Chapter Text
Claire’s not used to waiting in the ER. Part of her is prepared for the cue to leap into action, to push aside the curtain and move on to the next thing. Part of her is watching her coworker, her brain silently running its usual diagnostic tally as Sho starts gathering information. (Height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, etc.) The information is none of her business, though at the same time Matt’s probably more comfortable with her having it than he is with her having his phone number, for example. Which is…par for the course for them.
He has no known allergies to any medications, which is probably a question she should have asked ages ago. Assuming she had more than purloined hospital samples to give him in the first place. And assuming he’d ever actually take them even if she left them with him.
Medical history she listens to with half an ear, listening for any key words that might one day make some kind of difference in her off-the-books nursing practice, but nothing stands out. Well, nothing in the information he has stands out. He doesn’t actually have much information at all, which maybe answers some very personal questions she’s been unable to let go of. Like why it’d been so easy for him to walk away.
“God damnit,” she whispers under her breath. Exhaustion doesn’t explain why she’s having such a hard time keeping her mind on the business at hand instead of things they’d settled months ago. She seriously needs to get a life outside of work. She needs –
“Claire?”
“Yeah?” She forces herself to stop pacing (not that she remembers starting to pace) and waits, wondering if Sho wants a consult or –
“Go get a coffee before you fall asleep on your feet.”
It’s not that bad. It’s not like she’d worked a double or something. Sure, maybe she’d stayed later than she should have, but patient charts don’t update themselves, and this time she’d had warning that she was going to be away for a couple of days…
Matt’s watching her. Or doing his version of watching her, which seems to include a look of unhappy concentration and a hand fisted around the edge of the gurney. She’s seen how pain sits in his body. He doesn’t go hard and motionless with it like a lot of people do. This is not his usual deliberate relaxation.
This isn’t a consult, or even looking out for a coworker. This is advocating for the patient. Her unrest has upset him enough that even Sho has noticed.
“Matt?”
“I’m fine.”
Of course he is. Intellectually she knows that. She’d leave him in the care of any of her coworkers in a heartbeat. She also knows that’s not what he means when he says I’m fine. He uses the phrase to set boundaries, establish hierarchies of need where her agitation is more important, more deserving, than his actual physical…
Her heart is racing and Matt turns his face away from her like he can’t bear to listen to it any longer, and maybe Sho is right and she should distance herself from this long enough to get a grip even though she knows what’s coming next. (What’s coming next is the process of getting Matt out of his t-shirt so the bandages around his shoulder can be removed for the coming examination. What’s coming next is bared scars and too-thin hospital gowns and questions that Sho is going to approach obliquely because really Matt’s body shouldn’t look like that because blind men don’t do the things he does which means there has to be other explanations and the most likely one is abuse of some kind…)
And maybe, just maybe, Matt’s thinking far enough ahead that he doesn’t want to entangle her relationships with her coworkers in his lies, though thinking ahead isn’t exactly his strong suit.
(That’s mean.)
(She’s so…)
(Angry.)
Mere seconds pass while she deliberates, because none of these thoughts are new. They’re not even really thoughts anymore. Everything is complicated and everything hurts, and it all just sort of lives in her bone marrow and seeps into her blood to be hurled through her body at the same speed as the pounding heart he’s trying not to hear. (He can literally hear all of her arguments and disappointments, even if he doesn’t understand what he’s hearing.)
“Okay.” She gathers up the mass of their outerwear and bundles it into something that can fit into her locker because the wait time for the x-rays he’s going to need is going to be at least close to an hour and then things will depend on the severity of the dislocation and she’d rather not haul all of it from place to place until they’re free to leave. “I’ll be back.”
Matt smiles a little when she says that. Like it hadn’t really needed to be said.
+
His things – their things – fit neatly in her locker without any effort on her part. (It is oddly soothing.) Claire looks at them for a long time (Why can’t everything be that easy?) before closing the door and walking away. There’s a vending machine on the second floor where she can get a terrible cup of coffee.
