The truth was Jessica Jones hadn't slept in two years. Not really. Not without pain and not without nightmares. They played on repeat.

Reva flying through the air. Trish screaming. Luke turning his back on her. Kilgrave's body at her feet. Matt Murdock.

Those memories spilled from her mind coating her nearly naked body in cold sweats night after night. Alcohol constantly seeped from her pores.

There was a time the whiskey calmed her demons, periodically drowning them into silence.

That time was over. The demons now bobbed on the surface. They had learned how to swim. But Jessica feared what a life without the bottle would look like. She feared one day her demons would fly.

Three months after the collapse of Midland Circle, following another series of nightmares she swung her pale legs over the side of her mattress and grabbed a half full bottle of Kentucky Bourbon from her feet.

Her throat burned as golden liquid flooded her mouth. She let out a groan and finished the bottle before staggering to the kitchen for another one.

Fucking nightmares, she thought. Fucking Kilgrave. Fucking Hand. Fucking Matt.

Leaning into her open fridge, cracking the top off a bottle of Cutty Sark, Jessica let the last thought linger.

Matt.

She couldn't explain why his death was wreaking so much havoc on her mind. She had barely known him.

Matt.

A blind lawyer. A vigilante. A costume enthusiast with a penchant for her favourite scarf. A man capable of unnerving her, gutting her like no one else could… at least no one without the aid of mind control. And yet even as his heightened senses and his unwavering confidence set shivers through her otherwise solid core, Matt Murdock made her feel safe.

What was that about?

Fucking Matt.

Before she knew it the bottle was empty, like all the bottles that littered her apartment. Her stash was dry.

Closing the fridge with too much force, the contents violently rattling, Jessica grabbed her leather coat and slipped it over a dirty white Henley. It was time for another booze run. It was time to take a walk on the streets she had once begrudgingly decided to protect.

A grey scarf hung over the back of her desk chair. That grey scarf. She reached for it, but stopped short. She hadn't worn it since the last time she wore it. The last time she saw him.

Standing, barely, she stared at her cashmere knockoff and closed her eyes. She wondered if her nose had been trained like Matt's whether or not she'd be able to smell him on the scarf; smell the coffee on his breath the day they first stormed Midland Circle, smell the skin cells that must have flaked off during the fight, smell his virtue and goodness and fucking self-sacrifice. She wondered it often. She was tempted to sleep with the damn thing on nights that were too cold, but somehow she knew she wasn't good enough to slip into his mask.

A knock on the door forced her eyes open.

"It's too early and I'm all out of booze, so whoever it is better be ready for a fist to the face," she growled as she flung the door open.

"I think I can take it," Luke Cage replied. He stood in her doorway, a smirk on his face, his broad shoulders blocking the flickering light from the hallway.

Jessica sighed. "I thought you were with Claire now. I mean, I'm flattered but-"

"Cute Jess, but that's not why I'm here and you know it."

"As you can tell by my lack of casework," Jessica waved her hand to the empty desk behind her, "And my inebriated state, I don't know much lately." She choked out a laugh.

"I thought you were working again," he said sympathetically.

"I guess you thought wrong," she replied impatiently.

"Jessica…" he began, but she quickly cut him off.

"Don't pity me Luke. We've come too far for shit like that."

Luke moved to enter her apartment.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's happening here? I didn't say you could come in."

"I have something important to talk about," Luke told her and she could tell he meant it.

She sighed. "Fine. Shoot. Then I have to grab another drink."

"Without your pants?"

Jessica looked down at her bare legs, her feet already in those familiar boots. Was she so drunk she was ready to leave without a pair of well worn jeans? Or was she so sad she couldn't be bothered to care?

"Yeah, Luke, without my pants," she sarcastically bit back. "Now what's so important you're at my door at 2 a.m.?"

"It's 5 a.m., Jess. That there is the sun," he said pointing to her grime covered window.

Jessica squinted as she watched the sun begin it's quiet rise through her apartment.

"And Matt Murdock is alive."

It felt like slow motion, like what she assumed everything had felt like for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen as he weaved around bad guys, punching and kicking his way into martyrdom.

"What?"

Luke stepped into the room as Jessica stumbled back. "I know this is a lot, it's a lot for all of us, but-"

With quick precision, quicker than the whiskey should have allowed, Jessica pushed Luke against the wall. It cracked under his steel weight.

"Murdock is alive!" she exclaimed. "He's alive and you started with pity over my lack of work and jokes about my pants? Fuck Luke."

As he moved to touch her she pushed him against the wall once more.

"Don't move. I'm pissed and I don't want you to move."

"Okay," he replied.

"Or talk. Don't move or talk." Her voice was cracking, faltering under the weight of her breath. "I'm going to find jeans and then you're taking me to him."

Luke nodded, careful not to get on her bad side.

In her bedroom, alone, Jessica felt her chest tighten. Panic washed over her. She had to remind herself how to breathe.

In and out. In and out. Matt is alive. He's alive.

In and out.

Where had he been? How was he? Who found him?

In and out.

Was Elektra alive too? Were they together? Did that matter?

In and out.

"Jessica?" Luke called to her. "We need to go. I don't want anyone following us, okay."

She didn't know what was happening, but she was smart enough to know it should happen before the sun fully rose lighting their every move.

"Yeah, I'm coming. And on the way you're going to tell me everything."

In and out.

"And I mean everything."