She can’t do this alone. If she’s going to do it at all – Snart’s stupid goddamn book keeps harping on about a support system.
And Trish, Christ, Trish can’t do it alone. Bruce was right, Jessica’s been taking her shit out on her and her alone for far too long.
So, despite the fact that things are shakier between them than ever, Jessica sends Natasha a text message.
(✉ → nat): actully, i do ened soemthing(✉ → nat): meet me uptwon? say 3?
She sends the address to one of Trish’s favorite coffee spots. Natasha replies simply. ‘I’ll be there.’
Jessica’s stomach is in knots before they even walk inside. She hasn’t told Trish why they’re there either, and her sister keeps trying to guess.
“Are you pregnant?” she asks, tone cool. (She’s still not happy about the Registration.)
“Christ, no,” Jessica says, as the barista slides them their drinks. “I just – there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Trish’s eyebrows shoot up. “A guy?”
“You’re terrible at this.”
“A girl then?”
“Trish…” Jessica sighs, sipping her scalding coffee. Trish tuts in disapproval when she winces at the burn, but says nothing. They take a seat at a corner table, and Jessica spends the next few minutes pretending she’s deaf.
The door chimes as Natasha walks in, and the whole cafe turns their head. Probably would, even if she wasn’t one of the only Avengers to sign the thing. The redhead’s eyes narrow as she spots Jessica and Trish. She walks over with a pensive expression, but doesn’t sit.
“Jessica,” she says flatly, her tone no warmer than it has been the last few days. Her eyes slide over to Trish. There’s a flicker of recognition between both of them.
Jessica nods. Takes a sip of coffee to steel herself, almost out of habit. It doesn’t work as well as whiskey. (Christ, that’s why they’re here, she remembers painfully.)
“Trish, Natasha. Black Widow, Avenger, and the one I punched in the face,” she says, flippantly. Both of them give her a look, but it just spurs her on. “Natasha, this is Trish. Former pre-teen popstar, current #1 radio talk show host. My sister,” she adds, a tiny smile flickering across her face.
“TV star,” Trish corrects. She holds out a hand, and Natasha takes it. They’re both careful, cool, collected. Essentially everything Jessica isn’t.
“I heard your interview with Steve,” Natasha says. “It was good. Fair.”
Trish nods “Thank you. He told his story, I was just there to make sure it was heard. Please, sit.” She pushes out a chair. “I’d love to hear yours sometime, if you’d be willing.”
Natasha hesitates, but only a second. “Maybe someday,” she replies simply. Her gaze turns to Jessica. “I assume you didn’t bring us here to set up an interview”
Jessica shakes her head. “Not exactly. Good for the ratings though,” she adds with a look at Trish. Her sister isn’t having it. The look on her face clearly screams get on with it, Jess.
She sighs. Toys with her cup. Looks everywhere but at the two of them. She feels so small in comparison to the two of them, wilting under their increasingly impatient gazes, and Christ she just wants one goddamn drink to make this easier, maybe two, or three, or a bottle –
“I’m an alcoholic,” she says finally. No matter how many times she says it, it’s always a struggle. Always feels like a dam is bursting in her chest. “Natasha made that pretty clear the other night,” she says, glancing up at her. Natasha’s face is stoney, but softer around the edges than usual. Even with the fading bruise on her jaw. Trish’s face is crestfallen.
Both look a little disappointed. A little hesitant. A little proud.
“You’re both pissed at me, I know that,” Jessica says, the word tumbling out of her mouth now. Her grip on the coffee cup is reaching dangerous levels. “And yeah, you have every right to be. I don’t – I shouldn’t ask for it, but I can’t – I can’t do it alone,” she says finally.
Trish places a hand over hers. Maybe the only person in the world who can make that gesture seem comforting.
Natasha is studying her intently. “You’re serious about this?” she asks.
Jessica shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, because there’s no point in not being honest. Not with these two. “That’s… That’s why I wanted you two to meet,” she says, biting her lip. She sighs, then barrels on. “Trish, you know me best. And Natasha, you don’t let me get away with my shit. So I thought, I don’t know, between the goddamn two of you, maybe – maybe we can figure something out.”
She doesn’t know what else to say, so she just raises the coffee to her lips again. It still doesn’t help the way whiskey would.
They’re both staring at her. Looking for something. But she has nothing left to give.
