Bleecker Street appeared exactly like the rest of the city; way too few people traversing the sidewalks, and those few scurrying by so quickly that Hope surmised they must be fearful of being found out in the open. Those that met her gaze with glassy, shell-shocked eyes appeared as woebegone as she felt. And although there seemed less signs of looting here as in the other neighborhoods she had passed through since she'd left Brooklyn, very few of the business were open. The silence around her was eerie and depressing, despite the bright afternoon sunshine that warmed the air.

Though the battle that had raged here days before had played out around the corner on Sullivan Street, there remained plenty of collateral damage here as well. Chunks of stone fallen from surrounding buildings, twisted metal and shattered glass, ominous scorching where fires had eventually burned themselves out. So much wreckage that Hope easily concluded that in the time between the attack and the shocking, random disappearance of so many people, any cleanup crews had accomplished very little. The bright orange barriers that had been set up on Sullivan to keep gawkers from exploring the main battle area, remained in place. Added to that, Hope saw plenty of signs that echoed what had happened all across the city. Several smashed vehicles, including a UPS delivery truck and a city bus, lined the length of Bleecker Street, clearly indicating that their drivers had vanished just as suddenly as half the city's population. The front of one car stood atop a knocked over fire hydrant, the flow of water issuing from the hydrant reduced to a mere trickle, indicating that the water pressure here—like that back home in her apartment building–-was nearly nonexistent. A downed streetlight canted at a precarious angle above a taxi whose crumpled front end seemed to be the only thing keeping the pole from toppling over onto the street.

Yet 177A Bleecker seemed untouched, impervious to the destruction around it, as though it had weathered both the chaos of alien battle and human disaster effortlessly. Like magic, of course, Hope told herself, hastening to the short run of stairs before the Sanctum's beckoning double doors, eager for the sanctuary she longed to find there. Please be here, she whispered, bracing herself for disappointment nonetheless. Please, Stephen, be here and safe behind these doors.

Taking a deep breath, she rapped on one door. Please…please…please, the refrain playing through her mind, while she tried to picture him on the other side, praying for the hundredth time that he had survived, wondering if he would feel as relieved to see her as she expected to feel upon seeing him. When no answer came, she knocked ever harder; softly at first, and then with growing fervor, repeating aloud her desperate hope like a mantra. "Please, Stephen, please. Please be here. Please…let me in…I…I have no place else to go…"

The door swung inward all on its own, and although Hope thought to find him or at least someone else on the other side, there was only silence as she glimpsed the foyer for the first time, and beyond that a grand staircase dominating her view. She stepped over the threshold cautiously, her heart thumping harder with anticipation. "Hello…is there anyone…is there anyone here?" she called out, encouraged by the sight of a small fire burning in a hearth well off to her right. "Hello, please," she asked louder this time, her voice growing stronger as she lingered in place, waiting for permission to go further, "I'm looking for Stephen…Stephen Strange?" The door swung shut behind her of its own volition, causing her to take several steps forward, until she stopped near the base of the stairs.

"Hope." His smooth, gentle voice echoed in the expanse of the hall, though she looked up immediately anyway, feeling him there above her as much as hearing him from where he stood on the wide landing atop the staircase. Since seeing him on the news, she had been picturing him in the same peculiar garb he'd been wearing mid-battle, but Stephen was dressed as casually as in the score of times they'd spent together since they had first met in Washington Square Park. A simple faded gray tee and stone-washed jeans, along with a dark gray cardigan. Nothing to mark him as unusual—but for the red cape that hovered at his side. Hope had only a moment to register that fantastical image, and then the cumulative effect of the duress she'd experienced since her roommate Trish, and Trish's boyfriend, Kyle, had vanished before her eyes–-along with this day's difficult journey–-caused the strength in her legs to give out. Without warning her knees buckled, and a red blur zipped down the stairs to catch her before she hit the floor. Somehow its embrace was light but firm, and by some instinct she felt she could trust it entirely. Perhaps because she knew it was Stephen's, and had seen it do practically the same for him on tv—or more so because it enveloped her in his familiar scent, a mix of the rich, dark coffee which she'd seen him favor the few times they had brunch together, along with something clean and citrusy, and a musky amber that had to come from his cologne or aftershave. Whatever the case, she felt safe for the first time since this nightmare began.

