Jessica fucking hated Thursdays.

It was when the end of the work week was just over the horizon, tempting people to relax - and then do stupid shit. She hadn't once had a good experience on a Thursday, and she definitely didn't expect that to suddenly change now, despite finding out someone she thought was dead... wasn't.

The trip to the nunnery last night was a hilarious mix of planning and panic. Her first hint of impending insanity was Claire bursting into her office only half an hour after a bill collector had woken her up with repeated phone calls. Staying up until O-dark-thirty to chase a lead on a case didn't help matters, granted - but then again, neither did the bourbon.

So, Jessica wasn't exactly in an empathetic and listening mood when Claire burst in, shouting about Matt not being dead, and apparently being held captive by nuns, as opposed to staying dead like anyone else. "Slow the fuck down, Claire - I haven't even had coffee yet," she'd snapped.

Claire's response was to cross her arms, and glare directly into Jessica's eyes. "He had a damn building fall on him Jessica. He needs to wake up in a hospital, not a nunnery where everyone's taken a vow of silence."

Jessica began rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "I haven't even had coffee yet, it's too early for cape and tights bullshit."

Without a word, Claire set down a paper cup from the local coffee shop on Jessica's desk, and raised an eyebrow expectantly.

Taking a sip, Jessica cringed. "It's like someone added a caffeine overdose to tar."

"Well, next time you can get your own damn coffee in an emergency," Claire snapped. "Now move your ass Jessica, Colleen's waiting for us in the car."

Despite still waking up, that made Jessica think. "Wait, didn't that reporter lady want to go? Page, something?"

Claire shook her head while looking out the window. "She didn't want to get involved."

"Oh, and I do?" Jessica glared. "I don't get hazard pay for rescuing lovesick idiots from nuns."

"You do get free coffee though," Claire said with a strained smirk. "Even if it is just like road tar."

Sighing, Jessica got up out of her chair, wrapped her scarf around her neck, and threw her jacket on. After grabbing the coffee, she and Claire made their way outside. "So, why is this a girl's night thing?" Jessica asked. "Wouldn't his old law partner Nelson want in on this?"

"Nuns," Claire replied. "Luke wanted to go too, but since this is a nunnery, he thought it might cause less drama if just women went to get him out of there."

"You don't think the nuns will think he has a harem or something?" Jessica replied with a smirk. "They might try to keep him."

Watching Claire roll her eyes was worth the bad coffee. "I hope you can restrain yourself from leaping on him when you see him," Claire replied drily.

"Yeah, maybe to beat the shit out of him for being an idiot," Jessica said, shaking her head.

"You don't want to wait until he heals for that?" Claire asked Jessica with both eyebrows raised, as they walked out the building to the car.

Jessica smirked. "No I don't, he dodges too damn much. And he'll deserve it for being a fucking moron."

Colleen heard that as the two women got in the car, and laughed quietly. "I thought what he did was sweet. Stupid and very badly-planned, but sweet."

"So, he reminded you of Danny, is what you're saying?" Jessica asked with a smirk as she got in the back seat, and buckled her seatbelt.

Colleen chuckled as she guided the car out into New York traffic. "No, Danny's worse at planning."

"How did you find out about Matt being stuck in a nunnery, anyway?" Jessica asked. "Do the nuns have Twitter or something?"

Claire laughed at that, and then sobered. "No, Luke got a tip last night. He didn't really trust the source, but he trusted that the source who told him had reasons for us to know."

Jessica crossed her arms with skeptical look. "You sound like you're talking around something."

She heard Claire sigh. "It was Elektra," she said after a moment.

"What the...? How the...? What the fuck, Claire?!" Jessica sputtered. "You mean to tell me that kung fu bitch paid Luke a special visit, and you're not only okay with that, you actually believe what came out of her mouth?"

"I don't trust her," Claire said, as she looked back to meet Jessica's eyes. "But, I do trust Luke."

To that, Jessica sighed. Luke was a good guy, that was true. "That must've been an interesting conversation," Jessica replied after a moment. "What did she say to him?"

Running her fingers through her hair, Claire sighed. "From what Luke told me, she was waiting for him at Pop's old barbershop, dressed in business casual - he didn't even recognize her until he saw her face. She said that she refused to let Matt die after he stayed behind to try to save her, so she rescued him, and dropped him off at the Saint Francis nunnery."

Jessica slowly shook her head in disbelief. "There are so many things wrong with that story, I don't even know where to start," she said, pretending to think for a moment. "Oh, wait - yes I do," she said with a glare. "Why the hell would she drop him at a nunnery more than thirty miles away from Midland Circle?"