Finally, Trish turns to Natasha. “She trusts you, and that’s enough for me,” she says. “And she’s the most important person in the world to me, so I’m in this. With or without you. But it might be easier with.”
Natasha nods. “It won’t be easy,” she says, a hint of warning in her tone.
Trish laughs. “Never is, with her.”
Natasha actually smiles at that. “Good point.”
“I’m still here,” Jessica says, slumping in her chair.
“We know,” Trish says, teasing lightly. Jessica isn’t sure if she wants to hug her or kick her under the table. She turns to Natasha. “Welcome to Team Get Jessica Jones Sober,” she says warmly.
“I’ve joined worse teams,” Natasha muses. She stands, goes to order her own coffee. “We’ll talk options when I return,” she promises.
Jessica regrets this already.
She’s supposed to be hopeful, she knows that. But the idea of disappointing both of them simultaneously is already making her itch for a bottle. Might as well give in to the inevitable. She wants to run from the cafe, and down an entire bar’s worth.
“I’m proud of you,” Trish says, pulling her out of her fantasy. Jessica scoffs. “I mean it. That’s hard to do, I know,” she says pointedly.
Jessica just shrugs, picks at the cardboard sleeve on her cup.
“I was right, by the way,” Trish adds, sipping her own. “It was a girl.”
“You’re terrible.”
“And you love it,” Trish says. Her eyes flick to Natasha at the counter. “I like her,” she adds.
“Knew you would,” Jessica breathes. “Just had a feeling.”
for a letter jessica left for trish in case she died:
trish,
i’ve always been shit at goodbyes. usually i just leave, but this time… i figured i owed you.
im sorry. im so goddamn sorry.
i don’t know how many times i’ve had to say that to you. too many to count, but every time, you found someway to forgive me. you’re not as stubborn as you goddamn think. still more stubborn than me, though. that wasn’t a compliment, but take it as one anyway, okay?
i don’t think i’ve ever thanked you, though. not enough anyway. trish, i never would’ve lasted as long as i did without you. and i’m not just talking about the times you scraped me off the floor, poured me into a cab, dragged me away from another bar fight. or what you did for me after that deranged prick took me. after he came back. you were the hero then, not me. you’ve always been the hero. you don’t need a costume or a name or goddamn powers. you’ve got the heart for this shit. the one thing i never had.
but i wanna thank you for all of it. for putting up with me. for believing in me, even when common freakin’ sense said that was stupid. for fixing my goddamn door over and over. for telling your goddamn mom about the girl at school who lost her whole family in a stupid accident. i know it was just a publicity stunt for her, but honestly? it changed my goddamn life. it brought you into it.
your mom is still a bitch though, and i swear to god, if she hurts you again, i’ll rise from the goddamn grave and tie her earlobes to her brain. don’t let her near you again, you hear me? not for anything.
thanks for being my sister. my best friend. the only person in the world i could say ‘i love you’ to and know that i actually meant it.
i love you. i never said that enough either. but i do, trish, i love you. i love everything you do, everything you stand for. i love every part of you. i love your bruises from your goddamn krav maga. i love your radio show. i love how goddamn brilliant you are. i love that you’re relentless. i love your voice, even when it’s judging my shitty little apartment or telling me off for another stupid thing i did. you’re probably cursing me out right now, or at least you should be. dying and leaving you behind is the stupidest thing i ever did.
im still sorry. especially if it was my fault.
i wish i could’ve been the hero you wanted me to be. i wish i could’ve been everything you wanted me to be. happy. i wish i could’ve listened to you, and allowed myself some goddamn happiness. take your own advice okay? don’t let this ruin that.
i love you more than anyone. more than anything in this goddamn world. i know it didn’t always seem that way. i know i pushed you away a lot, i know i turned to a goddamn bottle when i should’ve turned to you, but i mean it. you were the best thing in my sorry excuse for a life, and the only reason i even pretend there might be a god out there is because i swear, you’re a goddamn miracle, trish walker. the only time i ever felt like a hero was when you smiled at me.
don’t you dare have a stupid sappy funeral. cremate me, and take me up somewhere high and toss my ashes over the city. maybe it’ll feel like flying. actual flying. that’d be nice.
