A/N: I'M SORRY, GUYS. Are you still here? Have you all abandoned me? I have no real excuse for taking extra long to update. Just that this last week was 4th of July week, and it was my first one living in Los Angeles, so I had a lot of margaritas to drink and fireworks to set off and beaches to get sunburned on. So I didn't get any writing done. But now the holiday is over, and I swear on Jack Murdock's grave that I won't make you wait this long for the next chapter! I tried to make this chapter extra long and full of guilty Matt internal monologuing for you guys, to make up for it.
Chapter Ten: Calm Before
Matt breathed deeply and tried to keep as still as possible on the couch while he waited for Foggy to arrive. He knew he should be trying to meditate, but he was having difficulty keeping his mind off of the events of the night.
He could only remember bits and pieces from his first bout of consciousness, starting with coming to very suddenly on his couch and not knowing how he got there. Sounds were incredibly loud, coming from all directions in a confusing jumble. He remembered not being able to tell the difference between his own frantic heartbeat and Sarah's as he trapped her small frame against the doorway. Beyond that it was mostly snatches of confused senses. His head pounding with confusion and pain. Sarah's anxious voice going in and out as he tried to stay steady. The metallic smell of blood getting stronger. And then a gentle, hesitant hand on his waist and one on his arm, slowly guiding him back to the couch. A calm voice speaking quietly and indistinctly, keeping him anchored to his surroundings. Then the rough feel of the couch cushions on his back, and deep blackness after that.
Matt's second return to consciousness had been more gradual, less jarring. Sarah had been jumpy, nervous in the way she usually only was if he was directly threatening her. He couldn't remember what he'd done to hurt her, but obviously he had. She was bleeding somewhere on her back, and she'd moved away from him as soon as he'd woken up again. But for some inexplicable reason she was still there anyway, having chosen to stick around—albeit at a safe distance—instead of make a clean exit while he was passed out. Even more inexplicable had been her reluctant offer to stitch him up.
He idly ran his fingers over the stitches that tracked over his shoulder and down his chest. The process had gone about as well as could be expected, given their history. But things had still been tense. When he had reached out to lightly catch her arm, he had been careful to stay far away from the area he had bruised so badly not too long ago. Even so, she had flinched at his touch like he was about to strike her, and somehow he had found it more difficult than usual to tamp down the guilt.
Matt had grown used to Claire's healing ministrations: gentle and steady, always calm despite the situation. Sarah's first aid attempts couldn't be more different. Where Claire was composed and firm, Sarah was nervous and uncertain. Her hands had been shaking slightly, and her long hair brushed against his chest as she worked, no matter how many times she pushed it back over her shoulder. Each time she did, he was hit with a strange combination of her usual citrusy scent mixed with the scent of his own soap and water and blood. The clash of the two worlds had been disconcerting, to say the least.
In fact, it was still disconcerting, and he wondered if part of the reason he was having trouble meditating was due to her scent lingering in several areas of his apartment. She had obviously snooped around a bit while he was unconscious, so who knew what else about his personal life she had discovered, on top of everything that Foggy had told her. The whole night left him feeling like they had crossed a line of some sort, and he wasn't sure if they were going to be able to go back.
Matt took a deep breath, trying to focus on healing and not on the pain shooting through his body, and especially not on the confusion and guilt filling his head.
He wasn't sure how long he sat on the couch, chasing guilty thoughts and justifications around in circles in his head while trying to keep perfectly still to avoid more pain. After a while, he heard Foggy's familiar footsteps approaching the front door, and then the key in the lock. Matt had given Foggy a key not long after they had reconciled, just in case…well, in case something exactly like last night happened.
Foggy's footsteps were especially quiet as he came in the living room, clearly trying not to wake Matt if he was sleeping. Matt opened his eyes and lifted his head up to let the other man know he was awake.
"Hey, Foggy."
"You know you have a much more comfortable bed you could be using instead of the couch, right? It has silk sheets and everything."
"Yeah, but I'm already here," Matt said with a weak grin. He started to shrug, but stopped immediately when the movement sent a searing pain through his shoulder. "Ah—not moving wins out over being in a bed."
"How are you feeling?"
"Been worse."
"Been better, too," Foggy pointed out.
"How was court?" Matt asked, changing the subject.
"It was good," Foggy answered reluctantly, obviously not fooled by Matt's avoidance of the topic. "Lisa Worley said to send you her thanks. She also said we should expect a basket of some sort of baked goods at the office tomorrow, which is excellent. And it will help us deal with the fact that she will be paying us in very, very small increments, over who knows how long a period of time, with no apparent payment schedule."
"Hey, our first client never paid us at all," Matt pointed out. "This is a step up."
"That's true. Karen never did pay us. What a bum."
Matt chuckled at Foggy's indignant tone. He reached for the glass of water next to him, having to focus more than usual to pinpoint where it was. As he drank the water, he could sense Foggy was on the edge of saying something, but was hesitating.
"So…" Foggy began cautiously as Matt set the glass back down. Matt closed his eyes and slowly leaned his head back against the couch, already fairly certain what topic his friend was about to bring up. "Not that I'm looking for another fight with you while you're bleeding out on your couch, but…I think maybe we need to have a talk about your people skills, buddy."
"Do we?" Matt asked tiredly.
"We do," Foggy confirmed. "I know that I haven't really asked much about your trips to go see Sarah, because…I don't know. I guess talking about the more disturbing aspects of your night life didn't really seem like a point we had gotten to, yet. But, Matt…some of things she said about you tonight…"
"Not great things, I'd guess," Matt said quietly when Foggy didn't supply any more information.
"Well, she's not in the Matt Murdock fan club, to say the least. Which, to be fair, is a small club. I'm both the president and the treasurer, and it's pretty exhausting to hold down both positions," he said, and Matt gave a small, tired smile before Foggy grew somber again. "But seriously. You scare the hell out of her, dude. More than I realized."
Matt sighed. "This…this shouldn't be news to you, Foggy. I haven't tried to hide...what my relationship with her has been."
