Sarah held her breath and silently prayed that Ronan wouldn't be able to recognize Matt in the shadows, that without the dark suit and glasses of his lawyer visage, perhaps the image wouldn't register as familiar in Ronan's eyes.
But yet again she was reminded of why she so rarely prayed.
"You've got to be kidding me," Ronan said, and to Sarah's dismay he sounded thrilled by the revelation. "I recognize you. The lawyer. Matthew Murdock. Oh, this is great."
Matt didn't respond, but his mouth was pressed into a tight line, and Sarah couldn't even begin to imagine what was running through his mind. Did he have a plan? Did he regret what he'd just done? Was he panicking? Or did he feel strangely distant, like she did, almost as though she wasn't really there?
"The—the one who's supposed to uphold the law is the one who's running around causing the cops so much trouble," Ronan crowed in amusement. "How did that happen?"
"Wasn't satisfied with letting scum like you slip through the cracks in the system," Matt replied harshly.
"So you put on a mask and do it at night, too," Ronan mused. "Well, let's take care of that." He roughly propelled Sarah forward a few steps, not loosening his hold on her neck at all. "Be a good girl and kick that mask into the storm drain for me. He won't be needing it for now."
Sarah flicked her gaze downward, being careful not to move her head, and saw the storm drain he was referring to just a foot or two away. The mask was directly in front of them, and she grudgingly scuffed her shoe against it a few times until it slid into the dark concrete opening and disappeared from both sight and reach.
"Excellent. See, if you had been this good at following instructions when you worked for me, maybe we wouldn't have ended up here," Ronan said, satisfied that the offending mask had been disposed of. He pressed her to his chest a little closer so that she could feel something in his jacket against her back. "I brought my tranquilizer gun just in case I needed to calm you down, but look how cooperative you're being. All you needed was to be treated correctly," he sneered.
Sarah didn't say anything, her mind racing as she tried to figure out if there was any way she could reach the tranquilizer gun in his jacket before he could slit her throat—the chances seemed to be slim to none.
When he was met with silence on Sarah's end, Ronan addressed Matt once more. "Now, what I don't understand is how you managed to talk a timid mouse like this one into working with you. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen partnering up with St-St-Stuttering Sarah Corrigan."
There was no point anymore in denying that she had been working with Daredevil. They were far past the point of Ronan ever believing that.
"He didn't talk me into anything," Sarah corrected him, breathing out a laugh that bordered on hysterical as she realized how true that was. She could feel her voice vibrating against the knife as she spoke. "It was…it was my idea."
His surprised pause was an immediate reward. If Ronan was going to cut her throat tonight, she was glad that at least she could prove he didn't know her, that this pathetic image he had of her in his head wasn't who she was.
"Well, I hope it was worth it. Because once I get word to Fisk about what the two of you have done, he'll destroy you both and anyone you've ever cared about, starting with your brain dead father. And then he'll reward me beyond what you could even imagine," Ronan said, his excitement over the prospect clear in his voice. "Just think how he'll react when he hears that the sanctimonious asshole that put him in prison is the very same masked asshole that got him arrested."
As he spoke, Sarah truly started to understand that Ronan couldn't be allowed to leave that alleyway in any shape that would allow him to do what he was threatening.
"You're making this so much worse for yourself, Ronan," she said quietly.
"Excuse me? If things are going to get worse for anyone, it's you, sweetheart. Well, and your blind boy toy, too," he said, turning his attention back to Matt. "Or are you even really blind?"
Sarah realized that in the dark Ronan probably couldn't make out the way that Matt's eyes never quite focused on exactly the right spot.
Matt paused. "Clearly not."
It made sense; it was less risky for Ronan to think Matt could see than for him to know about Matt's enhanced senses.
"Good. Because I'd hate for you to miss out on seeing your girlfriend like this," Ronan said, tightening his grip on her hair so that her neck was just a centimeter more exposed. Sarah tried not to vocalize the pain that jolted through her, not wanting to encourage him. But even if Ronan couldn't hear the effect of his actions on her, Matt could; she knew he was listening to her heart pounding in her ribcage, her breathing ragged and short as she tried not to inhale too deeply and press against the blade to her throat. "Would you like to know what I'm going to do to her?"
"Nothing," Sarah whispered. It took her a moment to realize that she was the one who had just spoken.
"Nothing?" Ronan repeated. "Wishful thinking, princess."
"No. Y-you like to talk, but when it comes down to getting something done...you can't do it. That's why you brought a tranquilizer gun to capture someone half your size." The words were spilling out of her mouth before she could stop them, as though the part of her that desperately wanted to hurt Ronan had overridden the part of her brain that wanted to play it safe.
"Sarah," Matt said softly, a warning note in his voice.
"You should listen to him," Ronan's breath was hot against her ear as he leaned in. "Watch what you say for once. I swear I'll break every bone in your body—"
"Just like you always said you'd do to Daredevil?" she asked, ignoring the voice in the back of her head screaming at her to be quiet, that this was too risky. "And every time he still ended up kicking your ass all over Orion."
"Shut up," Ronan said, the same deadly anger in his voice that she'd heard the night he'd first attacked her.
She kept her eyes on Matt, whose hand was resting on the a few centimeters above the holster where he kept two metal billy clubs held to his leg. He tilted his head to the side slightly, tense and waiting. She hoped his silence meant he was catching on to what she was trying to do.
"Jason saw that, and that's why he fired you," she kept going.
"Shut up," Ronan growled, emphasizing his words by shaking her slightly, the knife digging into her flesh.
"You spent all this time talking about how badly you're going to hurt me. But in the end you're still afraid you won't be able to measure up. So you're taking the easy way out by just slitting my throat. No way to disappoint anyone then—"
Her words finally seemed to do the trick. With a strangled noise of frustration, Ronan whipped her around so that she was facing him, the knife dragging along her throat as he did so, and a second later he was knocked backwards and off his feet as one of the metal billy clubs struck him in the side of the head with startling accuracy. Sarah let out a ragged, pained gasp, her hands flying up to her throat. She could feel that it was wet, but the bleeding didn't seem too heavy; Ronan's anger had made him lose the focus he'd needed to keep the pressure on her throat. She doubled over slightly, trying to catch her breath as adrenaline rushed through her, making her feel light-headed.
Seconds later, she felt a gloved hand on either side of her arms, roughly pulling her upright. She caught sight of Matt, looking so out of place without his Daredevil mask on to conceal the look of panic on his face as he was hit with the strong smell of blood coming from her throat, dripping down onto the neckline of her shirt. His hands slid from her arms up to her face.
"Sarah—"
"I'm fine," she gasped out, wiping at the blood that ran down her collarbone. "It's not—I'm fine."
If there was a sight Sarah didn't think she'd ever forget, it was the look of relief on Matt's face when he heard her voice. He had one hand pressed against her bleeding neck and the other tangled in her hair, and she could feel both of them shaking slightly. He pressed his forehead to hers, just for a moment, and she caught his lips moving but couldn't make out what he was whispering.
Then he let her go, already turning around before Sarah even heard the clatter of Ronan getting up.
Ronan's demeanor had changed completely: the cockiness was gone, and although his usual scowl was still on his face, the panic in his eyes was obvious as he eyed Matt, who was closely tracking Ronan's movement with a dangerous look on his face. He took a step towards Ronan, who gripped the knife in his hand and let out an unconvincing laugh.
"Not so frightening without your mask," Ronan said, but he was taking small steps backwards even as he spoke.
