So, here we are…a mere two weeks later…
Sorry for the wait. I won't try to give any timeline on the next chapter because I'm not sure, but you know I'll be working on it.
In personal news, I'm now officially unemployed. And honestly enjoying having more time and less stress, although job hunting is a pain. So, who knows? Maybe having more time to write will help me get more done.
One of the things I do want to do now that I have more time is actually reply to reviews and comments and emails and PM's. I basically stopped doing so altogether over the last year or two because my battery has been so drained, but one of my favorite parts of writing used to be talking with the readers. So please don't be weirded out if you get a reply to something you wrote a year and a half ago, but also don't feel obligated to reply if it's just been so long that you forgot about this story entirely!
This chapter also has the return Weird Dream Sequence! This one even longer than the first. People either seemed to love or hate the weird dream last time, but either way I had fun writing them both. This one is even more Buffy-inspired than the first because I've been rewatching lately.
As per usual, all legal and medical information is based loosely but not entirely on reality, so please forgive any inaccuracies.
I hope you're ready for some ~*~ angst and drama~*~ and that you enjoy the chapter!
The One Thing
In the Emergency Room of Metro-General Hospital, Claire Temple was experiencing some serious déjà vu.
It had started off as a fairly slow night, but in the span of about twenty minutes that slow pace was shattered as ambulances and private vehicles alike began pulling up to the emergency dock—all of them, oddly enough, transporting injured people dressed up in formal attire. Claire and her colleagues had all gotten straight to work, and Claire was so busy with all the incoming patients that she hadn't initially paid any attention to the news chyrons winding across the nearby televisions:
Devil of Hell's Kitchen Behind Ambush On Charity Ball; At Least Two Dead, Dozens Injured
Local Journalist Target Of Vicious Attack By Devil of Hell's Kitchen
Vigilante Once Hailed As Hero Shows True Criminal Colors
She was in the middle of tending to a middle-aged woman in a velvet evening gown who had gotten a viciously deep gash across her forehead when she recognized one of the unconscious patients being wheeled in: Sarah Corrigan, pale as death and just as still.
As soon as she spotted Sarah she knew that Matt couldn't be far away, and that he would be looking for her. And the moment he crossed her mind, she had looked up at the television to see his alter ego plastered on every news station. Over and over they played clips of shaky cell phone footage from a dozen different angles showing Daredevil holding a woman in a dark green dress over a balcony, and then throwing her over the side with cold-blooded ease.
And that was what made the disturbing feeling of déjà vu kick in. Between the news headlines and the people flooding into her emergency room, Claire might as well have gone back in time to the night Fisk blew up half of Hell's Kitchen and blamed Daredevil for it.
The chaos in the ER meant that Claire wasn't able to step away immediately, but when she was able to break away she went down the hall to where several victims of the tranquilizers were being treated. The update she got from the nurse assigned to the group was about what she expected based on her previous experience with these darts: some patients were reacting badly, showing signs similar to an overdose. Others were already awake and slowly moving.
Sarah was somewhere in between: stable for now, but nowhere near waking up.
Checking her phone as she headed back towards the emergency room, she was surprised to see Matt hadn't called her yet. It wasn't possible that he didn't know, right? But that question was quickly answered a moment later when she found herself being quietly pulled into an empty exam room by a tuxedo-clad figure in the shadows.
"I didn't do this," Matt said as soon as the door closed behind them. "It was someone else."
Claire didn't need that explained to her, of course, and he should really have known that. Matt Murdock had many (many, many, many) flaws, but being a murderer and attacking a building full of innocent people weren't among them. In another situation, she might have reminded him of that with a gently sarcastic remark, but looking at him standing in front of her she found she didn't have the heart. The poor guy looked shell-shocked, and underneath the dried blood on his face he was nearly as pale as Sarah had been.
"I know," she said, keeping her voice calm. "I'm guessing you're here for Sarah."
Matt gave a tight nod.
"I've been listening in. They hooked her to up to some monitors…gave her an injection of something," he said.
"Yeah. With the number of those tranquilizer darts going around town, they've gotten the routine down pretty well. We've had a few other patients come in from that party who got hit."
"One of them didn't make it. The tranquilizer made his heart fail; he went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance," Matt said, and although his voice was low and even, Claire could hear the current of apprehension underneath.
"I know. I heard. But there's no reason to think Sarah would have a reaction like that," Claire reassured him. "She's stable right now. You can hear her heartbeat, right?"
Matt was quiet for a moment and Claire assumed he was tuning into Sarah's heartbeat, rooms and halls away.
"It's steady," he said finally. "But slower than usual."
"Exactly. You can't base your expectations on the worst case scenario."
For a moment, she thought maybe Matt would actually listen to her. Then after a short silence, he spoke again.
"That cop's mother who got one of those darts. She never woke up, did she?" he asked.
"No," Claire said slowly. "But…that was a little different."
"How?"
"For one thing, more time had passed between her getting hit with the dart and getting to the hospital. We don't know how long she was there before Sarah found her. For another, she already had liver and kidney problems. Her body…it just couldn't process that level of toxins like someone with healthy organs could. She was also older, and…as unscientific as it sounds, where you are mentally plays a part in recovering."
"What do you mean?" Matt asked. It appeared he was fully in question-and-answer mode.
Claire sighed.
"I mean…Cheryl McDermott had just lost her son. Her only living relative. And most of her days were spent trying to find out how he died with no results. Sometimes…people are just more likely to let go. Sarah has a lot to come back to."
Matt nodded slowly, then abruptly spoke.
"I was supposed to keep her safe. It was the entire reason I was there," he said. His mouth twisted bitterly. "And I failed. Again."
"There's only so much you can do when someone is firing into a crowd, Matt," Claire said. She'd known the conversation would turn this way, could feel the Catholic Guilt coming from a mile away.
"Yeah, but it makes you wonder…"
"Makes you wonder what?" Claire asked, watching him carefully.
"How much good you're bringing to someone's life versus how much harm."
"Oh, my god," Claire breathed out, rolling her eyes up toward the ceiling. "You think this is your fault? Why, because some crazy guy decided to dress up like you and go after people? Were you supposed to predict that somehow?"
"It's not just that. I pushed for her to be at that party. I talked her out of backing out, I found a place for her to practice—Jesus, I put the card back in her bag," he said, shaking his head as he scrubbed a hand down his face.
Claire wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about, but she did know there was little point in trying to get through to him when he got like this, dug himself deep down into a hole of self-loathing.
"I need to go," he said flatly.
"Go where?"
"To figure out who's behind all this."
"Alright," Claire said warily. "Be careful."
Matt just gave a sharp laugh at that.
"You'll keep me updated?"
"Of course," she said.
Matt reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, then went very still and swore under his breath.
"What's wrong?" Claire asked.
"She still had it. I didn't realize."
"Had what?"
"My mask. She must have put it in her bag with…with the burner phone." Matt groaned. "Jesus. I didn't get the bag. The paramedics didn't bring one in with her?" he asked, although he looked like he already knew the answer.
Claire shook her head. "I didn't see anything listed when I went to check on her."
"Dammit. I should have grabbed it. I wasn't…" he shook his head, the angry tic in his jaw growing even more pronounced. "I'll figure it out."
"So…don't call the burner?" Claire hazarded.
"No. Not until I get it back. But I have another one at home, that I was using for…" Matt trailed off and shook his head. "I'll give you the number."
He told her the number and she added it to her contacts, wondering just how many vigilante-related phone numbers she would end up storing in this phone.
Matt turned to leave, then paused and turned back to Claire.
"Listen, make sure—" he broke off and rubbed an agitated hand over his mouth. "Make sure they fix up the cuts on her hands, alright? It's important."
Claire's brow creased faintly, but she nodded. "Yeah. Okay, I will."
So while Sarah lay pale and unconscious in her hospital bed, hooked up to wires and monitors, the Devil was let loose on Hell's Kitchen. And Claire felt sorry for anyone who got in his way.
Deep inside her own mind, Sarah slowly opened her eyes.
She was lying in bed, resting her head on her folded arms as she stretched out lazily on her stomach with soft silk sheets draped across her waist. Across from the bed was a bedroom mirror, and in it she could see the reflection of herself and Matt. His bare legs were stretched out alongside her, tangled up in the same silk sheets as he propped himself up on one elbow, leaning over her. He had a slender paintbrush in his hand, and he dipped it into the pot of bright red paint that was nestled in the sheets next to them, then brought it to the skin of her bare back and made a long line down her spine.
"What are you drawing?" she murmured.
"You'd have to tell me," he answered with a crooked grin. The paint was cold against her skin as he swept the brush across her back.
She watched him in the mirror for a while, feeling more relaxed than she had in a long time. It was peaceful, watching him dip the paintbrush in the red paint and then drag it across her skin. She studied his reflection, her eyes tracing the many scars on his chest, then moving up to his face. His sightless eyes were aimed somewhere past her as he painted.
"How was your night?" he asked quietly.
It was a good question. How was her night? Why couldn't she remember?
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I think…something bad happened. But I don't remember what."
"Is that how you got that blood all over your hands?"
Sarah frowned, then lifted her head to look down at her hands.
Matt was right. There were smears of dark red across her hands, much darker than the red of the paint. She squinted, trying to figure out if the blood was coming from a wound, but she couldn't see any.
"I don't know," she said slowly.
"It's alright. Don't worry about it right now," he said.
Sarah nodded and rested her head on her arms again. She didn't want to worry about anything right now. This was so nice and calm.
Then there was a loud, slow knock at her bedroom door. Sarah groaned. Why did someone always interrupt whenever she and Matt just wanted to be alone? Now one of them—more likely both of them—would have to put clothes on and get out of bed to entertain whoever this was.
"Are you going to answer it?" Matt asked, lifting the paintbrush off of her skin and waiting.
But Sarah just stretched, burrowing deeper into the sheets around them.
"I'm so tired. And this is so comfortable. Will you get it?" she murmured with a sleepy smile. She let her eyes flutter closed again.
"I can't, sweetheart," Matt said. "It's for you."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Sarah was hit with a deep sense of dread. It made her chest seize up, made her feel like she couldn't breathe.
"I don't want to," she heard herself whisper.
Her eyes snapped open, and she found that Matt's bedroom had disappeared, and so had Matt. Now she was fully clothed, lying in her old bed at her father's house.
She struggled to get up and out of the bed; it felt like her limbs were made of lead. A flash of annoyance hit her as she looked around the room. She was positive she had already packed all of these things up along with the rest of the house: her old books and teenage decorations, clothes that didn't fit her anymore. Why were they all back out again?
Sarah slowly made her way out of the bedroom and down the hall towards the living room. Maybe her dad would know who had unpacked all of her things. She'd made so much progress and now it was all getting undone.
"Dad?" she called out down the hallway.
"In here!" she heard him answer from the living room.
When she got to the living room, she stopped in surprise. Her father's old folding table was set up in the middle of the room, stacked with playing cards, cash and chips just like it had been almost every weekend when she was a kid, when he would invite all of his poker buddies over. And there he was, sitting at the table facing her.
But the men at the table weren't his old buddies.
