Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: You know you've got problems when Frank Castle is lecturing you on the importance of friendship.

Or: how Matt's broken leg becomes the least of his concerns.

Warnings: Spoilers for season 2.

Author's Notes: I remember writing Lantom's chapter and thinking it was smooth sailing from there. That I had learned the last skill I needed to write this fic. Nope! I am still learning. This chapter is brought to you by, "It is not necessary to explain absolutely everything in one chapter." Also, "Everything needs to serve the narrative. This isn't a one-shot h/c fic," and, "You have done that exact thing like five chapters before. It was barely clever then. It's really not clever now."

This chapter and the next work in tandem; they were written to work together. I say that now because there are gaps in this chapter created by Matt's narration and the conversation he has that will be filled in during the next installment. I hope my staggering the updates is effective instead of confusing. Actually, I hope it's effective confusion. Matt's perspective is one of confusion. And there's a lot in this chapter to cover.

I was originally going to save this chapter for another two days, but frankly, if I don't post tonight, I am never going to post it. I am just going to reread it to hell, agonize, and then implode or something. Also, I miss the Ally. I've been spending more time with this chapter than him, and I live with him. I've been living this chapter.

Readers, dear Readers, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time, your readership, and your support. It is such a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy this chapter.

"Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not,

He's good and he's bad and he's all that I've got.

Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, I'm begging you, please,

Don't take that sinner from me."

~The Civil Wars, "Devil's Backbone"

Chapter Twenty-Two

The universe begins unraveling the moment Matt catches breathing in the hallway, but it tears apart at the seams when she finds him. Elektra, warm and living, the sound of her heartbeat charging through the dark unmasked, borne proudly into battle for him to hear. She breezes through the open door of the operating room just as Frank's gun finds its way under his chin.

"We need to talk."

Her sai's near-silent song cuts short when the point makes contact with the back of Frank's neck. "Yes, let's."

Matt tries to speak amidst his gasping. "'lektra..." he hasn't used her name in ages, not out loud. His tongue almost refuses to pronounce it. He's aware of how wrong her life is no matter how relieved he is to have her back. "Elektra, let him…let him go."

She purrs just shy of a growl, and Matt's veins flood with cold water. He's wanted to hear her again so much that even a threat will do. "Put the gun down."

Frank definitely growls, "Get that thing off my neck."

Matt's focus wavers, the inadequacy of his respiration finally catching up to him. Heart can't pump fast enough, blood can't run hard enough, breath can't get deep enough, he can't do enough, and if he does try and slow down, he'll pass out for sure, and these two will still be fighting. "Both of you. Put your your weapons down." Frank's pulse enters new levels of geared-up while Elektra's sai bears deeper into his neck. Matt tries to growl too. "Elektra."

"If he kills you, I'm killing him," she declares, because that is more than fair, Matthew.

Matt shakes his head. The motion nearly propels him out of consciousness. "He isn't-"

But Frank interrupts, "You kill me, I'm killing him."

"You keep arguing, you're both going to kill me," Matt snaps. He has to chase his next few breaths for the outburst. "Put your weapons down. Put…" the five mouth-breathers in the hallway catch his attention again. "Put all the weapons down."

Nothing happens. Nobody moves.

Frank tosses his shoulders, "Ladies first."

Elektra digs her claw in deeper, "Age before beauty."

Matt's eyes slam shut and don't reopen no matter how hard he tries. What little feeling he had in his limbs vanishes.

"Red?"

"Matthew?"

Oh, now he has their attention. "Put 'em…" but his mouth slackens. Senses follow. Matt doubles his efforts, because the gun is still at his neck and he can't breathe. "Let him go, 'lektra. Please, just let him go."

And that's it. That's all he's got. Awareness pulls away from him in an icy rush. Blood drains out of his skull. Matt follows, spilling off the table: skin first, then muscles, then bones, until his thoughts are pooling around his frantic heart balanced precariously on the mouth of the gun. He feels water rising. Storm's brewing on the fringes on his senses: lightning flashing and thunder rumbling, but it passes him by. Weapons finally get lowered in some order or another. Matt can't tell who stands down first. And then the voices sweep over him as he sinks below the surface.

