checked her face.

It was all wrong. She looked very serious: not quite betrayed, not quite offended. Impassive. Her eyes were clear, steady.

“Howard?” She lifted her shoulders and palms in a silent question.

“I’m— I really don’t know what to say. I—”

“Howard, if I…at all…if you misinterpreted my feelings, I…” To her credit, she stopped herself before she apologized. She had nothing to apologize for, and she knew it. She shook her head in tight, rapid agitations.

Howard sat up very straight in his seat, looking squarely at her, but grateful for the low light that must be masking the ash of his face. Giving her a wide berth away from his body. “I apologize, Kim, and I swear to you that that will never happen again.” 

He swallowed and felt Kim nod next to him. It was then that he sensed the groaning wave of disappointment wash over her, as she grabbed the handle and was about to leave the car. He turned away from her, his stomach churning. He didn’t want to leave it like this, but he had no right to ask her to remain in his car any longer.

And then she paused. “Howard…” she said in a low voice, shaking slightly, the door barely ajar. “Please…please tell me that’s not why you…that my tuition…”

Howard turned back in her direction. “Kim, absolutely not. Do not think that. You are brilliant. You’re going to revolutionize the legal profession. Your mind, it’s… Everything I said before was absolutely true. It had nothing to do with how I — how I felt.” Howard listened to his own voice as though from a mile above, hating it. Why did he have to sound so clipped, so reserved, so god-awfully snooty? He sounded like a joke of a man, a supporting character in a Thin Man film.

But there was nothing he could do. This was his voice, this was his demeanor, and he could only press on using the tools at his disposal. “You deserve to be a lawyer, Kim. Anyone can see your potential, and I am confident that the legal profession will be richer with you in it. And that is why Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill are paying your tuition. No other reason.” He held out his hand for her to shake it. “I give you my solemn oath. There was no ulterior motive.”

Kim nodded. She took his hand and shook it. “Thank you, Howard.” She sat there for a moment, and then pulled her hand away, looking out at the lawn. “I don’t want this to be awkward,” she said. She looked back at him. “I enjoy working with you, and I believe you that it won’t happen again. I look forward to moving past this and continuing our…professional relationship.”

He tasted iron in his mouth; he'd bitten the inside of his lip. “I look forward to it, too.”

Kim’s smile came nowhere near her eyes. “Great,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Howard tried to avoid the mail room for a while. But he’d established a habit of going down there periodically to engage with the staff, build rapport, et cetera, and it would be odd if he simply stopped doing that. So he returned about two weeks later, strategically picking a time when he knew she’d be doing the rounds.

Jimmy was there, though.

In fact, he was the only one there. Howard hadn't anticipated that.

He hadn’t seen Howard yet, and Howard could quite easily turn around and leave quietly without being seen.

But that’s not what men do.

“Jimmy,” he said. “How are things?”

Jimmy turned, and the expression on his face was fascinating. Howard searched it for clues as to whether Kim had told him about the Unfortunate Incident. But all he saw was an inscrutable mask that could have been the product of any number of things: sleeplessness, boredom, or that indefinable thing that Jimmy exuded sometimes, the thing that gave Howard the uneasy sense that Jimmy, for all his get-up-and-go, was a somewhat…unknown quantity.

“Howard. Things are…things.” He spread his hands wide in a “here it all is” gesture. And then he went quiet.

“Mm-hm.” Howard couldn’t recall his usual mail room banter at this moment in history.

As the seconds ticked by, Howard suspected more and more strongly that Kim had told him.

Jimmy didn’t look angry; he didn’t have that “you stay away from her” look on his face that he would have had if this were played out in a film. He looked almost pityingly at Howard, as though the very thought that Howard might have succeeded with Kim was amusing to him.

Okay, maybe there was just a hint of “you stay away from her” in his eyes. But it wasn’t even possessive; Jimmy didn’t seem like he was trying to keep her “for himself.” No. He was…

Huh.

Jimmy really just wanted to protect Kim’s well-being. And he wanted her to succeed on his own. Howard could respect that.

“What’s up, Howard?” Jimmy asked, looking back at his stacks of mail a bit impatiently.

Howard cocked his head. “Jimmy, if there’s—”

“Mr. Hamlin!” The mail room’s newest recruit, a sharp young fellow named Ernesto, appeared and came up to shake his hand. “I thought I heard your voice. What brings you down here?”

