since Matt had last heard Stick's phantom heartbeat echoing nearby, but he was still on high alert. He could admit that hearing it once could have been a fluke; his senses were strong but far from perfect. But he'd heard it for a second time when walking with Sarah: clear as a bell and unmistakably Stick's. It was only there for a second or two, and then it was gone. How was that possible? He was certain Stick knew countless tricks that he'd never gotten around to teaching Matt, and he wouldn't put it past him to be able to cloak his heartbeat somehow. But why would he be hanging around without confronting him?

Matt had to wonder if he was imagining it, if his subconscious was inserting danger and complication where there was none. As a child, when Stick first left, Matt's mind had tricked him more than once into thinking he sensed the older man's presence, imagining the heartbeat that he had so desperately wanted to hear again. Now, of course, the thought that Stick was close by just brought Matt frustration and paranoia—especially given that he'd had Sarah with him when he'd heard it.

He knew that Stick vehemently disapproved of his decision to maintain personal relationships, but he didn't think that the old man would actually hurt someone Matt cared about. Then again, he hadn't thought that Stick would actually murder that child in the shipping container, so how well did he really know his old mentor?

So on the chance that he wasn't imagining it, he'd been trying his hardest over the last few days to limit his contact with Sarah—at least until he could be sure. And it was difficult. He'd carefully sidestepped her questions about his sudden and unexplained exit after the church, providing some vague excuse about having heard a mugging nearby. She clearly hadn't believed him, and his distance the last few days surely hadn't helped. All of their conversations since had been over the phone—a vain attempt on Matt's part to avoid being around her in person, in the hopes that it would make it easier to keep away.

But tonight he'd had a long night, and the night before as well. And before he'd even really thought about it, his feet had begun to follow a familiar path across the rooftops of Hell's Kitchen until they landed on Sarah's fire escape.

On the other side of the window he could hear Sarah moving from her kitchen over to the table, where her laptop was open and streaming a video of what sounded like a news segment. Matt cocked his head when he heard a familiar name being spoken on the video.

"...but for whatever reason we give Daredevil a pass, and for what reason? Because he wears a fun costume? People need to..."

He knocked on the windowpane, and the video immediately paused.

When Sarah opened the window, her body language seemed slightly off, like she'd been caught off guard. It was probably because of whatever video she'd been watching, he assumed.

"Hey. I didn't think you'd be coming over tonight," she said. Her voice sounded slightly odd, like she was speaking around something in her mouth. There was a sharp, sterile scent floating around her, and Matt struggled to place it. It wasn't alcohol, though it smelled similar.

Matt pulled his mask off, cocking his head suspicious. "What's...up with your voice?"

"Hmm? Nothing," she said, her innocent tone betrayed by the way her hand automatically came up to cover her mouth. At his raised eyebrows, she let out an exhale of annoyance. "It's—they're teeth whitening strips. You're not supposed to talk when you have them in."

That explained the strange smell, at least; it was peroxide, not alcohol.

After hours of dealing with the darkest corners of Hell's Kitchen, standing now in Sarah's small apartment and hearing her talk about something as normal and boring as teeth whitening strips was a sharp contrast. It lent him an odd sense of relief, as though he had stumbled into some world completely separate from the dangerous, vicious one on the other side of the glass. He grinned, halfway hoping they would just keep talking about mundane things and never have to stray to topics like Orion.

Sarah, on the other hand, misinterpreted his grin as a mocking one.

"I assumed you weren't coming!" she said defensively. Matt wanted to point out that he hadn't been laughing at her, but now the sound of the slight lisp the teeth strips gave her made him start, so there was really no point. "Ugh. I'll be right back."

She padded barefoot down the hallway to her bathroom, leaving him alone to collect himself.

After a minute, he heard her returning.

"You've been MIA for four days and now you wait until I'm doing embarrassing beauty rituals to show up," she grumbled as she came back into the living room. Her speech had returned to normal, much to Matt's disappointment. Also to his disappointment, she had donned a thin hoodie—one of her own, not his—over her tank top.

