Foggy didn't know what had woken up but something had. Then he heard it again. Someone was jimmying the window open. It was being done so very quietly but when it was also a sound that was so abnormal to your everyday life, you tended to notice it even in the dead of sleep. The night had been cool out and a breeze of it blew into the apartment, letting him know that whomever had been trying to get in had succeeded.

The shot of adrenaline woke his mind up and Foggy shot out of the bed to head towards the corner of his room where he kept an aluminum bat. He wasn't quiet by any means but then it was his apartment. If whoever was going to break into his apartment the guy was damn well gonna know that he was awake to confront him. His hands wrapped around the grip, his knuckles turning white as they lost their blood, and Foggy did his best not to let it show how much he was shaking. He briefly thought about calling Matt but then he heard the footsteps and all thought seemed to flee from his mind.

For a moment Foggy just stood there listening as whoever it was came closer to his bedroom door. His heart was pounding and it seemed to be the only thing he heard for a while. But then the sound of boots on his hardwood floors broke through and Foggy's hands tightened even more around the bat. The footsteps were uneven, however, and for some reason it caught Foggy's attention. It was almost as though the intruder were hurt but why an injured person would break in to Foggy's apartment, he had no clue.

The second a body filled his doorway, Foggy swung.

The man pivoted at the last minute, almost as though he had heard the bat coming, and it was then that Foggy had gotten a relatively decent look at him. But by then it had been too late to stop and momentum carried the weapon forward, hard, and into his best friend's left forearm. Since the swing had been meant for the head, connecting instead with the arm wasn't a bad compromise. Even so, the fact that he'd just hit his friend with a baseball bat was going to be a stone of guilt that would weigh him down for days to come.

"Jesus!" Foggy cried once reality had caught up with his mind. His heart was racing a million miles a minute and he put a hand to his chest, as though the mere action could calm it. "Matt, what are you doing here?"

"Needed help," the other man muttered through clenched teeth. He held his left arm in his right as he lay on the floor on his side. It almost looked like his body was trying to curl in on itself but Matt was rigidly stopping it. The position looked awkward at best, really.

Foggy didn't understand why Matt needed help but then he saw the blood glistening on his friend's left pant leg, just about mid-thigh. Even in the moonlight Foggy could tell that the wound was still bleeding. Whether it was sluggish, steady, or spotty, that was a mystery, but the fact of the matter was that blood was still seeping out - and no doubt onto Foggy's floor. Great!

Dropping the bat, Foggy ran into the kitchen to grab a towel and then went back into his friend on the floor. "Why didn't you go home or to your friend Claire?" he asked as he applied pressure to the wound.

Matt cried out as the pain registered with his mind but he soon clamped his mouth shut. The muscles in his neck stood out sharply as he clenched his teeth and stifled any more sound. On the exhale he slowly let any breath that he had been holding out and with it any tension he might have been keeping in his muscles. His entire body seemed to relax at once.

"You were closer," Matt finally answered after taking yet another deep breath. His breath was shuddering but at least he didn't seem to be clenching in agony, which for Foggy was a plus. "Foggy, I need you to call her."

He slipped the cell phone into Foggy's hands and then he seemed to completely give in to the pain he was feeling. At first Foggy had thought that he had passed out, and had been selfishly grateful for it, but then he'd peeled off the mask and noticed that Matt's eyes were still open.

Foggy wanted to start apologizing for hitting him with the batt but he decided that now wasn't the right time. For one thing, he was still feeling a bit self-righteous in his decision since Matt had technically broken in, and for another, it was far more important that he get Claire over there to stitch Matt's leg up than Foggy soothing his guilt. And so he called.

"Wow, I think you lasted a week before you needed my help," the nurse's voice answered.

Foggy had to chuckle at that. Figured Matt would find a girl as cool as her and not be able to keep hold of her. "It's Foggy," he said, letting her know that she wasn't talking to Matt.

There was a sigh on the other end and she said, "Is he passed out again?"

"Uh, no, not yet," he answered, looking down at the man on the floor just to make sure. "But he's got a wound on his leg. I don't know how bad it is but he told me to call you and so here we are."

"Have you applied pressure to the wound?" she asked. There was the faint sound of movement where he assumed that she was gathering her supplies and he couldn't help but breathe out a sigh of relief. "Can you try to find out how deep it is?"