Rather relieved, Howard fell into his usual check-in mode with Ernesto as Jimmy faded into the background, and was then gone.

Howard exhaled as he ascended the stairs a few minutes later. Maybe he didn’t have to visit the mail room staff quite so much after all.

January 1997

The word for his relationship with Kim, now, was “cordial.”

Privately, Howard mourned the loss of what he had truly considered to be a genuine friendship. He hoped for nothing more than the restoration of that friendship now. He had, he knew, relinquished the privilege of hoping for more. But he was confident that their friendship, at least, could be rekindled someday. 

And he wished the best for her. She had just graduated from UNM, and he’d made a brief appearance at her little party in the mail room. He fully expected there to be another party in a month or so, when she passed the bar exam with flying colors. The exam, of course, was why he’d encouraged her to leave work an hour early every day this month, to have extra time to study. She had refused the offer for three weeks, but this past week, she’d quietly taken him up on it.

So it was to his surprise and furrowed brow that, as he was on his way to retrieve his cell phone from his car after noting that she had already left HHM for the day, he heard her voice emanating from the parking garage. Hers and Jimmy's, of course. So this is studying, Kim? He paused with the door to the lot slightly ajar; he would have exited confidently, of course, had he not heard his own name on Kim’s lips.

“...so, in this case, Hamlin’s gonna go a different direction. I’ll have to double-check the case law precedent, but I’m pretty sure that’s the way they’re gonna go."

Oh. Not him. They were talking about his father, of course. “Hamlin” could only be George Hamlin.

“So…that would be...using duress as a defense?” Jimmy responded. The unpleasant scent of cigarette smoke wafted through the crack in the door. “That seems pretty risky.”

“Normally I’d say yes, but Hamlin’s had experience with this exact situation before, so for him it’s actually the tried and true.”

“See, now that makes more sense for him.”

“Right?” There was a smirk in Kim’s voice.

Howard turned to granite. So...not his father. This described the situation he was currently in. They were talking about him, and Kim was calling him “Hamlin.”

When did that start?

In the few seconds during which he lingered further, he heard the conversation move in a distinctly onward direction. Nothing significant was said about him; there was no sense that either of them had ever had any kind of a personal connection with Howard. He was just a cog in the machinery, a way for Kim to work her mind as she prepared for the bar exam with Jimmy. (How on earth Jimmy knew about duress as a defense strategy was a mystery to him.)

Howard would almost have preferred an outright gossip-fest about him from those two. But no. Just…facts, and a tiny bit of snideness.

Howard turned back to the elevator. He’d get his cell phone later.

Her voice sounded lower. Right, yes, her voice used to be lower when she talked to me. When did it become higher-pitched with me?

She’d said she didn’t want anything to change after the incident. (Hadn’t she? Hadn’t she said that?) So…why? The indifference of it all, that was what stung.

Howard promised himself he wouldn’t eavesdrop again.

July 1998

He really didn’t intend to eavesdrop again.

Kim's office was dark and cramped (truly, it was the only space that had been available) and the lack of windows made it feel like a tomb. He didn’t want her to feel threatened by him; he genuinely tried to avoid being alone with her after…everything. 

It was just that he really needed the documents she was working on. And if he’d pop into anyone else’s office to retrieve documents, there was no reason he shouldn’t do the same for Kim.

He’d simply stand in the doorway and knock, and allow her to come out to him.

He strode up to the tucked-away room and was on the verge of knocking, when he heard an odd sound whisper through the thin door: the sound of paper being ripped. Howard raised an eyebrow. Giving up on the law already, Kim? he imagined himself saying to her in light-hearted jest when he opened the door. But before he could get that far, the voice of Jimmy McGill floated out to him on the heels of the ripping sound.

He rolled his eyes and pursed his lips. Was Jimmy everywhere? Honestly. Kim was supposed to be working, and her work was time-sensitive. Was he going to have to reprimand them?

But then he processed what Jimmy had said: 

“So, what does it say?”

Howard felt his brows narrow. So… Kim opened a piece of mail for Jimmy…

And then there was a musical sound that Howard had once (in years past) been privy to: Kim’s laughter, joyful and generous. And Jimmy joined her, and then—both laughs were cut off momentarily.

Then Kim’s voice returned to the fray: “You passed! Jimmy, you passed! You’re a fucking lawyer, you—”

Silence again.

A lawyer?

Jimmy McGill had passed the bar exam… Well, that actually made a great deal of sense. Of course Jimmy would want to be a lawyer just like his brother.