Stephen rushed down, taking two steps at a time to reach her where the cape had her cradled. Mute with astonishment, she remained quite still as he slipped his arms beneath her back and legs; quietly fascinated, Hope watched him dismiss the flying garment sotto voce, "Thank you. I've got her now." With nary a ripple, it allowed Stephen to ease her from its grasp, and then drew away as Stephen carried her over to a long settee tucked into an alcove to the left of the stairs, where he sat beside her after he set her down.

The warmth and concern in his beautiful, mercurial eyes had Hope melting a little, and she melted further when he laid his hand against her cheek and traced her cheekbone with his thumb. "I'm so glad that you're here…so relieved that you survived," he husked, and she only nodded, too overcome with relief herself to reply rationally just yet. "C'mere, honey," he told her, pulling her into his arms, so that she tucked her head in the crook of his neck.

"I was afraid you'd be gone too," she murmured, soothed and sheltered by his embrace, "I tried calling you at least a dozen times, but I couldn't get through to even leave a message…and then the electricity went out and my battery died, and…and I couldn't stay cooped up at my place anymore. I needed to know…" Her voice hitched as she fended off tears, "…I needed to know, one way or another…if…if I'd lost you too…" She pressed a lingering kiss on the side of his neck, savoring the perfect warmth of his skin.

And how perfectly gentle he was, in consolation, "I know, sweetheart…I know it's been a nightmare." Stephen sighed and kissed the top of her head, adding cryptically, "And I swear I'm working on a way to set everything to rights again."

Puzzled, Hope moved so she could see his face, observing for the first time the toll which the events of the past several days had taken upon him. He looked tired, worn as though he hadn't slept since well before the chaos that had descended on the city. He bore a gash on one cheek, and several more less serious looking cuts on the other, and though Hope could tell they were healing, she couldn't restrain the urge to run her fingertips upon them—to offer him some share of the tenderness welling up inside her. First the set on his forehead, and then the ones upon his right cheek. Mighty practitioner of magic, he had been revealed to be, and a stalwart defender of the city and the planet—secrets which she recognized he had kept from her for only the best of reasons—but the good, flesh and blood man whom she had already learned to care deeply for was her sole concern.

"Oh, Stephen," she began, "You were all over the news…you and the others. They said you were a doctor, they talked about your accident and…and your hands." Hope bowed her head and blinked back tears, for she knew the subject was his most sensitive, and understood now exactly why he chose not to speak of it.

"I would have told you eventually, Hope," he revealed, "And please–-don't think that I didn't because don't trust you…"

She looked back to him, wearing a wee smile despite the tears that were ever ready to fall since life had changed in an instant, "I know…of course I know that." She lifted his right hand close and laid her lips on the backs of his fingers, then met his eyes again, "I already trusted that you'd tell me when our timing was right…"

"And here we are at last," he averred, smiling back just enough to bring forth those dear crinkles of smile lines beside his eyes.

"At last," Hope echoed, and then he was cupping her face in his sure, strong, irresistible hands, and finally kissing her, with a patience and a tenderness that belied the gravity of their situation.

Reluctantly he broke their kiss so they could catch their breath, and then rested his forehead against hers; his mouth remained close enough for her to feel his words on her own lips, "I needed this. You have no idea how long I've been needing this."

"Whatever you need, Stephen." My help, my heart, even my soul, she thought, just let me stay with you, let me be what you need. She brushed her open mouth on his, weak with wanting to ease the burden that so obviously weighed upon him.

He hummed his appreciation, and told her, "That's why I came back here, honey. Because I need to rest a bit before the final act plays out. To brace myself for what's to come. And because I'm needing…you."…

(to be continued)

NOTES: Yes, Stephen will eventually introduce Hope to the Cloak of Levitation, and she will then know it as Cloak, rather than the generic 'cape'.😉