"I haven't been MIA," Matt protested. "I've...called."

Sarah hummed low and skeptical, and Matt didn't blame her; even to his own ears it sounded lame. Because he had been avoiding coming here, for days now. Specifically, since the night of Sarah's disastrous date and resulting relapse into drinking.

Matt had become used to the solitude that accompanied his choice to put on the mask—not just the mental isolation of it, but the physical part as well. The only contact he came into on a regular basis since becoming Daredevil was generally the kind that left nasty bruises. So Sarah's tendency towards easy affection was almost overwhelming at times, making it difficult for him to think straight. And never had it been more so than the last time he'd been in Sarah's apartment.

He'd heard her heartbeat speed up that night when he touched her, felt her goosebumps under his fingertips. It would have been so, so easy for him to kiss her right then, and the temptation had been strong enough that he'd had to take a literal step back and remind himself that whatever signals he was picking up were muddled by the alcohol circulating through her bloodstream.

Sarah dropped back down into the kitchen chair in front of her laptop, which she had apparently forgotten was still open.

"What are you watching?" he asked.

"Um...nothing. Just background noise," she said unconvincingly.

Matt tilted his head, raising his eyebrows and giving her a knowing half-smile.

"I heard them say the name 'Daredevil,' Sarah. Whatever it was, it can't be the worst thing someone has said about me."

He heard her sigh in resignation, the catch of her bottom lip as she worried it between her teeth.

"Cecilia's opinion pieces about you in the newspaper have been getting a lot of attention," she said reluctantly. "And some super low-budget local morning show offered to have her on to talk about what she's been writing. Lauren sent me the link."

Cecilia. Of course.

Matt kept his face neutral as he took in the news. When Sarah had first brought up Lauren's cousin and her topic of choice for editorials, he'd mostly dismissed it; it wasn't the first time a reporter had written unfavorably about him, after all. But Cecilia was drawing more and more attention to him, and operating under the radar was a fairly important part of what he did. More public scrutiny was the last thing he needed.

"Can I...?" he nodded his head towards her laptop.

"I thought you ignored what people say about you."

"Usually. But at a certain point it's smarter to pay attention."

Sarah hedged for another moment before relenting. "Alright. If you're sure."

Resting his hand on the back of Sarah's chair, Matt leaned over her to hit the space bar on her laptop. He did his best not to focus on the immediate reaction she had to their proximity: the way she tensed almost imperceptibly with awareness, and her breathing became more carefully regulated. But more than that, he tried to ignore the accompanying rush of satisfaction that came along with the effect he was having on her, and the reckless impulse to make her heartbeat increase just a little bit higher.

That temptation faded into the background as he listened to the conversation playing out on the laptop between Cecilia and a male interviewer with a clipped accent.

"—and obviously you've been making quite a name for yourself locally with these articles in the Bulletin," the interviewer was saying. "Has it been strange having your Twitter and email suddenly blow up with feedback?"

"No, not at all," Cecilia answered. "I've written about a few hot-button topics before, but this one just happens to interest a lot of people in Hell's Kitchen, specifically."

"People around here definitely have some strong opinions on Daredevil. He's saved a lot of people in this neighborhood."

"Yes, he has, and a lot of people who have responded to my articles seem to think I don't understand that, for whatever reason. Of course I know that he's saved people, but they're missing the fact that he's done so outside of the law," she said. "He picks and chooses who he helps and who he hurts, and at some point he's going to hurt an innocent person and we're all going to wonder why we ever gave him so much power."

"Recently on Twitter, you categorized Daredevil as 'violently anti-police'. Do you want to comment on that?"

"Absolutely. I think that if there's anything we can take away from the news for the past couple of years, it's that respecting and complying with the police is incredibly important."

"Well, I think some might argue that there's a different conclusion you could come to," the interviewer interjected diplomatically.

