Jessica Jones - Afterthoughts

A/N: Takes place the evening after Jessica is released from jail in the season finale. Mostly just Jess/Trish dialog. Some parts about Jessica's past with Kilgrave, Trish's past with her mother, and contents of the IGH files are made up, but other than that I hope it sticks with the show pretty well, and that no one's ooc. Rated for language Oneshot…Maybe.

After Jessica's release from the jail, all she wanted to do was drink. Naturally. Somehow, by the evening, both girls ended up on the couches in Trish's living room, alcohol options galore spread across the clear glass table.

The silence was comfortable. The sheer curtains were drawn about halfway, so they could still see the lights of the city scattered across the black night. The lamps cast a soft, orange, warming glow across the room.

Although she looked like she was keeping herself together better than Trish, Jessica was a little bit in shock. She hadn't changed out of the clothes she wore out of jail. She was reclined in a chair, still waiting for Trish to tell her to get her boots off the glass table, but Trish just looked lost. She sat cross-legged on the cream white couch in her pajama pants and tee shirt, fiddling with her thumbs mostly rather than drinking.

Both girls were praying that Kilgrave's death hadn't been a dream they were about to wake up from.

"…You weren't' actually going to let him take me, were you?" Trish asked, after being lost in silent thought for a while.

"What do you think?" Jessica replied.

"Honestly, I thought you were under Kilgrave's control for a few seconds there."

Jessica lifted her head slightly to look at Trish for a moment, before dropping back against the chair. "Nah." She said. "He wouldn't have taken you anyway. He didn't want you."

"I know. I could tell. When he made me kiss him? I think I need to burn my lips off."

Jessica took a long swig.

"…You know what I find sad about him being gone?" She sounded hesitant.

Jessica just stared at her, wondering what good possibly could come from him being alive. Aside from using his powers for good, which they already established, was never going to happen.

"Well, I mean sad about finding out about him. His past, how his parents treated him, how he was created."

"What?"

"…It shouldn't bother me this much but, you said we finally found parents worse than my mother."

"Why would that make you upset?"

"Not that, but that they turned out to be okay. They were trying to help him, they weren't the problem. They weren't worse than my mother."

Jessica thought it over, and gave her friend a sympathetic, knowing look. "So?"

Trish began twisting her fingers together again, staring down at her hands in her lap. "So… it felt good, for a few days there, to not be your low standard of parenting anymore. There was someone who had it worse than me- as far as parents, of course-"

"There are still plenty of people who had worse parents than you."

"I know. I know that, I just wish we knew someone like that."

"So it's not all on you." Jessica finished her thought. "Well, you could… find a support group or something. That's what emotional people do, right?"

Trish laughed. "Yeah, ok, except everyone knows who I am."

"Touché." Jessica leaned forward to set down the empty glass bottle and pick up another one, twisting the cap off. Trish shot her a concerned frown. "So how come she never hurt me?" Jessica asked. It was something she had been wondering for years, and of course she had plenty of obvious theories about why she never got the blunt end of Trish's mother's abuse, but the girls didn't have enough serious conversations for it to ever come up until now.

"Because you're not hers." Trish answered easily, like it was obvious.

"I was her responsibility."

"Not her child."

"So you have to be blood related to her in order for it to be okay for her to hurt you."

"I never said it was okay." Trish said.

There was a long pause.

"Because you weren't perfect." Trish said finally.

"What?"

"You were Jessica, imperfect in every way. A lost cause as far as manners and stability."

Jessica just laughed.

"You weren't the star." Trish continued. "You didn't need to be in front of a camera every day, have a perfect body, perfect social image." Trish trailed off, staring past Jessica out the window, lost in thought.

Jessica took the minute to really take in Trish's face; the sadness, the slight perplexed furrow of her dark eyebrows. Jessica thought about how Trish had never once in her life complained that the abuse wasn't fair. Jessica was just a little shocked to learn that it had never really crossed Trish's mind, in all those years growing up. She just took it as normal.

"So you got more files on IGH?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah. My mother left them in a few boxes over there."

"How did she get in?"

"I need to fire my doorman." Trish shot her a small, annoyed smile. and let out a slight laugh. "Ha, if she knew what's gone down in this apartment in the past few weeks…"

"Like what?"

"Well, there were two bloodied corpses over there, plus their trail of blood from the front door up the steps and around the kitchen, I was almost strangled to death on that floor right over there."

"Alright, point taken. You almost died on my apartment floor, too so, like, stop doing that."

Trish laughed.

"Speaking of things going down in this apartment, I'm still not sure if Simpson is good or evil or what the fuck." Jessica took a swig.

