and the apartment was silent that the excessive strangeness of the night really set it. Sarah glanced around, taking a moment to fully comprehend that she was in Matt Murdock's apartment—in Daredevil's apartment—a place she never thought she'd see. In fact, she had never really thought about where he lived at all. After a while of sitting in the chair, her adrenaline faded and the exhaustion caught up to her. She realized she needed to move around or she would fall asleep, so she slowly stood and paced around the living room area, inspecting various areas of the room and occasionally throwing a nervous glance back at the unconscious man to make sure he wasn't awake. He probably wouldn't appreciate her nosing around his place, but it's not like there was much else for her to do.

Matt had no real decorations, which she guessed made sense; she wasn't sure how advanced his weird abilities were, but even he probably couldn't see paintings. Sarah spent so much time interacting with him as his Daredevil persona that she sometimes forgot the man behind the mask really was blind. But sure enough, his apartment was spotted with reminders: his white cane leaning against the wall next to the door, the lack of a television or any wall hangings, a bookshelf full of Braille translations and audiobooks. The most glaring sign that the apartment's resident had no sight was, quite literally, a glaring sign: a giant flashing billboard outside his window, which made the living room brighten and darken like a nightclub. No sane person with working eyes would be able to live here; at least not without some heavy duty curtains.

Sarah was careful not to touch anything, save for one of the Braille books on the bookshelf. She flipped through it curiously, having never really seen a Braille book up close before. As she was putting the book back on the shelf, Matt's burner phone rang. Hurrying back over to where it rested on the coffee table, she picked it up and answered hesitantly.

"Hey," Foggy's voice came through the line, more familiar this time than the last. "How is he?"

"About the same," she said, settling back into the armchair. "He's still out, but his breathing and pulse are fine, and the bleeding hasn't started again."

"Good, good."

She glanced around the room for a clock, but didn't see one. Obviously, she reminded herself. She pulled the phone away from her ear for a second to check the time: 6:15 am.

"You getting ready for court?"

"Yeah, I'm at the courthouse now. I've never done a case without Matt, though. Kinda nervous, to be honest."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Sarah reassured him automatically. In reality, she had no idea if Foggy was a good lawyer or not, but it seemed like the polite thing to say. "Are they going to ask why he isn't there?"

"Probably. But, you know, blind guy. I can just say he walked in front of a bike messenger, or something, and they'll feel bad and not bring it up again."

Sarah gave a brief, tired smile at that. "Good plan. I'll let you know if anything changes here."

"Oh, wait!" Foggy said. "I was calling because you should put a blanket on him."

"What?"

"The last time he was super out of it, he got really cold from the blood loss. Just go in his room and grab a blanket and throw it over him, okay?"

She glanced at the doorway to Matt's bedroom warily. Being in his apartment without his knowledge was one thing, but something about going into his bedroom seemed just a bit too far. But Foggy clearly sounded concerned about the issue, and it made sense.

"Okay," she said reluctantly. "I'll grab him one."

"Also, I don't know how fond you are of the whole serial killer aesthetic, but if you're looking for something to wear that's not, you know, covered in blood, you can grab a shirt out of the bottom drawer of his dresser. He won't care; half of them are mine, anyway."

Sarah wondered briefly if maybe Foggy was actually the crazy one. There wasn't the slightest chance on earth she was about to go digging through Matt Murdock's dresser, much less actually wear something she found in there. She had a feeling she would have a hard enough time explaining why she was even there without also having to explain why she was wearing his clothes.

"Um...I'll think about that. Anything else?" she asked.

"Nope. Just that if he wakes up, tell him he's an idiot for me."

"Tell the unstable vigilante that he's an idiot?" Sarah repeated doubtfully, casting a wary eye over at Matt. "I kind of feel like this whole phone call is you trying to get me killed."

"Alright, alright, I'll tell him that myself. I gotta go now, court's starting soon."

"Good luck."

