"Let's start with a smile."

The words rang in Jessica's ears, hammering into her brain, and breaking through some invisible barrier. Just when she had started to feel safe again. She remembered what it was like to have him in her brain. Deep in her brain.

Jessica smiled brightly, the same way she had done so many times before.

The way he liked.

His hands brushed over her hair, and he laughed with some kind of demented relief, like a child on Christmas morning.

"Tell me you love me." He murmured straight into her ear and then stepped back, appraising her with giddiness.

Jessica froze for a moment, smile still plastered across her face, and she locked eyes with him, to his delight. "I love you," she said quietly.

Trish's horrified gaze bored into her from just past Kilgrave.

He looked briefly over his shoulder at her before returning to meet Jessica's gaze, his smile even broader out of giddiness.

He clasped his hands together, and he brushed slightly past Jessica, contemplating out loud. "Brilliant… just brilliant… I swear, I didn't think it would work. Dad finally managed to do something worthwhile for once in his miserable life…" Kilgrave ran a hand through his hair. "It's over now. We can finally just… breathe…"

Jessica turned slightly to look at him. She couldn't stop smiling. Sweat rolled down her forehead.

Kilgrave turned to the silent crowd behind her, throwing up his hands dramatically. "Alright. Alright! You'll all realize now that, of course, you must be very sick and not thinking straight. Whatever happened here tonight must have been some kind of fever dream. Go home and sleep it off, and never talk or think about what happened here ever again."

The people in the crowd shot each other confused glances as they suddenly lost track of themselves, shuffling off of the docks like a hoard of zombies.

From behind Kilgrave, Trish stalked off to try and join the rest of the crowd, but stopped short when Kilgrave grabbed her by the forearm. Wordlessly, she trailed her eyes up to meet his gaze, and he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Not you, Patsy," he muttered, releasing her. "Not finished with you, yet."

Unable to stop herself from trembling, Trish pulled her eyes away from him, shooting Jessica a sorrowful look.

Tears welled up in Jessica's eyes. Her smile, still flighty and cheerful, didn't falter for a moment.

"Th- then… what…?" Trish asked with a low voice, head drooping.

"Don't speak. Tired of listening to you… God, so tired of it…" Kilgrave turned from Trish to Jessica expectantly, and she panicked, smacking her lips.

"We can go somewhere else," she chirped suddenly. "There's nothing left for us here. You even have a boat ready. Let's just… go… and be done with everyone else…"

She watched him uncertainly, trying to gauge his reaction, and he scoffed loudly, glancing all around him. "What, you want to go? I thought you liked New York."

"I do like New York…"

He nodded, suspicions affirmed. "Then tell me why you would suggest something like that."

Her eyes fluttered slightly. "I want to get you away from Trish," she mumbled. "I want to protect her from you."

With that, she signed her sister's death warrant, and she knew it even as she said it. She struggled desperately to keep from crying, just to maintain her smile.

"I'm sorry I kissed her. That was- I didn't mean to cross a line. I know that must have been upsetting. I just… truly couldn't believe it. Truly…" Kilgrave sidled up next to Jessica and kissed the side of her head, taking a moment to smell her hair. "We're done with her now. You're done with her." He chuckled to himself. "After tonight, we will never have to think about her again."

"You're right." Jessica placed her hand on his against her head, looking seriously into his eyes. "You're right… we can be done with her. We can go our separate ways from her. We can…"

"All this." He wavered for a second, stepping away from Jessica and looking darkly at Trish. "You couldn't still be- you wouldn't still pretend, just to protect her-?"

"No!" Jessica yelped fearfully. "No! I'm not! I swear, I just…"

"Well, I'm sorry, but she can't just go, Jessica. She wants to protect you as much as you want to protect her, not that you need protecting from anybody. But I can hardly expect either of you to understand, at least not yet." He drummed his fingers on his leg. "And she has known about me for far too long for me to just compel her away. She's not going to stop coming for me."

Trish wiped tears out of her eyes. The two women locked eyes.

"She'll leave us alone," mumbled Jessica. "She'll leave town. We'll never see or hear from her again. I swear."