"I don't know. Wait, how did you know about that?"

"Are you kidding? I could hear you through the door. You have a certain tone of voice for everything. I always know what you're up to."

"Really? What do I sound like right now?"

"You're somewhat relaxed, but also shaken and relieved."

"You don't have to read my voice to know that." Trish said tiredly.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes.

"Hey, thanks." Trish said.

"For what?"

"Saying I love you."

"Ah."

"I know you always meant it, you just never said it. No one in my family has said that to me except my mother right after she would hurt me badly, which we both know was complete bullshit."

"You're practically my sister. I didn't need to say it."

"I know. But it's still nice to hear. I love you too, by the way."

"It went without saying. And you've said it before."

"…Were you under his control, at all, last night? Kilgrave?" Trish asked.

Jessica paused. "No. I felt it, but I could push it away. He was definitely stronger."

"…Do you think he ever felt bad about who he killed? Or was he really just a sadistic sociopath?"

"No," Jessica started. "He just didn't believe it was really him that was killing them. He made them all kill themselves, or kill each other, so he thinks he's got a clean conscience. That's what makes me think he really did care deep down, because otherwise why bother, you know? Why not just kill them himself?"

"Cleanliness? Um, entertainment?" Trish suggested.

Jessica shook her head slowly. "He may have been entertained by their deaths, but not always at him killing them."

"Compliance to the law?"

"He could just tell the cops and jurors he didn't do it."

"Do you think he liked seeing other people feel guilty? He certainly did a lot of that without care. Especially to you…" Trish gave her friend a sympathetic look.

"Possibly." Jessica turned to look out the window. "Likely, actually."

"He certainly did like seeing you feel guilty."

"Which is why he used people close to me. Or, close, relatively speaking. Malcolm, Luke, Hope… I don't know why he didn't go after you sooner." Jessica said, sounding a bit worried.

"Because you were practically always there protecting me. He never got a chance." Trish smiled softly. "By the way, Malcolm, Luke, and Hope are all people you met because of Kilgrave."

"What about Reuben?"

"True. I think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Jessica began to get up. "So what are these IGH files?"

"Medical records, mostly. My mother said she got them with your adoption papers."

"Like I'm an orphaned puppy or something." Jessica said in disgust.

"Something like that."

"Did it come with a flea vaccination record?" Jessica joked dryly.

"You wanna dig through them?"

"No. But I will anyway."

The two girls began opening the 2 boxes and thumbing through the folders looking for anything labeled IGH.

"So your mother was actually here?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah."

"Did she talk to you?"

"What else would she have done." Trish said.

Jessica glanced up to from the box to give Trish a look.

"Don't answer that." Trish said, shaking her head.

"Was she only verbal this time?" Jessica asked.

"She told me she listens to my show. Every day."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I don't know what to make of that."

"Do you ever say anything about her?"

"Of course not! There's not many good things to say about her, and like you said, I don't need my childhood made into a Lifetime movie."

"You remember me saying that?"

"Of course I do. That was when I discovered your power."

"That was also when I discovered my power. And when you were stabbed with a People's Choice Award."

Trish threw her head back and laughed loudly.

"It's not funny." Jessica said, remembering the blood running down her friend's arm and the tears in her eyes.

"Out of context, sure it is." Trish said.

"So does she like your show?"

"I don't need her approval anymore."

"I know that. I was just wondering if she said anything."

"Yeah, I think she likes it. Is it wrong that that's upsetting? I don't want her to like it."

"You always had to live up to her standards, now that you don't have to… you don't want to. It feels controlling again." Jessica said.

"At least she admitted she's a bad mother."

"She said that?"

Trish nodded. "She wants back into my life."

"Don't let her!"

"Don't worry, I'm not!" Trish was silent for a moment. "I think she might be serious about changing, though."

"More serious than all the other times? What makes you think this time is for real?"

"Well, she actually made the effort to bring these boxes over even though she said if I wanted to look through them I'd have to come home to get them. But she brought them over without having to lure me back to her house like a rapist."

"It's not too far from the truth." Jessica muttered into her hand.

Trish glared at her.

"Oh I'm sorry, do we not talk about that anymore?"

"We never did." Trish said. She paused. "But you always bring it up when she tries to get close again."

"You're welcome. Just keepin' your head on straight. Reminding you of who you're dealing with here. That's what adopted sister-friends are for." Jessica rolled her eyes. "It's not my fault your mom's a pervert."

"She's not a pervert." Trish raised her eyebrows at Jessica.

"Maybe not, but she hires people to be perverts."

Trish looked pissed off, but said, "Fine. I'll give you that one."

