#aka self

One day since Daisy went missing. It really only felt like a few hours – Jessica was trying to time it out in her head. If the Raft was destroyed at this time, did that mean Jessica had been there just before? The reports were still unclear, but one person had seen it all, and lived to tell the tale. Phil Coulson.

It hadn’t been an easy conversation, and she knew there was probably a lot left out, but only part mattered. Kilgrave. Kilgrave had come. He had taken Daisy, in more ways than one. He’d turned her back into that Thing.

Jessica remembered the last promise she made to Daisy, standing in front of that portal. This isn’t goodbye. I’m coming back for you. She aimed to keep that promise, owed it to Daisy after all the other ones she’d broken, accidentally or otherwise. It was even more important than before, because now it wasn’t some alien parasite screwing with Daisy’s head. Now, it was deeper. Darker. More terrible.

Now it was him.

For eight months, Jessica had lived with him in her head. She knew what it was like, to have his voice buried deep in your brain, infecting every part of you, every nerve, every neuron, every cell. She imagined Daisy like a zombie, smiling when she was told to, and playing the role he gave her, wearing the clothes he picked out. But screaming inside her own head. Going through the motions, and moving like a sleepwalker through her own life, and hating every second of it. Only half-aware at times, caught up in the commands, in that burning need to do what he said, to be what he ordered her to be. And then sometimes all too aware, drowning in guilt, frozen, tied down to a bed or a hotel room with nothing but words. Whatever orders he was giving her, whatever commands he was using to control her – the feeling was the same. Helplessness.

Jessica wouldn’t let her stay that way.

So, she would pull double duty. SHIELD trainee by day, spending hours working with May on form, technique, a bunch of bullshit concepts that were turning out to not be so much bullshit. By night, she would slip back into something more familiar. Alias Investigations was still open for business, but she had only one case. Find the Psycho Nutjob and the innocent girlfriend he’d kidnapped.

I’ll always love you.

Daisy’s voice drifted through her mind as she walked home. Her entire body was aching and sore, but that was good. The pain would keep her awake, so she could research longer. (Bonus points for avoiding nightmares about how worthless she was – the last thing she needed was a dream Daisy screaming why didn’t you come back for me?)

But as she crossed the street, someone tugged on her sleeve. She wheeled around, and it took her a second to realize it was a child. A boy, younger than Vido. “What are you doing?” she asked, blinking down at him, her brows furrowed.

And then she saw the hollow gaze staring back at her. The way his eyes were so blank they seemed to shine. Like a zombie’s eyes. Like a doll’s.

“The man has a message for you.”

His voice was hollow too, but it was still a kid’s voice. Young, with a slight lisp, like his muscles didn’t really know how to control his tongue yet. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t controlling his tongue at all.

“What’s your name?” Jessica asked, kneeling down in front of him.

The boy shook his head. “Not supposed to tell. I’m just supposed to give you the message,” he murmured, a frustrated look crossing his face. He rubbed at his eye – had Kilgrave let him rest at all on the way here? Had he come here alone?

Jessica bit her lip, glancing around. No sign of Kilgrave, no one watching them with a camera lens pointed in their direction – that she could see anyway. His spies had gotten sneakier than forced-junkies. “Okay,” she said finally. “What’s the message?”

The little boy dropped his hand, stood straight like a soldier. Not like a kid playing at a soldier, but perfectly still, his eyes locked dead on hers. “The man said ‘Don’t look for us.’ Him and the pretty lady. He says they’re happier without Jessica Jones, and that’s what you wanted anyway, right? He said you can kill yourself all you want now!”

Her heart was pounding in her throat, choking off all the air. Her jaw was clenched so tightly she expected to feel a crack through her molars. She almost wished she would. That pain would be far preferable to this. The shame and the guilt – but most of all, the powerlessness. There was nothing she could to stop this. She just stared at this little boy, wondering how far from home he was, if he even knew how to get back.

How to get back.

To where Kilgrave was. To where he was keeping Daisy.

The little boy was already starting to walk away from her, his command fulfilled. Jessica started after him, but the crowd was picking up, filling the sidewalk. She tried to push her way through. “Hey!” she shouted. “Hey, someone stop that kid!” A few people gave her a look, glanced towards the little boy, but he just kept weaving through the crowd. He didn’t look like he planned on stopping anytime soon – even when the lights changed.

Jessica shoved a couple to the side, making a gap big enough for her to push through, and started running. She was almost there. He was stepping off the curb. Car horns. Screeching breaks. Almost there. Don’t think. Focus. A pair of headlights came around the corner. A scream. A thud. A crunch.

It happened so fast most people didn’t realize what the sound was. But Jessica knew, even without seeing it. She turned away, hand clasped over her mouth. People were shouting about 911 and doctors, but she knew it was too late. So much blood. Jessica pushed her way forward, shoving people out of the way. Ignoring what they were saying.

She knelt down beside the little boy, only too aware of the blood seeping into her jeans. It fanned out around his head like a halo, just like Stirling’s had. It stained her fingers when she reached for his hand. Warm and sticky, like her mother’s blood on her forehead. She’d seen so much blood, so much death, but somehow… it never made it any easier.

He was gasping for breath, lips moving as he tried to say something. Jessica leaned in closer. “He—he t-told me to,” he choked out.

Jessica squeezed his hand gently. “I know,” she whispered back. “It’s okay. You did what he said, you’re okay now. It’s gonna be okay.”

“C-can you find my m-mom?”

Jessica felt something crack inside her, like she might start bleeding too. She bit her lip and nodded. “What’s your name?” she asked. He shook his head, eyes welling up. He still couldn’t tell her. “What’s your mom’s name?”

“H-Helen.”

His eyes were fluttering shut. Jessica squeezed his hand again, shook it a little.  “Helen what?” she prompted. “Come on, stay with me.”

“Helen W—” He coughed, and blood trickled down his chin. More blood.  

Sirens blared just behind them. His eyes closed, and his hand went limp in hers. Jessica stood up, backing up slowly. The paramedics were already trying to disperse the crowd, and by the time someone mentioned a black-haired woman who had held his hand – she was gone. Up on a rooftop, knees tucked to her chest, rocking back and forth while the blood dried into her clothes, stained her hands.

Kilgrave had crossed a new line. Sending a child. Taunting her with the message wasn’t enough, he wanted to torture her with the ‘clean-up’ too. He’d used that little boy then tossed him out like trash when he was finished. She wouldn’t let him get away with that. She had a name now. Helen W.

Maybe she could save Helen from Kilgrave. Maybe she’d get a chance to tell her what happened to her son. To apologize.

First, she had to find them.

Fuck him.

