1. Jessica's Turn

It took fourteen years of knowing Patricia Walker for Jessica to tell her that she loved her, and then, it was prompted in response to Kilgrave's command.

Of course, Kilgrave hadn't been asking her to say it to Trish, but rather, to him, as a test to prove his regaining control of Jessica's mind and heart. In those final few moments of his life that night on the docks, Jessica had fought hard to keep her body loose and relaxed, an easy smile curving her lips, to force out of her gaze any of her true feelings of her fear and anxiety for Trish and the dozens of other innocents on the docks. She knew that if Kilgrave didn't buy her act, every one of them could be killed- Trish included. And if Trish was not killed, she may very well end up in the same position that Jessica had found herself in, years before- Kilgrave's prisoner, Kilgrave's forced lover, with Jessica helpless to protect her even from herself.

She knew, and so when Kilgrave commanded her to speak of her love for him, Jessica's eyes moved just past him for a fraction of a second, connecting not with the face of her nemesis, but with that of her sister, her friend, the one steady thread in the tangled knot of her existence. She allowed herself one moment to summon up truth and feeling in her words, letting in that moment all the emotion she felt for Trish Walker but had never, ever allowed herself to voice out loud, to come out then- even as she let her eyes slide back to Kilgrave as she spoke.

"I love you."

It was enough to convince him, enough to bring him close enough for her to end his life at last. After all, there was no reason not to believe the genuineness of her words. The only catch was that they had been aimed not at Kilgrave, but at Trish, just behind him.

A person might have thought that having said the words once, they would come easily from then on, that any threats or fears attached to them would have disappeared. But when Trish first came to meet her after Jessica's release from prison, for the first several minutes, no words exchanged between them at all. Trish, as always, took the first steps forward, her arms enveloping Jessica as they had so many times before. But this time was different. This time, after several moments, Jessica felt her arms come up, almost on their own accord, as she slowly let herself hug Trish back.

Still, hugs or not, words of love didn't leave her lips. Not then.

It was almost a week later, after Jessica had slept for something close to four days, without getting up to do much more than stumble back and forth from the bathroom and bedroom. It was one of her first days spent mostly awake, and even so, she had spent most of it just sitting up with Trish in her apartment. The apartment, she had finally noticed around day five, that had clearly been cleaned up and repaired some time during her near comatose state, most likely with Trish's money and direction.

She was finally beginning to feel somewhat like a living person again, like there was indeed some kind of future there for her, although she couldn't begin to imagine what it might be. True, she was still healing physically and emotionally, and nightmares still came more often than not in sleep, but at the very least, Jessica was pretty sure she felt human instead of like some sort of reject out of the Walking Dead.

They were sitting together in not uncomfortable quiet, some stupid comedy Trish kept chuckling at on the TV, when the words came at last, thick and awkward on Jessica's tongue.

"I was talking to you, you know."

Trish turned towards her, one blonde eyebrow raised.

"Come again?"

Jessica exhaled, the words slower in coming then before, but still audible, still able to emerge.

"What I said to Kilgrave, that night. On the dock. When I said what he asked me to. I said it because he asked, but when I said it, I was looking at you."

She saw the light dawn in Trish's eyes, the way she started to smile. But although her head was more fully turned towards her, her posture lighter, somehow, Trish didn't reply, not then. Instead she waited, letting Jessica finish what she needed, at last, to say.

"I love you," Jessica managed, and the words felt lighter, easier, than she ever would have imagined. "I love you, Trish. I always have."

As Trish slipped an arm around her shoulder, pressing a kiss to Jessica's head in her own nonverbal reply, Jessica let out a final breath, letting her head slowly fall against her sister's shoulder. Letting herself, at last, come to rest.

The end