Jessica looked back down at the files, still trying to find one labeled IGH. So far all she was finding was her medical history records, bills, forms. It was boring as shit but also kinda sad when she would come across files that were about the accident, which was most of the files.

"You know when you go to "pervert" I lose any semblance of trust I may have had in her." Trish accused.

"Again, you're welcome." Jessica said, following it with a burp. She glanced over at Trish, who had stopped flipping through files and was now just staring into the box, lost in thought. Just as Jessica was about to say something, Trish shook her head to herself silently and continued flipping through the files, slower now. Jessica didn't look back down at her box. She kept her eyes focused on her friend. "You okay?"

Trish nodded without looking up.

"Hey, you could've been molested by someone close, someone you knew. Or she could've hired the first random guy off the street. At least it was someone she trusted."

"It wasn't molestation. It was rape." Trish still didn't look up or stop looking through the files.

"It was her trying to convince you that no one in showbiz over age 16 is still a virgin. It was you seeing right through her bullshit, then her letting it happen anyway-"

"It was rape." Trish said. "Speaking of which… you never really told me all of what happened when you were away with Kilgrave." She glanced up.

"Hey I think I found something." Jessica said, lifting a yellow folder out of the box.

"You're changing the subject."

"First of all, I really did find something, and second, isn't that what you just did?" Jessica cocked her head to the side, knowing she had just won.

"Tell me something. I know your strategy is to keep it all inside, but you trust me don't you? Nevermind don't answer that, I know you do. So tell me one thing. Anything, that you haven't told someone already, about what happened when you were with Kilgrave. Talk to me, and if you don't feel the slightest bit better after saying it out loud, then I'll never ask about it again. Deal?"

Jessica snorted. "Yeah right. I know it won't make me feel better."

"What makes you so sure if you've never tried it?"

"You. I just brought up the sick, twisted way your mother hired someone to take your virginity, and you feel like shit now, don't you? See, it doesn't help."

Trish caught her friend's eyes, knowing she was right. Of course she felt like shit. "Try it." she urged. "I won't look at what's in that folder until you say something about Kilgrave."

"I don't need you to look in the folder, I have it right h-"

Trish reached over and snatched the folder out of Jessica's hand. She wore a smug smile. "I'm sorry, you what?"

"Would throw you against a wall right now if you were anyone else." Jessica narrowed her eyes.

"But you won't, because you love me."

"…Because I love you." Jessica muttered.

Trish smiled. "Tell me something." She knew full well Jessica could take the folder back any time she wanted.

Jessica sighed and sat back on her heels, dropping her head against the back of the couch behind her. She rested her arms across her knees. "There's a flaw… with Kilgrave's mind control. He might not have even known it. It wasn't something I could use against him anyway."

Trish waited silently instead of urging her on, knowing Jessica would say what she wanted only when she was ready.

"He couldn't control human emotions. He could tell you to feel a certain way, and you would physically look like you were feeling that emotion- crying, happiness, whatever. But inside I didn't feel it the slightest bit."

Trish noted how she changed from second to first person mid thought.

Jessica gave a long sigh, taking a moment to think. "He told me I loved him. He told me to "enjoy it". And I looked like I did. It's like being trapped inside your own body. I was screaming on the inside, smiling on the outside. Literally. Not just in the "I'm-depressed-and-don't-want-to-talk-about-it" way. I was literally trapped. Of course, he always knew that, everyone's trapped when he tells you to do something. But when comes to emotions… he didn't know that I was screaming. I think he thought I really did like it."

They locked eyes for a few moments that seemed like a long time. Trish's sympathetic eyes against Jessica's stone cold ones. She wasn't letting any more emotion through. Not today.

Trish silently held the folder out for Jessica.

Jessica took the folder and opened it, still looking her friend in the eyes. Finally, she looked down at the three papers she pulled out- the only ones in the folder.

Trish watched her friend's face expectantly. "Well?"

Jessica frowned at the paper she was reading.

"What!? You're killing me here, Jess."

Without looking up, Jessica waved her hand at Trish's box. "Gimme the general set of my medical records. They're literally the first few pages in every folder. Give me any random one, it doesn't matter."

Trish pulled out the first three pages of the first folder she found, and handed them to Jessica.

Jessica studied them carefully. "Just what I thought. They're exact copies. Every page, exactly the same, except… there's an address on the bottom of each one from the IGH folder. Like a shipping address."

"It's a lead." Trish said. "For the morning. You're not going out now. And you know damned well when you go I'm going with you."

"Sure. Fine. Whatever. I appreciate you tagging along, but I'm getting sick of having to save your sorry ass."