Fuck Stark and his stupid, goddamn disappointment. Fuck his hypocritical bullshit. Her sobriety, or lack thereof, that was her choice. It had nothing to do with him.

Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll actually start to believe it.

And fuck Kilgrave, too. Goddammit, the whiskey was supposed to make his voice quieter in her head, not louder. It screamed through her skull, making her twitchy and shaking as she walked (stumbled) down the street.

Fuck the Strike Force, too. And the Syndif—Syndicate. Between the two of them they had finally taken everything. Her sister. Her apartment. And now this shit with Stark… Where the hell was she supposed to go tonight?

She didn’t trust herself to take the rooftops. But every shadow, every stray cat, every goddamn flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye sent her heart into a goddamn tailspin. She couldn’t move two feet without looking over her shoulder, sure that something, someone was following her. She’d been walking for two hours now, pausing only to slam out another message to her stupid, goddamn, idiotic, too good for her, boyfriend. “Main Street,” she muttered. “Birch Street.”

An irritated sigh left her lips. She gave up on street names – those places, they weren’t home for her anymore. They hadn’t been in a long time. They were the place she ran to when everything got too much.

She was exhausted now. Too tired to fight her feet’s instinct. She knew where they were taking her, even before the familiar apartment complex came into view. The jump to the balcony was like second nature. It was only after she landed, that it hit her.

Trish’s apartment looked exactly the same. Ms. Walker had wanted to comb through it, for It’s Patsy! memorabilia, pointless shit to lay around a memorial. But Jessica had told her, in no uncertain terms, that the only person allowed in that apartment was her.

There was no one waiting for her on the other side of the glass this time. She gazed inside, chest tightening up, emotion welling up and filling all the hollow spaces in her, but somehow only making her feel more empty. She bit her lip hard, hard enough that she could blame the tears in the corner of her eyes on that pain alone.

Her phone chimed again. Stark really didn’t know when to walk away. “Sorry,” she muttered, unsure if she was talking to him or to the ghost of her sister. She walked forward, grabbed the door handle, and snapped the lock in one quick motion.

Inside, she breathed in deep, inhaling the stale air. It felt like a tomb, but it was so familiar. For a second she stood frozen, standing in the center of the living room where she and Trish had watched bad movies and decent television. The copy of Buffy she’d gotten her was still laying on top of the DVD player. A take-out menu was on the kitchen island. They were supposed to get dinner that night. Too long ago now.

She stripped off her bag, tossing it onto one of the couches before striding across the room. She headed straight for that cupboard, the one Trish kept stocked just for her. Her hands shook only slightly when she wrenched it open, making the hinges whine, sending a screw pinging across the room. Inside were two bottles of whiskey, and next to them, a full box of popcorn. She loved popcorn, they both goddamn did.

Her hands shook significantly less when they closed around the bottle. Or at least, she told herself they did, ripping off the top and tilting it back. Swallowing an obscene amount. Just like old goddamn times – except Trish wasn’t there, eyes bearing into the back of her head.

Goddammit, she hated disappointing people. 

But disappointing people was her superpower. 

Her phone went off again, but she ignored it. She tossed the cap aside and reached for the popcorn, taking out a bag. She managed to go through a quarter of the bottle easy while she waited for it to finish in the microwave. Not bothering with a bowl, she grabbed the bag, wincing at the heat on her freshly un-casted fingers, and stumbled back towards the couch.

It was too quiet. The silence ate away at her, broken only by the sounds of her shuffling out of her jeans, and the swish of whiskey swirling in the bottle as she tossed it back again. She collapsed onto the couch, bottle in one hand, popcorn bag in the other. Her eyes flicked to the television, and she leaned over for the remote.

The channel didn’t matter. She just wanted something, some kind of noise, anything to block out the overwhelming emptiness. The blank space at her feet where Trish should’ve been.

Some sort of nature documentary was on. Jessica’s eyes glazed over. She couldn’t stop looking at that spot. Every time she looked, she took another drink. By the time the bottle was half gone, she started seeing glimpses of blonde hair. After it was finished, her sister’s ghost was staring right at her.

“Go away,” she mumbled. But ghost-Trish just stared at her. Jessica could feel the disappointment coming off her in waves.

Being drunk all the time, you think that’s gonna make things right for her?

think i can infer that your sister who loved you wouldn’t want to see their alcoholic fucking sister fall off the bandwagon. don’t drown in the liquor, jessica, you can’t resurface from that.

the reason u decided to try is still a reason, jones. also - bullshit. me and u both know its giving up

Christ, she just wanted to give up entirely. She wanted to drown. Didn’t care if she resurfaced as long it was goddamn quiet in her head. As long as her ghosts went down with her.

Somewhere, distantly, her phone was chiming again. More disappointment rolling in. Another weight to add to her shoulders, and despite what Stark thought, she wasn’t goddamn strong enough for this.

She threw an arm over her eyes. Curled in on herself when that didn’t work, the bottle pressed against her stomach. “Goddammit,” she whispered. “Cobalt – fuck. Shit.” Her breath was ragged, her words caught in her throat, choking off air. “I don’t want this,” she moaned to her phone. “I don’t – I just want to sleep.” She drew in a shaky breath, one that left her trembling all over. She felt small, fragile, weak and too heavy, but floating at the same time without Stark’s arms holding her to the earth. She shivered, because Trish wasn’t there to throw a blanket over her.

Hours went by. Maybe – she wasn’t sure. Time was fluid, speeding up and slowing down, and she had no control over it. Over any of this. She knew that now, knew that she was shackled to this goddam bottle, to her own shitty flaws, and that she was utterly, completely, goddamn powerless over it.

A memory floated through her skull. A church basement, Trish’s too-skinny hand holding hers tightly, her arms barely twigs and covered in bruises and track marks. Step one, a voice from the front of the room said, over the sound of coughing and shifting bodies in metal folding chairs. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions –that our lives had become unmanageable.

Unmanageable. Was that the word for it? Her life had been goddamn unmanageable for goddamn years, was this so different?

Maybe it was. Because she could do something about this. If she wanted to, if she found the strength. The heart for it.

A thousand thoughts ran through her mind, pulling her in and out of a half dozing sleep. It didn’t help, her eyes burned with exhaustion each and every time they fluttered open again. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow her mind down, couldn’t make the voices quiet. Couldn’t get rid of the ghost at her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, desperation threading through her voice. Her eyes burned as they looked at the image of Trish there. Her sister just stared back, unmoving, silent, her lips twisted in a small frown, like she was trying to hide it. But then she blinked, and her sister was gone. Again. Or still. She wasn’t sure which was more appropriate.

