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It had been three months since Claire last saw him. Sure, she saw the pictures of Hell Kitchen's Daredevil quite regularly in the newspapers and heard people talk about how they saw a shadow in the night while passing a dark alley and thought it must be the masked vigilante safeguarding their neighborhood. She had also learned about his new armor, this too through the extensive articles local newspapers loved to do about him along with some shaky, pixilated images captured through CCTV, but all that wasn't enough. It wasn't like seeing him at all.

Upon returning back to the city almost a month ago, she had relocated to a different neighborhood, though she still worked at Metro General, patching up the ones he had either beaten up or saved. The saved usually didn't need much patching up. It was the most wounded ones, the ones with several cracked ribs and broken teeth that made her realize over and over again the mess she had left behind. It reminded her that she got out at the right time, even though she commended what he did, mostly.

There were some nights, usually the nights she was off duty, when she felt like she was being watched. Like someone out there was keeping an eye on her, listening in on her heartbeat, but she never saw someone. Several times she had tip-toed to the fire escape, only to find it completely vacant. He could have been there though; she wouldn't put it past him.

She still had the burner phone. She charged it religiously and kept it close to her at all times, for the sake of her own safety, she told herself, but deep within, she knew it was for him. After all, she had promised to be there for him and to patch him up. She had already fallen short on one of the two.

Ever since her return, she had dialed his number multiple times, but never had the courage to go through with it. What was the point anyways? They couldn't be anything. Their relation – if they ever would have had one – would not go anywhere. She worried about him all the time, but the fact that he hadn't called her yet provided a solace, a weird certainty that he wasn't getting hurt as often as he used to.

A few weeks ago, she had seen one of his friends – his only friend to be precise – exiting a bar.

Foggy, she remembered his name and his worried voice the night he had called her up, using Matt's burner phone. She had nearly had a heart attack when she heard someone else's voice through her phone, telling her that Matt was bleeding out at his own apartment, that he might be dead if she didn't do something, anything, quickly.

She had turned away the moment she saw Foggy. He was with a tall blonde woman, though she couldn't see her features. She didn't stop long enough to look, trying to get out of there as soon as she could. Why? She asked herself later that night. Why did she run away? She could have stayed. She might have seen him too. Or, she could've just ignored Foggy and the blonde and gone in the bar.

It was a Friday night, a few days after the bar incident when she got a call from the hospital. It was her night off, so she knew it must have been something big for her to be called in at this hour. She went in, just to find out one of her patients – a young girl who had been in coma for quite some time now – had stopped breathing.

It all came as a big shock to her. The girl was fine when she saw her just a few hours ago. Her vital was perfectly normal, in fact, she was showing some response. But it was all gone now.

There was a part of her that also suspected some foul play. The little girl was supposedly a witness to her mother's murder after all, but there was nothing she could now. The police were here, and some of the girl's family too. From the tidbits she had heard over the last few weeks, she knew that someone broke into the little girl's house and killed her mother – a single mom in her early thirties. The detective thought it might be an ex but they couldn't tell for sure. The young girl had suffered serious injuries while reportedly trying to escape through the balcony.

Claire sighed with exhaustion as she signed off the papers, a mandatory procedure since the girl was in her care. Her hands were shaking, she realized with a start. All these years watching people die and she still couldn't stop the tears from forming in her eyes. Another light snuffed out, another innocent falling prey to a monster who didn't deserve to be called a human.

Moments like these were when she truly praised Matt for what he was doing – for trying to make a difference, and for succeeding, to some extent.

The hospital waiting area was crowded with police officers and journalists and the young girl's left over family. She was trying to locate the grandmother, the woman who was staying at the hospital with the girl, when she heard it.

She heard it voice and for a second she thought she was imagining. Perhaps she was too exhausted. But there it was again, loud and clear, possibly just few meters away from her. Although she immediately toyed with the idea of slipping away unnoticed, she knew that he was aware of her. If she was able to hear him now, imagine how long he must have known she was here.

Breathing in, she turned around to face the source of the voice and finally saw him. He looked well, dressed in a gray suit with his glasses on – just like a regular, normal blind person. Foggy was with him too, and so was the blonde girl she had seen at the bar or at least Claire thought it was her.

She watched as Matt said something to Foggy and then turned towards her, his expression grim yet sharp.

"Temple, you'll need to answer some of their questions," she heard the head nurse say and she realized it was her who was talking to Matt. "It's about Kaitlin, the young girl who died while in coma. These gentlemen just need to ask about her recovery process I suppose."

Claire looked from the head nurse to Matt, who stood there like she was a stranger to know him.

"Why? Her vitals crashed. Why is there an investigation going on?" she asked in a steady voice. Was there more to this death than what looked like?

"Kaitlin Farris was under your care Ms Temple, we just need to know if her condition was deteriorating or otherwise," Matt spoke up. His one was soft yet so formal that she wanted to roll her eyes, or laugh, or both. "I'm Mathew Murdock and this is Foggy Nelson, we're Ms Farris's attorneys."

"Actually, Kaitlin's grandmother is the one who reached out to us. There may be more to this case than meets the eye," Foggy interrupted and gave a small nod before glancing at the head nurse who was still hovering around.

"Fine, we can talk in the locker room. It won't be as crowded," Claire managed finally before exiting the waiting room, her anxiety about seeing Matt slowly fading away, her heart rate returning to normal. She pulled open the door to the locker room and waited for both the men to get in before entering the small space and closing the door behind her.

"What's going on?"

"We think it's a murder Claire. The Farris family believes Kaitlin was killed by the same person who killed her mother."

The way he spoke, she could tell Matt believed the girl's family.

"You think someone slipped in and toyed with her life support?"

"Yeah, something along those lines, and we have a reason to believe that it was someone from the hospital staff that helped the killer," Matt's voice grew hard. "Kaitlin's grandmother has filed a report against you few minutes ago, she wants the police to take you in custody. She suspects you are the one who murdered her granddaughter."

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