"Are you sure?" Matt said softly, slowly following the other man as he backed away. "You seem pretty afraid to me."
Ronan's thoughts were clear on his face: he considered taking his chances using the knife, which he weighed in his hand, then abruptly reached for the tranquilizer gun on his belt instead, barely managing to raise it a few inches before Matt was on him, easily knocking the gun out of Ronan's hands so that it went skittering across the ground, landing a few feet away from where Sarah stood, swaying slightly and still clutching her neck.
It was difficult to see what was happening in the dark, just two large, shadowy moving quickly, and the occasional flash of the knife as Ronan repeatedly tried to embed it into Matt's chest. Sarah could hear both of them landing blows on each other, and then they abruptly swung into clear sight, illuminated by the streetlamp above as Matt slammed Ronan into the brick wall of Sarah's building. Sarah could see him grasping Ronan's wrist as Ronan struggled to bring the knife closer to Matt's face. Matt wrenched Ronan's wrist backward, wrestling the knife away from him and then—true to his word—he used the man's own weapon against him, driving the knife straight through Ronan's hand, effectively pinning it to the wall. Ronan's screams echoed off of the alleyway walls.
Matt yanked the knife out of Ronan's flesh—eliciting another scream—and threw it down the alley, breathing heavily as he slammed his fist into Ronan's face. Without the knife or the tranquilizer gun, Ronan truly stood no chance, and as Sarah watched she couldn't manage to muster any sympathy for him.
Maybe it was that lack of sympathy that tempted karma away from their side.
Ronan whipped his head forward, connecting his forehead with Matt's and knocking him back a step. Matt recovered quickly, grabbing Ronan by the shoulders and hurling him against the opposite wall of the alley, where he hit the brick with such force that he went sprawling to the ground, landing next to Donovan's unconscious form.
That was where things spun out of control.
Moving quicker than either Sarah or Matt could have anticipated, Ronan scrambled over Donovan, grabbing the cop's gun out of his holster. He used his good hand to fire a shot blindly in Matt's direction, missing by over a yard as he scrambled to his feet. He pointed the gun at Matt again, actually aiming this time, and at such close proximity—
Sarah lurched to the ground, snatching up the tranquilizer gun that lay nearby and aiming it at Ronan. She pulled the trigger before she could think. The dart fired with surprising force, and seconds later it was embedded deeply in Ronan's shoulder.
There was a beat during which all three of them were still, registering what had just happened. Then, to Sarah's relief, Ronan's grip on the gun in his hand slackened, causing him to drop it. His mouth drooped oddly as the tranquilizer took immediate effect. Sarah held her breath, waiting to see if he would lose consciousness. Matt stood still as well, breathing heavily as Ronan's eyes rolled back in his head. He slumped over, and Sarah thought he was out.
Then his body twitched—once, twice, three times—over and over again. Sarah watched in horror as he began to convulse on the ground. She couldn't understand what was happening—the darts weren't strong enough to cause this, were they? It was only supposed to knock him out.
"Holy shit," Sarah breathed out. She couldn't move her feet as Matt darted forward and dropped to his knees next to Ronan, roughly turning him over and swearing under his breath as the other man continued convulsing. "What's happening to him?"
Matt started to reply, but stopped short of speaking as Ronan abruptly ceased moving completely.
Both of them waited to see if he would begin twitching again, but he lay still.
"Is—is he…?" Sarah stared wide-eyed at the unmoving man on the ground
Matt was quiet for a few seconds.
"…there's no heartbeat," he said finally, standing up.
"What? I—I didn't—" she stammered, still in shock. "It was just one dart. That girl in Orion got hit with two a-and she didn't die."
"Tranquilizer is just like any other street-level drug," Matt said, his tone giving away his own disbelief at the situation. "You don't get any guarantee that the dosages will all be the same." He turned his head to her, speaking more forcefully now. "And if he had used it on you, you'd be dead, too."
Sarah took a few steps closer to Ronan, dropping the tranquilizer gun next to him with a clatter as she tried to process what was happening. Her mind jumped from thought to thought, going through all of the horrible consequences that could come of this.
"W-we should see if he has a burner phone on him," Sarah said faintly. She didn't think there were any more people involved with Ronan, but they needed to be sure, especially since she had just—No. She shook her head fiercely, not thinking about that. "I'll check Donovan."
Sarah stumbled over to the unconscious police officer and dropped to her knees next to him to check for a burner phone. Her gaze swept over his face, which barely resembled a face anymore—Matt had worked him over so thoroughly that it was just a mess of blood and broken flesh. Even though she knew that Matt would have said something if he'd heard Donovan's heart stop, she had to double check for her own sanity. She slowly reached out and pressed her fingers to his throat, closing her eyes in relief when she immediately felt a pulse.
She was just about to pull her hand away and reach into his jacket pocket when she heard the loud sound of a car engine at the end of the alleyway, and both she and Donovan were illuminated by headlights. She swore and shielded her eyes, squinting into the lights and just catching sight of flashing red and blue before she heard a loud voice call out, the person attached to it still concealed by the blindingly bright headlights.
"Hands up!"
Sarah immediately put both of her hands in the air, staring wide-eyed now at the silhouettes of two police officers who emerged from either side of the squad car, both with their guns drawn. Were they actual cops, or did they work for someone who wouldn't mind putting a bullet through her head? They were still a good fifty feet away, slowly making their way towards her.
She could see Matt out of the corner of her eye as he took a step closer to her. He and Ronan were still concealed from sight behind the dumpster—for now. As soon as the police got closer they would spot him, and even without the mask they would immediately know who he was.
"Matt," she whispered, not looking over at him as the police continued coming closer. "G-go. You have to go."
"I'm not leaving you here," he whispered back fiercely.
"You have to," she hissed between her teeth. "They'll arrest you if you don't. Go."
She could tell by Matt's silence that he knew she was right. There was nothing he could do to help her without his mask on, and his presence being discovered would only make things much worse. She continued facing forward, not wanting to appear as though she was talking to anyone, so she didn't see Matt melt away into the shadows, but she could feel it when he was no longer there.
Sarah squinted, trying to get a better look at the police officers that were approaching her. One of the officers was a blonde woman that Sarah had never seen before, but the other one she recognized—it was the desk sergeant who had been at the station the day she'd gone to meet with McDermott and turn down his bribe. Mahoney, she thought his name was. She hoped that he wouldn't recognize her as well.
"Jesus," the blonde officer breathed, and it dawned on Sarah how crazy she must look, kneeling on the ground next to an unconscious police officer, with her neck and shirt covered in blood. "That's...that's Donovan."
"Call a bus. Tell them there's an officer down," Mahoney replied, craning his neck to peer into the darkness at the end of the alley before addressing Sarah guardedly. "Just you back here?"
"N-no." Sarah shook her head, then nodded towards where Ronan—it was only Ronan's body now, she reminded herself—was sprawled.
Mahoney kept his weapon out as he inspected the area behind the dumpster. Sarah could already hear ambulance sirens close by—it was amazing how much faster they managed to get to crime scenes when a police officer was the one needing medical help.
Once the paramedics arrived, things passed in a bit of blur. The female officer patted Sarah down, and once she was satisfied that Sarah had no weapons and didn't pose an active threat, she provided her with a large roll of gauze to stem the bleeding from her throat. Sarah held the gauze there as she was questioned by Mahoney, while in the background the paramedics quickly tended to both Ronan and Donovan.
"What's your name?"
"Sarah Corrigan."