The dead didn’t care about apologies. They couldn’t do anything with them. It didn’t change a goddamn thing.

The living though.

Her eyes fell on her phone, illuminated by early morning sun. The sky outside was a pale blue, almost white. Even in the city, there were birds. Traffic. A chill from a summer breeze, floating through the swaying glass door, which wouldn’t stay shut now.

There was no one left in this apartment. No one to drag her off the couch and into the shower, to make coffee strong enough to sober her up, to give her that look that she knew, somewhere deep down, buried in the oozing shit inside her, that she needed.

She could stare at Trish’s ghost for a few more hours. She could drink the other bottle of whiskey. She could try to drown out the self-loathing and the bad memories, smother the Bad Nights with a layer of liquor and hope it was enough. That was always a choice.

But she remembered laying on the floor of Stark’s workshop. His body pressed against hers, making her feel real and solid and like something beautiful. Her mind had been so quiet then, pulsing with nothing but want and desire and happiness.

Now she heard Trish’s voice. When this is all over, I hope you finally allow yourself some happiness.

A different time. A different life. But the sentiment might still be possible.

If she hadn’t screwed it up too much.

Chest tight, eyes burning, she forced herself to sit up. Grabbed her phone off the coffee table and with an effort, set the bottle on the floor. Her eyes flicked between the two for a moment.

Choices. It always came down to choices.

Hogarth said it was necessary. That it could make or break the case. Jessica would’ve thought it was just a way for the scummiest shark in the city to get her rocks off on all the gory details – but Hogarth’s look was deadly serious, focused on only one thing. Winning. For her.

“The more I understand, Jessica,” she said. “The more I can help.” Her voice clipped and curt, as usual. But there was been an unfamiliar softness around the edge of her words.

Maybe it was the booze, but lately, there wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to soften anything.

She’d been numb at first – slept three full days, passed out on her couch. Malcolm and Trish and Claire, somehow, taking shifts watching over her. Sometimes they asked her how she was feeling. She didn’t answer. Hadn’t been able to put it into words. Still couldn’t – how do you talk about the ever-present sound of bones snapping like twigs in your ears, the feel of someone’s skin and the weight of their body in your hands, the sight of his blank, empty eyes, still so cold they sent shockwaves through you.

“We need to hear it in your own words,” Hogarth said, sliding the legal pad over. “It will make a difference, Jessica. I promise you that.”

It wasn’t exactly heroic, not the kind of difference she wanted to make, but Jessica pulled the pad towards her.

“Start at the beginning,” she muttered under breath. Then she began writing.

Jessica Jones. Defendant.

I met him a little over two years ago. I don’t know the exact date. Sometime in May, I think. It’s hard to remember. Because his ability leaves left this fog in your head. Like there was a panel of glass between you and the rest of the world. You could see it, but you couldn’t touch it. You couldn’t be heard through the glass. And you couldn’t break it.

At least, I couldn’t. Not then.

I was walking by when I saw someone in trouble. Getting mugged, beat up pretty bad – but one of the assholes (can I swear in this? Fuck it.) – one of them pulled out a knife. So I jumped in, pulled them off. I went to go help the guy who’d gotten his ass kicked, and that’s when I heard him clapping.

He had two other women with him. I don’t know what happened to them, because he told them to leave, and they did. He didn’t need them, because he had me. The second he said ‘Leave him, he’s fine,’ he had me. Totally under his control. It was that easy. A few words, and his voice was the only one in my head. He said ‘Come here, let me look at you,’ and I needed it, needed to obey.

But I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it.

Not the Chinese food he took me to, though he made me ‘love it,’ or at least say I did. Not the drinks he poured down my throat (possibly the only drinks in my life I didn’t want). Not the night we spent in his penthouse hotel room afterwards.  

That was the first time he raped me. I’m not telling you about every goddamn one. He had me under his control for eight months, there were a lot of hotel rooms. A lot of beds.

He forced his way into people’s homes, too. Forced us into them. We’d stay there for a week or two. He liked pretending to be ‘domestic’ for a little while. He made me cook his meals. Forced me into dresses and aprons and make up. I poured his coffee in the morning. I slept next to him at night. The actual members of the household being locked in a closet or another room killed the mood for me, but not for him.

Sometimes, he’d be leading me down the street, and he’d see something – a pearl necklace or a fur coat, something someone was wearing or holding, and he’d decide it would look perfect on me. He’d order them to hand them over. Force me to put it on. And we’d move on. He almost never bothered telling them not to go to the cops – who the hell would believe them anyway?

He liked dressing me up. Cut my hair, took me to a salon that was happy to see him even though he never tipped. ‘Bought’ me dresses – if telling the store clerk to give it to you counts as buying. Money never changed hands around him. He didn’t need it.

Sometimes he didn’t even need his powers. He charmed people with his accent and his suits and his white, white skin. That little edge of class that screams ‘I was a rich prick growing up’ worked well on people who shared that trait. He got invited to a lot of goddamn parties, and showed up at the ones he wasn’t anyway. Guests’ lists aren’t a problem with mind-control.

He’d take me with him, make me hold his arm all night. Let me drink enough to keep up appearances, but he never liked my eyes too glassy. He’d prance around the room, showing me off like a trophy. He rarely introduced himself, but he said my name over and over and over.

The pen snapped in her hand, making Jessica and Hogarth both jump. “Sorry,” Jessica muttered, staring at the ink spreading over her hand.

“I’ll get a towel,” Hogarth sighed, standing up and striding out of the office.

Jessica couldn’t sit still. She stood up, shaking her hand, pacing around the lawyer’s office. She crossed around behind the desk, staring down at her hands. The ink on her palm dried rapidly, and it was so black against her pale skin, so black she almost saw it as red, so black it almost seemed purple –

She snatched another pen from Hogarth’s drawer, sat behind in the lawyer’s chair, and kept writing.

Traveling. He liked traveling. Like I said, money wasn’t an issue. I’d wake up and he’d announce that we were going to Madrid, or the Caribbean, or Germany. We went to France a few times. Once to the Lourve (after hours, he actually made the security guard let him touch the Mona Lisa), and once to the Eiffel Tower. For Christmas. He thought it was ‘romantic,’ because we were the only two there. He’d made everyone else leave.

He had a lot of little ‘moments’ like that. He made me celebrate our one-month anniversary, buy him a tie, took me to a restaurant for his favorite meal, and back to another goddamn hotel room. The best in the city.

He got bored with that after two or three months. Time gets slippery around him, you start not being able to know how many days have passed. Your only sense of hours passing is the feel of his command weakening as they tick by, agonizingly slow.

His ability has limits. Time and distance. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight, not for more than minutes at a time, and only with commands to come back, but sometimes, hours went by without him telling me to do anything.

