Hi friends! So, I finally managed to finish this chapter!

I had really hoped to post this in May for a big milestone: this story's five year anniversary! I've officially been writing this thing for half a decade. Of course, I missed that deadline by about two and a half months, but I'm hoping that you guys will humor me anyway by letting me know what your favorite parts of WTWD have been over the past few years. Reading your comments is always a bright spot in my day, and bright spots are definitely needed right now.

I hope you're all keeping safe, and that this VERY Matt/Sarah focused chapter can serve as a small distraction from everything going on. It has fluff, it has domesticity, it has angst—all around a very fun chapter to write.

Thanks for sticking around these past five years! I love you guys and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

It was late Monday evening and Sarah was flat on her back, breathing heavily as Matt pinned her hands above her head from his position straddling her waist.

The scene wasn't exactly as enjoyable as it could have been, considering they were in a run-down boxing gym and Sarah was currently getting frustrated over a move she couldn't get right, but overall Matt couldn't complain.

"Okay, let's try with your hands free," Matt suggested, letting go of her wrists. "The good news in this scenario is you can use your hands to fight back. The bad news…"

"…if they're not pinning my hands it's probably because they're busy, like, trying to strangle me," she finished.

"Essentially. It's why you need to try not to get knocked off your feet, but if you do it doesn't have to be game over."

Sarah nodded, then shifted slightly underneath him.

"It doesn't seem too bad so far," she noted innocently.

Matt bit back a smirk as he cast an exasperated glance at the ceiling. Then he schooled his expression into something more stern.

"Focus," he reminded her. "I'll still floor your ass even if you're being cute."

Sarah bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"Yes, sir," she said with mock seriousness.

As difficult as it was, Matt ignored that and continued with his lesson.

"If your hands are free, and you can try to get ahold of them here—" Matt placed her right hand on his forearm, "—and here—" he placed her other hand just above his elbow on the other arm, "—you can throw off their center of balance and try to roll them off with your legs and your hips."

"That sounds like using a lot of things all at the same time. Is someone hitting me during all this?"

"It's simpler than it sounds. Give it a try."

Sarah placed her hands in the correct position on his arms, but seemed lost as to how to dislodge his lower body. Maybe she needed to see it herself first.

"Okay, sit up," he decided. "We'll switch. I'll do it to you first."

"Alright," she said warily as she sat up. Matt laid on his back and she straddled his waist. He could feel her still watching him uncertainly. "Are you going to warn m—"

Matt's two-handed grip on her arm tightened as he brought his foot up to trap her own. He bucked up and easily knocked her off balance, rolling her over so she was pinned to the ground beneath him again.

"Oh," she said breathlessly. "I see."

"Your turn."

So they kept on, and it was close to nine when they finished up. Exhaustion was radiating off of Sarah as she stretched out on the bench next to the sand bags.

"Glad to be back in the ring?" Matt asked dryly

Sarah laughed as she worked her neck. "Weirdly, yes. I didn't think I'd ever like fighting as a stress outlet, but I kind of missed it. It's been a while."

It had been a while. Matt had been putting off resuming their lessons, setting the somewhat arbitrary timeline of waiting until the bruise on her face had healed. Not that it had any real impact on her ability to train, but the entire premise of their lessons relied on her trust that he wouldn't hurt her. The bruise—even given to her as an accident, even if she hadn't been upset—still felt like a violation of that trust every time his fingertips brushed against it, and as irrational as it was, he needed it to fade before he could bring her into the ring again.

"You ready to go?" Matt said. He gave her a grin. "I know a shortcut."

Sarah tilted her head back and groaned. "I know what kind of shortcut you're thinking, Matt Murdock."

Despite her protests, she let him grab her hand and tug her towards the back door of the gym, and for the sake of time they took her least favorite shortcut back to her apartment.

"Rooftops," Sarah grumbled as they crossed the gravel roof of an apartment building next to the gym.

"It's a straight shot across, we'll save a good fifteen minutes," Matt insisted. "And all the buildings are connected, so you don't even have to jump anywhere."

"Sure. You're lucky I like your company so much."

"If it helps, I brought you that replacement phone, so…" Matt shrugged. "You can call a cab if you really want."

"One of your infamous burner phones?" Sarah asked teasingly. "Now I can call all my friends who live in 2003."

"Very funny," he said as he reached into his gym bag for the phone. "You want the phone or not?"

"I do, I do," she insisted. She bumped against his shoulder as he handed her the phone. "It's very nice of you. Thanks."

Sarah glanced down at the phone in her hand, then came to a halt, stopping Matt along with her.

"Uh, Matt," she said. "This isn't a burner phone. This is like a—phone phone."

Matt bit back a sigh. He'd figured she might put up some resistance to letting him give her a real phone and not a cheap throwaway, but he was well prepared to talk her into it.

"I know."

"I can't take this," she said incredulously. "These are expensive."

"It really wasn't. I get all my accessibility tech from the same guy, which I'm pretty sure must keep his entire business afloat with how expensive it is, so he sold me the phone at a discount. It's refurbished."

"Okay, but I thought you were giving me one of your, like, ten dollar flip phones," Sarah pointed out.

"Look, there's no passcodes on those things," Matt said. "I want you to have something that's harder to get into if Jason or anyone else takes it from you."

"Well—you run around with a phone with no passcode all the time!" she accused him.

"I'm harder to take a phone away from than you are," he countered. Before she could reply, he pressed on. "It's not just the passcode. The camera, the GPS, the flashlight. You're putting yourself at risk gathering information on a major criminal organization, and I'd rather you do it with something better than a lump of plastic that can only make phone calls."

Sarah was quiet for a moment, and he could tell by the agitated way she was biting her lip that she didn't have much of an argument against that.

"I'll pay you back for it," she said finally.

Matt scoffed as they started walking again.

"The hell you will. If I didn't get a say in you shelling out five grand for me to get a new suit, you can shut up and take the phone."

"You're such a dick," she mumbled as she slipped the phone into her pocket, but he could hear her tone veering away from irritated and closer to affectionate.

"You're welcome," he said with a smirk.

They quickly reached the roof of Sarah's building. After taking a moment to listen and check that the stairwell was clear, they started down towards her apartment. As they got closer to her floor, Matt could hear someone anxiously pacing up and down the hall. It took him a moment, but he recognized the heavy sound of the short heels Mrs. Benedict wore.

"Mrs. Benedict is in the hallway outside your place," Matt murmured to Sarah as they reached her floor. "I think something's wrong."

She looked over her shoulder at him in what he assumed was a questioning glance, then swung open the door to the hallway.

"Sarah, honey, there you are," Mrs. Benedict said as soon as she caught sight of them. "I've been trying to call you."

"Mrs. B? What's wrong?" she asked.

"Oh, honey, it's your apartment. I just saw your door open and looked in and—"

At the mention of her door being open, Sarah darted down the hallway, coming to an abrupt stop in front of her apartment.

"Holy shit," she breathed out.

As Matt followed her closer, he realized why.

An overpowering smell of gasoline was coming from her apartment; even without his extended senses Matt figured he could have smelled it from the hallway. He stepped inside after Sarah, with Mrs. Benedict not too far behind them.

"I thought I heard something breaking earlier, but I didn't think anything of it because—well—it's not all that unusual for there to be noises like that coming from your apartment. I just assumed it was you," Mrs. B explained, sounding distraught that her own powers of nosiness had let her down.

Sarah didn't say anything. Matt didn't think she was listening. Her entire living room was drenched in gasoline, pooling on the floor and soaking into her couch and armchairs. The contents of her apartment were in disarray, with trinkets and papers scattered everywhere.

In the back of his mind, Matt noted how lucky it was that they'd gotten the tranquilizer gun and other incriminating evidence out of Sarah's apartment. He didn't know who had done this or what kind of message they were trying to send, but at the very least there was nothing for them to find if they were looking.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Benedict was still talking, focusing her chatter on him now more than Sarah, who seemed to almost be in a daze over the state of her apartment. As he listened to Mrs. Benedict, Matt kept part of his attention on Sarah, listening for any signs of a panic attack.

"—it seems ruined, but I know a great cleaning service. One of my old neighbors from down the hall—a long time ago, way before Sarah moved in—he owns a great business. They can clean anything. Here's his card, I'll tell him you're going to call and he'll give you a good deal," Mrs. B said. "A few days and they'll have it back to normal. Ninety-five percent normal. Maybe eighty."