Brett frowned as he wrote the name down, glancing up from his notebook to take a closer look at her. For a moment, she was positive that he recognized her—either from the interrogation room or her meeting with Donovan—but if he did, he didn't mention it. It seemed odd to her.
"Can you tell me who that is?" Mahoney asked, nodding towards one of the ambulances, where Ronan's body was being removed from the scene.
"Yes. His name is Ronan Greenfield," Sarah answered shakily, mentally rehearsing the story she had come up with and including as much truth has she could. "He's my old coworker. He's, um…he's been following me for a while now, and he attacked me in the—in the stairwell and dragged me outside. That police officer heard me screaming a-and came to help me."
Mahoney paused the notes he was scribbling in his small notebook and cast a confused look back at Donovan, who was being checked over by the paramedics. Sarah craned her neck over Mahoney's shoulder to get a better view as well. They weren't rushing him into an ambulance, so she assumed his injuries were mostly non-life threatening, despite his bloody appearance.
"Sorry, you say that police officer came to help you?" he clarified doubtfully.
Sarah blinked. It seemed as though Donovan's reputation at the police department was not that of a warmhearted do-gooder.
"Um…yeah. Ronan attacked him, and…that's how they both got hurt."
"And how is it that Ronan ended up…?"
"I didn't get a good look at what was happening," Sarah said, trying to keep things as vague as she could. "I know he was trying to shoot D—the police officer with the tranquilizer dart, and…somehow he ended up hitting himself with it instead."
It wasn't the strongest story in the world, but it wasn't totally implausible. She held her breath as Mahoney wrote down what she said, hoping he believed her. They had no reason to arrest her right now, but they could still detain her. And who knew what would happen once she was in the police station?
"Not the first time some asshole has done himself in on accident," he said finally, shaking his head. He didn't seem to notice Sarah's relief as he continued asking her follow-up questions: Where had she been coming from, what time had she gotten to the apartment, why was Ronan following her, did it seem like he and Donovan had known each other? She only lied where she had to, not wanting to spawn a story too large to keep track of.
"Okay. I think that's all the questions I have for now," he said after a while. Before he could say anything else, his partner—who had been conversing with the paramedics near the mouth of the alley—called out his name. He walked over to her, conversing with both her and the paramedic as the other two medics loaded Donovan into the ambulance for transport to the hospital. Mahoney glanced over his shoulder back at Sarah, and a few moments later both he and the paramedic returned to stand in front of her while his partner remained behind.
"Will, um…will he be alright?" she asked, hoping she sounded curious rather than suspicious.
"Should be. It'll probably be a few days in the hospital before he'll be able to give any sort of statement, though," Mahoney said. He nodded to the man standing beside him. "Thought you might want to get that cut on your neck looked at."
The paramedic was a tall, red-headed man who looked nice enough as he smiled at her. There was nothing threatening about him, but as he reached out to check the cut on her neck Sarah found herself instinctively stumbling back, shakily holding a hand out in front of her as her feet seemed to move of their own accord.
Mahoney raised his eyebrows at her in surprise. The paramedic didn't appear to share his surprise; Sarah supposed he dealt with reactions like this often.
"N-no. No, thank you," she said, looking from Mahoney to the paramedic with wide eyes. "Um…I can take care of it."
"Are you sure?" Mahoney asked skeptically, peering more closely at the wound on her neck. She moved her hair so that it fell in front of the actual cut, although it did nothing to obscure the blood-stained collar of her shirt. "That's a nasty cut to try to work with yourself. Might need stitches."
"I'm sure," Sarah said, her stomach turning at the thought of a stranger touching her right now. "Th-thanks, though."
After exchanging looks with Mahoney, the paramedic simply nodded and left them alone.
With a sigh, Mahoney dug in his inner jacket pocket until he fished out two small, white business cards. He handed her the first one. "This is my card. I might be in touch to ask you some more questions, so don't leave town." Sarah nodded and accepted the card. He handed her the second card, pausing for a second before continuing. "The other card is for if you decide you need medical attention. We have clinics you can go to. Anonymously. And you can call me or come by the precinct if you're interested in any other resources."
Sarah bit her lip as she looked down at the business card, which was printed with an address and phone number of a clinic a few blocks away.
"Thanks," she said quietly. Then, before the officer could say anything else, she hastily skirted around him, hurrying out of the alleyway without looking back as she entered the apartment lobby.
Back in the alleyway, Brett Mahoney had just snapped his notebook closed and was about to follow his partner, who was already halfway back to the squad car. He went to slip the notebook back into his pocket but fumbled, instead dropping it on the ground. With a sigh he knelt down to pick it up, and as he did something caught his eye: a piece of dark fabric caught just inside the opening of the storm drain a few feet away. There was nothing immediately conspicuous about it, but if there was anything that made Brett a good police officer it was his ability to trust his instincts, listening to the subconscious side of his mind that knew something was up without needing to stop and analyze how he knew.
He reached out and plucked the fabric from the drain. It was probably just a scarf, or an old hand towel—whatever it was, he probably shouldn't be touching it. But as he held it up, he saw that it wasn't either of those things Instead it was a black mask, simple and undecorated, knotted in the back with two long strands hanging down the back. He recognized it immediately, just as any other cop in Hell's Kitchen would: it was the mask that normally obscured the face of the man commonly known as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
Glancing back at his partner, who had yet to notice what he was doing, Brett made a quick decision. Rather than alert her to what he'd found, he folded the small mask up and slipped it into his jacket pocket. If Daredevil had been there that night, it complicated things. It meant that Daredevil might have some connection to Donovan, or even to McDermott. And he was fairly certain that Sarah Corrigan had a connection to all three.
Sarah was glad that she at least managed to hold herself together until she was safely inside her own apartment. She didn't recall the walk from the alleyway up the stairwell to her floor, just the click of the deadbolt as she locked the door behind her.
Sarah leaned back heavily against the door, closing her eyes as she tried to catch her breath. At first it seemed like she was just out of breath from climbing five flights of stairs, but after a few seconds of not being able to inhale all the way she suspected that wasn't it. She didn't even realize she was sliding down the door until she found herself sitting on the floor. A hot, claustrophobic feeling began creeping over her, like her apartment had gotten smaller and warmer somehow. Her heartbeat felt strange, like it was trying to speed up and slow down all at the same time.
With her eyes still closed, she didn't register that there was someone kneeling next to her until she felt a hand on her arm, and she instinctively flinched away from the touch, nearly hitting the back of her head on the door from how violently she recoiled. The hand retracted immediately.
Obviously it was Matt. But for some reason she couldn't make herself look, and without being able to see that it really was Matt crouching next to her some irrational corner of her mind was absolutely convinced it might not be him.
"Hey, hey. I'm not hurting you. You're bleeding, Sarah."
Sarah nodded tightly, finally forcing herself to wrench her eyes open. And there was Matt, kneeling closer than she had expected, his expression dark and tense as his sightless eyes flicked over her. His presence didn't make the panic recede, but it did give her something to try to focus on.
The warm, claustrophobic feeling only got worse, and she yanked at the neckline of her shirt to give herself more space to inhale.
"It's too hot in here. It's too hot, I—I can't breathe," she stammered. She tightly squeezed his hand, which at some point had made its way into her own, although she didn't know if it was him or her that had reached out first.
"Okay. Okay, hang on. I'll be right back. Alright?"
Sarah nodded her head a fraction, and then Matt was no longer next to her.