"Alright, maybe you haven't tried to hide it," Foggy conceded. "But let's be honest, you've been kind of vague. Sarah, on the other hand, didn't have any problem letting me know exactly what dealing with you has been like. In fact, I think maybe it took her a little while to realize that I didn't already know. And a lot of it sounded…" Foggy trailed off with a an uncomfortable shrug.
"Scaring her was kind of the point," Matt argued. "From the start."
"I know. I remember. But I just…" Foggy sighed and waved his hands around in frustration. "Are you sure that everything you've been doing is really necessary?"
"Yes," Matt said adamantly. "It is. Or…it was. I mean, I thought it was. I don't—I don't know."
"Wow. That's one really strong argument you have there, Murdock. You should try using that in court sometime."
Matt rolled his eyes but didn't have a retort.
"I'm just worried," Foggy continued. "About you more than her, actually. It just seems like maybe…maybe you can't separate yourself from Daredevil anymore. The Matt that I met in law school knew how to deal with problems using something other than violence. Or, the—the threat of violence, or whatever."
"Well I have very different problems now than I had back then. There are no—no guidelines for this, Foggy. There's no crime fighting handbook that lets me know if I'm in the right or not," Matt said bitterly. "Do you understand what would happen if she told someone? Have you actually thought about it? Really thought it through?"
Foggy didn't answer immediately, so Matt continued, trying to control the panic and frustration building up in his chest.
"Because I have." Matt's head was pounding, and he leaned forward and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes in an effort to stem the pain. "I've run through it in my mind a million times since she found out. If—if she went to the cops? I'd be arrested, charged with…who knows how many crimes. And then disbarred. And sent to prison for probably the rest of my life. Which, considering I'd be in there with criminals that I helped put away, wouldn't be very long. But there's no way that'd be the end of it. No, they'd—they'd charge you, too. Because you were right, Foggy. No one would believe that you didn't know what was going on this whole time."
"I could handle myself if that happened, Matt, I am a defense lawyer—" Foggy started, but Matt cut him off.
"Yeah, and what about everyone else?" he snapped, surprised by the force in his own voice. "What about when they track it back to Claire and arrest her? And she goes to prison just for—for being a good person and saving someone's life when she didn't have to? As if I haven't messed up her life enough. Brought her enough pain that she doesn't deserve. And—and Karen. They'd go after her just as hard as they'd go after you. And she doesn't even know anything. She's innocent. But who would believe that?"
"But, Matt, you can't—"
"No," Matt cut him off again. He desperately needed Foggy to understand how serious this was, that he was doing this to protect them. "I'm not done. Because her going to the cops? That's the best scenario. That's the least painful of all the possibilities. But—but if she skipped the police and went straight to Orion? Do you know what kind of people that company has at its disposal? Violent, vicious people with no conscience, Foggy. Hit men, and rapists, and human traffickers. Dangerous people who could easily find you and Karen before I…before I'd even know what had happened. Do—do you know what they would do to you? To Karen and to Claire—" Matt was dismayed to hear his own voice crack. "Do you really think that men like that would just let them die easy if they got their hands on them?"
Matt could hear Foggy's heartbeat stumble at the implication behind his words as the other man looked down at the floor.
"No. They probably wouldn't," Foggy whispered.
"For weeks, those scenarios have been all that has been on my mind. Do you think that I've just been going home at night a-and thinking up ways to terrorize someone who can't defend herself?" Matt asked desperately. "I haven't. I've been up for nights trying to get these images out of my head. Images of what could happen to you guys. Because of me. Because of this path that I've chosen. And now, with Sarah…that possibility is so much closer. It's just a slip of the tongue away. All of this danger that you're all in, that—that I've put you in…it was awful enough to think about that when it felt like I had some control over who found out. And now I don't. She does."
"Well…I mean, couldn't you say the same about Claire?"
"No. That was different," Matt said adamantly, shaking his head. "Claire knew my face, not my name. Not until I told her. And she definitely didn't know where I work, or your name, like Sarah. And besides, Claire works for a hospital, not the worst corporation in Hell's Kitchen."
"Karen worked as a secretary for one of Fisk's companies, too," Foggy pointed out.
"Karen has no idea who Daredevil is."
"So, if she had found out, would you have treated her like you do Sarah?"
"Well, I…no, probably not," Matt admitted grudgingly. "But she was a secretary at a construction company. She didn't know about the illegal things they were doing until the end. It was all financial. Orion is—is literally just a façade for violent criminals. I don't even understand what their cover business is. There's no one who works there that doesn't know what they do. Including Sarah."
Foggy was silent for a while, observing him. Matt wished he would just say whatever was on his mind; the wait was killing him as he tried to figure out what his friend was thinking.
"You know, Matt, I've heard you give a lot of well-rehearsed closing arguments. And this kind of sounds rehearsed. Like maybe…I don't know, you've had to convince yourself of this a few times, too? Does that not set off some alarms in your head?"
Matt didn't say anything. Foggy was right. The justification sounded rehearsed because he had told it to himself so many times.
"You know she helped save your life tonight, right?" Foggy said. "There was no way I was going to be able to get you out of there and back here without help."
"I know."
"So…what are you planning on doing about that? Just keep on giving her the full Daredevil treatment anyway?"
"No, I…obviously not."
"Good. That's a step. So…what, then?"
"I don't—I don't know," Matt said, hating the disappointment still coloring Foggy's tone. "I've been trying. Since I found about her father, I've been trying to…be better. At least a little. The last few times we've seen each other, I've—I've stayed on the other side of the room from her. I haven't laid a hand on her."
The words sounded like weak excuses even to him, and sure enough, Foggy felt the same way.
"So, basically, you've done the bare minimum required to not be considered an unstable maniac?"
Matt ran a hand over his face. "Pretty much."
Foggy paused, clearly unimpressed.
"Well, that's wonderful, Matt. Really, great job. A-plus for effort."
He cringed at Foggy's caustic tone.