She held the card out to Sarah, who took it distractedly.

"Thanks," she said quietly as she gazed at the mess around her.

"I think we've got it from here, Mrs. Benedict," Matt said quietly. "But thanks for your help."

"Of course," she said. "You two tell me if you need anything. Sarah, honey, don't you dare think about staying in this apartment until all this is cleaned up. The fumes are bad for your health, you'll develop all sorts of problems. I'll send you an article."

"Uh, thanks, Mrs. B," Sarah said.

After Mrs. Benedict had left, Sarah finally turned towards Matt.

"What the hell?" she said, sounding so hopeless compared to her earlier lightheartedness that it made Matt's chest twist. "This is all my stuff. Everything I own."

"I know. But Mrs. Benedict was right," he said. "You'll be surprised at how much of it can be salvaged."

"And so much for all these freaking deadbolts, right?" she said as she strode over to the front door. The locks and knob all sounded intact, indicating that someone had picked the lower two locks rather than broken them. The much stronger deadbolts at the top were untouched; they only locked from the inside, and therefore offered no real protection if no one was home to lock them. "Why did I even bother having them installed?"

Before he could say anything, Sarah moved on to the kitchen, where she climbed up onto her counter and reached for something on top of her refrigerator.

"That's something at least," Sarah muttered as she hopped down from the counter with her computer in hand. "No one thinks to look for a laptop on top of the fridge."

Down in the bedroom, the scene was even worse, although something about it felt off. Like the living room, the gasoline had been tossed around in a seemingly careless fashion; flammable items like Sarah's books had barely been touched, and while most of her dresser drawers had been tipped out onto the floor, her closet hadn't even been opened. It struck him as the work of someone who was either in a big hurry or didn't particularly know what they were doing.

The smell of the gasoline was starting to get to him, and it couldn't be helping the frazzled state Sarah was in. Whatever questions he had about what had happened here, they could wait until they were at his place. Of course, convincing her to actually stay at place wasn't a given, as he had discovered multiple times before.

"I know you have a rule about not letting assholes drive you out of your home, but…I think you might need to make an exception this time," Matt said softly.

Sarah was quiet for a moment as she looked around her bedroom. Then she nodded.

"Yeah, I think you're right."

Matt was surprised she didn't stubbornly try to argue; he wasn't sure if that was a good sign she was more comfortable staying at his place now, or a bad sign that having her apartment broken into had crossed some kind of line in her mind. But they could figure that out later; for now they needed to get out of there.

Sarah was quiet on the way to Matt's apartment. Her mind was bouncing from one thought to the next without processing much. She hated the thought that someone had been in her home, pawing through her things, and it immediately reminded her of the last time it had happened.

Logically Sarah knew there could be no connection between the two incidents. She'd seen Ronan's body. She'd been the one to kill him. But tonight it had still felt like his presence was hanging over her every moment she was in her destroyed apartment, right up until they'd stepped back out into the open air of the sidewalk and she'd finally been able to breathe in again.

She was still thinking about it when they arrived at the well-worn and familiar door to apartment 6A.

Matt—always so in tune with whether or not she wanted to talk—didn't ask her any questions as he unlocked the door. He just gently slipped her duffel bag off her shoulder and nodded his head for her to go in.

"Thanks," she murmured as Matt disappeared into his room with the bag.

Sarah wandered over to the tall paned window, watching the giant billboard outside as she forced herself to try to think about something other than her apartment. And as luck had it, a different complicated scenario was now presenting itself for her to overanalyze: she was about to spend nearly a week in Matt's apartment with neither of them concussed, bleeding out, poisoned, or tased, and she had no idea how it would go.

On the one hand, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to take the next step in her relationship with Matt, and it was a step she very badly wanted to take. The constant tension between them was driving her crazy, and she was fairly certain Matt felt the same.

On the other hand, Sarah wasn't sure exactly how to do that. Everything between her and Matt was so wildly different than her experiences in other relationships that she had no landmarks to orient herself. Straight from the beginning, every moment with him had been loaded with a mixture of intimacy and intensity and vulnerability she'd never experienced in her life, and if that was before having sex—what would things be like after?

These were the kind of thoughts that she'd normally quash with a few strong shots and just get on with things, but that wasn't an option anymore. Without that haze of alcohol, there was nothing to quiet her own anxieties. The only thing that seemed to have a similar affect was Matt himself. So maybe this was what she needed; a week straight of Matt Murdock to help her get to that place she so badly wanted to be.

Then she was broken out of her thoughts by the subject of her thoughts himself.

"You know I'm not holding you prisoner here, right?" Matt asked wryly from behind her. Sarah looked over her shoulder at him as he came out of the bedroom.

"Um—what?" she asked distractedly.

"You've been staring out that window for a while, so…either the billboard outside has a novel written on it, or you're plotting some kind of escape," he said with a lopsided grin as he came to stand next to her at the window.

Sarah laughed and shook her head.

"Sorry. I was just, um…" Thinking about having sex with you. "…stuck in my head, I guess."

Matt furrowed his brow, but just nodded.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, mostly just to change the subject.

"Yeah. What are you in the mood for?"

So about forty-five minutes later, they were sitting at the table with a pizza between them, trying to figure out exactly what had happened at her apartment.

"I just don't feel like this is Jason's M.O.," Sarah said. "Like, he wouldn't pour gasoline all over my apartment and then not set it on fire. If he was pissed at me, he'd send the whole place up in flames, and he'd make sure I was inside first."

Her comment earned an unhappy grimace from Matt.

"I agree," he said darkly. "What about your coworker who got arrested after the nightclub? Maybe he wasn't happy that you didn't end up in jail, too."

"His name is Tracksuit, Matt," Sarah said as she leaned forward to grab another slice of pizza out of the box. "You have to learn my coworkers' names or the company Christmas party will be really awkward."

Matt chuckled, but it faded as he shook his head.

"You need to start learning their real names in case you need to testify against them someday," he reminded her.

Right. That.

Sarah was vaguely aware that bringing down Orion might involve her having to show up in court at some point, but considering how many crimes she had under her own belt, the idea made her nervous. But she supposed it probably was past time to stop using nicknames for everyone in her head. Refusing to learn their actual names had made everything feel less real for a while, but it wasn't something she could do forever.

"Fine. His name is Kevin," Sarah said. His first name was a start; she could work on last names another time. "But all he really seemed to care about was getting his money back, and he has it now. Well, most of it."

"Could this be a reminder of the IOU part of that agreement?" Matt asked.

It didn't feel like the right answer to Sarah, but she didn't really have any reason to dismiss it.

"I can try to find out," she said. "Donovan?"

"I can't see him having the powers of an NYPD officer behind him and instead choosing to just vandalize your apartment," Matt said. "But I can look into it."

Sarah had thought talking through the various options of who it could have been would be helpful, but it mostly just served as a depressing reminder of how many people she had in her life who would want to come after her. And she hated that despite knowing Ronan was dead, the memory of him had still been enough to make her feel afraid in her own home.

"We'll figure it out," Matt said. She wondered if he was picking up on her dropping mood.

"I know. I'm just…I'm creeped out by the idea of someone being in my apartment. And I'm so out of it lately that honestly my first thought was—" Sarah cut herself off, glancing up at Matt. He was listening to her with that head-tilted intensity that always caught her out.

"Was what?" he prompted.

How do you explain that your brain is so screwed up that your first thought was your dead stalker had come back to life just to mess with you?

Answer: you don't.

"—just…something crazy," she said, tearing her gaze away from him. "But my apartment is like my one little sanctuary in the middle of all this, you know? No one gets to be in there but me. Now I let them run me out."

"Temporarily."

"A few nights, at least," Sarah said. She offered him a weak grin. "You sure you won't get tired of having me here?"

"Somehow I don't think so."

After a short while, it was late enough that Matt had to go out to patrol. He said he had a few clients he'd been checking up on since they'd agreed to testify in a court case, just to make sure nothing happened to them, but that he wouldn't be gone long.

Left alone in the apartment, Sarah had planned to stay up, and she settled onto the couch with her laptop. But the exhaustion from her earlier training session combined with the stress from the day caught up with her, and she found herself closing her eyes midway through the article she was reading.

The nightmare that was waiting for her in her sleep was one she'd had many times, but not for a while now.

