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"No! No-no-no-no…no. No. Look, Charity, is it?" Trish sits in her living room, talking to a young brunette girl, who can't be more than eighteen years old, and is holding a pen and notepad. Giving the girl a look of sympathy, she sighs and smiles. "They have to be cotton sheets with an eight hundred thread count. Thread count, not bread count. I don't want eight hundred loaves of bread on the sheets during the scene. That wouldn't make sense."
"Oh my gosh, I'm terribly sorry, Miss Walker! I won't make that mistake again!" Charity frantically scribbles in her notebook, obviously nervous. "Did you still want the…the…" She flips through her notes and squints at them through giant glasses. "Raisins…to drink?" She looks back up at Trish hesitantly, feeling that she got that wrong as well.
Trish takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. "Riesling." She spells it out. "It's a type of white wine…though I suppose wine's made from grapes. So in a way, it is drinking grapes." She hates to fire people, but she's getting the feeling she might need to fire this new assistant that the studio sent over. Or at least get her transferred to someone else.
*
The hallway spins. Woozily, walking in a very crooked line, a dark haired woman familiar to the doorman (and hence permitted entrance) slumps loudly against Trish's door. The wood buckles beneath the force, and on the other side, it cracks, splitting along the seam of the wood in a splay of boards that has an almost unsettling sound that accompanies it.
The brunette just stays there, leaning vertically against the door, and Jessica Jones's eyes clamp shut. Maybe she intends to sleep here.
Or she doesn't know her own strength. Either way, the hinges on the door start to complain.
*
"What was that?!" Charity jumps at the sound and the accompanying cracking of the door.
"Oh dear…" Mutters Trish. "Well, either the fire department is trying to get in for some reason, or…" She quickly gets up and rushes toward it, before the whole thing buckles. Unlocking the door and opening it tentatively, she says, "Hello?" But it's quite evident, quite quickly, who's there. "Jessica?"
*
The force on the door doesn't let up as it moves open, and if anything, the pull of the handle underneath Jessica has her collapsing to the floor in the mess that she is. Whiskey virtually wafts off her body. Her limbs tremble, demonstrating a combination of chill and, perhaps, something else. The pallor of her skin, the red of her eyes, all of it indicates something wholly unsettling about the brunette and her appearance. "Trish," she mutters lowly.
*
"Oh Jessica." Trish intones despondently. "Oh my dear, dear, Jessica." She glances back at the eighteen year old assistant and calls, "Help me carry her to the second bedroom." Jessica's bedroom. The girl quickly comes and they work together to lift the drunken woman somewhat and drag her to the bedroom.
"She stinks!" Charity says to Trish in a hushed tone as they drag Jessica along.
"Sshhh." It may be true that Jessica stinks of whiskey, but it's Trish that will have the serious talk with her about it, please and thank you! "Let's just get her into bed and then you can leave for the evening."
*
Jessica is easy enough to lead to the bed, but she seems more distant than normal. The look in her eyes has completely glazed over, her lips edge downwards, and her body stiffens as they attempt to drag her to the bedroom. Her eyes hone in on Charity, and just as the trio reach the bedroom, she stands, "This one talks too much," she slurs towards Trish. "Assissstants should be seen and not heard. She doesn't pay you for your opinions." There's a long pause and Jessica looks over her shoulder, "Where's the booze?"
*
As Jessica stands, Trish gives Charity a little wave of the hand. When the girl gives her a confused look, she sighs once more. "Have a good evening, Charity. I'll see you at the studio tomorrow." Charity, getting the clue, scurries away, grabbing her notes and leaving rather quickly, giving Jessica one quick, unsure glance before stepping through the threshold into the hallway.
Turning to her sister, Trish looks her over. The concern is practically written all over her face. "I think you've had enough of that for now, Jessica. Don't you think you should maybe sleep it off before you start drinking some more?"
*
Jessica's lips edge upwards as Charity is dismissed. The smile turns lopsided when Trish suggests sleep instead of liquor, and her eyebrows lift expectantly in turn. "You think so, do you?" her head cants to the side. "I need whiskey. If I can't get it here, I'll fly somewhere else," her eyes virtually roll. Evidently, Jessica is demanding something.
