III: Which of the two
"Wait for me here." Killgrave had told her, standing up.
It was a wonderful feeling for Jessica to feel that she no longer had to do what he told her.
"No, where are you going?" she had opposed.
"It will take me a second." he had reiterated, already on the stairs
"I'm coming with you." she had insisted.
"Jessica, do you really fancy so much following me into my bedroom?" he had put her in trouble, with a sly smile, an amused attitude and raised eyebrows, to emphasize everything.
"Um, okay, I'll wait for you here." she had gone back to sit on the sofa.
Once he had reached his bedroom, Killgrave had gone without fail, opening the nightstand drawer.
A small golden key sparkled in all its glory.
He had found that key tied around his neck when, as confused as never before, he had left that weird cabin.
He had never understood why but he had decided to keep it.
And now he was grateful to himself for that very right choice.
He had taken it, putting it in his shirt pocket, with a broad smile.
"What is that cheerful attitude?" Jessica had questioned him suspiciously as soon as he had returned to the living room.
"Remembering is a wonderful thing, every piece falls into place and composes a puzzle of unassailable awareness, every gear in my mind starts spinning the right way again, every ..."
"Cut this shit off, I get it, you're the other one now. Again!" the detective rolled her eyes.
"That's not correct, my darling. I am both and I owe it only to you. " he had approached her smiling, about to hug her again.
She had jumped to her feet, running towards the stairs.
"Stop there, you already showed me too much gratitude!"
"Time Lords are cuddly types," he had muttered.
"Maybe, but if I buy the fucking two-for-one package I'll find myself hugging also the control freak sociopath who ruined my existence and ruined many others'ones, so, no, I don't want to." Jessica had stood up. "By the way, what should I call you now? KillCrisis? MetaGrave? "
The questioned man had shaken his head with a grimace of disgust so typical of the snobbish person she had grown accustomed to.
"Rose used to call me 'John', because John Smith is the cover name the Doctor uses ..."
Here was the answer to that question she had asked herself, when she had seen through his memories.
"I'll never call you John!" she had returned the same disgusted expression to him, before being struck by an insight. "Kevin. In the videotape you showed me they called you that. It doesn't matter if they weren't real memories, I like that name. Kevin. I'll call you that. "
She liked the sound. She liked how it came out of her mouth. She liked how he looked at her when she did.
That was the perfect name for a tamed wolf.
"Jessica, you can call me whatever you want," he had replied, with Killgrave's typical tone of voice and expression."I'll make things easier for you, why don't you call me 'love'?"
She had given him her best 'Bitch, please!' look.
"'Asshole' sounds more naturally to me!"
"Well, I tried." he had chuckled. "Okay, 'Kevin' is fine."
"I know it is."
"Well, now that you have a name to call me by, go get dressed, we'll be out soon." he had warned her, before collecting his ocean blue jacket.
"I'm already dressed!" she had protested, insulted.
He'd done a quick scan of her ripped blue jeans and black T-shirt.
Again that snobbish Killgrave's attitude.
"Don't you have something more suitable? Well, if you hadn't destroyed the dress I gave you, you would have it, " he had muttered, causing her to roll her eyes. "We are going to a museum. Culture deserves some proper elegance. "
Jessica had stood looking at him, her big eyes reduced at two fissures, her slender arms crossed against her chest.
"What's wrong?" Kevin frowned.
"I'm wondering if the last thing could have been said by you, Killgrave, or by you, Metacrisi." the detective had muttered.
Kevin had chuckled.
"I told you, my darling, you're wasting your time trying to separate us."
"And anyway the museums are closed at this hour." Jessica had pointed out.
Between their chatter and the long journey through his memories, it was late night outside.
"Not for me." he had smiled at her slyly. "You know what? Even if I didn't have my power, the Doctor usually hangs around with a psychic paper, which is nothing more than a blank piece of paper, where, however, people can read everything the Doctor wants they read in it!" he had revealed to her, with a proud expression.
"I'm starting to think that the Doctor is a great asshole too!" she had retorted.
"There are days when he's not the loveliest being," Kevin shrugged. "The point is, can't you see? I've always had a little obsession with control. Too bad I don't have a psychic paper too, otherwise I'd show you, we'd have to use the old method. "
"As if you were really sorry for that!" she had snorted. "And just because you don't mind it, you will tell everyone not to pay attention to how I am dressed. My leather jacket and grey scarf will be more than fine! "
"I'm going to get Hank," he told her as she got dressed. "I also would have let him go but you know ... sometimes I used to drive cars with Rose, but I'm pretty out of practice," he justified himself. "It's something else that I instinctively know how to drive."
