Foggy had been the first person Matt visited upon his return to Hell's Kitchen. After everything they'd been through Matt knew there could be no more lies. Even though he was sure the ones he loved were in danger, Matt was just as sure Foggy could handle it. Maybe not physically; Foggy was no fighter. But Matt knew Foggy could handle the news of his survival and the new danger in that stood in their way.

After the hugs and laughs and gentle rough housing, after a few tears and a few drinks Foggy revealed he had kept Matt's loft.

With a fat paycheck from Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz, Foggy was able to keep the lights on, even though a dead blind man didn't need them. Matt had questioned why Foggy bothered.

"I don't know," Foggy had told him. "I guess I just wasn't ready to let you go."

Depositing Jessica's broken body on the couch, Matt had never been so happy to revel in Foggy's big heart.

Matt rushed to the bathroom, quickly turning on the water. Not too hot. Not too cold. Ignoring his own injuries he returned to Jessica's side and began removing her clothes. A tattered leather jacket, a torn sweatshirt, a blood stained Henley, dirty boots, nearly painted on jeans, and finally a pair of blood soaked fingerless gloves. He had intended to leave on her bra, but she hadn't been wearing one. Matt picked her up, her black cotton underwater shifting in his arms. He couldn't care. Modesty didn't matter when she was half dead and he was almost fully blind. Almost.

Standing her up, grabbing her around her naked waist, Matt stepped with her into the shower. His clothes soaked, he held her tight, letting the water clean her wounds. Hoping the water would wake her up.

He could hear the blood loss as it circled his drain and he could feel her broken ribs and torn muscles as they strained under his hold on her.

Finally she began to wake up, coughing and moaning.

"Jessica?"

"Murdock?"

Matt laughed in relief, his body relaxing a bit as he leaned against the shower wall taking her with him.

"Everything's going to be alright," he told her.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she growled, lifting her arms and bringing a hand to her own face. She winced as her fingers touched cuts and bruises. Jessica quickly brushed her wet hair back and stared directly at Matt. He seemed to look away, almost as if he knew she was examining him.

There was a bruise on his cheek, slowly turning purple under the steady stream of warm water.

"You're hurt," she told him.

"So are you," he replied, thinking how foolish she was to care about him when her body was oozing blood.

"I'm naked," Jessica said, realizing her left breast was being poked by an errant button from his suit shirt.

"I promise I didn't look," Matt replied.

Jessica chuckled. "You know I'm going to heal, right? You don't have to go to all this trouble." As she spoke she steadied herself against him, placing one arm around his neck, her broken wrist hanging limp. She wrapped her other arm around his waist.

Matt inhaled deeply as her naked hips ground into his pants. Jessica didn't need super senses to tell she was getting to him.

"Is this your kinky fetish, counselor?"

"What?"

"Get an injured girl back to your place, take her clothes off, shower together? Maybe place your hand on the small of her back? Maybe hold her a bit too tight?"

He could tell she was smiling and for a moment he loosened his grip, but she only tightened her own.

"I don't have a fetish," he said, letting his hand press into her back once more, righting her naked body against him again.

"Yes you do," she said assuredly. "We all do."

They stood together, holding one another as the water poured over them.

Jessica felt weak. Not just because she had been injured, not just because she hadn't been able to take on a few vans - fucking vans - and not just because she was standing in a blind man's shower as he tended to her. She felt weak because of Kilgrave.

Was he alive? Was he in New York? Were the men who attacked her working for him? Or were they fanatical followers, men who did Kilgrave's bidding even after his death? Jessica didn't understand. Worse, she didn't know what to do next.

Her grip on Matt's neck tightened as she brought her head to rest on on his shoulder. He followed suit, holding her steady, feeling her naked breasts press into his chest through his soaked shirt. He breathed her in deep: whiskey and blood and sadness. And exhaled a relief he hadn't known since being back in Hell's Kitchen.

She was safe now. Safe at his side.

XXXXXXXXX

After finding her a clean towel and settling her back on his couch, Matt fished out his trusty first aid kit. It had been sitting in his hall closet like always, covered with a fine layer of dust.

"Are you a doctor now?" Jessica asked, her wet body wrapped in the towel, a shiver audible in her voice.

"My dad was a boxer… which you already know," he began. "I had to stitch him up quite a bit."

"You don't have to stitch me. Like I said, this will heal."

"Well, until it does, you're spilling blood all over my furniture," he told her.

Jessica nodded in agreement, not caring whether Matt could see her reaction or not.

"May I?" he asked, sitting down on the couch next to her, the first aid kit in his bruised hands.

Again, Jessica nodded, but this time it was coupled with a drop of her towel. Matt heard the wet clump gently hit his hardwood floor and he knew Jessica Jones was sitting before him naked.

"How does this work?" she asked, a chuckle in her voice. "You can't see where I'm injured."

"Your shoulder muscles are torn, your wrist is broken, you have cuts on your back and face-"

Jessica cut him off. "Of course you can hear my wounds. Weirdo."

Matt couldn't help but remember when Claire Temple had been in his apartment after her abduction by the Russians. He had explained his particular gifts to her, how he could hear fluctuations in the movement of her skin, muscles, and bone. But Jessica didn't want or need an explanation. She was willing to accept he was unique because she was too. And refreshingly her acceptance came without admiration. Matt felt at ease.

But his ease couldn't right his broken finger and the simple act of preparing scissors and stitches made him wince.

"You need to set your finger," Jessica told him.

"Like you set your shoulder?" he asked.

Early, just after their flight from the warehouse, Matt had stopped to take stock of their situation. Huddled in the corner of one of the dirty alleyways he had come to know, Matt realized Jessica's shoulder had been dislocated. He didn't want to move her without setting it, not fully understanding her healing abilities and not wanting to take the risk of anymore damage. But she was barely conscious. He wasn't sure what to do.

As his hands had fumbled over her form again and again, feeling the injury through her leather jacket, but unable to fix it, Jessica loudly groaned.

"What are you doing?" she had questioned him, her head swirling, her chest a knot of pain.

"You're awake," he had replied, startled, but she only grunted in reply as she tried to sit upright.

"No, no," Matt had continued. "Your shoulder is dislocated. You have to let me pop it back into place."

Without word or warning, Jessica reached for her own shoulder and with a hard, violent jerk forward she set the dislocation. The popping sound had echoed through the alley, bouncing off brick walls, repeatedly penetrating Matt's ears.

Through gritted teeth Jessica had said, "Pussy." But the pain and exhaustion and booze and overall absurdity of the situation had proved too much and she'd fallen back into his arms.

Sitting on Matt's couch, naked and bloodied, remembering her actions in that alleyway less than an hour earlier he smiled.

"Sometimes being gentle is just being weak," she told him. Her steady breathing and calm tone forced Matt to relax and in that instant she reached for his broken finger and yanked up hard, cracking it back into place.

"Fuck!" Matt screamed, more surprised than sore.

Jessica laughed, a laugh that permeated the tough core they'd both formed after the fight. She felt momentarily comfortable. It was refreshing. It was healing. Matt could even hear her wrist muscles linking back together like the charms on a chain. He slumped back on the couch, his finger fat and swollen, the scissors and stitches somewhere on the floor. He had given up on trying to mend her.

Jessica Jones could definitely mend herself he thought, as that laugh lingered in his ears long after she was done.