"Wake up, Matthew."

"Stay with me, Red."

"I've got you-"

"-got you, Red."

I got you, Red.

The echoes of Frank's heartbeat roll through Matt, a steady volley of explosions, a battle inside bone, skin, and sinew. They appear at a distance though, which is strange since Matt's ear is slammed between his head and the space below Frank's collarbone. The rest of him is pinned just as close, folded over Frank's forearms in a carry that nauseates Matt with familiarity. His helplessness is becoming routine.

Frank's respiration artillery is too, but Matt's used to being a part of the chaos instead of held at a safe distance. It's probably his broiling brain unable to focus with his declining blood pressure; his senses getting as many hits as they can before the bell. But the thought nags at Matt that Frank protects what's his, and war is the one thing he has left to call his own. He's not looking to share: not with the devil, and definitely not with Elektra.

War rages on in Matt's head even as he's lain to rest, his ear sliding away from Frank's explosive heartbeat. The rhythm continues hauntingly, undercutting the voices, the motion, the beautiful reappearance of Elektra's own heartbeat. There is rattling and booming. An engine rumbles. Two more pulses emerge. Hands with a familiar surgical steadiness start unzipping his hoodie, placing leads across his chest.

Punisher's heartbeat comes back with a mighty vengeance by Matt's ear. He is a discordant bassline to the chaos surrounding Matt.

"Bang," Frank says.

Doors slam. Matt passes out.

Waking. Chilled. Cold packs sting against his fever-hot skin. His respiration has mercifully slowed. Fresh oxygen pummels his mouth and nose. Matt doesn't want it. His lips are chapped; his throat is dry. But his arms won't move. There are cushioned bands around his wrists.

Panic spikes. Senses return in a rush. Motion and clamber surround him. Talking Matt can't understand. His arm is filled with needles, tubes. Filtered air grates against his nostrils and throat. He scrapes his face against his shoulders to get the mask off.

Hands appear, pushing the mask back where it belongs. Matt bucks at them, kicks. His ankles are restrained too. "Frank," he demands, but he's drowning under the rush of oxygen. The mask has to go. Matt digs his face into the pillow to dislodge it. He tries again, louder, "Frank!"

He didn't think he could breathe any faster but he has to. The walls are closing in on him, crushing his flapping chest. He's alone. He's surrounded by people, surrounded by her, but there's the hand on his sternum is a ghost, a phantom anchor, one promising him got you, Red, got you as it fades. Then Frank's gone. And Matt can't call for him, can't ask if he's alright, can't do anything except ride the last adrenaline spike for all it's worth.

"Don't hurt him," he begs through the activity. She's there, listening. He can sense her. "Please don't hurt him. You have me. I'm the…I'm the one you want. Just…just let him go. Let him go."

Elektra's heartbeat treads gently next to Matt's ear. Sounds like a victory march. Her voice is a balm against the torpor. "Shhh…shhh, Matthew."

"Where is he? What did you do to him?"

Her palms unfold under the back of his head, cradling his scalp. Matt sinks into her without thinking, without realizing. She's the only one who's ever known exactly how to hold him, and she's alive. She's alive and she's there and her hands, her hands are perfect, and Matt doesn't realize he's made a mistake until the mask is moving back over his nose and mouth.

"It's alright," she soothes, catching him when he tries to move away. An edge creeps into her voice, and it's hard not to take it personally when Elektra Natchios promises retaliation. She's giving the medical staff one hell of a warning. "No one's going to hurt you, Matthew."

How quickly she forgets how much she has hurt him in the past. How quickly Matt forgets, the way her fingers curl under the back of his neck, rubbing soft circles into his skin.

"Where's Frank?" he asks her. The darkness in front of his eyes is insufferable. She is right there, hovering. No way she can't hear him.

Her fingers press just a little deeper. Matt's eyelids flutter. He loses track of his anger. This time, she might not hear him, his voice is so quiet: "Where is he? Where…?"

She combs her fingers through his hair. He's gone.

Silence, perfect silence, gives way to the light rustle of silk; stockinged feet across a hardwood floor, a carefully controlled heartbeat. The gentle ringing of sunlight passing through a window pane leads him to the tide pools of warmth on his skin.