In her dream, she was walking through her apartment, which was neat and gasoline-free. When she got to her bedroom, there was a floral dress laid out on her bed. She reached out to touch it but stopped, a feeling of dread filling her chest. Something was wrong, but she wasn't sure what. She just needed to get out of there, now. As she turned to leave, she caught her reflection in the mirror and saw that now she was somehow wearing the dress.

Then in the mirror, she caught sight of someone standing in the dark doorway behind her. Ronan stepped out of the shadows, alive and grinning sickly from ear to ear.

She whirled around to face him and backed away, but she couldn't move fast enough. Ronan was inches from her and her back hit the mirror with a loud bang—

Sarah woke up with a gasp, struggling to catch her breath. It took her a few disoriented seconds to figure out where she was. High ceilings, metal doors, flashing billboard—Matt's apartment.

"Sorry," came Matt's low voice from across the room. Sarah looked up to see him coming down the stairs from the rooftop access door. That must have been the metal slamming sound she'd heard. "I didn't mean to wake you."

She sat back against the couch as her breathing slowed and the images from her nightmare started to fade.

"Hey," she breathed out. "You're back."

"You okay?" he asked her, tilting his head. "Your heartbeat's up."

"Yeah. Just…dreaming," she said. She rubbed her hands over her face, then pressed her palms to her eyes for a few seconds to clear the images from her mind before dropping her hands back down to her lap. When she looked up, Matt was in the kitchen, where he grabbed a large bottle of aspirin from the shelf and twisted the top off.

"Are you okay?" she asked, eyeing the bottle of aspirin. "I thought you were just going to check on your clients."

"Yeah, well…one thing has a tendency to lead to another," Matt said. He took the aspirin and chased it with a bottle of water, drinking almost the entire thing in one go.

"Are you hurt?" Sarah asked. She got up from the couch and made her way over to him, searching his frame for any visible injuries.

Matt shook his head, waving away her concern.

"Nah," he said, his tone nonchalant, but the wince of pain that crossed his face said otherwise. "Just a headache. Gun went off right next to my ear." He gestured to the left of his head. "I hate that."

"So do I," Sarah said, recalling Tracksuit doing the same thing to her inside a small car. Her head had been pounding and her ears ringing for hours; she could only imagine how much worse it had to be for Matt.

"Why are you sleeping out here?"

"I was waiting up," she said. Matt raised his eyebrows, and she let out a tired laugh. "I mean…not successfully."

"Sorry. I thought I'd be back sooner," he said. He reached into his zippered pocket and pulled out a folded up stack of papers, tossing them onto the counter. "Stopped in to visit Melvin. Just to see how locked down they have him."

"And they shot at you?" Sarah asked, her eyes widening.

Matt shook his head. "Two unrelated events. The security on Melvin wasn't too tight; I was able to get inside alright. But I won't be able to drop in on him as often as I would have before, so…hopefully he works as quick as he says he does," Matt said.

"What are these?" Sarah said, reaching for the creased papers. When she unfolded them, her question was answered: each page was covered in sketches ranging from full suits to individual gloves and helmet designs.

"He must have known I'd track him down eventually, because he said he already had a few ideas for a suit sketched out," Matt said. "I'm hoping that's what's on those pages."

"It is," Sarah confirmed as she flipped through them. Then she frowned and glanced back up at him. "So…I'm guessing from these sketches that Melvin doesn't know you're blind."

"No. I haven't had any reason to tell him yet. I was thinking maybe you could take a look at them and let me know what he's got in mind."

"Yeah, of course. When are you going to see him again?"

"Not any time soon," Matt said with a heavy sigh. "He wants to know that Betsy is safe before he'll actually start making anything."

Betsy. The woman in those photographs who Sarah still hadn't figured out how to track down. She didn't even know who was dropping the photographs off.

Sarah bit her lip and studied the exhaustion lining Matt's face.

"You should go to sleep," she said.

"Yeah. I'm going to take a shower first," he said. "You should go to sleep. Not sitting up on the couch."

As Matt got in the shower, Sarah continued checking out the sketches Melvin had done. The first page was mostly designs that resembled a bulked up version what he had now; black and simple, but with more protective padding built in.

She reached for Matt's water bottle as she flipped to the next page, then leaned idly against the counter as she refilled it from the tap.

"Jesus," she murmured as she was greeted on the next page by a close up of a horned mask with dark cutouts at the eyes. It was certainly intimidating; she wondered if Matt had requested the horns, or if Melvin had just gone off Matt's general personality.

She made her way back to the bedroom and set the full water bottle on Matt's nightstand for him, then settled on the bed. Flipping the paper over, she found a few breakdowns of various gadgets, including one that looked like a much more intense version of the billy clubs Matt was always using to beat on people.

As Sarah was looking over the sketches, the crime-fighter in question entered the room looking the opposite of the intimidating figure on the pages; he was wearing sweatpants and his hair was still damp from the shower as he padded barefoot across the floor.

"I have a question," Sarah said.

"Shoot," Matt said as he fell back heavily on the bed next to her.

"Did you steer Melvin towards the devil theme, or…did he just take your nickname very seriously?"

Matt laughed quietly and stretched his arm up over his head.

"We had a brief conversation about it before he skipped town," he acknowledged. "Nothing drives people to church faster than the devil snapping at their heels."

Sarah squinted at him, wondering briefly if that was a Bible verse or just Matt being dramatic.

"Hmm. Well, that explains the horns."

"Horns?"

"All these hats have little devil horns on them," Sarah told him, gesturing at the papers. "Kind of a literal interpretation."

"I think they're helmets, not hats," Matt said. Then he paused. "How big are the horns?"

"About an inch, maybe. Right around here," she said, gently pressing her finger against his head a couple inches past his hairline. "A helmet will be good. So your brains stop getting scrambled up. I'd like that."

Matt's grin was tired. "Me too."

"Too many head injuries can make you go, like…nutso, right?"

"Some might say that ship has already sailed," he said dryly.

"Well, I've kind of gotten used to the personality you have right now," she informed him. "I don't want a different one getting knocked into your head."

Matt let out a sharp laugh. "Sure."

Sarah frowned as she studied him. "Speaking of...how's your headache?"

"Not awful," he said with a shrug.

She knew by now that probably translated to 'extremely painful' in anyone else's vocabulary. And her asking a bunch of questions about suits and horns couldn't be helping matters.

"Sorry," she said softly. "I'm talking a lot. I'll let you go to sleep."

"No, it's alright. I like listening to you," he said. Sarah gave a small smile. "What else did Melvin sketch?"

She scanned over the drawings.

"Well...all of the suits have a little forked devil tail attached to the back," she said seriously.

Matt laughed and shook his head. "Liar."

"Fine," Sarah conceded with a laugh. "Okay, uh, you have a couple color choices..."

And so the first night, with the exception of the apartment-ruining beginning, passed without any major disaster.

As a general rule, Sarah didn't often let herself think about the future. Despite her main goal being to have a real life after Orion, the possibility of it—let alone the timeline—was just so uncertain, and thinking about it too much made her heart ache, so she chose not to when she could help it.

But that morning, waking up with the heavy weight of Matt's arm curled securely around her waist and the steady rise and fall of his chest against her back, she was hit with a sudden rush of how badly she wanted this to be in her future, of desperately not wanting to do anything to screw it up. And it did hurt to think about, not just because a future with the two of them was anything but certain, but also because she'd gotten so accustomed to being lonely that feeling anything else practically knocked the breath out of her.

Her alarm hadn't gone off yet, but from the sunlight streaming through the glazed windows she guessed she didn't have very long. She laid there for a few minutes, not thinking about her apartment or Orion or much of anything at all really, just enjoying the peaceful quiet her mind only seemed to reach when she was with Matt.

But her moments of peace were soon interrupted by a loud ringtone she didn't recognize, coming from somewhere underneath her. She frowned as she realized that must be the default ringtone for her new phone, which she had fallen asleep on.

Matt groaned, and she felt the vibrations of it against her back.

"Is that your phone?"

"Sorry," she whispered, shifting slightly so she could pull it out from under her.

"Who's calling you this early?"

Unsurprisingly, it was Lauren's name flashing up on the screen. Sarah had texted her last night to let her know she had a phone again.

"At this hour? There's only one person," she said. She hit answer on the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey! You have a phone again!"

"I do," Sarah said, stifling a yawn. "So you can call me at dawn again now."

"It is not dawn, you drama queen," Lauren retorted. "And this is the only free moment I'll get before I have to start packing."

