" since you've been here."

Matt turned his head towards Father Lantom, who was lingering in the aisle of the empty church, calmly observing the blind man sitting alone on one of the long pews.

"I know. I'm sorry, Father. I've...been busy."

"I assumed as much," Father Lantom said lightly. "Did you come for confession today?"

"Yes. Confession and...and counsel," Matt said.

The priest settled himself on the pew, a few feet from Matt. "Where would you like to begin?"

Matt was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I met a girl."

Father Lantom looked at him in slight surprise, and Matt could hear a touch of amusement in his voice. "I have to say, after all of the...more troublesome sins you've come in here to confess, Matthew, impure thoughts isn't one that I expected you to be particularly concerned about."

"Not—not that kind of girl, Father," he said, laughing faintly before falling somber again. "We're not, um...on the best of terms. She works for some...bad people. The kind of people that I—I dedicate all this time and effort to trying to bring down. She has her reasons, but she's there all the same. And she, uh, she knows. Who I am. What I do. Even who my friends are."

"How did that happen?" Father Lantom asked in a concerned tone.

Matt shook his head. "I wasn't careful enough."

"And what is it about the situation that's weighing on your mind?"

"The things she knows...they could put me in a lot of danger. If she told anyone. She could put the people I love in danger. Get them killed, or tortured. I've...done what I had to do. To keep her from telling those secrets. But I'm...I'm struggling. With how I have to do it."

The priest was quiet, and while he contemplated, Matt listened to the creak of the old wooden pews and inhaled the comforting scent of incense and old missals.

"Have you...harmed this woman?"

Matt swallowed hard and tilted his face up towards the ceiling. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face as it streamed through the stained glass windows high above him. He didn't know whether to lean into it or flinch away from it. Father Lantom was still waiting patiently for his answer.

"Yes. Not—not like I have others. But I've put my hands on her," he admitted guiltily. "I've made her afraid of me. What I've been doing to her...mentally...it's maybe just as harmful as physically hurting her."

The father's heartbeat was steady as always. No matter what sins Matt carried through the church doors and threw at this man's feet, his heart and breathing never changed. It was one of the reasons Matt always came back to him to confess.

"I know that with your...particular line of work, there's little use in debating the moral nuances of violence. But...you don't strike me as the type to hurt people for no reason, Matthew," Father Lantom said. There was a questioning note in his tone.

"I have reasons. This is—it's the only way I can have any control over the situation. The only way I can keep my friends safe."

"Has she given you some reason to believe that she'll tell your secrets?"

"Aside from the fact that she works for the people who would benefit most from finding out? That could destroy my life the quickest? I can't be there every hour of the day to make sure she doesn't break her promise. More than once now, I've thought that she did break it. And the feeling was just...like everything I've worked to protect was going to come crashing down. It's this...constant uncertainty, not knowing what she'll do."

Father Lantom hummed contemplatively. "You're a defense attorney by day, is that correct?"

Matt nodded, unsure where the father was going with the change of subject.

"When you get a client who wishes to have you represent them, I assume you must have to form an opinion of some sort as to whether or not they're innocent. How do you decide if they're lying to you?"

"It's...sort of a gut feeling," Matt said, guiltily sidestepping the full truth. "But determining if someone committed a single specific crime versus if they're someone who can be trusted indefinitely...it's two different things. It's—it's actions versus character. One is much harder to figure out than the other."

"I see. Well, let me ask you this. Did you come here today looking for reasons to trust this woman, or justification to continue keeping her in fear?"

"I don't know. Neither. I guess I'm here about...me. Everything that's happened in the past few months, I worry that it's made me...harder. Less forgiving. Sometimes I think that if this same situation had occurred before Fisk, before we lost Ben and Elena, before...a lot of things, maybe I would have reacted differently. Tried to be more..."

"Christian-like?" the father offered lightly.

"Yeah, that one," Matt said, a brief grin flitting across his face before falling. "The reason I do...everything that I've done is to help my city. To keep the people of Hell's Kitchen safe, so that they don't have to live in fear. But...I've done the opposite with her. It makes me wonder if it's the situation, or if I've changed."

"No one can go through such events and emerge unchanged, Matthew. But...it doesn't mean you've become a worse person for them. You say that you've made her afraid of you. Do you intend to follow through on the things you've threatened to do, if needed?"