Matt smells goose down, mahogany; fresh soap and shampoo. He's been bathed, but the memory's gone. Lots of them are. There are fragments, sensations, but when he begins piecing through them, he's caught in an undertow, pulled into the cold, wet dark. He pushes through the currents of hands and voices, the tumult of being moved; the terror over having blacked out – of having been blacked out again; Frank's gone. And that's where her perfume finds him. What's it called? Caron Poivre. One of her favourites. A light cloud of it following those footsteps on their slow trek around the room.

Oh, God.

He closes his eyes, pressing the lids together so hard they hurt. He needs that, the pain. Gets him out of this lush space he's lying in: king sized bed, fresh-cut flowers, and clean sheets. Designer drugs in his IV drip that don't cloud his senses or aggravate his stomach. A glass of cold, filtered water on a nearby table instead.

Breathing slowly brings his memory to order. From Elektra's heartbeat appearing in the hallway to the feel of a gun pressed against his chin. A hand on his cheek in apology. "We need to talk," Frank said. "Yes, let's," she replied, and then Matt sinks back under the waves. He gets lost in the sensory details that did stick, but there's no sense of chronology. No sense of focus. There's sound and fury; there's helpless rage. Especially when a loud slam took Frank's heartbeat away, locking Matt up with the sound of his own ragged breathing and desperate cries don't hurt him, don't hurt him, please. Just let him go. You have me. I'm the one you want.

The footsteps continue a path towards the singing glass. Matt stops them with one question. "Where's Frank?"

The way she says his name breaks him in two. Matt hides it well. He shifts onto his elbows, lifting himself higher on his pillow, testing his limits as much as he pushes them. He wants distance; he wants a defence. His arms shake; his head spins. This is aftermath, recovery, and all the inconveniences that come with that.

But his focus has returned. He takes stock of the room and its surroundings as he rises – anything to keep his mind off the footsteps approaching him. Off the nagging thoughts about where Frank is, what's happened to him, oh, God, she's alive. The city hums outside the wide window. The river is close. Pain twinges in his arm from an IV and in his left leg when he moves, a dull ache wrapped in microfibers and some kind of lightweight polymer. No trace of the infection. New stitches dot the length of his calf, smelling salty-sweet and healthy through fresh dressings.

She sits down on the bed next to him, though, and Matt's centre of gravity changes to her. Always her. He perceives every inch of her sharply, intimately, no matter how he tries to focus around her. The smell of her, the sound of her heart beating, the heat from her hand as it runs over his right thigh, everything appears in high resolution. No buffers from fever or fear. She's there, she's real, she's alive, and those fissures Matt nurses from their time together, those long cracks that he thought he buried with her, burst open.

His voice cracks when he tries to ask again. "Where's Frank?"

"Oh, Matthew." She hasn't heard him over the sight of tears streaming down his cheeks. He pulls away when she reaches to catch them with the backs of her fingers. Embarrassment burns in his bones even as his skin aches to be near to her. He might be dreaming. He has dreamt about her since she was killed, and it always feels real until it isn't, until he's waking up alone with the chill of her fingertips on his face and her distinctive whisper in his ears. Until he's struck by the memory of her life slipping away.

Matt sits very, very still. The last time she was this close, they were fighting the Hand. The last time she was closer, she was dying. He almost doesn't want to ask, is afraid to get the answer. But the absence in his memory weighs on him as much as it does here, now, in a room alone with her. "Where's Frank?"

Her soft sigh gives him hope that Frank is alright. Bored: Elektra's bored, and she wouldn't be bored if she was making something up. Her voice is painfully gentle, too, but Matt suspects that's everything to do with him. He's climbing the walls to get away. Waters are rising around him again of an awful sort. "I don't know. Taking shots from a clock tower in Hell's Kitchen, I expect. He was positively giddy to learn that my interest in Wilson Fisk began and ended with you."

The hurt is easy to supress given how small it feels next to Matt's other agonies. "You let him go?"

"Yes, Matthew."

"No, no, don't," he begs. The way she says his name, it's so…so raw. So real.

