A/N: Hello, guys! I've missed you! Excuse my typos, but exept from the fact that English is not my mother tongue and I have dyslexia, these past few weeks I've been taking exams so whatever little free time I had, I wrote small pieces and eventually got them together.
Few things before you read:
1) A scene at the previous chapter looked very much alike with a scene from another story. But after talking with the author about this oddity. She said a mention of the story would be enough to not confuse people. So the name of her story is called "We Shine Together" and it's writter by Detective_Animator. We're not the same person (but I wish I had half of her talent when it comes to writing)
2) A fan made a channel on Youtube and she posts regularly fanmade videos of Jessica Jones so you should definitely check her out (she even made a trailer for this story, how awesome is that?!). The channel's names is: "It's Called Whiskey"
3) I was having some Bates Motel vibes when I started this chapter and they took over me... You'll realize what I mean after you read
4) I'm very excited for something; since I changed a lot of things about Jessica's backround in this story (you just haven't seen it yet) I thought of writing more details about Jessica's life before the accident and the idea turned into a story which is called "A Spider's Web". It's a prequel of "Not Your Hero" but of course you don't need to read it if you don't ship Jessica/Peter or care about how Trish and Jess came to be
Not Your Hero
Chapter 3:Traps
When Jessica was six she was asked by a teacher from school what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Her answer was: astronaut
Her parents blamed her obsession with Doctor Who – and they were partly right. (Because really, who could say no at seeing the starts? Jessica used to imagine countless hours at night how it would feel like to travel from planet to planet, to touch the stars and get lost with them in the galaxy – she had been such a dreamer back then, until…)One day she watched a documenter about space and the routine of astronauts and their travels and Jessica discovered that astronauts weren't free in the universe like she had originally thought. They were locked in small spaces for years; their job was to collect stupid rocks, and nobody could actually touch the starts. Jessica was disappointed.
When she was nine she was asked again by her then best friend; Hannah
Her answer was: writer
She had been quite the bookworm, she loved reading books (she still does)and writing essays; in her eyes books gave the chance to travel in a different place, time, era, universe… From romance to adventure and eventually to mystery and crime novels (The latter is the type Jessica still likes), books were certainly a way to fill in a lazy day.
The dream lasted for many years. It wasn't until the accident happened that she truly realized some dreams died; humans kept wishing for more when they already had everything, and Jessica had to lose her entire family to realize that.
She had never been good at planning; Jessica just did, she reacted, she took action. However, eyeing the room she had stayed the past few days Jessica had never felt more disappointed to herself until now.
Jessica was a runner; if she got cornered and trapped she would do anything to escape. It should be a given, a fact of life. Anyone who knew her knew she drunk to escape her problems, but sometimes, even a bottle of Jack Daniels wasn't enough.
So she ran, ran away from the devil himself, away from her problems and responsibilities, away from Trish, and away from New York. (She had thought long and hard about moving to another country but didn't it sound too predictable? Perhaps Kilgrave would expect it from her. Or maybe he wouldn't. She couldn't make any wrong moves)
She didn't even realize how many days passed, she couldn't focus. She could only take a flight, stay in a place for three days the most, and then leave again. From New York to California, and from California to Florida, she eventually got settled in a coastal town in Oregon.
Jessica preferred cities; they were big, crowed, and you could easily blend in unlike small towns where the residents were closed and wanted to know each other's businesses since they had nothing better to do than gossip about other people's lives.
One thing was certain; Jessica wouldn't be able to ever imagine herself live in such a place (and if she couldn't, perhaps Kilgrave wouldn't be able to do either)
She couldn't help but think Trish would probably love the place; small towns, warm people, clear sky, with the sea on the one side and the forest on the other. It reminded her of those shitty romantic movies Trish likes to watch-
No, she couldn't think like that. It's also for Trish's own good, she reminded herself as she tied loosely a long scarf around her neck. Trish was everything; her last hope, her friend, her sister and family (she would never admit it to her but it was a plain fact)
Jessica shook her head, feeling sick and fighting the urge to choke herself with the goddamn scarf because none of what she was doing is her. Jessica didn't wear skirts, heels, and short shorts with sleeveless blouses and tank tops. She certainly didn't wear jewelries and make up anymore.
The bile in her throat vanished at the notification sound which came from her new phone to remind her she had to go, and along with it, her unease and self-hatred that only she feels. Jessica does what she does best.
She lies, and lies, and lies
(she's always been terrified of the truth)
She stepped outside and doused out into the rain (it was raining heavily and it was ruining the perfect image she was trying to hold but she put up with it) she climbed the stairs that were leading up to the hill where the house was located and was ready to ring the bell when she noticed there was a light on in one of the upstairs rooms. A woman passed the window, paused, and peered out. But before she could become suspicious she remembered the motel manager mentioning living with his mother.