And the more time that passed without him re-upping, the closer I got to having my mind again. You know when you stay up for days, and your brain gets to the point where it’s so exhausted you can barely take in the world around you for more than few seconds, and your mind starts to drift off for a minute until you remember what you’re doing and then you jolt back? It was like that. Like waking up when you had never fallen asleep. Everything slowly coming back into focus when you had never noticed it was blurry.

I was always fighting. Always. Some tiny corner of my mind was always fighting his voice. Always wanting to say no, to scream it. Sometimes it was soft and subtle, just a pulse in the back of my mind, and sometimes it was almost as loud as him. I couldn’t fight him, I couldn’t stop, but I could keep trying.

So I waited. For one, single opportunity to get away from him. To escape, to run and never look back. Every hour that passed without him telling me to do something, I prayed for this to be the end. To wake up from the nightmare of being a slave in your own body, a living goddamn zombie that no one can see rotting in front of their eyes.

It only happened once. Eighteen seconds. I remember every single one, I remember everything vividly. Time is slippery, but the details are sharp. So I remember the day he let me go for eighteen seconds. It took me a few to realize it was actually happening, that I hadn’t miscounted, that I could actually stop him from kissing me for once.

I sent him inside. Told him I’d be there in a moment. He listened to me. I watched him go. But even after he was gone, even after I was finally, finally alone, it took another few seconds for me to move. To climb up onto the ledge and try to talk myself into jumping off.

I wasn’t goddamn suicidal, I don’t need a psych eval. I knew I could survive it. That I could jump, and then run down the block, too far for him to make me come back. But I didn’t jump. Getting him completely out of my head was like prying fungus from a window, with nothing but my bare hands. I couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stand there and imagine it happening.

Imagined a goddamn white horse and everything. Like I was a princess being saved. He called me that once.

Eighteen seconds wasn’t enough to get away from him. He called me back, made me come down. But it took him twice to say it. I remember that, because he asked why I hadn’t listened to him. When he asked you a question, you had to answer it. Truthfully. ‘Because I don’t want to,’ I told him. It was the truth. I wanted to listen to someone else, anyone else.

He wasn’t happy. He handed me a knife and told me, ‘Cut them off.’ Them being my goddamn ears. I have the scar to prove it.

It must’ve been towards the end. One of those early fall days, where it’s goddamn cold but the sun is out. It was chilly.

“Jessica?”

Hogarth’s voice didn’t startle her. Jessica knew she’d been there a while. Watching her write and scribble and curse lightly at these stupid, stupid words. This wasn’t helping. This wasn’t going to make a difference. This was pointless and painful, and she couldn’t even look up at Hogarth to tell her so because if she moved at all, if she shifted even an inch, every piece of her would crumble. Not like sugar or a house of cards, but like a mirror shattering under a fist.

“What?” she hissed. She could manage that much.

Hogarth must’ve sensed something, or maybe Jessica had finally scared her without breaking a window. Because the lawyer didn’t say anything, just slid a glass of water and a fluffy, expensive looking towel onto the desk, and crossed the office. She didn’t even breathe a word about where Jessica was sitting. Just took a seat on her couch and sat very still.

Jessica shot the glass a look, but took a sip. Then she kept writing, smearing ink-stains onto the paper as she wrote.

It was dark. The first time I got away from him. It was dark, and it was cold, and he had me bundled in a fur coat. Brown, I remember, because I still have it. And because he was angry about the weather. He wanted me in purple, but he couldn’t mind control the weather, and my purple coat was too thin. “Maybe tomorrow, darling,” he said.

January 20th. I know that because of the articles. About the bus crash.

I don’t know exactly how it happened. Maybe it was time. Maybe I’d spent so long with him that I built up an immunity. His parents they said it was a virus, this thing he had, that it was a virus that infected you. He never had anyone as long as me, he said that more than once. Said I was special. So maybe, if you kept fighting it as long as I did, it just broke one day.

Or maybe it was because he got hit by a goddamn bus.

I was walking across the street. Trying to run. He was yelling at me to come back, but sometimes I could fight it, even for a second. Eighteen seconds wasn’t enough to get away, but five seconds and a bus? He didn’t even see it coming.

Eventually I could run. After two blocks, I could do it. I ran and I ran and I ran until I was at Trish’s house, the one we’d lived in together before this all happened. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I kept waiting to see him, to hear him behind me. I kept waiting for that fog to get thicker in my head, for that need to take over. It was like a drug, his voice. Or like he made his commands a drug. He told you what he wanted and you craved doing it.

There was a woman there, too. I didn’t remember until later, until the articles came out. That one thing fell through my mind. Maybe her being there was why he couldn’t stop me leaving. Maybe she gave me a little piece of myself back.

She got hit by the bus, too. It was her names in the papers. I didn’t think that was strange. She was a local hero, he was a John Doe no one came to claim. I saw the death certificate. I thought it was really over. Turned out, he stole an ambulance and escaped, forced a doctor to forge his death certificate.

I can’t tell you how he does it. I’m not a scientist or a goddamn expert on this shit. I can only tell you how it feels. How he treated people like animals, used them and tossed them aside like garbage. How he used his ‘gift’ to ruin people’s lives, tear them apart for his own sick amusement. How once his voice is in your head, it never really goes away. It’s always there, like a whisper or a shadow. He never hit me. But he left plenty of goddamn scars, and some of them I can’t show you because they’re in my head.

But I got him in the end. I won. He told me to ‘smile’ so many times, but I got to say it the last time. Right before I snapped his goddamn neck.

Jessica finished, and waited to implode. But she didn’t.

If anything, she could breathe a little easier. Like some weight she hadn’t noticed before was gone. Even if just for a second.

Hogarth had been watching her. Her eyes found Jessica’s immediately when she looked up.

“Don’t do that,” Jessica snapped, but her tone was too weary to really be sharp. Hogarth glanced down at the pad, raising a brow questioningly. Jessica just pushed it towards her.

Hogarth stood, grabbed the pad and walked while she read. Sometimes she had to squint, ask Jessica was a particular scrawl said.

When she finished, she folded the paper back and gave Jessica a long look. Jessica toyed with the glass of water, running her finger around the rim because if she picked it up, she would crush it.

“Might want to take out the last bit,” Hogarth said finally. “Doesn’t help our case. But this is good, Jessica. It’s honest –”

“It’s not,” Jessica said. Her voice was simple, matter-of-fact. She could finally look Hogarth in the eye, as the lawyer spun slowly to face her. “Not all of it.”

“The part about the woman,” Hogarth said, glancing back down.

Jessica felt the breath catch in her throat. “How do you know about her?”

