ring....ring....ring
Matt's hand followed the sound of the ring directly to the phone, picking it up on the third ring.
"Hello?" he asked sleepily.
An unfamiliar female voice answered uncertainly, "Hi....Mr. Murdock?"
"Yes"
"I found your name in the phonebook, I need a lawyer."
Matt sat up on the side of the bed with the phone still pressed to his ear and checked his watch. "I'm guessing you know what time it is?"
"Yes...sir, and I'm sorry, I just, I..."
"Can you tell me waht this is all about?"
"Its kind of complicated actually. I'm at the police station here in Hell's Kitchen, and there seems to be some sort of mix up. I got, well, I'm not really sure if I should be talking about this on the phone."
Matt could hear the people in the background, the yelling, and all the other sounds typical to a police station at 4 o'clock in the morning.
"Alright, I'll be there soon. What's your name?"
He could hear the relief in her voice as she said, "Clarise Laurence, thank you so much."
"I'll be there shortly, Miss Laurence." He hung up, breaking the connection. He sat up for a moment, before getting up to dress. Two hours of sleep. Well, he's done worse.
Matt sat in the interrogation room waiting to meet his new client. He listened to the people walking in the hall outside of the room. He turned to face the door as two sets of footsteps stopped outside the door to the room. One set continued in and stopped behind the chair across from him. He could tell by her heart rate that she was young, probably early twenties, and in good physical condition. He looked in the general direction of where her face would be and waited for her to speak. She did.
"Hi Mr. Murdock, thank you for coming."
He noticed a decisive lack of an east coast accent in her voice and realized that she must not be a native. He nodded, "Of course, why don't you have a seat and tell me what happened?"
He listened as she pulled out the chair to sit. As she folded her arms on the table in front of her, he could hear a faint clinking noise as a piece of jewelery brushed against the surface of the table. He sensed her leaning slightly forward as she began to speak. "I was mugged. The guy pulled a knife and tryed to make me get into his car.", she paused, taking a deep breath before continueing, "I broke his nose, and dislocated his knee. Now he is saying that I am a mutant and that I used my powers to beat him up, or something like that. He says that he is pressing assault charges. I got arrested, and the detective said that if I would submit to a blood test, that he could get the charges dropped"
Matt thought for a moment. "So, why don't you just submit to a blood test?"
He listened as her heartrate went up enough to indicate that she was about to say somethong not entirely true.
"I don't think I should have to, I mean I got mugged, the guy tried to kidnap me! I shouldn't have to explain myself."
She was good, there was the perfect amount of righteous indignation in her voice, but that didn't matter.
He knew.
"I am your lawyer, you should trust me. What is the real reason?"
He listened to her sigh, "I wondered about that, I've heard that you have some sort of truth sense, or something like that. I just, I -really- don't want to take that blood test. Please, isn't there anything you can do?"
It was his turn to sigh, "It would definately help if I knew your reasons." he said, even though he was pretty sure he knew what they where.
He listened to the sounds she made as she sat back in her chair. He could almost feel her studying his face. There was a moment of silence before she whispered, " You know exactly why, Mr. Murdock, you don't strike me as an idiot. Please, this has already cost me my apartment. One of the officers downstairs is also my landlord, he knows now, or atleast he should, considering the fit I threw over the bloodtest. I can tell that he is going to ask me to move out. I work in food service, if this became official, I would probably lose my job too. Isn't there anything that you can do?"
He thought briefly, not for the first time, how lucky he was that his own "gifts" had been recieved in the way that they had. That he wasn't a mutant, and therefore didn't have to deal with this kind of unreasoning prejudice.
"I'll see what I can do."
He could hear the relief in her voice as she breathed "Thank you."
It was 10 a.m. now, and he was waiting for her to be released. He recognised her footsteps as she came out to meet him.
"Thank you, so much Mr. Murdock. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate this."
He nodded. "It is my job, Miss. Laurence. I will need you to come by my office to sign some papers."
"Right, is it alright, do you think, if I went home first to get cleaned up a little?"
"By all means, I will see you later then."
"Right, thanks again sir."
He nodded again, he was starting to feel like one of those bobble head dolls, and listened as she walked away.
Clarise carried the last suitcase out and put it in her trunk, she was always slightly amazed at how little space her life took up. One small box, her sterio, and a couple of suitcases. That was it. She felt that it was rather pathetic. She slammed her trunk closed, and walked around to the driver's side, getting into the nearly dead looking Chevy Nova.She sat behind the wheel for a moment, before slamming her fists against the wheel. She started her car and pulled out into traffic, heading towards Murdock's office.When she got there, she sat in her car for a couple of minutes thinking. Paying the lawyer would probably take most of her savings. Atleast it was spring, and she could stay in her car til she found another place. She couldn't really be upset about the money, after all, she did still have a job. She grabbed her purse and got out locking the doors and running across the street to enter the office.
Matt sat at his desk, reading a brief. His fingers paused on the paper as he heard the outer door open and recognized the person walking in as Clarise. He listened as she was greeted, when the secratary buzzed him, he told her to send her on back.
"Have a seat Miss. Laurence." He said as he gestured to a chair when she walked in.
"Thank you." She murmured as she sat down.
He started to pull the necasary forms from the stack in front of him on the desk."I wanted to tell you, if you are worried about being evicted, we could fight that. It would be discrimination, unfounded discrimination at that, since you didn't end up taking that blood test."
He could hear the rustling of her hair, and the slight tinkling of her earrings as she shook her head, "It really isn't worth the trouble. I'll be fine 'til I find another place."
He tilted his head to the side a little. " You speak as though it has already happened."
He heard the rueful smile in her voice. "It has, that's why it took me so long to get here. I had to get all of my stuff cleared out."
