Hey guys, a quick authors note before the chapter (original link https://m.fanfiction.net/u/1162694/);

"Hi friends! It's been a long time, but here we are! Before we begin this HUGE MONSTROSITY of a chapter, I have a few notes about the story that—as always—you can feel free to skip.

1) I finally sat down and organized all of the plot points I still have left and the rough number of chapters each one will take to cover, so after a million people asking me how many chapters this story will have, I can finally provide a (sort of) answer! My estimate is that the story will be wrapped up in about 7 to 8 more chapters after this one, ending right around Chapter 40-ish (plus an epilogue). Of course, I often start writing a chapter and it ends up being so long that I have to split it into two, so give me some leeway of a few chapters in there.

2) Lots of people have been asking about a sequel! I would love to do one. However, this story was a huge project that took up a lot of time, and I don't think I have the energy or free time to do another one like it. So my plan is to write the sequel as a sort of collection of one-shots covering various moments in Matt and Sarah's relationship. It would be very similar to this story but without the overarching plot to tie it all together—instead focusing on the two of them during various big events in both their relationship (birthdays, big fights, holidays, etc.) and in the MCU (like meeting Elektra/The Defenders etc). That format feels like a lot less pressure, but I can still keep Matt and Sarah around to write about.

3) Another thing people have been asking me is if there will be an M-rated scene before the story is over, and the answer is yes! In fact, one is already written. However, I'm going to keep this story T-rated because it reaches a wider audience that way, and I know that not all of my readers are interested in reading smut. So the version included in this story will be T-rated, ending just before The Scene, and if you'd prefer to read the full chapter in all of its glory, I'll have it posted as a separate one-shot.

(4) I will be without my laptop for about a week and I really rushed to post this before I leave. It's about 4:30am here right now and I have to catch a train at 7, so in exchange for my sleep deprivation please forgive any egregious typos or messy sections. I'll go back and polish it up when I get the chance! I will still have my phone to read reviews, which I swear on Jack Murdock's grave I will be better at replying to this chapter."

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At one point in her life, Sarah's definition of a good or bad day had been fairly tame. A good day would have been one in which she actually got to work on time, and maybe got to go out with friends for drinks afterwards. A bad one would have involved ending up on the subway car that smelled like old vomit, or getting yelled at by a street preacher.

But that had been a long time ago, and now her good days and bad days—especially the bad days—were much more pronounced. This was especially obvious in the week following her reconciliation with Matt.

The best day of that particular week was Wednesday, which ended with Sarah kissing her local vigilante in the middle of his kitchen.

The worst day was probably very next one, when she found herself looking down the barrel of a gun aimed directly at her face.

But before any of that happened, she started her week off on Monday with surprisingly high spirits.

Jason was in Chicago all week for meetings, so Sarah had a few days reprieve from his piercing stare and strange conversations. He was all the more unnerving now that his face was deeply scarred, and he'd been treating her with suspicion ever since the parking garage incident. So getting a break from his overbearing presence was enough to put Sarah in a good mood to begin her week.

The fact that she had plans to meet with Matt for lunch that day—not to exchange information about secret dealings or to stitch up open wounds, but just to eat food and talk like normal people—didn't hurt her mood, either.

Of course, that didn't last. She already had a long list of tasks that Jason wanted her to get done while he was gone, and he was continuously calling and texting as he remembered more. Just as she was about to leave for Matt's she got a text from Jason instructing her to pick up some package from the warehouse right away. He didn't specify to her what the item was, only that Rob would know what to give her when she got there. It seemed like Jason was keeping more and more information from her lately, and it was a troubling pattern she was starting to notice.

She called Matt as she was on her way to the warehouse.

"So...remember how I said sometimes I don't get a lunch break?" she asked him when he answered.

"I'm guessing this is one of those times?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I thought I'd be able to since Jason is out of town, but he keeps calling and piling stuff on me like crazy, then giving me all these random deadlines to check in with him. I don't think I can get away. Rain check?"

