What they wouldn't do

by Lazydaily

matt and OC that works for Fisk. For TTS

39. Chapter 39

Sarah stood in the lobby of Orion with a small compact mirror in her hand, examining the dark undereye circles that the lack of sleep over the last few days had left her. She made note that in her sleep-deprived haste to apply makeup over the massive bruise on her face, she appeared to have mistakenly grabbed some kind of shimmery bronzer, making the bruise more sparkly than discreet, but she supposed it was about as good as she could ask for.

Upstairs, she was greeted by the sight of her desk stacked high with mail, folders, and various other paperwork that needed to be sorted through. Clearly no one had been taking over her work while she was gone. The door to Jason's office was shut, and Sarah could hear muffled voices speaking on the other side.

Across the room, she spotted Tracksuit and the tall Russian man come around the corner from the hallway. Tracksuit seemed to be explaining something, but when he caught sight of her he paused and said something to the tall one, and they both looked over at her.

Sarah looked around, unsure what was going on. She grew more alarmed when the two of them started walking towards her desk. Normally no one paid attention to her other than to gain access to Jason's office, and when they did pay her attention it wasn't usually good.

She discreetly slipped her letter opener out of her drawer and rested it on her leg underneath her desk.

"You!" Tracksuit exclaimed. He smacked a hand down on her desk, then pointed at her. Sarah gripped the letter opener tighter. "Congratulations."

Sarah blinked.

"…what?" she asked dumbly.

"You got your stripes. Your first arrest. And you didn't flip for the cops, which—I gotta say—we all expected you to," he informed her. Behind him, his taller partner nodded in agreement. "So welcome to the club."

"…thank you?" Sarah said, partially wondering if she was on some kind of hidden camera show right now.

"Yeah. Is he still in there?" Tracksuit said, jerking his head towards Jason's office door.

"Yes."

"He asked us to meet him in his office forty-five minutes ago, but then the queen showed up," he said with an annoyed eye roll. "And now he's been in there with her the whole time discussing who the hell knows what."

"The Queen is in there?" Sarah asked. Tracksuit squinted at her, and she shook her head. God, I am so tired. "Oh. You mean Vanessa."

Tracksuit turned to his larger companion. "He made us make an appointment to see him, like this is the goddamn dentist, and Fisk's wife gets to just waltz in whenever she wants."

They both gave Sarah an expectant look, as if she were going to agree with them and go knock on the door herself to demand that Vanessa get out.

"Um…so, do you want to wait until he's done talking to her, or…?" she trailed off.

Tracksuit heaved a dramatic sigh. "We'll come back again in a while."

The two of them left, still looking disgruntled by Vanessa bumping them off Jason's schedule. About fifteen minutes later, the door to Jason's office opened and the muted voices became clear.

"…let me know if you change your mind," Jason said as he and Vanessa stepped out of the room. His voice was entirely too pleasant and tightly controlled; whatever he was hoping she would change her mind about, it was pissing him off that he wasn't getting his way.

"Of course," Vanessa said, sounding much calmer than him. She caught sight of Sarah and smiled. "Sarah, welcome back."

Sarah turned towards them and saw Vanessa's eyes catch on the bruised side of her face. She gave her a sympathetic frown, but didn't ask about it. Jason either didn't notice the bruise or didn't care, and for once his apathy worked in Sarah's favor, sparing her from having to come up with an excuse.

"Oh, Sarah, I've been meaning to mention to you how excited I am to get to hear you play the piano," Vanessa said warmly.

Sarah tilted her head.

"Um…when am I doing that?" she asked.

"At Allison's fundraiser. Aren't you? I'm sure I saw your name on the program as the entertainment," Vanessa said. Her brow furrowed just slightly in confusion.

It took Sarah a long moment to register. "You…you know Allison? Allison Wheeler?"

"Well, yes, of course. She's a very talented art collector; her eye for spotting pieces other people would overlook is exquisite. She used to come to my gallery often."

In some odd universe, that made sense. Sarah's friendship with Allison had begun when Allison and Lauren had enrolled in the same art program back in college, and Allison certainly came from the kind of trust-fund stock that would rub elbows with someone like Vanessa. But despite the logic behind it, Sarah's brain couldn't quite comprehend the connection.

"So, you'll be…at the fundraiser…that I'm playing at?" Sarah asked slowly.

"Yes."

"…oh," Sarah said. For a moment that was all she could manage, but at Vanessa's odd look she struggled to act more normal. "That's—that's, um, great. I—I'm really excited to be…seeing you at...there."

Vanessa gave her another smile and then turned to Jason.

"I'll let you know my decision soon," she told him.

Jason replied with a tight smile, filled with too many overly white teeth as usual.

"Of course, Vanessa. I look forward to hearing from you."

As soon as she was out of earshot, Jason turned his attention to Sarah, his pale blue eyes piercing through her.

"What fundraiser?" he asked intently.

A feeling of dread began to worm its way into Sarah's chest.

"Just…this thing a friend of mine is throwing," she said vaguely. "It's—it's not very interesting."

"That 'thing' is one of the only public events Vanessa has attended since Wilson Fisk when to prison," Jason said. His unnerving gaze shifted from her to Vanessa as she walked down the hall. "So it's of considerable interest to me. I want to know the date, time, and location. Put it in my calendar."

"Are—are you going to attend, too?" she asked in alarm.

"Of course not. But it's always a good idea to know exactly where someone will be if you aren't certain where you stand with them. Did you know that the last time she went to a formal event she got poisoned? Nearly died," he informed her, as though the attempted assassination of Fisk's girlfriend hadn't been all anyone at Orion talked about for a good week.

Sarah didn't know what to say. She heard the implication behind his words loud and clear. It had been apparent for a while now that Jason didn't trust Vanessa, but would he really try to take her out at a public event like that?

As much as she wanted to think he wouldn't, the obsessive glint in Jason's eyes told her otherwise. But before she could say anything further, he spoke again.

"I assume you still have the money?" he asked.

The sudden left turn caught her off guard. Sarah gave him a slow blink at him as her brain took a moment to catch up to what money he was talking about. Right. The five grand that he'd given her to bribe Mrs. McDermott with, which she'd had on her when she got arrested and which some how had not miraculously gotten 'misplaced' during her stay in jail. She suspected Mahoney might have had something to do with that money making it safely through the NYPD evidence storage, which was notoriously a black hole for any valuables.

"Right—yes—" Sarah reached into her bag for the brown envelope and handed it to Jason. "It's, um, all still there."

"Of course it is. I have incredible faith that no employee of mine is suicidal enough to steal money from me, Sarah," Jason said cheerfully. His gaze was still on Vanessa as she waited for the elevator at the end of the hall. "And if for some reason you did, you'll be dead before you can spend a single dollar of what you took, so it's no loss to me, is it?"

Sarah stared at him another long moment, suddenly very glad that she'd counted and re-counted the money after getting it back from the police.

"…I guess not," she said. "Um…do you still want to have the meeting that's on your schedule?"

"Of course," he said. The elevator doors closed behind Vanessa, and Jason snapped his eyes to Sarah. "Gather everyone up. Ten minutes."

And so ten minutes later, Sarah found herself sitting in Jason's office in a row of chair's facing his desk. Next to her were Tracksuit, the tall one, and two other Orion employees who she only vaguely recognized. Jason paced around the office as he spoke to them.

"As you're all aware, there was an...incident last week. I had painstakingly come up with a solution to the attention Cheryl McDermott was drawing to us with her publicity campaign. But unfortunately my solution was undermined by someone who has yet to be identified. Someone who decided to attempt to take her out using a tranquilizer gun, and allow one of my own employees to get arrested for it."

Sarah felt the eyes of everyone else in the room shift towards her, and she pressed her lips together, keeping her gaze on Jason.

"I don't like being undermined," Jason said icily. "I would very much like to know who arranged the attempt on Cheryl McDermott's life, and in doing so calling into question my ability to keep this company under control."

There was a short silence.

"So, you want us to find out who tried to kill that cop's mom?" one of the employees Sarah didn't know asked.

"My expectations of this group are hardly so grand," Jason retorted. "What I want is the name of the person who supplied the tranquilizers used to do it."

Another pause; for Sarah, it was a lack of sleep making her brain move slowly. She wasn't sure what everyone else's excuses were.

"So you can…kill him?" Sarah asked hesitantly, before she could stop herself.

Jason's piercing gaze turned towards her.

"No, not to kill him. Do you think I got to where I am today by indiscriminately murdering everyone in my way?" Jason asked.

"…kind of," she mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

"Uh, no," she said louder. "I—I don't…think that."

"If I can find the person who's supplying these infamous tranquilizers across Hell's Kitchen, I'm highly optimistic that I can convince them to tell me who bought the batch that was used on Cheryl McDermott. The person who's plotting against me."

Sarah glanced over at the other employees sitting in the row with her, but they looked as clueless as she was.

"That same tranquilizer has been used by our own people several times, including during a very ill-planned attempt to capture the Devil of Hell's Kitchen in this very office. So my question for all of you is...where do they all get the tranquilizer darts from?" Jason asked.

After a long silence, Tracksuit spoke up."Uh…we always got it from Ronan. Dunno where he got it from."

At the mention of Ronan, Jason's gaze turned towards Sarah expectantly. It was a reasonable enough assumption; she had been his assistant, after all.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head.

"Ronan never told me. He—he never really told anyone anything actually," she said hesitantly. "He, um, always called it his job security."

"Some job security," Jason snarled, smacking a hand down on his desk. "That idiot got fired, then went and got himself killed by the cops, and now his connections are in the wind."

Compared to the almost robotic demeanor Jason had originally had when he came to Orion, it was unsettling how quickly that carefully constructed façade calm seemed to glitch out these days, allowing the instability underneath to peak through. It made Sarah nervous that as his plans started to crumble—partially due to her own efforts—his manic violence would become even more pronounced.

