AN GOOD STUFF GOOD STUFF GOOD STUFF
Matt wished it would start raining, if only so he could have another reason to feel miserable. He wandered the city, a helpless roamer that didn't know where he belonged. Matt couldn't go back to the office or there would be yet another fight. And he couldn't go home, not when he'd barely been gone an hour and was angry enough to tear the door off his icebox. Claire didn't need to see that.
He paced the city, drifting from Hell's Kitchen to less familiar paths. A part of him wanted to go into Harlem, but he knew that was begging for a new sort of trouble. The city chaffed at him all of a sudden, the buildings too high, too close. New York didn't have a place in its heart for him anymore. It was nothing but a soulless behemoth of steel and greed and glass. The people shuffled by, oblivious and damaged in their own way. He didn't understand how he used to be happy in this.
Matt stumbled home sometime late that afternoon. He didn't say hello when he stepped inside, instead letting the sound of Claire wash over him.
"You're home early," she said, stepping out of the kitchen. "Gave me a bit of a scare there for a second."
"Right. Sorry." Matt took off his hat and coat, careful and methodical, eating up as much time as possible. He was a normal person after a normal day. Nothing special, nothing new.
"Is…did you come home early for a reason?" she asked.
"What? I—no, no, it's nothing."
He stepped past Claire into the kitchen. He filled a glass of water, took a long drink. He felt her stop behind him, uncertain.
"Was there not much to do after the court case?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"Are you hungry, have you eaten?"
"No, I'm okay, Claire. Really."
"Hm."
He finally turned to look at her. She was just as lovely and pulled together as ever: her hair pinned to perfection, her blouse and sweater and fine pleated skirt without a wrinkle. The only flaw was the frown on her face.
"I was thinking about a soup for dinner, maybe some rolls…" she began.
"Whatever you want, Claire, that's fine."
Matt left the kitchen. He shouldn't have come home. He didn't want to be looked at, didn't want a thousand questions thrown at him. He didn't want to be known, because that was when people started being disappointed.
He dropped onto the couch, his blankets from the night before folded and yet bunched uncomfortably beneath his thigh. He grimaced but couldn't dredge up the will to move them.
"Matt, what's wrong?" Claire stood a few feet away, whole body tense. "Does this have to do with Foggy coming over yesterday?"
Matt's jaw ticked and he looked away.
"Matt, what is going on?"
"They want to go to the papers, okay?!" he snapped, his anger flaring up, a fire that always wanted fuel.
"I—what?"
"Foggy and Karen want to tell your story to some journalist, put Fisk on the defensive. They think all that attention is going to keep you safe."
Claire was quiet for a long moment before she asked, "Won't it?
Matt pursed his lips, wanting to spit. "Not if every bigoted bastard that reads it comes after you. Those reporters will want pictures, details, and you will never be safe in this city. You'll just be known as that brown girl that tried smearing a billionaire."
"Okay, but it's got to have some merit if Foggy and Karen think it could work," Claire said, throwing another field of razor wire between Matt and the one thing he wanted.
"Sure, it has merit, but at what cost, Claire?!"
She blinked, eyebrows higher than he would have liked. "I was just asking a question, Matt."
Matt took a breath. He needed to control himself, he knew that, he had just thrown a coffee mug at Foggy and he would not do that to Claire.
"I told them it was a terrible idea. We're not doing it, there are other things we can do—"
"Wait, slow down, what do you mean we're not?"
"We're not doing it," Matt repeated. His hands clenched into fists, but that was okay, if he kept it all bottled on himself, his anger couldn't splash out and hurt Claire. He kept seeing Foggy in his head, the disgust smearing across his face.
"Uhm, I'd like to decide that for myself, thanks," Claire said, a tiny, not-so-funny laugh in her voice.
"Oh, don't you start too," Matt said, lip curling.
"You don't just get to decide my future for me, Matt."
"Claire, you don't know—"
"Don't you dare tell me I don't know what's waiting for me out there," she said. Her eyes had turned hard, unforgiving and unkind. "You think life will be hard after people know my name? Don't play that game with me, Matt. My family needs three jobs to keep us afloat, and that barely works. I can't go into certain places because of the color of my skin. People thought I was your maid when we went to the market together. Things are not great as it is!"
"So why make it worse?" he demanded. "Don't you want to have some semblance of a life when this is done?!"