Her uncomfortable awareness of the feel of her shirt against her skin only grew. The neckline wasn't particularly tight-fitting around her neck, but it felt like it was getting tighter and tighter, weighing her down. She fumbled with the buttons on the front of her blouse, struggling to control her shaking hands. Her fingers felt clumsy and numb, like if she couldn't physically see them attached to her hand she might believe they weren't even there.
Matt returned a few seconds later and kneeled down beside her again, a glass of water in one hand, a washcloth and a small ice pack in the other.
Sarah was still trying to make her fingers work properly, and had only managed to get one of the buttons undone. The coppery scent of blood that covered the shirt made her feel sick, and she felt like it was going to strangle her if she didn't get it off.
She felt Matt's hand settle over her own, gently stilling her frantic movements. Then he quickly and nimbly began undoing the buttons for her without saying a word. His blank eyes were directed somewhere over shoulder as he made his way down the line of buttons, until he unfastened the last one, allowing her to hastily shrug the shirt off. She didn't feel any cooler in just her camisole, but the openness of not having something around her neck helped immensely.
"Come here," Matt said, gently leaning her forward and sweeping her hair to the side. He pressed something cold to the back of her neck and she inhaled sharply at the contact. But it helped—although she didn't know if it was the cold radiating from the ice pack or the reassuring hand that Matt kept on her arm that was making the difference.
She was fairly certain that he was talking to her, lowly and evenly, but she hoped he wasn't saying anything important because she wasn't able to focus on the words. After a few minutes, her breathing began to return to normal, and the invisible iron hand that had closed around her chest lessened its grip. Slowly, she sat up straight again.
Matt's brow was creased, but he didn't say anything as he waited. Sarah wasn't sure how long he had sat there with her. After a few minutes, he held out the damp washcloth he'd brought in from the kitchen, and she took it from him.
"You took your mask off," she whispered as she pressed the cloth to her neck.
"You thought I wouldn't?" Matt's eyes were serious and sad.
A guilty wince flashed across her face. She had thought that, and it made her feel even guiltier that she had been wrong. Taking off his mask was huge—she could barely comprehend the magnitude of that decision. She'd honestly never thought he'd reveal himself for any reason at all, much less for her. But she wasn't sure how to put that into words, and her silence felt heavy between them.
"I don't know."
"You really thought that I'd let Ronan—" Matt broke off. "You thought I'd just let him hurt you?"
"No, that's not…" She bit her lip, not sure what she had thought, really. "I just…I figured there was a line you wouldn't cross."
Matt's face was unreadable, and she wondered if it was because he wasn't sure where that line was either.
"I'm so sorry, Matt," she whispered, not sure if she was apologizing for what he'd had to do for her or for her lack of faith that he would do it. Maybe it was a combination of both. "I'm sorry you had to do that."
He screwed up his face in dismay at her apology as he shook his head. "No. Don't be sorry. You're safe, and Ronan's…he's out of the picture. He can't do anything with the information."
"But you didn't know that," she countered, still giving him a disbelieving look. "Y-you had no way to know what would happen when you took your mask off—"
"I knew that he wasn't lying when he said he would slit your throat," Matt interrupted quietly. He looked as though he might add something to that, but instead he shrugged, as though that was explanation enough.
Maybe it was because she was still lingering on the edge of a panicked state, but she couldn't understand why Matt wasn't upset with her, why she wasn't getting part two of the outburst Matt had started in the hospital. This time she actually felt like she deserved it.
"You were right," she said, and at Matt's questioning look she elaborated. "About me. I—I got your friends hurt. And now your identity got exposed because of me. Everything that you were so afraid of when we first met…you were right."
"No. I wasn't," he said with a firm shake of his head.
"I blew your cover."
"You didn't do anything. I made a choice."
She looked down. "Would you still think it was the right choice if Ronan had escaped and gone to Fisk? There would have been no coming back from that—"
"There's no coming back from having your throat slit, either. One scenario I could try to do damage control for, the other is permanent. Of course I picked you." Matt hesitated, seeming to debate himself before adding, "I'd…pick you over most things, when it comes down to it. Whether you believe that or not."
Sarah's head was still spinning from adrenaline and panic, and hearing that only made her lightheaded in a different way. Did she believe that? Did he believe that? Could he just for once be predictable so she could figure out where they stood?
She looked at him for a long moment, then exhaled deeply in something akin to exasperation. She shook her head as she brought her hand up to trace the bruise that was slowly forming along his cheekbone. "You are so confusing."
Matt gave a crooked smile at that, small wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes as he leaned into her touch and a bit of the worry lifted from his face. "I know. Sorry about that."
"I guess there are worse things to be."
"Yeah, maybe." He waited a beat, then asked, "Do you…want to stay here on the floor, or…"
Sarah blinked. She'd almost forgotten that they were still sitting on the floor in front of the entrance to her apartment.
"Right. No, we should probably get off the floor."
She grabbed the door handle and used it to pull herself up, feeling as exhausted as if she had just run several miles. Matt stayed close by as she got up.
"First aid kit?" he inquired once she was on her feet.
"Um…on top of the fridge," she said tiredly.
Matt nodded and disappeared. While he was gone, Sarah pulled the washcloth away from where she had been pressing it to the side of her neck and tried not to look at how much blood was on it. I should buy darker towels, she noted absently.
When Matt came back into the room, he was weighing the kit in his hand experimentally, his head cocked to the side.
"You've upgraded," he noted as he took a seat on the couch next to her and set the kit down between them. It was new—she had bought it as a precaution shortly after getting hit with a hammer—and significantly larger than the one she'd had before.
"Seemed like a good idea. Between the two of us, someone is always injured, and I figured at some point Band-Aids weren't going to do the trick."
"Good call," he agreed.
Taking the damp cloth from her, Matt held it to her neck with much more pressure than she had been applying, nearly to the point of discomfort but not quite. She supposed the half-hearted way she'd been doing it probably hadn't been doing much to help stem the bleeding, but her mind was so focused on other things that she didn't really care. Her thoughts jumped from one thing to another—Ronan's heart stopping—Donovan being wheeled into an ambulance—Mahoney's suspicious expression when she'd lied to him—and back to the man in front of her.
"What are we going to do about Donovan?" she asked, her voice sounding crackly and tired as it broke the silence. "There's no way he's going to think it was just a coincidence you showed up in that alley tonight."
Matt sighed heavily. "I agree. But it seems like he's limited in who he can tell, to be honest. If he talks to Jason he'd have to admit to working with Ronan. And he can't say very much to the police without implicating himself. Even if he does tell them…the cops have no real reason to draw any connection between the two of us based on that."
"Right. I guess they can't really get suspicious of every person Daredevil saves." It seemed a little more real now, the things that Matt did when he went out in the mask. Before she had always pictured him as just fighting faceless, nameless bad guys that were making Hell's Kitchen more dangerous. But now she thought about the victims that Matt had saved, and how they must have felt. That feeling of hopelessness and total fear—that's what he was out there saving people from. "But Jason can. If word gets to him."
"Right. And if he talks to Jason he'd have to admit to working with Ronan."
"If Jason even let him get that far," Sarah said, focusing on not picturing the hammer that Jason had embedded in McDermott's throat.
"Donovan probably won't be up to giving a statement any time soon, right? I mean, with the…" Sarah gestured vaguely to her face.
Matt shook his head, a hard look on his face. "No. Probably not."
"Can't say I feel very bad for him," Sarah admitted.
"Yeah, well…I should have gone after Ronan first," Matt said, sounding frustrated with his decision.
