Someone with a death wish was banging on her front door. Loudly. Incessantly. Jessica groped for her phone on the bedside table and glowered at the time. Not even ten. The knocker barrelled another barrage of punches into her door and it might as well have been machinegun fire three inches from her ear.
"Go away!" she hollered, grabbing a pillow and smushing it around her head. They didn't.
"Jess, it's me!"
A very long, very soulful groan dragged itself from Jessica's lips to flop lifelessly against the floor. With herculean effort, she dragged herself from the warm comfiness of her bed, staggered to the door, and yanked it open.
"What, Trish?"
Trish was already speaking, eyebrows high in disapproval and voice way to loud for the pre-ten portion of the day.
"I've been knocking for five minutes, Jess, we were meant to ..." Her words trailed off into nothing as horror overtook her expression. "Jess ... what the hell happened to you?"
"What?" She looked down at herself. She wasn't wearing jeans, but Trish had seen worse than that. Oh, right. The glistening splotch of blood on her tank top. "Aw shit, that's gonna be a bitch to clean up."
She turned back into her apartment, leaving the door open for Trish, who followed her in with the air of an anxious pug.
"Jessica, what the hell happened? You're bleeding!"
"Chill out, Trish, it's nothing serious."
"Bullshit! You've bled through your shirt."
"And into the mattress," Jessica noted with a grimace. She couldn't flip it again, the other side was still black with Ruben's blood. "Shit."
"Jessica." Trish's high heels clacked resolutely against the floorboards as she planted herself in front of Jessica, demanding her full (if foggy) attention. "Talk. Now." Her eyebrows rose in one quick, challenging jump. A move she unknowingly inherited from her mother and looking even more severe with her hair tied back.
Jessica rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Can I at least change first? I just woke up, Trish, I need coffee –"
"No. Talk. Now."
Another groan. "Fine. I was out the other night working on a case and I got jumped, okay? She got a lucky shot in and now I'm bleeding. Happy?"
The corner of Trish's mouth twitched ever so slightly, but her disapproving countenance prevailed. "No. Sit down and let me look at it."
"Trish –"
"Sit." She grabbed Jess's shoulder and pushed her down onto the bed.
"Hey, abusing the infirm over here!"
Trish snorted. "Since when have you ever been infirm, Jessica Jones?"
Jessica grunted and allowed Trish to pull up her tank top and peel away the blood-soaked bandage wrapped around her right side. She let out a low hiss when she spied the wound.
"Jess, this is –"
"It's fine."
"It's deep –"
"Shallow."
"Looks inflamed –"
"Totally not inflamed."
"You're pale and –"
"I'm always pale, fake tan's a scam."
Trish exhaled a measured, patient breath and scowled at her. Jessica stared right back, her gaze a challenge and a silent plea for her to just drop it. It was way too early in the morning for this shit.
"You at least gonna tell me who stitched you up? Looks like you got a professional's help, and that can't be a good sign."
Jessica rolled her eyes and gestured to her desk in the other room. "Get me the first aid kit, will you? I feel gross."
After a moment's hesitation, Trish acquiesced. The cheap green plastic rattled slightly as it was placed on the bed and Trish sat beside it, flicking it open and pulling out a roll of gauze and a packet of antiseptic wipes. As she cleaned the wound, Jess grudgingly relinquished the details, knowing she would not know peace until Trish's curiosity was satisfied.
"I was looking for the zombie bitch – Elektra. Y'know," she prompted at Trish's blank stare, "from Midland Circle? God, how many zombies do you know? I tracked her down and we fought and I won, but she got me with her mini pitch fork thing."
Trish pursed her lips to hide a smile.
"Do you mean a sai sword?"
"Whatever. Wasn't a bad hit but apparently the thing was laced with this crazy ninja poison the Hand uses –"
"The Hand!"
"– Yeah, and I kinda blacked out, but then Murdock found me, took me to his place, gave me the cure – which hurt like a bitch, by the way – and stitched me up. Figures he'd be good at that, guy's full of scars. I stayed at his for the rest of the night and next morning he made me breakfast."
Trish taped the last of the gauze in place and leaned back, her eyes wide. "So you almost died, is what you're not saying."
Jessica shrugged and avoided eye contact. "I guess, but it's fine. Friendly neighbourhood Daredevil did his hero thing and I feel fine, Trish. Really. Just tired. Bit groggy. But you know me," she added, wanting to banish that shadow of fear from Trish's gaze, "this'll be healed in no time. Won't even scar."
Trish pursed her lips again, considering her.
"Next time your dying? I want a phone call."
"Ugh, fine."
"Good. So," she continued, her perfect posture slouching as confusion twisted her expression, "Matt made you breakfast?"
Jessica stared at her. "That's your takeaway?"
Trish raised a dismissive hand. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, near-death experience, zombie ninja is back and working with the Hand, I get all that, and believe me, we'll be discussing it, but Matt can cook?"
Jessica almost laughed at the expression on Trish's face – and her priorities.
"Why are you so surprised?"
"Well, last time I saw him he could barely shave by himself. And now he can cook?"
Jessica shrugged and looked down at her fingers in her lap. She didn't like remembering that Matt.
"Yeah, he can cook."
"Was it good?"
She couldn't resist the smile this time. "Yeah. Real good."
Trish's hand appeared on her own. "Jess? What's wrong?"
With a heavy sigh, Jessica looked up.
"He even saved my camera," she explained, frowning at the memory. "And he saves my life and makes me this amazing breakfast and I yell at him and call him a scared ex-lawyer. Like I owed him nothing. I mean," she added fairly, "he was being a jackass, but still."