He stopped what he was doing and faced her. " What are you going to do?"
He could almost see her shrug. "I'll live, I've been through worse."
He shook his head. " You really should contest this."
"It isn't worth it, if it got out that I was a mutant, I would almost definately lose my job.I've been passing as normal for awhile now."
He nodded thoughtfully as he slid the papers across the desk to her. "I need you to read these and sign in the marked places."
He listened to the papers rustling as she read them. "So what is it that you do, Clarise?"
Without looking up she answered, "I'm a bartender."
"How old are you?"
"21"
"How long have you been here? New York I mean."
He heard her look up. "What is this, 20 questions?" He heard caution, but not necasarily hostility in her voice.
He shook his head and thought about the empty apartment upstairs. "Just curious."
"I moved here a little over four years ago. How did you know I wasn't from here originally?"
"Lucky guess. You don't have a New York accent."
He heard the pen she was using scratch the paper as she signed her name. Then she asked, "What about you? How old are you?"
He smiled "32."
She made a slight whistling noise through her teeth, "Wow, you don't look that old."
He could hear the grin in her voice and matched it with a smile of his own. "Yeah, I'm positively ancient, huh?"
"Totally, I mean your like old enough to be my dad, kinda, if you where like 10 at the time." She laughed a little and he heard her stack the papers neatly straightening the edges, then stand. "Thank you again, I really appreciate all of your help."
He stood as well and held his hand out to shake. He noticed a slight hesitation before her hand met his. They shared a brisk handshake then she withdrew her hand. She said, "Well...."
His gut instinct told him to help this girl, and he decided to go with it. "Soyou are in the market for a new apartment now?"
"Yeah, I'm sure something will turn up."
"You know, I happen to have an empty apartment upstairs."
"Really? What's the rent?"
"We can figure something out. And you don't have to worry about your landlord finding out that you are a mutant."
She nodded. "That's true, can I see it?"
He walked from behind the desk and turned toward the door. "Sure, follow me."
Daredevil crouched on the rooftop. He listened to the sounds of the city around him. It was a pretty calm night. He turned suddenly running to the edge of the rooftop and extending his arm releasing the catch on the billy clup and feeling the end of the cable catch. He swung out into open space, landing smoothly on the next roof. He continued home and changed out of his costume, while listening to the sounds of the building.
He could hear Clarise moving around downstairs and checked his watch. 2:00 am, he shook his head, that girl must never sleep. Maybe that was part of her mutation. She had been a model tenant these last two months, no loud music, no big parties. It seemed like she just went to work and came home. Kind of sad actually, although not that different from him, but then he was a lawyer in his thirties, she was a 21 year old bartender. He had a feeling that there should have been a marked difference in their social lives.
Oh well. Unlike her he did require some rest. he climbed into bed wishing, not for the first time, that there was someway to turn down the waves of sound that constantly washed over him, just long enough to get some sleep.
Later that morning at the office Matt was showing around the new office assistant. He was a highschool boy who would be working there for the summer, doing filing, typing and other clerical work. He heard Clarise coming down the stairs on her way out to the gym. Since he was standing close enough to the open door that she would have to pass him to get out, he called, "Running little late this morning?"
She stopped at the door. "Yeah, I overslept."
They made small talk for a moment, then Joe walked into the room. She gave a start of surprise,"Joe? What are you doing here?"
Matt could hear the smirk in the kid's voice as he answered,"Hey Clar, I'm working here for the summer, what about you?"
"I live in an apartment upstairs."
Matt listened to the exchange and raised an eyebrow. "You two know eachother?"
Clarise smiled and said over her shoulder as she turned away, "Yeah, we used to frequent the smae soup kitchen. See you guys later."
"Yeah later." said Joe with a wave.
Matt listened to her leave and puzzled over her last statement, she didn'tseem to have been lying, but that was wierd. He turned to Joe. "So how do you two know eachother?"
Joe chuckled, "She was telling the truth. About two years ago, when I first came here to the city, I didn't have a place to live, I stayed at a homeless shelter. The soup kitchen where I took most of my meals was the same one she did when she first moved here. By the time I got here she had a job, and her own place, she just volunteered there a couple of days a week. That's how I met her."
"That's really interesting. How did you go from living in a homeless shelter to living at a boarding school in Westchester?"
Joe smirked again."Long story." he said without elaborating.
Matt walked down the hallway meeting Clarisa at the steps. He had had a long day and wasn't in the best of moods. Clarise walked alongside him. She could all but feel the brooding thoughts emanating from him. She looked sideways at him, "Long day?"
"You could say that." He replied tersely.
She raised an eyebrow, "Sorry I asked."
"Sorry, it isn't your fault."
"No worries, anything I can do?"
He shook his head. "Not unless you have a secret identity as a judge."
"Sorry, I seem to have misplaced my gavel, but I do have something that might help. Come with me."
She touched his arm and directed him off the landing and down the hall toward her front door. He allowed her to guide him slowly a few steps before asking. "Oh, what's that?"
"No questions, you will see in a minute. I promise."
It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. "Will I?"
He would have sworn that he heard her eyes roll around in her head. "I knew a girl once whose eyes got stuck that way."
"Right, grandma."
He smiled and stopped waiting while she unlocked her door. They went in, she paused by a chair and waited a moment while he sat. She went farther in and he heard her moving around the kitchen, opening the freezer and some cabinets.
She walked back over to him and handed him a bowl. "Here you go, peanut butter cup icecream, this stuff is garunteed to fix any crappy day you happen to have."
He smiled and took a bite listening to her sit down in another chair and take a bite of her own. "This is very good, I don't think I've had peanut butter icecream before."
"Your kidding, this stuff is like a miracle drug, makes you happy."
He took another bite before saying. "Can I ask you something?"