"And what? The phone box? " Jessica had teased him, convinced she was making the funniest witty remark.
Kevin had preferred not to tell her anything.
"You know what? For someone who broke your heart, it seems to me that you're mentioning this Rose quite often!"
Wait, where did that sentence come from?
With that tone of a ... jealous girlfriend, too? Jessica was certainly not his girlfriend, so least of all she could be jealous ... and of which of the two then?
Metacrysis? That was the past, it didn't make any sense.
Killgrave? It was against all logic and rationality.
Yet ...
"Oh, my god, Jessica, are you really convinced that I still think of Rose?" he had questioned her, waiting for her to look up to meet his eyes.
"Imagine there was a way to meet her, with your Killgrave's power you could have her and ..." she had grumbled.
"And what? I love her as a friend, I wish her a life as happy as possible, but I would not like to meet her again, let alone reconquer her. " he had admitted, in all sincerity. "Jessica, it's only you I want. Can't you think about it? The Daleks had made me a terrible being, unable to feel any emotion, and yet, you, wonderful Jessica Jones, made me feel something, made me interested in someone else other than me. And when you left me alone, that's when I really understood that I loved you, such a thing happened to me, who was least expected to love again. You have worked a real miracle, as you did this morning when you said that sentence that there was a probability in a billion that it would ever be said. You are a true miracle, Jessica Jones. "
Again, Jessica wasn't sure which of the two had spoken to her, but whoever it was, it hadn't left her indifferent.
She had preferred not to answer and even during the whole drive they had been silent, this before reaching the New York City Police Museum.
"Kevin, why did you choose this museum?" Jessica had broken the silence.
"Because, if I know my TARDIS, and I do know her, she must have made sure not to draw attention." he had winked at her.
His intent was to clear her mind, but Jessica found herself even more confused than before.
There were two guards at the entrance, but for Killgrave it wouldn't have been a problem.
"Gentleman, Lady, I'm sorry, the museum is closed at this hour." one of the two had warned them, showing his robust physique.
"You will let us in without making a fuss and you'll deactivate any kind of alarm," the persuader anticipated them. "And don't mind how sloppy she is." he added, earning a third finger shown by the sloppy girl in question.
Obviously, the two guards had obeyed.
Jessica had eyed with more interest than she wanted to show a poster with the evolution of the means of transport of the police over time, some cars of the time, the uniforms exhibited over the years, until at the end of a corridor, alongside the display of various gradually mutated police badges, Kevin had found what he was looking for.
"But that ... it looks like the cabin I saw in your memories!" Jessica had noticed, pointing to it.
"It's not that it seems to you, it is." he had specified with a smirk.
With nonchalance he had climbed over the bar that separated him from that telephone booth to call the police, so vintage.
Placed there together with the other items, the clever phone box did not arouse the slightest suspicion.
He had taken the key out of his shirt pocket, but instead of using it, he had first wanted to do an experiment.
"Open up."
After a few seconds nothing had happened.
"I would have bet, you don't like being bossed around," he had smiled to himself.
He had also been tempted to try snapping his fingers, but then he had finally opted for the more traditional method of opening it, inserting the key.
"Hey! How did you get the key? Did you steal it from the guards? But I didn't see you… " the detective had muttered.
"Not at all my dear, this phone box is mine, it always has been. Why don't we go inside, hmm? " he had proposed to her.
"Barely a person gets in there. You pig, if you think we are going to get away there to make out, I swear I'll… "
The words had died in her throat as soon as he had opened the doors of that phone box.
It was full of rooms, many more than the last time Metacrisi had entered. Over time that TARDIS had made various changes, even the ones she knew would meet her owner's taste.
The walls, from golden that they were, had now changed to amethyst.
And when he had opened one of the closets, Kevin had found his old sonic screwdriver there, with an upgrade: it was a little bigger than the previous one, but most of all now it had a purple light.
"Oh, you spoil me," he had said to his ship with an approving smile, while Jessica was still intent on looking around.
"What the fuck? It's bigger inside! " the girl had exclaimed, and then had gone out, walked around the outside and then returned. This at least three times.
"But how is that fucking possible?" she had added, before a fourth round.
"How I missed seeing you human people do this when you get inside for the first time!" he had chuckled, seeing her come in, then shut the doors, before she went out again. "Well, maybe with a little less colorful language."