Sarah didn't really want to talk about Ronan too much just yet; she was having difficulty figuring out whether or not she felt guilty about her part in his death, and she definitely wasn't ready to hear whether or not Matt deemed her guilty. But her curiosity about Matt's actions in the alleyway won out.
"Why didn't you?" she asked.
His jaw ticked as he pressed the cloth to her skin once more.
"Donovan was the one with his hands on you when I got there," he said darkly.
Sarah thought back to her strange conversation with Foggy the night she'd been laid up with a concussion; specifically, the point he'd made about Matt being possessive of people he saw as his to protect. She was starting to see the truth in his point now.
Matt lifted the cloth from her neck and set it aside. Sarah watched with her usual mild fascination as he skimmed his fingertips over the contents of the first aid kit, not hesitating as he blindly selected the items he needed: a bottle of disinfecting alcohol and a sealed packet of linen cloths.
"This'll sting," he said, holding the cloth up to the mouth of the alcohol bottle and tipping it to the side.
"I know the drill by now," she said.
Matt lifted her chin, tilting her head to the side to better expose her neck, then slowly pressed the alcohol-soaked cloth to her cut. Even knowing that it was coming, Sarah still jerked slightly at the sharp stinging sensation, and Matt gently held his hand to the other side of her neck to keep her still.
"Sorry," he murmured, the warmth of his hand reaching halfway around her neck and his thumb idly running up and down the underside of her jaw. "Sorry."
"It's okay," she breathed out.
Sarah watched him closely, noticing the way his brow creased in concentration as he carefully tried to clean the cut without hurting her. She tried to wrap her mind around the fact that the same hands that had just smashed Donovan's face to the point of being nearly unidentifiable were now touching her as lightly as if she were made of glass.
While Sarah was lost in her thoughts, Matt was busy inspecting her neck with an unhappy look on his face. His head was cocked to the side and his fingers lingered a few centimeters from the cut. She wondered what he could possibly be picking up on.
"What?"
He hesitated.
"I…think this is going to need stitches," he said with an apologetic wince.
"Stitches?" Sarah repeated, her eyes widening in alarm. "On my neck? I'm going to look like Frankenstein."
"Just a few. Two or three, tops. But it won't close up properly without them."
"Well…how can you be sure? Maybe it looks worse than it is," she tried. Matt cocked a brow, and she lamely added, "…metaphorically."
"This might shock you," he said dryly. "But I sometimes get hurt on the job. I'm pretty good by now at figuring out which injuries need stitches."
Sarah groaned, leaning back against the couch cushions. Getting stitches—on her neck of all places—was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now. Finally she sighed in reluctant defeat.
"So…I have to call Claire and bother her again? I don't think she's gotten over the whole concussion thing yet."
"Or I can do it, if you want. You have the supplies I need," he said, gesturing to her recently upgraded first aid kit. "I can't promise that I'll rival Claire in terms of neatness, but…"
After the intense events of the night—some of which Sarah had yet to even begin processing—the idea of remaining here with Matt was much more appealing than going anywhere. She didn't really want to be anywhere other than safe in her apartment right now, and she definitely didn't feel like talking to anyone but her present company. As kind as Claire was, there was only one person who understood the state she was in right now, and he was sitting right next to her.
"I'd rather you do it."
"Alright," Matt said, nodding towards the couch they were sitting on. "Lie down. The angle will be easier to work with."
As she laid back on the couch, Matt sifted through the items in the first aid kit, withdrawing the necessary tools. Sarah frowned at the sight of the small, sharp suture needle.
"You'll be able to tell if you're about to, like, puncture something, right?" she asked warily, her nervous tendency to babble kicking in. "I mean I guess bleeding out on my couch would be better than in an alleyway, but if I had to pick I'd rather not do it at all, probably."
Matt leaned over her, tilting her head back against the armrest and putting his fingers to her neck to orient the location of the cut.
"You'll need to stop talking for this part," he said, giving her a pointed look.
The needle hurt as much as she'd expected as it went through the tender skin on her neck, and Sarah gripped the edge of the couch tightly, focusing on keeping calm. Matt remained quiet for the most part, concentrating on the task at hand. Although she would have appreciated the distraction that conversation would have provided, Sarah vastly preferred that he keep his focus on not stabbing the needle into the wrong part of her neck. He worked quickly, murmuring the occasional apology when she would tense up at the more painful parts.
Matt worked quickly—though not as quickly as Claire—and it wasn't long before he was done with the few stitches. But it had felt like a century, and Sarah could only imagine how long it must have felt like for Matt the night she had stitched him up. That had been a much larger wound, and she had been much slower and messier.
"Alright. That's it," he said finally.
"Thanks," she said, wincing as she slowly sat up. "For this, and…for earlier."
"Don't thank me," Matt said as he started repacking the first aid kit. "You wouldn't have had a knife to your throat at all if he hadn't been using you against me."
Sarah thought of the way that Ronan had traced along her skin with the serrated knife, taking pleasure in her inability to move away from him. She had to suppress a shiver at the memory.
"Right," she said, shaking off the feeling and reminding herself that Ronan no longer posed a threat. "Before you showed up and ruined it, Ronan and I were having a really friendly chat."
Matt cocked an eyebrow, as unimpressed by her deflective joke as she was by his incessant guilt complex.
"You shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with," he said firmly. "I should have been there quicker."
"The reason you weren't there was because I asked you not to be," she reminded him, then something occurred to her. "How did you end up showing up there anyway?"
There was a short pause.
"Ah." Matt scratched the back of his head, opening and closing his mouth with uncharacteristic awkwardness. "…I was passing by."
The forced nonchalance in his tone caught her attention, and she narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.
"…passing by how often?" she asked. When he didn't answer, her eyebrows shot up in realization. "Have you been spying on me?"
"Not spying," Matt corrected her, casting his eyes towards the ceiling as he searched for a better description. "I was…occasionally checking in."
"Checking in implies that both parties know it's happening."
"I know. I know, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to—" Matt fumbled his words, and Sarah softened slightly when she saw how self-conscious he was about the situation. It was especially fascinating coming from the same man who had unashamedly threatened to watch her every move when they first met. "I've just been…tuning in for a few seconds when I'm close by. Not so much listening to you as the things going on around you. Just to make sure you were safe. I wasn't…you made it clear you didn't want me coming by anymore. I wasn't going to intrude, but I couldn't just leave you here alone not knowing if you were alright or not."
Sarah looked down, knowing that she should probably be more upset about the invasion of privacy than she was.
"I guess…that means you got my voicemail, then," she said.
"Yeah," Matt said, that same forced casualness back his voice, but this time accompanied by an unmistakable sadness that made her heart twist. "I got your voicemail."
She bit her lip as she tried to figure out how to tell him—or if she even should tell him—that she hadn't been trying to hurt him with that message; she'd only been trying to protect herself. Now even that motivation seemed foreign to her, given the current situation, and she wished she could take it back. But obviously she couldn't.
When she didn't say anything, Matt did.
"I've been…letting my friends down lately. I know if I want to protect the city, I should at least be able to keep my own people out of danger. And I keep failing at it. Tonight it was with you. The other night it was with Karen. I tried so hard to keep her away from the things I deal with as Daredevil, and she ended up in the middle of it anyway. And a lot of that is my fault for not being honest with her. I panicked, and…I hurt someone important to me," he said quietly. "You didn't deserve that. You…haven't deserved any of the shit I've put you through, actually. You had every right in the world to cut things off. So do Karen and Foggy, really."