Sarah's gaze moved from face to face as she recognized each of them: to her father's right was Officer McDermott. Blood slowly seeped out of the gaping wound in his throat as he watched her with a sneering expression of contempt on his face.
Next to him was a man in a tuxedo with an earpiece like a bodyguard—how did she know him? What had his name been? All she knew was he'd died right in front of her, and she couldn't even remember his name. He, too, was staring at her, but with a neutral expression underneath the clean round bullet wound in his forehead.
It took Sarah a moment to place the man sitting next to him; after all, it had been so long since she'd seen him. It was Yates, a ring of dark bruises around his neck. He looked at her with some confusion, as though he were trying to place her, too.
The last player at the table was another face she hadn't seen in a long time, although this one she recognized right away. James Wesley. He was wearing the same cold grin he had the day they first met, when he had started this entire chapter of her life. He regarded her coolly, sitting in a remarkably relaxed posture for a man whose shirt was blooming bright red with bloodstains across his chest.
"Hi, honey," her dad greeted her in surprise. "I didn't think you'd want to wake up. I would have stayed asleep."
"No, I…have too much to get done," she said slowly, staring at the group of men around the table. "Dad, I—I don't think you should be playing that game."
"Oh, it's fine. I haven't been dealt in yet. I'm just watching for now," he said, nodding towards the table. Sure enough, everyone was holding a hand of cards except for him. His hands were resting on the table as he fidgeted with a napkin, slowly tearing it into tiny shreds. "Trying to learn the rules. I swear I used to know them."
Sarah frowned as she counted the number of people around the table.
"Is someone missing?" she said, more to herself than to them. But they heard her, all of them, and their faces all broke into slow, identical smiles. All except her father, who was still regarding her with a worried expression on his face.
"Don't be angry, Sarah. I know I'm not supposed to be gambling, but…it's only card games."
"Yeah, but card games with dead guys is, like…extra bad," she protested.
"Do you want to play?" Wesley asked, gesturing towards the cards. "I think you'd be good at it."
She started to tell him no, but then something out the window caught her eye, and she moved closer to get a better look. Outside, a large cemetery stretched across the backyard as far as she could see.
"When did you put a cemetery in the backyard?" she asked curiously.
"Oh, I just planted it recently," her father answered brightly.
"Why?"
He followed her gaze out the window with a thoughtful look on his face. "I thought the flowers on the graves might help raise the property value."
Sarah nodded slowly. "That makes sense."
Before she could say anything else, she heard a knock at the front door: slow, like last time, but louder now. She stared at the door; on the other side of the frosted pane of glass, she could just make out a dark shape. It knocked again, and the deep sense of foreboding returned to her chest.
"No," she muttered. She felt around behind her for the doorknob to the backdoor. When she found it, she turned the knob and slipped out into the backyard, away from the knocking at the front door.
Outside, it was raining steadily. Sarah blinked the water out of her eyes and squinted around to see a group of people gathered a short distance in front of her. As she got closer, she saw they were mourners, dressed head to toe in black with thick black veils covering their faces. None of them were speaking, although a few were quietly weeping as they all stood facing away from the house. Sarah stood on her tip toes to see through the sea of black clad figures, trying to discern what they were all looking at. In front of the crowed, she saw a large, rectangular hole in the ground with a flower-laden casket waiting next to it.
This is a funeral, she realized. But whose was in it?
She began to weave her way through the crowd of people to get a better look. They barely seemed to notice her as she pushed her way through, but every time she looked up she was as far from the casket as she'd been when she started. She kept trying for a few more minutes, then with a frustrated huff she gave up and turned around. She blinked in surprise to find that she was still at the very back of the crowd.
Exhausted from her efforts, she perched on a nearby gravestone to rest. Why was she so tired? She felt like she could fall asleep standing up. Shaking her head to try to clear the cloud of exhaustion, she decided to return to the house to check on her dad. Maybe whoever was knocking had left.
Unfortunately for Sarah, her house didn't appear to be in the same place she had left it, so she would have to search for it.
She began walking through the gravestones in the direction she thought her house might be, and as she walked she tried to read aloud some of the names she saw. But every time she focused on the letters, they seemed to morph and shift around.
"Did I forget how to read?" she asked herself out loud. Then she frowned suspiciously. "Did I ever know how?"
"Excuse me!" came a sharp whisper from somewhere nearby. Sarah looked around but didn't see anyone. "Can you keep it down, please?"
Bewildered, Sarah squinted around through the rain for where the voice was coming from, then finally looked down.
Beside her was an open grave, much bigger and deeper than she'd have expected, and at the bottom of it she saw Lauren and Greg. They were sitting on opposite sides of a large metal table, not unlike the ones she'd sat at in the police station a few times. Behind them, Noah was babbling quietly as he played with a pile of dirt-covered bones in the corner.
"Lauren?" Sarah said in confusion.
"Sarah," Lauren greeted her, sounding annoyed. She gestured to the table in front of her. "Listen, I love you, but I'm trying to have this job interview right now. I really don't think I'm going to get it, but you making all this noise isn't helping."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Sarah said, then looked at Greg. "Is it going okay?"
Greg just sighed and looked up at her.
"The thing is, she's already been hired. A while ago, in fact. And I keep trying to tell her that, but she won't listen," he said. He pushed a stack of papers across the table towards Lauren and spoke loudly, enunciating each word. "You. Already. Have. The. Job. I promise you I don't need to see your CV again."
Lauren shook her head and pushed the papers back towards him, smiling brightly.
"I worked at a Dunkin' Donuts for two months the summer after my junior year of high school," Lauren replied. "Did I remember to put that on there? Is that useful?"
Sarah suddenly noticed that the rain had gotten much heavier, and there was water steadily pouring into the open grave her friends were sitting in.
"Hey. Hey—I think you need to get out of there," she called down. They seemed so much deeper in the ground than they had just a minute ago. In the corner, Noah was laughing delightedly as he began playing peak-a-boo with a skeleton that was partially submerged in the grave wall.
"It's your job to get us out," Lauren said exasperatedly. "You put us down here."
"I did? I—I didn't mean to," Sarah stammered. She tried to push the dirt around the edge of the grave to block the flow of the water, but it was pouring in faster now. "How do I get you out?"
"I don't know! Why don't you ask your friend for help?" Lauren asked, holding her fingers up behind her head in a mock display of horns.
"Okay. Okay, I'll try to find him," she said as she scrambled to her feet.
When she turned around, she found Foggy and Karen standing behind her, watching her interestedly.
"Oh, thank god. I need to find Matt. Have you seen him?" she asked them.
"Yes," Foggy said resolutely.
"Can…can you help me get to him?"
The two of them exchanged uncomfortable glances.
"Well…" Foggy began. "No, we can't."
"Why not?"
"See, we've recently taken on Matt as one of our clients," Karen explained. "And we think it's helpful if any and all rescue requests go through his legal counsel first."
"That's us," Foggy added helpfully.
"Why?" Sarah asked in bewilderment.
"Well, he was spending so much of his time rescuing you that he wasn't meeting his quotas for the rest of the city."
"But…this time the rescue isn't for me," Sarah said desperately. "It's—it's for someone else."
"It's not for you, but it is because of you," Foggy wheedled. "And that's in the same category as far as billable hours go."
Sarah stomped her foot in frustration. She looked back at the grave behind her.
"Okay, then help me find something to keep the water out. I tried to stop it, but I…I'm so tired," she said faintly. "I can't."
"Well, no wonder," Foggy said, his eyes dropping from her face down to her stomach.
Sarah hesitated, then followed his gaze and frowned when she saw the long dart sticking out of her stomach. She'd forgotten about it.
When she looked back up at Foggy, he was shaking his head.
"That'll make anyone tired. And plus, your coffee maker? I don't know what it's making, but it's not coffee."
"Come on," Karen said, holding out her hand. "There should be tools in the basement we can use."
Karen led Sarah over to the house, which as it turned out had been just behind her the entire time, just out of sight. When she opened the door that led down to the basement, Sarah stopped abruptly and let go of Karen's hand.
"What's wrong?" Karen asked, turning back to her.
"It's just…usually when it gets this dark, Matt is with me," Sarah said reluctantly.
"What, are you afraid of the dark?" Karen teased. "What did you do before you knew Matt?"
"Sometimes I can't remember."
"Well, you might want to try remembering because Matt's gone. He left."
"No," Sarah said, shaking her head. "No, Matt wouldn't leave me. He just doesn't know where I am."
"Whatever you say," Karen said with a shrug. Then she descended down the steps to the basement, her bright blonde hair the last visible thing before she disappeared into the dark completely.
Despite the pounding in her chest, Sarah followed her.
The basement was very dark, and as they searched through the shelves and boxes for anything to help them, Sarah kept thinking she heard something moving in the corners. But when she would stop to listen, nothing was there.
Sarah was growing more and more exhausted as they worked. Eventually she dropped into a chair next to a table to rest, just for a moment. Karen sat in the chair across from her.
"You look tired," Karen said. She was little more than an outline and a voice in the dark.
"How do you know? Can you see me?" Sarah asked.
"Yes. But I think I spend more time down here than you do."
Then Sarah heard the noise again, much closer this time. In fact, it sounded like it was directly underneath the table they were sitting at. Sarah started to lean down to look, but Karen shot out a hand to stop her.
"Don't look down there," Karen whispered, her eyes wide and bright in the dark.
"But…but I think there's something there."
"There is," Karen said.
Whatever it was moved, and Sarah could have sworn it brushed up against her.
"Something keeps—"
"I know." Karen said. "But you can't look down there."
"You never look?"
"No."
"I don't know if I can do that."
Suddenly the table pitched as whatever was hiding near their feet began to shake it hard, making the items on top roll around and fall as the table rocked violently back and forth. Sarah's heart began to race.
Before she could think about it, she shoved her chair back from the table.
"Come on," she tried to yell to Karen, but it came out as a whisper. The two of them ran towards the stairs that led up and out of the basement. The sound of the table rocking grew louder behind them, its legs knocking harder against the cement floor.
When Sarah threw the basement door open, she found herself not in her father's living room but in Jason's bright white office. Karen was no longer with her. Instead Jason was there, sitting at his desk wearing his usual bright white tie, and on the edge of the desk sat a small radio that was playing mostly static sounds, with some unintelligible voices in between.
"Finally, you're here," he said in greeting, looking up from his desk. "Get to work. You're late and you've fallen behind."
"I'm sorry," Sarah said, shaking her head in faint confusion. "What are we doing?"
"The same thing we do every day, Sarah," he said with some irritation. "Origami."
Sarah's heart sank. She didn't know how to do origami. But if they did it every day, she must have been faking it somehow up until now. She had to at least try.
The static from the radio grew louder, and Sarah gazed over at it.
"El barco se está hundiendo!" the voice on the radio said. "Los médicos se ahogarán!"
She sat down across the desk from him and began folding the paper, trying to figure out how to make it into something with no instructions. Jason set his own ornate crane down and watched her closely.
"No, no, you're doing it all wrong," he snapped. "And you're getting blood on the paper."
Sarah blinked and looked down. There was the blood again, as dark and vivid against her skin as it had been before. She wasn't sure why she thought it had gone away, maybe washed off in the rain.