"Of course," Cecilia allowed. Her voice was smooth and practiced, but underneath it Matt could hear a slight unevenness that betrayed her nerves. "People will always try to spin things in whatever way. But right now, especially after so many in the NYPD were arrested in the Wilson Fisk sweep, we need to be rebuilding trust between the community and the police, and Daredevil is doing the opposite of that."

"You don't think it could be said that he's more supplementing the police department? Cutting through some of the red tape they have to deal with so that people who need help don't slip through the cracks?"

"No. I think that's the line most vigilantes want to use: that they're helping people. But just because he's fighting other violent criminals doesn't mean he's not one. And the police don't see him as an ally. He's forcing them to waste resources trying to get this lunatic off the streets when they could be doing so many more important things. And especially after those officers were shot last year—"

"—but he was cleared of that, just to be...I mean, just to not confuse any viewers," the interviewer said.

"Right, of course. It all got very complicated as to who was responsible for what, but just because he didn't do it doesn't mean that he wouldn't, and he's never done anything to make that clear, which I think is important. It's certainly important to the NYPD and I think it should matter to the citizens of Hell's Kitchen as well."

"And if the man in the mask is as reckless and unpredictable as you say, are you at all worried about attracting the wrong kind of attention with these articles? What if you come home one night to find the Devil himself waiting in your living room?" the interviewer asked with a chuckle.

"No, I'm not worried at all," Cecilia said, sounding just a little too confident to be entirely believable. Matt noted this with a twinge of dark satisfaction that he wished wasn't there. "He relies on the goodwill of New Yorkers to keep himself from getting arrested, so he can't afford to slip-up and start taking out journalists. Besides, if he's doing as much good as some of these bleeding-heart fans seem to think, he should really be too busy to be reading about himself in the newspaper."

"Alright, well that's all the time we have for today, but thanks so much for coming on the show, Cecilia. Viewers, as usual you can find all of our guests' Twitter handles on our website, and we'd love to hear what you think! Just tweet us with the hashtag #QuentinInTheMorning and we might feature your feedback on the next episode."

The clip cut off, leaving a tense silence in the room. Matt could feel Sarah's concerned gaze on him, and he forced a unperturbed grin.

"Well, she's right. I probably won't be reading her articles in the newspaper," he said dryly.

"She's an idiot, Matt."

"It's fine. Like I said, that's not the worst thing anyone has said about me by far. Not even the worst thing today, actually." That much was true. It wasn't what she was saying that had him concerned so much as the platform she had and the very manipulative way she was saying it.

"Well, she shouldn't be saying any of it. It's all bullshit."

He automatically began pacing, but his foot bumped against a plastic storage bin after a couple of steps. In fact, now that he paid attention, he could sense several boxes and bins all around her floor.

"Are you stress cleaning your apartment again?" he asked, glad to have something he could change the subject to.

"Hmm? Oh, no. Before I got distracted by that video I was looking for some of my old sheet music. I had packed most of it away somewhere when I stopped playing, and now that I need it I have no idea where it is." She lightly kicked one of the bins. "I think it might be stored at my dad's house, actually. I'll look for it when I help him pack the place up."

"Have you had the chance to go practice yet?"

Sarah nodded. "I went yesterday."

"How did it go?"

"It'll take me a while to get back to where I was, obviously, but...you found me basically the perfect place to do it."

"Really?" he asked skeptically. He was very aware that an old piano in the back room of a church was nowhere close to what she was probably used to having access to.

"Really," she confirmed. "I can go when I have time, and stay as long as I want. No irritable pianists waiting outside the door for their timeslot to start. I'm glad you decided to bring me there."

In truth, he very nearly hadn't. The idea of combining those two parts of his life had made him anxious, and he wasn't sure why he'd decided to go through with it. Maybe to prove that he could be part of her 'normal' life when this was all over, that they could have something connecting them that didn't involve blood or masks or secrets. Or maybe he just liked the idea of her spending time somewhere he knew she was safe. Sitting in that church always made him feel like someone was watching over him, and Lord knew he wanted someone watching over her when he couldn't.

