She's cold.

Ten seconds at a time, Father Martinez had said, his brow furrowed with weariness. His collar had been strange; pitch black against the pale brown of his skin, except for the white square in the middle. She hadn't seen a collar like that before. Dad had said that it was because he was a priest.

Like your Dad?

No, baby, my Dad wasn't a priest. Just a missionary.

She hadn't understood the difference. A priest told people about God, and so did a missionary.

"For we know that our Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand upon the earth," Father Martinez says. "Gracious Lord, into Your hands, we commit your son, Jonathan Murdock."

His name was Jack, she wants to scream. No-one ever called him Jonathan, he was Jack, he was her friend, he called her a little grease monkey and would say that when she grew up, she could be his mechanic. She would ask him to teach her how to fight and he'd always wink and say she was too pretty, but add in a quieter tone that if she was ever in trouble to jab her knee really hard and fast here and here and then run like hell. She'd grinned at him and kissed his cheek and whispered, thanks, Jack.

Matt's quiet. Gone completely quiet. Earlier, she'd tried putting her hand on his shoulder, only for it to be shrugged off.

Don't do this, she pleads with him silently. Don't do this.

He can't hear it. He's not even crying. There are none of the tears she can feel on her cheeks trickling down his face. His sunglasses are in place; his mouth is set. She'd never understood the word 'stone-faced' until now.

Foggy's crying. Little hitches and gasps of breath, that she can hear coming from her own mouth as well.

Matt's dry-eyed, and she feels a sudden burst of anger at him. Doesn't he care at all?

Her Dad steps into the aisle to pick up the coffin. Ed does too. So do a couple of the guys she recognises from Fogwell's. She'd have to ask Matt for their names, though, and she can't do that. Not now.

They carry it to the graveside, and lower it in. She doesn't understand why they need a coffin, but one look at her Dad's face convinces her not to ask.

He looks like hell. Pale, eyes with dark circles underneath them, his jaw clenched. Mom doesn't look much better, as she takes his hand and kisses it briefly, gently. Dad's smile to her is watery, and her mascara has smudged from tears.

"Gracious Lord, we thank you for our brother," Father Martinez says. "And we commend Him to your care, and to his rest."

He doesn't get to rest now! Matt needs him! Dad needs him! Mom needs you, Jack!

More tears burning at her eyes, a lump in her throat as she faces the horrifying truth.

Jack, don't do this. Don't do this. I need you. Come back, please?

But he's not coming back. Not now. Maybe the Father's right, and she'll see him again, but her life stretches before her, years upon years without seeing Jack's blue eyes, without his soft laugh and his rough hands and the sound of her nickname in his voice.

She buries her face in her hands, a sob in her throat at the thought.

"Jess. Jessica," Anna says softly. She crouches beside Jessica. "Do you want to say something to Jack?"

Jessica wipes at her eyes, but the tears are still flowing.

"He – he's dead," she says, shaky.

"Yeah," Anna admits with a nod. "But I bet you that he's still listening."

She swallows, and nods, walking as close to the edge as she can, and sitting. It's freezing cold.

"You had to go and pick November," she says, softly. "You had to go and die in November."

She's surprised Matt doesn't burst out in defence of his Dad. She knows he can hear her.

Or maybe he can't right now.

"Why'd you do it?" she whispers. "Why? We needed you. We needed you alive. Where there's life, there's hope. That's what Dad kept telling you, after the accident. What the hell, Uncle Jack?"

There's no response. She doesn't even feel better.

She stands. "I give up," she tells the grave.

He clings to her like his life depends on it, when they're alone in their room. And maybe it does.

It's happened again. His family, dead and broken; the man who'd become a brother to him taken from him.

It feels like a strange role reversal. It's usually her crying into his shirt when it gets too much, not him burying his face in her hair and inhaling like it's oxygen. It's still soft as it was when he met her years ago, still tickles his nose.

"You're shaking," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. The kids are in bed, and the wake is over, and God, he can't get Matt's face out of his mind, the blank expression on those features still soft with puppy fat, like he'd just checked out, that was how much pain he was in.

He tilts her chin up and kisses her, trying to bury the pain, and she kisses back. I'm here, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere.

The kiss tastes like salt, and tears, even as he unzips her.

Jessica's pissed, Alyssa realises, as the fog of what the fuck, Jack slowly clears. She's yelling when they ask her to clear the table one night when she goes to put on Mulan, screaming: "It's not fair!"

Brian loses it. Like father, like daughter, a distant part of her brain quips. "Jessica!"

Jessica clenches her fists, angry tears in her eyes, as she picks up the plates. Alyssa studies her as Jessica grabs the salt, the casserole and sets them on the kitchen counter.

Did something happen at school today?

Alyssa grabs Brian's hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. "Let me talk to her?"

He sighs, and nods. "Yeah, okay."

She waits until Jessica's cleared all of the glasses from the table, and stalks into her room, slamming the door. She's not sure if it's a warning or an invitation.

She knocks on the door. "Jess?"

"Go away," the response comes, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of conviction behind it.