"Is it mine?" she asked.
But Jason had turned his attention back to his work and didn't answer her.
"Can I leave early?" she tried again. "I…I'm so tired."
But still he acted as though he couldn't hear her.
Then from the radio came a different voice, one she recognized.
"Sarah?" it asked.
Sarah's heart started to race.
"Cecilia?" she answered. "Where are you?"
An annoyed sigh came through the radio as a rush of static.
"I don't know, do I?" Cecilia snapped.
"Well what are you near? Can you look around?" Sarah asked.
"No. It's too dark to tell."
"Well, what if you…" Sarah trailed off as she caught sight of Jason. His face was still turned down as he messed with the papers on his desk, but she could see his lips moving. He was matching everything both she and Cecilia said, mouthing along with each word as they spoke them.
"How…how are you doing that?" she asked him, and his lips silently moved, forming the same words simultaneously. Even as his head remained tilted down, his eyes were pinned to her now, two dark pupils surrounded by the whites of his eyes, as white as his scars and his teeth and his tie. "Stop it."
"Are you even paying attention?" Cecilia complained from the radio. "Do you care about anyone else's problems?"
"Yes," Sarah snapped in frustration. She tore her gaze away from Jason, who was still calmly mouthing all of their words along with them. "I just…I have a lot that I'm working on. I'm at work, and the cemetery is flooding, and I can't get this stupid origami right, and…I just want to sleep."
Then, at the office door, came the knock. Faster this time, and even louder. Demanding.
Sarah looked over at Jason, who had straightened up and was looking at the door now with a ponderous expression on his face.
"Can you hear that?" Sarah asked the radio.
"Of course I can. It's on my end, too," Cecilia said.
The knocking came again, more insistent now. There was a long stretch of silence on the radio.
"I don't want to answer it," Sarah whispered, turning to Jason. "How—how can we get out of here?"
He looked at her with a bored expression. "I suppose we could go out the back way."
"There's a back way?" she asked instantly. "Yes. Yes, please. Where is it?"
Jason stood from his chair and swiftly walked over to his office window, opened it like a door, then calmly stepped through and turned a corner, disappearing from view.
Sarah started to follow him.
"That won't work forever," came Cecilia's voice over the radio.
Sarah sent one last look back at the radio before stepping through the window after Jason.
To her surprise, the fourth floor window in fact led directly to the parking garage below Orion.
Ahead of her, Jason was already getting into one of the sleek black company cars. Sarah didn't particularly want to go with him, but she had no keys of her own, so she followed him over and got in the passenger seat.
Once Sarah got in the car and Jason began to drive, she noticed the front windshield was shattered, leaving only a jagged perimeter of glass around the edges.
"Why did you pick this one?" she asked.
"It's important," he said simply. He brought a finger to the edge of the jagged glass, pressing until a he started to bleed. "I come back to it and re-read it like a good book."
The white scars that crisscrossed his face seemed to glow brighter than ever.
Jason was driving fast, running red lights and careening around corners. Sarah wondered distantly where they were going. She could ask, she supposed, but she knew Jason wouldn't answer.
"We're going so fast. Slow down," she said, looking at the speedometer. It wasn't in any language she understood. Portuguese, maybe. She didn't speak Portuguese.
Jason didn't listen. They took a sharp left turn and suddenly they were driving over a bridge that spanned a huge river. Sarah looked out the window, down at the sparkling surface of the water far below them as it flashed by between the metal rails of the bridge. They were going so fast now.
Sarah moved her gaze away from the hypnotizing glittering water, turning her attention back to the front of the car. Ahead of them, she saw a crowd of people. It looked like the mourners from the funeral, their faces still covered.
"S-stop," she said, glancing from Jason to the people and back again. "You're going to hit them."
Jason merely watched her. "Who are they?"
"I—I don't know."
"Who are they?" he asked again, his voice sharper.
"It doesn't matter!" she exclaimed, panicking now as the car careened across the bridge towards the crowd. The faceless veiled people remained standing still. "You're going to kill them!"
She lunged across the center console, trying to wrench Jason's hands away from the steering wheel. But he was stronger, and no matter how hard she jerked the wheel she couldn't steer them away from the people ahead.
Suddenly Jason let go, leaving only Sarah holding onto the wheel, and the car spun out of the control. They jerked to the right, then fishtailed back left, veering wildly across all lanes of the bridge.
As the world blurred outside the car, he turned to look her dead in the eye.
"It's not going to get easier," he said.
And then the bridge disappeared from underneath them as the car shot straight over the edge.
She tried to scream but all that came out was a sigh. She looked over at the driver's seat, but Jason was long gone. She was alone.
The car didn't drop into a free fall like she expected. Instead, it hung in the air for a long, long moment, suspended above the river below.
Bright, warm afternoon sunlight shone all through the car, illuminating the dust particles that floated through the air. The water below still glittered as the surface caught the sunlight. As the car fell slowly through the air, no wind rushed through the broken windshield.
It was quiet in the car: silent, weightless, almost peaceful. Not so bad, if she really thought about it.
God, she was so tired.
Then the car's descent sped up, and surface of the water rushed up to meet her, and Sarah closed her eyes as she waited for the impact.
But it didn't come.
When she opened her eyes, she was floating in a lake, flat on her back on an inflatable raft. Looking around, she realized she recognized this lake, recognized the tall trees around it. She used to come here as a kid.
She turned her head to see Matt lying next to her, their hands linked together. His other hand was dangling over the side, lazily tracing patterns in the water.
"Matt?" she said, lifting her head up. A deep relief rushed through her at the sight of him. "I've been looking for you."
Matt gave her a funny smile, shaking his head as he squeezed her hand.
"I've been right here, waiting for you. This is where you said we'd come when it was all over. Remember?" he asked.
"But…it doesn't feel like it's over," she said in confusion.
"It can be," he said simply. "If you want it to be."
Sarah laid her head back against the raft again, closing her eyes. It could be, couldn't it? She could sleep here, if she wanted.
Then something bumped hard against the bottom of the raft, nearly throwing her off. She sat up with a gasp.
"I think there's something down there," she whispered to Matt.
"I think so, too," Matt agreed.
Sarah's worried gaze fell to where Matt was still slowly trailing his fingertips through the surface of the water.
"You should get your hand out of the water," she said.
Matt just shook his head, seemingly unconcerned. "Don't worry about me. Worry about you right now."
"But what do I do? You always tell me what to do. Just help me," Sarah said desperately.
"You know I would if I could. I'd do anything to keep you safe."
Whatever was in the water bumped the raft again, even harder this time. Sarah grabbed the edges to keep her balance as she looked around wildly. In the distance, she could just make out the shoreline.
"I'm going to try to swim to shore," she told him. "So that it will follow me away from you."
Matt frowned at that.
"I told you, don't worry about me," he repeated. "You can't help me."
"Why not?"
"You know why," he said, then turned to her with a sad smile, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. "Come on. You must know."
Sarah just shook her head and squinted against the sun, looking towards the shore. It looked so far away, and she was so tired. What if she didn't make it?
But what other choice did she have?
She dove into the lake, and the freezing cold water surrounded her. If possible, it sapped her energy even more as she began to swim.
To her surprise, she reached the shore much quicker than she thought she would. As she struggled out of the water and onto the bank, she could hear the water rippling behind her as something moved through it.
She hauled herself to her feet and looked around. She was back in the cemetery.
Good, she thought. I need to find Lauren. And Greg, and Noah.
She began searching through the graves until she spotted an open one. Her shoulders sank in relief; it didn't look like it was full of water. She rushed over to it and dropped to her knees, peering inside.
But then a hand shot out and grabbed her wrist in an iron grip, and to her horror she realized it wasn't her friends waiting for her in the grave.
It was Ronan.
With a wide, yellow grin he yanked on her wrist and she tumbled down into the grave with him, landing hard in the dirt.
"I've been wondering when you'd end up here," he told her.
Sarah scrambled away from him and felt around in the damp earth for something—anything—to help her. When her fingers touched something sharp she gripped it and held it out in front of her. It was a large, jagged piece of glass, etched all over with names in tiny print.
Ronan eyed the makeshift weapon warily.
"Stay away," she said harshly.
"Or what? You'll kill me again?" he asked sarcastically. "Doesn't really work like that. Different rules down here. You'll see, after you've been here a while."
"I'm not staying down here," she said. She looked up at the tall dirt walls of the grave. "I'm climbing out."
"Yeah? Looks more like you're about to pass out," he pointed out with a horrible laugh. "That's what you want, isn't it? You don't want to climb. You want to sleep."
She did. She did want to sleep, more than anything. But she shook her head hard.
"No. I'm—I'm getting out. You can't stop me," she said, brandishing the glass in his direction.
"You can't go up there," he told her. "You know what's up there."
Sarah glared at him, about to argue, but then from above her she heard a sound. Leaves crunching and twigs snapping as something slowly moved across the ground above them, approaching the grave.
"Yeah, you hear it," he said with a nasty grin. "You can't go up there or it will find you. So you're stuck down here. Trapped. With me."
Sarah stayed still for a moment, listening to the achingly slow moving footsteps growing closer.
Then her gaze fell back to Ronan, and with a quick flash of certainty, she knew.
"You're wrong," she whispered.
"What?"
"I'm not trapped with you. Not anymore," she said. "Not…ever again."
"Yes, you are," Ronan snarled, growing angrier now. "You belong down here. Look at you. Look at your hands. You're filthy. Dirty."
Sarah looked down at herself, at the blood that stained her hands and the mud and dirt that was smeared all over her skin.
"No," she whispered.
Ronan's voice grew louder, harsher, until he sounded less than human.
"You belong down here with me. You always have. That's why you still dream about me, still see me when you close your eyes—"
"Shut up!" she yelled, and for once it came out as loud as she'd intended. "I'm getting out. And you're not coming with me."
Sarah grabbed at the roots that stuck out of the dirt walls and started to pull herself up, climbing out of the grave painstakingly slow.
Below her, she could hear Ronan screaming at her, but she didn't listen to the words. It didn't matter anymore. She knew he couldn't touch her. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she was positive of it.
When she had finally clawed her way out, she stayed kneeling on the ground for a moment, her eyes closed. God, she was tired. She just wanted to go to sleep. But she couldn't; she had things to do.
She used the last of her energy to climb to her feet, and opened her eyes.
She was in her apartment, standing in the middle of her living room. Her eyes fell on the front door. Nothing was knocking yet.
But she knew it was coming, Sure enough, she heard a distant 'ding' as the elevator arrived on her floor.
Sarah looked down at her hands. They were clean. The blood and the dirt was all gone.
She heard footsteps slowly moving down the hall, coming closer.
Then she breathed in, reached out, and opened the door.
Once Matt had changed out of his ruined tuxedo and grabbed Stick's burner phone, he had a choice to make: Go to the fundraising venue first to see if he could pick up on the whereabouts of the bag without being detected; or go to Elliot Bradshaw's nightclub first to get more information on his involvement in the attack.
The logical choice might have been to find the bag, but Matt wasn't feeling logical. The devil inside him was itching to be let out on someone, and who better than Elliot, the supplier behind the tranquilizer darts that were currently keeping Sarah unconscious in a hospital bed?