As Sarah hung up the phone, she reluctantly stood to go get a blanket from Matt's bedroom. She felt for the light switch on the wall, hoping that he had some sort of working light in his room. Blind people still needed to have lights for their visitors, right? She finally found it and clicked the light on. His bedroom was just as sparse as the living room. She immediately spotted a blanket folded up at the end of his bed. As she grabbed it, she raised her eyebrows at his choice in bedding. Silk sheets. Would not have predicted that.

Sarah hurried out his bedroom with the blanket it hand, still feeling oddly intrusive about being in there. As she draped the blanket over Matt, she took the opportunity to study his face—something she had never had the chance to really do before tonight. It always bothered her that he could read her so easily while not being able to see her at all, while she usually had to try to guess what he was thinking based on just the bottom half of his face. She'd seen him in his day attire a few times, but even then, the dark sunglasses were almost as good at hiding his expression as the mask was.

But now, his face was exposed and oddly vulnerable. It crossed her mind yet again that he looked young; maybe in his late twenties, like her. Sarah wasn't sure why she had assumed he was older than she was. Being a vigilante just seemed like something that someone her age wasn't old enough to do. Then again, she felt the same way about Lauren getting married and having a child, so maybe she was just trailing behind her peers.

The long cut on Matt's forehead had stopped bleeding, and Foggy had applied a small bandage to keep it closed. He had a busted lip, and a scrape on his jaw. The beginning of a dark bruise was starting to bloom under his right eye. He had numerous smaller injuries littering his arms and torso as well, which she had seen before covering them with the blanket: small cuts, scrapes and bruises in various stages of healing. Sarah wondered briefly how often he looked like this when he dropped by her place, and she just couldn't tell through the costume and the mask.

The contrast between the man on the couch and the vigilante who regularly showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night was strange and unbalancing. Sarah shook her head, trying not to think about it too much. She was running on only a couple hours of sleep, and her thought process wasn't exactly at its peak. Looking for something to distract her from the exhaustion, she made her way into the bathroom to clean herself up.

When she finally looked in the bathroom mirror, Sarah frowned at the image. Foggy hadn't been kidding about the serial killer aesthetic. The entire front of her light blue sweatshirt was covered in blood and dirt; there was no way all of that was going to come out. She still had dark streaks left on her arms, despite having tried to wash it all off earlier. There was a smudge of red on her forehead as well, from where she must have unintentionally used a bloodstained hand to push the hair out of her face.

Seeing all of the blood under the bright bathroom light somehow made her more aware of it, and Sarah finally registered the sickening coppery smell coming from her clothes. She wrinkled her nose and quickly unzipped the sweatshirt, peeling it off and throwing it on the counter. Without the sweatshirt, she looked noticeably less gory: the tank top and shorts she was wearing as pajamas still had some spots of blood from where it had soaked through the outer layer, but it was a definite improvement. She scrubbed the blood and dirt off of her hands and face as best she could, watching the dirty water swirl down the drain. Finally, she splashed some water on her face to keep herself awake before taking a last glance in the mirror and exiting the bathroom.

Sarah ran a hand through her hair tiredly as she came back out into the living room, then glanced over at the couch. She stopped dead as her eyes landed on the empty cushions where Matt's unconscious body had just been. He wasn't there.

Shit. Not good.

She barely had a few seconds to register that he wasn't where she had left him before she felt a strong hand grab her arm and yank her backwards, towards a doorway where Matt had been standing just out of sight. He roughly pushed her against the door frame, holding her in place with a vice-like grip on her shoulder. His left arm—the injured one—hung at a painful looking angle, and he swayed slightly on the spot.

"What are you doing in my apartment?" he demanded hoarsely.

Sarah's eyes widened at the edge of panic and confusion in his normally even voice. Clearly Foggy had been right about the concussion, which was not good. A disoriented and on-edge Matt was a dangerous Matt: slightly less intimidating, but much more unpredictable. And that was really not something she wanted to deal with right now, no matter what state he was in physically. She licked her lips nervously as she kept her eyes trained on his face, watching him warily for signs of that the tightly coiled tension in his body was about to snap.