"Apparently," Collen interjected, "Matt's mother lives there as a nun. Elektra said she was trying to give him the chance to reconnect with her, to give him something good in his life after everything he's lost."

"So, her great idea was to drop a severely wounded guy off to his mother the nun, instead of a hospital?" Jessica didn't bother hiding the blatant skepticism in her voice. "I knew that bitch was fucking mental, but that's a whole new level of crazy."

"Yeah," Claire said with a sigh. "What shocked me is that she told Luke that she realized it was a mistake."

"So, what - she dropped this in Luke's lap, and wants us to go pick up her boy-toy? And for free?" Jessica asked with narrowed eyebrows, the caffeine now helping to fuel her mind.

"No," Claire said with a small smile. "That's the weird part. Luke found a bag full of ten thousand dollars in his shop after she left, along with a note asking him to go get Matt."

"What did the note say?" Jessica asked, her eyebrows knitting together in thought.

"It was pretty basic," Claire replied, handing Jessica the folded note. "Much less detail than what she actually told him."

Well, Jessica thought, it was at that. All the note said was:

"Luke -

Matthew is still alive. You can find him at the St. Francis Catholic nunnery.

I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused.

-E"

Jessica re-folded the paper as she thought, and absently handed it back to Claire while thinking furiously. She began drumming her fingers on the armrest of the car seat's armrest as she looked out the window. "Something happened," she said after a moment. "Something big. I don't buy that Matt actually got her to think at the end - that's too easy, and I really don't think Little Miss Stabs-A-Lot is the type. There's something we're missing here, and that doesn't make me happy."

"This is one of the reasons we wanted you along, Jess," Colleen said to her with a smile. "Alright ladies, game faces on - we're here."

The whole experience, Jessica thought in retrospect, was both undramatic and very creepy. The nuns apparently had taken vows of silence, so Claire was forced to pass notes to the nun at the desk like a teenager trying to start a party in high school.

When another nun wheeled Matt out though, Jessica immediately saw the family resemblance, along with the woman's little mannerisms around Matt. The nun slowly wheeled him out, bringing him to a gentle stop in the lobby where Jessica, Claire, and Colleen waited. The woman's hesitant touches, the movements that started to move a hand toward his hair or his shoulder was stopped, and returned to her sides. This was a woman who wanted to talk to and even touch her son, but held herself back.

While her mind was busy cataloging the woman's little movements, the rest of Jessica couldn't quite believe that Matt, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen (and apparently a blind lawyer, since apparently life loved ironic and bad jokes) wasn't dead, but instead swathed in bandages like a mummy. She could see him gently tilting his head to listen, and sniff the air before he smiled tiredly.

"Thank you for everything you've done, sister," Claire said with a smile to the nun who was very likely Matt's mother. "We'll make sure he'll be taken care of."

In return, the nun gave her a pained smile, and nodded once before taking a deep breath, and forcing herself to take two steps back, away from the wheelchair - and the man within it.

Colleen quietly grasped the handles of the wheelchair, gave a grateful smile to the nun previously guiding it to them, and began wheeling him out. "We missed you," she said to him quietly with a smile.

"I missed all of you, too," Matthew said with a smile, facing toward her despite being unable to see. "Nobody would tell me anything - it was driving me mad. What can you tell me?"

"Let's... wait to get in the car first," Colleen replied tactfully, wheeling him out carefully. Jessica helped her maneuver Matt into the back seat of the car, while Claire got in the other side of the back seat to keep an eye on him. Soon enough, the car was once on its way.

"So, you can thank your psycho ex for most of this," Jessica said to Matt from the front eat, looking back at him with a smirk. Colleen rolled her eyes while Claire actually glared at her, but Jessica pressed on. She wanted to see how he'd react. "She apparently dropped you off there, and then told Luke."

Matt sat there in his seat, an expression on his face that said he was trying to process this. "Wait, Elektra did?"

"It's what she said," Claire replied with a smile. "Honestly, Colleen was expecting ninjas."

There was a sigh from the driver's seat. "I didn't say ninjas, Claire."

"Aren't ninjas and emo troublemakers the same thing?" asked Jessica.

"Yeah, you're not wrong," Colleen said with a sigh, as Claire laughed.

The trip back was uneventful. Colleen dropped Claire and Matthew off at the hospital, and then dropped Jessica off at her office before leaving for her own home. Jessica had checked her office, found no new cases or clues on existing ones - and flung herself into her chair, rubbing her hands over her eyes. In fairness, she thought, what she thought would be a ninja-filled clusterfuck of a rescue had mostly consisted of awkward glances, and awkward silences. Somewhat anticlimactic, considering that they were taking the Devil to the hospital.