But they haven't, Sarah added mentally, wincing guiltily. She was the only one who had bailed, after specifically promising him that she wouldn't. The thought that his reaction that night had been based in panic rather than anger had never even crossed her mind. She knew better than anyone how panic could take a person over, control their actions until it died down. That wasn't what was still bothering her. After all, she reminded herself, he'd also promised her that he would be on her side, and he hadn't followed through either.
"…but I'm not the same as Karen and Foggy," she said, more as a statement than a question. To her disappointment, Matt didn't correct her. "So...what am I?"
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't want to lie to you. You're right, you're not the same. And I could probably assume you don't see me the same way you see Lauren."
Sarah blinked, her mind flashing to her best friend: blonde, loud, and bubbly, incredibly crass and always eager to chatter for a few hours about anything under the sun. Cocking her head, Sarah eyed the person in front of her: Quiet, intense Matt, all bloody knuckles and off-center eye contact and dry humor. She couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the comparison.
"No," she admitted with a shake of her head. "Not really."
"Whatever you and I are, it's…complicated. A lot more so than my friendship with Foggy or Karen, especially given our…unique history. And your familiarity with a side of me that the two of them have never really had to deal with. If…that's not something that you want to deal with, I'd understand that."
Sarah looked at him for a long moment, then cast her eyes up at the ceiling, shaking her head slightly in disbelief. Matthew Murdock had to be the only person she'd ever met who could do everything he had done for her tonight—from taking off his mask to stitching up her neck—and still think he might not have earned any forgiveness.
Bringing her gaze back down to him, she felt a rush of affection—combined with a good amount of exasperation—for the vigilante in front of her, with his ruffled hair and concerned eyes. Without thinking, she leaned forward and flung her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. He let out a soft grunt of surprise upon impact, clearly not expecting her to throw her entire weight onto him like she did. But he took only a second before wrapping his arm tightly around her waist, bringing his other hand up to the nape of her neck and weaving his fingers into her hair.
"You're kind of dumb for a lawyer, you know," she muttered into his ear, and she felt his shoulders move as he laughed.
"You're not the first to tell me that."
Sarah wondered if they would ever find a middle ground between the two extremes they always seemed to live in. Something in between being at each other's throats and this strange, intense intimacy that was so easy to fall into with him. She turned her head and pressed her lips to his temple, closing her eyes and lingering there for a moment before finally letting go of him and leaning back.
Matt's eyes were dark and focused somewhere around her mouth as she pulled away. He abruptly cleared his throat, leaning back a little farther.
"I should go. Let you get some sleep," Matt said.
The idea of being alone was unappealing, to say the least—and for once not because of any concerns over her safety. For the moment, the events of the last few hours didn't quite feel real yet, and Sarah didn't want to be by herself when that reality began to crash down on her. Would she feel guilty tomorrow about her role in Ronan's death? Would the fragile lie she gave the police wake her up in the middle of the night?
"You could stay," she said softly, the words spilling out before she could really think about it. Matt tilted his head, surveying her seriously, but didn't say anything yet. "If you want to, I mean. You…you can stay here tonight."
She wasn't sure why she offered; there was no real reason why Matt would choose to stay. If he was going to get across the city without being seen, going at night was obviously the smarter choice. The most immediate threats to Sarah's safety were either dead or hospitalized. Her injuries were minor and had already been taken care of. In fact, the more she thought about it the more foolish she felt for asking.
"You don't have to," she added quickly. "I'm fine here, obviously. I just…if you're, like, tired, and you don't want to parkour around rooftops, or—"
"Yeah," he interrupted her quietly. "I'll stay."
He ran a hand through his hair tiredly, then stretched his arm out, letting it rest against the back of the couch. He leaned his head back, seemingly so exhausted that he was content to fall asleep right where he was. Sarah knew she should go to her own room and give Matt space in case he decided to stretch out on the couch to get more comfortable. But after everything that had just happened, something tired and raw inside of her was telling her to let her guard down for once—just once—and not overanalyze everything.
She curled her legs up next to her and shifted slightly, closing the few inches that separated them so that her side was pressed against his as she rested her head on his chest.
Rude hostess tips 101: Invite someone to stay over and then don't let them comfortably lie down.
But Matt didn't seem to mind. He slid his arm down from the back of the couch, curling it around her waist. The weight of it against her was comforting.
They didn't say anything else, but there wasn't total silence. For once, Sarah could hear Matt's heartbeat as clearly as he could always hear hers. She closed her eyes and listened to it beating steadily underneath the rise and fall of his chest as she fell asleep.
Waking up was always a process for Matt. It wasn't just the exhaustion that permeated his bones every morning—although that certainly didn't help—or the way his brain sluggishly protested how few hours it was allowed to rest. It was also simply the act of going from no sensory input to experiencing all of the sounds, smells, and vibrations of a major city in the morning. He had gotten used to the routine of letting information in piece by piece when waking up in his own apartment each morning: the kids two floors down thundering down the staircase to catch the school bus at the corner; the garbage truck rumbling past three days of the week; the smell of coffee that his neighbor always brewed immediately upon waking; sirens racing by—always sirens, even at seven o'clock on a weekday morning.
So coming to in a completely different environment than usual was jarring, to say the least. He was greeted suddenly and startlingly by car horns honking from a street that was much closer to his altitude than normal; a couple yelling at each other in Vietnamese from next door; a warm weight against his side, and the smell of citrus shampoo close by. It took him several scattered seconds to place that he was in Sarah's apartment. More importantly, that the presence next to him was Sarah herself, and that sometime during the night they had shifted closer together as they sat up, with her curled against his side and her head on his chest, his arm lightly looped around her waist.
There was a muffled buzzing sound as her phone rang in her purse before stopping. Sarah didn't stir, and Matt chose to wait a few minutes before waking her up, partially to take advantage of the relative quiet—as quiet as the city ever could be for him—to contemplate the events of the night before. His other, admittedly stronger motivation for not yet waking her was a strange nervousness that this was all a fluke, that she would wake and find that now that her adrenaline had died down, she was having second thoughts about giving him another chance at being in her life.
Part of him was still in disbelief that she'd let him near her like this at all; that after everything she had been through, everything that had been done to her—by others and by Matt himself—since they'd first met, she'd still let him help her, let him touch her when she wouldn't let anyone else. Matt hadn't missed the way her heartbeat had skittered nervously when the paramedic had tried to touch her, the way she'd flinched away from the man's hands and kept a careful, wary distance from Brett. But she let him get close, and she was still close to him now, and when Matt's mind started to dwell on the fact that her life had been held at the tip of the knife and so easily could have been taken away from him, he reminded himself that here she was next to him, all steady heartbeat and warm skin and quiet breathing and very much alive.
Sarah's phone buzzed again.
Reluctantly, Matt shifted slightly so that he could gently shake her arm.
"Sarah," he whispered. "Wake up."
She stirred slightly, mumbling something unintelligible in her sleep before turning her head so that her face was buried deeper in the front of his shirt. She clearly wasn't waking. His mouth quirked up slightly.
"Sarah," he tried again, amusement creeping into his voice at her unwillingness to wake up. He lightly ran his fingers up and down her arm again. "Hey. Your phone has been ringing."
Despite how peaceful her sleep had seemed, her return to consciousness was not. She jerked awake, seemingly startled to find herself already sitting up—and more so by her proximity to Matt.
"My what's…what?" she asked, her voice still scratchy from sleep.
"Your phone. It's been ringing. Whoever it is has called back twice, so I figured it might be important…"
On cue, Sarah's phone rang again. She leaned across him to fish it out of her purse.