Immediately, Howard shifted mental gears, leaning his hand against the wall and pondering what this might mean for the firm.

He’ll want to be hired here.

Mouth working, chin lifted, Howard considered this possibility. Really, he didn’t see anything wrong with it. He wasn’t the biggest fan of Jimmy for selfish, personal reasons, but that shouldn’t get in the way of his recognition of Jimmy’s drive and work ethic. The fact that he’d put himself through law school, apparently, without missing a beat here…well. It gave Howard a rather more favorable impression of him.

He’d been so lost in thought that he hadn’t realized how long the pause had been, until Jimmy’s voice sliced through the silence.

“Kim… Kim, you…” Jimmy huffed out a laugh. “You kissed me.”

Howard had thought that this was far in the past… Why on earth, Kim… ?

“Jimmy…focus! This is amazing, this is everything we’ve talked about…we…” There was another silence.

And then Jimmy’s voice. “See, you did it again. With the kissing.”

“I know, I just…god, Jimmy, I’m so…I knew you could do it, I knew it, I just…you’re—”

The silence deepened and Howard heard the sound of the desk grunting in complaint at an unanticipated shove…

Howard put his hand to the bridge of his nose. Now was definitely the time to leave.

He heard Kim gasp…

Leave, Howard Hamlin, leave and think about something else…

“Hold...hold on, Kim. Fuck...”

Howard’s eyebrows went up.

“Jimmy…”

“Look, Kim…I don’t wanna do this…if we’re not gonna be…that. The you-and-me thing. And I know we decided not to go there, and I understand why, it makes total sense…but I clearly have trouble being casual about you, Kim, and I can’t…”

“No, no, I know, Jimmy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you, or…the other stuff…I’m just so damn happy for you…”

“Good lord, don’t be sorry. I’ll be jerking off to that memory for years, so thank you for that.”

Howard’s eyes widened, and he was astonished to hear Kim cackle and say something low in response, something that sounded like “I might jerk off to it, too.”

“You’d better,” Jimmy said. “That was some quality material there for a few seconds.”

Howard blinked. He didn’t understand their relationship at all.

There was another silence that could have been anything from awkward belt-rebuckling to a tender hug. Howard had no idea.

“Jimmy…I’m really just so…gah. So happy.”

“There is no way in hell I could have done it without you.”

Hm.

Why, Howard reflected, was Kim allowed to get away with these advances to Jimmy, and their friendship seemed to be better than ever, while Howard had been punished by a permanent cooling of his friendship with Kim after a much milder attempt at intimacy?

It didn’t seem quite fair.

Jimmy sighed. “I’ve gotta get back to it.”

With only minimal urgency, Howard looped back and rounded the corner. He positioned himself halfway down the hallway and turned around, strolling back in the direction of Kim’s office as Jimmy exited the glass doors that led to Kim’s annex.

Howard caught a glimpse of Jimmy’s face before Jimmy saw him. There was an insane mix of emotions on Jimmy’s face, as well there should be.

“Jimmy.”

“Howard…hey.”

Howard couldn’t resist. “I’m headed in Kim’s direction, which I presume is where you just were. How’s she holding up in there?”

Jimmy gulped like a fish for a few moments. His hand flexed and unflexed. “Uh, yeah, she’s, uh, good. Good. Invested, you know. It’s…interesting stuff. Not that I would know. Anything about it. About the law.”

Howard stared at him in semi-detached interest. He’d never seen Jimmy lie this poorly, and about two different subjects, no less.

“All right, then,” Howard said, and he let Jimmy pass by him. Smoothing his jacket, he headed to Kim’s doorway as planned, making sure his heels were planted firmly outside the room.

Kim was sitting on her desk, chewing a fingernail. She didn’t notice him at first either.

“Kim. Working hard?” It wasn’t what he had intended to say.

Her head snapped to him. “Howard.” Her voice was unsteady (and even higher-pitched than usual), and she quickly shifted herself back to her chair. “It’s…you know how it is. I’m just plugging away at it.”

“I see.” He looked significantly at where she had just been sitting, away from her work. “I need the Barnes files within the half-hour. You’ll have them ready?”

“I’ll have them in five minutes. I’ll run them over to your office."

“Great.”

The gulf between them, as she returned to her work, was fathoms deep and miles wide.

“Well then.” He rapped on the doorframe twice and left.

