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It's not your fault. That's the standard party line that therapists give abuse victims. So what if Jessica Jones has never seen a therapist in her life. It basically counts that Trish sees one and gets advice for the both of them. Jessica adamantly refuses to go. She's not forking over an entire check from a client to hear someone tell her what she's already heard before. It isn't that Jessica doesn't believe it either. Hell, she'd basically said the same thing to a woman last week. The lady had been a client requesting photos of her husband in a compromising situation so that she could get out of the toxic marriage. When Jessica had given her the envelope of pictures the woman had cried with relief. So, yes, Jessica thoroughly believes that it's not the victim's fault. It's just that it's hard to apply the same sentiment when you were under mind control and actually felt like you were the one making the decisions. Decisions like having sex with someone you didn't love. Decisions like attempting to cut off your own ear with a kitchen knife. Decisions like... like killing a woman with just the force of your fist simply because of bad luck. There hadn't been a gun pointed at her head at any of those times. There had been no threats made that if she didn't comply someone she loved would be hurt. She'd just been told to do something and she'd done it. She could have said no. That was the other thing, the main thing if she was being honest with herself, that made it impossible for her to accept the easy out that "it wasn't her fault." She felt like all of those decisions had been her own and that she'd had the power not to do them. For the majority of her "relationship" with Kilgrave, maybe that had been true. But she'd successfully ignored his command to kill Luke. She'd not hurt Trish when he'd asked her to and instead had turned and managed to kill the monster himself. She almost wished she hadn't been able to refuse him those orders. It wasn't that she wanted Luke or Trish dead. She would never have gotten over it if she'd let that happen. It was now that she knew she'd had the ability to refuse him, what did that mean for all the other times that she'd obeyed? She wasn't the victim. It was everyone she'd hurt that were the true victims so that made it her fault. It was her fault. It was her fault.Sometimes she thinks she sees him as she's walking in the city. Then she'll turn and realize it was just a trick of her subconscious. Brown hair. A similar jacket. A British accent. Those are easy enough to brush away. But then she hears him say her name. She's buying groceries, er, well alcohol, at the convenience store down the street late one night. The cashier is handing over her change and a voice tingles the back of her ear. "Jessica..." Pennies and dimes drop to the counter and she leaves them, running back to her apartment. She doesn't leave for days after that. The next time she sees another human being is when Malcolm barges in with a shouted, "You better be alive in here! You don't come out for three days and I think you're dead." He finds her curled up in a corner of the kitchen with an empty bottle of whiskey clutched in her fingers and whatever semblance of a smile he'd had before fades. There isn't any humor as he pries the bottle from her grip and she doesn't bother reminding him that she has super strength and could hold out if she really wanted to. Malcolm has apparently become an expert at handling her when she gets like this, because only a few minutes after his arrival she's in the shower. The only clean clothes in her apartment are sitting on the bathroom toilet lid for her to change into when she's done washing away the last few days from her skin. He also gets her to eat and of course the only food in her apartment at the moment is peanut butter and expired Eggo waffles. So she sits at the kitchen table, the back of her shirt growing wet from her still damp hair, and begrudgingly eats two freezer burnt toaster waffles with an outrageous amount of creamy peanut butter smashed between them. "We're going to see Trish after this," Malcolm informs her, leaning against the counter and eating peanut butter straight from the jar with a knife. The weirdo. "No, we aren't." She's not leaving her apartment until she goes 12 hours without hearing his voice. And by her count, the last time she heard the hiss of "Jessica" it was about 8:00 am. She was also pretty sleep-deprived at the time so she'll give it until 9:00 pm just to be safe. A voice in her head, her voice this time thankfully, brings up the point that her being sleep-deprived could have actually been part of the reason she was hearing his voice in the first place. Deciding that the voice may be right, Jessica pushes back from the table and stands. "I'm going to get some sleep." When Malcolm goes to protest this she turns around and walks to her bedroom. "It's been three days since I've closed my eyes." She doesn't have to feign the complete exhaustion in her voice. Malcolm doesn't argue again and instead follows her, pulling empty glass bottles and clothes off her bed, and closing the bedroom door quietly behind him as he leaves. "I'll check back in tonight."At 10:00 