"If this gets done!" Claire yelled. "I'm hiding out, afraid for my life. Every time you leave that door, I am terrified you won't come back. I'm afraid they'll break in, that one day I'll find out that my family is all dead. We can die, Matt! We will die, if we keep on like this! It's only a matter of time before Fisk reaches down and crushes us."
"That will never happen," he insisted. "We will find a way, that won't happen."
"You don't know that!"
"Claire—"
"You can make decisions about my life when you actually let yourself be in it," she hissed, and Matt felt all the air flee his body. "You can't keep deciding what's going to happen in my life when you hold me at arm's length, Matt!"
"I'm not—what do you think this is?" he asked. He stood up, throwing his arms out. "You're in my home, you eat with me every day. I don't get—"
"You know what I mean," she said, voice quiet in its reproach. "You'll decide every little detail about my life, but heaven forbid that you even try opening yourself up and start caring about me."
"I care about you."
"Clearly not enough! Not enough to realize that I'm not some doll you can take on and off a shelf when it suits you! You've done this since the beginning, everything has been decided by you and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of having to guess every day what you're going to do, if you're going to push me away or hold me close. You can't have both, Matt!"
"I'm not doing this because I like it," he snarled, suddenly so sick of everyone never understanding. "If I could—"
"You can!"
"No, I can't, and you know why!"
"Because you'd be happy for once in your damn life?" she screamed, snatching up a throw pillow from the chair and hurling it at his head.
Matt swatted it away, lurching forward to grab Claire by the arms. "There is so much more to it than that! Why won't anyone listen?!"
"Because you never say anything, Matt! I've asked dozens of times, I've asked for weeks on end, and yet you never tell me anything!"
"You don't want to hear any of this!" he snarled, shaking her so she understood, so it would sink in. "You have no idea, any of you, what sort of hell is going on in my head!"
"Matt, you—"
"No, don't do that. You don't ever want to, and you can't not until you see your world get ripped apart by German guns and mortars! Just—stop asking for something you won't ever understand!"
Claire blinked, a quick flutter like she was afraid to look away. "Matt—Matt, please let go."
He swallowed, feeling all his weight drop through the floor. He unclenched his hands—he was holding her so tight, how had he—and fell back a step. Claire kept watching him like he was a wild thing.
"Matt…"
He shook his head. He could barely see, his vision was blurring with everything they hadn't said.
This was why he had stayed away, why he hadn't let himself be in Claire's life, as she had put it. At some point, he would lose control and hurt Claire. This time, he had grabbed her shoulders. Next time it could be another coffee mug, or a chair, or her throat…
"I'm—I'm sorry. I should never have—" He cleared his throat. He could still feel her under his hands, how easy it had been to clench and bruise. Matt drew in a shallow breath to keep from being sick. "You…I shouldn't…this won't be a problem anymore."
"Wait, Matt, no, talk to me—"
"You'll go to Karen's," he said. "I can arrange it tomorrow. Then…I don't know. Something."
Matt didn't look up at Claire until he heard her voice catch. A few dazed tears brushed down her cheeks, barely touching her skin.
"You're kicking me out?"
Matt shook his head. "This…this isn't going to work. I…we can't push this any further. I…it's for your own good." The words caught on themselves as he remembered what she had said mere seconds ago, 'everything has been decided by you and I'm sick of it'. He swallowed and tried again. "It's for both our own good."
"So that's it?"
"I'm sorry, Claire."
He didn't hear if she protested. He didn't hear if she followed after. His head echoed with the gunshot beat of his heart.
He was still lost in his city. Had been for a while, really. Matt couldn't remember when it had started. It would have been easy to say it was the Great War, but that wasn't really true. He had drifted through life, trying on college, friends, finally even the war in desperate hope of them fitting. His path just became deeper, not more right. Uncertainty had probably been what gave the hell inside him room to grow.
He didn't have anywhere to go. He couldn't go back home until Claire was asleep, couldn't bury himself in the dull relief of work until Foggy caved and let the argument go. Matt couldn't even find sanctuary in the church because Father Lantom would ask questions and expect Matt to answer them and right now he was too fragile to be honest. All of Matt's defenses had failed over the last week, parred back until he was nothing but blood and bone.
When Matt couldn't walk any farther, he got on the ferry to Staten. He needed to keep moving, but he couldn't tolerate the close quarters and noise of the subway. He watched the clouds pass, turn orange, then disappear altogether against the night sky.
