Disclaimer: I don't own Daredevil, he and other characters you recognize belongs to Marvell. The Christmas carol "Once in royal David's city" was written by Cecil Frances Alexander. The rest belongs to me.
This is obviously a Christmas story, and I started writing it December 20th, but with real life interfering it's taken a long time to complete.
Now read on.....
Once in Royal David's City
The boys at St. Agatha's orphanage were restless. Today was December 24th, and Christmas Day was only hours away. For some of the boys, it would be the first Christmas away from their parents. Some remembered happy days and tight family bonds, some remembered fighting, drinking and abuse. Matthew Murdock had been at St. Agatha's for ten months now. He no longer cried himself to sleep at night, but he missed his father desperately. It had been only the two of them since his mother had gone many years ago, and then his father had been killed only months after the accident that had blinded Matt. Life wasn't always kind to a small, poor, blind boy from Hell's Kitchen.
But today was Christmas Eve, and the house was filled with scents of food and sweets like he had never tasted before. There were roasted geese, turkeys, pork roasts, baccalaos and enchiladas, sauerkraut, turnip and cranberry sauce, lebkuchen, plum puddings, peppernøtter and marzipan, glühwein, eggnog and coke. The mixture was strange, but in a multi ethnic community like St. Agatha's, where both boys and nuns came from all over New York, and from the rest of the Catholic world, it made sense. Sister Hildegard could not live without her lebkuchen, and a Christmas without baccalao like her mother used to make would be sacrilege to Sister Maria Dolores.
Matt sat by his desk, pretending to read a Braille book, and listening to the silent excitement in the big house. There were sounds of kitchen utensils, snippets of conversations, someone sang a Christmas carol under their breath, rustling paper, pens on cardboard, and Matt heard it all from his desk on the third floor, including breathing and heartbeats from the nearest rooms. The bell from the dining room would sound soon, and the nuns and the older boys of St. Agatha's would go to midnight mass. Matt was about to put his book back in the shelf, when he heard a single, clear voice singing.
Once
in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother
laid her baby
in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother
mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.
Matt was a city boy, he had never sett foot outside New York City, and had only the foggiest idea of what a cattle shed looked like. There were cows there, and a donkey, and he'd seen pictures of those animals, before he was blind. And there were shepherds watching over their flocks on the fields near Bethlehem. And there were stars in the sky. There was a small nativity scene in the dining room. Matt had been allowed to touch and examine the figures, but the stars in the sky had been painted; he could feel the different brush strokes, but he could not see the stars. He could see the mild mother, putting her little baby boy to sleep on the straws of the manger. The manger of the nativity scene felt like some sort of a box or a basket, and there was real grass in it, and a small bundle representing the baby Jesus Christ. Matt had memories from when he was very small. He lost his mother when he was only four or five years old, but he could remember her tucking him in at night, stroking his head and singing to him. It was strange how much this hymn reminded him of his mother.
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall;
with the poor, the scorned, the lowly,
lived on earth our Savior holy.
The concept of an almighty God living in Heaven and protecting all Christians was difficult to Matt. How could an all knowing and almighty God allow people to live in misery and not prevent crimes? Matt had lost both his parents at a young age. They had both been good Catholics and God had certainly known about them having a son, but still He didn't stop Grace disappearing or Jack Murdock getting killed. Matt had come only moments after the shots had been fired, he had heard the killers car drive away. He'd know that car from any other in the whole city, he had even heard it a few times before, but who would believe a blind twelve year old boy? A poor boy, one of the scorned and lowly of New York city. Although he didn't live in a stable, lived in a small flat that most people didn't feel fit for human habitation. Matt had a home in Hell's Kitchen, and would try to make the best of it from there.
Matt had found his shoes, jacket and cane, and headed downstairs towards the dining room. Most of the residents at St. Agatha's were going to mass soon, and Matt felt more comfortable walking down the halls and stairs without too many people walking and talking around him. They disturbed his "radar", his ability to find his way without stumbling or walking into things. As he opened the doors, the last verse of the hymn flowed out in the corridor. That voice, a clear soprano.... Matt could not remember hearing that voice here at St. Agatha's, but it felt incredibly familiar. It felt soft and strong at the same time, and somehow it sounded like home.... And our eyes at last shall see him..... Yes, Matt hadn't been blind the last time he heard that voice, but he could not really remember who it belonged to. He stepped carefully into the dining room, and there he stopped again. There were two persons in the room, Matt could both hear and smell that. One was sister Hildegard, and the other, the singer.... Matt tilted his head, trying to figure out more about the singer.
And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that Child who seemed so helpless
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.
"Ah, there you are, Matthew" sister Hildegard said. "I don't think you have met our newest sister. Sister, this is Matthew Murdock, who I have told you about...... And this," sister Hildegard led Matt towards the new nun, "this is sister Margaret Grace." Matt stretched out his hand, mumbling something along the lines of "nice to meet you". "It is nice to meet you too, Matthew, and please call me sister Maggie."
Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.
He came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall;
with the poor, the scorned, the lowly,
lived on earth our Savior holy.
For he is our childhood's pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew.
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.
And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that Child who seemed so helpless
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.
Words: Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895), 1848 Music: Henry J. Gauntlett