Impulsively, when he returned to his office, he filled out the form that flagged Kim’s shift for decreased productivity. 

And then, after contemplating the wall intently for a spell, he wrote up the same form for himself. He’d wasted precious time in snooping, time that could have been devoted to the firm that his father and Chuck had spent so much time and effort building up from nothing; he deserved a reminder of what was actually important in life.

He’d been cutting Kim Wexler — and himself — too much slack.

Two days later, the day after Chuck and his father had assigned him the dubious honor of rejecting Jimmy’s application to practice law at HHM, Kim stalked past Howard in the hallway. She paused long enough to give him a dagger-drenched stare. But she said nothing.

And he said nothing.

They moved on.

He felt a stab of annoyance at Chuck for putting him in this distasteful position, but shrugged it off; Chuck must have his reasons, and Howard wasn’t exactly going to be brokenhearted about not working more closely with Jimmy.

Kim never asked him about the formal reprimand. He never mentioned it. But the remnants of their friendship, if there had been any left at all, were scattered to the winds.

A thick, heavy knot resided in his chest. None of this was pleasant anymore. None of it at all.

But he would make the best of it, as was his gift. Steadily, he began the process of unraveling the knot.

Chapter Text

August 1998

He’d sworn he was done with his father’s matchmaking dinners; honestly, he was nearing 40, and it was just not appropriate for a man his age. 

Perhaps he wasn’t the marrying type anyway. Looking at himself in the mirror, he did tend to see a bachelor — which surprised him, but didn’t truly trouble him.

But when his father encouraged him to accept a dinner invitation from Arthur Lee (and, of course, his daughter Cheryl Perrine-Lee), he made an exception. His former teenage self would never forgive him if he didn’t.

They hadn’t gone to high school together, of course — private girls’ school for her, boarding school for him — and she’d been two years behind him anyway. But he’d seen her around town back then, decking out her stodgy school uniform with spiky earrings and a purple streak in her hair that almost certainly wasn’t allowed by the school’s rules, smoking up a storm with an entourage of girls who weren’t as cool as she. They slouched; she stood upright. Howard got the sense that she hadn’t exactly courted the entourage, but she hadn’t rejected it once it had formed.

He’d been drawn to her. But they’d had only minimal interaction, nothing substantial. Just a few times at the mall, culminating in that one time when she’d offered him a cigarette, and he’d had an embarrassing coughing fit and declined any more. “There, there.” She’d petted his hair and looked at him like he was a charming little pet.

Cheryl was a psychiatrist now, he’d heard. She’d been living in Austin, but had just moved back to Albuquerque to be near her father after her mother’s death. 

Maybe we’ll bond over that.

But Howard, remember that the sharing of empathetic familial sentiments does not equal a romantic connection. Right? Right.

He shook himself as he straightened his tie in the mirror.

He was wearing his newest suit — really, he needed to stop buying quite so many, it was getting rather out of hand — and, at the last second, he decided to forgo the cologne. Cheryl, if he recalled the scuttlebut correctly, had ditched a high school boyfriend who wore the stuff. (This was a pity, because he’d been on a bit of a spending spree with the scents, too.)

Looking across her at the dinner table, he would never have known that she used to be a punk rebel. Anyone would think that she, in her Chanel suit with her impeccable table manners, had been the model of modesty and decorum all her life (as, indeed, Howard had been).

She didn’t speak much at dinner.

But in the midst of a rundown (one-upmanship session?) of Arthur’s and George’s greatest career successes, Cheryl interrupted her father. “Pardon me, Dad, but I’ve just realized we haven’t offered Howard a tour of the house. Howard, may I interest you?”

All three men stared at her. Howard forced himself not to look to his father for permission.

“Certainly, Cheryl,” he said. “Thank you for the offer.”

“Yes, well. You may be excused,” Arthur said, and Cheryl’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly as she rose with a perfectly straight back and hands folded in front of her at her waist.

Howard followed her as she walked silently up the grand staircase, past paintings and sculptures that surely could have warranted some verbal description. This wasn’t much of a tour. 

He made a feeble attempt at commentary. “The balustrades are…”

She turned back to him and gave him a look. Balustrades were not going to be a topic of conversation; clearly, she was on a mission.