"Sure. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," she agreed, hoping she wouldn't have to run around as much as she did today.

When Sarah got to the warehouse, she didn't see Rob anywhere in sight. But she did spot his son sitting at the same picnic table he'd been at the first time she'd ever come here. He was concentrating on the book he was reading, but she could tell from the way his shoulders stiffened that he knew she was there.

"Is your dad around?" she asked him.

He looked up at her warily.

"He'll be back in a few minutes. He just went to the gas station."

Sarah nodded wordlessly, tucking her hair behind her ear. She didn't like knowing how this kid viewed her—as another heartless representative of a monstrous company who just showed up to put his family in more danger. He probably thought of her the way she'd thought of James Wesley, who'd destroyed both her father's life and her own with zero remorse.

Of course, that was exactly the image she should probably be striving to project if she wanted to keep her cover, but doing so made her feel vaguely ill. She cleared her throat uncomfortably, figuring she could at least try to make some small talk. Even if he didn't respond, he could know that at least one of the contacts his dad had to deal with was a human and not some silent robot.

"What are you studying for?" she settled on asking. It was too late for school to still be in session, so she assumed he was taking some kind of summer course.

"AP Calculus," he answered without looking up from his textbook.

"Oh, I took that," Sarah said. "I mean, mine wasn't AP, it was just regular. And—I got a C-minus. But, um...I took it."

Surprisingly, that actually got him to look up.

"My dad would kill me if I ever got a C-minus," he said with a rueful shake of his head.

"I don't think mine ever noticed," Sarah said. Her high school years had overlapped with some of the heavier drinking years on Mitch Corrigan's track record. "I only took it because my guidance counselor thought girls were bad at math, and it made me mad."

It was mindless, nervous chatter on her part, but at least it was getting him to stop looking at her like she was going to pull a gun on him at any moment.

"It...kind of sounds like you are bad at math, though," he pointed out cautiously.

"Well, yeah. But not because I'm girl," she said defensively. "It was because I was lazy and just wanted to pass notes on those fancy calculators."

"Y'all had those back then?"

Sarah frowned. "...back when?"

"The nineties?" he hazarded with a shrug.

"You think I was in high school in the nineties?" Sarah repeated, her eyes widening. "I graduated high school in 2007."

"Oh, okay," he said uncertainly.

"I'm only in my twenties."

"...cool."

"And we had calculators," she mumbled, finally spotting Rob coming across the yard. She was mildly relieved to be done trying to talk to this teenager who clearly thought she was some sort of ancient crone—which, she supposed, wasn't the worst thing he could think of her. Readjusting her bag on her shoulder, Sarah glanced over at him as she stood up. "Good luck with your homework."

"Thanks," he said distractedly, already concentrating on his work again. That was a good thing, Sarah thought. That he was able to focus on his school work with all of this craziness going on around him and his father.

"Was Tyler bothering you?" Rob asked as she walked up to him.

"What? Oh, no. I was just asking him about school," she said.

Rob squinted at her suspiciously but didn't say anything.

"Um, I'm supposed to pick something up from you," she said. "Jason said you'd know what it was."

"Right. Yeah. It'll be back here."

Sarah followed him into the back of the warehouse, to a large, cold room she hadn't been in before. There were several tall metal storage cabinets, and in the corner sat several large freezers. She couldn't stop looking at them, wondering if they held what she thought they did. Rob followed her gaze, and she suspected by his disturbed expression that she was right.

He unlocked one of the metal cabinets and pulled out a wooden crate. Something glass clinked around inside as he handed it to her.

"Be careful with that. Don't let it tip."

"Why?" she asked, looking down at the crate in alarm. "What's in it?"

"Dunno. That's just how the guy who brought it here warned me," Rob said.

Sarah was listening, but she couldn't stop herself from glancing over at the freezers in the corner again. She knew she shouldn't ask about them, but in the end, her morbid curiosity won out.

