(A/N: Apologies to all you people. I found myself prematurely back with DC to all the Suicide Squad hype, so updates may be few and far between. Either way, Conspiracy is drawing to a close soon, which I'm almost sad to say. I hope you enjoy, but yet again I found myself nearly rushing it)

So I get high.

I do meet Nicole and a group, who're celebrating a birthday amongst them (I've only met the girl once – Cas, Kacey or something – but she drunkenly tells me to join them anyway) and they're doing lines of coke in a backroom of a sleazy, yet large and roomy, bar room venue the girls hired out for the evening. The lady in question – wearing a large thirty banner around her gaunt form – is doing body shots with a man I don't recognise, so I think best to save the pleasantries for later. I catch up with Nicole, standing smoking a cigarette out the backdoor, and find out she's on the phone to a local dealer. Result. I go halves on what she's buying, totalling thirty dollars.

My night is spent avoiding those who seem overly-touchy, and sitting in Nicole's circle, doing an occasional shot. I smoke my first joint in three months, then another. I snort a line when a girl in a blue dress tells me it's Diamond. The good stuff. I stay for an hour, take maybe three more shots and do another line before slurring to the birthday girl and stumbling out.

I haven't drug-binged like this for a long time. I barely remember my own address, and when I do I don't even want to go home anymore. Instead, I find that park with the book seller and the adjacent coffee shop. I sit on a bench, and all is peaceful except the others, like me, whacked up on spank, and the homeless. I think, because obviously thinking about my life situation with a clear head creates riddles, so why not do it on one loaded with drugs. I think about how I'm going to get out of this mess. And I'm trying to think, when some fucker stands right in front of me and grabs my arm. I'm so high I don't even realise he's there until I feel a solid grip crushing my wrist.

"You've got to come with me. He said I must find you and bring you to him."

"Leggo'm'me." I squirm, only he grabs tighter. I'm currently trying to fight him off, when something clicks in my brain. He said... oh god, am I really going to have to go to Kilgrave in this fucking state? At least I'm not so bad I'm covered in piss and vomit. I just still can feel the coke I rubbed into my gums fizzing away. I wait, slow down and begin walking with the guy. I've had this miraculous skill that when I'm drunk, or very high, my mind is very similar to what it is sober. Sure, there's the biological fuck-ups, like the loss of speech, staggered movements, and lowered inhibitions, but I still know who I am. "Stop. Look, leggo, just hold m' hand or something, and I will come wit' you."

The unnamed man, who I really hadn't focused on yet, looked at me wide-eyed under the rim of his baseball cap. "If you try and run, I will have to hurt you." His voice is stoic, controlled. He's repeating, like a parrot. It makes me ill to think that Kilgrave can scramble simple-minded brains so easily. God, nothing sobers you up like a goon dressed like a mini-mobster kidnapper pawing at you. I hold his wrist, letting my grip be firm yet not firm enough to be threatening as he leads me through the park and through a street up by the docks. It's a fair walk, but I can walk miles while tipsy, and in an amazing sensation we all called 'limbo' back in the day, brought on by the mixing of coke and kush, my legs feel like iron.

It's odd not talking, but it also feels kind of comforting too. The poor boy is only trying to get the job done, and not end up dead in the process. And I was half-temped to brutally kill him with the butterfly knife I keep stashed in my handbag in case of emergencies. I spend the walk appreciating the little life I have left... humming songs from the Wizard of Oz and such, wondering if baseball-cap who is dragging me up a small incline at this moment will protest. He takes me to the docks, and I can see a boat – a yacht that looks too sophisticated for this side of town – oared in at the jetty. So he's saying goodbye...

We get closer, and I can see him standing beside the docked boat, leaning on a waist-height pillar in a highly unflattering mauve sweater and indigo skinnies that... ooh, well. I couldn't say the same about the outline of his legs (and something I'm high enough to compliment) in those. I almost run up to him and hug him in an embrace idiotically, screaming 'Kevin' but I remember that he doesn't know I know his hidden name. As tempting as it sounds, I deny my mind. I'm standing maybe two meters away from him now, and he speaks to the man who I'm still holding onto. "Leave." And when I let go, he does.

"Miss Hart..."

"Kilgrave."

"You must be wondering why I had you escorted here, instead of just calling." And it sounds too innocent for what it was. Had I not been informed that the capped boy was taking me to someone who had told him he had to, I would have hurt the young one badly.

"Actually, I'm not. I'm wondering why I'm here – why I couldn't get high and forget you just for one night." I manage without slurring, and he looks slightly offended. And then cracks a smile.

"I made you forget me, but you didn't seem to take it so well." God, I kind of missed the pun. How much did I take again? "Anyway, I had to have you here, now, because I'm leaving for a short while. I will be back – for Jones of course - but I'm taking you with me this time."

And it sounded so assured, so certain that I was going. Like even if I wasn't ready to just drop everything a leave with this crazy man, he would make me anyway. Why would he want to take me on a cruise? Why leave with me and not make his end goal to re-claim his former lover? I'm nothing compared to her... Sure, I have the looks and the willpower, but I'm nothing. I'm everything he despises – I've just done a fuck-ton of drugs in some sleazy back-alley bar, and he wants me to leave for some luxury of a short break? With him?

He lifts up his shoulders and huffs a sigh, raising his hands in an exasperated gesture when I don't reply. "Look, I know you're confused and probably think I have an ulterior motive, but I don't. You're under no illusions, Jane, and haven't been ever, so I'm going to say this how it is. I am not wasting the rest of my debilitating life on a girl that doesn't know she loves me yet. I know that one day, she will run to me, because we're made for each other and she'll find out soon enough. But not now, my dear. It will take her time for her to accept me; begin to understand that our future relationship will not be built of control like it was last time."

Is he seriously saying he's giving up on her? I mean, for now, but that could be expansive. What if, on our travels, he meets a more extraordinary woman who trumps Jones' power and personality by miles? "So what do you say? Are you going to come with me, live with me, distract me and be my next best thing for the time that I need you? Assured, you will make it out of this alive, but how scarred –mentally and physically - I cannot tell. Either way, I'm sure it will be pleasant for both of us if you stay as interesting and pleasing as you have been. You know it will make little difference whether you agree of not."

I think, and not long and hard, but short and fast. I'm going to live? I can have my cake... and eat it... I can request travels, and trips, and wear everything I want to wear –provided it's purple – eat the best, sleep on the best... Sleep with the best? I'm going to have that option? I mean, as long as I stay as I was – don't become too mundane of too domesticated. Provided, he will still leave me at any given moment for her, but it doesn't matter. That never has done. Oh what can I say?

"Fuck yes." And when he extends a hand to aid me in getting onto the ferry, I take it and climb aboard. So much for sanity.