Besides, if the bag had been left at the museum it had most likely been collected with the rest of the guests' personal belongings that had been left behind and brought to the police station. The police would have no reason to search any of the partygoers' belongings unless there was something outwardly suspicious about them. So it should sit untouched in the 15th Precinct evidence room, and Matt had enough experience with needing to retrieve things from there to know that he was able to do it.
It would be helpful if he had someone on the inside to help keep an eye out for it, but his usual ally in the NYPD probably thought, along with the rest of the city, that Daredevil was a lunatic who had just attacked a charity ball full of innocent people and tried to murder a journalist for speaking out against him. Then again, Brett had been around the first time Daredevil had been framed. Maybe he wouldn't believe it as easily as the rest.
So, having put the problem of the lost bag on the back burner, Matt found himself in an alleyway outside Elliot Bradshaw's nightclub with the man in question on the ground beneath him, pinned with one knee on his hand and one on his chest.
"I'm going to ask you some questions. You're going to want to answer each one, and I don't recommend lying to me. Understood?" he asked.
Elliot didn't say anything, just panted as he continued trying to squirm out of Matt's grip, to no avail.
Matt dug his knee harder against Elliot's chest. "That was a question."
"Yeah, man. Jesus. I understand."
"A group of men staged an attack on a fundraiser in Hell's Kitchen tonight, working with someone pretending to be me," Matt said. "They gave your name as the person who sent them."
"My name? The hell? I didn't stage anything!"
Elliot was tense with confusion and outrage, but his heart rate didn't skip. He wasn't lying.
"Why did they say you did?"
"The hell if I know!"
"The attack involved the tranquilizer darts that you sell. Did you sell them to someone new recently?"
"What—what tranquilizer darts?" he asked, and his time his confusion sounded far from genuine.
With a scowl, Matt applied more pressure to his right knee until Elliot's hand made a sickening crunching noise underneath it.
"Okay! Okay, those—those darts. I—yeah, I sell them. I don't keep track of who buys them. Just randos, bro."
"Well, one of those customers used them to try to murder both a local journalist and Wilson Fisk's wife."
Matt heard Elliot's heartbeat skyrocket at that.
"Vanessa?" he asked. "Shit. I didn't try to kill Vanessa, okay? I'm not insane. Her husband could have me popped in a second without even leaving his cell."
But there was something about the way he was talking about her that made Matt suspect he didn't just know of her reputation as Fisk's wife.
"You know Vanessa Fisk," he said. "You've met her."
"No," Elliot said.
It was a lie that was quickly met with painful pressure applied to his chest, and Elliot let out a ragged gasp.
"Not really! She comes in sometimes. To buy product."
Matt frowned. He lifted his weight from Elliot's chest just slightly, enough so he could speak more clearly. Elliot took in a few deep, gasping breaths.
"What product does she buy?"
"She's been here a few times to buy tranquilizer darts. I've tried selling her some of my other stuff, but that's all she's ever interested in."
"Tell me more."
"She just shows up sometimes, pays way over the market value to buy whatever I have in stock. I don't know why. Those things are shit, man. It's a lottery using them. I even offered to try getting some better ones for her, ones that you can actually tell what effect they'll have. She didn't want to."
"Did she buy some recently?"
"Nah. She came a couple days ago looking for some, but my last shipment got jacked from the truck."
"The darts were stolen?" Matt repeated sharply. He bit back a frustrated groan; that was information that could have been shared earlier. "Where did the truck get robbed?"
"The big junkyard a few blocks from here," he said, jerking his head to the side.
Matt was poised to ask another question, but he got sidetracked by a different one as a realization hit him.
"Did Vanessa Fisk buy the darts that were used on Officer McDermott's mother?" he asked.
Elliot appeared not to have learned his lesson about playing dumb, because he swallowed and shrugged as best he could with Matt's entire weight pressing him into the floor.
"No idea. I don't know what people do with them once they—ah!" he yelled out as Matt lost his patience and aimed a sharp blow against his jaw. "But I think…yeah. I think she did. I didn't have that many customers looking for those at that point. And she was being crazy about keeping it a secret."
For a beat, neither of them said anything. Matt was processing that information: Vanessa had been the one to take out Mrs. McDermott. But why?
Elliot seemed to interpret his silence as unhappiness with his answer, and he hurried to say more before taking another blow to the face.
"Look, I had nothing to do with tonight, alright? Do you know how stupid I would have to be to plan an attack like that? Going after Wilson Fisk's wife? A-and if he didn't try taking me out, half my customer base would if they thought I was teaming up with you."
Matt's mouth thinned into a grim line.
"Then it's unfortunate for you that everyone thinks you did it."
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" Elliot groaned. "This is bullshit, man."
"Turn yourself in."
"No—hell, no, are you nuts?" he exclaimed. "Fisk'll have me shivved to death the second I get to jail! Or—or shanked—shit, I don't know which one would hurt worse. Is there a difference?"
"Shut up," Matt said in irritation. "Either turn yourself in or get out of the city. Either way, I don't ever want to see your product on the streets of Hell's Kitchen again."
Elliot paused, and the tiny, rusted cogs of his brain seemed to be turning as he went through his choices. It seemed fairly obvious: staying in Hell's Kitchen meant death at the hands of Fisk or his own customers.
And if Sarah didn't wake up soon, he could possibly add the Devil of Hell's Kitchen to that list.
Sarah was awake for a few minutes before she found the energy to open her eyes. Her eyelids, much like the rest of her, felt like they were being weighed down by something heavy. So she lay still for a while, listening to the sounds around her: beeping from somewhere very close by, voices passing by in the hallway. It wasn't until she heard someone actually step into the room that she forced her eyes open.
"I'd try not to move too much if I were you," she heard a female voice say. "The more you move, the more your head is going to pound."
That wouldn't be a problem, because as far as Sarah could tell her entire body was made of lead. However, just contemplating the idea of moving did in fact seem to make her head pound with pain.
The person who had spoken came into view: it was a slightly blurry Claire Temple. And Claire Temple meant Sarah had landed herself in the hospital.
She wanted to say something, but found that she barely had the energy to keep her eyes open, much less form words.
Claire seemed unsurprised by her lack of conversation.
"Glad to see you awake. Can you follow this pen with your eyes?" she asked Sarah, holding a pen up in front of her face and moving it from left to right.
Sarah watched the pen move back and forth; her vision still looked a bit blurry, but seemed to be getting better.
"Good," Claire said, apparently approving of Sarah's pen-watching skills.
Neither of them spoke for a while as Claire kept herself busy checking Sarah's vitals: her blood pressure, her pupil dilation, her heart rate.
"You've had a lot of visitors," Claire said as she finished recording Sarah's BPM on her chart.
"Yeah?" Sarah said, finally able to muster the drive to answer verbally. She was surprised at how thin and cracked her voice sounded.
"Mhm. Your friend who was with you the last time you ended up here. I think her name is Lauren?"
"Mhm."
"A guy was here a couple times, too."
"A guy?"
"Yeah. Thin, British, broken foot."
"Greg," Sarah said with a tired nod. "Lauren's husband. My friend."
"And one visit from a very stressed out woman who kept asking where the nurse's smoke spot was."
"Allison?" Sarah asked in confusion.
"I didn't catch her name, but she seemed pretty unhappy that her party went so sideways."
"Sideways is…putting lightly," Sarah said. "Do you know…what happened to Cecilia?"
"Cecilia Gladstone?" Claire asked. "The journalist?"
Sarah nodded.
"Is she a friend of yours?"
Sarah was so relieved to hear Claire using 'is' and not 'was' that she barely reacted to the idea of her and Cecilia being friends.
"We know each other."
"Well, she's down the hall. Her condition's not good at all. She's in a coma. It…might be permanent. We have to wait and see."
A coma. Cecilia wasn't dead, but…a coma wasn't much better.
"You could have slipped into one too, you know. If things had gone a little differently. It's lucky you're staying sober these days," Claire noted. "The way your heartrate dropped? If you'd had even a few drinks in your bloodstream adding to that…"
Sarah's stomach turned as she thought of Lauren—tipsy Lauren enjoying her first carefree night in a while—and how close she'd come to being the one to get hit with that dart—if Matt hadn't pulled her out of the way.
Matt. Her last memory was of him frantically trying to keep her awake.
"Where's Matt?" she asked Claire.
"Matt has been out beating up half of Hell's Kitchen the last two nights trying to find out what actually went down at that party."
"Two nights? What day is it?" she asked.
"Very late Saturday night," Claire answered. So Sarah had been out for an entire day. "Actually, scratch that. It's now officially early Sunday morning. But Matt's still out patrolling. When your monitors started going off, I called him and told him you were waking up. He'll be here soon. The media and the police are really out for his blood right now—more so than usual. So it might take him longer to get here. He has to be careful."
Because of the fake Daredevil. Right. It was starting to come back to her now, slowly. And then—
"My bag," Sarah said abruptly. Even speaking suddenly made everything hurt. "It's…red. Sparkly. Where is it?"
"You didn't come in with anything," Claire said. "Matt already asked about it."
The bag was gone. The bag with Matt's mask in it, and his burner phone. Not to mention three waterlogged smart phones belonging to herself, Cecilia, and Vanessa.
Oh, god. Who knew who might have picked it up? The cops? One of Vanessa's security details? At least Matt already knew. Maybe he'd already found it.
"There are some side effects and precautions I want to go over with you," Claire said. "When you get discharged, are you going home? Or will you be with someone? Matt, maybe, or Lauren?"
"Um…" Sarah hadn't thought about it yet. She'd planned on returning to her own apartment now that it was safe, but now the idea of being there alone sounded awful. "With Matt, probably."
"Okay. Then I'd rather wait until he gets here so I can talk to both of you. With your condition, it would be helpful for someone else to be informed. But it's your medical information, so it's up to you."
"No, that's…that's fine," Sarah said faintly. Her eyelids were starting to get heavy again. "Tell him whatever he needs to know."
Sarah's vision was starting to get blurry again, and she decided she would just close her eyes for a few minutes while she waited for Matt to get there.
But she quickly slipped back into her dreamland, where she found herself trying to walk down the hall to Cecilia's room to visit her. But like every cliché movie, the more she walked the longer the hallway got, until Cecilia was a million miles away.
Sarah woke with a start. She hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep again. To her relief, Claire was still standing by the chart at the end of her bed, so she couldn't have been asleep too long. She slowly started to sit up, and the pain in her abdomen got worse.
"Careful," Claire warned her when she saw her wince. "You've got a pretty nasty bruise where that dart hit you. Right down to the muscle."
Sure enough, when Sarah pulled at the neck of her hospital gown to take a look, a large bruise was covering a large portion of her stomach. Great.
"Didn't know a little dart could do much damage," she said.
"A little dart being fired out of a gun can."
Sarah nodded, then glanced around the otherwise empty room.
"Will Matt be here soon?"
Claire's lips quirked up as she fixed Sarah with a sympathetic look.
"Matt has already come and gone. Twice, actually. And you were out like a light both times."
"What?"
"Yeah. You better be awake next time or he's going to think I'm messing with him."