"I've done a lot for my team here. Have I not? Making criminal records go away, arranging medical care, getting jail sentences reduced to practically nothing?" he said, switching his gaze between each of the employees sitting in front of him. "What I need now is for all of you to give me this one thing I've asked for, or I'll be tempted to rescind the generosity I've extended during my tenure here."

Sarah sat up straighter. She didn't know what exactly he was hold over everyone else's heads, but for her that meant her plans for her dad's expensive care facility potentially getting ruined. From the look on the others' faces, they were similarly concerned by these potential repercussions.

The unnamed employee to Sarah's right raised his hand slightly.

"So just…get you the name of the guy who's selling the darts?" he asked.

"Either get me that name or get me something that will make me just as happy," Jason said. Sarah had no idea what that meant. Vanessa's head on a plate? An endless collection of blindingly white ties? "You have until the end of the week."

With that, Jason dismissed them, leaving Sarah struggling to think of a way to get that name. The obvious person to turn to was Matt, who was particularly skilled at getting illicit information out of people. But she knew he'd already looked for the person supplying the tranquilizers weeks ago, but they were so widespread that it had been difficult to pinpoint a source, and he'd eventually moved on to more pressing issues in Hell's Kitchen.

There was only one person she knew of who definitely had a connection to the tranquilizer supply, and he was dead now, hit by one of those very darts that Sarah had fired into his chest. And as much as she was glad he was dead, it left her at a loss for staying in Jason's good graces—and that was something her father desperately needed her to do.

The question of finding the person behind the tranquilizer darts stuck with her the rest of the day. But even without a certain way to ensure her father's spot at the care facility would be guaranteed, she had to move forward under the assumption it would happen. So after work, Sarah headed to her father's place to help do some last minute organizing and packing.

She was trying to pack as discreetly as possible, not wanting Mitch to become upset by the changes. She had just finished preparing a few of his favorite meals for him to keep in his freezer in his new room until he got used to the food there. Her dad always liked her cooking, and regardless of what Matt said, she could cook just fine when she wasn't being distracted by smirking vigilantes leaning against her kitchen counters.

She'd enlisted Lauren to pick up a few things for her, and about half an hour after Sarah arrived at her dad's place, Lauren knocked on the front door. Sarah set aside her phone, which she'd been using to text Matt and check in on his condition. Much like before, he was insisting he was fine, and also much like before, she didn't entirely believe him.

Lauren waited on the doorstep, her blonde hair concealed under a New York Mets baseball cap and a small shopping bag in one hand, and her eyes widened when Sarah opened the door to reveal the giant bruise on her face.

"Oh my god," Lauren said, stepping inside and setting her bag on the side table. "Did you get that in prison?"

"I didn't go to prison," Sarah said defensively. "I went to jail. Briefly."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Lauren said with an eye roll. "Is that giant bruise on your face from jail, Miss Semantics?"

Sarah paused. It had occurred to her earlier that she should probably come up with lie for why she had the bruise, because anything close to the truth would undoubtedly end with Lauren tracking Matt down across the streets of Hell's Kitchen. But she'd been so busy and sleep deprived that she'd neglected to come up with a story yet, and now one had neatly fallen in her lap.

"…yes it is," she said.

Lauren squinted at her more closely.

"Why is it sparkly?"

Sarah sighed. "Did you get pick up the photo order?"

"Of course," Lauren said, reaching into the shopping bag. "I didn't realize until today that you could still walk into a drugstore and get physical photo prints. It felt very 1990s." She handed over the small envelope of photos that Sarah had carefully picked from her dad's house to be copied. "Where's Mitch?"

"Sleeping," Sarah said. Mitch slept a lot these days. "But he might be up in a little bit."

Lauren glanced around. "So, what are you going to do with the place once he's moved out?"

Sarah shrugged, her eyes sweeping over the room as she sat down on the couch.

"I mean, there's not much I can do. My name isn't on the lease, and even if it was, I can't afford to keep paying rent here after he moves out," Sarah said. "His disability checks barely managed to cover it, and I think the only reason the landlady didn't raise the rent is because she felt bad for him."

She pulled the photos out of the envelope and flipped through them to see how they looked. She'd taken a long time selecting which photos to hang in Mitch's new room at the care center, looking for ones that might comfort her dad even if he couldn't remember why: many of the two of them across varying years, interspersed with older photos she'd gotten out of his albums, pictures of him with his own parents growing up, and Mitch's older sister who had passed away several years ago.

"Maybe you could sublet it and no one would notice?" Lauren asked.

"Ugh, the neighbors are too nosy," Sarah said. "Mrs. Matheson next door is okay, she's been there forever. But the rest of them are kind of dicks. They'd call the…I don't know, rental police or something."

When Sarah had been growing up, the neighborhood had been mostly lower working class renters, but within the last few years they'd all slowly been replaced by new neighbors, ones who owned their homes and always liked to talk about 'revitalizing' the area. They didn't like that Mitch wasn't a homeowner—having never managed to save up enough to buy the place, nor fixed his rock-bottom credit score to get a loan—with a beat-up old car parked in front of his home and recycling bins that were always full of liquor bottles. His image hadn't been helped by the debt collectors and loan sharks that had regularly shown up at his doorstep before Sarah's agreement with James Wesley.

Sarah kind of hated them. She knew they'd been putting pressure on Mitch's landlady to price him out so the property could be renovated and rented out at a higher price, and Sarah was fairly positive that was exactly what would happen the moment Mitch's lease was up at the end of this month.

"God, I hate everyone," Lauren said.

Sarah was still flipping through the photos, and she paused when she got to one of her parents smiling together on a boat with what looked like Niagara Falls behind them. She hesitated, debating whether or not to include it. It seemed wrong to not include at least one photo of her mom, who had been such an important person in Mitch's life. But she also didn't want him to see it and get upset without knowing why.

She glanced up at Lauren, only just now realizing she didn't have her son with her.

"I thought you were bringing Noah," Sarah said, her brow creasing.

"I said Noah would be here," Lauren corrected her. "But my mom is actually in town, and she had him this afternoon so she could take him to some, like, baby genius thing or something that one of the old ladies at her country club told her about."

Sarah's eyes widened in alarm. "If you tell me your mother is coming here I will kill myself."

"Oh, god no," Lauren said with a laugh. "My mother, the suburb queen? That woman acts like she'll get shot while shopping on the Upper East Side. She would never step foot in this neighborhood."

"Thank god."

"So she's sending him over with Cecilia instead," Lauren said quickly, sending Sarah a guilty sideways look.

"Cecilia?" Sarah repeated. "You told Cecilia to come to my dad's place?"

"I thought you might feel that way," Lauren said hurriedly, then grabbed the shopping bag she'd brought. "Which is why I brought all of this!"

She dumped the contents out on the coffee table: it was an assortment of Sarah's favorite junk foods and a few trashy celebrity magazines. Sarah looked from the pile of sweets to her best friend, who was giving her a hopeful smile.

"I hate you," Sarah said, angrily grabbing a Twix bar off the top of the pile and unwrapping it.

"I'm sorry!" Lauren said. "Someone had to bring him! I can't start forcing him ride the bus alone until he's at least, like, nine months old."

"If she says even one bad thing about my dad—" Sarah began.

"I already told her to be nice for the five minutes she'll be here or you'd probably punch her," Lauren assured her. "And I made sure to let her know that you actually know how to hit people properly, so I think she took me seriously."

Sarah gave her friend an unhappy look as she took a bite of her candy bar.

"Fine," she said grudgingly.

"You know, she's actually not…entirely awful," Lauren said tentatively.

"What?" Sarah said indignantly. "Uh, yeah, she is."

"I mean, she's a total asshole, yes. I still don't really enjoy spending time with her, because she's super negative and judgy. But she's been really helpful with Noah. I have to ask her to watch him a lot, and she never complains about that, at least."

Some of Sarah's anger faded as she focused less on Cecilia and more on the fact that Lauren was having to depend on someone else to watch Noah so much.

"How often does she have to watch him?" Sarah asked.

Lauren shrugged, looking suddenly uncomfortable with the topic. "I don't know. Just when I have other things I have to get done."

Sarah opened her mouth to ask more, but she was interrupted by a knock at the door. She glanced over at it with barely concealed dread before reluctantly getting up to answer it.

Cecilia was standing on the other side with Noah in her arms, looking as supremely unimpressed as she always did. She eyed the small plastic wreath that hung on Mitch's front door; it had been a Christmas gift from Sarah back when she was in high school, and he'd had it hanging on his door ever since. It was unmistakably holiday-themed, but Mitch didn't seem to mind having it up year-round for the last decade or so.

"Nice wreath," Cecilia said dryly by way of greeting. "You know it's summertime?"

Sarah, who had been planning to try to ignore any barbs Cecilia sent her way, was immediately annoyed.

"I made him that wreath a long time ago," she informed her evenly, knowing it wouldn't matter to Cecilia at all. "He keeps it up all year because he likes it."

"Hmm," Cecilia hummed disinterestedly as she stepped inside. Her eyes swept over the living room, and Sarah could practically see her making snarky mental notes.

Sarah pressed her lips together so hard she thought they might bleed, giving Lauren a pointed look over her shoulder as she shut the door. Lauren just winced guiltily and shrugged as she took a sleeping Noah out of Cecilia's arms.

"So," Cecilia said, setting Noah's bag down and turning to Sarah. "How was jail?"

Sarah sent a dirty look in Lauren's direction, but her friend just held up her hands and shook her head.

"I didn't tell her!" Lauren insisted.

"I work at the Bulletin, remember?" Cecilia said with a roll of her eyes. "We have a crime blotter; it has all of the arrests in Hell's Kitchen on it. I like to check it out sometimes."

"You mean you like to obsessively check for any mention of Daredevil so you can talk about it in your opinion column," Lauren corrected her.

This time it was Cecilia who sent Lauren the dirty look.