Twice today he had almost hurt people he cared about. Both times, it had been so easy. He was always so angry, always so conflicted, always so ready to fight.
He couldn't get Claire's look of fear out of his head. He would shove it away and then, in a few seconds, a few minutes, it would resurface. Claire, wide-eyed and nervous as she hunched in on herself. Fear was so instinctive, so easy to release. It was amazing it had taken her this long to finally give in.
Were Claire and Foggy right, though? Had Matt been controlling her? Everything in him hated the thought, but at the same time…Matt's gut clenched at the thought of losing Claire, of wasting even a second with her. Every moment with her was precious, too precious for words. He didn't have many left, especially not after tonight. All he wanted was to savor what he could get. And keep her safe. This was just the only way he knew how.
Matt put his head in his hands. All he wanted was to sleep. Maybe when he woke up, he would find a way to do the right thing but also be happy.
He didn't know what time it was when he headed home. Late, hopefully. Matt didn't want to see Claire when he walked in.
The train was mostly empty when he got on. No one met his eyes, no one asked any questions. He was unknown, just another man with no history and no future and no grime clinging to his soul.
He stumbled up the dark steps to his apartment. Matt hesitated before the door, braced himself, then opened it.
The main room was dark and still, like the whole place was waiting to be inhabited. For a fleeting moment, Matt wondered if Claire had left, but then he found her things in the bathroom. He nodded, strangely relieved even though he knew he had likely burned his last bridge with her, even though she would be gone soon enough.
She had been right from the beginning, hadn't she? Claire had told him on the back steps of the tailor shop that they should finish before they even started. It would probably be easier for both of us, she had said. If only he had listened and spared them both.
He stumbled to the couch, roughly laying out the blankets. He kicked off his shoes, yanked off his tie. He was so tired. He just wanted silence and peace and nothing for a few moments. Matt shrugged out of his shirt and then flopped onto the couch, not bothering to take off his pants.
He stared at the ceiling, orange slices of light burning themselves into the dark. He closed his eyes.
The worst part about the Great War had not been the death, the wet, the mud, the poor food, or the rats. It had been the waiting. Waiting for the next round of fire, waiting for the German machine guns to run out of bullets, waiting for his allies to die, waiting for the cease fire, waiting for a letter from home, waiting for the rain to finally stop. The waiting climbed inside a man and broke all the important things.
Someone had told Matt this early on, the weary words of a British soldier that looked barely old enough to light a cigarette. Matt hadn't believed him. Waiting, after all, was nothing new to the trenches.
And then a mortar went off and Matt hit his head and he suddenly couldn't see. He had laid in a tent for three days, seeing nothing, hearing everything, feeling everything. There was no day, no night, no nothing. He didn't know how they were doing, if anything changed, if the chaos around him ceased being normal warfare and had turned into the Four Horsemen come early, tearing the world down around him. Matt lay alone with his thoughts in the damnable dark, waiting, waiting.
Day by day, he bided his time, alone except for the saints he prayed to and the Devil that whispered they would never listen. Not to a sinner like him. And that made sense. Murdocks were dangerous men, had been for generations and would be for generations more, if only Matt hadn't been shipped off to this pit. It had sunk its teeth into his father, the frustrated boxer that tried to beat a living from the world, and it had torn the heart from his grandfather, dropped him stone dead in the middle of a worker's riot before Matt was even born. The Murdock men fought and bruised and raged and killed and now he had seen it in himself. Hell was a patient beast, but once noticed it refused to be ignored.
Tonight it was here for him.
At first, Matt thought it was another wave of mustard gas, because he started coughing. It shook his whole body, cough cough, cough cough, was everyone else suffering like him?, he had to find a gas mask, cough, surely his insides would not recover, cough cough.
He looked to his left and that soldier was fine, reloading his gun, talking about his countryside home—hadn't he died weeks ago? Yes, of course, there were the bullet wounds that had ripped through his hands and face and chest, but that didn't stop him. The soldier to Matt's right had no lungs left to cough with, a decimated corpse digging, digging, always trying to find a place out of the mud.
Matt turned away, blood and bone and mud cough cough cough, was he dying, would he ever see the sun again? Then he coughed into his hands and there was more blood, blood like his father, wheezing and slain by the consumptive devil in his lungs.
But no cough cough it wasn't blood cough it was black, black like tar black like nighttime black like sin. The iniquity of his soul came splashing out, choking him, climbing up his throat.