*
Sniffing the air, Trish shakes her head. "It smells like you've already drunk a whole liquor store worth of whiskey already. That or you swam in a pool of it. And no, I'm not buying you a pool full of whiskey." Because she just knows that Jessica would probably ask her for it. "Besides, haven't I told you before where I keep a stash of whiskey for you?"
*
Jessica lifts her finger and her head cants to the side, "I feel great," she rubs her puffy eyes. Her eyes clamp shut and she exhales an audible breath while her head shakes. "Look. This is all fucking bullshit and we both know it. I need liquor. I know you have liquor. You don't want to share, don't fucking share, but tell me point black and I'll," she whistles and points to the door.
*
"You're the one who came here, alcohol or no. You could've gone anywhere else. Hell, you could've gone back to your own apartment in Hell's Kitchen. But did you?" Trish crosses her arms. "Tell me why you came here, and maybe I'll consider giving you some whiskey, okay? Maybe I'll even give you two bottles of whiskey. I've got your favourite kind, too. The cheap, hard to drink, burns your throat raw kind."
*
Jessica's eyes narrow. She stares at Trish a few beats. "Because of the walls." Her hand presses firmly to her forehead. "Because the case is big. Because I can't fucking do it anymore, and so I don't fucking live there anymore! Because. BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING FUCKING LEFT AND ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE needs to get of their goddamned high horse and open their fucking eyes! Anyone not doing that is a fucking blind asshole!"
*
Staring at Jessica for a few seconds, Trish suddenly turns and starts walking toward the living room once more. She kneels beside the edge of the rug and lifts it up. She feels around the floor for a moment, finally finding the latch and pulling it up to reveal the floor safe where she keeps the Jessica Booze. She twists around the combination and unlatches it, opening the safe. She pulls out three whole bottles and sets them to the side while she closes everything and puts the carpet back down.
Standing back up, she lifts up the bottles and raises an eyebrow. "I believe these are what you wanted." There's a brief pause before she speaks again. "And it's not completely true. Say I'm on a high horse if you want, but you've got me. I'm not nothing. I'd gladly give everything I have if it means I could help you. If it meant I could make you forget everything that happened to you." She places two of the bottles on a nearby counter. "You can have those, I'm drinking this one." She motions to the one she's still carrying.
*
Jessica's slumps down against the wall, becoming a sad sack of a human at the wall's base. She lays on the floor in a pile of human that has nothing else to offer. "No," she finally whispers. "You're not nothing. But I am. I have nothing left. I have nothing left to give this fucking case. And it's more than fucking Hell's Kitchen. Kids are missing everywhere. Tons of them. Everywhere."
*
Grabbing one of the two bottles she left on the counter, Trish walks over to Jessica. She doesn't loom over her while holding out the whiskey, however. No. She lays down on the floor next to her, facing her. "You're not nothing, either. You're quite a lot, you know. You mean so, so much to me." Letting the bottles rest between them on the floor, she'll reach out tentatively and, if Jessica lets her, she brush some hair our of her eyes.
"I think I may have been a bit of a brat when you first came home with us." She says softly. "But having you around made me want to be better, I think." She frowns a little. "This case is killing you. You need to take a break from it. Let me take over for a while, and you focus on other things. I'll see what I can find, okay?"
*
The hair brushed out of Jessica's eyes has her resting further in her slump on the floor. And in a few slow breaths, she nods, silently. Trish can take over. Jess will focus on other things. What other things remains in question, but the idea that she can even function and be here is also in question. Her breath slows further. And… then, without further remark, Jessica Jones falls asleep. On the floor. In all her glory.
*
With a bit of effort, Trish gets Jessica tucked into bed, all warm and cozy. She makes a few calls, makes sure that a breakfast service arrives early so that there's some decent breakfast waiting for Jessica when she wakes up. And then, with keys in hand, she heads out. To where? Well, to Hell's Kitchen and Jessica's apartment, to see if she can find the files on the current case. She may not make any headway, but she wants to make good on promising to help.