"I write about what the people of Hell's Kitchen are interested in," she retorted. "And speaking of my job, I have to work on Saturday, so I can't watch Noah."

"Seriously? I'm supposed to be meeting with the library off 51st to talk about them commissioning a mural from me in their kid's wing."

"Great. You'll be talking about decorating a kid's area, so…bring your kid," Cecilia said.

"To a meeting? They'll never take me seriously," Lauren said.

"I can babysit Saturday," Sarah interjected. Lauren's eyes flicked over to Cecilia, the two of them exchanging a look so quick that Sarah nearly missed it. Her brow furrowed. "…what was that?"

"Well…I…" Lauren began. "I mean, I can probably just rework my schedule. I think…"

She trailed off, apparently not planning to explain what she thought.

"She doesn't want you watching Noah," Cecilia said flatly.

Sarah blinked. "What?"

"No, I mean, I just…" Lauren started, but she seemed to be at a very uncharacteristic loss for words.

"You spend all your time getting blackout drunk and you always have a bunch of weird injuries," Cecilia supplied for her, waving her hand at Sarah's giant glittery bruise. "And you just got arrested for attempted murder."

Sarah looked over at Lauren, who looked deeply uncomfortable.

"Lauren?"

"No, no, that's not it," she said quickly. "I just…you're so busy all the time. You know, with your…job," she said, giving Sarah a meaningful look. "And—and with your….friend. The one who you spend a lot of time with. I wouldn't…want to add something else to your plate."

The message behind her words came through loud and clear: she didn't want to get Noah mixed up with Orion and Daredevil. And as much as Sarah couldn't blame her, the fact that her own best friend didn't trust her to babysit her son wrenched her heart a bit.

The long, painful silence that stretched between them was broken by Cecilia's phone chiming. She glanced down at the screen, then over at Sarah.

"This has been great, but I need to leave. Do you have a bathroom I can use? It was a long trip all the way to…this side of town," she said, casting another unimpressed look around the living room.

The last thing Sarah wanted was for Cecilia to poison even more rooms of her dad's place with her judgmental aura, but she was too preoccupied with what she'd just learned to come up with anything snarky to say.

"On the left," she said, pointing down the hall before folding her arms in front of herself uncomfortably. "Be quiet. My dad is sleeping."

Once Cecilia had left the room, Lauren shifted Noah in her arms and stepped closer to Sarah.

"Sarah…" Lauren began quietly, but Sarah shook her head firmly.

"No. No, it's fine, I totally, totally understand," she said, forcing herself to sound okay with it. "My life is dangerous right now. Maybe you're right to keep Noah away."

"That's not what I'm—"

"—so do you think I should use some of these pictures, or—or something else?" Sarah asked, abruptly changing the subject. At the moment, she honestly didn't think she could listen to all of the ways she'd failed Lauren as a friend and Noah as a godmother, and no matter how Lauren tried to spin it, that was the real root of the problem.

Lauren bit her lip, looking like she wanted to press more, but she didn't. Instead she turned her gaze to the photographs on the table between them.

"Use the pictures for what?" she asked.

"For his front door," Sarah said. She swallowed, trying to focus on the task at hand. "At the care home. They said personalizing the door can help him to remember which room is his. I could—I could use pictures."

"That's a good idea. Or—or maybe some of those sports pennants he has hanging around his room," Lauren suggested.

"Yeah, maybe those would work," Sarah said.

"Grab the ugly wreath," Cecilia's voice came from behind them, where she was returning from the bathroom.

"Can you just shut up about the wreath?" Sarah snapped at her.

Cecilia heaved a sigh as she walked past them and opened the front door, bringing the wreath in question into view.

"Take it with you," Cecilia said slowly. "You said yourself he's had it up there forever. Put it on his new door so he recognizes it as his front door."

Sarah stared at her for a long second as she pieced together that Cecilia was actually being helpful.

"Oh," Sarah said. "That…that's a good idea, actually."

"I'm so glad you approve," Cecilia said. "And now I'm leaving, so you guys can have whatever dramatic talk you need to have."

But once she was gone, they didn't have the dramatic talk Cecilia had predicted. In fact, they carefully kept to the subject of Mitch and the moving plans for the rest of Lauren's visit. It wasn't until much later, when Lauren had gathered up her and Noah's things and was preparing to leave, that she addressed what Cecilia had brought up earlier.

"Look, I know you want to be a bigger part of Noah's life," Lauren said, watching Sarah with sad eyes. "And I'd really like that, too! But just…slowly, maybe. You know? Just considering…everything."

"Right. Slowly. Sure—yeah, that's—that's fine," Sarah said, trying to keep her disappointment out of her tone.

"And…he really does spend a lot of time with Cecilia. So if you want to see him more, maybe you guys could at least try to get along?"

Sarah bit the inside of her cheek.

"I…yeah, sure," she forced out. "I—I'd be willing to try that if she is."

"Great!" Lauren said, brightening up. "What about Thursday night?"

"Um…what about Thursday night?" Sarah asked confusedly.

"I could see if Cecilia would be open to some kind of…reconciliation dinner that night. And if she's not, I can just trick her into coming anyway, and you guys can…you know, try not to snipe at each other," Lauren said hopefully.

As awful as that sounded, this was Sarah's chance to show she was a mature, capable adult who could handle doing normal things. Things like showing up for a dinner with someone she didn't particularly like, without bringing any additional danger or drama.

Lauren was watching her with a hopeful expression as she waited for na answer.

"Absolutely," Sarah said. "I'll…I'll be there."

"Great. I'll let Cecilia know, and we'll meet you at your place Thursday night. Noah, too. Sound good?" Lauren said, relief unmistakable in her voice.

"Sounds…great."

"Just don't end up in the back of a cop car between now and then, okay?" Lauren said. Sarah suspected she was only half joking.

As Sarah closed the front door behind Lauren, the mention of cops made something click in her head. She didn't know who Ronan's connection was, but she could think of someone who probably did.

Officer Donovan had been working with Ronan behind Jason's back, helping him stalk and harass Sarah after he got fired. He'd been in that alleyway the night Ronan had attacked her—the night he'd died from his own tranquilizer dart stopping his heart. If anyone knew who had provided Ronan with those dart guns, it was Donovan.

She tried to imagine how Matt might react to her wanting to meet up with Donovan, and she couldn't come up with any option other than 'Not Well'. In fact, it seemed more than a little likely that he would try to stop her from going altogether. The image of him zip-tying Rob to a pipe suddenly popped into her mind. She bit her lip as she debated whether or not it might just be better to keep him in the dark and let him get mad at her for it later.

Sarah paused to take a deep breath, trying to keep her mind from racing ten steps ahead of her. She knew she should take some time and figure out how this was going to work, but she did know one thing for certain: she needed to stop and buy a cheap phone charger, because she was going to need to power up Aaron's McDermott's old burner phone.

A little over forty-eight hours later, Sarah found herself waiting to meet up with Donovan in the very same parking garage where he had attacked her and Karen. It felt weird to be in there again, but it had been the first place that had come to mind as a location he would know right away. It seemed that getting pepper sprayed, tasered, and then left unconscious and handcuffed to a car by two women really seared a place into one's memory.

The garage was dingy and hot, and about half of the overhead lights were burned out, casting swaths of the area in shadows that made it appear even less welcoming than the last time she'd been there.

Her heart rate accelerated as a dark blue sedan pulled into the parking garage, the headlights temporarily making her squint before the car turned off and the headlights dimmed out. She wiped her palms on her jeans, surprised at how nervous she was about seeing him again. The last time they'd been face-to-face was when he was confined to a hospital bed, but between his general hatred of her and the strong link between him and Ronan in her mind, she found her stomach turning uneasily as she waited for him to get out of the car.

The car door opened and Donovan got out, tall and already scowling. He slammed the car door before moving towards her, stopping a good distance away and eyeing the pepper spray in her hand—possibly remembering the last time he'd been this parking garage.

"Calling me from my dead partner's burner phone was ballsy," he said, breaking the tense silence.

"I needed to make sure you'd answer," she said simply.

"Surprised you're calling me at all. I thought you wanted me to leave you alone," he said. "Wasn't what your little visit to my hospital room was all about?"

"I did want you to leave me alone," Sarah clarified. "I still do. But…first I need some information from you."

Donovan scoffed. "Why would I help you? First you and that blonde bitch pepper sprayed me and tased me. And then you got me put in the hospital—do you know how long I was in there because of you?"

"That wasn't because of me, that was because you chose to help a psycho with an obsession."

"Obsession is right. You have no idea what kind of screwed-up shit Ronan had planned for you."

Of course, Sarah had more than an idea; she knew exactly what kinds of things Ronan had planned to do. She still had nightmares about it every once in a while, waking up in a cold sweat thinking he was in her room. Even now that he was dead, it drove her crazy that just hearing someone talk about him could give her that same sick feeling that his hands on her used to.

"Then it's a good thing he got himself killed," she said.

"Well, there's one thing we agree on," Donovan sneered. "What do you want?"

"You were helping Ronan. You were there the night he attacked me," Sarah said. "He had a tranquilizer gun with darts in it. I need to know the name of the person who sold it to him."

"Yeah? You need to try offing an innocent old lady again?" he asked.

Sarah's chest tightened.

"That wasn't me."

"Not what I hear around the precinct," he said. "From what I hear, you got lucky and your sleazy lawyers got you out of the worst of the charges. Doesn't mean you didn't do it. You know, you try to act like you're above all the rest of us who got mixed up in this shit, but at the end of the day, going after a dead guy's family is as low as it gets."

"Look, you were working with Ronan," she repeated sharply. The longer she stayed here trying to convince someone who hated her that she wasn't a monster, the greater the chance of things going sideways. "You—you must know who he got the tranquilizers from."

Donovan shook his head, watching her with a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

"God, you really are stupid," he said finally. "Ronan always said you were. A stupid girl who screwed him out of his job, who keeps barely escaping what's coming to her out of sheer luck, but who keeps testing it anyway. Now you're stupid enough to come here and try to ask me for information after all you've done?"