Sighing to herself, Jessica got up, and walked out of her office, already craving the sweet bite of bourbon after today. Her feet took her down the sidewalk for several minutes, passing relatively normal New York sights: two men arguing while a third was determinedly puking his guts out, someone screaming at someone else over the phone, a dark figure on a rooftop, a chef tossing refuse into the trash, two homeless people singing Amazing Grace together in perfect key.

...Wait.

She stopped, and looked back over her shoulder to the rooftop. The figure was still there, staring off into the distance. A pit appeared in Jessica's stomach when she realized that the rooftop had a view of the hospital where Matt had been taken, and the figure was looking in that exact direction.

It didn't even take her a second to decide what to do. Jessica turned around and walked into an alleyway, checking to make sure nobody was looking. Once she was sure, she jumped straight up, the momentum of her jump just beginning to fade as her fingers curled around the rooftop ledge. Though she cringed a bit at the crunch her fingers made as they touched the roof and pulled her up, she only pushed herself to move faster, hauling herself up to stand on the roof in record time.

Sure enough, the figure was still there, her black hair fluttering slightly in the night breezes. She didn't turn to face Jessica, even to turn her head - but she spoke nonetheless, her upper-class English accent making Jessica involuntarily clench her teeth. "Beautiful night, isn't it?"

"You," Jessica spat. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Wishful thinking, I suppose," Elektra replied, and this time, she turned to look Jessica in the eyes. "Thank you for getting him, and making sure he was alright."

This was not at all the response or attitude she expected. However, the adrenaline in her system was still ramping up, preparing her to fight for her life once again, and Jessica wasn't feeling especially forgiving right now. "Not what I meant," Jessica snapped. "Why couldn't you go get him? Why'd you leave him there to begin with?"

To her mild surprise, Elektra closed her eyes before replying. "I don't have the right," she said quietly.

"Bitch, don't play coy with me, or I'll pop you in your fucking jaw again," Jessica barked. "What are you playing at?"

Elektra opened her eyes, and looked at Jessica curiously. "You did, didn't you? I have to admit, I didn't expect it."

"Just like you won't expect it again," Jessica smirked. "So, spill."

Elektra raised her eyebrows, even as a small smile appeared on her face. "Are you threatening me with a punch if I don't tell you?" she asked, amused.

Jessica grinned at her ferally. "Yes, yes I am."

Nodding at this, Elektra clasped her hands behind her back. "Alright."

Jessica narrowed her eyes. "Alright, what?"

"I'm waiting for you to punch me," Elektra replied, a small smile on her face.

"Oh, of course you are," Jessica snarled, stomping toward the slightly taller woman. Once she got close enough, she cocked her right fist back, and swung for the same spot on her jaw that she'd hit last time, as hard as she could.

Elektra leaned back slightly, using two fingers from her right hand to gently guide Jessica's swinging fist wide of her face. "Not bad, but you telegraph too much," she said, looking at Jessica critically. "Try again."

With a growl, Jessica swung her left fist aimed at Elektra's stomach, her right already clenched into a fist for a follow-up. To her irritation, Elektra parried her left fist to wide of her stomach, and pushed her right arm past her face to swing back around, forcing Jessica to cross her arms across her chest. Finally, Elektra simply shoved Jessica's shoulders, and she fell backwards in a heap.

Scrambling to her feet, Jessica was about to yell when she heard Elektra speak. "Your left hand wasn't clenched properly. Try again."

Stomping toward her, Jessica swung toward Elektra's jaw with her left hand, only to glare in dismay as Elektra caught it with one hand. Looking at Jessica's fist for a moment, Elektra gently adjusted a few of Jessica's fingers, and pushed her thumb back a small amount before nodding. "That's better. Again."

"Are you trying to be my teacher, or some shit?" Jessica asked incredulously.

"You managed to hit me once, and you're attacking me even now," Elektra replied with a small smile. "I'd say it's entirely your own fault for impressing me."

Jessica's jaw clenched mulishly. "Maybe I wasn't looking for a teacher. Maybe I was trying to see what Tall, Dark, and Creepy was doing on a rooftop."

Elektra raised an eyebrow, and crossed her arms. "Watching over Matthew, and waiting for my new student. I thought it was obvious."

"Bullshit," Jessica snapped. "The first one I believe, but I fucking refuse to believe that stupid bullshit excuse."

"Well, you did complain that your life had become a kung fu party after I walked into your office," Elektra replied mildly.

"That wasn't a fucking request!" Jessica snapped.