She continues gently, her hand finding Matt's wrist in the plush duvet. He accepts the touch because it's better than her touching his face. "He's fine. I can have him brought here, if you'd like to see him."

Rage bubbles up from his stony veneer. "You keep your ninjas away from him."

The accusation bristles her: her ninjas, really. She gets her heartrate back under control. "You'll be in touch later then."

He absolutely will. Make sure his memories of Frank's heartbeat falling silent are from their separation, keep Elektra from sending the Hand on his tail. "He better answer."

"He's fine," Elektra assures him. Her pulse backs her up. It bears none of the thrill of the hunt, of causing pain. If she had killed him or given the order to have him killed, Elektra wouldn't be able to hide her excitement. But she must sense he doesn't believe her, because she goes on the defensive. "He is. He rode with you to our medical facility. He waited until you were stabilized, and then he left."

Matt doesn't give her the pleasure of further argument. His vague memories and her respiration verify the story, but that doesn't assuage his fear. "Where's my phone? I want to call him."

She sighs apologetically, but that doesn't stop her from sounding patronizing. "I don't have your phone."

Frank must still have it. Matt takes that as a good sign: surely Elektra would have returned it if she confiscated it from Frank's corpse. Still, "He didn't leave a number?"

"Was he supposed to?"

Hurt registers in the wake of her words, small and irritating. A splinter he can't dig out. "No." Frank isn't supposed to do anything, but Matt thinks it's strange to be suddenly out of touch. He's unmoored, adrift. The room swells with a screeching emptiness punctuated only by her. Her, her, her.

He presses, hoping to elicit another reaction. "Did you tell him how to get in touch with me?"

Elektra shrugs. "He didn't ask. He seemed eager to be going after Fisk again."

Her heartbeat stays its course. Matt conceals his disappointment. Frank's nothing if not eager to pursue Fisk, and insisting he promised or should give a damn sounds childish, needy in ways that Matt can't bring himself to be. Frank doesn't owe him; if anything, he owes Frank. And he isn't Frank's responsibility no matter what the past few weeks have taught him. He's challenged the Hand alone before; he'll do it again.

"How long-" no, he doesn't want to ask that question yet. She's so close, it's suffocating. He can't ask anything about her. "How long have I been out?"

"Matthew."

Again with the name. Matt grabs the headboard and pulls himself onto his pillow. Elektra catches his forearm; he moves away, finds her hands at his biceps instead. "Three days," she rubs the tension she finds there. "I had the doctors sedate you through the worst of it rather than restrain you."

He struggles to breathe, to stay calm. Three days. Frank's three days gone and he's been lying in a coma getting manhandled by the Hand and her and God knows who else. "Where am I?"

How can she sound so calm about this? This isn't any other conversation. This is the first time they've spoken since he put her in the ground. "My apartment. Upper West Side."

"And the Hand? Where are they?"

"Elsewhere."

"For now."

"Matthew."

"Elektra, just…" he listens, can't hear them breathing. She, on the other hand, is wonderfully close. Beautifully close. Matt's face quakes. "How long…how long have you been back?"

More tears on his cheeks. He reaches to clear them aside, but she catches them along with his fingers. He doesn't pull away; she has always known exactly how to hold him. "It doesn't matter," she whispers. Nothing matters.

But it does matter. All those moments since she's been back until Matt caught scent of her in his apartment were a betrayal. He should have held out hope. He should have prepared for her coming. He should have looked for her harder, found her before the Hand did. Run away with her like they planned where no war would ever find them.

Matt focuses on the facts, reviewing the case at hand. It's his only defence against his spectacular failure. "I remember the sound of your heart stopping. Your…your last breath…" It still plays on his fears now. Every time she exhales is for the last time, the last time, the last time.

Her fingers appear at his chin; Matt shakes them away. "Matthew." He doesn't want her to see him like this, falling apart.

"I buried you."

She closes the distance between them. Her heartbeat presses lovingly against his chest with every beat. "I'm here, Matthew. I'm right here."