"Packing for what?"

"Uh, the trip from hell. It's my mom's birthday this weekend, so she's demanding that Noah and I come spend a few days with her, which I think is kind of overkill. I mean, your birthday is one day, not a week, Brenda."

"Mhm," Sarah said. She wasn't sure if she was awake enough to hear about Lauren's family drama, but she supposed she piled her many problems onto Lauren at all hours of the day and night, so she couldn't complain.

"And my Aunt Katherine—that's Cecilia's mom—has a birthday a few days after that, so she wants to do like a whole family thing with her and Cecilia and my mom and me and Noah and it's just going to be awful," Lauren said with a dramatic sigh. "And I won't even have Greg there to keep me sane because he has a work trip this weekend, so honestly I'll probably end up losing my mind. But that's not why I'm calling."

"It's not?"

"No. I wanted to ask you about your hot lawyer," Lauren said.

Sarah glanced warily over her shoulder at Matt, wondering if this was conversational territory they should really be wandering into, but he didn't look concerned. She supposed that was fair; if Lauren were calling about anything serious like suspecting her lawyer was actually a vigilante, she probably wouldn't start by calling him the 'hot lawyer'.

"My hot lawyer…" Sarah repeated. She narrowed her eyes at the amused smirk on Matt's face. "You mean Foggy?"

"Why would I mean the lawyer I've only spoken to on the phone when you clearly had a gorgeous man sitting in your living room the other night?"

"Oh, that one. What about him?" Sarah asked.

"Okay, this is serious. Are you or are you not…" Lauren paused for what Sarah thought was an entirely too long dramatic pause. "…trying to hit that?"

Sarah let out an exasperated sigh as she felt Matt's chest move in laughter behind her. She glanced over her shoulder again and he raised his eyebrows at her in question.

"Definitely not," Sarah said, and Matt shook his head disapprovingly.

"Really?"

"Really. You know what lawyers are like," she said. She felt Matt's lips on the back of her neck and bit her lip. "They're stuffy. Boring."

"He didn't seem boring! You've spent too much time with your crazy pants vigilante and now your perception of boring is skewed," Lauren accused her.

Sarah breathed out a laugh.

"That's true. He's not boring. A little cocky, maybe," Sarah said pointedly, and she felt Matt's breath skate across her skin as he laughed silently again. "But not boring."

"Also, boring and stuffy was your type until, like, way recently."

"Uh huh," Sarah said absently, too distracted by Matt's mouth against her neck to protest what Lauren was saying.

"So he's single?"

"Uh, I…don't know," Sarah said. "Are you trying to date him? Because I think Greg would mind."

"If I were to cheat on my husband it would be with Captain America or no one, thank you very much," Lauren informed her. "So, since you guys aren't a thing, you'll be, like…totally cool with the fact that Cecilia wants to invite him to the fundraiser as her date?"

Lauren rushed the second half of her sentence so fast that it took Sarah a second to catch up to what she'd said.

"…she—um—she's what?"

Matt's lips disappeared from her skin, and when she looked back at him his eyebrows were furrowed as he listened. But oddly enough, Sarah noted that he didn't look surprised.

"Yeah, that one's kind of my fault," Lauren admitted. "You said before that you weren't interested in him, and he was the first guy she'd said she thought was attractive who wasn't some overgrown frat boy on Wall Street, so I think I jumped the gun a bit and just…suggested she take him."

"What? You—you can't just ask someone you only met once to be your date to a big event," Sarah said. Her brain was still struggling to make the connection of Matt and Cecilia ever going on any kind of date, hypothetical or not.

"Well, I mean…" Lauren trailed off.

"What?"

"Like, you definitely wouldn't," Lauren said carefully. "You know, because you're more low key rather than bold, which is great. But other people would. I probably would. And Cecilia would, too."

"She really liked him that much from one meeting?"

"Well, she thought he was cute. But she also really doesn't want to show up alone. So…what do you think?"

"Uh, I…" Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Obviously she wanted to say no, to tell Cecilia to keep her perfectly manicured nails and weirdly hateful rhetoric far away from Matt Murdock, but there was no believable reason for her to do so. It wasn't like Matt would accept the offer anyway. "I guess there's…no reason for me to have a problem with that."

"Okay! Great!" Lauren said brightly. "I have to hang up because I was actually kind of already supposed to be done packing and have not started. So we're good?"

"Yeah," she said with reluctance. "Um…have a good trip."

After hanging up, Sarah sat in confused silence for a moment before sitting up and turning to Matt.

"What the hell?" she said. "Cecilia wants you to be her date? How charming could you possibly have been? I thought it was a disaster before I got there."

"It was," Matt said. Then he paused, and continued carefully. "But she was attracted to me."

Sarah cast her eyes to the ceiling. Could he at least pretend like he couldn't tell immediately when a woman was attracted to him?

"That's…so weird," Sarah murmured to herself.

"Thanks," Matt said dryly.

"No, I mean…it makes sense what with your face, and—" Sarah indicated his general person. "—just, all the rest of you. I just didn't know she experienced human emotions like attraction. Or being embarrassed to not have a date."

"There's a little more to it than that," Matt said. "I listened in on some of the conversation they had on their way home, and it seems she's starting to get a reputation for being…cold?"

Sarah's eyebrows shot up.

"Not the words I would choose," she mumbled.

"Well, she's concerned that being seen as callous and unlikeable is going to start affecting her career path, and a good way for her to seem more kind-hearted is to bring someone like me as a date."

"Someone like…" Sarah trailed off. "Are you kidding me?"

Matt shrugged.

"Cecilia's far from the first girl I've met who thought dating a blind guy would make other people think she's a good person," he said with a laugh that was maybe supposed to be indifferent, but Sarah didn't miss the bitterness behind it. "But I will give her some points for calling me a 'blind do-gooder lawyer' and not just a blind guy. Makes me seem like a more well-rounded charity case."

Sarah didn't laugh at Matt's not-quite-joke as she stared at him in horror.

"Matt!" she protested. "That's awful!"

"I'm aware," he said calmly. "I'm just used to it."

"Well…I hope you're really mean to her when you turn her down," Sarah said, shaking her head and falling back against the pillow. "Like, maybe just short of Daredevil mean."

The long silence after her words made her glance over at Matt with some worry.

"Matt?"

He propped himself up on his elbow and rested his hand on her hip, his finger tapping restlessly. His brow was furrowed in the way Sarah knew it always did when he was forming an argument in his head. But an argument for what?

"I don't know…if saying no is the best choice," he said carefully.

Sarah's heart dropped.

"Um…am I missing the punchline?" she asked uncertainly.

"Look, we know I can't go with you. It would be a disaster for Vanessa to see me there as your date. So I can spend all night hovering nearby in case something happens, and just hope I can get inside in time. Or…I can just be there in the room already."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't have your Daredevil suit."

"I can keep a mask on me. It'll be a lot easier to work around not having a disguise than not being able to get inside the building."

"I guess, but…" But it's Cecilia. Sarah's chest twisted at the thought of Matt dancing with Cecilia with his hands on her hips, or drinking champagne with her or having to laugh at whatever mean-spirited jokes she would make. But none of those were a logical reason to actually shoot the idea down; Matt was completely correct that being inside the fundraiser would be safer for both of them than him just being nearby.

"Aren't you worried about being around her and Lauren again?" she asked.

"If I have time to prepare for it and neither of us is, say…bleeding out and having a panic attack, it should be fine," Matt said pointedly.

"Right," she said very quietly.

"Think about it. It sounds like they won't be back in New York for a few more days."

"Okay. I will," Sarah said reluctantly.

Their conversation was interrupted by her phone going off again. This time it was her alarm, telling her it was time to officially get up. She turned it off and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

"I have to get ready for work," she said, relieved by the opportunity to change the subject. "Can I use your shower?"

"Yeah. Of course," Matt said. She could hear the slight note of uncertainty in his voice; maybe he hadn't been expecting her to be so against the idea.

Sarah sat up and moved to swing her legs out of bed, but she stopped when she felt Matt touch her arm.

"Hey," he said quietly. "You know I'm just trying to keep you safe. Right?"

A flash of guilt went through her. She wasn't mad at Matt, she just hated the whole situation. He probably didn't want to go to the fundraiser with Cecilia any more than she wanted him to, but he was doing it for her.

She leaned back into the bed and kissed him, long and slow before breaking away.

