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» WHO? Matt Murdock & OPEN
» WHEN? Now
» WHERE? Deck 6 => 6.27 => Deck 5
» WHAT? Arrival
» WARNINGS? TBC

Arrival Hall (CLOSED to Frank Castle)
It's cold.

He's not where he was before. He knows that much. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets his senses go, scanning his surroundings like an uncalibrated radar. Metal. Lots of metal, clanging, banging. But everything is wrong. Lighter, like things are floating even when they're not. People are talking. Laughing, maybe. But distant, like the next apartment building over, or somewhere down the next block. The fine hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck stand with the low buzz-hum of the vessel, creaking, engine churning like an old ship, suspended in space.

It's like a hangover, except. He feels heavy even though he's light. Shackles on his feet. His head hurts. Everything hurts. And God, what is that noise?

Less of a waking up, more of regaining consciousness as Matt rolls over with a pained cry and a grimace.

His hand crawls over to the smartwatch, trying to mute the beeping and humming and screeching grating against his ears. What day is it? What time? What happened? He clutches the device with one hand and runs the other hand down his body. Daredevil's gone. Only Matthew. A jumpsuit covering the bandages. Stitches. Blood. No pearly gates, no apostles. No questions to answer about how he's lived his life, whether he's lived it well, whether he's repentant. Paid enough of a price. Just a jumpsuit... and a pair of boots?

"...lectra." Talking feels like rousing up a sandstorm in his throat. He groans and struggles to his feet, using energy he doesn't have to drive him forward. Out. Just the one thing on his mind.

I have to save her.

He gets blood on his palm as he presses his hand over a wet bandage, stitches having been ripped as he sluggishly stumbles deliriously down the corridor. His boots clunk along at an uneven, unsteady pace. Everything is too loud. Too cold. Too heavy. There's blood on the wall where he braced himself against it. And then there's a door. Everything flickers behind his closed eyelids. Black, red, black, red, black, black, black...

Room 6.27. Where everything's a little quieter. And he can just focus. Keep the red lights on in the dark.

6.27. Matthew. Chapter Six. Verse Twenty-Seven. 'Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?'

Hn. That's funny. The chuckle bubbles to the surface. For all the pain He's inflicted, God still has a decent sense of humour.

Departure Lounge (OTA)
He doesn't take kindly to being dumped in the med bay, but there's not much of a fight he can put up against Frank Castle in his current state. He's not sure how long he's been resting there, but when he's well enough to orientate himself again, he's not staying in the med bay. The machines are noisy. He has questions. He's scared.

Matt makes it two steps out of the med bay before space sickness kicks in. The sheer wrongness of the gravitational pull throws him off, throws everything around him off. He sinks down to his knees and clutches his head, curling up against the wall. He looks pale, like he's about to throw up.

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A part of him knows he's not in New York, but with all these familiar people from home coming to visit and all his senses off-kilter you could probably try to convince him he's upstate or somewhere he's never been before where gravity is not what it should be and some of the people he cares about is here.

He doesn't want to throw up all over Karen so he holds her for now, steadying himself. He doesn't want to go back to the med bay but he's not putting up too much of a fight when she leads him back there. He's in some emotional turmoil after having spent some time with Elektra and now Karen's here, and he's half-expecting a slap for jumping down into Midland Circle like that. Those same old arguments they would have had about Daredevil dancing in and out of retirement. Maybe he's just lucky he's in such bad shape.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he manages with one of his small, sad laughs as he sits back down on the bed he'd only just managed to crawl back out of, feeling defeated on all fronts.

"I didn't do this. Wherever we are." Oh, he's getting dizzy again.

"It means that the last thing I knew, you were supposedly dead." She snaps a little, getting him situated in the bed. It's not fair to take her frustration with his being here out on him, particularly since the frustration is there because she's guilty that she's happy to see him again. She shouldn't be happy that Matt is trapped here. Terrible things happen here.

"Frank and I have been here for months now. We both woke up here at the same time."

She sits on the bed, frowning as she starts to look him over. He's in terrible shape, and she doesn't know where to start.

That look flashes across his face. The same one when he said 'I'm doing it again'. His shoulders start to rise like he's going to be defensive about it, but he looks guilty, and frustrated. Maybe the Matthew Murdock she met is the blind lawyer seated next to Franklin Nelson when they just haphazardly threw their law firm together, the only two people in the precinct who believed her. The one who can meander around a courtroom and take everyone apart using just his words, but can't pour himself a cup of coffee. But that's not him and he's actually sick and tired of being sick and tired of having this fight.

His shoulders slump and he curls loose fists in his lap. He doesn't want to lie down even though every part of his body is screaming at him to just stop being so tightly wound and angry all the time, and just take it easy for a while.

Matt's lips part and he takes in a breath like he's about to say something. Only the words don't come to him just yet. Because he knows 'I'm glad you're okay' is going to launch her into one of her 'you don't get to do this to me' talks. So he's going to own what he did, because he's not sorry about burying what was left of the Hand. He's not sorry about protecting his city.