"Fine. Fine, then. Patsy?" Arm in arm with Jessica, Kilgrave turned to Trish, commanding her attention. "Tell me the truth. If Jessica and I left, would you leave it be? Would you come back for her?"

Trish swallowed. "Of course I would. I would always come back for her." She made eye contact with Jessica, as much as it pained her to do so. "Always."

Jessica, weighed down by her own thoughts, almost fell to her knees right there. Her smile melted away somehow.

"Trish, no…!" She wailed it like a dying animal.

Trish returned Jessica's forlorn expression. "I'm sorry, Jess…"

"Well," Kilgrave mumbled, throwing up his hands. "There you have it, then."

"Please don't kill her. I'm begging you. Please…" Jessica choked, hands shaking at her sides. "Please…"

"It's not about her, Jessica! It's not about Patsy! Forget about Patsy!" Kilgrave stepped in front of Trish to overtake Jessica's gaze. "You have to understand my position here. It can't be about her. It has to be about us. Kiss me."

Jessica embraced him, and the two passionately kissed. Trish sobbed silently in the background, still unable to speak and afraid to make too much noise.

"I love you. I love you…" Kilgrave pressed his forehead against Jessica's, breathing softly with closed eyes. After a moment, he opened them, tilting his head to the side. "God, I can't… I can't let this be about her. Tell me you love me."

"I love you," said Jessica.

"…Again. Say my name."

"I love you… Kilgrave… I love you…"

"God." He placed both hands on her cheeks and pushed her away from him, turning away with frustration. "Patsy!"

"No!" Jessica shrieked.

He turned his head to hiss at Jessica. "Quiet!" He turned back to Trish. "We've got to take care of her."

Jessica winced at the phrase.

"Don't kill her," she murmured. "You can't kill her…"

"I said be quiet! Listen to me, Jessica! God damn it!" Kilgrave opened and closed his hands, palms sweating. "No… no… I'm not going to kill her."

Jessica's eyes opened sharply, and she turned over in bed, smothering herself with the heavy white comforter.

There was nobody in bed next to her. Still sleepy, she took another moment to process it before sitting up sharply, feeling around with both hands on Kilgrave's side of the bed.

Though bright, no sunlight came in through the windows- the blinds were still shut. He would always open them when he got out of bed. Jessica stared at the windows.

"Honey?" she called out, turning to shout toward the bedroom door. "Are you here?"

No response.

She set her bare feet on the cold hardwood floor, recoiling slightly from the temperature. It took her a little while to actually stand up enough to allow the blankets to fall away from her.

She opened the blinds to let in the morning sun. The view from the bedroom window overlooked the whole city, which was more or less the whole point of bothering to get the penthouse. She stared out the window for a while.

…Eventually, she got around to opening the bedroom door.

"Hey! Is anyone home?" Not surprised by the lack of response this time, she wandered through the living room in her underwear, brushing hair out of her face and rubbing her eyes with one hand. "Ugh…"

She grabbed the remote for the speaker system from the coffee table as she wandered into the kitchen, raising it above her head and tapping the play button. Preppy, classical piano music erupted at full blast in surround sound. Jessica jumped at the noise, but rolled her eyes and tossed the remote onto the counter without bothering to adjust it.

Everything she did took a little bit longer than it should have. Jessica stared at the contents of the kitchen cupboard for a few minutes before deciding on something. The thing she decided on ended up being plain sourdough bread, two slices of which she shoved into the fancy toaster oven. After a little while of trying to fiddle with the knobs, she gave up and just hit the default 'toast' button. Then she sat on the floor, her back against the cupboard.

Jessica stared at the radio on the kitchen counter, sitting there unused. Her neck slumped down, and she looked at the back of her hands, cupped around her bare knees. Her skin was pale. Her fingers trembled.

One of her fingernails was chipped. She had done more punching in the past day than she had in the rest of the past six months combined.

The alarm for the toaster had been going off for a couple of minutes now, and it finally occurred to her to attend to it. Her toast was badly burned, but she shoveled it into her mouth anyway, trailing blackened crumbs on the floor as she left the kitchen for the living room again. Classical music continued to blare.