"I know, Matt," she said. "You always do."

Later that day, Sarah received more surveillance photos of Betsy to pass along to Jason. She'd had to leave the office for about an hour and a half to run some errands for Jason, and when she returned to Orion the envelope was waiting on her desk.

She was looking through them when she heard a familiar voice around the corner. It seemed Tracksuit was back at work, having posted bail with some of the money she'd returned to him.

"...you know how Jason is with his goddamn company cars," he was saying to another employee who was walking with him. "If you're doing company business, it's gotta be in a company car. Why? I don't feel like signing in and out every time I need to drive somewhere just because he's paranoid. It's a waste of my time."

His voice faded as they kept walking the other direction, but what he'd been saying caught Sarah's attention. Jason did make his employees drive company cars if they were doing anything for Orion, with his reasoning being they were less noticeable and easier to switch out if the police or anyone did notice them.

And if whoever dropped these photos off was still in the building, maybe the car they'd taken to do it was, too. It was a stretch, but she didn't have any other leads.

Sarah checked the time; she had about thirty minutes before she had to set up the conference room for Jason's afternoon meeting. Sliding the photos back into the envelope, she grabbed her phone and made her way down to the garage.

She didn't recognize the guard in the security booth, but he seemed as bored as the others she had seen there. His attention was fixed on his laptop, where two sports commentators appeared to be discussing something animatedly. The guard let out a scoff at whatever they were saying as Sarah approached the booth.

Figuring maybe just playing dumb was the easiest option here, Sarah knocked on the window and waved.

"Hi!" she called out. "Um, so, I'm missing an earring, and I think I left it in one of the cars here."

The guard glanced over at her for a second before turning back to the screen.

"Uh huh," he said absently. He grabbed the clipboard where each car was signed in and out. "Name?

"Well, I wasn't the one driving, so it won't be on there. I'm not sure what the driver's name was, actually."

"Fine. Which car was it?"

"Um...I'm not sure. I wasn't really paying attention," she said.

"You got a make and model at least?" he asked in annoyance.

"It's—it was like a…maybe a Nissan...Mercedes."

The guard looked at her like she was an idiot, which was exactly how she hoped she was coming off. She wondered if it said something about her that the easiest way she'd found of flying under the radar was just pretending to be dumb.

"That's two car makes," he said.

"What?"

He let out a frustrated sigh, his eyes occasionally flicking back to the television he clearly wanted to return to.

"Was it a manual or automatic?"

"...both? I'm not sure what the means."

"Are you kidding me? You're wasting my time, lady."

"I'm sorry," she said, watching him glance at the screen again. "I know we came in between like…12 and 1:30. Can I just take a look in the cars that came in then?" she asked hopefully.

The guard gave her a skeptical look, so she shrugged and motioned towards the gated entrance.

"It's not like I can steal any of them," she said. Then as a last ditch attempt, she launched into an explanation. "And I just really need that earring back, because I borrowed them from a friend and she's already really mad that I borrowed her favorite sweater last month and then spilled wine on it, and we're supposed to go on a three day weekend to Connecticut soon, but if she's mad at me I'll have to go with my other friend instead, and she—"

"Jesus, okay, here," the guard said, unhooking three sets of keys from the rack and tossing them into the tray. "Just go away."

Pleased with her consistent ability to identify men who hated hearing women talk, Sarah took the keys and hurried away from the booth.

She hit the unlock button to locate the first car, and the lights on a black SUV down the first row flashed. Climbing inside, Sarah glanced over her shoulder before turning the key in the ignition, not enough to turn the engine over, but just enough to bring the GPS screen on the dashboard to life.

She'd known it was a long shot that the car's GPS would still have the location it had come from saved in its recent history, but she now found herself with the opposite problem. There was a list about twenty recent addresses to scroll through, and from their scattered locations they didn't appear to be in chronological order.

Sarah took a photo of the screen with her phone, desperately hoping that looking up these addresses wouldn't end up being a waste of her time.

She winced as the short step down from the SUV pulled painfully at the healing cut on her side.

The second and third cars ended up being similar, with a long list of recent locations in the GPS history. Between the three vehicles, she estimated there were probably a little over fifty potential addresses now saved in her photo roll, and she had no way of knowing if any of them were even from the mysterious photographer.

As she rode the elevator back up to her floor, she scanned the list, but nothing immediately jumped out at her.

With a sigh, Sarah slipped her phone back into her pocket. It looked like she'd be staying up late tonight working on this, and she could only hope it would pan out.

Matt and Sarah didn't cross paths after work that evening. He had to work late and she went straight from work to the church to practice piano. By the time she got home he had already headed out to patrol for the night, so Matt didn't expect to see her at until the next morning.

But when he landed on his roof at nearly 2 am, he could hear her still awake inside, moving around in the kitchen.

It was strange (although not unpleasant) to come home to anything other than a silent, empty apartment after a night of Daredeviling. Tonight he smelled the faint scent of herbs from recently made tea, and heard quiet music coming from Sarah's laptop which she had open on the kitchen counter, focusing intently on whatever was on the screen as she stirred her tea.

Matt pulled open the rusty metal door, and as he closed it behind him he heard Sarah's heart skip just a little. His mouth curved into a small smile; her heart did that a lot now when she saw him, and he listened for it each time.

"You're up late," he noted. "Must be working on something important."

"It might be," Sarah said. She tilted her head at whatever was on her laptop screen, then closed it with a sigh. "Or it could be a waste of time. I'll let you know when I do."

She stretched as she got out of the chair, then drew in a short, pained inhale. If Matt had to guess, it was from the wound on her side she'd gotten during the nightclub fiasco.

"Did one of your cuts reopen?" he asked. He tilted his head and stepped closer to her.

It was a mark of how exhausted he was that he hadn't realized she was wearing one of his hoodies until he was reaching for the zipper. He unzipped the front, then gently pressed his hand against her bandage through her tank top, resting his other hand on her waist.

It seemed to be healing fine, although from the way her temperature shot up at his touch he might have thought she had a fever again.

"No, it's okay. Just stings," Sarah said, tilting her head back to look up at him. She reached up and pulled his mask off, then ran her fingertips down the side of his face. "How about you?"

Matt paused, then let out a short laugh.

"Uh, actually…"

He stepped back again and held up his right arm, showing the deep gash several inches long on his forearm. The fabric of his shirt had stuck to it from the blood, which had helped stem the flow somewhat, but it would still need a few stitches.

Sarah threw her hands up, the exasperation coming off her in waves.

"You can't just be asking about my already healed cuts when you're walking around with your arm sliced open! This is very Matt Murdock of you," she accused him, as though leveling his own name at him was a great insult.

Matt was instructed to sit at the table while Sarah got the medical supplies from the cabinet in his kitchen, and he did so without complaint. His sore muscles protested as he pulled his shirt up and over his head, tossing it onto the couch.

"It's really not bad. This isn't even one I would have even come to your place to bother you with," he told her as she pulled another kitchen chair over to sit in front of him.

"That's not reassuring," Sarah said as she started laying supplies out on the table. She settled crosslegged into the chair and Matt laid his arm out on the table, his other hand coming to rest idly on her thigh.

She started dabbing at the cut with disinfectant, pressing gently against the bloodied skin. It struck him as amusing sometimes how she seemed concerned about being so careful with wounds that, if this had been a normal night, he would have just quickly stitched up himself so he could fall into bed.

"Do you think you'll still come visit me if you don't have to get fixed up as much with your new suit?" she asked.

"Believe it or not, your stitching skills are not the main attraction of stopping by your place," he said.

She used her forearm to push her hair out of her face, and he could tell she was giving him a speculative look.

"I can't tell if you're flirting with me or just knocking my stitching skills," she said.

Matt smirked, but considering she was currently putting a needle through his skin, he didn't elaborate further.

Sarah was reaching the part of the gash that had sliced a little deeper, and as they talked Matt traced tiny patterns on her leg, the soft feel of her skin under his fingertips serving as a welcome distraction from the pain. From the goosebumps that raised along her skin, it was also distracting her, but she remained focused on the task. Part of him wanted to see if he could distract her a little more, but she took his injuries more seriously than he did, and he had a feeling she wouldn't be amused.

Sarah rotated his arm slightly to continue closing the wound, and as her hand brushed over top of his own she noticed his busted knuckles, which were admittedly bloodier than usual.

"Jesus, Matt," she said quietly. "Aren't the gloves supposed to help keep this from happening? How hard you hitting these guys anyway?"