"I didn't mean—I just…I just mean that I'm not—enjoying doing this to her. I do feel guilty, I'm not that…not that far gone," he said softly. "I've been trying to go easier on her. The last few times I've seen her."
"Including tonight?"
Matt was silent. They both knew that it didn't include tonight.
"I'm going to go ahead and assume that's a no," Foggy continued, while Matt fidgeted with the loose threads on the arm of the couch. "Because when I asked her how it went, she said it went like she expected, and let me tell you: she was fully expecting you to wake up and go for her throat. Just for being in your apartment. Helping you. It's not fun to hear someone talk about your best friend like that, Matt."
"I'm sorry," Matt whispered automatically.
"Hey, don't apologize to me. I'm not the one whose arm you threatened to break."
Matt winced. "She told you about that?"
"Yeah, Matt," Foggy said, and the disappointment in his voice was unbearable. "It came up. She did say that was the worst it ever got. Couldn't tell if she was telling the truth or if she was just trying to make me feel better."
"Both, probably. That night was…bad. As bad as the night we first met. I felt awful, later. When I realized how badly I'd bruised her arm, and then even—even more so when I found out about her dad. I felt sick. If that…helps, at all," he finished lamely.
"It helps a little, yeah. Catholic guilt makes up a good fifty percent of Matt Murdock's personality, so it helps to know that at least part of you is still familiar."
The two of them were quiet for a few minutes as they both contemplated the others' points. It was Matt who finally broke the silence.
"I don't…I don't know what happened tonight," Matt admitted quietly. "I woke up and everything was painful and…confusing. I didn't know what was going on. Just that you weren't there and she was, and…I don't remember what happened, exactly. I know that later on her—her shoulder was bleeding. And she said it was from me. I guess I hurt her. But I wasn't…I wouldn't have. If I had been more with it."
Foggy didn't say anything, and an awful thought occurred to Matt.
"You…you believe me, right?" he asked Foggy uncertainly.
"Of course I believe you," Foggy said impatiently, and Matt felt a rush of relief when he was able to tell that his friend was telling the truth. "I get why you've been doing what you have. I really do. If you trust her and it turns out you shouldn't, then we're all screwed. Big time. But if you keep this up…it's going to take its toll on you, man. You know that."
Matt's head was killing him—actually, his whole body was killing him—and he wanted nothing more than to not have this conversation. "Can't we just—can we drop this?"
"No! Because I know you, Matt!" Foggy said with clear exasperation. "You get all inside your head with the guilt and the—the conflicting whatevers and you need to argue it out with someone. And I don't know if you've noticed, but there aren't a lot of people lining up to debate morality with you. Pretty much just me, actually."
"So this is just…what? You playing Devil's Advocate?"
"No," Foggy scoffed. "We can't both be devils. That would be ridiculous. And very confusing. I'm just trying to appeal to your inner law student. And maybe your inner…decent person."
Matt leaned his head back again and closed his eyes. "Okay. Okay. I'll think about it. I really will. Can I just…go to sleep now?"
"Yeah. That's probably a good idea. If Claire was here, she'd probably be yelling at me for keeping you awake this long, actually."
Matt shifted until he was lying on his back, still too tired to get off the couch and find his way to his own bed.
"Just one last thing," he heard Foggy say.
Matt raised his eyebrows, not bothering to turn his head back towards his friend. "What?"
"You can tell she's hot, right? I mean…you know. You always know."
"Foggy," Matt complained.
"Alright, alright. I'll take that as a yes," Foggy said. "But she seems nice. And she's smart. And kinda ballsy, for someone who constantly looks like a deer in the headlights. I mean, if you had to get yourself mixed up working with an employee at a dangerous company who could destroy your life at any moment…she's probably one of the better ones you could have gotten."
"I'm glad you two managed to bond so well over sneaking me around in a shopping cart," Matt grumbled resentfully.
Foggy just flashed him a grin that Matt would have known was there even if he couldn't sense it. "And they say it's hard to make friends in New York."
Sarah rubbed her eyes tiredly as she entered her apartment building. It had been about eight hours since Foggy's phone call had woken her up. Even before that she had only gotten about two hours of sleep, kept awake by thoughts of the trouble she had gotten herself into at work. And now—if the voicemail still waiting on her phone was any indication—she'd made things even worse.
She wasn't paying attention as she exited the elevator, so she almost ran directly into Mrs. Benedict, who was waiting to get on.
"Sarah! You aren't usually here this late in the morning. What are you—oh," Mrs. Benedict said, looking down at Sarah's attire and nodding knowingly. "Are you coming back from a young man's place, by any chance?"
"What?" Sarah asked blankly, before glancing down at the sweatshirt she was wearing. "Oh! Oh no. No, no, no, that's not what this is—"
There was no use. The older woman was already delighted, and Sarah's protests fell on deaf ears.
"Oh, don't be embarrassed, honey! I know that young people think no one my age ever had any adventures, but you know, I could tell you stories that would make a hooker blush."
"Please don't," Sarah mumbled, and Mrs. Benedict appeared not to hear her.
"I was starting to get worried that you would spend all of your nights holed up in your apartment all alone. But look at you, your luck is turning!"
She thought back to the events of the previous night. "Uh…yep. Lucky me."
"And it was very chivalrous of whoever you spent the night with to lend you his sweatshirt, so you don't have to walk home in your…jeggings or your hot pants or whatever girls wear out on dates these days. Crop tops, I don't know."
Sarah thoughts flashed to the dirty, bloodstained pajamas she was wearing under the sweatshirt.
"Yes," she agreed, nodding firmly. "Jeggings and a crop top. That is…what I have on. Under here."
"You know, one time I spent the night with a sailor, and the next morning I was sill pretty tipsy, so I thought it would be funny to walk home in his full Navy uniform. I left my dress and high heels there for him to wear back to base."
"Wow," Sarah said, slowly backing away towards her apartment. She could sense that there was probably a good twenty minutes packed into that story somewhere, and she really needed to go get ready for work. "That sounds like a great story, Mrs. Benedict, but I really need to go—"
"Well, wait a minute now! Who is he?"