They ended at a door that was identical to every door they had thus passed, but when she opened it, on the inside, it was as though they had entered an entirely different house. Posters of The Ramones, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith...all covering up the lavender-flowered wallpaper. A bedspread with a skull-faced moth. A black light, which clicked on along with a small bed lamp when she flipped one of the wall switches, bypassing the overhead lighting and casting a purplish sheen around the room. Howard hoped his teeth weren’t glowing; he held his lips tight together.

She closed the door behind them and glanced at Howard, looking him squarely in the eye for almost the first time that night. After a moment of seriousness, she burst out laughing and fell into his arms.

Howard was in the dark about what was so funny, but he didn’t mind the feeling of her body against his, not in the slightest. Tickled, he allowed his arms to rest against her back. He tried several configurations of sentences to ask her why she was laughing, but none seemed to work, and so he allowed the situation to remain as it was.

She’s tall. 

Taller, even, than he had realized. Her head tucked itself neatly under his chin on his shoulder.

He rocked her gently, instinctively. When she pulled herself back from him, there were tears in her eyes, as bitter as they were amused.

“You’d never know that man just lost his wife, would you?” she asked. “The pair of them, just disguising all their digs and barbs as congratulations. And people say women are passive-aggressively competitive.”

“Oh. Well…I don’t say that,” Howard said, inanely.

“Of course you don’t.” She wiped the corners of her eyes and extricated herself from him, sitting down on the edge of her childhood bed, back as straight as ever. Prim and proper and subversive.

Howard stood tentatively at her door until she looked up at him, mouth twitching, and patted the space next to her on the bed. Howard, still her charming little pet, sat.

“How did your mother pass?” Howard asked. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just remember that when my mother died, all I wanted to do was talk about it, but everyone around me was so very…stoic about it all.”

A beat and a nod, and then: “Cancer,” Cheryl said. “Pancreatic.”

“Ah,” he said. “Cervical, for mine.” He sniffed.

“You were young, weren’t you?” she asked, turning her body to his.

He nodded. “Sixteen. Old enough to be told everything, but not old enough to…” He stopped. Even now, he didn’t know how to end that sentence.

Cheryl nodded. “Sometimes I wish I still smoked,” she mused. “I used to smoke up a storm in this room. But it’s not worth it now, my clothes are too expensive.” She fell backwards on the bed, letting her hands rest under her head, and Howard moved himself an inch away from her; this all suddenly felt alarmingly intimate, and he had no idea what to do.

“This is ridiculous, isn’t it?” she asked. “The Jane Austen thing, where we let our parents do these humiliating set-ups.”

Howard shrugged. “I stopped thinking of it that way a long while ago. My father can think of them however he wants. I consider them social and networking events. I’ve met some interesting people and even gotten a few good business contacts out of these dinners.”

Cheryl nodded grudgingly. “That’s a healthy way to think of it. I moved to Texas to get away from it all. Pretending I could be my own person, like I hadn’t gotten where I was entirely due to Mommy and Daddy’s money.”

Howard let out a little “huh.” It had never occurred to him to move away. 

Kim, too, had moved away from…

Don’t.

“I’d be too old in the Jane Austen era anyway,” she said. “An old maid.” Her eyes flicked to him. “You’d still be in your prime.”

“Well,” he said, nearly holding his breath. “Lucky we live today. I’d say we’re both still in our prime.”

Fire glowed in Cheryl’s eyes, and she sat up again, very slowly. Her hand came to rest on his tie, and the purple lighting shone ethereally in her eyes. After one breathless heartbeat, she brought her lips to his.

Howard had a flash of white-hot shame. He hadn’t come close to kissing anyone since…since the Unfortunate Incident, two years ago. It had been so long… how did this happen? It was impossible not to be brought right back to that disastrous scene, to imagine that this kiss was the unearned culmination of that mortifying attempt. That his lips had been starved ever since, and that they were finally being granted a fulfillment they didn’t truly deserve.

Cheryl pulled back, brow furrowed. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Try that again.”

He shook himself. Do not, DO NOT think about anyone except the woman in front of you.

He placed a hand on the back of her neck and brought her in close again.

And this time, when she pulled away, it was with dancing eyes and a look of deepest satisfaction on her face.

“There,” she said. “That’s more like it. Would you believe me if I told you I wanted to do that all the way back in high school?”

Howard nearly choked. “Frankly, no,” he said. “I thought the feeling was quite one-sided.”

Cheryl laughed. “Well, I did.” She played with his tie and cocked her head to the side. “Wanna fuck?”

And, well, he did.

There was no misinterpreting that particular signal.