Alyssa opens the door, and takes a look. There's her daughter, curled up on the bed. Her hair is greasy; when did she last wash it?

She walks into the room and sits on the bed.

"Hi," Alyssa offers.

There's no response.

Alyssa sighs. "Jess, what's going on?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you," Alyssa says.

"Mom!"

"Jessica."

Her daughter remains stubbornly silent. Alyssa forces herself to start counting. C'mon, Jessie.

She's reached one hundred and twenty when Jessica speaks.

"It's not fair. I – he – he was family."

Out of the mouths of babes, she thinks.

"C'mere, sweetheart," she says, drawing her daughter into her lap.

Jessica sobs for a long, long time.

"Why didn't Matt come and live with us, though?" Phil asks him, as he puts him to bed.

Brian kisses the top of his head, and tries to keep his face in its smile. "Well, Jack was worried that you wouldn't like Queen living with you all the time."

Phil rolls his eyes. "Dad."

"I mean, you and she didn't exactly get along well the first time you met. If I remember, you tried biting her."

An exaggeration. Phil had tried barking at Queen, on Jessica's mischievous hint that in order to get over his fear of dogs, he had to become one. Phil had, much to Matt's poorly-suppressed delight, bought it, hook, line and sinker.

"Daddy."

Brian swallows. His son's eyes are dark, huge and enormous. "You miss him, huh?"

Phil nods, his eyes shimmering with tears.

Brian presses a kiss to Phil's forehead. "Let's see what I can do. Now, time for the story." He grabs the Children's Bible on the bedside table, and starts reading. The story of Deborah. Lots of blood and guts – well, heads, anyway – and a good battle. Perfect. But it gives him an idea, as he turns on the night light and walks out of the room.

He reaches for the handset. "Hey, Ed? Yeah, it's me. Listen, I've got an idea."

"But we're not Catholic," Jessica points out, that Sunday morning, as they rifle through her closet for a suitable dress. She's already picked out her shoes: high tops.

Brian nods. "Nope." He's raised his kids according to the principles taught him by his stolid, solid Wesleyan Methodist father.

"So why are we going to Mass?"

"Because Matt's going to go to Mass as well," Brian says. The doctrinal differences don't bother him so much. It's the same God.

He's not sure what he was expecting. For Jessica to smile, at least. But instead, she scowls, looking down at her cereal. "So what?" she mumbles.

Brian blinks. He'd thought Alyssa was worrying over something that would fix itself, but now, he thinks he understands.

"You do realise I'm talking about Matt Murdock, right?" he prompts her. "Your best friend? About so tall–" he sticks his hand out to his lowest rib – "you adopted him after your first week of kindergarten…"

You occasionally dream about marrying him, he'd add, if he were in a more teasing mood. He hadn't missed the way Jessica's eyes had drifted to Matt a couple of times at Ed and Anna's wedding, regarding him almost contemplatively. But now is absolutely not the right moment for that.

Jessica sniffs. "He barely talks anymore. He doesn't come to ballet anymore."

Ah, there it is. He rests a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey. It's Matt we're talking about. You're his favourite, Jessica."

She tilts her head, surprise flashing in those enormous hazel eyes. "But why–"

"Do you remember when my Dad died?" Brian asks her.

She frowns, waggling her hand, thumb up, pinky up, thumb up again. I think so?

"I was sad for a really long time after," he tells her. "A really long time. It felt like part of my heart had been ripped out. And if I hadn't had you and Phil to take care of, I probably would have reacted exactly like Matt is reacting now. Everybody deals with losing people differently, Jessica. Some people get angry." He kisses the top of her head, and she flushes. Good. So she gets that now. "Some people? They get quiet."

Jessica bites her lip. "I don't want to lose him too," she confides, in a very quiet voice, and internally, Brian reels with terror at the worry in that childish face, the innocence, the trust she has in him.

He kisses the top of her head. "If you're meant to keep him, he'll find his way back to you," he says.

He's not sure if it's the right thing to say, but it's the best he can do at the moment. He looks at Jessica's pinkest, frilliest dress, bought by Alyssa's Dad in a moment of whimsy. "I'm guessing we're not going with that one?"

Jessica wrinkles her nose, and grabs the lavender knee-length dress beside it. Much fewer frills. Brian even persuades her to put on a couple of bangles that they'd found in a dollar store back in October, when searching for a Halloween costume.

She still lights up when they walk into the Nelsons' apartment and she sees him, and Matt leans into the hug that she wraps him in. His hand drifts to the wrist with the bangles and toys with them, flicking at them.

"Nice."

"How'd you know they were there?" A hint of pleasure in Jessica's voice, that he'd paid attention.

"I heard 'em."

"Know-it-all," she says, and Brian can hear the faint hint of a giggle in her voice.

"Nah. That's your job," Matt smirks at her, and Brian's breath catches in his throat. God damn. He's actually starting to recover.

And Jessica, Jessica laughs, and Brian sighs in relief. Ed shoots him a curious look, which Brian ignores. He doesn't have the energy to explain right now.

It's a startling enough realisation to know that they're going to make it through this.