Also, Jessica likes waking up with him. They don’t get sappy, or anything like that. Maybe there’s a little bit of cuddling, in the dark, if she has a nightmare, which she has less of with him than alone. He’s good about it, would never dream of trying to get her to admit it happened later. But mostly she just wakes up pressed to his back, and stays there. It’s just that it feels good to lie there, listening to him breathe, seeing his smile when he wakes and turns his head. It’s the most peaceful thing she gets on a regular basis.
She even likes spending the mornings with him, even though if feels so much like playing house, especially when Vido’s there. She’s taught herself to smile at him even when she normally wouldn’t, and to listen to even his silliest words as she would were she eavesdropping on a vital conversation. At one point she even helps him create a homemade Falcon figure. She was not involved in the creation of his Jessica Jones figure, though. He did that by himself, and surprised her with it, though maybe she should’ve seen that one coming. Every time she sees that figure, she has strange feelings she doesn’t think she’s ever had before.
It really made her sad, when they had to tell him she probably wasn’t going to become his stepmother anytime soon. Oscar’s said to her he’s not sure he’ll ever want to marry again. Of course, he knew even then she’d find that reassuring.
They’re certainly not in love, or in danger of anything like that. Jessica still isn’t sure that she’ll ever be capable of romantic love again, or want to be. And she’s starting to get the impression it might be hard for Oscar too. He’s got issues of his own, which she’s still learning about.
She’s learning a lot. Art history. Forgery. Spanish. The life story of Steve Rogers, or at least the kiddie version. Things she never would’ve put the effort into learning if it wasn’t for this man and his son. It’s taking time as it is. She never was that good a student at any subject that required active studying and learning. There was a reason it was so easy for Sterling to lure her away from college.
She thinks about Sterling a lot now, more than she has in years. It’s weird, because her thoughts about him should be a lot worse than they are. After all, she now knows he was killed because of her. But then again, she’s not sure those guys wouldn’t have have killed him anyway had she not been in the picture. Also, she can see very clearly now just what kind of guy he was, and how staying with him probably would’ve ended badly for her (and he’d been right; she would’ve done what those guys wanted, if only to keep him safe). Hell, she might not like him at all if she met him today.
But she loved him. And while she might regret being with him for getting him killed, she doesn’t regret it on her own behalf. And in spite of everything, she still treasures the memories, the jacket, the name. Things she can’t get rid of, even when she throws everything else as far away as possible, and doesn’t want to get rid of either.
Besides, even if there’s pain in thinking about him, there’s still less there than there is when she thinks about anyone else who’s been important to her in the past. Thinking of her family was always bad, but now it’s much worse. She really wishes she had some new source of information about her father. She sympathizes with the beefs her mother had with him, but she knows a one-sided description of someone when she hears it.
She’s already given up trying to not think about her mother. Sometimes she fears that for the rest of her life, any idle moment will be one where she might once again hear her absent singing. When she closes her eyes, she can still see her last sad smile. Memories from before the accident also keep popping into her head more than they used to. On one occasion, when she’s right in the middle of the street, Jessica suddenly bursts into bittersweet laughter, as she remembers one comment her mother made when she was seven, getting the joke in it only now.
Sometimes getting drunk helps. Sometimes it makes it worse instead. She’s kind of mad about that.
She does try not to think about Trish. There are a few days where she succeeds. There are a few more where it’s all she can think about, how she’s probably back into her mother’s power and back into the cycle of addiction, and even if she can’t forgive her, how can she let that be?
So she still keeps track of her in a general way, of how she’s doing. She can only find out so much, because she won’t take any chances; she has to make dead sure there’s no way Trish can know. She’s finally given up trying to contact Jessica, and while it’s doubtful that she’ll never try again, she gets that knowledge, she’ll be back at Jessica’s door, and she’ll never, ever go away. Jessica can still get enough information to know she doesn’t need any help from her right now, and that’s all she needs.
She’s thought about what she’ll do if she ever does have to intervene. Ideally, she’d be able to do it without Trish finding out her involvement. But she’s also run through her head what she’ll say to Trish, if it comes to that. Admit that yes, she still needs for her to be okay, but insist that no, she still wants nothing to do with her otherwise. On her angrier or drunker days, she thinks up ways to make that speech hurt Trish as much as possible.
She doesn’t really know what would come out of her mouth. She just has to hope she never has to find out.
At least it’s a kind of tracking she actually has some experience in doing. She’d been doing it for Luke and Claire and Danny Rand since the whole thing with the scary dead ninjas had happened. Except that while she’s pretty sure Rand has no idea, she sometimes thinks Luke and especially Claire may have noticed. But they haven’t contacted her, so if they know, they must have decided to put up with it. She doesn’t make that kind of effort for their friends. But she still finds herself aware of things like what’s being advertised at the Chikara Dojo, and the current public word on what Misty Knight can do with the bionic arm.
It’s probably only a matter of time, though, before she starts getting more active in keeping track of Matt Murdock’s friends. They were easy before, because Trish and Karen Page started occasionally having lunch together after meeting in the precinct, so she just got updates from her. Obviously Trish’s getting her in the divorce. Jessica finds herself wondering about Franklin Nelson, though. If next time she needs a lawyer, she might call him. From everything she’s heard about him, he’d come, and he did an impressive job keeping them all out of trouble that one time. It makes her feel better, to know that she doesn’t have to call Jeri, that she has an alternative.
She actually doesn’t have to keep active track of Malcolm. Word of him keeps coming to her anyway. They haven’t spoken to each other since he walked out of the hospital, but their eyes meet way too often in the hallway. He sometimes looks her over, as if trying to determine whether she’s drunk or not at that moment. It’s really a good thing they don’t talk, because then she’d have to tell him he’s truly impressed her, landing on his feet the way he has. Not that she’s at all happy he’s working for Cheng now, but still.
It’s harder than she thought it would be, working alone, even when she’s got the ideal amount of alcohol in her. Never mind that she was completely alone for a good year of her life, and that was when she’d just gotten away from Killgrave and was much worse off. But then again, she was a different person than she is now, just like she was a different person before Killgrave got his claws on her. Just like she was before the car crash.
Perhaps she’s someone who no longer assumes that carrying on alone, waking up from constant nightmares, and having booze and occasionally sex as her only refuges is her only option. Jessica still doesn’t know if she’ll ever again be happy, really. But even that doesn’t seem impossible, anymore.
She hasn’t hallucinated Killgrave since he essentially took his leave of her in the hospital, just as Malcolm had. She doesn’t think she’ll be so lucky as to never do so again, but until then, the options are do nothing or try therapy again, and fuck it, but she’s going with the former. Also, she’ll try not to kill anyone else. Maybe if her life takes no more crazy turns she can manage that.
Surely, she tells herself, that’s not an impossible thing, for the superpowered person who just wants to get on with her existence, same as everyone else.
Somehow, it feels like she won’t. Like something is required to happen to break her status quo yet again, and she doesn’t get to have any idea what until the time comes.
Until then, she keeps it simple. She takes jobs. She photographs cheaters. Sometimes she does nicer things, like find children. (She’s a little more inclined to do that one, now.) Every once in a while, she might stop a holdup or mugging, if it’s directly thrown in her path. She drinks, gets drunk, and sometimes drinks some more. And on better nights, she goes to have dinner with a man and his son, and wakes up in his bed.