Matt couldn't scream, couldn't cry, couldn't call out. The dead kept soldering on, digging and firing and digging and firing, the mud and blood and black, black filth from inside Matt mixing beneath their boots.
Matt couldn't breathe, the black clung to his lips, his hands, coating his front and now it was crawling up his face, blinding him, killing him. He was going to die there and never mean anything at all. He couldn't scream, couldn't breathe. All the fighting in the world meant nothing because he couldn't defeat the holy terror that lived inside him.
He was dying, Matt was dying, he could feel Death's brutal fingers clutching his neck, the devil's gnarled claws hooked into his soul, dragging him down and down slowly, like the choking of a candle or the drowning of the lame.
The worst part about the Great War wasn't the death. It was the waiting.
"Matt!"
He tried to rip himself upright, but he was pinned down or bound or something. Matt shoved back at the hand on his arms, face, he wasn't going to die, he hadn't died, the darkness had stolen his sight, but he hadn't died yet.
"Matt, Matt, shh, stop, please, Matt, it's okay."
He finally tore free of the bonds—a blanket?—and then he realized he wasn't actually blind. He wasn't dying, he wasn't being stolen away by the devil. The room was dark, but it was nighttime dark and he could see the chairs and floor and blinds and Claire.
"Matt, look at me, alright? It's okay. Stop yelling."
He blinked and pulled away when he realized his hand was snarled in her hair. Matt sat upright, shivering slightly from a sudden chill. No, no no no, this was exactly what he hadn't wanted to happen, had not wanted Claire to see, had never wanted her to know just how mad he became.
He pressed his hands against his head, knuckles grating into his skull. The savage pain of it helped anchor him, made him think of something other than how wrong this all was.
"I'm fine," he grunted (gasped, really, he still felt that blackness dripping in his lungs). "Claire, I'm—I'm fine. Go—go on, it's okay, I can…" He bit his cheek when he realized his hands were shaking. He wanted to get up and put some space between them, but he was too weak too stand and too terrified to push her aside after finding his hand clenched in her hair.
"Matt," Claire said, voice careful and sanitized and perfect, "what happened?"
He nearly laughed.
"Just…nightmares about the war," he murmured, because there was no point hiding anything ow.
"You were yelling."
He hesitated, the nodded. That made sense. He'd never had anyone to tell him before, but that made sense.
"I thought—" Claire sucked in a breath, shaking her head like she was bracing herself. "At first I thought maybe…"
Matt looked up, even more guilt mixing in his stomach. She had heard his screaming and thought Fisk's men had found them.
She looked alright, considering. A little shaken, a little nervous, but she was still there beside him. She wore only a pale camisole, her hair braided over one shoulder for sleep. A few messy strands hung loose from where he had grabbed them. He felt disgusting for considering her lovely even now. For wanting to take her in his mouth and—
"Are you…going to tell me anything else?" she asked.
"There's not much to tell," he said, shaking his head. He needed to get his mind straight, needed to sort out the chaos of emotions in his head. Fear and shame and lust and anger and resentment and relief all tangled inside of him, each one fiercely fighting to break free. He needed Claire to go, to get out of here and take at least some of those emotions with her.
Claire gave him a flat, exhausted look. "Matt. I'm too tired to play these games."
He looked down. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Of course he wasn't, he had taken it off before falling asleep, but it was strange to him now. The warm memory of Claire's hands lingered on his skin, too personal and dangerous for him to properly ignore. She had seen it all before, of course, had noted and bandaged his wounds without comment or complaint. And she had touched him before, her hands skating over more of his skin than anyone else.
Matt glanced around for his clothes. He needed to leave, needed to find space right now. Claire was too close, her breath trailing over his skin.
"I—Claire, it's just—I just need some time, just give me a minute and we can—"
"I'm done being fine, Matt." Her voice broke and that hard, crying edge returned. Matt tried to stand up, he couldn't bare it if they both broke apart, but Claire threw her hands out to keep him there. He froze, feeling his pulse bound against her hands on his neck, feeling her heat scorch the skin of his collarbone.
"I'm tired of you running and me chasing after. Can we just—I don't know, can we just stay in the same place and figure this out?"
"I—yeah, uhm, sure," he stammered, anything to make her let go, anything to give him a bit of space. He wanted her so badly. Surely there was some connection between the words 'craving' and 'craven', there had to be something justifiably disgusting and wrong with wanting someone so badly his whole body ached.