"Whoa, whoa. Hey. Calm—calm down," she said shakily, trying to keep her voice low as she looked up at him apprehensively. "I'm here to help you."

Matt was breathing heavily with the effort of standing, and it seemed like he was having difficulty focusing on what she was saying. His eyes darted around her general direction, as though he couldn't pinpoint exactly where her voice was coming from. She could see the blood seeping through the bandage on his torso, where he had clearly already re-opened the wound with his movements.

"Where...where's Foggy?"

"Foggy is fine," she said quickly. "He had to go to court. For your—your custody case. Remember that? He'll be back soon."

Matt furrowed his brow and hesitated, suspicion and confusion lingering on his face. Sarah took advantage of his lack of focus to slowly inch to the right, trying to slip out from under his grasp on her shoulder. She hoped that he was too out of it to notice, but there was no such luck. He immediately tightened his hold and shoved her back against the doorframe harder. His face paled slightly at the effort it took, making it even more obvious that he wasn't at full strength. Sarah knew from experience how much his grip could hurt when he wanted it to, and this was nowhere near that level. But Matt at minimal strength was still a lot stronger than she was, and she winced at the impact of her back hitting the hard doorframe.

"Stay there," Matt said through gritted teeth, bowing his head for a moment as a wave of dizziness clearly washed over him. He swayed harder, although his grip didn't loosen. "What—I don't...what's going on? Why are you here?"

Good question, Matt. Maybe because I'm stupid.

"Okay, I'll—I'll explain all of that, but—Matt, y-you're hurt. You really need to lie back down," Sarah pleaded. She held a hand out in front of her in a placating gesture, realizing too late that in his disorientated mental state he might interpret it as a threatening motion. His left hand came up lightning fast to grab her wrist, quickly trapping it in a painful hold. He grimaced as the sudden movement caused his injured shoulder to shift, and though his grip was strong, his hand was shaking slightly.

"Wait, wait, wait," she exclaimed, but the sudden outburst just made him clutch her wrist even harder as his jaw twitched in agitation. She bit the inside of her cheek and kept as still as possible, trying not to startle him. He was clearly having difficulty determining what was a threat and what wasn't, and she was worried that if he got too far from reality he would easily snap her wrist with one good twist.

"Don't...don't do that," she tried again nervously, this time in a much lower voice. "Please. I'm not trying to hurt you." The words sounded almost comically ridiculous coming from her, as his much larger frame towered over her. "I'm—I'm trying to help you. And....you're going to pass out again i-if we don't get you back on the couch. Okay?"

There was silence except for Matt's labored breathing, but the color was steadily draining from his face, and she knew he couldn't deny what she was saying for much longer. She remained frozen in place as she waited for him to respond, feeling vaguely like she was waiting to see if a bomb would go off. Finally, he nodded his head jerkily in assent and slowly released her wrist, although he kept his tight grip on her shoulder. She suspected that by this point it was mostly to keep his own balance.

"I'm—I'm going to help you get back over there. Just...please don't freak out on me...okay?" Sarah said, still keeping her voice as quiet and calming as she could. Matt didn't respond, tilting his head down again as he swayed heavily to the side.

She slowly reached out a hand to steady him, holding her breath nervously as she did so. She hoped it wouldn't trigger any instinctual violent response in the clearly tightly wound vigilante. Matt tensed at her touch, but didn't recoil or make any move towards her. She wasn't sure if the lack of response was a good thing, or if it just meant that he was even more strung out than before. Either way, she needed to get him back to the couch. Blood was slowly trickling out of the bandage on his shoulder, running down his chest in small rivulets. He didn't seem to notice.