The heavy, down pillow stops him from moving further back, and Elektra crashes into him like a tidal wave. Matt tugs a cry back inside his mouth before it can fill the room. "I should have been there. I should-" and then, because she's ruffling his hair again, "You were in my apartment."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Elektra sighs. The answer isn't easy. Matt's struggling to find the right questions let alone think of possible explanations. She finally settles on, "I didn't want you to know what I was doing. Who I was with. Why I was back."

There's more. Her quiet is loaded with greater possibilities. The Hand is just the simplest of her fears, the easiest to communicate, the most palpable.

He forces himself to smile. To share it like an old joke. "We were going to run away together."

"We still can, Matthew!" she grips him. "As soon as you're able: Tokyo, Paris, Milan-"

God, he almost believes her: that they'll disappear into the world together, free from their responsibilities, free to be themselves. "Wherever the Hand is established."

"The Hand is established everywhere," she curls a lock of his hair behind his ear. "They're an army that stretches around the globe. They'll be there. They'll always be there."

"Then you know where I'll be standing," he admits sadly.

Elektra withdraws from him, and Matt feels the air drawing away from him too. This isn't the way she envisioned their conversation happening. "You don't have to fight them. They're mine. They follow me. They'll do exactly as I say, when I say it."

"They'll let you go?"

It's cruel, and he doesn't want to be cruel, not now, but she needs to know this isn't something she can dismiss. The way she rubs his arms sadly, easing him back on his pillow, tells him as much. These violent delights have violent ends, and Elektra Natchios is a master in the art of violence. "It wouldn't be difficult to stay."

He almost believes that too, on her part at least. The sworn loyalty of a ninja army is a temptation too hard to resist for Elektra. "They brought you back from the dead."

She lowers her voice, unwilling to admit this to him or herself. "They let me be who I am, Matthew."

Matt's heart rams itself into his throat, choking him momentarily. He forces himself to breathe, to speak. To reason with her. Remind her of who she is, who he knows she is. "They let you be who they want you to be."

Elektra echoes his tone, reasoning with him right back, "Maybe that's who I am."

Matt barely contains his exasperation. "You wanted to be your own person."

"And I am. I am my own person." She hesitates before adding, "With a ninja army at my beck and call."

"You're alone against a ninja army…"

"I'm not alone. I have you."

He withdraws his hand from hers. It hurts from how little it hurts to touch her. Frm how much he wants to touch her. Run his hand along her wrist and find her pulse, let it stab against his fingers. Let her have him. "You said you wanted to be good."

"And I was good. I still am good. On my terms."

More cruelty, but if Matt doesn't say it now, he isn't ever going to: "Is that what you've been doing with Fisk's men? Being good?"

Elektra's heart skips a beat. She straightens: hurt. Offended, even. "I was trying to find you."

"You cut their faces-"

Her indignation rises. "I thought they had killed you. Or worse, that they hadn't."

Matt stops her, "That they'd carved my face off?"

She ignores him. "Do you know what Fisk has planned for you, Matthew? Not the devil: you."

"I can't imagine," and he doesn't want to.

Elektra spares him the details but not the implications. "I don't have to. They told me. Screamed it at me, actually." And as sardonic as her voice sounds, her heart is fluttering excitedly in her chest. A warmth spreads through her that finds Matt under the layers of silken bedding. It's the surest sign she didn't have Frank killed; she isn't bored about what she did to Fisk's men.

Matt gets them back to the issue at hand, "Before you killed them."

She scoffs, "I left some of them alive."

He sighs – she's missing the point. "After carving off their faces."

She makes a sound like, "You would bring that up," as she rises from the bed. "I didn't know what to do. You were gone. Fisk was sending men around Hell's Kitchen. And I hadn't told you I was back. I thought I would never get the chance. The Hand had already been in conflict with Fisk before; they were eager to challenge him again."

"Using their war to serve your agenda doesn't make it right."

"It doesn't make it wrong. The Hand are going to attack Fisk. And Fisk deserves to be attacked. You can't deny that." Matt doesn't try. Saying, "Not like this," opens up a discussion he isn't ready to have because, "Besides, I'm not the only one. Your friend, Mr. Castle, is waging a war with Fisk too."

Matt already has a defence ready. "I told him the same thing I'm telling you: this is wrong, Elektra. You're both wrong."