Hogarth smoothed the legal pad, grabbed a file folder off the desk and slipped it carefully inside. “Because I do my job, Jessica,” she said simply. “As you said, there are articles. I tracked down the people who wrote them, found out who I needed to talk to –”

“Who you needed to bribe.”

“Who I needed to convince,” Hogarth continued, as if the other woman hadn’t spoken. “That it would be best if certain events stayed quiet.”

Jessica picked at the desk, her face stone and hard. “Best for who?” she asked. The words tasted bitter on her tongue, burned like ash.

Hogarth sighed lightly. In that one breath, she seemed just as tired as Jessica felt.

“If nothing else, Jessica,” the woman said, fastening the case shut. “It’ll be good for the case.”

Jessica nodded once. Then she stood up, and walked out, leaving her guts spilled onto that pad of paper,  and feeling strangely empty inside.

3:00 PM, and the clock radio began blaring. Cheesy intro music, and then a news anchor started speaking. ‘Good afternoon! We’ll dive right in with the topic on everyone’s mind today: it’s official Registration Day, fol—‘

Jessica crushed the alarm clock with one hand before the end of that sentence.

She groaned, rolling away from the electric carnage. Her head was pounding, but at least her stomach was empty. Nothing in it to throw up. A half-empty bottle and her phone were on the pillow next to her head. She’d fallen asleep drinking and texting Trish. About her stupidest idea, according to her sister.

But she wasn’t sure that was true.

Jessica sighed irritably as she dragged herself out of bed. Grabbed the bottle before walking out of the room, because admitting a problem wasn’t the same thing as doing something about it.

And she had enough to deal with today.

The shower was hot, the scalding water leaving harsh red marks along her skin. But she hardly noticed. She was thinking about the night before, about the long week, month, years she’d had. Last night she’d dreamt of pens and men in suits grabbing at her and capes tightening around her throat until she couldn’t breathe. Natasha’s voice was ringing in her ears. Bruce’s texts. Clint’s. Pietro’s. The word choice over and over and over. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Snart’s bruised face, his bleeding lip. I made my choice, she’d said to him.

And she had.

Whether it was the right one or not, that much remained to be seen.

She left her phone lying on her pillow.

The building was like every other goddamn government skyscraper. Huge, gray, and imposing. More like a monument than a functioning building. She hadn’t expected it to be this quiet. A few people trickled in and out, but not as many as there should’ve been. Some of them were obviously not… entirely human. But most, Christ, most of them looked normal. You could walk by them on the street and have no idea what they were. Like her.

Some of them walked through the doors with their head held high. Proud. Others kept their eyes low to the ground, never looking up. She stood across the street, wondering, how would she look when she walked inside? How would she look when she walked back out?

Responsibility. That word was floating around her brain, too. Like a mantra to replace the street names. Choice, Responsibility, Responsibility, Choice.

Her choices. Her responsibility.

Nyssa had been trying to teach her to think before she acted, but Jessica couldn’t do that. Not today. Today, she had to be herself. Had to plunge in, dart across the street, slam the doors open before she could stop.

The woman at the desk jumped when she slammed the heavy glass doors open. “Can I help you?” she called coolly, flashing a professional smile. A fake one.

The lobby was littered with people. They glanced up at her when she walked in, but most went back to staring at the forms in their laps. Some of them wrote with ease, looked like they were just waiting at a doctor’s office. Others were biting their nails, fidgeting, tapping their pens against the paper. She couldn’t help but scan for a familiar face, for Natasha or Barry – but she only saw strangers.

“Miss?” the receptionist called again. “Can I help you?”

Jessica crossed the room, avoiding the lingering, too-curious stares, and leaned on the desk. “I’m here for the… I need to register,” she said, her voice quieter than she’d expected. Steady, but quiet.

The woman raised a brow, looked her up and down, then turned to her computer. “Name?” she asked, in a voice that was almost bored.

“Jessica. Jessica Jones,” she answered. Her hands tightened around the edge of the desk.

“Species?”

Jessica gave her a long look, but the receptionist kept her eyes on the screen. Leaned back in her chair like this was nothing, like this was a normal occurrence for her. Maybe after today it was.

“Human,” she said finally, resisting the urge to scoff.

The woman’s hands clacked along the keyboard. “You’re not in the system,” she said. “Apart from a few police records. Not the usual ones we expect with –” Her eyes flicked to Jessica, gazed at her over the rim of her glasses. “Your kind.”

Jessica just gaped at her. “Look, lady, I just wanna get this over with, can we –”

“Powers?” the woman asked, cutting her off. Jessica glanced over her shoulder. Most people were minding their own damn business, but some of them were listening. She could tell from how their pens had stilled against their own forms.

“That’s the government’s business,” she said flatly. “Not yours.”

The receptionist laughed lightly. “Oh, honey,” she cooed. The sound grated against Jessica’s skin, like sandpaper soaked in acid. Like a chemical burn. “After you sign these…” she said, leaning over and grabbing a thick stack of paper. “It’s everyone’s business.”

She dropped the papers onto the desk. Jessica’s eyes darted between them and the woman, glaring. She wanted to grab the stack and rip it in half, wanted to grab the desk and throw it across the room, break windows, smash holes into the walls until this woman was begging her to stop –

But she didn’t. Couldn’t.

She had the control here. Right?

She snatched up the papers, ripped a pen from the nearby cup. Knew she should just walk away, get this done, take responsibility for what she was and what she’d done. But the woman’s smug smile was burning into her skin, the way she stared at Jessica left her feeling like she was some exhibit in a zoo, or some sideshow circus act.

“Fuck you,” she snapped, before stalking off. She heard at least one person in the room let out a low chuckle.

The forms were long. Bureaucratic. Complicated.

Christ, she regretted this already.

They wanted specifics. Name, age, height, weight. How old she was when her abilities manifested. How much control she had over them. Did she have an alias or secret identity? Was she part of a team? Had she ever been a vigilante? How much could she lift? How fast could she run? Could she fly? Turn invisible? How had she used her ‘abilities’ in the past?

It went on. And on.

She bullshitted most of it. Didn’t have the answers they’d wanted – knew she was strong, but how strong? Does it goddamn matter? she couldn’t help but think. They wanted her to rate herself on a thousand different scales, answer dozens after dozens of true or false questions. She tried to answer them quickly, because after a while, they started to sound like the conversations she’d had with Kilgrave. I have to know everything about you, he’d whispered that first night.

But question 112 made her pause.

‘Is anyone else aware of your superhuman/enhanced/meta/inhuman abilities? If so, whom? Please provide all relevant information, name, address, relationship, etc.’