Matt just raised his eyebrows at her and she shook her head before resuming her stitching.

"Dumb question," she murmured.

"Some of the types I run into…they press my buttons more than others," Matt said. He didn't want to go into detail about the kinds of crimes the men he'd bloodied his knuckles on tonight had been involved with, but she knew by now what kind of things he was talking about. "These ones were on the 'more' side of things."

Once the wound on his arm was closed, Sarah turned her attention to his knuckles.

"You don't have to bother with that," he said as she soaked a cotton ball in alcohol.

"Because...you have another pair of hands stashed away somewhere?" she questioned, taking his hand and starting to dab at the broken skin.

"It's a good reminder for me."

"A reminder of what?"

"To hold back sometimes. Not let the devil out every time."

"There has to be a different reminder that doesn't involve purposely letting yourself suffer," Sarah said. "I know this will be a foreign concept to you, but you being hurt bothers me."

Matt had a dozen arguments for why she shouldn't stress herself out over injuries that he chose to go out and sustain, but he didn't want to make them right now. Right now, he just squeezed her hand as a silent apology.

They were quiet for a few minutes as she finished cleaning up his hands.

"Okay. That's a little better," she said, studying her work as she set the first aid kit aside.

"Thank you," Matt said, running his fingertips over the stitches on his arm. "It's a cleaner job than I'd have done myself."

"So you won't be kicking me out to go stay with Mrs. B?" she asked teasingly.

"Why would I do that?" he asked. "I only just got you here."

"I don't know," she said, leaning back against her chair. "I keep waiting for you to get tired of how much room I'm taking up in your life."

Matt tilted his head as he realized she wasn't kidding anymore.

"What?"

"You know, I practice piano at your church. I train at your gym. Now I'm staying in your apartment and talking on a phone you had to buy me," Sarah said with a rueful laugh. "That's a lot of different spaces I'm taking up in your life right now, and I know it's not...how you normally do things. I don't want you to feel...suffocated."

What she was saying was so far from anything he'd been thinking or feeling that it took him a second to process it.

Matt leaned forward and pushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear and letting his hand linger there.

"To be clear, every part of my life you've taken up space in is...greatly improved by your presence there," he informed her. "So please keep doing it."

"Oh," Sarah said faintly. The temperature of her skin inched upward as she swallowed. "Okay then. Great."

Then she leaned forward, closing the short gap between them, and kissed him. And despite her worries, Matt couldn't imagine needing her to do much more than simply exist to justify taking up space in his life. This was all he needed her to do: be near him, warm and soft and wearing his clothes, touching him with more gentleness than he'd ever deserved in his life.

So the second night, like the first, also passed without disaster.

The next morning was difficult; it felt like Sarah had only just closed her eyes when her alarm went off. She was starting to suspect that she wasn't built to keep up with the sporadic sleep schedule Matt somehow survived on.

Then again, maybe it wasn't such a sustainable schedule for Matt either, as he was currently still lying in bed as Sarah finished putting on her makeup over by the window. He wasn't sleeping, but he wasn't making any effort to get ready, either.

"You're going to be late for work," she told him as she threw her makeup bag in her purse.

"Mmm," he acknowledge sleepily. "Is my boss going to fire me?"

Before she could respond, there was a loud knock at the front door.

Sarah frowned. "Who is that?"

Matt lifted his head from the pillow to listen, then closed his eyes and groaned in exasperation.

"It's Wednesday," he said as he slowly sat up.

Sarah stared at him.

"Who's Wednesday?" she whispered.

The corner of his mouth twitched and he shook his head.

"No, today is Wednesday. The person at the door is Foggy," he said. "The bagel place he likes does half-off on Wednesdays, so he always brings some over before we head into the office."

"Well that's…adorable," Sarah said, biting back a grin.

"It's not. It's Foggy's ill-advised attempt at making me into a morning person."

Sarah raised her eyebrows, taking in Matt's disheveled appearance and unamused expression.

"It's not working," she said under her breath.

He sent her a dirty look as he moved past her to go answer the door. Sarah checked the time on her phone; she still had some time before she needed to leave. A bagel sounded good, and she wondered if Foggy had brought any extra.

Out in the living room, Foggy rounded the corner with Matt. He was noticeably not holding a bag of bagels, and blinked in surprise when he saw Sarah.

"Sarah's here! That must mean…" Foggy narrowed his eyes, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Which one of you is horribly injured?"

"No one," Sarah said. She looked over at Matt. "He doesn't look like he has bagels."

"Well, I didn't bring bagels today because I thought maybe my closest friend and law partner wanted to wait in the extensive bagel line with me today, so that the bagel ladies behind the counter quit giving me pitying looks for being all alone," Foggy said. He turned to Matt with an imploring look. "The bagel ladies think I'm eating them all myself, Matt, I know they do."

"Sorry, Fog," Matt said, a yawn punctuating the end of his apology and making him sound not particularly sorry at all.

"But as two out of the three of us can see, said law partner has made no efforts to be dressed and ready for society, so…" Foggy waved a hand at Matt's disheveled appearance.

"I'll stand in the bagel line with you, Foggy," Sarah offered.

Foggy threw his hands up in the air.

"Thank you! See, Matt, you lost your chance," Foggy said. "And she's prettier than you, so that will really show the bagel ladies."

"I hope you know she's only going because she wants a free bagel," Matt pointed out dryly.

Foggy looked over at Sarah, who gave him an apologetic shrug.

"And it's on the way to work," she admitted.

"Alright," Foggy said with a groan. "I'll take what I can get. Murdock, you better be showered and ready when I get back. And comb your hair, it looks ridiculous."

After Foggy turned the corner back to the entryway, Sarah turned back to Matt.

"I like your hair like that," she said, reaching up to brush her fingers along his temple. Then she pressed quick kiss to his lips. "I'll see you later."

The bagel place was only about a block and a half from Matt's apartment, and Foggy wasted no time in giving her a wide, cheesy grin as soon as they stepped onto the sidewalk.

"Sorry if I interrupted your morning bliss. Matt didn't tell me you'd moved in."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "No one's moved in anywhere. I'm just staying with him for a few days while my apartment gets worked on."

"Sure, right," Foggy said. "Feels like just a few days ago I had to drunkenly bully you two into properly labeling your relationship, and now you're cohabitating."

"I will leave you to stand in the bagel line all by yourself, Foggy."

He held his hands up. "Okay, okay. I see all that time spent with Matt has rubbed off on you. You never used to threaten me back when we first met."

"When we first met I was helping push a shopping cart full of vigilante around in blood-soaked pajamas," she pointed out. "I didn't have time to try threatening you."

"Ah, the good old days."

"I think I prefer these days," Sarah said thoughtfully. No Ronan, a much more enjoyable version of Matt, not having to keep quite as many secrets from Lauren. Her life wasn't currently amazing, but she'd say it was significantly better than when she first met Foggy.

"Fair enough," Foggy conceded as they came upon the line for the bagel shop, which didn't look too unbearably long. "Hey, when's your big return to fancy high society?"

"What, the fundraiser? It's next week."

"And are you psyched to get your, uh…" Foggy waved his hands around vaguely, searching for something. "…Mozart on?"

Sarah laughed. "Sure. The playlist I was given is…slightly more modern than that, but I'm excited."

"And from what I hear, Matt will be stoically perched like a gargoyle on some nearby ledge in case he's needed?"

"Mmm, your sources are out of date," Sarah informed him. "Matt found a way to come to the fundraiser as a legitimate guest."

"Oh. Well, that's good, right?" Foggy asked. He gave her a funny look. "You don't look like that's good."

"He's going as someone else's date," she explained, trying her best to sound normal and not completely sullen.

As if by fate—a very annoying fate—their spot in line placed them directly next to a newspaper rack displaying the New York Bulletin, with Cecilia's column displayed prominently, accompanied by a small black and white photo of her at the top. It made sense; controversy sold copies, and Cecilia had some very controversial opinions.

"Wow," Foggy said. "Well, that's…not what I was expecting. I mean, whatever makes you guys happy, but—"

"It's the best way for him to be nearby if something happens," she explained. "And he can't exactly come as my date. Orion barely lets me get away with having you and him as my lawyers."

"Huh. So you're just…totally cool with that, then?"