Letting his brain catch up with the request, Foggy jerkily stood up and turned on a light. His eyes revolted at the brightness and closed on him and he let them have a few seconds before he forced them back open and made them adjust to the light. Going back down to his knees, he peeled up the bloody towel to get a better look, hoping against hope that it would be obvious and that he wouldn't have to dig around. The last thing he wanted to do was cause Matt more pain.

"Uh," he said, mainly speaking just to let her know that he hadn't hung up or forgotten about her request. The towel peeled back and blood immediately began to drip down. Thankfully it wasn't a steady stream but it wasn't slow by any means. "I'd say it's about medium."

"Medium?" she said, a slight laugh in her voice.

"Yeah. You know, it doesn't seem too deep but it's definitely deep enough to need stitches." His fingers slipped as they became covered in blood and he pressed too hard on the wound. Matt cried out again and Foggy instantly withdrew his touch, replacing the towel and letting it soak up the blood rather than his skin. "Sorry," he said on a wince.

"What happened?"

"My fingers slipped," Foggy explained, oddly pleased to hear the concern in the nurse's voice. "Pressed a little too hard."

"Okay, look, until I get there, do nothing other than try to slow the bleeding. Think you can handle that?"

"I'm not a complete idiot," he retorted feeling annoyed that she was being a little condescending towards him. "I already have a towel on the wound to slow the bleeding."

"Good. Well, just keep it there and I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

"Okay. Wait!" Foggy called just as she was about to hang up. "We're not at Matt's place."

"Where are you then?"

"Mine." He gave her the address and was pleased to note that it was closer to her than Matt's was and so she was only going to take five minutes rather than the twenty she had anticipated. He hung up with her and tossed the phone aside. It landed on the floor, seemingly to bounce a time or two before sliding away and under the bedside table. He looked up at his friend's face, and upon seeing that he was still awake, asked, "How you doing, buddy?"

"Been better," Matt answered through tightly ground teeth. Whereas Foggy had thought that Matt had relaxed somewhat, it was more forced than he had believed. Evidently his friend was still in a lot of pain and he was just stubbornly refusing to show it. "Claire on her way?"

"Yeah, uh, she said she'd be here in a few minutes."

Foggy sat on the floor, fidgeting. He felt as though he should be doing something productive with his hands but he didn't know what. Since the leg wound didn't seem that bad, he didn't think that he should be applying pressure to it but at the same time he didn't want to go near the arm. While Matt had seemed to relax his grip somewhat, he was still holding on to it and the stone of guilt had fully settled uncomfortably in his stomach. He felt that if he tried to do anything to help with that particular injury and he only ended up causing more pain, that the stone would get heavier and that he would, actually, be sick.

So instead, he kneeled on the floor, doing his best to ignore the tinge of red on his hands.

"Relax, Foggy," Matt said, interrupting Foggy's internal debates. "I promise I won't bleed out on your floor."

They both gave a laugh but as Matt's was cut short and had been painful sounding, Foggy's eyebrows knit into an invisible unibrow of concern.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked, worried that there were more injuries hidden underneath the Daredevil suit.

"Well my arm's a bit sore but otherwise, I'm fine."

Foggy winced. "Yeah, sorry about that. But to be fair, you were sneaking around in my apartment. How was I to know that you weren't some sort of burglar?"

"What could you possibly have that someone would want to steal, Foggy?" Matt's breath hitched as he gingerly shifted. Relying on his stubbornness, he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position which Foggy wasn't so sure was a good position for him to be in but as it had to be more comfortable than lying on the hard, wooden floor.

"Uh, I'll have you know that I happen to have a lot of nice items that are worth stealing," Foggy argued, making sure that he sounded a little affronted at the insinuation that he owned nothing of value. "For instance, I happen to have a vintage Nintendo gaming system, circa 1987, as well as a rather newer version of the Xbox, circa 2013."

Matt laughed breathily. "Foggy, no one wants your Nintendo from almost thirty years ago."

"You never know; someone might."

"Barring finding a time traveler who would rather come to the future to steal your specific Nintendo and then go back in time, no one is going to want to steal it."

"That was really elaborately thought out," Foggy commented, half impressed, half curious.