Jessica gripped the pen so tightly it snapped in her hand. She reached into her bag to grab another, hand bumping against her flask.

Christ, she wanted a drink. Wanted to rip these forms into shreds, until their bullshit questions had turned into confetti.

But she was here now. She had made her choice.

No, she wrote. Because her choice wouldn’t fuck up anyone else’s life. She wasn’t going to tell them about Trish. Or Bruce. Or Natasha. Or Malcolm, Claire, Luke, Robyn, Hogarth, or even goddamn motherfucking Snart. This wasn’t their problem to deal with. It was hers.

Choice, Responsibility. Responsibility, Choice.

After what felt like hours, with the room waxing and waning around her as people came and went, she was finally done.

She set the stack of forms on the desk. The receptionist picked it up, flicked through it with a glazed look in her eye. Like she was skimming a goddamn magazine. Jessica couldn’t be here anymore, couldn’t look at her, she needed to find the nearest bar and drown herself, because she’d always made a better alcoholic than a hero.

But as she turned to walk away, the receptionist tutted. “You forgot one thing, dear,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. Saccharine. Manipulative. Jessica turned around slowly, her heart pounding, one hand clenched tightly around the strap of her bag.

“What?” she snapped. “Need me to piss in a cup too, or something?”

The woman shook her head, still smiling bemusedly. “Nothing like that,” she assured her. She flipped to the last page, tapped the bottom of the paper. “You just need to sign here,” she said. “One last time. Signature and initials, if you please.”

Jessica swallowed hard. Noted how it wasn’t phrased as a question or a request. But given, like an order.

Birch Street. Higgins Drive, she thought as she strode slowly back to the desk. She grabbed another pen, placed it against the dotted line, but hesitated. Her fingers were frozen.

She remembered everything she’d said about the act. About how it was wrong to force people into feeling guilty for trying to help. To expose them. To rip their secrets away and plaster them in the public, all in the name of some goddamn greater good.

But for a second – it had felt like this was right. Like it mattered if she chose to walk into this building. If she took responsibility.

“Almost done,” the receptionist prompted, tapping the paper again.

Jessica nodded blankly, like she had whenever he gave her another command.

Shit. What had she done?

The key weighed a thousand pounds in her hand. Superstrength was nothing compared to PTSD.

Jessica waited until she was alone. To pull the briefcase out of her desk drawer, to grab the key from her pocket. When her fingers didn’t find it immediately, she panicked – ‘This deal only lasts as long as it’s useful, remember?’ Fish whispered from atop her desk. The hallucination of her, anyway. Jessica closed her eyes and kept digging until her fingers closed around the metal. It was there. She had it.

Now she just had to open the damn thing. Which was... more difficult than she’d hoped it would be.

‘Are you just going to stare at it all day?’ Kilgrave asked, lounging across her futon. Fish was closer but silent, drumming manicured fingernails across the briefcase. “Shut up,” Jessica said, glad no one could hear her talking to nothing. “And fuck off. I don’t need this, especially today,” she muttered, leaning forward. She slid the key in, unlocked the briefcase. Like it was nothing. Like two seconds ago it hadn’t been an impossible task. She shoved it open before she could hesitate again. Like leaping into the Hudson to retrieve a head.

‘What the hell do you think that is?’ Kilgrave asked. Jessica ignored him – ignored herself – and picked up one of the four, thick white envelopes inside. The paper was thick, heavy duty, the script on it impeccably neat and ornate in that way that borders illegible. But she could pick out the names – Elijah Sullivan, Mary O’Hare, Krysten Bennet, Julia Smith. The addresses were written underneath.

The envelopes weren’t sealed. Either Fish trusted her to not disturb the contents – or she just didn’t care. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ the delusion of the woman echoed back to her, stroking a hand down her cheek. It was a promise. It was a threat. Jessica didn’t want to know what would happen if she didn’t take care of things.

Inside each envelope was cash. A lot of cash. “Jesus,” Jessica breathed, thumbing through the bills. “Talk about goddamn overkill.” ‘Well, what dollar amount would you put on a human life?’ Kilgrave asked, leaning over her shoulder now. Jessica reminded herself that he wasn’t there, that his breath wasn’t really on her neck. ‘I like to be generous,’ Fish crooned, smiling down at Jessica, still reaching for her face.

Jessica stood up, slamming the briefcase shut. She had Mary O’Hare’s envelope still in her hand, and she shoved it into her pocket, kept one hand clenched tight around it. She slung her bag over her shoulder, tossed her already-filled flask inside – and then grabbed a second bottle just in case.

It was going to be a long goddamn day.

Mary O’Hare turned out to be a tiny black woman, terrified to even open the door all the way. She didn’t say a word to Jessica when she held out the envelope. “This is from Fish,” Jessica whispered. Mary just nodded once, eyes solemn and deep, so dark they were almost inky-black. Like a night sky, untouched and unbroken by starlight. Inside, just before she closed the door, Jessica heard a little voice call out. “Mama? Who was that?”

Julia Smith on the other hand couldn’t stop asking questions. “But where is he? Where’s my Ryan?” she begged, reaching out for Jessica. “What did they do to him?” Jessica smacked her hands away, too hard, instinct more than choice. Julia’s eyes went wide and she clutched the envelope to her chest, backing away slowly. For a long moment they just looked at each other. “Nothing,” Jessica said finally. “Got it?” It took her a moment, but Julia nodded slowly. Jessica could almost see the lights go out in her eyes too, fading away slowly as that dark understanding stretched over them.

Elijah Sullivan broke down before Jessica even finished saying Fish. He collapsed in the doorway, sobbing, arms wrapped around his stomach. He didn’t even take the envelope. Jessica stood there, knowing that a normal goddamn person would’ve said something, anything. Would’ve rubbed his goddamn shoulder at least. She fiddled with the daisy earring still in her ear, glad it wasn’t on, that her Daisy couldn’t hear this. “Please, please,” Elijah choked out. “I won’t say anything, I swear, just – don’t kill me, too.” Jessica clenched her jaw so tight she thought her teeth would crack. “I’m sorry,” Jessica said finally, dropping the envelope at his feet.

Krysten Bennet was different. She opened the door with defiance in her eyes, a snarl on her lips. “I’m not scared of you,” she said, glaring at Jessica. “I know who sent you, and I’m not scared of her, you got me?”

Jessica bit her lip. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” she said, feeling her own fury flickering through her. Like sparks that hadn’t quite caught yet. Defensive – but she was the monster here. She could see that in Bennet’s eyes. “For either of us.”

“Either of us?” Bennet repeated. She scoffed, pushing the envelope in Jessica’s hand away. “No, there is no us here. You work for her,” she hissed, jabbing a finger towards Jessica’s chest.

