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The knock Jessica has been waiting for, and dreading, comes at two in the morning.
She's not sure why she's as confident as she is that it's Trish. It's like she knows, as if one of her powers happens to be detecting Trish, no matter what the circumstances.
Of course, the fact that Trish has been texting her for days and she hasn't been answering is a clue, too.
Good detecting, Jessica. You should do this for a living.
She has been, more or less, avoiding Trish, while trying, as much as possible, to act like she isn't avoiding her. Deep down she knows that she can't keep avoiding her forever, but Jessica has gotten through a large part of her life by putting off consequences until tomorrow, and she's come to believe that it's possible to exist in that state of "tomorrow, but never today" for quite some time before tomorrow finally catches up.
Or breaks through all the barriers that you throw it in its way.
The knock comes again; the door wobbles and drifts open a few inches, revealing a glimpse of blond hair and the gleam of an eye in the opening. "Hey, I know you're awake," Trish's voice says. "Your light's on. You realize I could just open this door and walk in, right?"
Jessica sighs and stands up at her desk, where she's been theoretically doing tax paperwork and actually reading years' worth of Internet joke site archives. "Can I stop you?"
"No." Trish opens the door and marches in. "Of course, if you'd actually pick up the phone when I call, or text me back, I wouldn't have to come over to make sure you aren't living on Jack Daniels as usual."
"Don't be silly. Jack Daniels is rich person whisky."
Trish snorts. She's carrying a paper bag with grease stains, which she plunks down in the middle of Jessica's desk. "Well, I brought dinner."
"I can supply the liquid refreshments."
"I was counting on it," Trish says with a wry twist of her mouth as she unwraps burgers.
Which makes Jessica think of the other night, of being half drunk and loose-limbed in Trish's apartment, sprawled across Trish's bed, with Trish laughing at her and leaning over and --
She picks up her burger and takes a large bite. Concentrates on chewing. Suddenly drinking with Trish doesn't seem like such a great idea anymore.
Trish, undaunted, finds two clean glasses and pours a couple fingers from the half-empty bottle beside the sink. She brings them over to the desk and sits on the edge of it. "You know," she says, swirling the amber liquid around in the bottom of the glass, "a girl could get a complex about things, having you run off like that."
"It's me, not you."
"Oh, that I'm well aware of." She tosses back a slug of whisky, shudders a little, and then takes a bite of her burger. Around the mouthful, she says, "Was it fun?"
Jessica closes her eyes. Remembers, vividly, the feeling of Trish's lips on her own, the taste of whisky in her best friend's mouth. Wants to say Yes. Instead she says, "I need you to know, Trish, it's nothing to do with -- I don't know what you've been thinking, but it's not the girl thing either --"
"Oh for god's sake, I never thought it was. I know you too well for that. It's that you have this hangup about having sex with people you really care about."
It goes through her like a whiplash. She wishes Trish didn't know her quite so well. Wishes she'd backed off a long time ago, before it was too late. "You remember what happened with Luke. What happens to everyone who's stupid enough to get close to me."
"Yeah, funny thing, you've been saying that, or something like that, ever since I've known you. And somehow you never seem to notice that I don't care."
Jessica puts down her half-eaten burger. She's lost her appetite. "But the bad guys don't care either, Trish. I can't protect you. I can't protect anybody."
"Bullshit," Trish says succinctly. "And anyway, what makes you think I need you to protect me? What did you think the saferoom in my apartment was all about? And why have I been wasting my time learning to fight, if I need you to protect me?"
"It's not about that!" She manages to tone it down from a scream only because the last thing she wants is Malcolm showing up to see what's going on. "Think about Luke, Trish! He's ... he's huge, he's a complete badass --"
"You saying I'm not, Jones?"
"He can take me on in a fight and have a good chance of winning," Jessica snaps. "And he almost died. For that matter, you almost died."
"So the answer is never to let yourself get close to anyone ever again? Besides the fact that it's stupid, I need to point out, again, that you tried pulling that shit with me, and I'm not letting you." She slams down the glass on the desk, and leans towards Jessica. "There's only one thing that'll make me back off. One thing you can say that will make me stop asking you the same question over and over."
Her face is close, now. She's all up in Jessica's space, and Jessica -- not drunk this time, any more than she normally is, but wired on too little sleep -- can't look away, can't stop noticing how good she smells. "What's that?" she whispers.
"If you tell me you don't want it."
Jessica opens her mouth. It's just words. It's words that'll keep Trish safe. For the sake of the best and maybe the only friend she's got, she has to say them.
But she's always hated lying to Trish. Always tried not to, alone of all the people in her life.
"Yeah," Trish says softly. "That's what I thought." And she leans in closer and opens her mouth to Jessica's.
Kissing Trish isn't what Jessica ever thought it would be, not the other night and not now. She always expected it to be soft, gentle, like Trish herself. But she forgets too easily about the other side of Trish, the woman who drills herself relentlessly in self-defense training, who once swallowed an experimental drug that might have killed her without a second thought. Trish kisses like she lives: hard and fast and fierce, flinging her whole self into it.
And when they break apart at last, Jessica is breathless and dizzy, and somehow she's fallen half across the desk. And Trish is smiling, eyes wide and bright. "Yeah," she says. "That's what I thought, too."
"It's stupid," Jessica gasps.
"I know," Trish says, and kisses her again.
"It'll get you hurt," she says when she has her next opportunity.
"I don't care," and Trish's hands are in her hair, pulling her in, tongues clashing and lips raking teeth.
Yeah, this is nothing like what she thought kissing Trish would be.
It's a thousand times better.
This time, when their lips peel reluctantly apart, she plays the last card in her hand: "I might accidentally break you during sex."
And Trish laughs, flushed and tousled and suffused with incandescent happiness. "Jess? I'm very much counting on it."