Harlem's heartbeat was beginning to slow, as the heavy red sun began to slowly sink into the horizon. Luke Cage walked with an unhurried, but confident stride, taking in the sights and sounds that were only a small part of why he felt so at home here - especially now.

What had happened in, and under the ominous Midland Circle skyscraper only three days ago still seemed like it happened only a moment ago, since all the events and faces were very fresh in his mind. Once the dust had begun to settle though, the dead began to be counted, everyone still alive felt at least a decade older, and four had become three. Or, how seven had become six, since Claire, Misty, and Colleen were definitely present - even if Misty had to leave part of herself behind.

Even so, Luke found Pop's old Barber Shop still standing, and Bobby still there with his chess set when he finally returned this evening. Bobby had given him a look, shook his head, and just said "Glad to have you back, even if you did have to go and pull down a building. At least you did that to the rich folks, and not down here."

Luke had chuckled at that, shaken his head, and examined the shop with fresh eyes. Walking around Harlem had helped to clear his head, seeing the faces of the people who called it home. Getting smiled at by random folk walking by was still a little unusual to him, but definitely not unwelcome. As if to welcome him back, he had already broken up a fight over something stupid, rescued a child from the roof of a second-story building, and made sure old Mort still had enough blankets to keep his old bones warm.

It felt like a good day, overall. Nothing dramatic, just some normal Harlem things happening - and that's exactly how Luke preferred it.

Hearing a basketball bounce near him, he caught it as it was about to pass him by, and then tossed it back to the kids on the basketball court. He smiled to their shouts of "Thanks, Luke!", waved in return, and resumed his slow walk around Harlem.

In many ways, Luke was thankful for a day like this. Despite having unbreakable skin, what was held within was not - and seeing so much death and destruction due to simple greed and fear never failed to make him feel sick, and Midland Circle had all those things dialled up to eleven.

His feet eventually brought him back to Pop's old place, where he once again saw Bobby sitting outside, his attention fixed on the chess board in front of him. As Luke approached though, Bobby looked up. "About time you showed up," Bobby said, giving him a searching look. "Some lady's been waiting for you for almost an hour. Didn't I tell you to get a phone?"

Luke raised an eyebrow. "I'll get one soon enough," he said, before looking into the shop, and not seeing anyone from his angle. "She still inside?"

Bobby nodded. "Hasn't made a move or a peep since she got there," he said, glancing inside. "She's just been standing there. Kinda creepy, to be honest."

Luke nodded to Bobby, and narrowed his eyes as he walked down the walkway to the door. As he neared, he saw the silhouette of a woman with long, black hair hanging loose down her back. She wore a sleeveless shirt and business-length skirt, which was somewhat strange since Harlem's weather was beginning to cool. His hand reached for and grabbed the door handle. The woman turned her head at the sound, and he felt his heart stop when he saw her face.

She wasn't wearing a black overcoat, red shirt, and black pants right now - but after everything involved with the events relating to Midland Circle, her face was as burned into his memory as the faces of everyone else who was involved - perhaps more. She turned smoothly to face the door, her arms hanging loosely at her sides, her eyes like twin pits of moonless night. If he hadn't met her, he'd think she was an upper-class woman that somehow found Harlem, and Pop's old barber shop. The thought that he could walk right by someone like this and not even realize it sent a chill racing up his spine.

Clenching his jaw, he opened the door, and let it fall closed behind him as he walked in. "Didn't think I'd see you here," he said mildly, which he admitted was miles of from what he wanted to say. "Not here to cause trouble, are you?"

To his surprise, she gave him a small, sad smile. "No," she said, her upper-class English accent shining through her words more softly than before. "I've come to admit a mistake, actually."

Crossing his arms, Luke looked at her for a moment before replying. "Just one?" he asked after a moment.

"This one for now," she said, taking a slow breath before continuing, closing her eyes for a moment before meeting his gaze again. "Matthew isn't dead."

Luke felt his eyebrows climb up to his hairline. "You want to explain that?"

Another small, sad smile appeared on her face. "I refused to let him die. Not after he fought so hard to help me to see who I once was."

At this, Luke nodded his understanding, but he wasn't about to let this go unexplained. "So, what does that mean? Is he like you, now?"

His reward for that comment was seeing a raging, angry bonfire ignite within the depths of her dark eyes. "I would never allow that to happen," she replied coldly.