+
She can’t get that image out of her head, of her coat and Matt’s nestled together in her locker. It’s enough to shift her unruly emotions back towards bittersweet instead of something so…acrimonious.
She needs to do a better job of remembering that she’s not the only one still feeling the weight of missed possibilities. Matt’s said enough to make that obvious; in fact, it’s probably the casual way he keeps bringing it up that’s got her so on edge. Doesn’t really matter whether he’s doing it to prove to them both that he isn’t hurting anymore or if he’s trying to prove he’s simply stronger than the familiar ache. (And honestly, either one is as equally likely, considering who she’s talking about.)
Anyway. They’re both hurting. She should try to keep that in mind. (Of course, Matt’s disregard for pain has always made her grit her teeth if not bite her tongue.)
(But then, that’s what the terrible coffee is for.)
+
She slips back into his treatment room as Dr. Omdahl is wrapping up his examination. There’s a sweetly earnest expression on Matt’s face as he mumbles something about a girl he’d met in a bar. His body language – hunched shoulders, good hand moving to hide one of his scars before dropping away – says “self-conscious.” The lopsided grin says, “If you know what I mean…”
Claire rolls her eyes and retakes her seat in the corner while the doctor strips off his gloves and enters his notes in Matt’s chart. She takes a moment to do her own silent visual exam. The swelling is bad, but doesn’t appear worse. His posture is more relaxed, though he tracks her progress across the small space.
“None for me?”
“We don’t want to give you anything that might upset your stomach. Sooner or later that joint’s getting put back where it belongs.”
Matt sighs but doesn’t argue the point. Then she takes the lid off the cup and lets the slightly metallic scent of too hot machinery drift out along with the scent of coffee. (The vending machine on the second floor is ancient and runs hot enough that it sometimes smells like burning oil. It probably should have been replaced a good decade ago but that takes money and in a hospital there’s always something else that takes precedence.)
(She’s watching for it so she spots the there-and-gone-again expression of distaste on his features as he catches a whiff off her drink.)
(A tiny voice in the back of her head tells her that this isn’t the way to foster the emotional distance from him that she needs to keep. But it’s just too much…fun. The things he can do, the things he can sense, are just…) (Amazing.) (Fascinating.) (And from what he’s said she doesn’t think anyone else is as willing to just play with them.) (With him.)
(Has he ever looked at his own abilities as something other than a devastating tool?)
“Claire, you provided initial treatment?” Omdahl sounds distracted as he finishes his notations.
“Yeah.” She pulls herself back into the room, back out of her own head and the merry-go-round of confusion inside of it.
“Matt says you didn’t give him anything for the inflammation?”
She nods in agreement as the keyboard clacks away. “External treatment only.”
“Cold compress?”
She nods again. “Figured it was better than nothing, and we’d get him something a little stronger than an OTC once he was here.”
Omdahl nods absently. “I’ll send someone in with that while we wait on radiology. Shouldn’t be long. We’ll try to get you home as quick as possible.”
“Appreciate it.”
The doctor leaves and Sho bustles in a couple if minutes later with 800mg of ibuprofen and a waxed paper cup full of water. Matt takes them without protest, which is a nice change of pace though it makes her wonder about his motives. Maybe he’s decided not to fight since he’s already in the hospital. Maybe he actually hurts that much. Maybe he’s trying to keep up the mild-mannered-blind-guy façade. Maybe it’s a combination of all of them, maybe it’s something she hasn’t thought of. Most certainly it’s none of her business since he does take them. (It’s not like he can cheek the pills with her in the room, after all.)
Then she and Matt are alone again. She yawns and settles into her seat a little more comfortably. He fiddles with his glasses, his head still turned towards her like he’s listening to something. Or for something. His bashful expression from earlier is gone like it’d never been. (What does it say about them that she’s more comfortable with his intensity than with something lighter?) (What does it say about her that she closes her eyes and leans her head against the wall like that’ll help put off whatever it is that’s bothering him?)
