Jessica could feel Trish watching her, almost every time they both occupied the apartment. It wasn't stalking, or anything she could point out as invasive, exactly. She wasn't staring, or following her, or even saying anything out of the way. Still, Jessica could sense her watchfulness. It almost felt to her as though Trish were waiting- though for what, Jessica couldn't imagine.
Trish wasn't nagging her anymore, or at least, not very often. She wasn't prodding her to clean up or go out and actually do something with her, out where there could actually be people Jessica might be forced to interact with. She wasn't even going on about Jessica's drinking. Instead, she picked up whatever messes Jessica might make without fussing, put her dirty clothes in the wash without being asked, and recycled the cans and bottles that Jessica often simply let sit or fall where they had been finished off. On the days that Jessica drank herself to the point of blacking out or falling asleep, she would wake up to find that Trish had removed her shoes, put a pillow beneath her head, and tucked a blanket around her shoulders.
Trish was accepting her, caring for her. And that made Jessica more uncomfortable than if she had screamed and shouted and rejected her outright.
So Jessica started to push. She picked arguments, upped her sarcastic comments, and made herself deliberately more obnoxious in her hygiene and messiness. She stayed out late and came in drunk more and more frequently. She made comments to try to provoke Trish and hurt her, even as she hated herself for doing it, because somewhere, even Trish had to have a breaking point. Trish had to cut her off- because what would happen to her, what would Jessica do to her life, if she didn't?
Sooner or later, Trish had to realize that Jessica and her issues, Jessica and her baggage, Jessica and her supervillain stalker had fucked up her life. Trish was going to have it dawn on her that by fleeing the country with Jessica, setting her up with a whole new life, she had thrown her own life away in the process.
Trish had been doing so well, come so far. She had cut herself off from her mother and her abuse, she had overcome her addictions and put herself in a career where she was respected and able to be a voice for others. She was wealthy, she was settled, and she was famous and adored. She could have been dating, she could have gotten married, even. She could have friends who actually knew who she was. She could have kept her own damn name and her own identity, everything she had worked so hard to build for herself.
But she had thrown it all away, for Jessica. One day, Jessica was certain, she would realize this, and she would walk away, give up on Jessica like she should have long ago. So Jessica tried to hurry that day along, get it done and over with before it caught her by surprise.
But it wasn't happening. No matter what Jessica did, Trish wasn't breaking, and she wasn't walking away. Sure, sometimes she got that awful hurt look in her eyes, or pressed her lips together and left the room, sometimes she snapped back. But she always came back, always apologized, and always told Jessica later- calmly, quietly- what Jessica had done to hurt. It didn't seem to matter that more often than not, Jessica could respond with only sarcasm or with nothing at all. She still came back, every time.
There was no particular incident that set off her eventual explosion. It was a typical Sunday afternoon, with both Jessica and Trish off for the day and without any plans. Not that Jessica would normally make any, other than those involving some close and personal time with whiskey.
Trish wasn't saying or doing anything out of the ordinary; in fact, she wasn't even addressing or looking towards Jessica at all. She made no comments about Jessica drinking at 2 pm, nor the fact that she had started from the moment she woke around 12. She was sitting beside her on the couch, one of her college textbooks propped up on the coffee table as she typed notes, presumably, into her laptop.
Gradually, the steady clatter of the keyboard's keys, the occasional swish of Trish's turning of pages, and her even breathing and focused expression beside her began to grate on Jessica's nerves. Her muscles stiffened into hard cords as she began to feel that every slight movement of her friend's was a pointed jab of sorts towards her, an exaggerated showcasing of Jessica's own faults. Here Trish was, even on a damn Sunday, doing her schoolwork, neatly dressed and ready for the day that she had no plans for, calm and collected and at ease. And there was Jessica, still wearing the clothes she had the day before, the same clothes she had slept in, hair and teeth unbrushed, still in need of a shower and some stretching after having spent the night on the couch. Here was Jessica, drinking for the past two hours, with no other plans but to continue.
Of course Trish had to see this, the obvious difference between them of who and what they were. She was pointing that out on purpose, without ever saying a word. And if she wasn't…then how stupid was she?
Her anger bubbled over then, and Jessica slammed her near empty bottle down on the coffee table, hard enough that it shattered. Trish jumped, eyes widening, but before she could ask, Jessica's words spilled out.
"Why don't you just fucking give it up, Trish?"