"I kind of have to be, since he's doing it for me. I mean, it would be easier if he wasn't going with her," Sarah said, nodding at the photo of Cecilia with a scowl. "But—"

"Wait—I'm sorry—he's going with her?" Foggy clarified, bringing his voice down to a whisper. "The one who goes on all the local news shows and bashes him? And writes a bunch of newspaper articles also bashing him?"

"That one," Sarah confirmed. "Well, she hasn't actually asked him yet. But she's planning to, and he's going to say yes, so…"

Foggy shook his head with a disappointed look.

"Hot with no morals," Foggy muttered. "Just Matt's type."

There was an awkward pause as Sarah tried to puzzle together if he had just insulted her or not.

"Um…what?" she said.

Foggy took in her expression and seemed to realize that a) he'd said that out loud, and b) it wasn't landing very well.

"Sorry, it's nothing—just an old, dumb joke from when Matt and I were in school," he explained, frantically waving his hand as though trying to clear his words from the air between them. "And one that I am now realizing I should definitely not make in front of his girlfriend."

"I have morals?" Sarah defended herself, although in her confusion it came out sounding more like a question.

"No, of course! I didn't mean you. I just meant—Matt has a history with beautiful women who are also crazy and want to ruin his life," Foggy explained, then gestured at the newspaper photo. "So it's kind of funny that he—uh—that's all I meant."

"You're saying that's Matt's usual type?" Sarah asked, pointing to Cecilia's picture.

"No, no—you're Matt's type," Foggy corrected hastily. "Because you're dating, obviously. That joke is just about—you know—the old one-night-stand type girls—"

Sarah's eyes widened, and she looked from Cecilia's photo to Foggy and back in alarm.

"In the past!" Foggy hastened. "In the past. Did I mention the joke was dumb?"

They finally got to the front of the bagel line, and Foggy had to interrupt his own backpedaling to quickly order a few bagels.

As they exited the shop, he was still trying to take his own foot out of his mouth

"Seriously, that was an old joke that I've ribbed him about so many times it just kind of came out automatically," Foggy said.

"You've said it so many times because...he's dated so many beautiful crazy women?" Sarah asked.

"No! I say it about women he doesn't date all the time! I said it about Karen when we first met her, and look: she ended up with an equally stunning blond and not Matt," he said. "It's nothing to worry about, I promise."

"Okay," Sarah said with what she hoped was a nonchalant nod. "Sure."

"This is not how I wanted our first bagel line experience to go," he said. He held out the paper bag towards in a hopeful gesture of peace. "Pumpernickel?"

Sarah ignored the question.

"So, you wouldn't say that Matt usually dates…" Jumpy girls with anxiety and a mild drinking problem? "…people like me?"

Foggy opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking very uncomfortable with the conversation he had walked into.

"I mean, do you usually date anyone like Matt?" he asked.

"Are you serious?" Sarah let out a short laugh. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like Matt."

"Well there you have it! It, uh…all evens out," Foggy tried.

Sarah bit the inside of her cheek to stop from asking more questions. The nosy, insecure side of her was curious to know more about these stunning, dangerous women Matt apparently used to date by the dozen. But this was one of those irritating times when she had to stop and remind herself of what she could and couldn't change: she couldn't change the fact that Matt's usual type appeared to be wildly different from her, and she couldn't change that he was going to the fundraiser with Cecilia. But she could control if she let it get in her head and make her even more self-conscious about their relationship than she already was.

She sighed dramatically.

"I want two bagels," she said finally.

"You got it," Foggy said immediately, looking relieved to have found some semblance of a back door out of their conversation. He held the bag out. "Your choice."

After they parted ways, Sarah made herself put the conversation out of her mind. Today was one of the days she had to split between Vanessa and Jason, and she didn't need to be distracted the whole time.

As she got to Vanessa's penthouse apartment, her phone buzzed. It was a text from Foggy.

'Sorry I stuck my foot in my mouth earlier. Don't let it bother you—Matt is crazy about you.'

Sarah shook her head and bit back a small smile, slipping the phone into her pocket before knocking on the door.

Her work for Vanessa ended up taking longer than she had expected, and Sarah found herself still at Vanessa's apartment much later than she'd planned. This was a problem, because Jason had given her the task of picking up some papers on her way to Orion and bringing them to him before a noon meeting that sounded very important. Said meeting was rapidly approaching as Sarah was finally gathering up her belongings to leave.

"Sarah, one moment before you leave," Vanessa asked, her heels clicking as she walked over to her.

"Um, actually, I—I'm going to be really late," she said, a pleading note slipping into her voice. She really couldn't afford to slip up again with Jason.

"Yes, of course. I'll let you go. But please let me know when you have a bigger opening in your schedule," Vanessa said.

Sarah nodded absently as she gathered up her belongings. "Sure. For what?"

"I'd love for you to meet Wilson."

As the words registered in Sarah's brain, she froze in place, her hand halfway to her bag.

"Um...what?"

"Wilson always likes to get to know the people I spend my time with. And he's such a fan of classical music, so I mentioned to him that you play," Vanessa said.

"Oh, you—you, um, told him about me?"

"Of course. I tell Wilson about many things; he needs to hear about the outside world to keep from going crazy. I go see him often, but I'm always alone, and it would be so nice if he had another person to talk to who was...cultured," Vanessa said. "I think it's something he's desperately lacking in that prison."

Sarah was at a loss for words. Of all the things she wanted to do in this life, meeting Wilson Fisk in prison was very, very close to the bottom of the list.

Before she had the chance to come up with some excuse, Vanessa's phone rang.

"Oh, excuse me," Vanessa said. Then with a glance at the clock, she added, "Are you still running late?"

Sarah followed her gaze to the clock and swore internally when she saw the time. There was no way she would make it to Orion in time to get Jason the papers he needed before his meeting.

Sure enough, when she arrived at Orion out of breath and slightly sweaty, Jason was already in the conference room with three men in suits. She quietly entered the room and set the papers on the table next to him, then checked the time. She was a good twenty minutes late.

"Sarah," Jason said without looking at her. "Please get our guests some drinks."

Sarah nodded and walked over to the bar cart in the corner of the room. She picked up the decanter of expensive scotch and shakily poured it into a few crystal tumblers before bringing them over to the conference table. No one acknowledged her as she set the drinks down. She waited a beat, then nervously left the room.

The meeting only went on another half hour or so, and when it was done Jason called her into the conference room. He was standing by the window, and turned around as she approached him.

"Do you realize how much money those men were going to invest in this business?" he asked very quietly. "Emphasis on 'were'."

He sounded eerily calm as he stood completely still with his hands folded in front of him. In hindsight, the calm should have been a warning sign, but in the moment Sarah didn't see it coming.

"I'm sorry, Jason, I was—"

In a flash Jason's hand was around her throat, and he yanked her violently forward, then flung her back against the bar cart in one rapid movement. Sarah's back hit the metal edge hard, but she caught the wall in time to avoid falling onto the cart altogether. Behind her, several expensive crystal glasses smashed to the ground.

Sarah brought a hand to her throat as she stared at him in alarm. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out if he was going to come at her again, and if she could grab the heavy scotch bottle behind her in time—

"This needs to be cleaned up," he said calmly. Then he straightened his tie, smoothed down his hair, and left without another word.

Sarah stood there for a few moments, as though frozen in place.

On the scale of violence she had experienced in the last year, this incident ranked low. There was no explicit threat to her life, no lingering sexual threat behind the physical contact. It didn't even leave any marks on her, save for a slowly forming bruise on her lower back.

But despite that, it shook her more than she would have expected. Jason had always been willing and ready to commit violence; the day he'd sent the sharp end of a hammer through McDermott's throat would stay in her mind for her entire life. But for the most part, he'd always relied on strange mind games and psychological intimidation, and Sarah had up until now been able to mostly maneuver around that

But that night in the jail cell, then the letter opener, and now this—Jason's tendency towards getting violent with her was growing more frequent. And she knew better than anyone how bad it would be when he eventually snapped completely.

The third night was when disaster arrived.

Matt had been home from work for a while when Sarah got there. He had his laptop open on the coffee table and he was sitting on the couch with one earbud in and a frown of concentration on his face as he listened to whatever document was being read aloud. Her distressed mood must have been obvious as soon as she walked through the front door because he looked up from his work and pulled his earbud out by the cord.

"Hey," he greeted her, his brow furrowing in concern.

"Hi," Sarah said. She tried to sound normal, not wanting to immediately dump her bad day all over Matt. But despite her efforts, her voice was tight and anxious sounding.