Claire pulled her hands away and sat down beside him. She was careful to make sure they didn't touch. He still wanted to get up, to pace, to walk the city until his legs gave way and his brain stopped working. He didn't want to talk, couldn't talk, not when he was so utterly out of control.
They were quiet for a long moment before Claire asked, "Was the war really that bad?"
"It was a war, Claire," he laughed, the sound hard and tinny even in his own ears. "It was the worst the world's ever seen. I can't—" He sucked in a breath. "Yeah it was that bad."
"What did you do?"
"Fought Germans. Even managed to win."
"Matt, I'm trying to understand this. Just—I'm trying to help."
"No one can help me, okay?" he snapped, finally looking at her. "No one can stop the nightmares from carving me up at night. No one can keep me from going mad and tearing people apart in the ring and throwing things in the office. No one will fix the fact that I saw men killed with bullets, killed with bombs, killed by the very air they breathed. No one can fix the fact that I did all that, too."
"Matt, I'm not—"
"I'm unfixable, Claire!" he yelled, pushing her hands away when she tried to touch him. He needed Claire to understand because he could not live with her fanning hope in his chest. "I can barely get through the day. I'll hurt you if you stay and I can't live with that. You've seen it, you've almost fallen to it, so why—I can't just—don't give me hope, Claire, because it sticks its claws in and it hurts that much more when it gets ripped out."
Claire twisted out a smile, the look of heartache on her face too soft and beautiful to bear.
"So you're not going to try?" she asked. "You're just going to send me away. You're going to exist until you die, never bothering to make things better, never letting anything get near?"
"Yes," he snarled, grabbing her by the hips, making sure she stayed close and yet stayed away.
"I'm never going to let you close because I love you too much for that to happen!"
Claire blinked, a quick flutter in the dark of the living room. She looked down, completely unmoved by the ten bruises that must have been forming under his hands.
"You love me," she whispered, half a pained laugh in her voice.
Matt held his breath, frozen. Claire's gaze flicked over his face, uncertain, searching for the truth. She opened her mouth, leaned forward the tiniest bit, her breath was on his mouth, the heat of her skin practically on his lips—
Matt kissed her, hard, yanking her closer so that her body was against his, so that he touched every bit of her skin that he could. Claire stiffened in surprise for half a second before she was kissing back, holding him close, refusing to let the moment end. Each kiss was heavy, grabbing up every second of pleasure Matt had denied himself in the past.
He pulled Claire onto his lap and she adjusted to straddle his waist. He was disoriented, the world spun, his body ached for Claire and yet was so filled with giddiness that he thought he might stop needing to breathe.
Claire held his face, her kisses spilling over his mouth to his jaw, his chin, his ear. Matt held her closer, hands trailing across her body, parading over her thighs, her hips, her back. This close he could smell the last traces of lavender on her, mingled with the familiar scent of his own soap. He kissed her throat, drifting down to the hollow of her neck. He could just taste the slight salt of her skin.
Kissing Claire, holding Claire, feeling her heat on his skin and her hands in his hair was every bit as exquisite as he had hoped. He longed for more, craved to love and adore her every way he knew how.
Her mouth was warm and so careful on his, everything she had promised him it would be. Matt's hands smoothed over her thighs, pushing back her shift. His mouth was on her collarbone, his hands on her hips, palms pressing into the fabric of her underwear.
"Matt," Claire whispered, his name barely recognizable through the thrumming in his ears.
"Mm, Claire," he mumbled, tracing the cord in her neck as he pulled her closer, hating every space between them.
"Matt, how far are we going to take this?"
As far as we can, was his first thought, selfish and greedy and never wanting to let go. He had Claire, finally, just this once. He had broken every other rule so why not this one, why not, why not, why not.
He kissed her again, slower, softer, praising rather than claiming her. He traced infinitesimal circles on the skin of her lower back and stomach, hands spanning as much as he could.
"Matt?"
He didn't answer this time. Claire's hands found his face, lifting his head so she could press her forehead against his.
"I want to know how far we are going to go," she murmured. "I want to know if this is real, if this will last."
He bit his cheeks and turned away. This was a choice and it was one Claire expected him to make right now. They both knew there was never any going back, they couldn't just pretend this never happened and return to the twilight version of themselves they had been.