"How long was I asleep?" she asked.
"Seven years," Claire answered seriously. "It's 2022."
"Funny," Sarah murmured.
"Sorry," Claire said with a quick flash of a smile. "But it is Monday."
Monday? That actually explained why Claire was wearing completely different scrubs than she had been before.
"Monday? Where did all of Sunday go?"
"Be glad you only lost a couple days. Some of the others who got hit with those darts aren't doing half as well."
For some reason, Matt not being there was reminding Sarah unpleasantly of her dream. As illogical as it was, she couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had settled over her at the sad smile Dream Matt had given her when he'd told her she couldn't do anything to help him. Why couldn't she stop thinking about that?
"Would you mind if I used your phone to call him?" Sarah asked. "Mine's...somewhere."
"Sure," Claire said. "He gave me the number for another burner he's been using."
Sarah was sure she meant the burner Stick had given him. At least that miserable old bastard did something useful every now and then.
It took Matt several rings to answer. That wasn't unusual considering he usually had to duck out to somewhere more private before answering his burner.
"Claire, hey," he answered. "How is she doing?"
And that did it. Just like that, hearing his voice on the other end of the line tamped down the irrational anxiety that had been building in her chest.
"You should really ask Claire how she's doing before you skip to asking her about me," Sarah answered, trying to keep some of the exhaustion out of her voice.
Matt paused.
"Sarah?"
"Hi."
There was another short pause, and Sarah wondered for a moment if they'd lost their connection.
"Hey. You're okay," he breathed out, then backtracked. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I just…really wanted to hear your voice," she said truthfully. She was too tired to play it cool.
"It's good to hear yours, too. You have no idea," Matt said with a low laugh.
"I'm sorry I kept falling asleep before you came to see me. Can you come back?"
"I'll be there as soon as I'm done," he said immediately. "I'm about to go into court; it's the last session of the day."
Sarah was cheered by the idea that she would get to see Matt soon. They had a lot to talk about; and even if they hadn't, she just wanted his presence close by, his warmth balancing out the cold sterileness of the hospital.
Claire had needed to leave to check on her other patients, but she stopped by a little while laterto get her phone.
"Need anything else?" she asked Sarah.
Sarah knew Claire was already going above and beyond her job description, but she couldn't help asking for one more thing.
"Is there anything to read in this place? Some books?" Sarah asked hopefully. "I'm so bored. I don't even care if they're about, like, diseases or whatever."
"Best I can do is a couple trashy celebrity tabloids from the waiting room."
"I'll take it."
"I'll bring them when I'm done doing my rounds."
Without Claire there to talk to, Sarah found herself yet again with very little to do. She didn't have her phone or anything else to entertain her. She lay still for awhile, trying to will herself to fall asleep again just to pass the time. Matt could wake her up when he got here. But after two full days of being mostly unconscious, more sleep was the last thing her body seemed to want.
Eventually she found herself testing how much she could move around, half out of curiosity and half out of sheer boredom. Sarah gradually sat up and lowered her feet onto the cold tile floor. She took a few experimental steps and was pleased to find that while it was tiring, it wasn't painful. That was good, at least.
But after a while of taking careful, measured steps around the room, Sarah found that her energy was drained. She slowly came to a stop in front of the window. Dismayed at how much just a few laps around the room had cost her, she leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.
"The bed might be more comfortable."
Startled by the sudden voice behind her, Sarah spun around too fast. Her head protested the abrupt movement by making the room spin, and she squeezed her eyes shut to stop the dizziness as she swayed on the spot. Then a pair of warm, calloused hands caught her by either arm, keeping her steady.
"Hey, easy," came Matt's calm voice in her ear.
"Sorry. Moved a little too fast," she mumbled.
"Why are you out of bed?" he asked
"Just wanted to see how long I could walk around."
"Maybe you shouldn't be walking around at all."
A snort came from the open doorway, and Sarah looked over to see Claire watching them.
"Why do I recall you being on the other side of that particular conversation on more than one occasion?" she shot at Matt.
Sarah let out a faint laugh as she let Matt lead her back over to her bed where she dropped heavily onto the white sheets.
"He is kind of right, though," Claire continued. "You should only be exerting yourself in short bursts, and resting in between. Not testing your limits."
Matt raised his eyebrows pointedly at Sarah, who sent a dirty look in Claire's direction.
"Traitor," she muttered.
Claire laughed. "I just came to check on how you're doing, but looks like you're already under some intense medical supervision. I found a few more trashy celebrity magazines for you."
She tossed the magazines onto Sarah's bed and Sarah eyed them gleefully, eager for any kind of entertainment that could distract her after Matt left.
"You're a saint," she told Claire. She grabbed the magazines and gingerly leaned back against the pillows, trying not to agitate her bruised abdomen too much. Her cautious movements caught Matt's attention, and he tilted his head towards her. "It's just a bruise from the dart," she reassured him.
Matt's mouth thinned, and he spoke over his shoulder to Claire. "I told you she would play it down."
Sarah's confused gaze moved from Matt to Claire.
"I already filled him in on your condition. With your permission, you might remember," she added quickly. "That's a serious injury to your abdominal muscles, Sarah. I don't want to hear about you going to the boxing gym any time soon."
Between the two of them, Sarah was starting to feel somewhat like a child who was being scolded.
"I wasn't planning on it," she couldn't help protesting.
"Good. How are you feeling?" Claire asked.
"Good. I'm tired, but…otherwise fine. I can walk around okay. Actually, I think I can check out soon," she added hopefully.
Matt cast his eyes towards the ceiling, then addressed Claire over his shoulder.
"These beds don't come with restraints, do they?"
Claire looked from one to the other and rolled her eyes.
"And on that note, I'll leave you two alone."
Once Claire left the room, Sarah looked at Matt, studying the tired circles under his eyes and the tight set of his jaw.
"Claire's been keeping me updated on the news. Are you okay?" she asked.
"I'll be alright," Matt said with a shrug and an unconvincing half-grin. "This isn't the first time that the people of Hell's Kitchen have wanted my head on a platter. I just hope this psycho doesn't go after anyone else again anytime soon."
"Are you any closer to figuring out who he was?"
"Not really. I did confirm that Elliot Bradshaw had no prior knowledge of the attack that was supposedly done in his name. And…that Vanessa Fisk was the one who purchased the tranquilizer used on Aaron McDermott's mother."
"What? But why?"
"You know her better than I do."
Sarah tried to think about why Vanessa would want to attack McDermott's mother. Just to protect the company? Or something personal?
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Apparently she buys those tranquilizers often. Elliot said she came looking to buy some darts a few days ago, but they had all been stolen the night before."
"By Jason," Sarah guessed. "To give to crazy fake Daredevil."
"Jason's the only one that makes sense. Attacking the fundraiser knocks down a lot of pins for him: he could take out Vanessa, turn the public against Daredevil, and make sure his main competition gets a lot of new enemies by making it look like Elliot coordinated the whole thing."
Sarah shook her head in dismay. "You definitely can't accuse Jason of not being smart, at least. What about my bag? With your mask, and our phones?"
Matt shrugged off her words, but she saw the stress lines at the corners of his eyes tighten.
"I'm working on it." Then he paused. "Can you tell me what it looked like?"
Sarah was a little confused as to how that information could be useful to him, but she answered anyway. "It's a big clutch. Um…sparkly, red."
"Okay. Good. We'll find it," he said. "Don't worry about all that for now, alright? Worry about you. Focus on resting."
"I'm fine," Sarah said with some frustration. Again she couldn't help thinking of her dream, of Matt being so insistent she worry about herself and not him. Why couldn't she stop thinking about it? Tranquilizer-induced dreams must be stronger than regular ones. "It's not like some of the other times. I'm just tired, like I ran a marathon. But I can still help you figure things out. My head is working fine."
And that was mostly true, aside from the fact that her head hadn't stopped hurting since she woke up.
Matt laughed and ran the back of his hand down her cheek. "Yeah? You still have all the continents rattling around in there?"
"All five of them," Sarah said with a faint smile. Matt just shook his head at her. "Really, I'm fine. Mentally I'm all here, it's just…my muscles don't always want to agree."
"It'll take some time," he said. Then he nodded his head towards the side table next to the door, where she just now noticed he had set down a small backpack. "I stopped by your place. Brought you some clothes. Can't guarantee they'll match, but…"
That was a relief. At least she wouldn't have to wear her strappy black dress out of the hospital when she got discharged. She didn't even think her heels had made it to the hospital with her at all.
"Thanks," she said softly, then perked up a tiny bit. "Did you use your key?"
"I did. Definitely easier than breaking in through the window."
Sarah laughed, but it was weak sounding. "That's good. Just not what I was hoping you'd use it for the first time."
"You have a one track mind, you know that?" he said with a crooked grin.
Then he cocked his head, listening to something. She saw a flash of dismay cross his face before he suddenly stood up from the bed and took a step back.
Sarah looked up at him questioningly.
"What's up?" she asked.
Then she heard a soft knock on her door. It creaked open quietly a moment later, and Lauren stepped into the room. When she saw that Sarah was awake, a strange, conflicted expression crossed her face: relief, clearly, but something else as well.
"You're awake," Lauren said with a smile. Then her eyes travelled to Matt, and she frowned in confusion. "And…retaining legal counsel."
Matt held his hands up with his good-natured Lawyer Smile. "I'm not here for legal matters. I just had a follow-up appointment down the hall to check how my injuries are healing. Figured I'd check in on Sarah."
"You're lucky. I've come by half a dozen times and she's been asleep each time," Lauren said with an uncomfortable laugh. Then after an awkward beat, she continued. "Sorry to interrupt you guys. But there's…there's actually something important I need to talk to you about, Sarah."
"Oh," Sarah said, looking from Lauren to Matt, who cleared his throat.
"Of course. I was just about to leave, anyway. I'll let you two visit," he said. He sent a polite smile and nod towards Sarah's general direction. "Sarah. Get better soon."
"Thanks," she said, although she was positive he wasn't going far. He was surely picking up on the same weird vibes from Lauren that she was, and he was definitely going to want to listen in on why that was, considering Lauren was currently under the impression that his alter ego had just tried to murder her cousin.
After Matt left the room, Lauren took a seat in a chair near the foot of the bed, perched on the very edge like part of her wanted to run away.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, her voice quiet and tired.
"Okay. Um…not in pain. Just really tired," Sarah said. "Like I'm…moving in slow motion, kind of."
Lauren nodded and picked at a loose thread on the chair. She looked at a loss for words.
After a beat, Sarah filled the silence.
"…how's Cecilia?" she asked hesitantly.
Lauren's mouth thinned into a grim line. "She's not awake. She has a lot of damage to her spine and skull. We don't know if…"
Sarah swallowed hard as Lauren trailed off.
"I'm sorry," she said. She didn't want to sound like she was jumping directly from consolation to defending Matt, but it needed to be addressed. "Lauren, listen…I know this is going to sound kind of crazy, but—what happened at the party, it wasn't—"
"Stop, just—don't do that," Lauren interrupted her abruptly. Her voice was shaking, but there was a note of resolve there that was almost unnerving. "I didn't come here to listen to whatever excuse you're about to give for him. I…I came to give you a heads up."