Elektra raised both eyebrows with a small smile. "Are you sure? Your punches are almost painful to watch."

Just as Jessica was about to explode into a loud and angry rant, she saw Elektra's head snap to the side, and then somersault like a gymnast to her left, just before a figure with a glowing fist slammed down on the rooftop where she stood a bare second ago. The entire building shook from the impact for a moment.

"What the hell, Ironclad?" Jessica asked, but she could see that Danny wasn't paying her the slightest bit of attention.

"I've been waiting for this moment," he said while glaring at Elektra. "I always knew you'd come back to make trouble."

"Or to speak with my new student," Elektra replied with a raised eyebrow.

"I am not, and I will never be your student!" Danny exploded, the light within his fist glowing even brighter in his fury.

"Not you," Elektra informed him with a skeptical look. "I'd have to beat the impulsiveness out of you first before I'd accept you as a student."

Danny, at this moment, had a look on his face that suggested that someone just told him that Santa Claus made all his toys by torturing puppies. "Wait," he said, looking around the rooftop, and seeing Jessica for the first time. "Is Jessica a Black Sky?"

To this, Jessica actually saw Elektra facepalm before replying. "No, Daniel," she said in a slow, patient voice usually reserved for misbehaving children. "Jessica is not a Black Sky."

Danny looked utterly confused at this point. "Then... why are you calling her your student?"

Elektra looked up at him, and gave him a very patient look. "Because she hit me when I didn't expect her to. I was impressed."

"Wait, I hit you when you didn't expect it," Danny stated, looking suspicious.

"No Danny, I was leading you into knocking down the wall to the chamber, because you weren't paying attention," Elektra replied scathingly. "I will never understand how you earned the Iron Fist without getting the stupidity beaten out of you first."

Jessica couldn't help but smirk at that.

Danny drew himself up to his full height. "I am the Immortal Iron Fist, Weapon of Kun Lun, and I have earned the right to my power!"

Elektra raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Were I you, I wouldn't brag about being the Weapon of Kun Lun when you've gotten your arse repeatedly handed to you. People might think Kun Lun only makes shitty weapons."

To his credit, though Danny clenched his jaw and looked really, really mad about that comment, he didn't attack. "Remember Elektra, my eternal enemy is the Hand."

"The Hand, the Chaste, and the monks of Kun Lun are all dead, with the exception of Gao," Elektra replied flatly. "The castles have all fallen - only the weapons now remain."

"So, you think of yourself as a weapon?" Danny asked scathingly.

"A weapon trying to remember what being a person is like," Elektra replied.

He paused for a few moments, before pointing a finger at her. "Remember that I'm watching you."

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't," Elektra replied with a small smile.

With another glare, Danny leapt from the rooftop to another building, glancing back once at Elektra before disappearing from sight.

Elektra turned back to Jessica, dusting off her hands. "That was going to happen eventually, though I didn't expect it to be tonight," she said with a small smile.

Jessica looked at her for a moment before replying. "Yeah, Ironclad is like that. I have to ask though - are you doing anything else with yourself, besides perching on rooftops to watch over your ex like a gargoyle?"

Elektra laughed quietly. "Actually, yes," she said, stepping forward to stand on the edge of the roof. "I'm thinking of opening a coffee shop, of all things."

Blinking incredulously, Jessica couldn't help the skeptical tone in her voice. "You know that when Luke talks about having coffee with someone, he means fucking them, right?"

Elektra turned to look at her for a moment, and then to Jessica's complete surprise, she burst out laughing, despite it being quiet laughter. After a moment, Elektra collected herself and replied. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me, but no - I wanted to build myself a small store - selling coffee, and books, with an apartment for myself above both."

Jessica crossed her arms, and gave her an amused look. "What, does being a zombie pay well? You're talking serious real estate here."

"Surprisingly well, actually," Elektra returned Jessica's amused look with one of her own. "I managed to acquire the land that the Midland Circle tower stood on, and once the construction crews finish cleaning it up, they'll begin construction of the small building."

Raising both eyebrows, Jessica gave her an incredulous smirk. "Do you have a name picked out?"

"Of course," Elektra replied, raising her chin with quiet pride. "Chaste Hand-Made Coffee, and Imports."

Jessica slowly blinked at that. After all the bullshit of the past week... Jessica nodded. "Name's not bad. How many people have you told about it so far?"

"Just the people involved in various businesses to make this idea a reality, besides you now," Elektra replied with a small, satisfied smile. "I'll let it be a surprise to everyone else."

"Whatever," Jessica sighed. "Don't be doing your gargoyle impression so often, you make people nervous," she said, before she stepped off the roof to go get her alcohol.