Trish blinked. "Okay, back up. How was he being a jackass?"
"He wanted me to drop the case. His case. Said it wasn't worth me getting hurt, said I needed to be more careful, yadda yadda yadda."
"Okay, so far I'm not getting the yelling part."
"It was the way he said it. All patronising and condescending. As though I couldn't do it. As though," she said haltingly, "as though I didn't know the stakes. Like I was Danny or some bullshit, not like I was the one who found him in IGH."
"Jess." Trish waited until she'd looked up to meet her gaze. "That is not what he was saying."
"He was being a hypocritical asshole. Where does he get off telling me to be careful? He's got more scars than –"
"Jess," Trish cut across her, her tone gentle, "he's just worried about you, you didn't have to go nuclear on him like that. He cares about you. And you care about him, it's obvious."
Jessica tried not to squirm at that. She couldn't exactly deny it, either. Which pissed her off.
"And come on, he dresses up a devil suit so he can go save random strangers. If he cares that much about people he doesn't even know and you saved his life can you really blame him for wanting to keep you safe? He probably feels like he owes you, too."
"It wasn't just that," she said quietly after a moment.
"No?"
She looked up. "He's doing bad, Trish. Really bad. He's faking being okay but he's not and it ..." She heaved a sigh. This admission was going to need extra fuel to leave her lips. "He reminds me of me. After ... him."
Trish was silent as she understood. Her hand moved back to Jessica's, the pressure warm and more comforting than Jessica would ever admit.
"I get it," she whispered. "In those first few months ..." She took a deep breath that quelled the slight tremor in her voice. "I was so scared for you. It felt like there was nothing I could do, no way I could really help. I just ... couldn't understand what you'd been through. But at least I wasn't flashbacking," she added, empathy oozing from her tone in a way Jessica had never understood. She didn't even know how to make her voice do that.
She shrugged one shoulder, her gaze still directed at her knees.
"I shouldn't've said what I did. Even if he had some of it coming," she added belligerently. Then the energy faded from her tone. "I just ... I don't know how to do what you do, Trish. What Claire does. I don't know how to be there for someone through something like this. It's just ... not me."
Trish's laugh caught her off guard and she looked up, perplexed.
"Jess that's gotta be one of the stupidest things you've ever said! How many times did you sit on a dirty bathroom floor with me helping me ride through withdrawals, or bad highs? You're the reason Malcolm got clean, you gave him the reason to want to live. And Matt – don't pretend you don't know how to help him, Jess. C'mon. When he was stuck in my place you were the only one he relaxed around. Well," she added, "you and Claire."
Jessica considered this for a moment, didn't like the implications, and stood up to hunt for a clean (or cleaner) top as a distraction.
"So you're saying I'm some sort of trauma whisperer?" she accused as she threw a tshirt on and snatched her jeans from the floor, realising as she did so that the cut on her arm was almost healed. She'd completely forgotten it was there. Sting was kinda drowned out by the frickin' burning in her side. And she was out of aspirin. Of course.
"Kinda, yeah," Trish said, unabashed. "You should at least try. I know Karen's worried about him, and Claire."
A flare of anger flashed across Jessica's chest.
"You three just meet up and bitch about him, do you?"
"We bitch about all of you, actually," Trish said evenly. "We've formed a sort of superhero family support group. It's good," she added, "great cocktails."
Finally clothed, Jessica flopped back down on the bed.
"You suck."
"And you won't let yourself off the hook if you don't try and get through to Matt." Trish let that sink in for a moment before shifting her weight on the bed and leaning forward. "Now – the Hand is back?!"
Jessica laughed.
"'Pparently. Murdock said that poison's only used by the Hand."
"Well shit! We should call the guys, we gotta get on this, figure out what they're planning!"
Jessica snorted. "Send out the twilight bark?"
"Yes! What if there's another Midland Circle somewhere?"
All humour drained from Jessica's face. "Don't say that."
Trish blinked, her expression an apology. "You know what I mean."
Silence filled the space between them, full of complications neither of them wanted to consider. If the Hand was really back in New York, if the organisation had really survived ...
She'd been doing so well avoiding all these stupid thoughts.
"The eh, the old lady made it out too," she said reluctantly, not meeting Trish's eye.
"The old – what, Madam Gao? How do you know?" Jessica didn't miss the accusation in Trish's voice.
"Matt told me. He smelled her and zombie girl when we were in IGH that time."
"He smel – Jess that was months ago! You've been sitting on this for months!"
"Yeah well, client privilege," she shot back, scowling. "We've both been keeping an eye out – or ear out, whatever – ever since and this was the first hint either of us've gotten."
Trish was silent for a long moment, her gaze alight with the intensity only a truly great story could muster.
"Then we gotta get moving." She stood up, all business. "I'm gonna call Karen and Danny. We need info. I take it I'm not gonna be able to convince you drop this case that almost got you killed?"
"Nope."
"Then be careful, Jess. Please."
Trish's sincerity caught her slightly off guard. She nodded, a little uncomfortably.
"And take backup next time you try to find her. And when you do," she added, drowning out Jessica's indignant half-words, "find out what we're up against. And call me," she finished with a tone that would probably make a lot of interns shit their pants. Jessica just smirked at her and nodded.
"Good. Now, go have a shower 'cause you look gross. I'm going down to the store and getting you soup, and then we're gonna work this case."
"Alright, mom," Jessica muttered, almost managing to quash her grin as she headed for the bathroom, listing to Trish's heels clack their way out into the hall.