"Hi," she mumbled sleepily into the phone.
"Hey, remember that time that I was in labor and you wouldn't answer your goddamn phone?"
Matt immediately recognized Lauren's voice—it was difficult not to hear her from so close.
Sarah sat up straighter, more awake now. "Wait, I—you're going into labor right now?"
"Well, no. I delivered at like three am and we didn't want to call you up in the middle of the night. But I could have hypothetically been in labor and you weren't answering."
"But everything's okay?"
"Everything is wonderful. And can I just say bless whoever invented epidurals? I didn't feel a thing, which is crazy considering my vagina looks like a slasher film now—"
Matt decided this seemed like a good time to leave the room and give Sarah some privacy. He stood up from the couch, his muscles protesting his decision to sleep sitting up the night before. He vaguely remembered Sarah's bathroom being somewhere down the hall, and he trailed his fingertips along the wall as he made his way towards it, allowing Sarah some privacy to talk to her friend.
When he returned to the room, Sarah's heartbeat was elevated in excitement, though her body language still seemed unsettled. She kept running her hand through her hair and shifting her weight from foot to foot.
He leaned against the hallway wall. "Lauren had her baby?"
"Yeah. Yeah, she's at the hospital now," Sarah said, sounding overwhelmed. "This is a lot of things to happen in the span of, like, twelve hours."
"Yeah, it is," he agreed. "I'll get out of your hair so you can go visit her."
"Will you make it back to your place alright without being seen?"
Matt knew that logically, it would have made more sense to make the trek back to his place last night, when he would have had the advantage of darkness to help conceal his face should anyone happen to catch sight of him. But when Sarah had asked him to stay, there wasn't a single bit of him that had wanted to say no, so he hadn't. Besides, it wasn't like he'd never gone across Hell's Kitchen by rooftop without bothering to change out of his business suit.
"Yeah. It'll be fine."
"What will you do about your mask?"
Matt scratched the back of his head, wincing in half-embarrassment, half-amusement. "I, uh…I order them in bulk, actually. Online. So I have more."
"You mean like…you order them off eBay?"
"Pretty much."
There was a pause, and then Sarah laughed. An actual, full laugh—not the tired, breathy ghost of a laugh he so often heard from her. "That really takes away from the whole…mysterious masked man persona."
"It does, doesn't it?"
"So, how do you know for sure when you get it that it's actually black and not, like…bright yellow?"
"I guess I don't," he admitted. "But in the event that they stop calling me the Man in Black and start calling me the Man in Yellow, I guess I'll know."
Sarah laughed again, and Matt couldn't help but grin.
"So I'll…come by later?" he asked, still not sure if they were back to their routine or not.
"I might be at Lauren's. I'm not sure if she'll want me to stick around and help out. I'll call you?"
"Yeah. That'd be good."
"Hey." She caught Matt's hand before he got to the window, and he tilted his head. "Thanks, Matt. For everything last night."
Matt didn't want her to thank him; she wouldn't have been in danger if he hadn't pushed her away. So he just nodded.
"Tell Lauren I said congratulations," he said.
He gave her hand a quick squeeze before slipping through her window to make his way home.
After a quick stop by the hospital gift shop to purchase a large, cheesy stuffed animal, Sarah found herself sitting on the edge of a hospital bed next to an exhausted but excited Lauren and a significantly less exhausted but equally excited Greg, all of them peering down at the baby in Lauren's arms.
"She's so quiet," Sarah noted of the sleeping infant, then squinted at Lauren suspiciously. "Are you sure this one is yours?"
Lauren tilted her head, eying the baby speculatively. "Sure, yeah. I mean, they all kind of look the same at this stage, so it's a toss up, really. You're pretty cute, whosever you are," she said, tapping a finger against the baby's tiny nose.
Sarah shook her head and looked around the room, noting a conspicuous absence of two people she hadn't been looking forward to seeing.
"Where are your mom and Cecilia?"
"They left!" Greg answered a bit too enthusiastically. Tempering his tone, he added, "For a bit. I think they went to get some non-hospital food."
"We're taking advantage of them being gone to decide on a name. I want something with some drama to it," Lauren said, to no one's surprise.
"And I'd like something that won't get him shoved into lockers when he gets to secondary school," Greg said.
"That's not a thing that happens, Greg," Lauren argued. "You've based your entire opinion of American high schools off of John Hughes movies."
"You wouldn't know because you were a cheerleader in high school."
"Kids don't even fit into lockers anymore because they make the lockers so tiny—"
"Oh, you've tried shoving a child into a locker lately, then?"
Sarah interrupted their bickering, which she knew could go on for a while.
"—I'm sorry, did you guys say 'him?'" she clarified uncertainly. "It's a boy?"
They both nodded in affirmation.
"Lauren, you…definitely told everyone it was a girl," Sarah said slowly, wondering if she was going crazy.
"I did do that, yes," Lauren agreed.
"All of the baby shower invitations said 'It's a girl!'"
"Mhm."
"And the balloons, and the cake," Sarah continued. "Everything you got at the shower is pink."
"Yeah. Well, I never actually checked with the doctor per se, but it really felt like a girl. I mean, I was getting those vibes. I think maybe it was because I had been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls, though. But, well…" Lauren shrugged, unconcerned.
Sarah laughed disbelievingly "So, what are you going to do with all of the bibs and onesies that people got you that say things like 'Mommy's Little Princess?'"
Lauren looked vaguely offended. "Um, he is my little princess, and he'll wear them, obviously."
"Did you know about this?" Sarah asked Greg.
"Probably should have been a bit more on top of that, looking back on it," Greg agreed, rubbing his chin. "Next time."
"Next time?" Lauren said, sending him a sharp look. "No." She turned back to Sarah. "Anyway, help us think of some boy names, because all I had ready were girl names and Greg has locker-stuffing anxiety."
"Oh, um…" Sarah searched for a name, caught a bit off guard. "What do you have so far?"
"I like Alexander," Greg said. "It's a solid name."
"It's boring," Lauren dismissed. "What about Ian?"
"No. I have an uncle named Ian who has terrible luck. Name's cursed," Greg said somberly. "How about Matthew?"
"Oh, that's nice," Lauren agreed, perking up a bit.
"No," Sarah cut in abruptly. They both looked at her strangely. "Uh, no. I don't…like it. It's confusing."
"It's…a confusing name?" Greg asked.
"Yeah. Well, I mean, there's just…so many Matthews in the world already. Matthew…Perry. Matthew Broderick. Matthew McConaughey—that guy's kind of bizarre, right? Do we need one more Matthew? I don't think we do. It would be weird. Really weird. I am…vetoing it," she said resolutely.
"Do you get veto power over the baby name?" Greg asked suspiciously, then looked over at Lauren. "Does she get veto power?"
Lauren considered it. "Seems like it. How many vetoes do you get here?"
"Just the one. Maybe two." Despite the excitement of the situation, Sarah had to stifle a yawn near the end of her sentence; her body was only running on a few hours sleep.
The door to the room opened, and Sarah heard the click of heels that always signified the arrival of Lauren's mother. She looked over her shoulder to see that, sure enough, Mrs. Gladstone had entered the room, followed by a perpetually unamused-looking Cecilia.
"Hi, Mrs. Gladstone," Sarah greeted her. She hesitated before grudgingly addressing the woman behind her as well. "Hi, Cecilia."