"But it's so damn cool, how can you expect me to stay quiet?" Jessica had said, defensively.
"I don't expect you to be quiet, indeed. I'll tell you what, it has more rooms than the last time I saw it I'm guessing right… " he had said, starting to walk. "Ah-ah! I knew that, now she even has a wardrobe. It won't take me long, you can go wherever you want, dear, but don't touch the consolle. " he had advised her, shouting from that room, sure she would hear him.
Jessica had just taken a general tour, fascinated by how many things that magic cabin -or whatever it was- contained. She had also seen a couple of bedrooms, a gym, a swimming pool and an aquarium with fish that she didn't even believe could exist.
Kevin had been back to her within a good quarter of an hour, but she had been stunned when had seen him.
He had changed his clothes, now he was wearing a blue pinstripe suit and white trainers, but that wasn't the most shocking part.
He had shaved his beard, which made him younger and his hair was all disheveled, with a tuft that went in the most disparate directions.
his flawless side parting seemed a distant memory.
"You're different." she had muttered.
"This is just more me." he had replied "Maybe I should paint the cabin outside purple and ..."
Time to say it and a jolt had pushed them to the ground.
"What's this? An earthquake? " Jessica had been scared.
"Don't worry, it's just my very touchy spaceship." he had reassured her as they got up. "Oh yes, you're right, you've already been very kind to redecorate the interior, I'll get content with that." he had found a compromise with the TARDIS.
"Of course, my darling, we didn't come here just for the clothes."
"We didn't?"
"Jessica, I know what I did to you and I beg your pardon ... I know there is no need to say that I was not really in me ... you only knew 'that' me ... but that me united with the recovered me can fix things, not all of them, but one of the most important. "
As he spoke to her, Kevin had begun to set up those commands he was very familiar with.
Jessica had continued to watch him, not understanding.
"After what I'm about to do, drinking will be just fun entertainment for you, no more a way to drown your guilty senses."
This had been more than a clue to her, she finally had figured out his plan.
"Oh, my god, Kevin, are you really going to ...?"
He hadn't even answered her, he had set the coordinates and that cabin had started making a strange sound.
"In a few minutes we will be at our destination, you already know where, right? Well, now accept a piece of advice: hold on to something, but don't put all your super strength into it, I'd be grateful if you didn't smash my TARDIS! " he had made her laugh.
The landing hadn't been the most docile, so holding on had helped.
They had arrived at their destination.
Before leaving, Kevin had walked her to the wardrobe, there were also dark hoodies that would suit her.
"Jessica, before I open these doors, let me tell you something: we are about to do something very crazy, dangerous and above all forbidden, which could have unpleasant consequences, but I should be prepared to deal with them."
"You should?" she had pointed out, she didn't feel very reassured about it.
"I hope so," had been his shaky reply. "There are only a few minutes left until that moment that you know sadly well. It's going to happen out there. You already know what you have to do, I just ask you not to touch the past yourself in any way. The last thing we need is a paradox within a paradox! " he had highly recommended it.
Finally the doors had been opened, Kevin had remained hidden nearby, while Jessica had sneaked up to the trio of interest to her.
The Jessica of the past, dressed in a long reindeer jacket covered with soft white fur, very elegant, and designer boots, had just finished digging in the asphalt, at the cost of getting her fingers bleeding, recovering the metal box that contained the precious key.
The Killgrave of the past, protected from the cold of that night by a dark cashmere coat buttoned up to the chin, had smiled with satisfaction, while Reva, the guard on duty there that night, was looking at them in confusion, unable to utter a single word.
She had a feeling that something horrible was about to happen to her, that she would never return home, that she would not even be able to say goodbye to her beloved husband.
"Take care of her." Killgravehad ordered to Jessica.
The moment that Jessica of the present and somehow of the future was waiting for.
Quick as a cheetah she had pounced on Reva, grabbing her in her arms and leaping away with her, before the other Jessica hit her with her fatal punch.
Kevin had returned to his cabin, making it disappear with him, only to reappear on the terrace where Jessica had also landed, with a Reva passed out due to the emotion.
"Come on, you're missing the show." Kevin had beckoned to her, leaning against the railing, where they could see their versions of the past from the street. "Before parking here I left a microphone hidden, the TARDIS will be our speaker."
"You are a genius, Kevin." she had smiled at him.
"Yes, I'm pretty brilliant," he had replied without false modesty.
The elegant Jessica and Killgrave were looking at each other in amazement.