pm, she wakes up to her door creaking open and a curly head popping in. Thankfully Malcolm doesn't turn on the light like her straight-haired, blonde best friend likes to do. "How'd you sleep?" She gives him a thumbs up and then buries her face back into her pillow. If it was dark that means it has been at least twelve hours since the last time she's heard the voice. The relief is so palpable her chest aches and she feels like crying. There's no way that she's telling Malcolm, or Trish for that matter, what had happened. Let them think she'd just had a rough few days or something. No need to worry them that she was going crazy on top of her usual level of dysfunction. Because despite what party lines a therapist would give about hearing voices inside your head, unless it really was due to lack of sleep the only other reason she will accept was that she had gone insane. The alternatives aren't even things she allows herself to consider. Jessica lifts her head and cranes her neck to look at Malcolm. Since the lights are still off she can't see his expression, just the outline of his head from the flickering glow coming from the kitchen. "See? I'm not dead and you've completed your self-assigned duty. You can go now." At first she thinks he's actually going to leave her be, but then he steps further into the room and lowers his voice. "Actually, uh, there's someone else here. He came while you were sleeping." Jessica stops breathing. "What?" she finally manages to rasp, pushing herself up in bed. It's like she can hear her heart beating loudly in her ears. He is dead. He is supposed to be dead. She'd killed him. How... It takes her a moment to realize Malcolm is explaining something and she only catches the tail end of it. "-something about a blind lawyer rising from his grave?" Jessica holds a hand up to stop him, completely confused now. "Wait, rewind. Who's in my kitchen?" She can feel rather than see Malcolm frown. "Luke." Of course. Not Kilgrave. Not Kilgrave. There are about a hundred, really a billion people more likely to be in her kitchen right now than a dead man. She falls back onto her bed with a loud huff and swears at herself for being so stupid. "Jessica?" Malcolm asks after a moment, voice laced with concern. "Are you sure you're okay?" No, she definitely is not. "Peachy. Tell Luke I'll be out in a minute." She tacks on a half-hearted "thanks" as an afterthought as the door clicks shut.Malcolm isn't there when she finally manages to get out of bed and leave her room. Instead she finds Luke, sitting at her kitchen table like he has all the time in the world and nowhere else he needs to be. He shifts his gaze to her from where he had been staring at the spot in the wall where there used to be a giant hole. "Hey." "Hey." She heads straight to her fridge to get a beer and instead is faced with a dozen other things that are decidedly not alcohol lining the shelves. What the- "Malcolm went to pick up some food while you were asleep," Luke says after noticing her reaction. "He didn't want to leave you but when I showed up he decided to head to the grocery store. He said you haven't eaten much today." She lets the fridge door close on its own and turns back to Luke, taking the empty seat across the table from him. Luke glances at the fridge. "I'm not in a hurry. Don't not eat on my account." Jessica doesn't say that the only thing she wants to consume right now is hard liquor. "So our vigilante friend has come back to life?" Luke looks slightly disappointed, but not shocked, that she doesn't take him up on the offer to eat. As he speaks, he gives her a once-over, as if he can determine the state of her well-being with just his eyes. "Well he was technically never dead to begin with, but yeah, he's back." She nods and glances down at her hands which she has folded in her lap. Good, one less dead body on her guilty conscience. She starts to pick at the edge of her nails and she can practically hear Trish sigh in dismay. Suddenly there is a loud screech as Luke pushes back his chair and rises. Jessica thinks it's odd that he came all this way to tell her what could have been sent via a text message. Danny had set up a group chat for them, although he's the only one who really uses it, sending gifs and out-of-context emojis. Luke occasionally responds but Jessica never has. Still, he has to know that she read every single one of the messages. Letting her know that Matt is alive would have been a perfect use of the chat instead of the inconvenience of coming to her apartment all the way from Harlem. Luke doesn't head toward her front door as she expects though, but to the fridge. When he pulls out what looks like a package of ground beef and some vegetables, she can't exactly protest that he's stealing her food since Malcolm is the one who paid for it all. She could technically protest his use of her kitchen tools and appliances, but that would just be petty. Plus, she actually is kind of hungry and whatever he's making smells really good. As he cooks, Luke does all of the talking. It's actually kind of funny when Jessica thinks about it, because she's the one known for having no filter and here Luke is talking more than she thinks she's ever heard him say before. He doesn't really touch on