Jessica caught her by the wrist. Yes, that’s it. That’s who you are. Teach her to mind her manners. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered, letting go instantly, like Bennet’s wrist burned her. But she was the one on fire, the one with matches all along her skin. “Just take the goddamn cash, and keep your mouth shut. Got that? Just keep quiet.”

“Just keep quiet?” Bennet repeated. Jessica closed her eyes, wished that it wasn’t so familiar. The way Bennet’s voice shook, half from fury and half from terror. “I won’t,” Bennet continued. “I won’t, I’m done with this.” Jessica’s eyes snapped open, stared at the other woman. “I told him working for that bitch would get him killed. I knew it would – but she ain’t getting away with it.” Bennet was breathing heavy, shaking – but Jessica could see the determination in her eyes. The truth there. “So just take your hush money and get the –”

Jessica stopped the door before it could slam in her face. “Don’t do this,” she said, in the same exact tone as Bennet. Terrified. Angry. A warning and a plea all at once somehow. It hadn’t worked with Fish, it hadn’t worked with Kilgrave – she doubted it would work here. “Be smart about this. It won’t bring him back, fighting this, fighting her. Take. The. Money,” she said, fingers wrapped so tightly around the door the wood started to splinter under her fingers.

Bennet stepped back, arms by her side. “Are you gonna make me?” she asked. Jessica just stared at her, helpless, blank, too many bad thoughts in her mind and not enough liquor in her bloodstream. “That’s the only way I’m taking that money. And if you want me to stay quiet?” Bennet scoffed. “You’ll have to kill me.”

She didn’t call her Daisy when it was over, like she was supposed to. She didn’t call Fish like she had to. Shit, she didn’t even have the briefcase anymore. She’d tossed it towards a random homeless man, told him to pawn it.

The last envelope was sitting on her desk. Fifty thousand dollars, so soaked in blood it might as well have been dripping. Because of her.

But not Krysten Bennet’s. Not this time.

Fish could tear her secrets from her. She could rip the heart out of her chest, she could twist Jessica in any angle she wanted to around those bony, perfectly manicured fingers. But she couldn’t make her into a killer. Not today.

The day after. She didn’t know if she’s slept. She didn’t know for sure when Coulson left, when Daisy did. At some point, she’d ended up alone. Maybe she’d asked to be. Maybe she didn’t need to.

She blinked, realized she was standing in her kitchen. She wasn’t a second ago, a second ago she was back in the club, her wrist throbbing, Fish’s hand flying across her face. Jessica reached up, touched her cheek, but the swelling was already gone. Like it never happened, except in her head.  Where it kept happening, over and over again. Relax. Tell me how he did it. Mind your manners.

Who’s phone is that?

Jessica gasped, and stumbled back, until she hit the counter. She reached back to steady herself, closed her eyes. “Main Street. Birch Street,” she choked out. It didn’t help, nothing helped – at least with him, she was immune, he couldn’t get her again, but Fish –

Fish had her. Even with that pulsating energy gone, even though there was no bruise on her wrist, she was branded. Owned. Controlled.

She’d sold herself, body and soul. Traded it away, by choice. But not for nothing. “Higgins Drive. Cobalt Lane,” she finished. She was still shaking, but her mind felt more present again. She could think.

Who’s phone is that?

That command stuck in her mind. Not because of the agony of the memory, how it felt to have the answer pulled out of her, ripped from her throat – but because of the shame. She’d given the name. She had no choice, Fish had ordered it, but… It was her voice that spoke the words. Her voice that gave up Sofia like a lamb to the slaughter.

Her job to fix it. To make it goddamn right.

If she even could.

Who’s phone is that? It was the wrong question. Her mind was sluggish, foggy, she was clawing at the fungus, but it took time. Time she didn’t have. Who’s – no, no. Not who. Where? Where was Sofia’s phone? Where was Sofia?

She took a breath. Scrubbed her hands over her face, before snatching a bottle off the table, and walking into her office. Her eyes flicked to the wall, just behind her desk, where the message had been. The faint stain was still there, barely visible, like the most-distant echo in a cavern – but she saw it every time she blinked. She sat down, put her back to the memory, and took another swig.

Think. Where was the phone? She glanced at her top drawer – had a faint, blurry memory of putting it there last night. (Was it only last night? It felt like a lifetime ago – and like she was still living it.) But when she opened the drawer it wasn’t there.

‘Careless. You always were such a slob, Jessica.’

“Not now,” she murmured, not even looking up at the hallucination. She was used to him, at least. Jessica walked right through him, over to the mantle. But the phone wasn’t there either. ‘Where the hell is it?’ Kilgrave asked beside her. He leaned in closer, Jessica clenched her jaw. And her fists. ‘Don’t you know?’

She slammed her fist into the wall. It crumbled like tissue paper, but she felt the splinters drive into her skin. At least he was gone, quiet, for just a second. She just needed a second. Like at the wedding, when she’d walked off. Daisy had followed her then, had whispered to her gently, her fingertips soft, her kiss warm and sweet and –

‘You have quite the temper, sweetheart.’

Jessica closed her eyes. It didn’t matter. When she opened them, turned around slowly, there she was. Fish, sitting in her office chair, manicured nails running across her lips. ‘You need to relax,’ the hallucination crooned. ‘Rushing didn’t help much before, now did it? Stop, breathe, and think it through, Jessica.’

“Shut up,” Jessica choked out. Just a hallucination, and still, she didn’t dare go near it. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need him. I can do this myself.”

‘You really never learn do you?’ Fish asked her, chuckling as Jessica walked back to her desk, giving the delusion a wide berth.

‘She’s a bit slow on the uptake,’ Kilgrave answered, sitting in the other chair. He shared a knowing smile with Fish. Jessica ignored them both, inhaling sharply. She pushed her laptop open, a little too roughly.

Fish tutted at her. ‘Don’t break that. We’ve talked about your temper.’

‘Your girlfriend won’t be happy,’ Kilgrave noted.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jessica hissed. Her Daisy was more than that, they didn’t need labels, they just were. She hoped they still were, that she could still be something after this. “And you’re not real.”

‘More real than any chance of you finding that phone,’ Kilgrave said.

‘Or your little friend,’ Fish finished with a smile. ‘Why don’t you be a dear and remind me of her name?’

Jessica’s fingers paused on the keys. “Sofia. Her name’s Sofia, and neither of you,” she seethed. “Are ever going to get near her.” They might’ve just been delusions, but it felt good to say. It shut them up for a moment, and she pulled up the tracking program. Same one she’d used before. She just caught a glimpse of the signal – in a strange neighborhood, nowhere that made sense – before it disappeared.