+
Claire sounds tired. Her footsteps lag, every other breath is an almost inaudible sigh, and there’s a low rasp in her voice when she speaks. And her creeping exhaustion is just the most innocuous reason he should send her home.
If he were a better man, a stronger man, he’d tell her to go. Now that her coworkers are aware of their connection, they’d likely take special care of him as a favor to her. Because Claire’s like that, is someone who’s so selfless that it makes other people want to live up to her example. Foggy’s like that – can be like that – but Claire doesn’t seem to get as distracted as easily. Or so he assumes; other people don’t appear to make her heart lurch with quite the same violence he’s capable of causing.
Once. He was strong enough for her once. He’s never been able decide what to make of the fact that she hadn’t taken the clean escape he’d offered her the night Fisk had bombed the shit out of the Russians. (Hasn’t let himself wonder how different life would be if he’d presented himself on her doorstep that night instead of leaving her a voicemail when he’d known she’d be elbow deep in the walking wounded.)
(That’s a lie. He knows what she would have…what he hopes she would have done. She would have pulled him into her steady warmth and held him there through every following upheaval, would have let his hasty words crumble between them instead of allowing them to stand until they can barely be in the same room together without the still-healing wounds breaking open.)
(Maybe that’s why he’s stayed away. Because leaving would be too hard.)
He honestly hadn’t thought it’d be this bad when he’d called her. He’d thought…he’d assumed that Claire would still be strong enough for both of them. (Instead she’s slouching in the corner; instead she’s involving herself in his life, again, which has never done anything but cause her pain; instead she’s willing to sit next to him and comb her fingers through his hair, and press the tension from spasming muscles.)
It’s Stick’s voice in his head telling him that he’s weak. To be fair, that’s about the only thing that Stick’s voice in his head ever says, so it’s fairly easy to ignore. Except in this case it’s right. She’s hurting and it’s his own damn fault. It would have been hell, but he could have made it this far without her. There’s nothing dangerously distinctive about a dislocated shoulder.
He’d just…finally…had a good reason to call her. To hear her voice again.
Claire’s always been the strong one; she’ll leave him, if she has a reason to. (She’s expected somewhere for dinner. By someone.)
He opens his mouth to tell her to home, to take her own advice and get some rest, but what he hears himself say is, “You didn’t tell me you were going on vacation.”
“You didn’t ask.” Her voice is low. Distant. But he can hear her teeth grinding together, the sound is harsh enough to make him wince. Which in turn makes him groan as he instinctively tries to curl away from the noise.
She’s on her feet in an instant, and out the door the moment after that.
Good job, Murdock. He drops his head back and lets his groan echo in the empty room. There’s a reason they fight so hard to keep things light and impersonal. At least if they’d been fighting over whether or not she should leave, she wouldn’t have left without even a word –
She slips back into the room, almost silently and approaches the gurney on tired feet. “Here.” There’s a popping sound, a light chemical scent, and a slight chill before she drapes a cold pack over his shoulder. “I know this probably isn’t up to your usual standards…” Next she pulls a rough, hospital issue blanket over his lap, fussing as she straightens it. “…but it’s not the warmest in here.”
“Claire…” He’s going to apologize for…something. He’s not sure what. For intruding where he’s not wanted most likely, but he’s kind of lost control of his mouth. Don’t go. His teeth clamp shut before he can voice the plea.
Her hands still, their heat radiating down to his thighs as they clench in the blanket. She’s standing so close that her soft breaths ruffle the hair at his temple. “Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday. I’m supposed to drive upstate this afternoon. We got a cabin near Peekskill for the weekend.”
Vacation. Dinner. Family. Birthday. He’d bought a burner phone so his mess wouldn’t intrude in her life. (“What happens on the night when I’m already talking to someone else?”) (He’d bought himself a phone, that would only ever be used to call her, as a way of subtlety marking his territory. As a reminder that his needs came first.) (He’s a dick, and even knowing that he can’t stop from pressing for more information.) “We?”
This time she doesn’t answer. (Doesn’t reassure.) “What are my odds of getting you to lie back?”