"Okay," she muttered, keeping one hand on Matt's waist and bringing the other up to gingerly grasp his uninjured arm, which was still extended towards her as he held onto her shoulder. Slowly she stepped to the left, towards the couch, and he stumbled along with her. "This should be...super fun..."

Without the support of the bedroom doorway behind her, Matt's full weight leaning on Sarah's shoulder was much heavier. Clearly he had used up the last of his energy getting off the couch and over to the doorway in record ninja time, so the trip back was much slower. They took it one small, unsteady step at a time, with Sarah keeping a wary eye on his face and quietly continuing to remind him that she was trying to help, that they were almost back to the couch where he could lie down. He gave no indication that he could hear her, but she kept it up anyway, if only to reassure herself.

As they reached the sitting area, Sarah tripped over one of the large combat boots that Foggy had removed from Matt's feet and hastily discarded earlier. She stumbled, throwing them both off balance, and Matt gripped her shoulder painfully hard as they both tried to regain their balance. She hissed through her teeth as his nails dug into the skin on her shoulder, hard. They finally made it to the couch and he fell back onto it heavily, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch. Sarah dug around in the bag for more gauze, frowning at the sheen of sweat covering Matt's forehead. His eyes were closed; it looked like maybe he had passed out again.

She found the gauze and kneeled on the couch next to him. He was slumped in a sitting position, making the angle to work on the wound slightly less awkward than when he had been lying down. She discarded the blood soaked bandage and pressed the fresh gauze to the freely bleeding wound on the front of his shoulder. Matt didn't move, which didn't seem like a good sign, but his breathing was slowly returning to normal.

She kept pressure on the wound for about ten minutes, during which he gave no signs of being awake, or even of being alive, beyond the steady rise and fall of his chest. When it seemed like she had managed to stem the flow of blood, she awkwardly taped the gauze down like she had seen Foggy do earlier. Sitting back, she rubbed her wrist and frowned in dismay at the fact that even in his current state of bleeding half to death, he still found the energy to knock her into a doorway or two. She hoped when he woke up again he'd be lucid enough to let her explain what was going on without attacking her.

"Gosh, Sarah, thanks for saving my ass," she muttered to herself resentfully as she threw the gauze and tape back into the bag with a little more force than strictly necessary. "I promise not to be super scary and push you around anymore."

"I can hear you," Matt said quietly, with his eyes still closed. Sarah looked up in surprise, automatically leaning away from him. She could feel her face heating up in embarrassment.

"I...thought you were unconscious again," she admitted.

"I was. Just woke up," he said, then groaned as he sat up a bit more. Seeing that he was again capable of movement, Sarah slowly stood and moved to the nearby armchair, where she perched uneasily on the armrest, ready to retreat farther if necessary.

"Are you...feeling less violent now?" she asked hopefully.

"Where's Foggy?" he asked instead of answering her question.

Sarah crinkled her brow in concern. "You don't remember us talking about this?"

Matt hesitated, then shook his head. "Not really. Just...bit and pieces."

He still seemed disoriented, but he was much calmer now, although Sarah suspected it might just be the exhaustion from standing and moving around. Either way, she was relieved.

"Foggy's in court," she informed him. "You had a custody case today. Do you remember that?"

"I...yeah. I think so."

Sarah narrowed her eyes at his confused answer, trying to figure out just how bad his concussion was. She remembered the advice the doctor had given her for helping her father on days when his memory was especially bad. She wasn't sure if the same thing could be applied to concussive memory loss, but it was worth a try. Start big, start general, the doctor had said. Memorized facts, things with no personal connection. Then you can get more specific: people he knows, events.

"Okay, um. I think you probably have a concussion," she said hesitantly. "Maybe a pretty bad one. Let's...let's figure out what you remember, okay? Um...what year is it?"

Matt gave her an exasperated look, but she waited expectantly anyway.

"...2015," he said finally.

"Hey, good job," she said cheerfully. "Uh...what are the...names of the continents?"

"Are you kidding?" he said, casting his blank eyes up at the ceiling.