and if you even think about getting high, i’ll reform and kick your ass back to rehab. call me a hypocrite, i don’t care. you don’t get to self-destruct over me, that’s my goddamn job. you’re too important trish, not just to me, but to everyone who meets you. to the people who listen to your show, to those people you’re trying to save every night. so take care of yourself. i mean it.
i still don’t like the idea of you doing the hero thing. but you’re good at it. i couldn’t say it, but i’m saying it now. you’re good at this, and if you’re gonna do it, do it goddamn right. put on the cape. save the world. if anyone can do it, it’s you.
hellcat is a rad name. not stripper-y at all.
do me a favor, and go in my desk. there’s a bunch of letters i need you to deliver. and there’s files that oughta be kept somewhere with an actual lock.
sorry again.
i love you.
forget me.
or… don’t.
i hope there’s whiskey on the other side, because goddammit, i need a drink.
– jessica jones
p.s. patsy was my first ever girl crush. i thought that might make you laugh.
A phone call wakes her up. Jessica reaches for it blindly, presses the phone against her ear. “Yeah” she snaps harshly.
“Hi Jess.”
And just like that, Jessica’s awake. “Trish,” she breathes, sitting upright. “Trish, are you okay?”
Laughter on the other end, weak and breathless, but -- it sounds like her sister’s again.
Trish had been off the radar for weeks. Jessica had looked for her, even when it was clear that Trish didn’t want to be found. When it was clear she’d rather disappear down a pill bottle or into a syringe than talk to her sister.
“Trish, talk to me,” Jessica demands. Anyone else would think she was angry, but Trish knows her, knows that this is her way of being concerned.
“I’m okay,” Trish says softly. “I’m... safe.”
“Where are you?” Jessica is already pulling on her jeans, searching for her boots.
“Rehab.”
There’s a heavy silence. “No shit,” Jessica breathes. She sets her boots down, sits back down on the edge of the bed. “You... you’re...” But she can’t find the words, can’t form the right questions. She’s never been good at this.
“I’m getting clean, Jess.” Trish says her name like a lifeline, like it’s the only thing keeping her together, but she cracks anyway. Jess can hear her muffle the phone, but the strangled sob comes through anyway.
“That’s good,” she whispers desperately into the phone. “What -- where are you, I can visit, I can bring you --”
“I’m sorry,” Trish cuts off her rambling. “Jessie, I’m so sorry.”
Jessica shakes her head, even though Trish can’t see her. “Don’t be,” she says, sincerely. Her heart is swelling, aching for her sister, but a joy tears through her. This is a good kind of heartbreak. “I’m just -- I’m glad you’re okay,” she says lamely. “Thanks, Trish.”
She doesn’t give Trish time to linger on that, to ask what she’s thankful for. She just rubs her eyes and continues. “Give me the address. I’ll bring you clothes and shit tomorrow. I’ll be there, okay? I promise.”
“I know you will.” Trish’s voice is so small on the other end of the line. But it sounds like her again, not like the husk, the zombie the drugs had made her into. “I love you, Jessie, I do, I’m sorry, I -”
“Shut up,” Jessica says, but she’s smiling and she knows Trish will hear it. “I love you, too.”
Then she snaps the phone shut. She falls back into bed with a smile, because finally, she has Trish back. And she doesn’t need anything else in this world.
⚈: jessica’s reaction to finding drugs in trish’s handbag:
@trishwclkcr
She’s looking for gum. Trish has always been more prepared than she is, the only thing in Jessica’s bag is a goddamn half-filled Sudoko book, her camera, and her flask. And it’s not like Trish will mind, they’ve fallen right back into old habits, sharing everything from food to clothes to secrets.
She’s only half paying attention, most of her focused on Trish through the studio window. She likes to distract her during her radio show, try and slip her up, even if it never actually works. Trish’s purse is packed full of shit, the rattle of pills doesn’t immediately worry her.
Until she actually grabs the bottle, realizes it’s not just over-the-counter Advil, or Midol. It’s a prescription bottle.
She pulls it out, heart racing. There’s no label, it’s been torn off. And her stomach falls.
No. No, no, no.
Not again.
Not caring that Trish still has ten minutes left in her show, not caring that she’s in the middle of some goddamn phone interview with some goddamn doctor in Africa or some goddamn shit, not caring that Trish’s assistant, some mousy little girl that’s good with computers but bad at speaking up for herself is trying to stop her, Jessica wrenches the soundproof door open hard enough to knock it off its hinges and storms inside.