anything serious aside from a tidbit that he and Claire are no longer dating, which Jessica absolutely doesn't dwell on because A. She actually likes Claire from what she knows of the woman and B. She has no right to care at all about Luke's relationship status. Mostly he talks about the bar he's working at and that detective Misty who had arrested Jessica awhile back. It sounds like Luke helps with some of her investigations now, almost like he'd helped Jessica with hers before. Although these ones are probably more on the up and up than hers had been. A pot of chili is on the stove, simmering, before she knows it, and somehow in the last half hour she hasn't had to say a single word save for a few hmms and "oh yeah?" It's actually kind of nice to not have someone demanding answers from her for a change. It seems like that's all most people want from her these days - clients asking about a case, the authorities demanding answers about Kilgrave and the Hand, or even just Trish and Malcolm's innocent questioning of how she's doing. She's just tired of it. Luke doesn't ask if she wants a bowl, just places it in front of her. Another question she doesn't have to consider and answer. She doesn't wait for him to sit down with his own bowl before digging in. He's seen much worse from her than impolite table manners. Much much worse. So it's not like she is trying to make a good impression or anything. They don't talk as they eat and it's not at all awkward. In fact, after Jessica has placed her spoon back into the empty bowl, she actually finds herself making conversation voluntarily. "Sorry I haven't stayed in touch." Luke pauses in eating, taking a moment to digest her words. Then he shakes his head. "It seems like it's been forever since we sat in that bar." "Since we saw Matt laying at the bottom of that pit," she adds, because leave it to her to bring in dark memories to what had previously been a perfectly light conversation on Luke's part. But maybe now that she knows Matt's not actually dead she'll stop having dreams about that night. Maybe she'll stop picturing herself at the bottom of that pit, cold and lifeless with the darkness closing in... "Jessica." The sound of her name snaps her out of her thoughts and she blinks at Luke. His gaze is unexpectedly intense and she immediately looks away again. "Do you ever relive things that have happened to you in the past?" she asks, then grabs her empty bowl and goes to the sink because she doesn't want to see Luke's reaction to her question. Doesn't want to have to hear him say "no" and then hear the unspoken "because I'm not crazy like you." There's another screech of a kitchen chair and now Luke's beside her, placing his empty bowl in the sink next to hers. He nudges her to the left with his elbow and she tries not to be too obvious as she pulls away at the sudden contact. "Sometimes," he says in answer to her question. He puts the stopper in the sink and then somehow manages to find dish soap in one of her cabinets. "Do you?" Jessica lets out a silent breath and nods. Luke hands her a towel and then starts to wash their dishes along with the others that have been in her sink for who knows how long. He's rinsing some plates and handing them to her to dry when she finally trusts herself to speak again. "Do you ever feel like those memories are happening to you all over again?" She can tell that Luke wants to look at her. He hesitates, then continues washing, but there's a strain there, like he's trying not to ask her point blank what this is about. He's being nice and letting her beat around the bush. "Is this about Kilgrave?" Okay, maybe he's not being so nice after all. Jessica almost drops the bowl she's been drying unproductively for the past minute. She risks a glance at him from the corner of her eye and he's still looking down at the soapy waters, scrubbing at a particularly dirty cup. It's that and only that which gives her the guts to say, "Yeah." She doesn't mean for her voice to crack and she doesn't trust herself to say anything else as he hands her a spoon to dry off. "Sometimes I wake up and think I hear Reva in the kitchen." It's just one sentence but it's like a knife in the gut. It makes Jessica feel minutely better because maybe she's not going crazy, or at least if she is, Luke is too, which is a comforting thought. It also makes her feel infinitely worse since she's the reason Reva is dead, so... She doesn't have more than a moment to dwell on Luke's sentence before he's suddenly singing, voice soft and deep. "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. It's not warm when she's away..." He pulls the plug from the drain and takes the towel from Jessica to finish drying. "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone. And she's always gone too long. Anytime she goes away." There's a sharp ache in her chest that she can't push away and her cheeks feel suddenly wet. This was a terrible idea. She turns from the sink and goes to the fridge before remembering that the beer was gone. She tries some of the cabinets next and then the oven because she'd had tequila in there once upon a time. "Jessica..." The voice that says her name this time is clear and unaffected, so completely and utterly not him. "Look, I'm