Matt shrugged but didn't provide an explanation. His jaw clenched and his face semi-contorted into a pained expression. The urge to apologize gripped Foggy once again and, just like last time, he stifled it.

They were saved from their thoughts and internal debates by the sound of a knock on his door. Foggy hadn't been aware that he could move that fast but no sooner had Claire finished knocking than he was unlocking the door and letting her in. She was dressed in nothing spectacular. A pair of jeans which ended about mid-calf, a hoodie which looked like it had blood stains already on it and a pair of Keds on her feet. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and the tinge of red to her nose and tips of her ears suggested that it had gotten colder outside than when Foggy had been out there last. And yet, in spite of all this, Foggy still thought that she looked pretty. How did Matt do it?!

"Where is he?" she asked as she pushed passed him and into the living room.

"Uh, bedroom," he answered, pointing towards the room. No sooner had he answered than she breezed into there. He watched as she knelt down in front of Matt, already slipping on her medical gloves.

"Sorry to call you so late," the blind man apologized by way of greeting. His lips pulled back to bare his teeth as he grimaced. Clair had already begun to attempt seeing how bad the cut on his leg was and she didn't appear to be trying to be anywhere near as gentle as Foggy had done.

"Well it wouldn't be a late Sunday night if you weren't bleeding and in need of medical care," she quipped. As she sat back on her heels, she wiped her forehead with the underside of her forearm. She looked over at Foggy, evidently wanting his opinion now. "Okay, we need to move him somewhere that's not the floor. Would you prefer him on the couch? Or the bed, since it's closer?"

"The couch," Foggy immediately answered. "Sorry buddy but of all the people I imagined in my bed, you weren't one of them."

Matt breathily laughed again and then grimaced. "Fair enough," he granted. "Help me up."

"Uh, no," Claire objected. "Look, I can't tell how deep that cut is and until I can, we don't need you trying to walk around on the leg and potentially making things worse. Foggy and I can get you over there. We've done it before."

"Yeah, except last time he was unconscious. This time he's not and it's considerably more awkward to do it when he's awake," Foggy interjected. It wasn't that he disagreed with Claire's assessment. God knows that he didn't want Matt to make any injury worse. But he also knew just how discomforting it would be for his blind friend to be carried. To be moved from one unfamiliar place to another was always unnerving, especially when you couldn't see what was going on around you.

"And I get that but there's no choice in this," Claire argued, clearing believing that Foggy didn't agree with her.

"In case you haven't noticed, Foggy, Claire isn't the type of person you can argue against," Matt said from the floor. He smiled to show his friend that he was, essentially, giving his blessing on the situation and then added, "Not when it comes to stuff like this, anyways."

"Fair enough," Foggy gave in, holding his hands up in the air in surrender. "Let me put down a blanket first though, cause I really don't want blood on my couch."

The two seemed content to wait on the floor while he did that and they said nothing the entire time. Foggy assumed that Clair was examining Matt but as he had his back to them, he couldn't be entirely sure. He chose a blanket that he didn't care about so that when Matt bled on it (and he would), he could simply throw the thing away rather than try and get it out.

"Okay," he said when he'd finished. He walked back over to the entryway between his bedroom and his living room and looked over at Claire. "We ready?"

"Yeah," she said, peeling off the gloves and stuffing them into her pocket. "You grab his torso, I'll do his legs."

"Get ready buddy," Foggy said as he bent down to wrap his arms around Matt's upper body. "This probably isn't going to feel good."

"Ah!" Matt cried out as he was lifted off the floor and Foggy felt his the muscles in his arms and back tense as pain wracked his body. It wasn't easy carrying Matt the short distance to the couch. Not only was he heavier than he looked, but they were both doing their best to be as gentle as possible with the injuries they knew existed and since their current positioning pulled on one of said injuries, the task was made extra hard on their part and painful on Matt's.

Between the two of them, however, they got Matt to the couch as quickly as they could and gently lowered him onto it. Foggy stood awkwardly off to the side as Claire began to unstrap and unbuckle the Daredevil ensemble, making it easier for her to examine the injuries that Matt had as well as make sure he didn't have others that he hadn't told them about.

When he finally realized that she was about to take Matt's pants off he excused himself. "Okay, I'm gonna go re-lock my window and um, you know, other stuff, while you do your thing," he said. "Let me know when you have him re-clothed and I'll come back."