Trish gapes at her, opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, Jessica’s pressing the end call button. She holds up the bottle, and Trish’s face goes white.
“Sorry about that, folks,” she says, her voice not shaking in the least. She didn’t win that People’s Choice Award for nothing, after all. “Technical difficulties. We’ll pick up with Dr. Shore next time on Trish Talk. Log onto our website to leave comm–”
Jessica reaches out, rips the microphone up. A flurry of wires ends the show a lot goddamn faster than Trish’s sign off.
Trish breathes out once, her eye twitching only a little bit. “I can explain.”
“Explain what exactly?” Jessica shouts, tossing the ruined microphone against the wall. Behind her, the assistant lets out a little squeak. “Oh, go get a goddamn coffee or something,” she snaps over her shoulder. Then she rounds on Trish again.
“It’s okay, Korissa,” Trish says softly. “Jess and I are going to talk.”
“Damn right we are,” Jessica says heatedly. She hears scurried footsteps behind her, Trish watches the assistant leave.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, her eyes meeting Jessica’s. But only for a moment. “She’s a good per–”
“I don’t care if she’s goddamn Mother Theresa,” Jessica snaps. She slams the pill bottle onto the table in front of Trish. “What the hell is this, Trish?”
Trish won’t look at her, won’t look at the bottle, she just stares at her ruined microphone, lying in a heap on the floor. “Jess…” she says weakly.
“You talk to me,” Jessica demands, just like Trish did over a year ago. When Jessica showed up on her balcony, when she dragged Trish back into her shitty goddamn life even though she knew it was a bad idea. “You talk to me and you tell me how the hell you got this.”
Trish sighs. “I can play the Patsy card for more than morgue attendants,” she says, closing her eyes.
Jessica wants to reach out and shake her, wants to crush the bottle and every pill inside into dust, wants to hit something.
Main Street. Birch Street. Goddamn piece of shit Higgins Drive.
The mantra does little to soothe the fury in her chest. The fury that only barely masks the worry. She remembers when Trish hit rock bottom, when she turned into a stick-thin husk, with zombie eyes and needle marks up and down her skinny arms, when her purse was filled with nothing but pill bottles with the labels torn off, syringes, tiny little packets.
“Did I do something?” she asks, unclenching her jaw. “Is it –”
“Jesus, Jessica, not everything is about you!” Trish snaps. Jessica takes a step back, like Trish has pushed her, but they haven’t had a fight like that since they were sixteen. “Though you’re one to talk,” she hisses darkly.
Jessica doesn’t need to ask what she means. Her full flask hangs like a thousand-pound weight in her messenger bag. She closes her hand over the strap, just to have something to hold onto, something to keep her hands from reaching for that goddamn flask.
“I’m not the one with a life to throw away,” she says finally, when the silence sitting between them has become too suffocating, too thick, too real. It’s like there’s not enough air in the studio, in the entire world.
Trish scoffs, stands up and tries to push past her. But Jessica grabs her arm, pulls her back.
“Trish,” she says, her fury finally giving way. There’s nothing left but concern. But worry. But love. “Please,” she whispers, and the scowl on Trish’s face softens. Her eyes meet Jessica’s for a moment, and she seizes on it. “I can’t lose you, Trish. Not to being a hero, not to this. Not again.”
Trish’s jaw is set. Jessica knows that look. Knows that it means tears are only moments away.
“I didn’t even take them,” Trish whispers back, her voice cracking. Jessica’s heart cracks, too. “But after… after everything, I just – I couldn’t –” Trish’s blue eyes well up, and Jessica can’t stand the sight, can’t handle it.
She pulls Trish into a tight hug, tighter than she means to, actually feels Trish’s bones protest. But Trish wraps her arms around her too, shoulder’s shaking, her head buried in Jessica’s new jacket.
“I’m sorry,” Trish chokes out, and Jessica, who isn’t good at this, at comfort or support or any of that shit an addict needs, just holds her tighter.
They stay like that for a few minutes. Trish crying softly, mumbling so low and so emotionally that Jessica can’t understand a word, and Jessica just holding her. Holding her like she’s a life raft, instead of the one who’s drowning.
