A/N: Their friendship was one of my fave things about this show.
Jessica doesn't count the people she's lost. The ledger is red, and she leaves it at that.
But she pours some shots out for Murdock, and thinks that she wanted more than a week.
.
He was a good guy. One of those insufferable, church-on-Sunday kind of guys. A dark side, sure. Several dark sides. But the first time Jessica saw him, he only pissed her off—he didn't frighten her.
It's the thing she hates most about herself; she's easily frightened. The thing she'd like most about herself, if she was prone to that, is that she never, ever shows it.
Smile, Jessica, and Kilgrave in her head, now and always—yeah. It's rare to meet a man who doesn't make her stomach twist.
Murdock pissed her off, and then she liked him.
.
Not like she liked Luke—there wasn't a spark with Matt.
There was just warmth. Somehow, they teamed up. And somehow, she trusted him. And somehow, she didn't call him out on the BS he pulled in the pits of Midland financial, when he said he'd be right behind them.
.
She sits at his Catholic funeral—she, who believes in nothing, who takes no punches because she's taken everything else—and watches everyone else melt in tears. Nelson, Karen—even Trish came. Even Trish is wiping her eyes.
Jessica stares numbly at the golden altar, and pauses before the candles when she leaves.
The stained glass is beautiful, if you like that sort of thing. She wonders if Murdock—if Matt did, and then remembers that he couldn't even see it.
.
She drinks, and drinks again. She'd say it was in his honor, but he wouldn't ask for honor. Those hero types—they like to be noble, and pretend like nobody's going to miss them when they're gone.
Damn it all, even Jessica isn't that delusional. She knows Trish would miss her, though she shouldn't.
And Matt had more friends than she does.
Damn you, she whispers, to the wet ring the shot glass left behind. Damn his laugh, his kung fu fighting—a good sight better than Danny's attempts, though Danny was the one trained by ninjas. Damn his lawyer speeches and the way he loved.
.
She scratches a match across her desk that night, watches the flame creep down until it scorches her fingertips. There's her candle.
Jessica's no believer, but she believed in him.