"Are those where...I mean, do you keep..." she stammered. Is that where you keep all the dead bodies we bring you?

Rob looked away, and it was answer enough.

"That guy who you brought here," he said suddenly. "In your trunk. He's that missing cop that's been in the newspapers. Isn't he?"

She pressed her lips together and gave a short nod.

"Doesn't seem like anyone's trying very hard to find him," Rob said.

"His mother is," she whispered before she could stop herself.

"What?"

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe it was just knowing that she was in the same room as the body, but she couldn't stop thinking about McDermott's mother handing her that photo of him. And Rob was one of the only people with whom she actually shared some of that particular burden.

"It's...it's driving her crazy," Sarah said. "Not knowing what happened to him. She's been outside the police station asking for help finding him every day. In the heat, getting sunburned. No one's listening to her."

"That's awful," Rob said after a long, somber silence.

"I don't think she's going to stop."

"Neither would I. If it was my kid that went missing," Rob said candidly. "Even if the smart thing for her to do would be to skip town. Leave it all behind."

"She can't even afford to do that. She can't get survivor's benefits because he's just missing, and not dead, and she—" Sarah finally caught herself. She had to stop thinking about this, and especially talking about it. "I don't know why I'm talking about this. There's nothing we can do about it."

"Right," Rob said. He looked over at the freezers once more. "What's done is done."

Sarah had to get out of that room before her chest burst.

"Um...thanks for the box," she said tightly. "I'll—I'll try not to let it explode or anything."

Then she left the warehouse as quickly as she could, trying not to think about Rob and his son or Mrs. McDermott and hers.

On Tuesday, Matt and Sarah's second attempt at making plans fell through just as quickly as the first. Matt called her just before they were supposed to meet up for to tell her that he had to cancel. One of his clients had gotten arrested again for some minor offense, and he needed to get to the police station to represent him.

Then Matt had client meetings that night, and Sarah had lunch plans with Lauren on Wednesday. It seemed like despite no longer avoiding each other, they still couldn't quite manage to meet up. How was it that Matt had been constantly around back when seeing him had been the very last thing she wanted, but now that they actually wanted to see each other they couldn't seem to make it work?

But on Wednesday night, their luck finally changed.

Sarah had had a long and stressful day of trying to keep up with the work Jason had left her, and when she got home she breathed a sigh of relief as her front door shut behind her. She had a bit of a headache, and she just wanted to change out of her work clothes, curl up on her couch, and drink some tea while pretending there was whiskey in it.

She was only partway through step one of that plan when her phone started buzzing from inside her purse on the kitchen counter. She let out a frustrated groan, hoping it wasn't Jason calling with even more tasks to add to her workload.

Her frustration disappeared when she saw that instead of her overbearing boss calling, it was Matt.

"Hi," she answered, cradling the phone with her shoulder as she reached down to slip off one of her heels.

"Hey. You busy?"

"No. I just got home."

"Have you eaten dinner yet?"

"No. I was just deciding between, uh..." Sarah opened her fridge, taking stock of her its measly contents. "...cold pizza or stale cereal. But if you think you could do better..."

Matt chuckled. "I can try. I know a place you might like. It's only a couple blocks from my apartment."

"Okay," she said. "You don't think you'll have to cancel on me in the time it'll take me to get there?"

"I promise," he assured her. "Do you want to meet at my place?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll be there soon," she said, grinning as she hung up the phone.

So instead of changing into the sweatpants and old t-shirt she had planned on, Sarah instead slipped on a pair of shorts and one of her nicer sleeveless blouses. Before leaving her apartment, she couldn't help but take a last glance in the mirror. She fully realized it was ridiculous; it wasn't as though Matt would know if her makeup was touched up or her hair was messy. She had been wearing pajama shorts a good eighty percent of the times she'd seen him since they met. But all the same, she found herself readjusting her blouse and running a brush through her hair before leaving.