He’s intruding where he’s not wanted. That’s the easy answer to her evasiveness. (Even though she doesn’t sound reluctant.) So when she tells him to go limp and let her do the work of getting him reclined, he does. (He’s surprised by her strength; she swings his legs up onto the bed then lays him down smoothly, despite his dead weight resting against her arm.) She props him up on a couple of pillows then settles on the side of the bed, one leg pulled up and pressed against his side. He wants to reach out and take her hand, but she’s already giving far more than they’ve bargained for.
The quality of her silence is familiar. She’s thinking something over; maybe deciding if she’s going to answer his question, maybe trying to shape one of her own. It’s just as well that she went into nursing – she’d make a canny lawyer. He’d rather face her over bandages than the bar.
Finally she sighs, a painfully familiar sound, as is the trace of a smile in her voice. “You know, I can’t say I’ve missed this.”
“But?” There’s definitely a ‘but’ coming. (He doesn’t bother asking what “this” means. It could mean any one of a dozen things, none of them as potentially interesting as the unspoken ‘but.’) (It isn’t hard to infer that there was something about the situation that she has missed.) (He’s a bastard for hoping for more than her company.)
+
Hmmm… Claire watches Matt and weighs the odds. On one hand, trying to get his phone number out of him had been like pulling teeth. Not that she isn’t just as bad. Her first instinct when asked a personal question is to deflect. They just circle around and around each other, each of them guarding their injuries, pretending they don’t exist. It’s no wonder they can’t move past anything; they won’t admit there’s anything to move past.
She’s just so tired of the song and dance routine.
So even though her heart is pounding, even though she can’t help but look away to hide her face, she offers something.
“But,” she says, conceding the point. “I’ve missed…” This would be a hell of a lot easier if he weren’t blind. If she could look at him and he could look at her and she wouldn’t have to say anything. (If he could see there would be so many ways for her to cop out and still get her point across.) Then the tips of his fingers find the inside of her wrist and rest there, a link that seems to endure whatever words they do or don’t say. A reminder that she not exactly in this alone.
“You know I’ve missed you.”
He struggles with her statement, much more than she thought he would. Frowns and swallows hard, and presses his fingers more tightly against the pulse beating over the tip of her radius. Matt Murdock, human lie detector, unwilling to believe what his ears are telling him. His head shakes, a single back and forth motion that seems to be less about disbelief and more about trying to orient himself. “Why?”
“You know why.” He must. She’d left her coffee on the stand next to the bed and she reaches for it now, more to give her hands something to do other than fuss, to give her mouth something to do other than run away from her. It still tastes bitter and acrid, but that’s not so different than…
She misses him for the reasons he misses her. Except he looks so confused that it starts to sink in for her that maybe he’s never considered that she might have regrets about how things turned out between them. That despite everything she’s said on the matter, that she hasn’t wanted to turn back the clock and have certain conversations with him again.
He doesn’t. Which is…
Later, when she’s had time to sleep and look back at this conversation, and at each of the little things that have rung the quiet alarm bell in her head this morning, she’ll be able to decide how she feels. In the moment all she knows is that her pounds so hard that Matt’s fingers slip off her wrist and retreat under the blanket she’s brought him as if a physical barrier is enough to distance him from her…distress.
Bloody and alone. Personal observation or unintentionally correct guess at a self-fulfilling prophecy in progress?
And of course, before she can recover, before she can even catch her breath, the door to the room swings open as Sho backs a wheelchair through. “Radiology’s ready for you.”
Oh. Claire carefully stands up, unconsciously smoothing her hands down her front like putting her clothes to rights will settle her. She backs away, let’s her friend do the work of getting Matt upright, standing, and seated. Ignores the odd looks she’s getting in favor of taking another sip of her drink. Terrible as it is it helps focus her, reminds her of her reason for being here.
They are not the reason she’s here.
He’s the reason she’s here.
They can, and have, always waited. Perhaps she’s said enough for enough. Perhaps even too much.
For now she follows Matt and Sho down the hallway to an elevator.