She collapsed onto the couch and sank into it, one hand feeling around on the desk beside it for the TV remote. She flipped the television on. Some schlocky reality show. There wasn't much Kilgrave was comfortable with her watching, and she didn't want to upset him.

Jessica barely moved all day. Her gaze shifted from the television, to her feet, which rested on the coffee table, to the wall of glass on the far wall, and the New York skyline.

The sun went down. Her head felt thick. She had barely eaten, and barely cared to. Were she alone, she would have been drinking all day, but Kilgrave didn't keep any liquor in the house, and didn't want her drinking anyway, outside of the occasional glass of wine, for dates.

Suddenly, it was dark out. The view was gorgeous at night.

Nobody had come home all day. She hadn't heard from anyone. Kilgrave wasn't answering his phone. Jessica's little prison felt like it was shrinking. Like the walls were closing in around her.

She fell asleep on the couch, head throbbing.

"Hi; thank you for tuning in to Trish Talk." The host was familiar; one of the women from the show that had filled in for Trish in the past. Her voice was cold and unwavering. "We… apologize for the extended absence of the program over the past week, and for our inability to provide more immediate information. I am… ahem, extremely disheartened… to have to report that Patricia Walker has been officially declared a missing person, and is now the subject of an investigation. The police, along with all of us here at WNEX New York, having been making every attempt to uncover information about where she may have gone or what may have happened to her. And with today's program, I would like to take the opportunity to reach out to any of our listeners who may have information. Please… if you have anything at all that you think can help our investigation- if you've seen her, if you've heard about her whereabouts… anything… reach out to the police and put in a word to assist with our investigation."

Jessica rocked back and forth in her seat, hands wringing. The hem of her dress tickled the tops of her bare feet, but she was much too distracted to notice.

The broadcast continued:

"In light of…" The host sucked in her breath, obviously holding back tears. "…Um, excuse me… in light… of this extremely sobering news… w- we would like to dedicate this program to our beloved boss, host, and friend. Wherever she may be, we are all hoping and praying that she is in good health. Please come home, Trish. We're…" She cleared her throat. "…We're all still listening."

The radio clicked off. Jessica stared at the hand resting on top of it.

Kilgrave leaned down to look her in the eye. "Tell me, Jessica: what is this?"

She stared at him with wide eyes. "It's Trish Talk."

"Why were you listening to this?"

"Because…" She thought about it, and gulped uncomfortably. "…Because she didn't deserve this. And I wish I could make it right."

"You don't tell a soul about Patsy. Or about me. Least of all anyone from that bloody lifestyle program."

"I know," she mumbled.

"Just forget about it."

"I'm trying."

"Then try harder."

She looked him meekly in the eye, visibly in pain, but said nothing.

He raised a finger, scolding. "Don't test me on this, Jessica. You don't want to go down this road with me."

"Okay," she mumbled.

"I just want things to go back to normal." He ran a hand through his hair. "I thought… I thought things were going to go back to normal when I had you again. I thought that I was going to get the old Jessica back. But all week long, you've just been moody, and spacey, and miserable. It's not what I wanted."

She pouted but still said nothing.

Grumbling, he waved a hand at her, looking away for a moment. "Oh, for God's sake, get that depressing look off your face. You think this has been easy for me?"

She settled into a tired, neutral expression, doing her best to obey the command. "Yes."

"I- agh!" Kilgrave snapped his head back to look at her again, upset now. "I have been out all week cleaning up after the mess you left behind! You left me to die, you know that? You left me to bleed out in an alley. You beat me, you kidnapped me, you tried to kill me- multiple times- and then you treat me like I'm some kind of monster because I used one overachieving teenager to try and reconnect with you…"

Jessica stared at him with a horrified expression. "…Hope killed herself…!"

"Sure, because you were holding her hostage as the object of your guilt! If you had just let the authorities have that girl, she never would have died! No, you went too far with her, and that's why she ended up with a glass in her neck."

Appalled, she shook her head at him, forgetting any desire to placate him. "Oh, shut up, you disgusting piece of-!"