On the way there, she tried to ignore the little voice in her head that reminded her how vague she'd left things the last time she'd seen Matt. She'd been so relieved that he had agreed to stick around and figure things out that she hadn't really stopped to think about what that actually meant. Figure what out/ Were they trying to work their way back to how they had been before they'd kissed, or to move forward from there? Was this just the two of them grabbing dinner, or was it something like a date?

The uncertainty about where they stood with each other wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the total imbalance in their respective abilities to read each other. As soon as she stepped foot in Matt's place all of her confusion and nervousness would be wildly apparent, while she could still barely guess what went on in his own mind, especially in regards to her.

Figuring it out. God, I'm dumb.

Just as she was turning onto Matt's block, she rounded the corner at the same time as someone else coming in the opposite direction. He was a tall, thin teenage boy who was walking fast while holding a very large iced coffee in one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other. The two of them collided, and the contents of the boy's drink quickly ended up all over the front of Sarah's shirt.

She yelped in surprise, her shoulders bunching up as she looked down at herself.

He took in the sight of his iced coffee soaking into her outfit and her mouth hanging open in disbelief, then sucked air in through his teeth, wincing apologetically.

"Ooh. Sorry, my bad," he said.

Then he tossed his empty cup in the nearby trashcan and continued walking, his attention back on his phone.

"Are you kidding me?" Sarah grumbled. Her shirt was now soaked, and she tried in vain to pluck it away from where it was plastered uncomfortably against her skin. "No one needs that much coffee!" she shouted after the teenager, who had not bothered to remove his headphones and most definitely didn't hear her.

Heaving a sigh, she kept walking to her destination.

She wasn't sure why she'd been expecting Matt to be wearing one of the suits she always saw him in; after all, there was no need to when working from home. But it was simply how she always pictured Daytime Matt, so she was surprised when he answered the door wearing a dark blue button-up shirt and jeans. His hair was slightly messy, and he had a small but new-looking bruise just along his hairline. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and she could see a more faded cut just above his eyelid as well. It looked like he had been busy since she'd last seen him.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey," he said, his warm smile making her nervous enough she almost forgot about her ruined outfit. "Come on in."

With a curious look, Matt swiveled his head to follow her path as she moved past him into the apartment.

"You smell like coffee."

"I look like coffee," she mumbled.

"What?"

Sarah sighed. "I had a very long day, topped off by some guy spilling his iced coffee all over me as I was coming here."

The corners of Matt's mouth twitched, but he very politely refrained from laughing.

"At least it was iced," he pointed out diplomatically.

"Funny," she said, glancing down at her ruined blouse. This was karma. This was the universe noticing that she'd been worried about what to wear on a maybe-date with a blind guy and reminding her that she was an idiot. "If you're going to make fun of me will you please let me borrow something else to wear?"

"Of course."

Matt went into his bedroom to grab her a shirt. As Sarah waited, she let her eyes wander around the room. Her gaze lingered on the splintered banister and she frowned, remembering Matt's mysteriously busted hand. She turned away from it, looking instead at the dining room table that Matt had turned into his home office. There were files and papers spread out across the surface, and in the middle of the table was a printer noisily churning out what at first appeared to be blank sheets of paper. Upon closer inspection, she saw tiny raised dots of Braille covering the pages.

"I've never seen one of these," she said, reaching out to run her fingers over the printed pages. She didn't bother raising her voice, knowing that Matt would hear her just fine in the other room. "Is it supposed to make that...grinding noise?"

"No, it's just broken," Matt called from his bedroom. "It's one of the cheapest models, but I still can't afford a new one."

"How much was it?" she asked curiously.

"About five thousand dollars," he said as he re-entered the room.

"Oh, shit." Sarah snatched her hand away. She sent Matt a guilty look. "I wasn't touching it."

He grinned at her sticker shock and handed her the light gray button-up shirt he was holding.

"Disabilities are expensive," he said with a shrug.