She took a deep breath. "Looks like it."

"Well, you're out of luck. I don't know who he got it from."

Sarah watched him closely. She didn't have Matt's lie detector skills, but she could guess he wasn't telling the truth.

"Okay. How about this? If you tell me the name, you can have this," Sarah said. She slipped McDermott's burner phone out of her sweatshirt pocket and held it up. Donovan's eyes caught on it right away, zeroing on the last piece of evidence connecting him and his partner to Jason.

Then he gave a forcefully nonchalant shrug. "Why would I want an old burner phone?"

"Because you want to keep your job and stay out of jail. So...it seems like you'd probably like to have the last bit of evidence that you and McDermott were involved with Orion," she said slowly, hoping she hadn't been wrong about how badly he would want the phone.

There was a long, silent beat during which Sarah wasn't sure if Donovan would take the bait or not. Then he shook his head, looking up at the parking garage ceiling and muttering a string of curse words.

"Elliot Bradshaw," he spat out. "He owns a nightclub on 36th and 9th. You happy?"

She wasn't sure if happy was the right word, but a rush of adrenaline went through her at the possibility that she might be able to get off Jason's shit list after all.

"Elliot Bradshaw," she repeated. "You're sure he's the actual supplier? Not just whoever was selling them that night?"

"He's the supplier. Some overgrown trust fund kid. Lives in a ritzy neighborhood in Midtown, but he likes to peddle his drugs in Hell's Kitchen because there's a bigger market here. Tranquilizers, roofies, club drugs, you name it. He supplies it all."

Sarah waited for any sign that he was lying again, but she didn't get one. She tossed the burner phone in his direction, and he caught it.

Donovan quickly pocketed the phone, and for a brief moment Sarah thought he would leave without incident. Then his eyes fell on the pepper spray in Sarah's hand again, and anger flashed across his face once more.

"You bring that in case you felt like spraying me again? Was that your plan if I didn't want to talk to you?" he sneered. "You really think I'm going to let you get me with that shit me twice?"

"I didn't plan on pepper spraying anyone," Sarah said, trying to sound calm. "I got my name, you got your phone. Now we can both leave."

"I did get my phone. So what's stopping me from taking that pepper spray from you and emptying the entire thing into your eyes, huh? See how you like it."

Donovan took a step towards her, and Sarah tensed. Then a low voice spoke from the shadows.

"I wouldn't recommend it. She's got a violent streak."

Donovan's eyes widened, his head snapping around to see where the voice had come from. Matt stepped out from the shadowy space between two nearby cars, clad in his black outfit and mask, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

Sarah watched Donovan's expression as his eyes darted from her to Daredevil and back. He seemed to be fighting to look unimpressed, but she could see the barely-concealed panic in his eyes.

"It's true that I do a lot of stupid things," Sarah said. "But I didn't come here alone."

Donovan's face contorted into something between rage and fear. Last time he and Daredevil had met, he'd been left with a broken jaw, a fractured eye socket, a broken nose, and several broken ribs, among other injuries.

"So, what, you're here to intimidate me?" he snarled in Matt's direction.

"Mostly I'm just here to break however many of your bones she tells me to," Matt said calmly, somehow still managing to look imposing while casually leaning against the SUV next to him. Maybe it was the way his hand drummed a steady pattern on the SUV's hood—a restless pattern that Donovan didn't miss. "If you leave now, that number could be zero."

Donovan's narrowed eyes moved from Matt over to Sarah, who offered him a small shrug.

"I knew you were running around with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Knew it since the night Ronan died. But seeing it is something else," he said, his lip curling. "How do you know I won't go straight to Jason?"

"I...don't. And assuming you could get him to believe you…I guess I would be in trouble," Sarah said with another shrug. Of course, getting someone as paranoid as Jason to assume the worst about any of his employees would be incredibly easy for anyone, but Donovan didn't need to know that. "But so would you."

"Not as much trouble as you'd think. What, you think I'm the only dirty cop in Hell's Kitchen?" Donovan asked.

"The only one who was working with Ronan behind Jason's back," Sarah said. Donovan's eyes snapped to her.

Sarah wasn't particularly good at threatening people, but the nice thing about teaming up with a vigilante was that she could mostly leave that part up to him.

"With all the double-crossing you've done, someone is bound to be pretty upset with you," Matt said. "And if anything happens to Sarah because of you, I'll make sure both sides are waiting for you when you wake up in the hospital. Assuming you do wake up."

Donovan let out a sharp laugh, but it had a nervous ring to it. He held up his hands.

"Fine. I don't care enough either way. You want to talk about stupid? You're double-crossing one of the most dangerous men in the city. You're two seconds from Jason catching onto your game at any moment. And when he does, and you end up in the precinct morgue chopped into tiny pieces?" Donovan said, a vicious smile forming on his face. "I'm going to have a nice drink to celebrate before throwing your homicide file straight in the trash."

Then, possibly motivated by the noticeable tick in Matt's jaw, he quickly walked back to his car, slamming the door behind him, and peeled out of the garage.

Sarah listened as the sound of his engine faded away.

"Nice guy," Sarah mumbled. "Not sure I've had anyone tell me they look forward to celebrating my grisly murder before."

Matt just pressed his mouth into a tight line.

"Come on. Let's go," he said.

They didn't talk as they descended the stairwell and exited out onto a deserted side street. Sarah felt better as soon as the cool night air hit her face, helping clear away the claustrophobic feel of the parking garage. She started to go left, but Matt touched her arm and nodded his head towards the darkened park across the street.

"It'll be better to cut through that way," Matt said. "There's too much activity up ahead."

Sarah looked from Matt to the shadowy park on the other side of the fence.

"Um…it's closed," she pointed out.

"Yeah," he said, already moving towards the fence and curling his fingers through the chain link. "That's we're going that way."

She took a few reluctant steps to follow him.

"There's really not any other route that works?" she asked hopefully. "Besides rooftops?"

Matt chuckled lowly.

"You just threatened an NYPD officer so you could get the name of a drug dealer," he reminded her. "But jumping a fence is where you draw the line?"

"My problem isn't the fence, it's that parks at night are full of serial killers," Sarah said as Matt pulled himself up the fence with an ease she was already positive she wouldn't be able to mimic. "Plus, I don't need a trespassing charge. I have a criminal record now, Matt!"

"And you'd have even more of a record if you didn't have such good lawyers," he said with a smirk. He held his hand down for her to take. "Come on."

With a groan, she relented. Now that the danger of meeting Donovan and the disgust from having to talk about Ronan had passed, all that was left was the adrenaline rushing through her veins and the relief that she'd gotten that name. If she was going to jump a fence, now seemed as good a time as any. She took Matt's hand, letting him pull her up before he let go so she could grasp the fence with both hands.

Matt lingered at the top for a beat to make sure she made it up, then hauled himself over and landed on the other side in one clean move.

Sarah's journey was less graceful. She eased herself over the side of the fence, hesitating and looking down just long enough to regret what she was doing before jumping down. Her feet landed on the pavement hard, making her stumble forward a few steps. Then a gloved hand on either side of her waist steadied her, and her hands flew up against Matt's chest to try to keep her balance.

"You good?" Matt asked. She glanced up to see him giving her a half grin that—coupled with his hands on her waist and the adrenaline pumping through her—was nearly enough to make her forget that they were technically working right now.

"Mhm," she said. It briefly crossed her mind that a lovely way to get over seeing Donovan's sneering face again would be by having Matt press her against a chain-link fence and kiss her for however long he liked. But then his hands were gone from her waist, and he was nodding his head for her to follow him, and it occurred to her with some disappointment that making out with a wanted vigilante not two feet from the sidewalk might not be the best idea.

"Alright. Let's go," he said.

As she walked beside him along the darkened path through the park, she waited for the lecture that she was sure was about to come. About how she shouldn't get into dangerous situations like that unless she absolutely had to, and how she should just let him handle it—any of the Matt Murdock Greatest Hits, really. But to her surprise, it didn't seem to be coming.

Despite the cool air, Sarah was too warm in her hoodie, so she shrugged it off and tied it around her waist. She squinted at Matt, trying to read him as best she could in the dark, the tall trees around them blocking out most of the ambient lights of the city.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by Matt's hand closing around her wrist and tugging her towards him so that she narrowly avoided tripping over some tree roots that were protruding from the sidewalk in front of her.

Despite the shadows and his mask, Sarah could feel the exasperated look being aimed at her way.

"I know it's probably dark in here, but you might have better luck if you actually looked where you were going," Matt noted.

"Probably," she agreed.

"Any particular reason you're staring at me?"

She glanced over at him again and shrugged.

"Just…waiting for the Murdock lecture."

"The what?"

"You know, the lecture about how this was a bad idea. I'm assuming it's coming, since you didn't give me one when I mentioned the idea in the first place," she said.

"That's because if I recall correctly, I was promised one no-questions-asked chance to stop you from going and doing something dangerous," Matt said. Sarah frowned. She'd forgotten she'd promised him that in exchange for him staying in and resting after getting poisoned. "I'm not going to waste it on Donovan."

"That's not why," she said with a shake of her head. "If you didn't want to use up your keep-out-of-danger-free card, you would have just, like, cuffed me to the radiator or something."

Matt tilted his head.

"Now there's an idea," he said.

She glanced over at him warily, not entirely sure he was joking. "That wasn't a suggestion, Matt."

He just laughed at that, and they walked in silence for another minute.

"You made a good argument for being the one to get the name from him," Matt said reluctantly. "I didn't like it, but…it made sense."

Sarah had to agree. She'd practiced her reasons on the way to his apartment, although it had quickly devolved into an argument.

("—so why wouldn't I just go get the name from him for you?" Matt asked.