"Thanks Foggy," Matt said, though what he was, specifically, thankful for, Foggy couldn't guess.

He just nodded as an answer. "Next time could you try just knocking?" he asked. "I'd really like to not hit you with a bat."

Matt laughed. "I'll work on it," he promised, though Foggy knew that he would no doubt stick to the window if he was in his Daredevil suit.

Foggy looked over at Claire and said, "Let me know if you need me."

"I will," she assured and then Foggy turned to go keep himself busy while the nurse undressed his best friend in his living room.

"How did this happen again?" Claire asked as she examined the deep cut more closely. Now that she knew she wasn't going to hurt him as badly (she'd given him a local), she was digging freely around the cut, trying to see just how deep it went. The new suit of his seemed to have stopped the weapon from going too far into his leg but the cut was still pretty decent.

"A Serbian took offense to the fact that I'd dumped his illegal weapons into the Hudson."

The casual way in which Matt had answered gave Claire a moment of concern. Then she remembered who, exactly, she was dealing with and then she brushed it off. Since he had done far worse in the previous year, tossing a bunch of guns into the river didn't actually seem all that bad for him. Actually, now that she thought about it, it seemed quite tame.

"And how did the Serbian fair?" she asked, for once glad that she hadn't been on duty tonight at the hospital. Chances were that if she had been, she would be working on the Serbian rather than patching up Matt.

"He'll have to learn how to handle a gun left-handed for a while but he'll live." Matt hissed, almost cutting off the end of his sentence and Claire withdrew her hands in response. Either the anesthetic was wearing off or she'd gone past where it was working. Which she didn't know but it also didn't matter as she'd gotten her answer while they'd been chatting.

"I see, well, you'll live too, although you'll have to stay off your leg for a day or two." She pulled her bag closer to her and grabbed the suture kit out of it. She'd actually lost count of how many of these she'd gone through since meeting the man that was Matt Murdock. It had to be close to ten, if not more. "The cut isn't as deep as I'd feared but it's deep enough," she informed as she opened the kit and prepared the needle. "I'm going to get it closed and then I'll take a look at your chest and arm."

"My chest is fine," he argued back, actually managing to sound like he meant it. It was a wasted effort as she didn't believe him, but he tried nonetheless.

"Yeah well, I'm still going to check," she answered as she threaded the needled and then started sewing the wound shut. "What was that Foggy had said about a bat?"

"It's nothing," Matt dismissed, his breath hitching as she tugged on the stitches. The wound was relatively small, suggesting that he had been stabbed with a sharp and non-serrated knife. The fact that the weapon had also evidently been taken cleanly out meant that the tear within Matt's thigh muscle wasn't too wide and would, in time, heal on its own. How long it took, however, was up to Matt himself as he didn't tend to allow himself time to heal unless he was unconscious. "I managed to scare him earlier, that's all."

"Would this happen to do with the fact that you haven't used your left hand once since I got here?"

She tied off the thread, cut it, and placed it all into the no longer sterile kit. Tearing open a small package, she washed around the wound in an attempt to clean up most of the blood and then placed a gauze pad over it before she wrapped it in a decent amount of gauze. The muscle would appreciate the wrapping and it would hold the pad in place and hopefully keep Matt from tearing it off to feel the wound.

After depositing her gloves and through the entire messy business into the trash she then pushed up his shirt to check out his chest. She'd noticed from the few times that he'd laughed that it had been breathily done and she wanted to make sure that the reason had simply been pain and not injury. She immediately noticed that there were some bruises forming but since she'd seen worse on him, she didn't pay them any attention. Just to make sure, she ran her fingers over each and every rib on both sides and checked to make sure there was no pain, tenderness, or swelling associated with each touch.

Matt smirked as she'd finished. "I told you I was fine," he reminded, although not snarkily.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," she retorted, still harboring doubts. "Now lets see that arm."

Matt dutifully allowed her to take the limb into her own hands and examine it. She was as careful as she could be but he still grimaced at her touch. As the sensitivity seemed to really only be around the wrist that was where she kept her attention, checking to see how far around the area he showed signs of pain and then checking the main area itself. When she didn't feel any telltale signs of a break, she gently laid the arm back down across his chest.

"Okay, well, I don't think it's broken," she said as she sat back on her heels, "but you should definitely go and get it checked out where they can actually do an x-ray."