"-No, you shut up, for Christ's sake!" Jessica obeyed him, and he leaned back against the counter, rubbing his chin. "You don't deserve what I've given you to begin with. You think you have the right to mope around playing the victim? Get over yourself." He straightened out his clothes aggressively, moving in close to her. "Don't you ever speak to me like that again. Understand?"

"I understand," Jessica replied with gritted teeth.

"I'm going out. Don't go anywhere." He shook himself out, taking a few steps to leave. "When I get back, I want to see you smiling."

Three days had passed. Nobody ever came back to the apartment.

Jessica was lying in bed in the middle of the night, her eyes wrenched open and staring at the ceiling.

Time barely felt like it was passing. All she had was the inside of her head, and the more she sat around stewing in thought, the more she felt out of touch with everything, like she could barely tell what was real anymore. She clenched blankets in her fists, then released them.

She thrust a hand out to the bedside table, feeling around for the telephone, and held it to her ear without moving an inch.

Kilgrave's voice, stern and dismissive, came alive on his answering machine. "Leave a message."

"Kilgrave. Where are you? Agh…" She placed her free hand over her eyes, groaning. "For God's sake… if you're trying to prove a point, it's proven. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Don't just leave me here to rot. God damn it. God damn it, I don't know what to do. God damn it."

She threw the phone at the wall, both destroying the phone and denting the wall.

"God damn it."

Jessica rolled over in bed, resting her feet on the floor and struggling to hoist herself out of bed.

She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what he wanted her to do.

Hands trembling, she wandered over to the wardrobe and flung it open, grabbing a pale green sundress from inside and resting it on the bed. Then she turned around to stare at the inside of it again, eyes scanning all of the outfits Kilgrave had picked out for her.

"God damn it!"

Her bare foot smashed the bottom half of the wardrobe. The whole thing collapsed in a pile of planks, splinters and fine cloth. Her foot bled a tiny bit, but she ignored it.

Jessica stuffed herself into the dress and moved to leave the bedroom, but she stopped to examine herself in the mirror for a minute first. Her makeup was sloppy. She put on a layer of bright red lipstick.

The living room was a mess. Jessica figured she probably should have cleaned up over the past few days, but for some reason she never got around to it. Even though it was probably what he'd want.

It was past midnight, but it was as bright as ever in the city, considering all the buildings still had their lights on. The apartment was heavily soundproofed enough that not much of the noise from the city traffic could get through, creating a strange dissonance. Jessica remembered how loud her own place was, even on an uneventful night.

Her head was a haze of loose memories, commands, wants and needs. She wandered to the wall of glass overlooking the city, resting one palm against it. Words kept echoing in her head. It felt like someone was breathing on her neck.

She shut her eyes, panting.

A little bit of pressure had cracked the window in front of her. One push and she could fall through. Part of her wanted to give that push, and let it happen, and feel the wind in her hair. Her head was throbbing. But she didn't know if she even had it in her. If she could even give that push.

It wasn't what he would want.

"It could be worse. We could be Japanese. You know how crowded their subways are?"

"You know you are going off the deep end when you are trying to defend New York public transit."

"I'm not defending, I'm just saying. It could be worse. Tokyo is way more crowded."

"There are more people, but it's not more crowded. New York is more crowded."

Trish closed the door to her apartment with a laugh, following close behind Jessica as the two wandered into her living room.

"What?" Trish chuckled. "No way is that true."

"It's true. Look it up." Jessica rooted around in the cabinet for a bottle of whiskey, taking a swig without bothering to pour out a glass. "New York has a larger population density. That's what happens when you try to cram eight million people onto one little island."

"Japan is an island."

"You know what I'm saying." Jessica shrugged, slumping down onto the couch. Lifting the bottle in her hand toward Trish with a wide eye, she added, "So… is this something I should be concerned about?"

"What? No, come on. It's for you. You're predictable. And I can afford better liquor than you can." Trish gave a small, self-amused shrug. "So… call it a gift. It can be your reward for being a superhero."

Jessica cringed. "Ah. Ah. There's that word. I knew you were going to use that word."

"It fits."

"It doesn't." Jessica failed to hide a smile, taking another swig. "Even if it did, superheroes don't get rewards. They get, like, noble satisfaction, or good karma, or something."

Trish laughed at that, leaning into the couch as she contemplated.