June 1999

Yes, the courtship had been a whirlwind. And yes, the wedding was rather soon. But it simply felt right.

The day passed in a blur, most of which he remembered only in vignettes:

Cheryl pulling him aside before the ceremony. “I thought it was bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony.” “You know that’s a crock of shit, Howard. Just kiss me.”

His father’s friend’s grandson handing him the ring from atop the silken pillow.

During the vows, catching an inadvertent glimpse of the face of Jimmy McGill as he stole a glance at Kim, whose eyes remained steadfastly forward.

Ernesto letting out a whoop of joy as the bride and groom kissed, paving the way for more cheers and applause; Howard giving him an appreciative nod.

Bizet’s ‘Farandole’ playing as the recessional while they walked down the aisle together, hands tightening around each other.

Chuck, typically stiff but atypically taciturn, letting Rebecca do all the talking, both of them looking a bit strained.

“Finally, son. She’s a keeper.”

Cheryl was stunning. She had bucked the recent trend of wedding dresses that looked like they’d been designed for Scarlett O’Hara, with the giant skirts that must be impossible to walk in, instead opting for a sleek, form-fitting dress in an off-white that perfectly suited her. She could have been a model. Everyone was in awe of her, most of all Howard.

There were four moments in time that codified together in his head, standing out in stark contrast to the generalized blur, and these were the only moments that he was able to call to mind in any detail in future years.

Moment One

There was no avoiding greeting Kim and Jimmy in the receiving line. (Not that he was avoiding them.)

Kim was wearing a coral dress (“Wildfire Coral” was the shade, if he wasn’t mistaken) that looked like it was from the early part of the decade, which was fine, of course. It absolutely did not matter what Kim was wearing, or what she was doing, or the fact that she and Jimmy had showed up together. (Together, but still not “together,” he deduced.) Jimmy was wearing a brown suit that was, presumably, one of the many suits he wore to the courthouse, which was also fine. Never mind that he was the only man wearing brown to the wedding.

Howard shook Jimmy's hand first, introducing them to Cheryl before finally landing at his handshake with Kim.

“Howard,” Kim said, and she gave him a smile that nearly sent him back to the days of prehistory, before the Incident, when he had been able to trust her smiles. Her voice sounded deeper, too, closer to how it had once been with him. “I’m really happy for you.” She nodded, and he nodded back as he shook her hand. Firm. Confident. Mature.

“Thank you, Kim.” He carefully calculated his smile: winning and professional. He blinked away a memory of the most recent time his hand had come into contact with hers: she'd given him check for $300, the first of apparently many checks in repayment of HHM's "loan," as she now referred to it. He hadn't tried to stop her.

Watching Kim shake Cheryl’s hand was a stomach-churning experience, although it shouldn’t have been. Not in the slightest. Kim was his employee.

His eyes remained trained on the two women’s hands as they clasped, and it was only belatedly that he realized his eye had followed Kim’s hand as it pulled away. Surely it hadn’t been noticeable.

Moment Two

They had insisted to their fathers that they give toasts to each other, despite this not being specifically required or advised in the style manuals.

His own toast was lost to the fog. Or perhaps, he thought later, he had chosen not to commit it to memory, for in retrospect he suspected that it could have been more heartfelt. Everything was meticulously written out on index cards.

Cheryl, uncharacteristically, had prepared nothing. She wanted it to be fresh.

“We’ve only been together a short time, Howard,” was the first coherent thing he remembered her saying. “But we’ve known each other much longer than that.” 

She looked down at him and took his hand, and something in her face changed, growing radically honest. Her voice dropped, and it was almost as though she had almost forgotten she was speaking into a microphone.

“What do you think, honey; do you think we’ve built each other up in our heads to a degree that it’s impossible to live up to?” His heart dropped; they’d come so close to saying this to each other the week before. It was almost certainly true. But…

The tittering of the guests brought her back to reality, and she looked around, laughing. “Well, I don’t think so,” she said to the crowd, and then turned back to him. “Every day I learn new things about you, Howard, and everything I learn is fascinating and compassionate and fair and full of truth. You are so clear-headed, and you say what you mean, and I love you for it. And you’ve got such a healthy sense of self, I really…there’s nothing artificial in you, and I wish more people could see that about you.”

She flushed a bit and took another sip of wine. “Maybe I should have written this down.” There was more polite laughter. 

Cheryl was embarrassed, but Howard shook his head. Don’t be. He knew how others saw him, as a prig and a snob. And he was simply grateful that she saw him differently.