The presumed mother quickly went away from the window and having seen the woman, Jessica expected to get some attention. Instead, she stood for a few moments, waiting.
When no one came, impatience and anger rose in her, she rang the bell repeatedly only to find that it wasn't working properly. Backing away from the house, she repeated to herself that it wouldn't be normal for her to break the damn door.
She wasn't Jessica Jones; a messed up private investigator with a little drinking problem and with an atrocious sense of fashion.
She was Hanna Parker; a mysterious, stylish woman who had come in this shitty town to escape her busy life.
It wasn't as if she was starving (she often forgot to eat anyway) but she preferred to eat lunch with a desperately lonely motel manager than to be interrogated by the town's gossipers.
After a moment, a young man (the motel manager) opened the front door of the house. He paused, started down the path but after a few steps, he turned and run back into the house.
Enough was enough
She turned around to go back to her room and do what she did mostly these days; plan the next place to go. However, a small "Hey!" made her turn around.
The manager had gone back only to get an umbrella. Seeing that Jessica stopped and he caught up quickly, the umbrella unopened in his hand.
He stopped short, looked at her, then at the umbrella hanging uselessly in his hand, then back to her.
There was something sadly touching in his manner, in his look, and Jessica's impatience left as her lips turned upwards (it wasn't a smile, she didn't do that anymore but it was the closest thing he would get from her) and this made him almost smile. He gestured her into the house, and after following behind him she took off her jacket.
It was Victorian style from what she was seeing and awfully dusty for a guy who was living with his mother.
Stop being a P.I for a moment, Jones
He excused himself for a moment and instructed her to wait for him in the living room. Settling herself at the sofa, she took her time to study the room. It was quite messy, as if a fight had occurred, old fashioned heels were abounded near the wooden table and her brow furrowed as she noticed there was not a single picture of the manager or anyone else whatsoever.
"No! I tell you no!"
She heard a feminine scream from upstairs and tensed, ready to take action.
"I won't have you bringing strange young girls in for supper..." There was an ugly, sneering note creeps into the voice "...by candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds!"
Jessica finally heard the manager's voice pleading, "Mother, please..."
"And then what? After supper, music? Whispers?"
"Sounds like a modern woman," Jessica mused quietly. God, she was almost aching for a drink right now. Had she would give to have a bottle of whisky.
"Mother, she's just a costume... She's been staying with us. She's hungry, and the weather's bad..."
"Mother, she's just a costumer!" The woman mimicked cruelly and Jessica started conserving whether being interrogated by the town's folks wasn't so bad after all. "As if men don't desire a little mystery, as if... oh, I refuse to speak of disgusting things because they disgust me! You understand, Boy?"
"Go on, go tell her she'll not be appeasing her ugly appetite with my food... or my son! Or do I have to tell her because you don't have the guts? Huh, boy? You have the guts, boy?"
The fury and shame was obvious as he blurted cut her, "Shut up! Shut up!"
There was the loud sound of a door closing in the room up there, and Jessica stood by the window, listening with mounting concern and a stab sympathy.
She stood up and wrapped her jacket around herself quickly and made a move to escape only to see him coming down the stairs, carrying a napkin-covered tray.
"Perhaps I should leave, I can eat somewhere else. I've caused some trouble."
A hollow little laugh came out, "Mother" He made an attempt at sardonic humor, "...what is the phrase... «she isn't herself today»... I think that's it.
"You shouldn't have bothered. I don't eat much anyway." She told him honestly and he flinched, probably thinking she was offended by his mother's reference to her appetite.
"I'm sorry. I wish... people could apologize for other people."
His eyes reminded her of a wounded puppy so she tried to assure him it didn't matter. "Don't worry about it. But as long as you've made us breakfast, we may as well eat it. Right Mister Ba-?"
"Please just call me Norman," he told her as he placed the tray at the wooden table in front of her. Once again her eyes fell on the heels beside it and Norman – wide eyed and little flustered picked up the shoes and stuttered, "Th-they're m-mother's"
"Of course"
"Perhaps, I should open the television"
Seeing him so nervous and awkward, Jessica decided to help him. "That seems like a good idea."
He gave her a smile before he took the remote control and turned the TV on.
He wasn't bad looking by any means; he was probably in his mid-20s, tall, slender, and cute. He looked like more of a «boy next door» and she couldn't help wondering why his mother was holding him in such a tight leash.
The living room was full of birds; stuffed birds, all over the room, on every available surface, one even clinging to the old fashioned fringed shade of the lamp. The birds were of many varieties, beautiful, grand, horrible, preying. She stared feeling more than a little creeped out.
After Norman finally took a sit beside her, he grabbed a piece of bread and spread jam all over it. Meanwhile she studied the birds before briefly examining a bookcase stacked with books on the subject of «Taxidermy».