"I stayed behind. In Midland Circle." He lowers his head, running his thumb over his palm. "I chose my city over you. Over Foggy. I chose Daredevil over you. And I can't- I won't-" He swallows the lump in his throat even though it feels like eating razorblades. He sounds as physically and emotionally exhausted as he looks. "I won't be made to feel sorry. For who I am. I'm only sorry that you thought I was a better man."

Karen does him a favor and eases off trying to look him over. She's not a nurse, she doesn't know what she's doing. It's likely she'll only make things worse. But it's hard to fight off the urge to push him hard at the shoulder and just force him to be still. It's for his own good, and despite what she assumes he thinks, she does care enough about him to want what's best for his health. He has to go and run his mouth though, something he's so good at doing. Whether or not he means to insult her she isn't sure. It really doesn't matter though, does it? The fact is that he does, and she's grateful that he can't see the look of hurt on her face.

"I learned a while ago that you're willing to choose just about anything over me, Matt." It comes out forcibly flat, because otherwise emotion might seep into her tone and betray the fact that he still is able to make her feel like shit.

While she wants to make him feel like he should choke on his words, the hurt that's stabbing at her is quickly giving way to anger. "God, Matt, do you hear yourself?" Her tone rises and she moves off the bed like he's burned her and she needs to get away. The sound of her heels clicking on the floor is loud as she paces the room. The right thing to do would be to just leave. He's exhausted and she can see that. But Karen sinks her teeth in and won't let go when it comes to Matt, because she's tired too and all she wants is to have her friend back.

"I'm not Elektra. Save your apologies for her."

"That's not true," he insists. He had one of the better nights he's had in a long time that night he went out with Karen, minor hiccups aside, and their relationship was going in all the right places before he put his personal life at the bottom of his list of priorities. He loves Karen even though he thinks she doesn't 'get' him, not in the same way Elektra does. Elektra who loves him for the angry, passionate, stubborn man he is. He might have had to lie to Karen for much of their relationship, but Karen inspires him to be a better man, and he wants to believe that he could be that man.

But Karen also doesn't get to turn this into some argument over how he's never let go of his ex, because Elektra's not like your typical ex when there's resurrected/immortal undead mystical ninja cult business involved.

"Don't- it's not about Elektra." It is utterly and completely about Elektra, but not in the way that he thinks she's thinking. "This is about us. We didn't put where we were going on hold because of Elektra. You wanted me to recover from this 'Daredevil' disease before it killed me."

Well, she was right in the end. It killed him. In a way he died at the hole at the bottom of Midland Circle. And now he has to answer for the mess he's made.

"Don't -" She turns and points at him like he'll be able to see it, like he'll actually be intimidated by the gesture. "Don't you dare think for a second that I'm jealous of Elektra. She's my friend here, Matt. And she deserves better than you dying on her."

That's probably not the best way to try and tell him that Elektra is here, but if she knows her friend, she'll be here in no time at all. Karen still strongly cares for Matt, though the affection for him no longer is romantic. He's her friend, one of her closest friends. And she owes him her life. But she's not about to let him think that she believes it's Elektra's fault that things didn't work out between them. She's not jealous of Elektra. She's furious because she remembers how upset Elektra had been over Matt several of the times they spoke.

The anger inside her seems to deflate all at once, ending with Karen standing at his bedside. She wants to punch him right now so her hands knit together, and she realizes that this conversation has to calm down before she ends up saying things she'll regret.

When she wanted him to recover from Daredevil, she didn't understand how it was a part of him. Not until she became close to Frank and understood the Punisher was part of who he is. It's not something that he can turn his back on and shed away. Matt can't either, and she's trying to accept that. She just doesn't want to ever admit to him that she's mad because it feels like he's lied to her the entire time she's known him. They can't go back and change the past though. All they can do is work harder to make sure things go better from this point on.

So for once, Karen doesn't say anything more. She's willing to let the argument lie there, because he looks like he's two seconds away from dying.

"Wha- She died on me - again!" Matt couldn't help but exclaim even though it felt like he was going to get a heart attack. He was sure they still had time to get out when he figured out she'd regained her senses, however slim their chances were at getting out of there alive, but she kept fighting him. And it's not that he blames her for what had happened or didn't want to stay behind with her, or that he wouldn't have made that decision again in a heartbeat, but that's not fair to put that on his shoulders.

Just talking about it made Matt upset again, like he can feel the distant rumbling in the dark and the weight of certain death coming after them. And just that helplessness of not being able to save her, of having tried talking and failing, fighting and failing. That inevitability of knowing that he would lose her again. It twisted inside him like a knife in his belly.

He always looked more vulnerable without his glasses, like he's always worn them as his armour and never learnt how to hide his emotions. He wants to grab something and throw it across the room and the only thing stopping him is how much it would scare Karen to see him like this. This is not how he envisioned coming back from Midland Circle.

"It's not Daredevil, is it?" The tears well up in his eyes, but he refuses to shed them. As his anger burns white hot, he withdraws and ponders what his own reflection would look like. Whether he'd scare his nine year old self with how old and angry he's become. He looks like he's in more pain than the flesh wounds could ever inflict on him.

"It's me." He swallows. "The Devil didn't drive you out of my life. I did."