"The…sailor?"
"No, whoever's place you're coming from! Do I know him?" Mrs. Benedict asked. Her eyes dropped down read the front of the sweatshirt Sarah was wearing, and Sarah's stomach flipped as she remembered that it had the name of Matt's alma mater on it. It didn't specify that it was the law school, at least. "Oh, Columbia! Now, that's a good school. I like a smart man; they always have things to talk about even after the gears stop shifting, if you catch my drift."
Sarah wrinkled her nose. "Um…I think I do?"
"What's he do? Columbia—I bet he's a doctor, isn't he?" Mrs. Benedict asked, sounding excited in the way that only old women talking about eligible doctors could sound.
"Dentist," Sarah said quickly, choosing the first non-lawyer profession that popped into her mind. Mrs. Benedict looked slightly disappointed.
"Oh. Well, that's a very good career too! I'm sorry to pry, I just worry about you. I haven't seen you dating anyone in so long. I'm very happy for you, dear," she said kindly, and Sarah smiled affectionately back at her. Even though the older woman was completely mistaken, her sentiment was sweet.
"Thanks, Mrs. B."
The nice moment was short lived.
"Now, tell me, are you using condoms?" Mrs. Benedict asked seriously.
"Oh, my God," Sarah cringed. "I really have to leave now."
"They make them in all sorts of colors now, you know. Like yellow; why would anyone want yellow? Reminds me of jaundice."
"I'm so not talking about this," Sarah mumbled.
"And flavors, too. I always see them next to the register when I go get my blood pressure medication. Did you know they make glow-in-the-dark condoms? I think that's just delightful. Very practical. I can't count how many times that would have come in handy when I was younger—"
"I am so late for work," Sarah said pleadingly, pointedly ignoring the topic at hand.
"Okay, okay. My point is, I don't know what kind of contraceptive young people are using these days," Mrs. Benedict rambled on as though she hadn't even heard her. "But use something, dear. Birth control pills, or condoms, or hashtags—"
"I—what? That's not what that word means—" Sarah began, and then stopped herself. That was the beginning of a conversation that would go on for hours, and she needed to be at Orion as soon as possible. She took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm—I'm good. Not gonna get pregnant, I promise."
"Well, if you do, don't worry. Dentists make good money," Mrs. Benedict said helpfully.
"Um…good to know," Sarah said awkwardly. "I—I really need to get to work, Mrs. B."
"Alright, okay. Have a good day," Mrs. Benedict said, and Sarah hurried towards her door before she could say anything else.
Once the door to her apartment was closed behind her, she leaned against it and exhaled in exasperation. Why did everyone seem to think she was getting laid a lot more than she was?
Sarah put her cell on speaker phone so that she could finally listen to the voicemail while getting ready. She immediately regretted the choice when the sound of Ronan's voice coming from the speaker made it sound like he was actually in her apartment.
"Sarah. Are we under the impression that coming to work is optional now? Your work hours aren't a suggestion, sweetheart. I'm sure that answering the phones and filing is very tiring for you, but you don't just get to take days off whenever you want. If you're busy catching up on work, you're not doing new work. So, not only will you not be getting paid for the hours you're missing, but for every hour you're gone today, you won't get paid for an hour tomorrow. I'm sure we'll see you soon."
She gritted her teeth as the message ended. Nothing got under her skin like Ronan's condescending tone, and the obvious glee he got from being in control of her paycheck. She didn't have much time to dwell on it as she jumped in the shower for a quick five minutes; just long enough to wash any leftover dirt and blood off her skin. If her hair was still dirty, then so be it.
Sarah managed to make it to Orion less than forty-five minutes after arriving at her apartment. It was almost lunchtime, although she obviously wouldn't be able to take a lunch today. When she set her purse down on the desk, she could already see Ronan watching her from his desk. He indicated the chair in front of the desk, and she reluctantly made her way into his office.
"So…I realize being a secretary is hard," Ronan began, and Sarah was already bristling at his patronizing tone. "You have to sit on your ass at a desk and greet people. Sometimes you have to send out memos. It's difficult, I'm sure. But I would think you could at least manage something as simple as coming to work on time."
"I had too much to drink last night," she said immediately, having already rehearsed this conversation in her head on the subway ride to work. "I…slept through my alarm. Sorry."
"Out drinking? Again? Was it, uh…with someone from work? Have you moved on so quickly?"
She looked down at her hands, nervously chipping a piece of nail polish off of her index finger. "Nope. It was just me."
She knew Ronan was smirking even though she wasn't looking at him.
"Interesting. Do you spend a lot of time drinking alone? It's not good for you. Rots your brain cells. You'll end up as bad as your father, soon."
She looked up at him sharply, and he grinned at her reaction.
"How is old Mitch doing, anyway?" Ronan asked.
"He's great," she said coldly. "Thanks so much for asking."
"Yeah? Still got a few marbles left in his head?"
She didn't respond, just tried to keep her face void of any expression.
"He must be going pretty quickly at this point, I would guess," Ronan continued. "Makes sense. I mean, if all the memories I had were of my useless daughter and my life as a gambling loser, I wouldn't want them to stick around either. Not much worth reliving there."
Sarah gripped the arm of the chair tighter. Ronan often made comments like these, but they got to her every time, and she hated herself for letting it affect her.
"Is there a point you're getting to?"
"I'm just wondering how you feel about the fact that you're doing all this for someone who, soon enough, is probably going to be a drooling vegetable in some shitty hospital somewhere. I mean, it's pretty clear that he's going to kick the bucket before you ever finish paying that debt off, right? We all get that?"
Her heart pounded as she tried to figure out if he was talking about the Alzheimer's progressing, or if he was threatening her father. Ronan usually wasn't subtle enough for the latter, but it was hard to tell. And there was still the lingering possibility that the men who had come to Mitch's door were threats in disguise.
Sarah leaned forward before she could change her mind. "Maybe by then he'll have made his peace with God," she said meaningfully.