Her eyes lost their focus when a piece of bread covered her view and she found Norman offering the bread he made. "It's all for you. I'm not hungry. Please go ahead"
"You're… awfully kind," it almost made her feel sick in her stomach but at least he wasn't prying her business.
Jessica began eating; her body all tense but she enjoyed the silence. She took up a small slice of ham, bit off a tiny bite, and nibbled at it in the manner of one disturbed and preoccupied.
Norman gazed at her, his eyes looking intensely at the small bite she had taken and it didn't take much time for his smile to turn into a laugh. "You eat like a bird," he pointed out
She wanted to snort, make a remark about his horrible attempt of flirting but she doubted Hannah Parker would act cold and bold at someone as sugary sweet as Norman. "You'd know of course"
Norman shook his head, taking a sheep of milk from his glass. "Not really. I hear that expression, that one eats «like a bird» is really a falsie, I mean a falsity, because birds eat a tremendous lot." He paused, and then tried to explain himself better.
"Not that I don't know anything about birds. My hobby is stuffing things... taxidermy." He gushed, taking one of the birds in his hands and stroking it as if it was something precious. "And I guess I'd just rather stuff birds because... well, I hate the look of beasts when they're stuffed, foxes and chimps and all..."
This is stressful, for him, Jessica realized. There was tension running through his body–he was braced in his chair, as he strained to think of what to say to her. He stopped, started, and faltered.
Physically, he had folded into himself–leaning forward in the chair, squeezing his fingers together, tightly, working his hands "Some people even stuff dogs and cats... but I can't... I think only birds look well stuffed because they're rather... passive, to begin with... most of them..." He trailed off, his exuberance failing in the rushing return of his natural hesitancy and discomfort.
Jessica eyed the dead bird cautiously; a part of her was curious enough to want to touch it, to feel something dead being frozen like this forever, trapped in one place. But the whole act disgusted her, it almost made her want to puke but she swallowed the cold feeling of discomfort that was chilling her bones and stated politely, "It's a strange hobby. Curious, I mean."
"Uncommon, too." He added, not taking his eyes off the bird
"I imagine so" She said dryly as she started eating a toast, perhaps if she stuffed her mouth she could stop herself from talking further.
Her attempts at chitchat don't last long. Almost right away, he started getting more topical.
"It's not as expensive as you'd think." I don't give a fuck, actually "Cheap, really. Needles, thread, sawdust... the chemicals are all that cost anything." He became quiet all of the sudden and she noticed his expression became a little disturbed
She didn't know where he was going with this, but she was getting a little uneasy about it. "A man should have a hobby."
Right away, hearing that Norman leaned back, unfolded his arms, and loosened up physically, in his chair: "Well–it's… it's more than a hobby," he said, looking her in the eyes, "A hobby's supposed to pass the time… not fill it."
"Is your time so empty?"
"Oh, no!" He exclaimed awfully cheeringly with a bright smile. "I run the office, tend the cabins and grounds, do little chores for mother... the ones she allows I might be capable of doing."
Jessica frowned at that, what kind of person was his mother? He shouldn't allow her to control him. "Don't you go out with friends?"
"Friends?" he repeated the word as if it was an alien, "Who needs friends?" Norman put the bird back to its place and turned towards her, "A boy best friend is his mother" he declared faithfully, and for the first time his behavior stopped being awkward, shy, and childlike. For the first time, she noticed how broken he actually seemed to be.
He has accepted the fact he'll never get a hold of his life. The realization shouldn't have affected her but it did, it hit home. Because at that moment she hated him for succumbing, for giving up so easily, for allowing one normal person to control him to that extending.
And when he asked the reason she was staying there (it was bound to happen after all) she told him like a broken record what she told everyone else, "I just needed a small escape from the real word."
They danced around the subject for a bit, which was awkward as he started telling her a little more about his life in the small town. Being a manager at the motel, never been anywhere because he had to take care of his mother... Speaking of whom, he told of his love and devotion to her, he expressed how lonely he felt – days like this, for example, when all there was was cold and rain - and it didn't take her long to realize that he was yearning for a listener which was perhaps the reason he was telling her his life story. He hated being so isolated, with endless time to fill alone. He hated being ordered around by the angry, vengeful voice of his mother, but in the end, he didn't do anything about it because he didn't think it was possible.
"What are you running from?"
For the first time her facade dropped and she looked at him alarmed. She stopped eating and eyed him suspicious. "Why do you ask?" She almost winced at the panic in her tone but it suddenly occurred her that Kilgrave might have already found her location; maybe he wanted to give her a false security before he stroke. She could almost hear Trish's calm voice trying to sooth her: You're being paranoid
Instead of replying he began telling her, "You know what I think? I think we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever climb out. We scratch and claw... but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch."
"Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps." She stated steadily, because wasn't it true? Had she not turned towards the corner she did that night of late November, had she not chosen to beat these thugs and save Malcolm's life, she would have never met him. New York has a sea of people and she knew Kilgrave would have never found her in the places she used to go.
It wasn't the first time she thought of it; if she had ignored Malcolm's cries, leading to his eventual death she would have never met that bastard, and wasn't that a dark thought?
"I was born in mine, but I don't mind it."
His voice broke her out of her thoughts, and her head snapped towards him, remembering he was still there. "You should mind it."
Something seemed to be breaking inside him, "Oh I do… but I say I don't" he laughed boyishly
"When my mother was alive, she never spoke to me like that," she began telling with a rare softness in her voice. "Perhaps it's because she had always been modern and tried to be a friend to my brother and I, but…" She had always been gentle, sensitive, rarely angry. Jessica had inherited her temper from her father. "…I wouldn't be as calm as you are about it."
"Sometimes when she talks that way to me I'd like to... curse her out and leave her forever!" He confessed infuriatingly with a rueful smile. "Or at least, defy her." He added hesitantly and after he made a pause, he gave her a hopeless shrug. "But I couldn't. She's ill."
Jessica raised an eyebrow at that; she had seen sick people and his mother didn't sound anything like that. "She sounded strong" She told him doubtedly
"I mean... ill. She had to raise me all by herself after my dad died... I was only fi-"
"Turn the on the volume" Jessica abruptly cut him off and when he stared at her in shock at the sudden change in her demeanor she grabbed the remote and turned it up herself.
Right there, on the screen a picture of Trish was shown; it was the same she used to see on busses or on leaflets; dressed in sophisticated clothes, with her hair perfectly made in order, and a bright smile as she stared at the viewer's soul.
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! She stared at the screen numbly as she sank back against her seat. "Trish," she whispered more softly, her heart hammering against her chest.
"It has been a week since news broke about the attack on former model and child TV star, Patricia Walker who is known for the infamous family show: It's Patsy!" the news reporter said. "Officers have remained silent on the investigation. No suspects have been named and there have been no updates to Patricia's condition.
He got her, he got her, he got her! A look of horror sprung on her face as the voice screamed inside her head over and over again, like a broken record
"We are told by source that no family has visited the radio talk show host's side since she was admitted. She is listed as being in a very poor condition, but little else is known. No one has made any statement yet and we are anxiously waiting for any updated to come out."
Jessica stared blankly at the small screen in silence as the news continued, Norman, noticing her shock, gently took the controller from her hands and glanced at the screen. "The world is such a sad place."
Jessica's head turned slowly to him, her eyes glassy, and her lips still parted in shock. "I-I need t-to go."
Norman frowned and tilted his head, "Why, whe-"
She didn't stay to hear him. She made her way towards the door and after she got out she headed down to her room; she wasn't in any rush, she was frozen, her mind still in shock.
She couldn't focus on anything in particular; not when she ripped the goddamn scarf she had been wearing, not when she threw the fucking heels across the room, not even when she started grabbing and throwing random things in her luggage.
"We are told by source that no family has visited the radio host's side since she was admitted."
Once the shock started deescalating, anger took over her system which made her movements more rashly and distracting, she was past the point of go slowly and quiet and was now throwing everything she deemed worthless and unnecessary away.
"She is listed as being in a very poor condition, but little else is known"
She had been so stupid to think she could… what? Hide? Escape? Run away? Start over? Be normal?
Normal was setting on the dryer. It wasn't meant for freaks like her.
She didn't do normal. She couldn't do normal, not anymore. She would never have kids or have a boring job with its lazy routine like most other people in the world, or be seen off with a kiss to work. She would never live in a perfect house with a white picket fence and worry about taxes and car payments and driving kids to school on time with their lunches packed in their bags.
But she had made peace with it long ago. She had Trish, and that was enough for her. If she had Trish, she could be as abnormal as needed. Because if she had been normal, she would have never met her on a personal level, and wasn't that another dark thought?
So, while she was never one to express her love, she did care for Trish as much as she was capable of caring and more than anyone else in the world. So, of course, she would never replace her with a friend, or a boyfriend.
He knows that though
Trish was everything, and of course, of course she would go back. Any other choice was dismissed, invisible in her eyes. This was one way road.
She would go back to New York, protect Trish at all costs, and even play the hero to save her if she needed saving.
And God help anyone who got in her way
A/N: I believe everyone saw this coming but I hope I wrote it well. The hardest thing was to convey Jessica's shock. You have no idea how many times I deleted and rewrote.
Also did you like this chapter? Norman/Jessica, Jessica's viewes of Trish? Your opinions do matter and they certainly motivate!
I don't promise to update soon because I'm still taking exams but drop a review and tell me your thoughts
PS: Have you heard the news about David Tennant and Krysten Ritter? They will work together again in a new movie! I can't wait to see their screen chemistry again!