"Save my sorry ass!? I'm sorry, Kilgrave wanted you dead, right? Not at first, but eventually he did. Who walked into the station right into his trap dressed as you last night? That was me, wasn't it? What if he decided to kill you right there. I mean me."

"Who took a combat kill-machine pill when she knew it would probably kill her? You're a real idiot sometimes, you know?" She joked.

"Worth it."

"It was not worth seeing you die in the ambulance."

"I didn't die, I'm right here!"

"You fucking flatlined!"

"…I did?"

"Yes! Right fucking in front of me, you died. Do you know what that feels like, to see that?"

Trish brought her voice down and said quietly, "I hope I never find out."

"God, Trish. You're gonna be the death of me someday, you know that? There's bad guys out there but the real threat is you. You could scare me to death, you could worry me to death, and if anything ever happened to you… is it possible to die from guilt? Is that a thing?" Jessica tried to hide the few tears that had formed along her eyelids, just from thinking about that day in the ambulance.

"Aw. Jess." Trish scooted over to sit next to Jessica on the floor against the couch, pulling her into a hug. She stroked her hair gently, while Jessica still hadn't let the tears fall.

"You told me not to save you." Jessica said, her voice still a little tear-choked.

"When did I say that?"

"When we were kids."

"Oh."

"…I'm not a very good listener."

Trish laughed. "No, you aren't."

"…I just hope you know that I didn't consider that for one second."

"Consider what?"

"Not saving you. If I thought you really needed help, I would've stepped in any time."

"And you did." Trish pointed out. "When she was trying to force my finger down my throat, for example."

"Are you referring to the time I threw her against the hallway wall, or the time I stabbed her with a toothbrush?"

Trish laughed softly. "She didn't catch on to your powers after the toothbrush thing. Which surprises me, because not many people can stab a person's collarbone with the back end of a toothbrush. Bravo, Jess. She asked for it, you gave it to her."

"Yeah, she asked me to hand it to her so she could stick it down your throat when you fought too hard. She had your arm twisted behind you and was threatening to snap it in half." Jessica said in disgust.

"She wasn't going to. Bad publicity." Trish said quickly. "Which makes me wonder, when you threw her against the wall that one time- the time she found out-… why was that your breaking point?"

Jessica rolled her head. "I don't know. I guess I'd just had enough of hearing you two scream at each other all the time. I never thought I'd sympathize with kids of divorced parents, but with the fighting and yelling, I see where they're coming from. Except with you two, it always ended with a shout of defiance and a cry of pain."

"Poetic." Trish joked.

Jessica laughed softly. "I guess, I try to protect you more now because of everything I didn't do when we were kids. Everything I could've done, but ignored."

"I asked you to ignore it. I told you to, I threatened you, so that you wouldn't tell anyone."

Jessica swiped the few tears away and wiped her hands on her jean-clad knees. "That doesn't mean I shouldn't've done something." She muttered.

"Guess what?" Trish whispered. "I forgive you." She rubbed her back softly, then spoke out loud, "It was you, Jessica Jones, who silently reminded me every day how lucky I was to even have a mother. Like you said a long time ago, it's better to have a mother like mine than to have none."

"That's just a matter of the lesser of two evils, there." Jessica said.

Trish shook her head, pushing the conversation aside. "Are you prepared? For, you know, what you might find at this IGH address?"

"…What do you think I'm gonna find?"

"I don't know, records, footage of kids being experimented on, maybe tortured. Maybe actual kids."

"Please. They wouldn't put the address of their illegal activities on every sheet of paper they print out."

"What are you expecting to find then?"

"I don't know… an office building?" Jessica said.

"And what's under the office building? In the basement, below the basement."

"In the cliché location where every bad guy ever keeps his victims."

"I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly. There's not exactly a lot of open real estate in New York. No other buildings where it would be normal to see a bunch of lab workers and businessmen going in and out all day."

Jessica just sighed, lost in thought about what tomorrow might bring.

Trish released Jessica from her arms and stood up, brushing herself off. Like there was a single spot of dirt in her apartment.

Jessica watched Trish walk to the kitchen, pull a glass out of the cupboard, and run the sink. Jessica still clutched the IGH folder tightly in her hands, almost making her knuckles white.

"You want something to- nevermind." Trish said, watching Jessica grab the bottle of whiskey off the table. She carried her glass of water out to the balcony door and opened it, taking a breath of the fresh air. She walked out onto the balcony and set her glass down on the brick ledge.

Jessica got up and followed her, one hand wrapped around the neck of her whiskey bottle.

They both watched the street for a few minutes. Finally, Trish said, "Do I really have a sex voice?"