When Matt didn't respond, she had thought that he was ignoring her for some reason. But then she noticed the way he had cocked his head to the side so that his left ear was out more and thus closer to his left wrist. His right hand clumsily snaked around so that his fingers were gently dancing on his injured wrist. He sucked in a breath and grimaced as he did it but once he was apparently satisfied, he stopped and resumed his normal position.

"It's not broken," he said with a small shake of his head, as though he were answering a question which she hadn't asked with it. "There's a hairline fracture but that's all."

"That's all?" she countered, surprised but not really. "That would be enough for most people."

Again he smirked and she knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth. "I'm not most people," he said anyways, the smirk growing into a grin as he finished.

"You got that right," she mumbled under her breath, knowing that he would hear it. She bent over her bag and pulled out an ACE bandage. "Give me your arm," she ordered as she opened the package and pulled the bandage out. After he had done so, she skillfully wrapped the wrist, making sure that it was snug without cutting off circulation before she attached the velcro-d end. With that done, she looked for a couple pillows but upon finding none she called out, "Foggy!"

The owner of the apartment appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, averting his eyes to the ceiling when he noticed that Matt did not have his pants back on yet. "Yeah?"

"Do you have a pair of sweatpants and a couple of pillows that Matt can use?"

She actually hadn't intended on asking him for the pants but as she didn't really want Matt to wear anything too restricting just yet she figured it would be a good thing to ask for. Besides, she doubted that Matt wanted to remain in his Daredevil suit while he was on Foggy's couch.

As though supporting her thoughts, Matt didn't argue about the borrowed sweatpants idea. In fact, he seemed to be unusually quiet, which bothered her a bit. It was then that she looked down at her patient and noticed that his eyes were closed and his breathing was even. Matt had fallen asleep. She didn't blame him for that. It must be exhausting leading a double life, and she guessed that he didn't sleep much more than four hours a night which wasn't good for him but as she wasn't his mother, she wasn't about to lecture him about it either.

When Foggy came back, she held up a finger to her lips, telling him to be quiet and then looking down at Matt. When he did the same, realization dawned on his face and he became as quiet as he could be. Foggy handed her the pants first and then patiently waited (with his back to her, by the way) while she put them on Matt before he handed her the pillows, one at a time.

The first pillow she slid under Matt's leg, elevating the thigh a little, knowing that it would help with the pain that Matt was bound to feel in the morning. The next pillow she slid in between his arm and his chest, allowing his injured wrist to rest on it. Matt's only response to these ministrations was to keep on sleeping and she let him.

Pushing his hair off his face, Claire let her hand trail down his cheek and ending it at his stubby jaw. At least this time he'd escaped without a bruise to his face, so that was something. She fought the urge to lean down and kiss his lips, feeling that that would be a violation in so many ways and instead settled for kissing his forehead.

She gathered her things, placing what needed to be into the trash, and then threw her bag over her shoulder. "Try to keep him off his leg as much as possible over the next few days," she instructed as she walked towards the door. "Both his wrist and his leg will be sore and aching when he wakes up. Give him a couple of aspirin and some ice for the wrist, and that should help."

Foggy nodded to show that he'd heard. When she'd mentioned the wrist, a look akin to a puppy who had gotten into trouble formed on his face and it was then that she was willing to bet that that was where he'd hit Matt with the baseball bat. Still she didn't push. After all, if someone had broken into her apartment she probably would have come at him with a bat too.

"Thanks for coming, Claire," the blond lawyer said, taking a moment to look over at the sleeping man on the couch before returning his gaze to her. "He can't say it for himself right now, but I'm sure he'll call you in the morning when he can."

Claire smiled at that. "I'm sure he will," she said, knowing from experience that Matt would no doubt leave her a voicemail rather than talk to her directly. "Take care of him, Foggy." She opened the door and was about to walk through it when another thought occurred to her and she stopped. "Oh, and no more bats, okay?"

Foggy chuckled, his face becoming more handsome from the smile, and nodded. "Yeah, I think I can handle that," he promised. He took hold of the door so that he could close and lock it behind her. "Goodnight Claire."

She didn't respond. Didn't say anything. Merely offered a half-smile and then left. Whatever happened next would be between him and Matt. She had done her duty and was no longer needed.

TBC