Ronan gave her a bored look. "How nice for him."
"He's started reading the Bible lately," she said carefully. She watched him closely, but it didn't look like any of what she was saying was registering with him. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved. "He's really been enjoying talking about it. Whenever anyone stops by."
"Are you still drunk?" Ronan asked in disgust. He clearly didn't understand what she was going on about.
Sarah frowned, leaning back.
"You probably are. You do realize that you can be fired, right?" Ronan asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on the desk. "Wesley was basically doing your family a favor when he offered you this job. If you get fired, who knows how Mitch is going to pay off that debt?"
There was a long pause during which Sarah could only hear the own thudding of her heart and her uneven breathing. She wondered briefly if she had always been so aware of those things, or if it was only since she started spending so much time with someone who was always listening to them.
"So…" Ronan drawled. "Are you going to decide to actually do your job and come to work when you're supposed to?"
Sarah looked away, biting the inside of her cheek hard.
"Yeah."
"Well, that's great. There's already some work waiting for you on your desk."
She pushed the chair back forcefully and tried to exit the room as fast as she could.
"You know," Ronan's voice piped up from behind her, and she stopped and turned back towards him reluctantly. "I always like a girl with a few daddy issues. It always screws 'em up. Makes them very…vulnerable," Ronan said, flashing her a sick smirk.
She stared at him hard for a few moments, trying to ignore the way Ronan's stare made her hair stand on end. Quickly she turned and went back to her own desk. She tried starting on the paperwork that was waiting for her, but it was a long time before her hand stopped shaking enough for her to write properly.
Overall, she'd been expecting worse. He had easily accepted the excuse that she had drank to much the night before, which was what really mattered. The fact that he didn't seem to know about the Jehovah's Witnesses should have been a relief to her, but somehow it just made her more confused. She wondered idly if Matt might know more about it, since according to Foggy he was—oddly enough—a religious person.
Like Sarah had predicted, Matt didn't show up at her window that night. Nothing new had happened that day for her to pass along anyway. With the vigilante still out of commission and her own brain screaming from sleep deprivation, she fell asleep as soon as she crawled into bed that night.
Sarah spent much of the next work day waiting to see if she was going to be called up to Jason's office for that meeting that he had so ominously promised they would have soon. But thankfully, the day passed uneventfully, with no more than the usual stress. However, the usual stress was enough to give her a bad headache. As she exited the subway station near her apartment she remembered that she was out of green tea, which was the only surefire way for her to get rid of a headache.
Sighing, she headed for the sketchy convenience store across the street from her building. She always went there, and it always smelled strongly of the bleach they used to clean the floors and the stale hotdogs that sat on the rotisserie near the counter all day. The fluorescent lights were too bright, and the night attendant was a teenage boy who had apparently never learned how to interact with other humans. But it was the only place that carried the tea she liked, and for cheap, too.
She grabbed her usual tea from the shelf, then as an afterthought decided that she should pick up some Advil, as well. She felt her phone buzzing in her purse, so she fished it out and glanced at the screen as she made her way over to the farthest aisle. It was a text from Lauren.
Dinner on Wednesday so we can talk about baby shower things?
Sarah winced guiltily as she realized she hadn't really done anything to plan the shower yet. She'd have to make a guest list and a few other things before she met up with Lauren, or her friend would have an anxiety attack over the whole thing.
Absolutely, Sarah texted her back, followed by suggestion a time and place. Lauren responded almost immediately, surprised and excited that Sarah had responded so much quicker than she usually did, and with an affirmative answer for plans, at that.
She glanced up from her phone as she turned down the aisle she needed, and blinked in surprise when she saw Matt standing in front of one of the shelves. It hadn't even been two whole days since he'd been injured; she'd expected him to still be couch-ridden. He was back to wearing his normal lawyer clothes, but he looked tired and not as put together as usual. He had removed his jacket, so he was wearing just a white button-down shirt, and he had loosened his tie and rolled up the sleeves. His white cane was leaning against the shelf in front of him.
She narrowed her eyes at him guardedly. Sarah had come to this convenience store a million times and never seen him there. Matt was holding two bottles of some kind of pills, one in each hand, and he looked like he was focusing intently on them. In fact, he didn't seem to notice her standing there, which surprised her. Hesitantly, she took a step closer, trying to figure out if he was just ignoring her or honestly didn't sense her. She stopped a few feet away from him, just in case.
"I thought Foggy would still have you on forced bed rest," she said tentatively.
Matt looked up sharply, clearly surprised by her presence. Almost like a normal blind person would be.
"Sorry," she said quickly. "I thought maybe you knew I was there. Figured you could…hear my blood pressure when I came in, or something."
"No. I, uh…I wasn't really listening," Matt said, and his voice still sounded tired, but stronger than the last time she'd seen him. He held the pill bottles up. "Focusing closely on one thing at a time is…kind of enough right now."
"You're here for…multivitamins?" Sarah asked slowly, squinting at the bottles.
He shook his head. "Iron supplements. That…is what these are, right?"
Now that she got a closer look, she could see that they were, indeed.
"Yeah, they are. Is that for your…" she trailed off and gestured vaguely in his general direction. She figured she probably shouldn't start talking about extreme blood loss in the middle of a convenience store, even if the only other people around were the spotty faced teenager behind the counter and the elderly couple he was ringing up.
Matt picked up on what she wasn't saying. "Yeah. For that. Claire suggested I take them. Well, ordered me to, is more accurate. I'm just, uh, trying to figure out which of these has a higher concentration."
Sarah wondered how, exactly, he was figuring that out. She was still trying to figure out how a lot of his abilities worked, and her best guess was that maybe he could smell the iron through the bottles. Still, he looked dead on his feet, and clearly whatever weird sensory thing he was doing was draining him.
"Do you…want some help?" she asked uncertainly.
He hesitated, and then held the bottles out to her. "Yeah, actually. That'd be…great."