"Sarah, darling. I hope you're well." Mrs. Gladstone breezed by her in a cloud of expensive perfume, circling the bed to stand by Lauren. She automatically started trying to fix her daughter's disheveled hair while Lauren batted her hand away. Her eyes scanned Sarah up and down, taking in the shorts and t-shirt with the incongruously heavy scarf; her second-day hair and the circles under her eyes. "What a creative outfit. It must be so carefree to be able to leave the house everyday without worrying about your appearance."
Sarah self-consciously adjusted the scarf making sure it was covering the bandage on her neck as she resisted the urge to exchange looks with Lauren, whose exasperated gaze she could feel boring into her.
"…thank you," she said, then turned her attention to Lauren and Greg. "Have you seen any of those cheap coffee vending machines around here?"
"Yeah, on the next floor up," Greg said. "Stairwell's at the end of the hallway. I made a few trips up there myself waiting for this one to make his grand entrance."
"If you can't find it maybe you can just grab someone else's coffee and drink that," Cecilia suggested coolly.
Sarah bit the inside of her cheek at the barb as she left the room. She kind of deserved it for her drunken behavior at the shower. On the other hand, Cecilia had also deserved to have her mimosa taken from her.
She readjusted the scarf around her neck as she passed by a couple of nurses on the stairs, but they were two engrossed in their conversation to pay her any attention.
"…moved the police officer that was in 427 down to 358," one of them was saying. Sarah slowed down, listening as she arrived at the next landing. Luckily, the stairwell carried voices well. "Janice said someone a couple of officers would be coming by to take a written statement from him tomorrow."
Tomorrow? Sarah had thought it would be a little longer before he was lucid; long enough for her and Matt to figure something out, at least.
"Oh, I was there when they admitted him last night. What happened to him?"
"No idea. But he's come in before to detain patients and he's a total pain in the ass."
"I guess whoever beat the shit out of him agrees..."
Their voices faded as Sarah heard a door swing open and closed. She glanced at the floor number above the stairwell door beside her: Floor 3. She was reaching for the handle before she could think about it any further.
She quickly found room 358 down the hall, and it was unguarded. It made sense; the person who the police believed had beat Donovan up was dead, after all.
The steady beep of machinery filled the room, which held only one patient. Officer Donovan was propped up against the stark white hospital pillows. He noticed her immediately as she came in the room, mutely watching her with narrowed eyes. The reason for his silence was immediately apparent: a complicated looking sling held his jaw closed, and Sarah was willing to bet it was broken in more than one place.
She quietly clicked the door closed behind her, then paused at the foot of his bed for a moment to glance at his medical chart. Broken jaw, broken nose, fractured eye socket…the list went on, and most of it was apparent by looking at him.
Sarah knew that at one point in her life, she would have felt some sympathy for the injured man in the bed, regardless of what he had done. But she'd used up so much of her emotional reserve in the last week that she had none left over for Donovan, who most certainly didn't deserve it. He had harassed her for weeks, helped Ronan stalk her and sabotaged her ability to go to the police for help. He'd helped Ronan try to kidnap her, despite knowing that torture and rape and (she had to assume) eventually death were planned for her. He had purposefully not helped the teenage girl who Ronan had kidnapped, he'd broken Karen's arm, he'd threatened her father—
She took a deep breath, determined to resolve this now, and grabbed the chair beside his bed, bringing it around until she could sit facing him. Being in such close proximity instinctively made her a little nervous, but she had to remind herself that he was in no shape to attack her, despite the fact that he probably really wanted to, if the look he was giving her was any indication.
"Do you remember the first time we met?" she asked him quietly. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she took that as a yes. "You and McDermott had me in the police station, and you were playing Good Cop Bad Cop while we waited. You were Bad Cop," she reminded him, thinking back to the taunts and threats he had made against her and her family. "You couldn't ask me any questions, so you told me that you would talk, and I was free to listen or not listen. So…now I'm going to talk, and you can listen if you want, or not."
She was surprised at how even her voice sounded considering the way her heart was racing in her chest, and the tension in her body as she constantly listened for the sound of the door opening behind her. But she had to do this now, before he could give his version of events to the police.
"McDermott is dead," Sarah said calmly. Donovan's didn't look surprised, nor did he seem upset by the information, which he must have already suspected. If anything, he seemed slightly taken aback by being told so bluntly. Sarah paused for a beat, then continued. "Ronan is dead." This time Donovan's eyes widened slightly in what looked like alarm. "You have a broken jaw, a fractured eye socket, a whole bunch of broken ribs, and who knows what else." She paused again to allow that to sink in, keeping her gaze locked with his. "And I'm doing just fine."
The statement wasn't entirely true—she now had several painful stitches down the side of her neck to add to her collection of scars. But she was certainly better off that Donovan was.
"I don't think you're going to spend a lot of time mourning either one of them. Seems like when it comes down to it, you're just interested in covering your own ass," she said. "And your best bet for doing that is to leave me alone. Forget that I exist."
Despite the generally unpleasant things that usually came out of Donovan's mouth, Sarah wished that he could speak so that she could see if she was convincing him or not. It was difficult to glean much from his facial expression behind all of the bruises, but it seemed as though he was a mixture of alarmed and suspicious. And angry—definitely angry.
"The office police report says that Ronan attacked me outside my apartment last night, and that you were nearby and came to help. You guys fought. Ronan got hit with his own tranquilizer dart, and he overdosed on the sedative. No one else was there," she emphasized strongly, holding his gaze as he stared at her in disbelief. "Just the three of us. That's the story I'm going with. And it's the one that lets you keep your job and stay out of prison. You don't have anything to gain here but prison time at best."
"Do you understand?" she asked, keeping her voice very low for fear that it would shake if she spoke any louder.
After a long, tense moment, Donovan jerked his head in a short nod. It wasn't a binding agreement, but it was all Sarah was going to be able to get out of him, and she hoped that his sense of self-preservation would keep him from deviating from the deal.
Sarah pressed her lips together and nodded. She supposed there was nothing left to say, so she stood, quietly pushed the chair back to its original position, and left the room. No one noticed her as she stepped back out into the hallway and back towards the stairwell.
"No coffee?" Lauren asked when Sarah returned to the hospital room.
Sarah, who had completely forgotten about her original intention to go find caffeine, just shrugged. "I'll find some later."
"Well, I think we figured out a name while you were gone," Lauren said, looking down at the bundle of blankets in her arms. "We're thinking Noah sounds nice."
"Noah?"
"Noah built the Ark in the Bible," Mrs. Gladstone interjected helpfully.
"She knows that, Mom. She's not an idiot," Lauren retorted. "And I didn't pick it because it was in the Bible, I just like it." She shifted the baby in her arms, nodding to Sarah to take him. "Here, hold him."
"Well, I know that Sarah never goes to church, since you stopped going around the time you met her," Mrs. Gladstone said offhandedly, sending Sarah a sideways glance. "I assumed she might not know who he was."
"I know who Noah was," Sarah protested, before mumbling, "I saw that Russell Crowe movie."
She gingerly took the baby from Lauren, readjusting the swaddle slightly so that she could see his face better. Noah. She wasn't particularly religious, but she couldn't help thinking that the Biblical connection seemed oddly appropriate to her.
After all of the flood of awful things, this baby would be able to live in a world that didn't have Ronan Greenfield in it. Hopefully, he could grow up with a godmother who had a normal job and a quiet, peaceful life. That was what was supposed to come after the great flood, wasn't it? The reward for enduring the storm?
"Noah," she repeated. The boy who got to start a new life after all that destruction. "I like it."