Moment Three

I stand at your gate and the song that I sing is of moonlight

I stand and I wait for the touch of your hand in the June night

They were dancing, later, to “Moonlight Serenade.” Cheryl’s head rested on his shoulder, and he had no choice but to contemplate the other couples who were dancing around them. Chuck and Rebecca were not among them. They sat next to each other, smiles frozen on their faces.

Jimmy was watching Chuck, too. Howard saw Jimmy swallow hard and take a few steps toward his brother and sister-in-law, but then he turned back to Kim and, with purpose, made his way in her direction and extended his arm to her. Kim looked up at him, eyebrow raised, and asked him something. Jimmy laughed and inclined his head toward the dance floor, and she let him pull her into his arms. 

In contrast to himself and Cheryl, they gazed into each other’s eyes. Kim said something that made Jimmy guffaw, and he let his forehead fall against hers. The mood changed, laughter gone from their faces, and Howard wondered (from an intellectual standpoint) whether they were about to kiss. (It didn’t matter to him anymore what they did, of course. Jimmy was no longer an HHM employee. Both were free to do as they pleased.)

But they didn’t. Their shoulders rose and fell together, and their arms tightened around each other (they were holding each other like teenagers at a prom — his arms around her waist, hers about his neck — not like adults, with hands clasped and arms jauntily outstretched). But their lips never met. They seemed to be having an unspoken conversation with their eyes, and it was very annoying to Howard, for some odd reason.

So don't let me wait, come to me tenderly in the June night

I stand at your gate and I sing you a song in the moonlight

The singer and the trumpets crooned in a wistful plaint, and Howard got the sudden feeling that, despite the somewhat anodyne lyrics, this song was far too melancholy for a wedding.

“What’s their story?” Cheryl asked against his shoulder, and Howard realized that her face was turned in the same direction as his.

“I’m sorry?” he asked.

Cheryl lifted her head and peered at him, her eyes sparkling. “Looks like a juicy story there between your Kim and her whoever.”

“My…what do you mean my…”

Cheryl did a mini-double-take. “Oh. I just meant…because she’s your employee.”

“Well, ‘your Kim’ is an odd way to phrase it. I don’t own my employees.”

“Right.” Cheryl swallowed. “Anyway…” She looked back at them. “He’s Chuck’s brother, right? What’s their deal?”

“Oh…” Howard shrugged noncommittally. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. He used to work in our mail room. Now he’s a lawyer. And Kim…” He scoffed in spite of himself. “I’m not sure what their status is, but Kim could do better.”

“Really?” Cheryl raised her eyebrows. “He seemed like a peach.”

“Oh…he is…he’s a decent guy. But…” He shook his head. “There’s just an inherent incongruity there. I really don’t see it going anywhere. Anyway, they’ve been like that for years. Nothing will come of it, I think. Kim's brilliant, she wouldn’t—”

He stopped himself. Cheryl was watching him interestedly. “I honestly forgot what I was going to say,” he said.

Cheryl shrugged. “Oh well. Just seemed like some fun gossip. No worries.” She watched him for two more (very long) seconds before resting her head back on his shoulder.

But the song was over anyway.

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that whole interaction. But he brushed it aside as a more upbeat song began to play. He’d learned to dance for this, and he was good. And so was she.

The world turned back to single frames of film.

Jimmy tripping over Kim’s feet; Kim once again full of mirth.

Chuck, sitting alone, watching his brother; Rebecca nowhere to be seen.

George Hamlin nodding to his son from the sidelines; Howard suspecting that this didn’t truly count as fatherly pride, but rather a mere check mark on a to-do list.

Cheryl, dancing with the ring bearer; Howard feeling unsettled, wondering if they should have had a more substantial discussion about whether or not they wanted children.

Cheryl again, looking up at him and smiling, and all his worries abating.

Moment Four

Howard didn’t remember getting home at all. They would leave for their honeymoon in the morning, but for the time being, they were spending the night in their newly purchased home, which not only was ideally suited to both of their tastes, but was quintessentially Albuquerquian (and only the slightest bit out of their price range — they’d manage).

They’d made love already (why, he mused in later years, could he not have remembered that more clearly?) and he lay complacently on their new jacquard weave sheets. Cheryl had disappeared — to the restroom, he assumed — but when she returned, wearing a tank top and underwear, she was holding two demitasse cups of espresso with a thin layer of crema on top, the sure sign of a well-made cup.