Both had seen that mysterious black figure, suitably hooded, leaping high, way too high for a normal human being.
"Do you think there's someone else like you?" Killgrave had ventured to wonder.
"Well then why don't you go to woo her and leave me alone?" she had grumbled, about to leave.
"I don't care if there's someone else like you. It is not you. And it's only you I want. " he had stopped her, gently taking her by the arm.
"Oh, I am such a lucky girl!" she had obviously pretended to be happy.
"The important thing is that I got what I wanted ... and we scared Reva properly, she won't speak." he was satisfied with the result.
"You scared her!" she had specified.
"And who has given me considerable help in doing it?"
"Because you forced me!" she had protested. "And there's more… I could have killed her. You wanted me to! "
That knowledge had triggered something in her and she had begun to back away.
"No, I just asked you to take care of her, it's different." he had made it clear and he had noticed her attitude.
She was no longer listening to him.
"You would have made me a killer ..." she had looked at him with contempt, before crossing the street.
"Let me explain. Let's go." he too had begun to cross the street. "Get back here, Jessica!" he had raised his voice, but he didn't seem to have changed anything.
She no longer responded to his commands.
"NOW, JESSICA!" he had yelled, before he heard the horn of a bus, too late to avoid being run over.
She had watched the scene, her eyes widening, but then she was gone, savoring her newfound freedom.
Present day Jessica and Kevin had seen and heard everything.
"Ouch, it hurts to see your own death!" he had complained.
"You are always so exaggerated. A few months, two kidneys and you will be as good as new! " she had played down, shrugging.
"Since we were already here, we could have avoided the impact with the bus, right?"
"No, it was not necessary to avoid it. On the contrary, it serves you right, can time be set back of thirty seconds so we can see it once more? "
"Geez, you are really wicked!" he had snapped, offended.
This was before she grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, pulling him to her for a rather prolonged kiss, almost as if she was waiting for his reaction.
Kevin hadn't hesitated more than a few seconds to get involved, taking that kiss to a deeper and more passionate level.
"Was this wicked, too?" she parted from him, with an impertinent smile.
"Uh? N..nope, not at all… "
Kevin was still a bit stunned before he heard someone groaning.
Reva was waking up.
"Now what do we do?" Jessica had been agitated.
"I'll take care of her ... in a good way!" he had hastened to clarify.
As soon as the security guard had opened his eyes, Kevin laid his hands on her face, this time with a different intent than he'd had with Jessica.
"This was a night like any other, nothing different happened, when you realize that there is no longer that box you will think of a trivial theft. You went up here because you wanted to get some fresh air. Now go home, as soon as you leave this building you will forget our meeting. "
Jessica was watching his work, though she wasn't sure which of the two was performing, the powerful persuader or the unpredictable half Time Lord.
However, she was fascinated by it.
Reva had gotten up, she hadn't even seemed to notice them and had left the terrace as if nothing had happened.
Jessica had been about to say something to Kevin, when she had almost the feeling she saw a small gash open in that dark sky, from which a monstrous creature had emerged, a cross between a pterodactyl and a gargoyle.
"What the fuck is that?" she had asked Kevin, preparing to fight.
"I knew it was going to happen, it's the price to pay when you mess a little too much with time," he had muttered, as a second hideous flying creature joined the first.
The two creepy giant birds had croaked in disappointment, about to attack.
"They are some kind of bacteria that got inside this wound in the time we caused, they won't stop until they sterilize it." he had explained to her.
"I'm afraid I understand what it means and I don't like it at all!" she had retorted, lifting a large concrete pot to throw it at the first creature, repeating the process with the second.
It had stunned them but only for a few seconds.
"Let me try one thing ... with the strengthened mental power that I have now combined with the one of the Time Lord and the TARDIS that can translate into any language ... yes, I can do it!" Kevin had taken courage, turning to the two monsters who were about to attack them.
"Go away, there is no wound in time, you are wrong, nothing has been altered, your intervention is useless." he had looked at them fearlessly, pronouncing the words clearly.
After a few seconds of tension, the two creatures had reopened the gash in the sky, vanishing inside.
Everything was back to normal.
"I can't believe it, you did it, Kevin!" Jessica had hugged him.
"I can't believe it either, but it worked!" he had smiled at her.
"We can fix a lot of things, we can prevent you from committing Ruben to suicide or Hope from killing her parents or ..."
Kevin had looked at her sadly as they re-entered the TARDIS.