"Uh, because I know you get names from people?" Sarah said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "The same cop getting randomly beaten to a pulp twice would look way suspicious—"

"—I think you underestimate how many people want to beat up Donovan—"

"—and we really don't need the NYPD taking another look into the first time it happened," Sarah finished, not letting him cut her off. "Plus, we know he already knows about us working together. This way we can make sure he's not planning to change his mind now that McDermott and his mom are all over the news."

There was as long beat as Matt considered what she was saying. Sarah bit her thumbnail as she watched him, idly noting the way she could see both sides of him working inside his head right now: his brow furrowed above his dark glasses, his suit jacket pushed back as he stood with both hands on his hips, a stance he liked to take when he was formulating an argument. But underneath the rational lawyer veneer were the traces of Daredevil she was used to: the way he worked his jaw, his mouth pressed into a stern line, or the way the fingers of his right hand tapped restlessly, like he was still imagining curling them into a fist and smashing them against Donovan's face again.

"I'm not letting you go alone," he said finally.

"I didn't think you would. So…let's figure out what we want to do," Sarah said. She glanced around his living room, then back to him with a hopeful look. "Starting with…do you still have the burner phone of McDermott's that you took from my apartment?")

"I did make a good argument, didn't I? And I didn't even get a fancy degree in arguing like you did," she said, bumping his shoulder lightly.

"I didn't say it was fool proof. But after everything that happened the last few days…" Matt blew out a sigh. "I figure if you could handle Stick and not run away, you can probably handle a dirty cop. With help," he added pointedly. "Besides, I was surprised you told me about it to begin with. Seemed like something I should encourage."

The path they were following curved towards the small man-made lake that stretched across part of the park. During the day, the lake was busy with people racing remote-controlled toy boats and couples taking rides in the pedal boats, but at night the water was still, dotted only with a few lone ducks floating near the edge of the water.

"What do you mean, you were surprised I told you?" Sarah repeated, possibly a bit too offended for someone who had very much considered not telling him.

"You tell me. Was bringing me along to meet with Donovan your first plan, or did you need to make some adjustments when you realized I still had McDermott's burner phone?"

Sarah's face flushed. He wasn't wrong, exactly. Sarah had only been wavering between telling him her plan because she didn't want to risk him trying to stop her and go in her place. And it had taken her a bit to remember that Matt had gotten the burner phone out of her apartment along with the other incriminating evidence during her stint in jail, so if she wanted to use it, she couldn't exactly keep him in the dark.

"Hm," Matt hummed knowingly as her skin heated up.

"If I had thought about not telling you, it was only because I thought you'd try to stop me. But obviously I'd rather have you there, burner phone or not," she argued. "Besides, I needed you to step in if he was giving me a fake name. And obviously the whole…intimidation factor."

"Can't say I got to do much intimidating."

"Well, that's what happens when you get a reputation," she told him. "You beat up enough people, and just your presence is intimidating. Soon you won't even need to shatter any ribcages."

"Sounds boring," he said dryly.

Sarah's laugh faded as they crossed a small bridge over the lake, and in the break between the trees that lined each side of the water, she saw a familiar building: Reynolds Concert Hall, the place that had housed the majority of her performances in what felt like her past life. Without really registering it, she slowed to a stop.

It had been a long time since Sarah had had any reason to come this way, and seeing the concert hall she'd once spent so much time in was oddly disorienting. There was a long stretch of park between her and the building, but even from far away she could see the lights were on and parked cars lined the street outside; there was a performance going on. It was nearly midnight, so soon people would be spilling out of the building on their way home.

"What are you looking at?" Matt asked her.

"Um…nothing. We can keep moving," Sarah said, although she made no efforts to do so as she rested her hands on the low iron railing of the bridge. "It's just…a concert hall I used to perform in a lot. I guess I haven't come this way in a long time."

Matt footsteps didn't make any noise as he moved to join her at the railing the bridge, but she felt his presence as he came to a stop just behind her. He leaned one hand on the railing beside her, his other hand coming to rest on her waist. He didn't say anything, which was fine. After all, there wasn't much to say. That was her life; now it wasn't.

"I wish you could come with me," she said abruptly, her eyes still caught on the glowing concert hall. "To the fundraiser."

She hadn't really meant to say it out loud, because what was the point?

"Sarah…" he said softly. "You know that's not—"

"I know," she cut him off. Of course she knew. It would already have been risky for a dedicated Orion employee to be seen with Matthew Murdock as her date—and that was before they knew Vanessa was going to be there. Letting her see Sarah with the man who had put her husband in prison wouldn't promise good things for their work relationship. "I get why you can't. But you're…"

Sarah hesitated, trailing off.

"I'm what?"

Sarah looked over her shoulder, tilting her head back to see him better. With the mask covering most of his face, leaving only the serious lines of his mouth underneath, he was so difficult to read. After the last few days, she felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Matt to get spooked by the intimacy and disappear. Telling him how he was the only person who made her feel like she wasn't a walking disaster might be just the thing to scare him away. So she didn't.

"…I just think you'd look really good in a tuxedo," she said, reaching up to teasingly tilt his chin up with her finger. "That's all."

It didn't seem like Matt was buying that, but he just shook his head with a faint grin.

"It's not like I won't be nearby. Admittedly, I probably won't be in a tux, but…I'll be around. In case Jason decides to show up and try something."

Sarah bit her lip. Of course she was worried about that, and logistically Matt not being in attendance would make it that much harder for him to get inside if something went wrong. But on a more selfish level, she wanted him there for the feeling of calm and focus that she'd gotten when he'd sat close to her on the piano bench her first time playing again in the church. A feeling she didn't think she'd get from him lurking on top of nearby building.

And in the very farthest part of her mind, she couldn't pretend like she hadn't daydreamed a few times about what it might be like to slow dance with him like normal couple. After all, he probably would look really good in a tux.

Sarah pulled herself from those thoughts, turning her gaze back to the concert hall.

"There's, um, there's a few balconies on the side of the concert hall that's facing us," she described to Matt, assuming the distance was too far for him to get any kind of read on it. "I used to go out there before a performance sometimes, so I could calm my nerves. And…usually so I could have a few glasses of champagne," she admitted. "It's so weird to think how I used to stand up there and look out over this park, you know? Now I'm…"

"…getting dragged through it in the middle of the night by the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," Matt finished for her.

Sarah wasn't sure that was the description she would have used. Not too long ago, any reminder of her old life would have hit her like a punch to the throat. But looking out across the water at her old concert hall, she was surprised to find that the ache was duller than she'd have expected. As much as she wanted to return to playing the piano, there were parts of her old life she wasn't so sure she missed. After all, every time she'd been standing out on the balcony she had been alone, save for the drink in her hand.

"Actually…the park isn't so bad," Sarah admitted, leaning back against Matt's chest. She laid her hand over the one he had on her waist, intertwining her fingers with his. "The company is nice. And way fewer serial killers than I had anticipated."

"I told you it would be fine," Matt agreed with a chuckle. He swept her hair to the side, over one shoulder, lightly trailing a gloved hand across her shoulder and down her arm. Sarah closed her eyes as telltale goosebumps raised along her skin from Matt's touch. She knew without looking that he probably had some smug grin on his face, always so pleased with the reactions he could easily elicit from her.

"You're right. I'll start cutting through here all the time," she said.

"Funny." It was clear from his voice that any smug smirks had been dropped from his face.

"I'm not kidding," she said innocently.

"Sure. You're really gunning for that radiator idea tonight, I see," he said, letting his lips brush against the back of her neck as he spoke.

Sarah laughed, but she was too distracted by the feel of his breath against her skin to protest.

"Do you take every girl you date on shortcuts like these?" she asked, her voice tight and breathless.

"Just you," Matt said, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "Too hard to convince the rest of them to jump the fence."

Sarah's surprised laugh came out louder than she intended, echoing across the water. Matt made a quiet shushing noise in her ear.

"We're trespassing here, could you keep it down?" he said, his lips curving into a grin that she could feel against her skin.

She turned her head to catch his mouth with her own. He responded by kissing her deeply, in exactly the way she'd hoped he would do tonight. Between jail and everything that had happened in Matt's apartment, they hadn't had the chance lately for much more than a brief kiss here and there, and for a while she'd been concerned he was really just going to walk her home.

Sarah twisted in his arms until she was facing Matt, briefly breaking the kiss and tipping her head back to get a better look at him. She traced his face through the mask, feeling the rough fabric that stretched across his temple, down over his cheek. It occurred to her that she'd never actually kissed him with his mask on before.

He tilted his head questioningly, waiting for her to say something. But Sarah wasn't interested in any more discussions tonight. She pressed a kiss to his jaw, just below where his mask ended, then dragged her lips down the stubble along his throat, and from that point there was no more talking.

Behind them, the lights from the concert hall twinkled in the distance.

The next morning, Sarah spent her bus ride to working looking up Elliot Bradshaw online. She wasn't expecting to find much, but to her surprise Elliot had an extensive internet presence. Every social media platform was filled with photos of him partying at the club he had seemingly bought with trust fund money from his rich parents. He appeared to be only a few years older than herself, with a skinny frame and bleached blond hair that washed out his pale skin.

Shortly after she arrived at work, Sarah was called into Jason's office, along with the same group of employees who had been summoned last time. Jason had told them they had until the end of the week to have something for him, but it seemed about right that he would cut them off a day short.

The tall Russian one stood behind them instead of joining them in a line, which made Sarah feel vaguely uncomfortable.

"Good morning," Jason greeted all of them, entirely too cheerful as always. "I'd like to kick things off by saying Kevin is the one to beat today. He managed to track down a tailor who I've been wanting to find for quite some time now," Jason said. "And as soon as I can meet with that tailor, I believe he'll be making me a new suit."

Sarah's brow creased. All his excitement was for a new suit? She knew Jason had a unique fashion sense, but that seemed extreme. Maybe she hadn't been too far off base when she'd guessed than an endless supply of white ties would make him happy.