Trish blinked, her eyes flitting from Jessica's clinched jaw and narrowed eyes to the broken bottle still partly clutched in her fist, tightly enough that the glass had cut into her palm and fingers. She reached out a hand towards it as though on instinct, but Jessica jerked it back, dropping the glass fragments and placing her bleeding palm flat against her thigh to hide the marks.
"Give up what, Jess? What's going on? Look what you did to your hand, it's bleeding. Let me see-"
"It isn't going to happen," Jessica interrupted, barely hearing the other woman's confused words, and ignoring the gestures she made to help.
That was the problem, that was always the problem. Trish was always so damn eager to help, and didn't she get it, didn't she see that Jessica didn't want her help, Jessica didn't fucking deserve her help, and the last thing Trish needed was any kind of involvement with her where her help was being offered? Well if she didn't get it, if she didn't want to see, then Jessica would spell it out to her.
"It won't happen, Trish," she repeated, with rough emphasis to her words. "I'm not going to be any different. I'm not going to change. You can't help me, you can't fucking change me, do you get it? I'm not going to be better, so stop fucking waiting for it to happen, stop thinking that I can! This is me, Trish. Forever! This is how things fucking are for me, so whatever you think you can do, whatever you're waiting for, STOP!"
She was breathing hard, more breaths seeming to go out from her than to be drawn in, and her chest was beginning to ache with that imbalance. It wasn't only her injured hand that was trembling against her thigh. This was something she utterly believed, what she was telling Trish, something that needed to be said and understood between them. Then why did it hurt so much to say it?
Trish's expression didn't shift much in its conveyed feelings; if anything, she seemed more concerned than before as she tilted her head towards Jessica, her perfectly plucked eyebrows drawing together slightly in thought.
"Jessica….slow down," she said quietly, making no movements, as though she thought any shift in her posture might set her off. She wasn't likely wrong in that; Jessica felt wired and wild enough then to make a run for it at almost any increase in her stress.
"I'm not sure where this is coming from," Trish continued, still keeping her voice soft and slow. "But we can talk about this. Let's take a minute and calm down, okay?"
"No," Jessica blurted, shaking her head hard, her hair whipping out enough that Trish flinched as it almost hit her cheek. "No, Trish, that's what you've been waiting for, all this time, for me to CALM DOWN, for me to just be normal, just be okay. Like I ever was! Do you even know what I was like, before you met me? Big surprise, Trish, I was still an asshole, I was still a sarcastic freak who couldn't have paid someone to be her friend and didn't want to in the first place. I have never been NORMAL, Trish, even before all this shit! But that's what you want, isn't it?"
Her nails had begun to rip holes into the dark material of her jeans, her bleeding palm mingled in with the already stained knee as she ground out what she had been keeping back, what she had always felt but never quite but forth in words. Not like this.
"You've been waiting all this time for me to be a hero again. You took me away from everything back there, you gave up your whole life, just because you thought it would make me a hero. But I've told you, Trish, I've told you and told you that I'm not a hero, that I am never going to be a hero that you think I can be. Why don't you just fucking believe me? What is it going to take for you to see that?"
She was blinking against sudden tears, gritting her teeth against them, and her voice came out hoarse and strained with the effort of keeping them back.
"I've told you, but you keep looking at me and waiting, just knowing and expecting that one day I'll be different, that one day I'll be what you think I am. I will NEVER be different, Trish, that day isn't going to fucking come. Don't you see that yet? Don't you see what I've done? I made my entire family die! I flunked out of being a super hero, I can't keep even a minimum wage job. I don't go to school, I don't have friends, and people stupid enough to get involved with me end up hurt or dead. I am poison to any relationship. I attracted a fucking monster onto me by trying to be the hero you wanted me to be! I can't even remember the names of everyone's lives who was ruined because of me!"
Jessica's chest heaved, and the tears she had struggled to suppress broke free, streaming unchecked and beyond control. She lowered her head, dark tangles of hair falling forward to partly hide her face, as her voice lowered, cracking, unrecognizable to her ears.
"I…I left a man to die. I left him to be…to be slowly tortured. To death. I left him, and I ran like a fucking coward. I-I dragged you out of your life, around the whole damn world, instead of staying and-and finishing my fucking job, my f-fucking duty-"
"Jessica," Trish whispered, beginning to walk towards her, one hand stretched out. Jessica's head shook, slow, then hard, her shoulders jerking with the harsh choking breaths her tears drew out.