He makes her feel sorry for him, makes her want to hug him. Her skin is crawling with the effort it takes to remain inactive and passive. She can't comfort him right now, not when he's working through these emotions and moving past his self-loathing. Her hand rests over his, giving it a gentle squeeze. She's here with him, she's not going anywhere. At least not until he falls asleep for some much needed rest.

"Well..." she starts to respond, hesitating. Just how honest should she be here? Karen doesn't really think that over much. She just goes for it and will later realize that she probably should've been a little less blunt and open. "Yeah, you did. I'm not going to chase after someone that doesn't respect me enough to be honest."

Trying to make that all water under the bridge is proving harder than she thought. That doesn't stop her from giving his hand another light squeeze as she leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. He's too warm and she frowns but she guesses it's better a slight fever than cold and dead. Her lips linger against his skin for a few moments as her hand slips up to press against his cheek. She can't say that she forgives him. But she can show him that she wants to move forward and try to do so.

He nods and says a quiet 'okay', more out of habit because he acts oblivious when other people do wordless gestures at him. It's taking him a long time to come full circle, to realise that if he wants others to accept every part of who he is, he has to first accept that Matt Murdock is Daredevil and he can't compartmentalise his guilt and his responsibilities depending on whether he's wearing the black suit or the red suit at the time.

His hand loosens and uncurls under hers as he closes his eyes when he feels her lips, with its all too familiar grooves, grazing over his skin. He thought he'd never feel that again. No doubt sometimes it could be easier to grieve over the ideal you had of someone who died an unsung hero of an incident that never happened than to see them sitting there, alive and not very well, blind and numb like this.

"I'm really tired, Karen," he confesses quietly. He barely has the energy to sit up like this. Just the sound of people's magboots upstairs thumping across the floor is wrecking him. "I'm sorry. If I yelled. I didn't- I can't. Right now."

Her lips brush against his skin as she pulls away, nodding at his assertion. A pang of guilt fills her at the realization that she's added unneeded stress onto him when he's trying to rest and recover. But as with all things between herself and Matt, the timing just isn't right.

"Lay down. You're going to pass out sitting up like this."

Any fight has been taken out of her, and she gives a gentle push to his shoulder to guide him back against the bed. She can't really take care of him, but she can make him comfortable. There's a chair at the bedside and she scoots it in close so she can sit in it. It isn't until she's doing so that she realizes there are tears in her eyes, ones that quickly well up and pour over to slip down her cheeks. She hates seeing Matt this way, knowing that he's feeling such darkness and anger inside him. Maybe he's right, maybe she has some kind of idealized version of him because of the man that saved her when no one else believed her. This anger and darkness is a part of him, no matter how much it breaks her heart. She has to accept it and learn to live with Matt without the mask being a lawyer provides him.

She thinks she probably should apologize too. She, doesn't, of course. But she comes to an internal compromise that lets her move on from the words they've exchanged in all their recent conversations. While she can't take back what she's said, she can try restarting the conversation so he can be at peace enough to sleep.

"It's good to see you again, Matt. I've missed you."

He's still got some fight in him. He doesn't want to lie down. But there's nothing to fight here except his own senses. He hasn't told her the full story of how they work, but he winces and grimaces uncomfortably when the chair she pulls up scrapes too loudly along the floor.

"Yeah." His voice sounds distant. He blinks at her, and his tongue moves in his mouth like he wants to say something else.

But he's probably said enough. Done enough. Perhaps too much, to have hurt her the way he did. Things would have been better if she was as drawn to Foggy as he was to her; Foggy had always been the better employer, the better friend. Courageous and humorous and kind. Matt was just bitter, frustrated. Better off licking his wounds alone. Now he's hurt them both.

He moves his legs properly onto the bed and sighs before lying down. It gave him some much needed relief, the weight of his body (as light as it was in this environment) supported by something else.

Matt never wanted her pity. And he certainly doesn't deserve her forgiveness. But as he's drifting off he's starting to realise that maybe she feels sorry for him not because of what's happened to him, but because of what he's done to himself.

"You deserved better," he murmurs, echoing what they said in her office.

"I did," she agrees with him, not about to fight him on something he's right about. "I have better now, though." It's meant to reassure him that she's doing fine here, and she finally thinks to hope that he knows where here even is. Frank found him and she assumes he's explained where they are and how things work.

Hand reaching out, she finds his and holds it gently. It's another distraction maybe, but she hopes that it helps anchor him to reality. If it helps him through his pain, that's even better.

"You need to let go of the past, Matt." And Karen needs to take her own advice, but it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

He had already made peace in that hole he thought he was going to die in. Now it's all messed up, wrong, turned upside-down and inside-out, and he has to scramble around in the darkness to find it again. But he's glad that at least one of them has managed to hold on to that peace. Her moving on to better things is all he could have ever wanted for her, whether he died or lived.

He can't let go. Or maybe he won't. But he won't say as much for now. He will just accept that she's going to stay here with him for a while, and take things one confusing and painful minute at a time. He doesn't want her to spend time here with him since Frank had said she was working on something important, but he's not going to push her away when he feels her presence by his side as he slowly falls back unconscious.

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