She makes a sound, like a sigh but more dismissive. A non-verbal agree-to-disagree without the amenable compromise. Elektra lacks the humility to truly accept their difference of opinion. She and Frank seem to share the same delusion that he'll eventually come to their side though. "Fisk wants to destroy you."

"He can try," Matt replies.

Elektra tries a different tactic, moving back towards him. Matt holds himself absolutely still and waits for her to touch him. Then he agonizes when she won't. Even with Frank in the wind, with her leading an enemy army, he welcomes her completely.

What comes is better than a touch and loads more painful. "I meant what I said, Matthew. About us running away. Spend our lives outrunning the Hand, the Chaste. Leave Wilson Fisk to Frank Castle. Pave a road of justice and destruction wherever we go."

Her preternatural sense for when he's most receptive to wishful thinking would be more effective if Matt could believe it. He shakes his head. "Everything's different now."

"I'm not," she says, "You're not. We promised each other once."

"I have work to do here," he replies, kind enough not to mention that she's a part of it. Elektra Natchios, the Black Sky, leader of the Hand.

She hears him loud and clear nonetheless. "I don't want to go to war with you, Matthew."

"Then don't." Matt doesn't want to go to war with her either, but her silence tells him they don't have a choice. He deflects, saves that trauma for another time. "It's more than that though, Elektra. More than the Hand."

"Fisk."

He nods, giving her that much at least. "I have to stop him on my own. My way." Before the bastard can get to Foggy. Before Frank can get to Fisk.

"Hmmm…" she ponders thoughtfully, then dismisses the conversation outright. Verbally, at least. Matt hears it simmering away under her skin. He lets it go. Lets it all go. The pillow is soft, his brain is reeling, and she is running a hand over his shoulder again at long last. "It could be my way. Just this once."

Like pulling a trigger. Matt tenses. "Elektra."

She scoffs. Bored again. Unable to have any fun whatsoever. It's still endearing, and Matt hates himself for it. "He's yours, Matthew. Well, he will be. If you can get to him before Castle does."

Matt supposes that's true, loathe as he is to admit it. "Leave him alone, Elektra."

"Absolutely, Matthew. I already have exactly what I want." Her heart trots at the thought. Different enough from her excitement over murder, but not so different that Matt doesn't want some distance between them.

She softens again. "Are you hungry?"

"No."

"I'll get you anything you like."

He shakes his head, allowing his exhaustion to show. "I'm not hungry. I'm going to rest a bit."

Elektra combs hand through his hair. "You're eating later."

"Yes."

She runs her hands over his cheeks. Matt catches them as much to stop her as to hold her. One contrary son-of-a-bitch to the bitter end, especially where she's concerned. Elektra plants a tender kiss on his brow, lingering there for several breaths. Long enough for Matt to fall apart and barely pull himself back together.

"I'm so glad you're alright."

He nods, breaking their contact. Elektra slinks away. "Me too."

She closes the door behind her. Matt waits for the sound of a lock but doesn't hear one. Not a prisoner, then, or at least afforded the illusion of freedom. He tracks Elektra's footsteps down the hall towards a larger space, one that echoes every step.

He breathes himself into meditation, praying to find clarity there amidst all this. Elektra being alive, him waking in yet another strange apartment; the Hand being so nearby; Frank being so far away. God damn it, Matt tries to reason with himself, but the hate is still there, the painful sting of Frank ditching him for a clear path to Fisk. Frank dropping him at the first opportunity despite Matt's pleas for sanctuary. Now he's a prisoner, no matter how well-treated, and Frank is in the wind. And the more Matt tries to visualize nothingness, his brain swirls through memories, the haze of infection to must dust, and metal; gun powder; cheap soap and Rina's quilt. Footsteps charging across a decrepit floor and unintelligible monosyllables that pass for conversation. A heartbeat that's more brutal warfare than circulation. Bring torn from terror's grasp by murderer's hands and told, in no uncertain terms, "I got you, Red. Got you."

Matt reaches for his sternum, gasping. The ghost of Frank's hand weighs heavily, protecting what's his.

Happy reading!