Jessica almost choked on her whiskey when she gave a surprised laugh at Trish's question. "What?"

"I mean, can you really tell –just from my voice- whether I'm having sex right then or not?"

"Sure I can." Jessica said. "Over the phone it's easier. You sound a little bit excited, and out of breath. If I can hear someone else's breathing near you, you're having sex with them, because their face is near yours. If I can't hear their breathing, they're probably going down on you. Simple process of elimination." Jessica shrugged. "I don't know what your voice is like when you're going down on someone else though, because I've never called then, or at least you didn't answer with your mouthful, that would be rude. I imagine it would sound rather muffled-"

"Shut up."

"What? You asked. I guess you could've been masturbating, which would explain why I didn't hear someone else's breathing."

"Please. I don't do that."

"Yeah right."

"I don't! …I don't need to."

"Oh sorry, I forgot Trish Walker can get any guy she wants in the entire city."

"That's right." Trish said smugly. "…You talk about this "sex voice" thing like it happens all the time." Trish gave an annoyed smile.

"I'm not saying it's a rare occurrence, considering I call at odd hours and I'm the only one you'd pick up the phone for no matter what."

"That's not true, I miss plenty of your calls. But honestly, after 6 months of not hearing from you, yeah, of course I'll answer every damn time I see it. "

Jessica jammed her hands in her jacket pockets. "Yeah, sorry about that. Thanks for not being too mad."

"I was mad."

"I know."

"Don't do that again. If you decide to run off, shoot me a text once in a while, let me know you're still alive." Trish shifted so she was leaning on her elbow on the ledge, facing Jessica.

"I will. I feel better at least knowing you're safe in your damn fortress here. Bulletproof windows? Who does that?"

"The ones who are just as paranoid as I am." Trish smiled. "My doorman said one night some drunk with a grudge for something I said on my show tried to throw a brick through my window. It bounced back down and hit him in the face."

Jessica looked down at the street skeptically. "He threw it from the ground? He'd have to be a freak like me to be able to get a brick this high."

Trish looked down too. "Maybe it was a baseball. My doorman likes to exaggerate. But someone threw something, I heard it, that's why I went down to ask what it was."

They watched the street for another few minutes, before Trish yawned loudly, glancing back towards the door. "You wanna crash on my couch tonight?"

"I think there's a lineup of people waiting for me to take their case, so, it would be nice, yeah. You tired?"

"Like… 87 percent tired."

"87 percent?" Jessica laughed.

"…Yeah." Trish said midst another yawn. "And you're like 87 percent drunk, so I think you should probably sleep that off too." She walked back inside and set her empty glass in the sink.

Jessica watched her from outside, before finally going in as well.

Trish pulled a blanket down from the top shelf of a closet and tossed it onto the couch for Jessica. "Let me know if you need anything."

"I need something." Jessica said immediately.

"What?"

"Sanity."

Trish turned up the corner of her mouth in a smile. "Can't help you there. You need the bed? You wanna switch?"

"No. I think you need the bed more than I do. You look supertired."

"I'm not the one with a healing broken rib." Trish pointed out.

Jess looked at the bed, trying to decide. "Have you changed the sheets since the last time Simpson was in here?"

"No."

"Then no thanks."

"I'll change them now if you want." Trish offered.

"No, you… go the fuck to sleep."

Trish laughed, throwing a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt at Jessica. "If you change your mind, let me know. It's really not the most comfortable couch."

Jess took the clothes into the bathroom and shut the door.

Trish laid down and turned the TV on for background noise, which is how she usually fell asleep. Some news broadcast was on. As much as she liked politics, it was boring enough to put her to sleep right now.

When she was nearly asleep, she felt the bed shift and turned her head to see Jessica laying down on the other side, on top the covers. It was comfortable and familiar, laying next to each other. Like they used to do at their vacation house as teenagers, or when they'd fall asleep watching a movie together as kids.

"This is for turning my room into a gym." Jessica said.

"Sorry."

Jessica opened one eye and looked at Trish. "You didn't have sex on top the covers, did you? Right where I'm laying?"

"You're safe." Trish promised.

She closed her eyes again.

Trish gave her friend one last grin and rolled over away from Jessica, facing the window.

Six months was way too long to go without your best friend, or sister. The one person who knew you better than anyone else in the world. Trish could tell Jessica was asleep by now; she could hear her deepened breathing. She knew she hadn't gotten any sleep in jail overnight. Trish whispered softly, "If you ever leave me for that long again Jessica Jones, I'll kill you."

~/~

a/n I tried to satisfy the shippers and non-shippers here, but just for the record, this fic was completely platonic.