To Luke's surprise though, her next action was to close those same eyes, and take another slow, deep breath before re-opening them. When her eyelids lifted, the flames were still there, but no longer an inferno that could consume the entire world before being sated. "He risked everything he had for the chance that I'd be able to see, before the end. I..."

She paused there, taking another breath. "I'm not sure I could do for him what he did for me, as much as I hate to admit that," she continued in a softer voice. "Besides, I have no earthly idea where I'd get more of that vile Substance without turning children into chemical factories."

"Wait, what?" Luke immediately retorted in pure shock. "Children? Chemical factories? What are you talking about?"

"It's not important right now," she said, with an almost haunted look in her eyes. "What is important is that I saved him, and tried to do him a good turn - and I think I made a mistake in how I did so."

At this point, Luke was feeling a bit like his day had already gone sideways since this morning, and he was only now finding out. "Okay," he said after a moment. "Where is he now?"

He watched her right hand warily as it moved up, but relaxed as her hand began to massage the bridge of her nose. "I found out a while ago that his mother was still alive, surprisingly," she said. "Though it was less of a surprise, knowing Matthew, to find out she'd become a nun."

Luke simply gave her a slow blink.

At this, she sighed. "After the building collapsed, I brought him out, and took him to the convent where she stays - Saint Francis, here in upstate New York. I... suppose I thought he deserved to have something good in his life, to have the chance to reconnect with his mother after he's lost so much."

After a few moments, Luke replied. "Alright, I get that," he said, nodding. "So, what was the mistake?"

Her hand dropped again at her side, giving him a flat look. "I dropped a severely wounded man off at a nunnery instead of a hospital - and I did it by sneaking him into an empty room in the dead of night, and leaving him there."

"So, what did they say to you?" Luke asked out of curiosity.

However, Elektra gave him another flat look. "You assume they saw me."

His eyebrow raising in incredulous surprise, Luke felt compelled to ask. "So what, did you just leave a note on his wounded body and leave?"

Seeing her scowl, he internally braced himself, but he got her explanation. "I wrapped him in my coat first, but... yes. I left him on an empty bed to surprise the nuns the next morning."

Nodding at this, Luke asked the obvious question. "Not that I don't appreciate knowing, because I do - but why tell me?"

He was rewarded by seeing her cringe slightly, a sight from her that he didn't think he'd ever see. "I came to you because despite our recent history, I had hoped you'd be willing to hear me out."

"Makes sense," Luke admitted, nodding. "So if this is all true, what does this mean for you? Where do you go from here?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out now," she replied, in a softer voice. "I'm still trying to understand what happened to me."

It wasn't hard for Luke to make the intuitive connection. "You don't know how long you have, do you?"

She gave him a small, wry smile. "No. My case is entirely unique amongst all the cases of a Black Sky being activated."

"What do you mean?" he asked. Despite himself, despite knowing that Elektra was the type of person who'd get you to drop your guard first before stabbing you in the heart, this was a side of her he'd never seen before. Perhaps Matt was the only one who had before today.

She looked down at her hands for a moment, her shoulders slowly lifting with a deep breath. "Let's leave that as a story for another time," she replied after a moment, a smile growing on her face. "Besides, you can't expect a lady to show all her secrets on the first meeting."

Luke rolled his eyes, and he didn't care at all that she saw it. "Alright, fair enough," he said with a sigh. "What are you planning on doing now?"

In answer, she began walking toward the door, but stopped with her hand on the door handle. "Trying to understand the light he saw in me," she said quietly. "Thank you for listening," she continued as she walked out.

Silence reigned within the shop for a few moments, before Bobby spoke, seeming to break the spell of stillness. "Claire knows you had a fine-ass, ritzy lady waiting for you in Pop's old stop, right?"

"No, but I'm going to have to tell her," Luke sighed. "Especially with what she told me."

Bobby looked at him, raising both his eyebrows. "Did you know you had a fine-ass, ritzy lazy waiting for you here?"

Luke shook his head with a chuckle. "That's a lady who'll break your heart after she breaks your arms, Bobby - not before. I'm not going near that."

Giving him another sceptical look, Bobby then sat back down at the table, and began to study the chess game in progress once again. "You'd better make sure Claire knows that, too."

"They've met already, Bobby," Luke said with a sigh. "She and Claire met before I met either of them."

Giving him a piercing look, Bobby shook his head as he returned his attention to the chessboard in front of him. "If I were you, youngblood, I'd make real, real sure of that."

"Yeah," Luke said as he walked toward the phone on the wall. "She'll definitely want to hear all about it."