"A heads up…about what?" Sarah asked slowly. She put all of her energy into sitting up a little more as she watched Lauren warily.
"I'm going to the police. They're collecting statements from everyone, and…when they ask for mine, I'm telling them what I know about Daredevil."
Sarah stared at her friend as her tranquilizer-addled brain processed what she had just said.
"You can't do that," Sarah said.
"I have to. I can't keep helping you protect him after what he did."
"Lauren, you don't understand—"
But Lauren wasn't listening. She shook her head fiercely, her eyes getting watery.
"Sarah…I'm so sorry. I'll hire whatever team of lawyers in the world you want if it will keep you from getting in trouble with him. But I have to do this."
"No, you don't," Sarah said forcefully. "It wasn't him. He didn't hurt Cecilia."
"What are you talking about?" Lauren asked in frustration. "We all saw it happen with our own eyes."
"That wasn't him. It was…it was someone dressed up to look like him. An impersonator," Sarah explained.
"An impersonator," Lauren repeated hollowly, and even to Sarah it sounded like a weak excuse. "Of course. How convenient. And I'm guessing he's the one who's telling you that? Was that before or after he apologized for almost killing you with that tranquilizer dart?"
"He didn't have to tell me. I could tell it wasn't him."
"So…he didn't tell you it wasn't him? You're just assuming?"
"N-no, he did tell me," Sarah said. It felt like her head was swimming, and she was having difficulty keeping up with what her friend was saying.
"When? Has he come to see you since then? Was he in here?" Lauren asked. She glanced up at the corners of the ceiling, and Sarah frowned when she realized she was looking for security cameras. "Cecilia is down the hall with machines keeping her alive and he was right here. And no one even knew."
"He wouldn't hurt Cecilia," Sarah said quietly. "He's trying to find out who did."
"He did!" Lauren exclaimed. "Daredevil came after Cecilia because of what she's been writing about him, and now he's lying to you about it—Jesus, Sarah, are you that blind?"
Sarah's heart was pounding, and she took a moment to take a few deep breaths.
"What are you even going to tell the police?" she asked. She was making no headway in convincing Lauren that Matt hadn't been the one to hurt Cecilia, so she might as well address the other problem. "What do you know about him except that he and I are working together?"
"I know a few things. Little things, but still. I know when you mention going to see him you call it his apartment—not his house, or brownstone. So he rents an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. He has access to somewhere with gym stuff where he trains you. And I think he might be Catholic—like, the church-going kind. I don't know if all of that put together will help narrow it down, but it's worth a try."
A pang of guilt hit Sarah's chest as she listened to Lauren list off everything she had let slip about Matt over the past few months. She thought she'd been careful, but she did talk about visiting Matt, and about him training her. The Catholic part surprised her—she definitely didn't recall ever mentioning Matt's church. But it seemed now like she talked a lot more than she ever realized, so maybe she had.
"When are you going?" she asked.
"I'll go to the precinct sometime this week," Lauren said quietly. "And I want you to come with me."
"…what?"
"We can give a statement together. You can tell them everything you know. Tell them your story in your own words, instead of letting them make the connection, and they—they'll give you a deal, they'll help keep you safe if he tries to come after you for it," Lauren said pleadingly. "I know he threatened you. And that he hurt you. At least at the beginning. Telling them that will help them see why you helped him."
Sarah stared at her.
"Lauren, I'm…I'm not doing that."
"Why not?"
"Are you seriously asking me that?" Sarah asked in disbelief.
"I am serious. Sarah, this…this is it. If you still choose to side with him after what he did…I don't know how we can move forward from that," Lauren said, her voice little more than a whisper by the end of the sentence.
"What are you saying?" Sarah asked. But she already knew.
"You're my best friend in the world. I love you so much. I don't want to lose you because of this—because of him."
"But you're not losing me," Sarah corrected her, angrily wiping at her eyes. "You're telling me to go with what you want or you'll cut me out. Giving me an ultimatum—what kind of friend does that?"
"One who's watched you get more and more involved with a man who just killed people," Lauren said desperately. "I don't want you ending up on his list of victims, and I…I don't want your connection to him to put any more of my family members in the crossfire, either. I have a baby, Sarah. And a husband who has no idea how much I've been hiding from him."
"You have everything all wrong. You don't want me to get killed? Then don't try to put the one person who keeps me safe in prison," Sarah said forcefully. "Especially over something that he didn't do—"
She was cut off by the sound of two pairs of high heels in the hallway, and then a sharp knock on the door. The door swung open and Sarah saw Lauren's mother standing in the doorway, with a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Cecilia standing behind her—the biggest difference being the fine age lines around her eyes and mouth and a lost, devastated look on her face that Sarah had never seen on Cecilia's.
"Lauren. I thought we'd find you in here again," Mrs. Gladstone said. If she noticed the tension or the tears between the two of them, she didn't mention it. "We're going home for the night until visiting hours tomorrow. Are you coming?"
Sniffling, Lauren nodded and stood. Then with a last look back at Sarah, she exited the room.
"Sarah, darling, get well soon," Mrs. Gladstone said briefly before putting her hand on Cecilia's mother's back and guiding her away, leaving the door open behind them.
Suddenly exhausted in an entirely different way than before, Sarah pulled her knees up to her chest and lowered her head down onto them.
A few minutes later, she heard the door to her room close quietly. A heavy weight dipped the mattress next to her.
She sniffed and looked up, wiping the tears out of her eyes. Matt was sitting there, concern etched on his face. Somewhere along the line she'd forgotten he would be listening in on that conversation. At least it meant she didn't have to relay it to him.
"Are you alright?" he asked her, brushing her hair out of her face.
Sarah wanted to tell him that no, of course she wasn't. She just lost her best friend. But that seemed like a small thing compared to what was happening on his end, wasn't it? He was the one with an impersonator out there killing people in his name, the one who everyone in the city wanted to see captured and thrown in prison—and Lauren was trying her hardest to make sure it happened.
"I'm sorry," she said instead. "I never thought she'd actually…"
"She's grieving. And she thinks it's because of me. It makes sense."
"I don't know how to make her believe me. I'll…I'll try again, I'll talk to her tomorrow—"
"Don't do that," Matt said. "I want you to hold off on talking to her again for now. Please."
Sarah blinked. "Why?"
"I think it will make things worse. She's upset, and you defending me is just making her angrier. Plus, she's definitely looking for you to tell her more information, and you're not…up to your full strength right now," he said carefully.
"You think I'll slip up and tell her more about you," Sarah said dully. He was probably right.
"Not just about me, about us. This is a bad time for anyone to think you have a link to me, Sarah. You could end up in even more danger than you would have before. Nothing you were saying was convincing Lauren to change her mind; I could hear her heartbeat. All you'd be doing by talking to her again right now is giving her more ammunition."
"But what if she goes to the police?"
Matt inhaled deeply. "I don't think she will. Not unless she finds out more, because she doesn't know much right now. I think when she thinks it through, she'll realize going to the police with so little information won't do much other than throw you under the bus, and she doesn't want that. She wants to hurt me, not you."
Sarah bit her lip, watching him closely. His shoulders were tense, and she could hear the stress in his voice. Between the Daredevil impersonator, losing the bag with their things, and her almost dying, the last few days were taking a toll on him. This new development with Lauren definitely wasn't helping.
"Okay," Sarah agreed reluctantly. "I won't talk to her yet."
"Just for a little while. Until I can take care of some of these other things going on, figure something out. Just…promise me you'll be careful," he said imploringly.
Careful. She knew what he meant by that. Don't be reckless, don't make things worse like she tended to do. She could handle that. Right?
"I promise," Sarah said. When he still looked doubtful, she held out her pinky for him to take.
With a shake of his head, Matt took it, linking his own pinky finger through hers. He brought his other hand to the back of her head, pulling her forward and pressing his lips to her forehead.
"I have to go. Get some rest."
On his patrol that night, Matt sought out his only potential ally in the NYPD: Brett Mahoney. He just hoped he would be willing to listen.
He ended up tracking him down outside of a pawn shop where Brett was questioning the owner about some stolen goods that may have been fenced there. Matt waited in the shadows at the opening of the alleyway next door until Brett stepped outside.
"Sergeant," Matt spoke quietly.
He heard Brett's heartbeat pick up a little as his muscles tensed. He turned toward where Matt was lingering in the dark.
"I'm supposed to arrest you on sight, you know," he informed Matt. "Considering what's all over the news."
"I do know," Matt said. "But the fact that you haven't reached for your weapon makes me wonder if you know something's not right about that story."
Brett snorted.
"More like I doubt I could get it drawn in time."
"Probably not," Matt acknowledged.
Brett looked around before stepping closer and lowering his voice. "What do you mean, something's not right? You're trying to say what we all saw in those videos didn't happen? That no one threw that journalist off a balcony?"
"Someone did. But it wasn't me."
The information didn't seem to shock Brett, but he also didn't seem particularly happy to hear it.
"Not you," he repeated. "So, what, we have two masked vigilantes running around Hell's Kitchen now? Great. That's exactly what I need, another guy trying to operate outside the law."
"I can take care of him for you once I find him. But in the meantime, I have a problem."
"Yeah, I agree. You should see someone about that."
Matt ignored the jab. "The problem is that I've lost something. A bag. I think it might end up in your evidence room, if it hasn't already. And I need it back."
"Why would it be there?"
"Because the last time it was seen was at the fundraiser, after the attack."
Brett groaned.
"You're asking me to steal police evidence that could be used in an active investigation?"
"No," Matt said nonchalantly. "I'm asking you to leave a couple doors unlocked so I can steal it."
Mahoney shook his head, blowing out an exasperated breath.
"That's not convincing."
"Look, what's in that bag isn't going to lead you to the person who attacked that journalist, or all those other people at the charity ball. So you're not technically tampering with the investigation."
"Right-technically. Semantics. You know, if you hadn't gone for the vigilante career path maybe you should have been a lawyer. With the way you like to twist words."
Matt paused.
"Guess we'll never know," he said.
"Doesn't matter much. I don't trust either one," Brett said.
Matt cracked a grim smile. "If you don't trust me, why are you still standing here?"
"Maybe I don't trust you, but I also don't think you'd be a part of what happened at that fundraiser. Maybe that's my own fault of judgment."
"Look, if that bag shows up in your precinct…the person who actually hurt all those people this won't be the person who gets sent to jail. So what do you care about more? Exposing my identity, or catching the person who actually did this? Because the moment they arrest me, no one will be looking for him."
There was a long stretch of silence until Brett finally spoke.
"What kind of bag is it?"
"A purse. The formal kind. Red, sparkly."
"Doesn't sound like your style," Brett said dryly.
"The bag belongs to someone else. But what's inside is mine."
"Alright. Look, I'm not making any promises," Brett said, sounding irritated. "But if I come across a bag matching that description…I'll think about letting you know."
"Thank you, Sergeant."
"And you better be working overtime tracking down this other guy, because I don't have time to be chasing two Daredevils all up and down Hell's Kitchen."
"Understood."
And with that, the conversation was done, and Matt disappeared silently back into the shadows.