She shifted the box of tea under her arm and took the two pill bottles, studying the labels. "Okay, well…this one only has fifty milligrams, while the other has sixty five. But, it also has vitamin B12, which I think is supposed to help you absorb iron, maybe?"
It sounded vaguely like something she had learned in school once, but she wasn't sure if it was accurate.
Matt nodded, frowning. "The second one sounds good, I guess."
Sarah handed him the bottle, then put the other one back on the shelf.
"Is this how you do all of your grocery shopping?" she asked curiously. "Just stand around, like…sniffing different cereal boxes to see what they are?"
Matt flashed one of his small, rare smiles, but it was a tired one. "Nah. Sometimes Foggy comes with me. Or other people offer to help. A lot of it is just memorizing where my usual items are. But I don't usually shop here. I was just stopping by on the way home from Mrs. Benedict's, actually."
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "Kind of soon to be back at work. Are you…back at your other job already, too?"
Matt shook his head. "Not yet. Tomorrow night, probably. And I'm not really back at the office, but Mrs. Benedict is, um…persistent. I said I needed to go to the store on the way home, so she suggested I stop by here."
"Mrs. B suggested you come to the Stab-N-Grab?" Sarah said, surprised. "Weird. She's hated this place ever since they stopped selling her favorite cigarette brand."
"The…Stab-N-Grab?" he repeated doubtfully, raising his eyebrows. "That can't possibly be what this place is called."
"No, I think it's called the…Snack-N-Shack? Or Snack-N-Pack. Pack-N-Shack?" She frowned thoughtfully as she tried to recall the proper name of the place. "I don't know, actually. I don't think I've ever heard anyone call it anything but the Stab-N-Grab. It gets held up a lot," she explained.
"Why do you come here, then?"
"They're the only ones who carry the tea I like," she said, holding up the small box she knew he couldn't see.
Matt tilted his head like he was trying to figure out if she was kidding. She shrugged awkwardly and lowered the box. It was good tea. As she glanced back up at him, she suddenly remembered what she had been going to ask him earlier.
"Hey, um…what kind of Bible do Catholics use?"
Matt seemed understandably thrown by the sudden shift in conversation. After a second of confusion, he sighed in irritation. "I'm guessing Foggy let you in on the fact that I'm Catholic?"
"Yeah," Sarah said guiltily.
"Do you know my social security number, too? What else did he tell you?"
Sarah thought of the portion of her conversation with Foggy that had focused around Matt's apparently very active love life, a concept which she still couldn't quite comprehend. "Uh…nothing much, really."
"Are you sure?" he asked her suspiciously.
"I asked my question first," she prompted hopefully.
He sighed again, but answered her question. "Not all Catholics use the same exact Bible. But most of them around here use the New American Bible. Or the Latin Vulgate, if they're traditional. Why?"
"So…not the King James Version, then?"
Matt shook his head. "No. That's Protestants. Why are you asking me about Bibles?"
"Just wondering," Sarah said distractedly, thinking about the still mysterious Bible in her father's living room. Matt's answer hadn't helped make anything clearer. She wasn't sure why she had thought it might. She shook her head wearily and held the box of tea up. "Um…I should probably go pay for this now."
"Does it…have anything to do with the Bible those men left at your father's?" Matt asked carefully, ignoring her attempt to excuse herself from the conversation.
Sarah frowned at him. She knew he had been listening that night—creepily eavesdropping from the roof of an apartment building across the street—but she wasn't sure if he had really been paying attention to any parts of the conversation that didn't concern his identity.
"You, um…you heard that part?"
Matt nodded. "I heard everything up until…you went out on the balcony. I, um…I didn't think I needed to stick around after that," he said, and Sarah looked away as she realized that meant he had heard her crying on the balcony. "But I heard him talking about Jehovah's Witnesses. And something about it bothered you."
"Yeah," she said reluctantly. "It did. I just…Jehovah's Witnesses use the New World Translation. But these guys left my dad with a King James Bible. Which isn't, like, incredibly weird or anything, but it just seems…I don't know. Off. Maybe it's nothing."
"But you think it's something?" he asked slowly.
"Something about it feels wrong. But then, I tried mentioning them to Ronan yesterday, when he started talking about my dad. And he didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about."
"Why was he talking about your father? Did they get suspicious? When you were late?"
"No. Not suspicious, just…annoyed. Pretty much anytime I mess up, Ronan starts talking about…my dad, and—and…what could happen to him," Sarah took a deep breath and directed her thoughts away from the memory of the unpleasant conversation. "Um. I mean, it's nothing new. It didn't really have anything to do with…this," she said, gesturing between them vaguely.
Matt wrinkled his brow as he contemplated what she had told him. She looked down at the box of tea in her hand, idly tracing the cheap gold lettering with her thumb.
"What about Jason? Has he said anything?"
"No, no. I haven't seen him since that whole thing with Yates' papers—"
"What do you mean?" Matt said sharply.
Sarah squinted at him in confusion before realizing that in all of the chaos with his injuries, she had never actually told him about the camera that caught her taking the papers, and the convoluted lies she had told Jason to cover up for it.
"Did something happen because you took the papers?"
"Um…maybe this isn't…the best place for us to talk about this," she said hesitantly, glancing around the convenience store. In reality, she wasn't particularly worried about being overheard in the clearly empty shop, but it was as good an excuse as any to further delay this particular conversation.
Matt tilted his head for a second, listening. "Store's empty. Just the cashier, and he's watching cartoons on his phone. Answer the question."
Sarah bit her lip at his tone. Their conversation so far had been civil, almost close to friendly, but obviously that was done. Maybe out in public was a good place to have this conversation, after all.
"Um…Jason called me into his office the other day," she began reluctantly, looking down at the tea box in her hands to avoid having to see the intense look Matt was focusing on her. "The—the day you got hurt. And he, um, he…informed me that a camera had caught me…taking the papers and the notebook from the box. Out back in the alley."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Matt briefly tilt his head back towards the ceiling in frustration.
"You got caught? On camera?" he said in disbelief.
Sarah winced. "I fixed it," she said quickly. "It's—it's fine now. I think."