“Here we are,” she said. “Decaf, of course. We don’t need to be up all night.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he said, stroking her shoulder.

He looked down at the two cups and, behind one blink, he remembered a sliver of a vignette:

“Here you go, Kim. Thought you might like a little pick-me-up…”

She hadn’t liked cinnamon lattes, it turned out. But she’d liked his foam art: a classic smiley face.

Why haven’t I done that for Cheryl yet?

With the spoon she’d brought, he traced a swooping heart in the crema, struck through with Cupid’s arrow.

“Not my best work,” he said. “But the sentiment stands.”

Cheryl looked down at it, and then up at him. “I love you,” she said simply. He’d never imagined this phrase could be said with such curiosity and novelty.

Howard cleared his throat, willing himself to remain in this very moment.

“I love you too, darling.”

The roses are sighing a moonlight serenade

June 2002

“You don’t think anyone’s gonna actually buy this?” Howard asked Kim as he stood behind her, baffled at the amount of people who were transfixed by the scene on the television. Surely, after all this time, after everything this clown had pulled, Howard could expect an honest, level-headed response from Kim. From a loyal employee of HHM, who, in point of fact, owed HHM far more than she owed this charlatan.

On the television in front of them, of all of them, Jimmy McGill spouted off about duty and honor and being called on in times of need, while preening in front of a billboard that made a mockery of Howard Hamlin himself. It was utterly transparent and repulsive.

“It’s hard to say,” Kim said. “People…love a hero.”

Howard’s eyes sank to the side and he caught sight of her face.

Still, Kim? Still?

Well, he supposed he was guilty of the same thing. To an extent.

Whatever still festered of Howard’s feelings for Kim, it wasn’t constant by any means, but it wasn’t nonexistent. It was a sharp-pointed ache that rattled his nervous system from time to time. A recurrent hangover from the same shot of brandy. And every time it resurfaced, it was worse: the ashes became ever more charred, yet perversely refused to sweep themselves into the rubbish bin.

(Maybe if he layered yet another weighty metaphor on top of everything, it would finally tip over and be gone.)

As he watched her besotted face, eyes trained on the television, he vowed that this was absolutely the last time he’d let himself be disappointed in Kim’s judgment.

(But he’d made this promise before.)

“Whole thing’s a damn stunt.”

He left the room to stew in private, putting his head in his hands.

Still, Howard? Still?

Epilogue

June 24, 2004

He’s been holding out the faintest hope that Kim isn’t involved. That she’ll be utterly perplexed at what’s been going on when he waltzes in.

Now, one look at her face tells him everything he needs to know. (For once.)

He makes himself at home.

“What justification makes it okay?”

He rummages through their cupboards, for really, there are no barriers here anymore.

“Howard’s such an asshole that he deserves it?”

There’s more.

He pours himself a drink.

“I sided with Chuck too often?”

There’s more.

“Took away your office. Put you in doc review.”

Kim’s face fixes him with a challenging expression: You’re really not gonna mention it?

No, Kim, I’m not.

It isn’t worth mentioning. None of this, nothing he’s saying is really worth mentioning, because none of it could possibly warrant what they’ve done, and none of it is the root cause.

The root cause…

“You two are soulless.”

Even now, he can’t quite believe it of her. Of Kim. She can’t be…

“One of the smartest and most promising human beings I’ve ever known.”

This is still true. His heart isn’t exactly broken; it grew brittle and cracked long ago, and he grew another one in its place through sheer force of will. Even now, he can’t see her as…

…as…

…as who she is.

This is who she is.

“You’re perfect for each other.”

After all this time, clarity.

For the first time in twelve years, he’s entirely free. His feelings for Kim Wexler have drifted away into the ether.

Attachment. This is what the guru at the retreat was talking about…releasing your attachments to find peace… Now, Howard, find compassion for her…

“You’re like Leopold and Loeb. Two sociopaths.”

Well. Compassion can come later.

He thinks of Cheryl, about how he’s never quite given her enough of a chance to be anyone other than “not Kim Wexler.” What a fool he’s been; he can do right by her, if she’ll grant him the opportunity. 

He thinks she will, actually; oddly enough, Cheryl’s his fiercest ally when he’s at his lowest.

Whatever he had once thought about Kim — and about Jimmy, for that matter — it goes to show how much he still has to learn about human nature.

And he’ll learn. He will.