twelve hours
i.
He finds her when she is almost a real person again and there's a part of her that isn't sure whether she's happy or angry about that. It's hard work rising from the ashes, after all, and a path lathered in whiskey is always a trip hazard when travelling backwards.
ii.
He has not changed at all. There's something in his consistency that is comforting, even the royal purple suit. When he takes her will away, it's like the return of an old, unwanted friend.
iii.
There is a yellow dress on the bed, when she leaves the bathroom. It fits her perfectly when she puts it on; the material is of a fine quality, soft when she runs her hands down it. As she turns, the dress twirls around her legs.
She hates it.
"You look lovely, Jessica," he compliments her. He sits at the table, a bowl of fresh fruit in front of him for breakfast. "Join me."
"I hate it," she tells him as she sits in the chair opposite and begins to eat from her own bowl. These gestures he makes to change her, she hates them all. But there is nothing she can do to stop them.
"Now, Jessica," he says lightly. "You love it really."
And she does, until the compulsion wears off. Then she throws the dress out the window.
iv.
She calls Trish while Kilgrave has business for the afternoon. He leaves with a command for her to stay inside their forcefully borrowed accommodation, but does not specify what she should do.
"Jessica? Where have you been? You haven't been returning any of my calls-" Trish rants.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "But I couldn't."
Trish huffs. "Where are you? I'm coming to see you right now."
She winces because that is another of her constraints. You will not tell anyone of our location. "I can't tell you Trish, I'm so sorry, I- I love you alright?"
She hangs up.
v.
"Smile," he tells her.
She smiles.
vi.
One day she notices that it no longer bothers her to watch him compel other people. It makes their life easier, she finds, when the world trembles and complies before them.
That night she wonders when she began to think of them as a 'them'.
vii.
It's much easier to live life when someone tells you how to do it. He tears her apart, sooths her sharp edges and rebuilds her into something more desirable. The dresses feel normal to her now, no longer something to be thrown out the window at night, comfortable in the same way whiskey used to be.
She does not drink anymore, though, because Kilgrave does not think she should. Even when he no longer compels her, she does not drink a single drop.
viii.
The sound of breaking glass awakens her. The other side of the bed is empty and so she is instantly weary. She has been with Kilgrave long enough to know he likes to play his games.
And she knows that sometimes his games go wrong.
Peaking around the corner to the kitchen, she sees a figure standing over hiss prone form. A broken glass bottle is in the hand of Kilgrave's assailant, held in a position that makes it obvious that it has been used to knock him out. She feels a moment of respect for this person who has defeated Kilgrave as she sneaks up behind the figure and knocks them out. Permanently.
She leaves Kilgrave knocked out underneath his dead assailant, feeling disgusted with herself for not taking the chance of freedom when it appeared. She still does not know why she didn't.
ix.
He does not compel her to say I love you and so she does not say it. But she knows it what he wishes to hear the most.
She will not say it unless she means it and she does not know if she does. It is comfortable with him, the rolling force that moves mountains and moves her like a marionette. It is nice to know what she should be doing, instead of floundering through the streets of Hell's Kitchen with a bottle of whiskey in hand.
Her life has so rarely had any guidelines; it is so nice to finally walk a path already paved for once.
x.
Trish stops calling after three months. It hurts to know that everyone has given up her, but it is what she has been expecting and what she deserves, since she has already given up herself.
xi.
He does not tell her to smile anymore. She smiles regardless.
xii.
They fuck with the lights on in luxury hotels: her dress pulled up, his pants pulled down, eyes locked, lips almost touching.
"I love you," she pants.
Sometimes, she can pretend she means it.