"And you didn't think that any of this was something you should tell me?" he hissed.
"I was going to," she said defensively. "I got sidetracked digging tiny pieces of barbed wire out of you, remember?"
"How did you not see a camera watching you?"
"I didn't look because I didn't think there was one!" she exclaimed, before catching herself and lowering her voice again as she glanced around. "There were no outside cameras on the installation list I received. I thought I knew where they all were. A-and besides, what else should I have done? It's not like I could just bring the box back inside with me. There are definitely cameras in the hallway, and it would have looked just as suspicious for me to carry it back in. It was either take the papers or—or let it all get destroyed."
"Sarah," he groaned in aggravation. "You have to be more careful than that."
"I know that," she snapped. "I'm—I'm not a professional spy, Matt. And anyway, you're one to talk about being careful. At least I didn't end up bleeding to death under a scaffolding because of my mistake."
She regretted the dig almost as soon as she said it. But surprisingly, it didn't seem to anger the vigilante. Instead, his irritation seemed to fade. He heaved a tired sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You're right," he said finally, to her surprise. "We're…not doing great at this. Either of us. Are we?"
Sarah shrugged, gesturing to their surroundings and letting out a short laugh at the absurdity of the situation. "I mean…we are talking about top secret information in the vitamin aisle of a convenience store."
After a few seconds, Matt sighed and then cracked a small, tired grin.
"Yeah. We are. A convenience store called the Stab-N-Grab, no less," he agreed.
They were silent for a few moments, the only sound—for Sarah, at least—coming from an old Johnny Cash song that was playing over the tinny sound system.
"You said you took care of it?" Matt said finally. "I mean, I assume so. Since you seem fine."
"Yeah. It's…it's fixed."
"Fixed how?"
Sarah looked at him, and suddenly didn't want to tell him about the story she had spun about herself and Yates. She didn't want to talk about the whole new batch of problems that had presented themselves along with that choice, or the unsettling glint that hadn't left Ronan's eyes since she had told the lie.
"Just…just fixed," she said weakly. "Redirected far away from anything that could lead to you. Can we just…leave it at that? It's not going to be a problem for you. I swear."
He tilted his head, studying her intently in that way he always did. She assumed he was listening to her heartbeat, but technically what she had said was true. It might end up being a problem, but not one that concerned him.
"Alright," he said slowly, surprising her. "We'll leave it for now."
Sarah didn't miss the condition at the end of his sentence. But it was better than nothing, she supposed.
"Thanks," she said quietly. After a pause, she gestured over her shoulder towards the register. "I, um…I'm going to go pay for this, now."
Matt nodded, and she started to turn away.
"Sarah."
She looked back at him. He had an odd look on his face, like he was debating something.
"I can…keep an eye on your dad's house. If you want me to," Matt said. Sarah looked up from the box of tea. "See if anyone suspicious stops by."
Sarah stared at him in surprise. "Um…you—you mean like, you'd be…at his place?"
"Somewhere nearby. Close enough to hear if anyone's coming to visit him. And what they want."
She hesitated. Her immediate instinct was to say no. If there was anything she wanted to avoid, it was having Matt and her father anywhere near each other. On the other hand, if there was anyone who was capable of protecting her father from Orion's hired goons, it was Daredevil. But she didn't know for sure if they even were from Orion, or if they really were just Jehovah's Witnesses and she was just crazy.
Her indecision must have been obvious, because after a few moments of her not saying anything, he nodded in resignation and looked away from her.
"I get it if you want me to stay away from him. I just…figured I'd offer."
Sarah bit her thumbnail, looking at him intently. He looked sincere enough. If he was planning to do something to her father, she could think of no reason for him to ask her permission to go over there first. He knew the address; he could easily show up there without her knowledge if he wanted to. So the offer seemed honest enough. But it was still undeniably a risky step.
"Um…can I just…can I think about that?"
Matt shrugged. "Take your time," he said simply.
Sarah contemplated the strange end to their conversation as she purchased her tea at the front counter. She emerged from the convenience store into the cool night air, feeling oddly unsettled.
When Sarah was young, her father's gambling problems had sometimes led to an unstable living environment. He never put her in danger, but their life had always consisted of alternating periods of happy stability, quickly followed by periods of no money and a lot of stress. She had quickly learned that when things were going well, it was only a matter of time before the less pleasant times arrived. The sign she had always learned to look out for was her father taking her out for ice cream. He'd order her the largest size they had, in whatever flavors she wanted, and his demeanor would be overly cheerful the entire meal. At the very end, he would tell her that they would be staying in a motel for a few days, or with a cousin, or that they'd be home but she shouldn't answer the phone or the door. After a while, she learned to recognize the ice cream shop as the calm before the storm, and she dreaded going, but the ritual seemed to mean something to her father, so she went anyway.
Right now, things were going suspiciously well, given the situation. Ronan had let her off fairly easily for being late, with just a few of his usual barbs, and with a minimal number of creepy, suggestive comments. Jason hadn't yet given any indication of following up on the meeting he had promised the two of them would have. Matt had reacted with surprising calm to the news of her total incompetence as a spy (perhaps due to the lingering effects of the concussion, but she'd take what she could get). She'd even get to see Lauren soon, and help plan something as normal as a baby shower, for once.
Things were going well, and Sarah couldn't shake the feeling that she was sitting in that ice cream shop, waiting for the storm to roll in.
As it turned out, the first signs of the storm would begin the very next night.
"You'll be staying late tonight."
Sarah looked up at the sound of Ronan's voice. She furrowed her brow in bewilderment.
"What?"
"You've been skipping work a lot lately, in case you didn't notice," Ronan informed her. "A long lunch a few weeks ago, and then a half day that one Friday. And now you come into work halfway through the workday. Tonight's as good a night as any for you to make up some of those hours, and we have a very special delivery coming."
"A delivery of what?" she asked suspiciously.
He grinned widely, and the sight was unsettling. "I guess you'll see, huh?"