Jessica shrugged. "Doesn't matter, though, because kicking some random creep on the subway in the taint doesn't make me a superhero."

"No. No!" Trish sat up straight, grinning, and jabbed a finger in Jessica's direction. "No, standing up for a complete stranger is what makes you a superhero. Kicking a guy in the taint is just… what makes you Jessica Jones."

Leaning her head back against the couch, Jessica looked at the ceiling, poking her tongue against the inside of her cheek. "I don't get why you're so attached to this thing."

"I don't get why you're so opposed to it!" Trish exclaimed. "You're not one for modesty."

"What, now I'm not modest?"

"I mean, you're not one for false pretenses. I mean, come on. Badass superpowered lady. Person in need. Criminal gets his ass kicked."

"Taint kicked."

"Close enough! I'm just saying, if the shoe fits, why not wear it?"

"I'll tell you why." Jessica rested her arms on her knees, leaning forward and shooting Trish a look. "Because it's not my problem. And I don't owe a goddamn thing to anyone."

"Well, yeah," Trish replied with a shrug. "No shit. It's your life. You can tell everybody to just screw off if you want to. But what I'm saying is… you've had plenty of chances to do that already. But you haven't, because you're not that kind of person." Trish rested her hands behind her head. "I mean, not that you don't tell everybody to screw off. But you help them anyway, because you know that you have power that other people don't. In a way, that's almost more impressive. I've seen you be an asshole plenty of times. But I've never seen you refuse to help somebody that really needed it." Trish pointed a finger and then shrugged again. "That's who you are! You go out of your way to help people that can't help themselves. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's something I admire about you. You're like… like-"

Jessica's eyes nearly glazed over. "-If you say I'm like Captain America, I swear to God, I will pour this into a plastic bag and walk out on you without another word," she quipped, raising the bottle in her hand.

Trish jokingly bit her lip. "…So would Mother Teresa be worse…?"

"Oh my God, shut up."

"Okay, okay!" Trish threw up her hands. "But you know what? You give yourself a really hard time. Someone has to give you a little credit every once in a while."

"Realism, Trish. If you had my job, you'd know what I was talking about." Jessica widened her eyes. "We can't all be the good people you think we should be."

"Maybe not. But some of us are." Trish leaned in toward Jessica to emphasize the point. "And I'll tell you what: it's a hell of a lot easier to try when we have good examples."

They looked each other in the eye. Jessica tried not to look touched as she drummed her fingers over the bottle in her hand.

"…You just wanna design me a costume," she said, eventually.

Trish didn't skip a beat. "And it would be the best goddamn costume the world has ever seen."

Jessica set the bottle down on the table, unable to conceal her smirk.

Sunlight slowly began to leak in through the window, highlighting more and more of the carpet as the sun rose. Jessica's back was pressed against the glass, just a few feet underneath the massive crack she had left. She had been sitting there all night long. But she could hardly tell how long it had been.

Jessica wondered if he would ever come back. Maybe he wouldn't, but if that happened, she didn't know what she would do.

She didn't know what anyone would do.

It was hard to think. Jessica's head was a mess of wants and needs- thoughts she didn't understand. Everything was starting to get buried by that urge to lean back and fall through the window. But it felt like the commands were leaking out. It had been so long since she had heard his voice. Other voices started to break through, though not her own.

She raised a hand to her head, running two fingers along the scar behind her ear.

Her back still pressed against the glass, Jessica got to her feet, toes digging into the carpet. She stared across the room, at the door.

He wouldn't want her to leave. That thought tugged at her like a leash, compelling her to stay. But there wasn't any command, not one that she could think of.

Jessica thrust a fist behind her, cracking the glass pane in another spot. She bit her lip so hard it bled.

She took a step forward to the door, but stopped herself and turned into the bedroom instead. Her bed was still unmade. The wall was still damaged where she had thrown the phone at it.

Jessica marched all the way to the bed, got down on her knees, and pulled a duffel bag out from underneath. Hands trembling, she felt around for the zipper and opened it all the way. Reaching one hand in, she pulled out her leather jacket, clenching the sleeve in her fist.

"God damn it."