Finally, she pulls away, tilts Trish’s chin up, and holds her face with one hand. “We’ll go back to your place, and we’ll talk,” she says, her own voice thick. “You can tell me what happened. I’ll listen,” she promises, the ferocity back. But tempered this time, by the burning in her own eyes, the tears threatening to spill out. She fights them back, swipes at her face with her free hand. “Just start at the beginning, okay? We’ll figure this out.”
Trish nods, and steps back. She wipes under her eyes, tries to fix the smudged make-up there. Then she turns and starts to walk out of the studio, and Jessica follows.
“I love you, Trish,” she says, pausing in the doorway as Trish collects her purse. “You know that, right?” Even though she never says it. She thought she didn’t have to.
But maybe she was wrong. Trish nods blankly, and they head for the elevator.
Trish hasn’t touched drugs since Jessica dragged them both away from Ms. Walker for good. But after everything that happened – after watching her sister waste away for months, disappearing inside pill bottles and needles, and emerging as a stick-thin husk covered with bruises and track marks – she gets nervous. To this day, she’ll still occasionally check Trish’s apartment for any trace of a relapse. Not because she doesn’t trust Trish, but because she would never forgive herself if she let it happen again. Jessica is constantly looking out for signs – every ignored call makes the old paranoia flare up again. Trish took Simpson’s pills a little too eagerly for her taste, but she’s never found a way to talk about it. Especially now, when her apartment is basically covered in whiskey bottles.
“Natasha is everything I wish I could be,” Jessica slurs to Clint. She dragged him to a bar this time, and she keeps breaking glasses on accident. “If anyone can actually make amends for their shit, it’s her. She’s – she’s like nothing else. No one else is that strong, that capable, that hot –” She grins to herself, tips the bottle back again. “And I trust her. I do. Christ, that’s weird.” She shakes her head, glances at him. “But even if I could steal her from you – which I goddamn can’t, by the way, I’ve fucking tried getting her to make out with me – I wouldn’t. She deserves better, deserves you.”
trish:
Jessica looks over at Trish, dozing on the arm of her couch. Buffy is playing in the background, a demolished bowl of popcorn on the table in front of them. Jessica has her feet sprawled out on Trish’s lap, taking up most of the couch. “I’m proud of you,” she says quietly, because she doesn’t want to wake her sister. Couldn’t say these things when she’s awake. “For doing the hero thing. Even though I think you’re a goddamn idiot, too.” She bites her lip, glancing over the steal-healing bruises and cuts, shifts her legs so they aren’t so close to Trish’s bruised ribs. “You’ve always been a hero to me, Trish. Always.”
wanda:
Jessica is drunk, has been for a good two hours. The kind of sloppy, terrible, let’s revisit every terrible memory drunk. So she has her phone out, flits between her text messages with the asshole twins. You’re a monster, she reads from Wanda, and her grip tightens on the phone. “I wish I could fucking hate you,” she mutters darkly, glaring at the phone through blurry eyes. Tears or booze, she’s not sure which. “More than myself anyway. Goddammit, how are you – how are you such a goddamn, motherfucking hero? How can you do manage to do good with what you can do, how do you goddamn smile still –” She stops herself, breathing heavily. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m the piece of shit. But I just don’t get it. How you can be such a goddamn good person, with a ‘gift’ like that.” She sighs irritably, tosses the phone across the room. “I don’t hate you. I don’t. And that’s what sucks about this the most. That I can’t even hate you, that you’re still so much better than I could hope to be.”
When Phil was born, Jessica was jealous.And angry. And annoyed at having to share her parents attention. As they got older, she got over it, but they still didn’t along terribly well. They went out of their way to annoy each other, they were constantly fighting. But there were moments, when they’d play video games together or watch a favorite movie -- moments when they managed not to bite each other’s heads off. And no one was allowed to mess with her brother except for her, she made that very clear to all his schoolyard bullies. Still, she spent more time yelling at Phil, kicking him out of her room, picking fights with him, tying him to trees in the backyard, than she ever did being nice to him.
Maybe that’s why she was determined to do things right with Trish. After their initial rough start, after that first time she threw Ms. Walker against the wall, Jessica decided she was going to try to be a better sister. She wasn’t always successful -- she was still moody and sarcastic and Jessica -- but she tried harder with Trish. It was her second chance to be a sister, to do it goddamn right this time. There was no way in hell she was going to let drugs or Ms. Walker get in the way of that.