But couldn't they pretend for now, imagine that tomorrow would never come and that they could be anything they wanted and never have to face the fact that they would have to part? Couldn't they stay there on the couch, couldn't he ever so gently remove her clothes, couldn't they have this one night for themselves? They would have the memory of being together, the best thing they could manage in this harsh world that robbed them of eternity.
They would have the memory and that surely would cut Matt open every single day of his life. He thought he was tormented now, wanting and yet never letting himself have Claire. What sort of misery would it be to know that he almost could have been with her every day of his life?
"I don't know if we get to make that choice," he whispered, reminding them both of the brutal facts as well as buying time.
"It's down to us to make it last. We can't control the world, Matt, but we can control ourselves."
Barely. If Matt could control himself, he could not have yelled at her or grabbed her twice in one night or thrown a coffee mug at Foggy or fought with Karen or a thousand other things. If Matt could control himself, he would not have Claire on his lap right now, his hands on her ribs, the taste of her lips on his. And yet, Matt was no longer interested in that kind of control. What good was pressing himself into a brutal prison cell when it failed to serve anyone? Surely…surely everyone else had a point. Surely…there was another way.
"But…" he stammered, searching for something else, because he could not be that wrong, not after years and years of torment and atonement. The last seven years couldn't have been entirely a waste.
"I know you have gone through so much," Claire said, the butterfly touch of her lashes brushing his cheek as she closed her eyes. "But no one has ever said you can't be happy. No one ever said you can't have the things you want until you are perfect."
His lips locked against himself, wanting to protest, the words actually hurting in his throat, all while his heart wept at the thought of her actually being right.
"Are—are you sure?" he asked, the words barely making it past his lips.
"Yes, Matt, I'm sure. I'm sure."
"Okay," he whispered, caving, conceding, confessing. "Okay, Claire."
He pulled his hands back, then smoothed them over the fabric of her shift. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it right.
"I love you, Matt," she told him, the thing she had been telling him since the beginning but he had never allowed her to say.
He looked into her face, all soft curves and iron strength, and nodded. "I love you, Claire. But I can't promise—things will still be—"
"I don't think you're unfixable, Matt. I think you just haven't tried in the right ways, yet."
Matt looked at her, face just visible in the bars of light cutting through his blinds. His heart was filled to bursting of fear and doubt and hope and love and for the first time in the last seven years he did not feel like he was tearing himself apart.
"It's late," he murmured. "We should go to bed. I…it's been a hard day for both of us and…there are some things I need to take care of at the office."
"We need to talk about this tomorrow," she said. "There's still so much we need to talk about, Matt."
"Okay, Claire, we'll do that. But we need to go to bed first."
Claire stared at him for a long moment, then wrapped her arms around his neck. Matt let out a soft breath, then hugged her back. He let them stay there for a moment, then carefully picked her up. She nestled sweetly in his arms, head tucked against his neck, one arm looped around his shoulders. He carried her into the bedroom, then laid her down where she had thrown back the covers.
Matt brushed a strand of hair from her face, barely daring to kiss her forehead now that the fervor of a few minutes ago had passed. He straightened, then paused again when he felt her reach out and grab his pant leg.
"Please don't go," she whispered. "We don't have to touch, but don't go. Don't…please don't leave me alone."
"It's okay, Claire, it's okay, go to sleep." He eased her hand away and gently laid it down by her face. Matt pulled the covers up around her shoulders, then stepped back.
He made it to the door, then hesitated. He could go out to the couch, grab up some semblance of control, of safety. Or he could stay, as she had asked, just for this one night.
The jagged part of his brain said he should not, because it had been sculpted by the familiarity with and fear of the dark. Claire was too precious to be stained by his sinner's touch, it whispered, he had to keep her safe, keep her pure. It wasn't too late, he could still claw them free of the suffering and heartache they would face in the world. And the other part, the part that prayed and smiled and searched desperately for the light in every single thing he did, that part said this was okay, he had suffered enough. His penance was done, he was free to enjoy life again.
It took a long moment, first one unsteady step, then another, but finally he was at the empty side of the bed. He looked around the room, turned uncertain and strange in the scant light of the streetlamps outside. Claire hadn't moved even to see if he stayed.
Matt pulled back the blankets and settled in beside her. He tucked an arm against her side, pressed his nose into her hair. Claire's hand found his, lacing their fingers together. He closed his eyes, afraid and yet longing for sleep.
Claire didn't think he was unfixable. He was broken, of course, of course, but not without hope of repair.
AN let me rest.