sorry," she rushes out. There are tears in her voice and she doesn't bother hiding it. She's past that point already. "I'm just so, so sorry." She slams a cabinet shut because the only thing she can find anywhere is damn food. There's a hand on her elbow and it's reflex to jerk away. She turns to Luke to apologize once again and finds the words dying in her throat because his face just looks so impossibly understanding that she does a double take. But then again he's always been the better person. Maybe that's why she finds the next words spilling from her mouth. "I've been hearing Kilgrave's voice in my head. Like before." Luke doesn't remind her that Kilgrave is dead. Instead he slowly raises his arms and places his hands on her shoulder. She forgot how large they were, but despite their size dwarfing her bony shoulders, they don't weigh her down. She's not suffocating under the pressure. "You know, I'm not surprised you're hearing his voice." Whatever she had expected him to say, it had not been that. She goes to pull away, regretting that she can't take back what she'd said, but he stops her. "No, listen." His tone is serious. "I was only under his control for one day and that messed me up for a long time. You were with him for what, a month?" She shakes her head. "Four." Luke's grip tightens on her shoulders and it's almost painful. When he realizes what he's doing, his grip instantly loosens and he looks away. "Four?" he repeats, voice sharp. His thumbs begin tracing slow circles on her shoulders and he takes a deep breath. Exhales. "I almost wish you hadn't killed him so I could do it myself." Jessica wants to laugh because of course that's one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to her and it's about murder. Her life is so messed up. "So you were with him for four months," Luke repeats, trying to wrap his head around the new information. "I don't think a person can ever recover completely from that, even you." It's like all of the rage she has felt since meeting Kilgrave bubbles to the surface. "But it's over now and I should be normal!" she shouts. "I shouldn't be imagining that I see him on the streets or hearing him say my name when I'm buying booze down the block!" Calm brown eyes meet hers and some of that rage dissipates. "I can't even imagine what you went through." Jessica closes her eyes. She doesn't want to think about everything Kilgrave had her do. "I could have said no," she whispers, all anger gone from her voice. "What?" Jessica opens her eyes again. "I could have said no. All of those times he... he... I could have refused." She shrugs her shoulders, his arms rising up and down with the gesture. "I didn't follow his orders when he told me to hurt you and Trish. So what does that mean for everything else?" It isn't often that Jessica sees Luke Cage shocked, but here he is, eyes wide and lips parted. Then he shakes his head in disbelief. "You think everything that happened is your fault. That it was your choice." Jessica doesn't reply. His grip tightens on her shoulders again, but not so much this time, and he leans down so they're at eye level. She can't find it in herself to look away. "You listen here, Jessica Jones. None of that was your fault. Yes, you were able to resist him in the end, but I refuse to believe..." He pauses, backtracks on his words. "No, I know that you had no more control over what you were doing than the rest of us. And do you blame us for the things that we did?" Jessica shakes her head. "No, of course not." "Then you can't blame yourself either. You were a victim of Kilgrave, too." Trish had said something similar to her, dozens if not hundreds of times over the last few months. For some reason, though, when Luke says it she actually starts to believe. He must see some sort of acceptance in her expression because his eyes do that half-smiling thing and he straightens up to his tall, always taller than her, height. "I think you also promised me back in that bar that we'd get a cup of coffee sometime." The change in topic throws her for a loop, but then she realizes he's trying to make this easier on her, give her something lighter to think about. Jessica's mind flashes back to their stilted conversation in the bar and manages a laugh. "I completely forgot about that." Luke removes his hands from her shoulders and nods to the door. "Well how about we do it right now? I think some friends of yours may want to catch up, too." She scoffs in response. "What, like a certain rich boy ninja and recently resurrected blind lawyer?" Jessica glances at the clock and sees it's almost midnight. "It's a little late." "I happen to know that said friends have unusual sleeping schedules and do a lot of their work late at night." Jessica looks at the door then back at him. "Hold on, I'll grab my jacket." She's gone for only a second before Luke calls after her, wanting to be sure they're on the same page. "And I do mean just coffee. No ulterior motives here!" When Jessica reappears, she has her familiar black jacket on along with a confused frown. "Who would think that meant something else? Coffee is just coffee." Luke grins at her response and shakes his head as he follows her out the door. "You'd be surprised at what some people think."