"He just got back into town," Tracksuit said with a smug nod. "Figured you'd want to know."

Jason snapped his fingers and pointed at him.

"That's called proving your worth. Demonstrating why I keep you as an employee," Jason said. He reached into his desk and pulled out the same small brown envelope Sarah had handed him yesterday. "And to show my appreciation…"

He tossed the envelope to Tracksuit, who's eyes widened when he opened it and saw the large sum inside. Sarah wondered if it was the full $5000 Jason had planned to bribe McDermott's mother with, or just a portion of it.

"Next up…Garrett. What do you have for me?" Jason asked, his hands held wide in expectation as he paused in front of the next employee in the line.

"I, uh…well, I brought in the shipment we discussed," the man said nervously.

Jason watched him with blank eyes. "The one you bring in every week?"

"…yeah."

"Is that a good demonstration of your worth?"

"…uh…I...I thought we had until tomorrow," he stammered.

Jason's smile set into an unsettling stiffness. He nodded to Tall Guy standing behind them, and without warning the man grasped Garrett's hair and he slammed him sideways so that his face smashed into the mirror on the wall next to them.

Sarah couldn't stop the shriek of surprise that escaped her, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it.

As the man doubled over in pain, Jason moved down the line to stand in front of Sarah.

"Sarah Corrigan," he greeted her pleasantly. "I certainly hope you have something better."

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but she couldn't stop her eyes from darting to the bleeding man next to her. She stared at him in horror for a moment before Jason snapped his fingers to regain her attention.

"Is that a no?" he asked, still sounding as chillingly pleasant as before.

"N-no," Sarah stammered quickly, glancing behind her at Tall Guy. "No, I do. I—um—Elliot Bradshaw."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Am I meant to know who that is?"

"He—he's the one selling the tranquilizers. He owns a n-nightclub on the corner of 36th and, um...and 9th."

As Jason's eyes locked onto hers, Sarah worried for a moment that her stuttering would make him think she was lying. She resisted the urge to look behind her again.

Then Jason's dangerous smile grew even wider, and he took a few steps back over to Tracksuit, plucked the brown envelope from his hands, and held it out to Sarah.

Tracksuit's eyes widened, and his mouth opened as if he were going to protest, but with a look his bloody coworker he seemed to change his mind. Instead he glared at Sarah as she hesitantly accepted the envelope from Jason, feeling very much like this was a trap of some sort.

"Excellent work," Jason said. "You're all dismissed."

The employee to Sarah's right—the last one in line—looked incredibly relieved as they all filed out of the room, and she could only assume that he hadn't come prepared with any information for Jason.

The rest of the day passed without any major drama. Sarah was just packing up to go home when her phone buzzed in her pocket, and when she checked it she had a message from Matt:

Did you talk to Jason yet?

She began to text him back: Yes, and he was way, way too excited. She was just about to describe what had happened in Jason's office when the man himself appeared next to her desk.

"Sarah. Let's go."

She quickly hit the send button on her text and glanced up at Jason. Tracksuit was standing next to him, looking far from thrilled.

"Uh, go? Go where?"

Jason grinned widely at her. "To 36th and 9th, obviously. I want to talk to Mr. Bradshaw, so why wait?"

The ride to the nightclub was a quiet one. Every once in a while she could feel Tracksuit's resentful glare boring into her, but she didn't look to check. When they got to the club, it was still early enough that there was no line forming outside, and the bouncer gave them a a once over before waving them inside.

Once inside the club, Sarah was very aware that she and Jason both stood out awkwardly from the other clubgoers: Jason in a dark suit with his signature bright white tie, and Sarah in black business pants and a white blouse. Tracksuit, on the other hand, blended in perfectly, sporting one of the many nylon tracksuits that had stuck him with the name in Sarah's mind, this one in dark green. A loud, bass-heavy club remix pounded throughout the room, and the thick layer of weed and cigarette smoke that permeated the space made it clear whatever NYC ordinances outlawed smoking indoors had not reached the ears of this particular club owner.

Sarah spotted said club owner right away, across the crowded room in the VIP seating area. Elliot was wearing a neon yellow tank top and a beanie, sporting a mixed drink in each hand and leaning over to speak into the ear of the bored-looking woman sitting next to him.

Jason followed her gaze over to the VIP section.

"That's him?" he called over the music, his lip curling in distaste.

Sarah nodded, then followed him as he began cutting through the crowd, with Tracksuit close behind her. The sheer number of people inside made her feel slightly less nervous, if only because she knew that Jason liked to make a spectacle in private, with an audience of only a few key people he deemed in need of intimidation. Murdering someone in the middle of a crowded nightclub wasn't really his style.

She couldn't hear what Jason said to the bouncer who was guarding the VIP area, but she could tell that the bouncer recognized him by the wary look he gave the three of them before walking over to Elliot and bending down to speak to him. Elliot eyed them, his gaze catching on Jason for a moment, before nodding.

The VIP section was on the other side of the club from the sound system near the entrance, so Sarah could actually hear Elliot as he greeted them.

"Welcome to my the hottest club in Hell's Kitchen, my friends!" Elliot said, gesturing to the semi-circle of couches lining the area. "Make yourselves comfortable."

Sarah scanned the seats before reluctantly settling next to a strung-out looking girl who was sprawled on one of the couches, slowly tracing patterns in the air with a glowstick and watching the moving light with fascination.

Elliot snapped his fingers at one of the cocktail waitresses to get her attention.

"Yo, get one of the reserve bottles from the back. We got special VIP visitors here tonight," he told her. Then turning his attention back to them, he leaned back and spread his arms across the top of the couch. "So…what brings Orion's best and brightest to my club?"

"You sell a product that I'd potentially be interested in acquiring," Jason said. "I wanted to meet the man behind it all."

"Hell, yeah!" Elliot said. "What are you looking for? GHB? Ketamine? Fentanyl?"

"Tranquilizer darts."

"Alright, alright," Elliot said, nodding. "You're more business than pleasure, I get it. How much you want? I got a shipment coming in of about—"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Jason cut him off coolly. "I do have some reservations. Your quality control is…questionable at best. A tranquilizer dart from one batch could kill someone, while three darts from another batch do nothing but make them…drowsy."

Elliot gave a shrug, kicking his feet up onto the table.

"Right, but like….who cares, man?" Elliot asked. He spread his hands wide and glanced around at the other occupants of the VIP section for agreement. Most of them weren't paying any attention to their conversation, but the few who were nodded along. "I mean, genuinely, who cares? It's like…no one's going to set up a Yelp review for this. Right? People want drugs, they'll come buy drugs."

The waitress returned with a tray of clear liquor in ornate crystal tumblers, a stark contrast to the plastic cups the rest of the club seemed to be drinking out of. The glasses were arranged in a neat circle around a bottle of what looked to be very expensive vodka. She set the tray on the low table between them. Elliot took his feet off the table and leaned forward to hand them each a glass.

"You didn't seem like solo cup kinda people," he said as he pressed a glass into Sarah's hand.

Part of her was sorely tempted to down the entire glass just to help quiet the nervous feeling in her chest, but she refrained. Partly because she knew that nervous drinking often led to her getting blackout drunk, and partly because accepting a drink from a club owner known for selling roofies just wasn't an idea she was into.

As everyone around her tipped their heads back to drink, Sarah quietly set hers aside, out of sight on the low end table beside her. She didn't miss the fact that Jason also didn't drink from his, and she had an uncomfortable moment of realizing their levels of paranoia currently matched. On Jason's other side, Tracksuit downed his drink in one go.

Jason waited until Elliot had finished his glass before speaking again. He kept his voice just low enough that it was difficult to hear over the music, and Elliot had to lean in slightly to hear him.

"Do you know who I am, Mr. Bradshaw?" he asked.

Elliot nodded. His skin was flushed from the alcohol.

"Of course I do. You're Jason!" he crowed. "Hell yeah, man, I've heard of you. Just one name, right? Like, uh, like…Cher."

Sarah's eyebrows went up, and she looked wide-eyed around the group to see if anyone else thought antagonizing Jason seemed like a bad idea on Elliot's part, but none of his associates seemed particularly worried. Maybe though having seen Jason murder someone with a hammer to the throat was a prerequisite to being afraid of him.

Jason, however, seemed unfazed by the comment. His wide smile didn't drop at all, and in fact got a little wider, much to Sarah's alarm.

"Yes, I know you know my name, and who I work for. But do you know who I am? The things that are essential to my identity?"

Elliot, who wasn't used to Jason's odd ramblings, gave him a strange look.

"Uh…no?"

"No. No, of course you don't," Jason said. He watched Elliot for a long moment; long enough to make the other man uncomfortable. It would seem that the logical next step from his question would be to elaborate on exactly who he was, but he didn't. "Tell me, do you take pride in what you do?"

"What, owning a baller nightclub?"

Jason bared his white teeth in a smile. "No. I mean the product you supply."

Elliot groaned and grabbed another drink off the table.

"Listen, you're not here to, like, make me have a change of heart, are you? Because I sell a lot of shit to a lot of people; what they do with it is their problem, not mine," he said. "Am I dropping roofies in people's drinks or shooting tranquilizer darts at people? Hell no. But people are going to do that either way. I might as well make money off it."

It was around that moment that Sarah added Elliot to her mental list of men who made her skin crawl.

"I see. But you do keep track of what happens to your drugs and darts once you've sold them, do you not? Presumably you want return customers?" Jason asked. "It's just good business to keep track of how people are using your product."

"Sure. I keep track," Elliot said. "I'm just saying I'm not bothered by it, but I keep track."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Because the particular tranquilizers I want to ask you about were used in an attempted murder. You might have seen it on the news. It involved the mother of a murdered police officer," Jason said.

The change in Elliot's demeanor was immediate. His careless smirk faltered, his eyes darting around suddenly.

"No, I don't know which one you're talking about," he said, sounding the least smug he had since they'd arrived. "Sorry."