“Shit,” she snapped, leaning back in her seat. The phone was off, or broken, or something. She didn’t know where it was. All she knew was that it wasn’t here, like it should’ve been, and somehow – that gave her a bad feeling. She needed to track down that phone, needed to figure out what the hell was going on. She might’ve gotten a promise from Fish, but she wouldn’t believe Sofia was safe until she saw her with her own two eyes.

‘Now you’re in a pickle,’ Kilgrave said, frowning down at her screen over her shoulder.

“My Daisy made this laptop,” Jessica muttered, feeling more centered than she had in hours. “There’s gotta be something on here that can help.” She closed the tracking program, going through the list of all the others. Half of them she barely understood, but there had to be something.

Fish tsked over her other shoulder. ‘Do you ever actually know what you’re doing, sweetheart?’

‘You can’t do this alone,’ Kilgrave said, in a mocking sing-song voice. ‘Gonna have to call up your Dai—’

“No,” Jessica hissed. “I will claw my own brain out before I let you say her name. She’s my Daisy, not yours,” she choked out, breathing heavily. She closed the laptop, leaning back. Her delusions were assholes, but they had a point. She didn’t know what she was doing, and obviously she wasn’t thinking clearly. But she couldn’t face her Daisy right now. Or Coulson.

Not because seeing them would hurt. It’d probably make her feel better. But she couldn’t let herself off the hook, not before she knew for certain that Sofia was safe. The next time she saw her Daisy, she wanted to be able to tell her she’d done at least one thing right.

But she needed somebody who was good at tech. Somebody who might not ask too many questions. Jessica bit her lip for a moment, eyes sliding towards the kitchen. Fish and Kilgrave were in there, Kilgrave sitting on the counter, swinging his legs like a child. Fish was putting something in her toaster.

Toaster.

That was an idea. She opened the laptop again, pulled up her last phone back-up. Her contacts were saved, and she pulled her office phone towards her. She had a plan at least. She could make this right.

trish,

you goddamn promised. you swore i wouldnt lose you.

but i guess we’ve broken a lot of promises to each other over the years. like when we were sixteen, and i promised i wouldnt let your mom find out about that party you threw when she was gone. but at least then i was there. i stopped her. kept you safe.

im sorry. christ, trish, im so goddamn sorry. and if you could actually read this stupid bullshit pointless letter, you’d tell me i have nothing to be sorry for. but i do. i heard it, i heard you say my name, and i wasn’t there. i wasn’t there to be the hero you wanted me to be. the hero you always thought i could be.

idk if i can. idk if ‘heroes’ are supposed to write letters like this on a legal pad, with hands that wont stop shaking. (idk if thats bc i havent had a drink since that night or if its... shit.) idk if heroes are supposed to be this goddamn screwed up. you werent. whatever you mightve thought. i know you, i know you still thought you’d never be good enough, that you never quite got her voice out of your head (i know how hard that is, too, how loud they can be). i know you wanted to save all those girls, all those people suffering and lost, because you were still so ashamed of what you went through. but it wasnt your fault. it never was.

i dont think i told you that enough. idk if a thousand times wouldve been enough, bc jesus, how many times did you tell me reva wasn’t my fault? that hope wasn’t? or ruben or wendy or his parents, or him. and i never believed you. i didnt listen. you were trying to pull me out of the water, but i was too busy drowning myself in goddamn pity.

christ, i still am. but im trying, trish. i really am. im sorry, sorry i was too -- whatever, stubborn or stupid or blind, sorry i didnt do this earlier. im not drinking anymore. trying not to. i know it bugged you, but we didn’t talk about it. i used to downplay it around you, believe it or not. i didnt want you to know what a goddamn mess i was. 

you probably did anyway. you knew everything about me, even when i couldnt say. christ, theres so much i didnt say. so much i didnt say enough.

i love you.

im proud of you.

i missed you too, all those months you were missing me. 

you were my hero.

you still are.

i googled this twelve steps shit. i didnt remember them from when you used to go. but this one, this thing about a ‘higher power?’ thats one ive always had an issue with. but this one site, it said a higher power doesnt have to mean god. it can mean ‘recovery itself’ or the meeting, or your support system -- whatever you need it to mean.

my higher power is you, trish. it always has been. i ask myself all the time, what would trish do? you were always so much better than i was, better at comforting people, better at being a person. hell, you were a better hero than i was too. you had the heart for it. you believed in it, more than i ever did.

but you believed in me, too. and thats going to have to be enough, at least for now. bc im gonna be the hero you wanted me to be. im really gonna do it. im not wearing the stupid costume, i still say jewel is a stripper’s name... but im gonna do it. shit, i might even use the name. just for you. 

im gonna find who did this to you. and im gonna do what you wouldve done -- im gonna do it right. im gonna make it right, trish. you deserve that. you deserve so much more.

you know the one thing i never told you, about kilgrave? (his name isnt so goddamn terrifying in my head anymore. his ghost doesnt even goddamn matter.) he got me pregnant. right before the bus crash. i didnt even know at first, but i figured it out. and i took care of it myself, made the appointment, because i couldnt look you in the eye and tell you about it. i’ve never told anyone, but i especially couldnt tell you. bc i know somehow, you would’ve found a way to make even that okay, you probably wouldnt have even been mad that i lied to you about why i was so goddamn sick back then. you always knew exactly what to say. im gonna miss that. 

im gonna miss a lot of shit.

i used to think those street names, main street, birch street, higgins drive, cobalt lane, that those were the only happy memories i had left. but they weren’t. i had you, too. sitting on your couch and throwing popcorn at the screen. growing up with you, breaking god knows how many of your hair brushes. the way you used to look at me whenever i showed up on your balcony. that little smile like you were trying to be annoyed, but you really goddamn weren’t. the way we used to pretend id eventually buy you dinner one day. how you kept fixing my door, even though it’d just be broken again two weeks later. listening to you on the radio. falling asleep on the couch, in the middle of gone girl for the thousandth time. 

i’d give anything to watch it one more time with you. i’d stay awake the entire goddamn time.

but that’s just what if, if only. and i know how pointless that game is.

thanks for trying to put me back together. for never giving up on me, for always giving me whatever i asked for. for being there, that night on the docks. for driving me around in your car and not caring when i bled on the seats. for wrapping my ribs and tucking me in on your couch, and for never letting me throw my life away completely.

thanks for being the best goddamn sister i could’ve asked for.

i love you. 

im still pissed that you died, but i love you. so much.

maybe i’ll even take your other bit of advice sometime. maybe after this is done, i’ll let myself be happy. it’s hard to imagine that without you. you should be here for it. 

your sister,