"What's wrong?" he asked, standing up and crossing the room towards her.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head and setting her bag down on the table. "Just...a long day."

It didn't appear that her answer was going to satisfy Matt, so Sarah debated in her head which piece of info was less likely to make him even more concerned. On the one hand was Jason tossing her around the office by her throat, and on the other was a potential meeting with Fisk. Fisk was farther in the future, so she chose that.

"It's nothing crazy, I just...had to split my day between Vanessa and Jason and I screwed it up, and...Vanessa wants to drag me over to prison to meet Fisk, and Jason is obsessing over—"

"Vanessa wants to what?" Matt interrupted her sharply.

Sarah sighed and ran her hands through her hair in agitation. "I don't know. She wants me to come with her to go visit Fisk. She said he likes classical music, so she told him about me—"

"She told him about you," Matt said, his voice sounding oddly flat. "So he knows your name."

"I would think probably? I mean, he at least knows I work for Jason and play the piano, which kind of narrows it down—"

"Sarah, you can't go to that prison," he cut her off.

Sarah hesitated. She'd figured Matt might not like the idea, but he had to understand that the nature of her job meant it wasn't that easy.

"Matt, I…I don't know how much of a choice I'll have," Sarah said hesitantly. "There's not a lot of room for saying 'no' in my job description."

"Come up with something. Some excuse, some reason, you cannot be a room with him," Matt insisted. "Okay? I'm—I'm using my one free card. You promised you'd listen to me one time, no questions asked, and I'm using it now."

"I mean, I can try to come up with an excuse not to go, but eventually it will start to look suspicious—"

"Then look suspicious. I'm serious. We can figure out a way around that, but if you walk into a jail cell with Wilson Fisk, there is every chance you might not walk back out," Matt said.

"You think he's figured out what I'm doing?" she asked uncertainly. "Wouldn't I already be dead by now?"

"No. I don't. But…he could take an interest in you. Start looking into you, and then start looking into me, and into us," Matt said. He was pacing now, and making agitated gestures with his hands as he spoke.

"Into you?" Sarah repeated. Her heart sank. Is that why he was so freaked out? He thought she couldn't be relied on to keep a level enough head around Fisk to keep his identity secret? "Matt, I…I wouldn't tell him anything that would give you away. I mean, I know I screwed up with Cecilia, but I can keep a secret."

"I know that," he said. "I'm not worried about that. I know Fisk. As much as I hate it, I know him better than almost anyone else in this city does. I know how he manages to zero in on the things that matter to someone and destroy them."

"But as far as anyone at Orion knows, you're just my lawyer, so I don't matter to you," Sarah pointed out, but Matt's argument was convincing. It was difficult to get past how suspicious not going would make her look, but Matt's clear panic at her being near Fisk was making her take a second guess. "Not like that, anyway."

"Fisk is smarter than anyone at Orion!" Matt exclaimed. "If he draws a connection from you to me? Knowing I helped put him away? He—he will go after anything or anyone that's mine, and he won't care if you're innocent or not."

Sarah faltered.

"Yours?" she repeated in a ragged whisper. "…a little possessive, don't you think?"

Partly she was stalling until her head stopped spinning and she could think straight, but partly she was having a hard time focusing on anything other than the strange feeling that washed over her at his words, and how much she would very much like to hear him say it again.

Matt dipped his head and scrubbed his hand across his face in frustration.

"That's not...how I meant it,"

Sarah nodded slowly. Then, before she could even think, she found herself speaking again.

"How else could you mean it?" she asked curiously.

From Matt's expression, he didn't have an answer. He stepped closer to her and brought his hand to the side of her face.

"Sarah, please."

Sarah hesitated. It was rare for her to hear this kind of barely restrained panic in his voice, but she could think of a couple times before. The very first night she'd met him, when she'd accidentally mentioned Foggy's name. The night her throat had been slit in the alleyway and Matt thought she was gone. And now tonight, standing in his living room waiting for her answer.

"Okay," she agreed softly. "Okay. I won't go."

Predictably, her words was followed by Matt's signature head tilt as he listened for whether or not she meant them. She wasn't sure what he'd be able to read; between him being so close and the intensity of his reaction to what she'd told him, her heartbeat was going wild in several different ways.

But he must have been satisfied with what he heard, because he cupped both sides of her face and kissed her hard. When he broke away it was only by a few millimeters.

"Promise me," he murmured against her lips, his forehead pressed against hers.

"I promise," she breathed out shakily.

He kissed her again, so intensely it made her head spin.

"Promise me again."

It briefly crossed Sarah's mind that she'd probably promise him just about anything right now. Maybe that was his goal.

"I promise, Matt," she repeated softly. "I won't go."

Matt wove his hand into her hair, leaving his forehead pressed against her own for a moment.

"Thank you," he murmured. "Thank you."

He started to step back, but Sarah kept a loose hold on his hand.

"He...wouldn't be wrong," she said hesitantly.

Matt cocked his head. "What?"

"About me being yours. He'd…he wouldn't be wrong."

It was difficult to immediately parse Matt's reaction to her words; in fact, it was difficult to parse hers. It wasn't the kind of thing she'd ever said to anyone before, or even considered saying—but she supposed that was the point. Remembering the rules of how fast or slow intimacy was supposed to develop was difficult when everything was always so intense, and he was so close to her—

Then Matt's mouth crashed against hers again, and his hands were on her in exactly the way she'd been dying for them to be the other night, in the dark shadows of Josie's loading dock. Sarah pushed herself up on her toes, pressing herself against him, wanting to be as close to him as she could.

The buzzing anxiety that had been lurking just under her skin all day was still there, but she knew it was only a matter of moments before it would fade, like it always did around him.

Matt took a few slow steps back, his mouth never leaving hers as he towed her along with his hands on her waist. He navigated them easily around the table and towards his couch, where she gladly let him pull her down onto his lap. The tension that had been growing between them for the last few days was finally breaking, pushed over the edge by the events of the night, and Matt seemed as eager to explore it as Sarah was.

His tie was already loosened, and she pulled it up and over his head, tossing it aside before moving to the buttons of his shirt. She kissed down the column of his throat as she slid the fabric back over his broad shoulders, and his hands tightened on her hips before skimming up her waist to the collar of her shirt.

Matt undid the top button of her blouse, his bruised hands working as deftly as always. He moved down to the next one, lingering for a moment as Sarah's heart nearly raced out of her chest.

Sarah nodded frantically against his mouth, and within seconds the rest of her buttons were undone. Matt eased her back against the couch, smoothly shifting them so he was above her, supporting himself with a knee on either side of her. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as he dragged his calloused fingers in a lazy line from her neck down over her collarbone, between the dip in her breasts and down across her stomach.

That was when she abruptly realized something was wrong.

The anxious feeling in her chest wasn't fading, it was getting worse, and she didn't know why. This was exactly what she'd been wanting to do all week. The desire was there, coiled low and tight inside her; she wanted him, undeniably. So why was a familiar panic building inside her?

Without thinking, Sarah jolted up onto her elbows, and Matt broke away with a questioning look. She saw his expression change as he realized that something was wrong, and he sat up immediately, his weight disappearing off her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice ragged from lack of breath.

"I—" Sarah began, but she couldn't even form the words.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go. When she'd freaked out on Todd, she'd assured herself that it was because of him; because she barely knew him, because he'd been so pushy with his wants that it had made her defenses come up.

But here she was doing it again, and the undeniable evidence was coursing through her veins, making her heartbeat thunder and her breathing start to become difficult: the problem was her.

Matt reached out in concern, but as his hand came near her face she felt herself flinch back. She hadn't meant to, couldn't control it on any level. But from the hurt look that crossed Matt's face that wasn't clear.

Her freak out with Todd had been bad, but this was so, so much worse. Todd hadn't meant anything to her; Matt did. She needed to get out of there before she made things even worse by starting to cry. This was humiliating—what was wrong with her?

"I, um…I'm going to go," she said shakily as she scrambled off the couch and hastily buttoned her shirt back up.

"Wait—what? Go where?" he asked. A good question, and one she didn't know the answer to, but she knew she needed to be somewhere else. "You don't have to leave."

"Sorry. I'm sorry," she said, already feeling her eyes start to prick.

"Sarah—"

And then she was out the front door, closing it behind her and leaving a very confused Matt Murdock in her wake.