Clearly, whoever Elliot had sold those tranquilizers to was scarier to him than Jason was. This was surprising to Sarah, who felt as though Jason had rarely looked more terrifying than he did right now. The club's blacklights that hung just above them were casting him in an especially unforgiving light; they made his overly-white teeth and matching tie glow brightly in the dark, and each of the thin scars that criss-crossed his face were highlighted in stark contrast, framing the whites of his eyes.

"Is that so?"

Elliot let out a nervous, uneven laugh.

"You know what I'd be interested to know?" he asked, suddenly sounding much less friendly and much more defensive. "How did you hear about me?"

Jason leaned back in the couch and waved a lazy hand in Sarah's direction. She frowned as suddenly everyone's eyes turned towards her.

"Um…I'd just heard your name around," she said with an uncomfortable shrug.

Elliot leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Yeah. But from who?"

The last thing Sarah wanted to do was let on that Officer Donovan had been the one to give her the name.

"Just…an old acquaintance of mine," she said evasively.

"Are we playing Guess Who here, bitch? Was he wearing glasses? Did he have a hat on? Give me a name."

Sarah opened her mouth, not sure exactly what lie was about to roll off her tongue, but before she could speak there was a loud clattering noise as Tracksuit lurched forward, clumsily slamming his glass down on the table. Everyone's attention turned to him, and Sarah noticed for the first time the sweat that was beading his face, which had gone eerily pale.

"What the hell did you put in there?" he demanded, his voice much louder than Sarah expected. It took her a moment to realize he was talking about the empty tumbler.

Disconcertingly, Elliot seemed to find the situation hilarious. He was laughing as he held his hands up.

"It's not a big deal, man. We just made your drinks, uh…on the rocks, get me?" he said.

"You put something in the drinks," Sarah said, not really meaning to say it out loud. When she spoke, Elliot looked back over at her and rolled his eyes.

"Hey, it's not personal. I do this for all my potential new customers. You wanna do business with me, you gotta try the product," he said with a shrug. Then he gestured around at the other people in the area. "They all got the same new customer special. Look at it as a free sample."

"A less than impressive start to a potential business relationship," Jason said, seeming displeased but entirely unsurprised by Elliot's actions.

Sarah's attention was torn between the alarming calm with which Jason was reacting to the situation and the way Tracksuit was losing it. She wasn't entirely sure what kind of drugs Elliot had put into their drinks, but Tracksuit—being the only one of the three of them to actually drink one—seemed to be reacting to it very badly. His breathing was coming fast and uneven, and the vein in his forehead was painfully visible.

"I'll kill you, you little shit," he slurred, getting to his feet with surprising speed for someone who had just been drugged.

"Sit down," Jason ordered evenly, but Tracksuit didn't seem to hear him.

Elliot's laughter came to a sudden halt as Tracksuit jammed a hand into his pocket and fumbled out a gun, pointing it at him.

"Hey man, are you crazy?" Elliot exclaimed.

"Put that away, you imbecile," Jason snapped.

Around them, loud panicked voices began to swirl as the other people in the VIP section caught sight of the gun. The bouncer who had let them into the area appeared suddenly behind Tracksuit and threw his arm around his neck, attempting to wrestle the gun away from them.

Tracksuit jerked the gun up, the barrel pointing towards the ceiling as he tried to keep it out of the bouncer's reach. Whether on purpose or as a result of the scuffle, he pulled the trigger, firing a shot straight into the ceiling. The sound of the gunshot pierced through the voices of the crowd and the blasting music, and the reaction was immediate.

Screams rose above the crowd as people started frantically trying to get out, running towards the exits and stumbling into one another. Sarah had to agree with the rest of the club that getting far away from two people fighting with a loaded gun seemed like a good idea, but the sheer number of people made it impossible.

Everyone was fighting to get down the narrow steps and out of the VIP at the same time, and she found herself trapped along the perimeter, unable to move away from the expensive liquor display that lined the wall. She had no idea where Elliot had gone, or Jason. She wasn't even sure if Tracksuit and the bouncer were still fighting.

In the chaos, someone pulled the fire alarm, and the music was drowned out by a loud, screaming alarm. Flashing emergency lights began to go off, joining the already flashing strobe lights.

Sarah had just managed to fight her way a few feet into the crowd when a hand closed around her upper arm, yanking her back and slamming her against the wall she'd just pushed away from. She was greeted with the sight of a gun pointed rather unsteadily at her, and behind it was a very unhinged looking Tracksuit.

"I'll take my five grand back now," he yelled over the noise.

Before Sarah could even process the fact that he was somehow still focused on the money, someone slammed into the back of Tracksuit as they scrambled to get out of the club. Miraculously, the impact didn't make him pull the trigger and blow Sarah's face off, but it did send them both crashing into the glittering liquor display. Sarah fell back hard against one of the shelves and felt it give out beneath her, the bottles all smashing into each other.

A sharp pain shot through her side, making her cry out as several shards of glass from a smashed liquor bottle sliced through her shirt and embedded into her skin. Her hand flew to her side, but she immediately jerked it away as the pressure only dug the glass in deeper.

Tracksuit had landed heavier than her, and he was just starting to struggle to his knees. His gun had tumbled somewhere out of sight, but Sarah wasn't about to wait and see how long it would take him to find it. She grabbed onto the leather chair next to her and forced herself to her feet, ignoring the pain in her side. The crowd had thinned a bit by now as people had emptied out through either the front door—which was on the other side of the club—or through the backdoor, which lead to a small open air seating area in the alleyway out back.

Sarah stumbled with the current of the crowd to the back door, spilling out along with the others into the outdoor seating area. She could hear police sirens wailing in the distance as soon as she stepped outside, and she frantically looked around, searching for the quickest route away from the scene. She spotted the end of the alleyway not too far away, and the street lined with cars beyond it. Then to her left, she saw Tracksuit stumble out of the club. To her relief, he didn't seem to have seen her; instead, his attention was on the end of the alleyway as well.

Sarah followed his gaze, and immediately saw what he was looking at. Through the swarm of people, she saw Jason standing next to the black sedan they'd all arrived in. His bodyguard was holding the back car door open for him to get inside.

Jason looked back just as he was climbing in, finding the two of them in the crowd with alarming accuracy. He locked eyes first with Tracksuit, then with Sarah. Then his gaze darted to the end of the block, where approaching blue and red police lights were already bouncing off the buildings. He turned to his bodyguard, and Sarah could read his lips so clearly he might as well have been speaking right next to her.

"Leave them."

Tracksuit, still swaying on his feet in his drug-induced haze, let his jaw drop open as Jason slammed the door closed and the car peeled off. Sarah didn't bother pretending to be surprised; it was a waste of time, and she needed to get out of there before the police showed up.

Sarah was still aware how much she stuck out in her work attire, even more so now that there was a bright splash of red blossoming across the side of her white blouse where the glass was still digging painfully into her side. The small tables set up behind the club had been abandoned in the stampede of people, and Sarah took advantage of the chaos around her to snatch a large denim jacket that was draped over the back of a nearby chair, along with a baseball cap that was sitting on the table. She sent out a silent apology as she quickly piled her dark hair under the ball cap, then shrugged the oversized denim jacket over her bloodstained shirt and ducked through the crowd towards the street.

As she came to the corner at the end of the block, she could hear the police cars coming to a stop outside the club, and voices on loudspeakers telling everyone to stay where they were. She quickly turned the corner, and didn't stop moving until she was a few blocks away from the chaos.

Once she reached a quieter area, she ducked into the doorway of a closed office building to check the damage to her side. She reached inside the denim jacket and tentatively tugged at the largest of the glass shards, but it was stubbornly embedded in her skin. As soon as she moved it, another jolt of sharp pain went through her side.

"Shit—" Sarah took in a strangled breath, knocking her head back against the wall. "No. Nope."

As long as she wasn't touching it, the pain from the glass was bearable, so she decided to wait until she was home to deal with it. Or more accurately, to ask someone else help her deal with it.

She fished her phone out of her pocket, then groaned when she got a good look at it. She'd had it in her back pocket when she'd gotten knocked into the liquor display, and now the screen was cracked so badly she could barely make out what was on it, but she was positive it wouldn't be functioning much longer.

"Goddammit," Sarah muttered. She used her shirt to dab away some of the vodka on the screen, then carefully tried to press the recent calls button without cutting her shaking fingers open on the busted glass. Finally, she got the menu open and pressed Matt's name.

To her relief, Matt answered the phone, but his voice sounded faint and fair away, and the sound kept cutting in and out as her phone struggled on its last legs.

"Hi—Matt—" she said, trying not to sound panicked. "Are—are you, um…free?"

"I'm just—ving the office," Matt said. Even with the effects of Sarah's busted phone, she could still hear the suspicion in his voice. "Why?—t's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. She had just made such a big deal over how she could take care of herself, and now here she was having to call him yet again to ask him to come fix her. "I just—I need you to come help me with something."

"Are—alright?"

"Yes," she said quickly. "I'm fine. Mostly—mostly fine."

"Mostly?" he echoed sharply. "Sa—what's go—on? I c—arely hear you—ere are you?"

Sarah wasn't about to have Matt come find her with all of these cops around, and she already knew they'd probably need her first aid kit if they were going to get this glass out of her side.

"I'm…I'm on my way home," she said, speaking louder in hopes that he would hear her. "Can you just…can you meet me at my place?"

The crackling that came through the other end of the line sounded vaguely like Matt's voice, but she couldn't make out the words.

"Matt?" she tried.

Then the screen went completely black. There wasn't much she could do but hope that Matt was on his way to her place to meet her.

Sarah stepped out of of the concealed doorway, looking for a cab to hail. She managed to flag one down fairly quickly, but when she slid into the back seat the cab driver turned around in his seat to give her a skeptical and somewhat alarmed look. She couldn't blame him; she could only imagine how she must have looked with the vivid bruise on her cheek, the stench of alcohol and cigarette smoke that clung to her skin, and the way she held the oversized jacket tightly around her to avoid letting her blood-stained shirt show.