"So am I," he said quietly, before making himself turn businesslike again. He'd come here for a reason, after all. "Uh, you said you had something?"

"Oh, yeah," Sarah said, as though she'd forgotten. "Um, I heard Jason talking about some big meetup that's happening soon. Weapons of some kind, I think. He's not going to be there, but he was giving instructions to someone over the phone and it sounded like there would be a whole group of them."

"Do you know where?"

"No," she said apologetically. "Or when, except that it's soon. This week or next, I think. But I did get the phone number of the guy he was talking to, and the address that's attached to it."

"Good. I can start there."

Sarah gave him the address, which was on the other side of town. Matt figured he'd check it out tomorrow night. Right now it was already late, and he'd had a long, difficult night. So when Sarah asked him if he wanted to stick around for a little while longer, he didn't say no.

At least a few times a month, Jason would tell Sarah with little warning that he would be staying 'a little late' at the office and needed her to stay at her post as well. For most companies, that would mean an hour or two past closing time at five; for Jason, it usually meant until ten or eleven at night. He would often spend those extra hour holed up in his office, descending down some rabbit hole of obsessively reviewing security tapes from Orion's various properties. Sarah always hoped that as long as she was stuck at work, she could use the time to catch up on the backlog of paperwork on her desk, but it seemed like even at night the stream of visitors to Jason's office never slowed down.

It was just going on ten o'clock on one of those nights, and Jason had left the office to go do something, leaving Sarah to do work when all she wanted was to be home. She was sifting through the pile of mail on her desk, sorting the junk out from important papers. One envelope in particular caught her eye, and—thinking it was some filing papers Jason had been impatiently waiting for—she quickly opened it. She was surprised when, instead of paperwork, several large photos slid out onto her desk.

With an uncertain frown, she picked one up and studied it, her heart sinking as she realized what she was looking it. It was a wide shot of the outside of the police precinct, with a woman she now recognized as Mrs. McDermott passing out flyers on the steps. In one of the photos you could clearly see Aaron McDermott's face on the flyers. In another, she was standing outside the courthouse holding a large, hand-painted sign that read: Help me bring my son back home.

"Oh, no," Sarah muttered softly. "Why are you doing this?"

Among the photos was a note:

Thought you'd be interested in these photos.

You might want to take care of this before it gets out of hand.

It wasn't signed, and there was no indication who it was from; it could have been sent from any number of eyes that Jason seemingly had everywhere around the city. Sarah's gaze lingered on the phrase 'take care of this'. There was little ambiguity as to what that meant. If Mrs. McDermott didn't stop her public search soon, she was almost guaranteed to meet a similar end as her son.

The quiet ding of the elevator arriving on her floor brought her out of her thoughts, and Sarah snapped her head up to see Jason walking down the hallway, immersed in texting something on his phone.

She quickly gathered the photos up and slid them into the bottom drawer of her desk, closing it just as Jason approached. But she needn't have worried; Jason was so engrossed in whatever conversation he was having that he didn't even spare her a glance before closing his office door behind him.

Letting out an anxious exhale, Sarah gazed down at the closed drawer. What was she supposed to do about McDermott's mother? She couldn't let Jason find out, or he would kill the poor woman for bringing too much attention to them. But she also couldn't think of any way to convince a grieving mother to not seek justice for her son's disappearance.

Sarah snapped out of her thoughts as she heard someone approaching and looked up to see an employee she recognized, but couldn't name. The man always wore a tracksuit in some jewel tone; today it was a deep emerald color. She remembered him as being one of the men who had been present at Orion the first night Matt had broken in, and at the subsequent meeting when Jason had first come to the company. He'd been wearing an ugly mustard yellow tracksuit then, she recalled vaguely.