"Well, how late am I supposed to stay?" she asked, glancing at the clock. It was a quarter til five right now.
Ronan whistled lowly. "I don't know. Delivery should get here in a few hours, but we're also waiting for someone to come, uh…pick it up, you could say. And that could take all night. Hope you're wearing comfortable heels."
Sarah stared at him in disbelief as he disappeared into the stairwell without another word.
She debated calling Matt. She didn't actually know what the delivery was, so she wasn't sure how helpful it would really be to tell him, but it couldn't hurt. Around six, when no one had come through the door for a good fifteen minutes, she finally grabbed her phone and headed towards the front door.
"Where are we sneaking off to?"
Sarah jumped as she heard Ronan's voice from behind her. He had come out of the stairwell just in time to see her trying to go out the front door.
"Um, I was just—going to make a phone call. I—I had plans with my friend tonight," she stuttered.
Ronan held out his hand. "That's too bad. But I think it's best you don't let anyone know you're staying late tonight. I'm sure your friend will figure out you aren't coming all on their own. I'll take the phone."
She hesitated, but didn't have much of a choice. Reluctantly, she gave her cell phone to him, silently thanking any and all deities that she had password protected it, with separate passwords for anything important: text messages, voicemail, recent calls, contacts. Even if Ronan did try to snoop in her phone, he wouldn't be able to access anything.
Luckily, he seemed uninterested in looking through the phone. She watched him toss it on his desk before closing his door.
"We're all done down here, anyway. Come with me."
She frowned at the closed door before following him upstairs with a deep feeling of dread. They ended up on the fifth floor, where well over a dozen men were milling around, all of them heavily armed. She stared around the room, wide-eyed.
"What's going on?" she asked.
Ronan ignored her as one of the men—a tall, balding man with a poorly done snake tattoo wrapping around his neck— approached him and handed him a suitcase.
"Got the tranquilizers you asked for," the tattooed man said. "Pretty strong stuff."
"This'll work great," Ronan said, picking up one of the darts and examining it. "How many can he get hit with before he dies? Because I'd really like to keep him alive for a little while, if you get me."
Sarah watched him in growing alarm. She had a horrible feeling that she knew who they were referring to.
The tattooed man shrugged. "I dunno. One or two should be enough to bring him down. Maybe four or five before his heart stops."
Ronan bared his yellow teeth in a vicious smile. "Good. And the delivery? Where is it?"
The man pointed towards the conference room, where the blinds were drawn. "In there."
"Come on," Ronan said to Sarah, jerking his head towards the room. She anxiously looked around the room full of armed men as she followed him over to it.
When he opened the door, it looked at first like the room was empty. Then she turned towards the far right corner, and her heart dropped.
There was a teenage girl, maybe no older than fourteen or fifteen, tied to a chair in the corner. She was pale, with long dark hair falling over her almond-shaped eyes, which watched them in terror from above the strip of duct tape that was covering her mouth.
"What—what the hell is going on?" Sarah asked desperately, unable to stop looking at the girl.
"This is our delivery. This is our ticket to getting the masked man."
"What?"
"Apparently, he got pretty upset when he found some old associates of ours holding a cop's kid in a warehouse a few days ago. Guess he's got a weak spot for kids, or something. So…we made sure to let enough people know that we'd be holding another officer's kid hostage here, tonight, at this time."
Sarah gave him an incredulous look.
"How is that a good plan? Didn't he kick all of your asses last time he was here?" she asked, unable to stop herself.
Ronan glared at her. "Well, last time, we didn't know he was coming, did we? This time, we do. We have more men, and back up waiting next door. And we've got these nice tranquilizer darts, which should be able to bring him down pretty easy, regardless of how many stupid karate moves he knows."
Sarah felt like the room was getting smaller. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. If Matt had heard the rumors about them keeping the girl here, he would undoubtedly come for her. And Sarah's only way of warning him was currently sitting on Ronan's desk downstairs.
Ronan clearly misinterpreted her panic at the impending situation as fear of the masked vigilante that was sure to show up soon enough. He rolled his eyes in disgust.
"Jesus, calm the hell down. You're just the babysitter. Make sure she doesn't get her hands free, and that she doesn't piss herself. It's an easy job. Even you can do it."
Sarah hadn't even registered that she'd be expected to take part in this plan. The panic tightening her chest grew worse.
"What?" Sarah said in disbelief, looking between Ronan and the girl. "I don't—you can't be serious."
"Oh, I'm dead serious. Babysit her, and then when the masked asshole shows up, your entire job is just to make sure that brat doesn't get out of that room until we're done taking care of him. If you do everything right, you'll never even come into contact with him. No need to hide under any desks. Understood?"
"No, not understood," Sarah exclaimed. "This—this is kidnapping, y-you can't ask me to—"
"Ask you? No one's asking. This is part of your job, sweetheart," Ronan said condescendingly. "You might technically be a secretary, but your job description is basically to do whatever the hell I tell you to. And right now, I'm telling you to watch that girl while the rest of us do the actual hard part. Got it?"
"What…what's going to happen to her after—after Daredevil comes?"
Ronan shrugged. "I'm sure we'll find something to do with her. None of your concern."
"You don't think kidnapping a cop's kid and bringing her to the office is going to seem suspicious for the company?" she asked, desperately trying to keep him talking while she thought through her options.
"She ain't really a cop's kid," Ronan said slowly, like he was talking to someone very dim. "Just some girl we found near the docks. Doesn't even speak English. Probably no one in this country to even notice she's gone. Just figured this seemed like a more believable story to get him here. "
Sarah looked at the teenage girl again, and her heart twisted. The girl looked terrified, and she couldn't even understand what they were saying about her.
Ronan checked his watch. "It's a little after eight right now. From what we hear, the mask usually comes out around this time. Should be showing up soon enough. Stay in here, watch the girl."
He opened the door and smirked as he looked back at her stunned expression.
"Feel free to open the blinds if you want," he said, indicating the blinds over the windows separating the conference room from the rest of the office. "Should be a good show."