"No. No, Trish, no…you have to stop this. You have to….you have to stop looking at me like all of this is different, or, or like it's going to change. Like…like I'm going to be someone else for you. Like I'm going to be a…"
The word hero wouldn't emerge again. Her tongue didn't even feel worthy to saying it aloud anymore.
"I'm not," Jessica finished, her voice barely loud enough to be heard. "I'm not. You have to…you have to stop looking at me like I'm worth something, you have to stop believing in me, stop…stop loving me. Because…because…"
She couldn't finish the sentence; she couldn't even finish the thought in her mind. Body nearly doubled over, Jessica drew her knees tight against her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs as though to shield herself, or perhaps just her heart. She felt open and raw against her own spoken words, said aloud at last…but more so, against what Trish might do in response.
She waited for Trish to leave, to turn her back on her and walk away, like she had told her to. It would hurt like hell, but it was what she truly believed was needed, what was best for Trish and for her. It was what Trish should have done long before.
But instead, Trish took another step towards her, then another, slow, but steady, without any wavering indecision in her movements. Her hand reached out again, resting against Jessica's upper arm, and when Jessica shrugged her off, trying to bury herself further into her own body's balled form, Trish brushed back her hair, just enough so she could lay her palm flat against Jessica's face. Jessica tensed, her eyes shifting away, trying with growing desperation to avoid being seen, to avoid looking back at her, but Trish hung on, not allowing her to fully escape her gaze.
"Are you finished?" Trish said softly. "Because that's the last time I ever want to hear you say any of that again."
With her free hand, she reached up to thumb away the tears still forming, gently brushing against the angles of Jessica's cheekbones. Jessica's eyes closed, her heart wrenching with genuine pain at this tender touch, but she opened them against her own judgment when Trish continued to talk.
"When I look at you, Jessica Jones, I don't see any of what you just said to me. I don't see it, and I don't believe it. I don't see you for anything but what you are- a brave, strong, beautiful woman who struggles on, no matter what life and the people in her life do to her to knock her down. I see someone who is my hero, and who has been a hero to others for so damn long she doesn't even know anymore that sometimes, the best and only person she should be expected to save is herself."
Trish paused, her fingertips gently stroking against Jessica's cheek. Jessica shivered, swallowing hard, but still, could not bring herself to pull away from her. She stayed motionless, letting Trish touch her like she was worth tenderness, like she was worth understanding.
"It's okay if the last person that you save is yourself," Trish told her, her voice strong, almost fierce with her conviction. "In fact, it's the best thing you could do. Because you are so, so worth being here. You are worth being saved."
The hand not stroking Jessica's cheek lifted to rest on her hair, and Trish lightly scratched her fingers against Jessica's scalp, soothing, slow. As Jessica's crying slowed, then began to gradually shudder into only heightened breathing, she was very much aware of the love that Trish was pouring into her, without the other woman actually speaking the words. She could feel it in her touch, in the emotion of her words, almost as though it were a physical emanation, coming out through her heart and wrapping around Jessica's own. Trish's love for her seemed to be slowly filling in all the cracks and breaklines of Jessica's heart, partly patching the gaping holes and wounds it bore.
Trish loved her; this was not a surprise, not something that was new information, although it was not always something explicitly spoken aloud. Jessica had lived in fear of this love, at some times more intensely than in others, because she knew not only that she was unworthy, but because she knew all too well just what could happen to the people that loved her- and to the people that she dared to love back. She never spoke the words back to her, never even dared to let herself think them in explicit form, because love for Trish seemed dangerous, a direct threat to Trish's presence in her life.
But refusal to speak it did not make it go away, nor did it drive Trish away. It didn't matter what was said or what Jessica did. It was there, unsolicited, expecting and demanding nothing of Jessica in return. Steady, deep, and genuine- other than her parents, the only real love that Jessica had ever known.
She knew this, allowed herself for the first time to really acknowledge this, for the last few moments before Trish's head lowered, before her lips pressed lightly, then with more firmness, against Jessica's own. As Jessica's heartbeat slowed against Trish's, and her lips parted, accepting, giving in even as she let herself at last reach out, she knew even when their bodies drew apart, she would still be unable to speak any words of love out loud.
But it didn't matter. She knew, and Trish did too, that the now steady beating of her heart, in perfect rhythm with Trish's own, was an answering testimony all of its own.
The end