That night, Sarah dreamed again about the hallway between her room and Cecilia's. That endless hallway, stretching out between them for miles.
It wasn't until late the next afternoon that Sarah felt she could actually leave the hospital without fainting in the street. It took a while, but she managed to change out of her hospital gown and into the clothes Matt had brought her. She bit back a smile when she saw he had somehow managed to grab the loudest and most clashing colors possible, and reminded herself to tease him about it later.
But before she could leave, there was something she needed to do. If only to make the dreams stop.
After gathering up the few belongings she had in her room and shoving them into her backpack, Sarah slowly walked down the hall towards Cecilia's room. She wasn't sure exactly what time it was, but from the quiet in the halls she didn't think it was visiting hours. Sure enough, when she got to Cecilia's doorway she found no one else inside. Just Cecilia, lying still in her bed with tubes hooked up to her mouth and nose, and a thick brace around her neck. Between the brace and the sheet that was pulled up over most of her body, it was difficult to see much of her skin, but what Sarah could see looked dark with bruises.
It was eerie, seeing her look so much smaller and motionless than she ever had while awake.
Sarah heard footsteps behind her and glanced over her shoulder to see Sergeant Mahoney walking down the hall towards her.
"Sarah," he greeted her. "Are you checking out today?"
"Yes," she said. Then she glanced back at Cecilia's room. "Were you coming in here?"
"No. I was looking for you, actually."
"Why?"
"We're collecting statements from everyone who was at the party. I wanted to see if you'd be willing to come down to the police station to give yours."
"Um…does it have to be now?" she asked.
"It doesn't. But…I thought maybe you might want to give your statement to me," he said carefully. "And if you do it another day, I can't guarantee it won't be someone else."
"Can we do it here?"
Mahoney shook his head. "Sorry. Police chief is insisting everyone come to the station to give their story. Some of the old crew had a habit of…saying they got statements out in the field that they never really got. He's trying to break that tradition."
Sarah didn't have much reason to say no. She was planning to leave the hospital anyway, and she'd already gone over in her head what she needed to say for her statement.
"Okay. Let's go," she said tiredly.
At the police station, Mahoney nodded towards a seating area off to the left.
"You can wait over there. There's a few other witnesses waiting to give their statements, so we'll call you when it's your turn."
Sarah nodded and turned to the waiting area-only to find Lauren sitting there, staring down at her lap with a miserable expression on her face.
"Lauren?" she said in surprise.
Lauren's head snapped up. And then Sarah saw it.
Sitting on Lauren's lap, clasped tightly in her hands: the sparkly red clutch.
"Sarah," Lauren said blankly. "I…"
"I need to talk to you," Sarah cut her off. "Outside. Please."
To her relief, Lauren didn't object, just gave her a sad look before nodding and slowly rising from the bench.
The desk sergeant gave them a questioning look as they passed.
"I, um…I need some fresh air," Sarah said. "I feel kind of nauseous. She's—she's just going to come with me."
"To make sure she's good," Lauren mumbled.
The desk sergeant looked faintly annoyed, but she nodded towards the door.
"Don't take too long."
Outside, Sarah scanned the area until she spotted what looked like an unused smoking area near the side of the building. It was far enough from the front doors that no one would overhear them, but out in the open enough that no one could sneak up on them. She slowly made her way over there with Lauren following her. Just the short walk took all of her energy, and she had to sit down on one of the concrete benches to keep from getting dizzy.
Lauren remained standing. She looked nearly on the verge of tears already as she watched Sarah and waited for her to speak.
"You have my bag," Sarah said, beginning with the obvious.
"I saw it after they put you in the ambulance, so I grabbed it for you," Lauren said quietly. "But then I looked inside."
"Why didn't you tell me you had it?"
"Because I knew you'd want it back, and I can't give it to you. And I really didn't want the guy who just murdered a few people to come looking for his stuff at my place."
"Lauren," Sarah began, her voice tight. "You don't understand—"
But Lauren shook her head and cut her off.
"Yes, I do. The mask has his blood all over it. That's DNA, if they have anything to match it to. And I know the flip phone is his. I recognize it from the last time you were in the hospital because of him. When I thought he was trying to help you," she said with a hollow, humorless laugh. "I know he wears gloves, but…if there's any chance his fingerprints are on there, it's worth a shot."
It would have his fingerprints on it. All over it. And somewhere in the back of Sarah's pounding head, she remembered Matt telling her he'd had to get fingerprinted when he'd joined the state bar. Meaning there would be a match in the system.
"You…you can't give that to them."
"I'm sorry. I have to," Lauren said, tears falling from her eyes now. "I love you so much, but you're lost. You don't see him for what he is."
"No. No, that's not true," Sarah said forcefully, and she could feel her own eyes beginning to fill as well. "I promise you, that was not the real Daredevil that attacked Cecilia."
"Why would I believe that?" Lauren demanded. "Why do you believe it? Because he told you so? Because—because you don't want to think that someone you trusted would do something like that? Open your eyes, Sarah! You've been running around with someone who—who tortures people, and beats people to a pulp every night. And I know that he's supposed to save the good guys and beat up the bad guys. I believed that for a while, too. Mostly because you did. But I warned you. I told you how easy it would be for him to get those wires crossed in his head, and now he has. He decided Cecilia was one of the bad guys who deserved to get hurt, and he followed through on it."
"That's not what happened. You don't understand, you need to give me my bag back—"
Sarah tried to get up, but a strong wave of dizziness hit her, and she closed her eyes for a moment just to keep from passing out. When she opened them again, Lauren was looking at her with a sad, exasperated look.
"Come on, Sarah. What are you going to do, take it from me?" she said. "You can't even stand up. Because of a tranquilizer gun that your friend fired at you, by the way."
As the scene around her stopped spinning, Sarah took a deep breath. There had to be something she could say to convince her.
But Lauren kept going.
"The thing is, Daredevil was wearing his mask when he attacked Cecilia. So I'm guessing he bled through the first one and put on a new one. But what I don't get is…the first mask was in your bag. He had to have given it to you. And you keep saying he was a fake. So you just didn't notice it was the wrong guy? And if it was a random guy, why do you care if his DNA gets to the cops?" Lauren asked.
"I—no. That wasn't him, but…the mask is his—" Sarah stammered, trying to figure out what she should and shouldn't say. Matt was right; she shouldn't have tried talking to Lauren about this while she was so exhausted, while her head was spinning and pounding at the same time. But she hadn't anticipated that Lauren would already be at the police station, ready to turn him in any second.
"So, that means…what? This is the real Daredevil's mask, even though you say he wasn't there last night? That an impersonator was? None of it makes sense, Sarah."
Sarah hesitated.
"Look I…I don't know how to convince you that wasn't him," Sarah said helplessly. "Please, just…trust me."
"I want to. I want to so badly, but I can't. God, at this point I can't even tell if you really believe what you're saying or if you've just gotten that good at lying," Lauren said.
"You know that phone is going to implicate me, too," Sarah said.
Lauren wiped her eyes. "I know. It's all I've been thinking about since I found it. But…but if you just come in with me. Tell your side of the story. Get ahead of whatever blowback will come your way—"
"I told you," Sarah snapped. "I'm not doing that."
Lauren scrubbed her hands over her face, and when she looked back up at Sarah it was with a resigned, hopeless look.
"I don't get it. It's so clear that he's the bad guy here, and you won't even consider it. It's like you're brainwashed."
"Brainwashed?" Sarah repeated, letting out a sharp laugh. She wanted to snap again, to tell Lauren she had no clue what she was talking about; the harm that she was about to do. "Look…I'm not the only person in that phone, okay? There are other people in there, innocent people." Her mind flashed to Foggy, to Claire. "And if you go to the police with what you have, then those people will get hurt."
There was a short pause, and for a moment Sarah hoped that she had gotten through to her in some small way. Lauren sniffled and wiped at her eyes.
"Then I hope they have people in their life who can help them," she said finally. "But I can't worry about them. I have to worry about the people I love. And he's a danger to them. To you. Him and his friends could have killed Greg, he put Cecilia in a coma—he nearly killed you!"
"That wasn't him!" Sarah exclaimed desperately. "You're about to ruin his entire life because of something he didn't even do. I swear, Lauren, there's no way it was him. It couldn't have been."
"You can't know that for sure."
"Yes, I can."
"How? How can you be so positive that—that some mysterious impersonator attacked Cecilia? That it wasn't just the most obvious person?"
Sarah opened her mouth, but no words came out. In a strange way, it was almost as though time had slowed to a crawl. She watched in slow motion as Lauren shook her head, tucked the red clutch under her arm and began to turn back towards the police station.
This couldn't be happening. This wasn't just Lauren threatening to tell the police something; she had hard evidence, Matt's fingerprints and DNA. There would be no fixing that, no taking it back.
And then, slowly, the realization came clear as day: she only had one choice.
"Lauren," she said.
Lauren stopped and turned to face Sarah, grim skepticism already etched all over her face.
"I know he couldn't have done it because…" Sarah drew in a deep, shaky breath before speaking as evenly as she could. "…because…he was with us when it happened."
The silence after her words seemed to stretch on forever. Lauren's brow furrowed, and she shook her head.
"What are you talking about?"
Sarah swallowed hard.
"He was with us, Lauren," she repeated. "When Cecilia got attacked at the fundraiser."
"What? No, that's not possible," Lauren said adamantly. "It was just…me, a-and you, and Greg…"
"It's not Greg," Sarah said patiently, knowing Lauren would arrive at the right conclusion in a moment.
"And…your lawyer," she finished. "Matt."
With her entire stomach twisted into knots, Sarah nodded silently.
She could see the moment when the realization sank in, and Lauren took a step back.
"That's…no. That doesn't make any sense," she said, shaking her head. "You're…you're trying to say that…"
It seemed like she was struggling to process the information, so Sarah spelled it out for her.
"I'm saying that…Matt is Daredevil," she said softly. "He came as Cecilia's date so he could protect me. If something happened. That's why I had his mask."
"That doesn't make any sense," Lauren repeated.
"It does, if you just think about it. Matt pushed you out of the way of that tranquilizer. He probably saved your life doing it," Sarah said. "Normal people don't have those reflexes. Daredevil was right next to you, Lauren. And someone else was with Cecilia."
Lauren was breathing heavily, confusion across her face as she looked all around, anywhere but at Sarah.
"But Matt Murdock is blind."
"Yes."
"Is he faking that?"
"No."
"You're saying a blind guy is the one who beats the shit out of criminals every night all over Hell's Kitchen?"
"…yes," Sarah confirmed. "It's…it's more complicated than that. But…yes."
Lauren's gaze finally found its way back to Sarah. She tilted her head and stared at her hard, her lips pressed together so tightly that all of the color drained out of them.
"God, I can't even tell if you're lying," Lauren said, wiping furiously at her eyes. "You've told so many. Is this just another one to toss on the pile?"
"It's true. Think about it. Why would I make that up?" she asked. "Why would I put Matt in danger if it wasn't true?"
"What do you mean, why? The same reason you've been standing out here with me this whole time! To try to convince me that Daredevil didn't attack Cecilia."