"Um…57th street between 10th and 11th, please," she said, trying to keep her voice even.

Several police cars sped by them going the opposite way, in the direction Sarah had just come from. The cab driver glanced from her to the cop cars, then back to her. His gaze lingered on her hand, where she was just realized she had a conspicuous smear of blood. He started to shake his head.

"Look, lady, I don't think—"

Sarah fumbled her hand in her purse and grabbed a few of the hundred dollar bills from the envelope, shoving them at the cab driver, whose eyebrows shot up.

"Please?" she repeated.

There was a short pause, and then he nodded his head and shifted the car into drive.

"Yes, ma'am."

Traffic was heavy, making their ride slow. It looked like it was threatening to storm, and everyone was trying to get home. Sarah anxiously checked her phone again, pressing the power button a few times, but it didn't crackle back to life. If it had turned back on, she might have seen the missed calls from Matt, or the missed texts from Lauren about their dinner.

But unfortunately, she couldn't see any of those things, so she just sat back in the taxi as it brought her home.

Across town, Matt was just finishing up some work at the office. Foggy had left early to go to an appointment, leaving Matt and Karen alone in the office for the first time since he'd come back. Up until now it had been a lot of Karen only addressing Matt when absolutely necessary, and being careful not to be alone with him, her body language still bristling with anger when she was near him. But tonight she was tied up trying to track down some papers they'd misfiled, so she hadn't been able to leave the office when Foggy had, and Matt wasn't planning to miss his chance to try to apologize to her while they were alone.

"Any luck finding those papers?" he asked, leaning against the doorway to his office.

"Nope," Karen said shortly, flipping through yet another folder and jamming it unceremoniously back into the cabinet.

"Listen, Karen, I just want to—"

But his attempt to start a conversation were interrupted by his phone buzzing to life on his desk.

"Sarah. Sarah. Sarah," the robotic voice repeated.

On another day, Matt might have let her go to voicemail and called her back after trying to fix things with Karen. But she'd sent him that odd message earlier about Jason seeming too interested in the information she'd given him, and he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that she wasn't calling with good news.

"You should probably answer that," Karen said. Her back was still turned to him.

Matt bit back a sigh at the unsuccessful attempt and reached for his phone.

"Hey," he answered.

Right off he could tell something was wrong. The line was cutting in and out, and she sounded far away and hard to hear. But what caught his attention more was her voice; it was tight and higher than usual, the way it got when something was wrong.

The phone call was short, and difficult to hear, but it was clear that something had gone wrong, and despite her efforts to downplay it, it sounded like Sarah was hurt. Matt took some comfort in the fact that she thought she was okay enough to make it back to her apartment, at least.

Karen's fingers had stilled against the folders in the filing cabinet somewhere around the middle of his phone call, and he knew she'd been listening.

"Is she okay?" she asked. The slight hint of curiosity in her tone was a change from the complete neutrality he'd been receiving for the last few days, but he didn't have time to stick around and talk to her.

"I'm not sure," he said honestly. "But I have to go."

"Okay," Karen said. He could feel her gaze boring into him as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. "I'll…lock up here."

"Thanks, Karen. I—" he stopped short of saying he wanted to talk to her soon, wanted to try to work things out. That was a conversation that would need his full attention, and he didn't want to mess anything up even more while he was rushing out the door. "Just…thanks."

Twenty minutes later, Matt was standing in front of Sarah's door, but he already knew she wasn't inside. Depending on where she was, it made sense that maybe he'd made better time than her, but it still felt off. He kept one ear on the staircase, hoping to hear Sarah's footsteps coming up them, but each time he listened in, it was just someone else: a couple kids running, an older man with a cane, two women lightly arguing about something while one soothed a fussy baby in a stroller. Matt tuned them all out, concentrating instead on trying to call Sarah one more time. Her line rang and rang until it went to voicemail yet again.

"Dammit," he swore under his breath.

He was so focused on his phone that he didn't realize the two women who had been coming up the stairwell had stopped a few feet down the hall from him.

"Who are you?"

Matt recognized the voice as Lauren's right away; he'd heard it a handful of times at this point, almost always laced with the same heavy suspicion he heard in it now. He tensed, then turned in their general direction, careful not to be too accurate in pinpointing where they stood.

"Oh, uh—sorry," he said, smoothing down his tie and offering a bashful smile. "Am I at the wrong apartment again? That happens sometimes. Maybe it's a different floor—"

He could immediately sense some of the tension leave Lauren's frame as she spotted his cane and dark glasses. In fact, the hapless-blind-man routine might have gotten him out of the situation altogether if not for the door across the hall opening and two more women emerging from inside.

"Matthew Murdock!" a familiar voice crowed happily, and Matt winced. "As I live and breathe, I thought you were never going to come back to visit me until my death bed."

Of all the times Mrs. Benedict could have chosen to come hobbling out of her apartment to greet him—by his full name, no less—she had to choose right now. Behind her he could pick up another person, cloaked by a similar heavy floral perfume and leaning heavily on a walker. A friend of hers, he assumed.

"Mrs. Benedict," Matt greeted her with a weak smile. "Always a pleasure."

"Speaking of pleasure, I know you aren't really here to see an old lady. You must be here to see Sarah," Mrs. Benedict said knowingly.

"Wait, Murdock?" Lauren repeated. Her voice brightened a little. "Like Nelson and Murdock?

Mrs. Benedict craned her head around the doorframe to see who was talking and spotted the other occupants of the hall. "Oh, Lauren, you're here too! And the baby! How is the handsome little guy?"

"He's really good, thanks," Lauren said. She turned her attention back to Matt. "You're one of Sarah's lawyers? I talked to your partner on the phone."

"They are an excellent law firm, dear," Mrs. Benedict said. "Commit whatever crimes you want, they'll fix it."

Matt frowned. "That's not really—"

"Stop corrupting the youths," Mrs. Benedict's friend reprimanded from inside the apartment. "Your casserole is burning."

"Alright, alright, I'm coming. I just heard familiar voices and wanted to come out to say hello, is that so bad?" Mrs. Benedict asked.

"What's bad is your casserole, you put too much salt in it," her friend said, shuffling away towards the kitchen.

"Matthew, honey, it's always so good to see you. Come see me one of these days when you're on your way to Sarah's," Mrs. Benedict said. Matt hoped that was the last allusion she would make to the frequency with which he was at the apartment of someone who was supposedly just his client. "Lauren, stop by soon, I have so many baby clothes to give you from when my grandbabies were little. They're proper boys clothes so you can stop dressing him—you know—the way you do," she told Lauren with a vague hand wave, then turned to the woman standing next to Lauren. "I don't know you. But you have lovely skin, dear. Very clear. Keep drinking water."

With that, she turned back to her apartment, and Matt could just hear her starting up an argument with her friend over her cooking.

Once the door to Mrs. Benedict's apartment was closed, Lauren turned back to Matt.

"Wait, so why are you here? Is there something new happening with Sarah's case?" she asked.

Matt gripped his cane tightly. His easy way out was shot thanks to Mrs. B, and now he'd have to lie until Sarah got here.

"…yes," Matt said. "There is."

"Oh, god, is it bad?"

"Is she going back to jail?" the other woman piped up, sounding entirely too enthusiastic about the idea. There was something familiar about her voice, too, but Matt couldn't quite place where he knew it from.

"I…can't really discuss the case with you," he said apologetically. "I'm just waiting to talk to Sarah about it. She was supposed to be here soon."

"Oh. She was supposed to meet us here soon, too," Lauren said.

"I told you she would forget," her friend hissed. "She double booked us."

"Sarah didn't forget about us," Lauren whispered back fiercely.

(She had.)

"She did, and now she's going to show up with some dramatic excuse to get out of dinner."

"No, she's not!"

(She would.)

It was fairly obvious they didn't think Matt could hear them, but he decided to interrupt anyway

"If you need to go, I can wait for Sarah and let her know you came by," he offered. "Uh…Lauren, was it?"

"Yes! Sorry. Lauren Gladstone. I'm Sarah's best friend," she said. She didn't awkwardly move to try to shake his hand like so many others did, instead keeping both hands on the stroller handles. "And this is my cousin, Cecilia."

Matt went still at the name. So that was where he'd recognized the voice from; it was the very voice that went on every local cable news and radio show she could to talk about her favorite topic: him.

"Nice to meet you," Cecilia said shortly before speaking to Lauren once more. "Let's just go."

"No, we should wait to see if she's okay," Lauren said, then backtracked. "I mean, if her day was okay. Sometimes she has a…really rough commute."

It wasn't a great cover up, and Matt knew right away what she meant: when Sarah wasn't where she was supposed to be, it was usually because she was in some kind of trouble. It was the same reason he hadn't come up with an excuse to leave yet, despite the alarm bells ringing in his head, warning him that one slip up could give him away to either of the people standing here with him. But Sarah hadn't sounded good on the phone, and now she wasn't answering. There was no way he could just leave.

"We can't wait here for her forever," Cecilia said. "I'm hungry, and I don't want to stand around in a grimy hallway all night. Besides, it's going to start storming soon, and I'm not getting wet."

"Okay, okay. Look, I have a spare key. We'll wait inside for a bit, mostly because I have to pee, and I'm sure she'll show up soon," Lauren said. "Mr. Murdock, you're totally welcome to wait with us."

Matt hesitated. He could go out to try to find Sarah, but Cecilia was right that it was about to storm, and that would definitely hinder his abilities to locate her. This was where she'd said she was coming to get his help, so this was where he needed to be. And if that meant waiting in Sarah's living room with her best friend who hated him and her best friend's cousin who wanted nothing more than to reveal his identity to the public…

"That'd be great, thank you," Matt said, biting back the reluctance in his voice. "And…please. Call me Matt."