"It's not something I can do again, I won't be able to fool those horrible creatures a second time, I was lucky now, if I hadn't succeeded you would have seen them feast on anyone, until they found Reva." he had explained to her. "I could choose to prevent one death only."
"And you chose the one that distressed me the most. Thanks, I won't forget it. " Jessica had looked at him seriously. "I feel so light, I'm just sorry it can't be the same for Hope."
"I'm sorry, too, but maybe I'll invent something to get her out of jail, huh?" she had offered him, earning another kiss, this time faster and more chaste, but no less significant.
"You said that what you did was due to a brainwashing by these strange enemies of yours ... you freed me from my sense of guilt, but how can you deal with yours?" she had asked him while he set up and coordinates to return.
"I exterminated an entire species, annihilated one by one ... watching them impassively as it happened."
Jessica was listening to him in shock.
"You got it right, I did it for a good cause, but the Doctor didn't forgive me for it, he said I was dangerous, that I had a latent darkness and I had to be confined, that's why he left me in Rose's universe. But, as you have seen, the Daleks found me there and leveraged this darkness… but you, Jess, have been extinguishing it, since my eyes rested on yours. "
Jessica had hinted at a smile, but then had come to her senses.
"Extinguishing, my ass! What about the trail of blood and pain you left behind you? " she had snapped "And don't try to say it was because of me, I'm not responsible for those deaths!"
"I told you, I was under the influence of the Daleks, they made me believe I was the ruthless creature that I was, they made me believe I could have the world at my feet and I did what I did. But, as I told you, I have annihilated an entire race, the Daleks one, in comparison, the few deaths of your kind are nothing to me. Which is now my kind, too, since this time I have only one heart. "
"One heart only? The way you talk, you don't even seem to have one! " she had accused him, contemptuous.
"The Lord of Time who generated me has two hearts, as I explained to you, he is part of me and I am part of him, the difference is that I have only one heart and one body that will not regenerate, but will age regularly. " he had informed her, admiring himself in the reflecting purple walls. "Such a gorgeous body, huh?" He had added with a cheeky smile that had made her roll her eyes.
In the meantime they had gone back to Jessica's old house, to that living room where everything had begun.
"Jessica Jones. Jones. I've met another brilliant Jones, but she was just a friend, a very good friend, maybe she thought differently. " he had commented, leaning against the cabin.
"If you're trying to make me jealous even with my namesake, it's not working!"
"Would you like to travel with me?" he had asked her, out of the blue.
"Excuse me, what?"
"What do you say? You and me, a phone box that travels through space and time, we can go wherever you want. And when we get back here, I can help you with your investigations, I'm good, you know… I've even helped Agatha Christie once! "
She had frowned at him, but then she had burst out laughing.
"I think you're even more braggart than Killgrave!"
"I already told you that we are the same person, you shouldn't keep parting us."
"I'll learn to stop doing it, among one trip and another, what do you say?" she had winked at him.
He had turned to her with excitement.
Jessica couldn't tell from which of the two. Probably both.
"Are you saying you accept?"
"I'll accept, Kevin, but on two conditions: the first is that I won't be your Companion in the romantic sense," she had been quick to clarify.
"Not even a kiss for every new planet I show you?"
"We'll see ..."
Kevin had looked at her with an way too hopeful look, perhaps because he knew which cards to play.
"And what is the second condition?"
Jessica had run to the console with the enthusiasm of a child.
"Teach me to fly the TARDIS!"
-
THE END
I leave you to imagine these two wreaking havoc between one planet and another ... between a kiss and another, because I am as confident as Kevin about this;)
A few notes:
If it wasn't clear to you after one hundred stories I wrote about them, Jessica who calls Killgrave 'Kevin' is a great kink of mine, get over it ^^ '
Those who know' Doctor Who 'will surely have caught the references to the episode 'Rose's Father '(my favorite of the whole season with Nine) ... maybe I made things a little easier, but .. Killgrave had the limit of being able to exercise his control only on human beings, the TARDIS can make him understood in any language ... for me it could work ^^ '
While those who know' Jessica Jones' will surely have recognized that iconic flashback that appears in more than one episode;)
A mini reminder of Martha Jones, my favorite Tenth Doctor's Companion, was more than necessary 3
You know what? So far not even in Italian I got some feedback for this chapter, so I'm really really curios to know what you think: did you like it? Didn't you? Do you think I'm crazy? Do you think I need a beta? I' m well aware of the two last things ^^'
Sooner or later, expect something new very very VERY crazy, about those two.
One day I'll stop… maybe.