"I am trying to convince you of that. Because it's true," Sarah said. "Please. Please. Don't give that bag to the police. You'll destroy his life. And mine. Because no matter how many lawyers you hire to defend me, Orion won't forgive or forget."
Lauren gave her another long look as she wiped her eyes.
"I—I don't know. I need to go home and think," she said finally.
"And then what?"
"I don't know!" she said. "That's what I need to think about."
"What about the bag?" Sarah asked tentatively.
Lauren shook her head again and took a step back. "I'm sorry. I can't give it to you. Not until I…figure out what's going on."
"But you don't need it. You already have his name," Sarah said.
"Yeah, if—if it really is Matt, like you say. But until I know for sure…I have to hang onto it."
Before Sarah could say anything else, the front door of the police station swung open and she saw Sergeant Mahoney walk out and look around. He spotted them standing by the benches and strode down the stairs and over to them. When he reached them, he looked from one crying woman to the other with some alarm.
"The other witnesses are all done," he said carefully. "We're ready to take your statements now. Whichever of you wants to go first."
Sarah sent Lauren an imploring look, and she saw Lauren waver.
"I…I don't feel well," Lauren said. "I think I might…need to come back another day."
Mahoney looked like he was about to say something, and then his eyes caught on the bag in Lauren's hand. A strange expression crossed his face, that same unsettling look Sarah had seen on his face a few times before: something between realization and resignation, like he was putting the pieces of something together.
"Yeah, alright," he said finally. "You'll need to come back in before the end of the week, though."
He had barely finished speaking before Lauren gave a quick nod and rushed past him, disappearing before Sarah or Mahoney could say anything else.
Mahoney fixed her with a scrutinizing look.
"What about you?"
"I, um—" she swallowed thickly, trying to calm herself down. "I need to come back another time, too."
He sighed.
"Why do I get the feeling you weren't going to have a lot to share, anyway?" he asked. "Come back before week's end if you don't want an officer knocking on your door."
"I will," she said. She tucked her hair behind her ear with a shaking hand and began to walk away from him.
"Hey," he called after her, and she turned around. He gave her a pointed look. "You need to be careful."
Careful? Sarah thought as she walked toward the street to hail a cab. I'm pretty sure I just blew careful to pieces.
The cab ride to Matt's was short—short enough that she normally might have walked if her head hadn't felt like it was splitting apart, and if she hadn't genuinely thought she might pass out if she walked too far. But despite the short distance, it felt to Sarah like time was stretching out very slowly. As the cab passed by towering buildings and crowded sidewalks, the same words kept repeating themselves over and over inside her head:
He's never going to forgive me for this.
She knew she could screw up just about anything and Matt would stay by her side. He'd forgiven her for every lie, every reckless decision and neurotic freak out. But this was different. This was the one thing that had hung so heavily over the two of them since they met. From the beginning, he'd been convinced she would expose his secret. And they'd made it all the way to where they were now before she finally did.
A few minutes later, she stood outside Matt's front door, trying to force herself to knock. Maybe he wasn't home. Maybe he was at the office. Or what if he was in court? She knew it was useless right now to try to recall if he had court today, but if he did he'd be unreachable. And if Lauren did go back to the police, Sarah would have no way to warn him, he wouldn't know what was coming—
"Sarah?" came a voice from behind her.
Sarah spun around—a movement which both made her dizzy and caused the pounding in her head to worsen—and there he was. Standing in front of her with his grey suit jacket draped over his arm, his tie loose and collar unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up. Deep, tired circles under his eyes and an air of stress and exhaustion hanging over him.
"What are you doing here? I didn't think you were supposed to be out of the hospital yet." Matt said.
Now that she was here, standing in front of him and seeing the confused look on his face, she suddenly felt very sure there was no possible way she could make it through this conversation.
"I…I needed to talk to you," she forced out. Her throat felt dry.
He slowly tilted his head.
"Okay. Come on," he said, and he reached around her to unlock the front door.
Matt put a steadying hand on the small of her back as they stepped into the apartment and he closed the door behind them.
Sarah stopped in the middle of his living room and tried to gather her thoughts. Her body was so exhausted just from the trip here that she wanted to sink down on the couch, but she didn't. Instead, she and Matt stood facing each other.
"What's going on?" he asked, his eyebrows knitted in concern.
Sarah bit her lip and studied him, memorizing his face, wondering if this was the last time she'd see him open and unguarded.
"Matt, I…I have to tell you something," Sarah said slowly.
His brow creased even more and he tilted his head, stepping closer to her. He brought a careful hand to the side of her face, his other hand resting on her waist to steady her. She wished he wouldn't. Having him so close to her, where she could breathe him in and feel the heat of his hands on her—it only made it more difficult to say what she needed to tell him.
"What's wrong?" he asked quietly, his tone so gentle that her heart broke.
Sarah felt her heartbeat pounding in her own ears; she could only imagine how loud it was to Matt, an alarm bell warning of what was coming. She titled her head back to look up at him.
"Lauren knows," she managed to speak. "She…she knows who you are."
The seconds after her words hit him seemed to stretch on painfully, painfully long. At first, the only thing that she could see register in his eyes was confusion.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "How?"
Sarah opened her mouth to answer him, but couldn't force the words to come out.
"How does she know, Sarah?" he asked slowly.
"I told her," she whispered.
His mouth moved like he was formulating words, but he snapped it closed again. He let go of her so abruptly it set her head spinning again as he took a step back from her.
"What?"
His entire demeanor had changed, his body language already closing her out like she was a stranger. Like he didn't even know her.
"I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I'm sorry, I had to. She—she was talking about going to the police—"
"Yeah, I know that. So what made you think your next step should be to give her my name to take with her?" he asked incredulously.
"She found my bag, Matt. The one with your mask. She was going to turn it in. It had your blood all over it—"
Matt scrubbed both hands over his face, turning away from her as he began to pace the living room. "This can't be happening."
"—and your phone, with your fingerprints," she continued desperately. "I didn't have a choice—"
"Didn't have a choice?" Matt repeated. "You could have chosen not to go back and talk to Lauren about this again—like you promised me. Remember that?"
Sarah swallowed as another pang of guilt hit her. She took a few tentative steps closer to where Matt now stood next to the window, the heavy rise and fall of his shoulders backlit by the billboard outside.
"I didn't mean to break my promise, I swear. It's not like I went looking for her, it just—"
"—just happened," he finished for her. He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. "Of course."
"I had to tell her. It was the only way to convince her that you weren't the one who hurt Cecilia, that you didn't deserve to get exposed—"
Matt slammed his hand hard against the windowpane, causing the entire window to rattle loudly in its frame. Sarah jumped, her heart racing.
"That wasn't your decision to make!" he yelled. "I'm the one she wants to turn in—I'm the one who will get sent to prison for the rest of my life. You should have let me make that call!"
"There was no time! She was going to give the bag to the police!" Sarah exclaimed.
Matt gave a harsh laugh.
"And how did telling her change that, Sarah?" he demanded. "You told her who I am, so she handed you the mask and phone back and agreed to keep it all a secret, right?"
Sarah blinked hard, trying to fight back her ridiculous tendency to cry during fights like these. She knew he could tell she didn't have the mask or the phone on her, that she hadn't gotten them back even after telling his secret. But he was going to make her say it.
She exhaled shakily.
"No," she said. "She kept them."
"And what did she say she's going to do with them? After everything?" he asked. Sarah closed her eyes, hating the flat, impassive tone in his voice. "Is she still going to the police?"
She wanted so badly to tell him no, to reassure him that it would be fine, that he was in no danger. But that wasn't the truth, was it?
The splitting sensation in her head was getting worse, and she took a deep breath and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes to try to stem the dizziness.
Sarah felt hands on her wrists, wrenching her hands away from her eyes. She was met with an expression of such betrayal on Matt's face that she felt like she'd been punched in the stomach.
"No, don't shut down. Not right now," Matt said as Sarah tried to focus on his face. "This is important. Is she going back to the police?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "She wasn't sure if she believed me. She…she doesn't trust you."
Matt let out a bitter laugh as he let go of her wrists.
"Yeah, no shit, Sarah," he snapped. "Why do you think I've been so careful to not let her find out? Why I've tried to get you to be careful?"
"What did you want me to do?" she exclaimed.
"I wanted you to give a damn, just once, about giving me away to Lauren or Cecilia. And you never have," he said.
Sarah's heart twisted.
"That's not true."
"You've never even tried to be careful around either of them. And every time you did the same thing, took the same risk, I just looked past it because I thought on some level you understood how important it was to keep this secret."
She could feel every bit of trust they'd both fought so hard to build just slipping through her fingers like sand.
"No. No, Matt, I swear wouldn't do that to you. I would never do that to you. Please, listen to me—"
"I don't have time to listen to you!" he exclaimed. "I have to go deal with this."
"Deal with it how?"
"I'll start with warning my friends that their lives might get blown apart tonight. Because of this," he said, pointing his finger between the two of them. "And then I'm going to get my things back."
He turned away from her and strode over to the metal doors where he kept his Daredevil gear.
Sarah swallowed hard as a fresh wave of confusion and guilt washed over her. At the time, it had truly felt like she'd had no choice. But maybe she had. Maybe she'd panicked, like she always did, and overlooked the fact that Matt might have had another plan, another way. Maybe in her frantic attempts to save him, she had been reckless with him in exactly the way she'd promised him she wouldn't be.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I feel like an idiot."
Matt pulled the old chest out of the closet and opened it, then straightened up and turned back to her.
"You're not an idiot," Matt said, giving Sarah a split second of hope. Then he gave a short, bitter laugh. "I am."
His words cut into her chest like a knife.
"Matt—"
"How could you do this?" he asked, and for a moment she heard a flicker of hurt behind all the anger. "The one thing I've begged you not to do, over and over again. The one thing you swore you wouldn't do."
"I'm sorry," she said, unable to stop herself from fully crying now. There had to be something she could do to help, some way to make this better. "I'm so sorry. What can I do? Just tell me what to do."
"Go home," he said shortly. "And lock your doors. I'll get in touch with you if you need to go underground because of this, same as the others."
"Matt, please—" she tried again.
He grabbed a mask out of the chest and turned to face her. "Go home, Sarah. If you don't lie back down soon you're going to pass out. And I don't want you to get hurt but I don't want you in my home right now."
Matt didn't turn away from her, but his sightless gaze wasn't aimed quite at her, either. He was breathing hard, his eyes pinned resolutely at a spot on the wall far to her left as a tic jumped in his jaw.
Sarah opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wiped furiously at the tears that she couldn't keep from freely pouring down her face as she walked past him and out the front door, closing it behind her.
She paused for a moment outside his door, trying to collect herself. She'd known. She'd known it would go this way, that this was different from every other rough spot they'd encountered. But knowing it was coming it didn't stop it from ripping her heart to pieces all the same.
There was a loud shattering noise from inside Matt's apartment as something fragile exploded against one of his walls. Sarah jumped, gripping the railing hard. Then she started slowly down the stairs, feeling very much as though everything between them had just shattered, too.
This is one of those chapters where I wonder if I should hide from the comments for a while after posting. But I know some of you out there love the painful scenes as much as I do, so hopefully someone enjoyed it. I hope to talk to you guys again soon!