"I don't know. I'd like to think that I wouldn't. But I also know that I—I can't risk trusting her right now. I can't stop putting pressure on her. Not when she works right in the center of the lion's den," Matt said bitterly.

"It's interesting that you use that analogy," Father Lantom said. "You are familiar with the story of Daniel and the lion's pit, are you not? King Darius was fooled into throwing his friend Daniel into a den of lions for refusing to pray to him before God. They rolled a stone in front of the entrance and left him there."

"Right," Matt said, nodding as he recalled that particular passage. "But when they came back the next day for his body, Daniel was unharmed."

"Exactly. Daniel went into the lion's den with complete faith that God would save him, and God rewarded that trust. In certain situations, there is no easy solution. We have no way out, we just have to have faith in God to keep us safe."

"I do have faith in God. I do. But...I've had my whole life to learn to trust Him. This girl, I've only just met."

"I understand that. Do what you need to, Matthew. I don't believe that you're as far gone as you think. Next time you have to make decision between trusting this girl or hurting her...try having faith in God. I think you'd be surprised at how much it will help you make your choice."

Matthew nodded, contemplating the older man's words.

"Thank you, Father," he said, standing and grabbing his cane to leave.

"I hope to see you again a bit sooner this time, Matthew," Father Lantom said. "Maybe over lattes."

Matt smiled slightly as he made his way up the aisle towards the large wooden doors. "I'll try my best, Father."

➳

Sarah's Monday at Orion was tense. The forty-eight hours on the box of Yates' belongings had expired, and Sarah kept glancing at the container below her desk throughout the day, anxious to look inside it. She was tempted to just look through the stuff right there at her desk, but they had a plan to follow. First she would have to throw it in the dumpster, and then later, when it was safer, she or Matt would come back and fish it out.

Finally, when Ronan was on his lunch break, she grabbed the box and made her way out to the small back alleyway where the dumpster was. Just as she was about to throw the box in, she spotted the mechanical gears on either side of the container and cursed. It was a compacting machine. She wasn't sure when the company had switched from their regular dumpsters, but this threw a major wrench in her plan. Dumpsters with automatic compactors would crush all of the trash every few hours or so, and by the time she could come back to get the box it would be unrecognizable.

Glancing around her, she quickly grabbed the papers and notepad and stuffed them in her purse, which she had brought outside with her with the intent of going to grab a coffee directly after disposing of the box. With the only promising contents of the box safely in her bag, she tossed the rest of the box in the trash and promptly left the alley.

Unfortunately, she didn't notice the very small, inconspicuous camera placed high on the brick wall, directed squarely at the dumpster.

➳

After work, Sarah tiredly made the walk from the subway station to her apartment, lost deep in thoughts about what she might find in Yates' stuff. She was so zoned out that when someone jumped out at her as she was fishing for her keys, she screamed and automatically held her stun gun out towards them.

"Whoa! Do not taze the pregnant woman, Sarah!"

Sarah immediately threw the stun gun back in her purse as she recognized her best friend, Lauren.

"Lauren! Oh my God. You scared the hell out of me," Sarah said, clutching her chest. "What are you doing here?"

Sarah recovered enough to give her friend a hug as Lauren explained why she was there.

"Well, you cancelled on me again for drinks on Saturday. So I figured if I actually showed up at your place, you'd have no excuse to not come out with me and Greg for a few drinks, and sad, non-alcoholic beverages for me...right?"

"Lauren..." Sarah began, thinking of the important papers in her bag.

Lauren rested her hands on her giant stomach and fixed Sarah with a stern look. "Do you know how much effort it took me to get all the way over here and then wait for you? I had to talk to at least three passing strangers about what gender my baby is. I hate making baby talk with strangers, Sarah. Why do they need to know?"

"I...yeah, okay. Just one or two drinks," Sarah said. After the past week, numbing the constant anxiety with some alcohol didn't sound like an awful idea. "I need to get changed first. Come on, let's see if the three of us can even all fit on the elevator."

When they reached Sarah's apartment, Lauren slowly lowered herself down onto the couch. "Oh, man. I'm not getting back up now. It's done. I mean, at least until I have to pee, which should be every three minutes or so at this stage, apparently."

"How pregnant are you now, anyway?" Sarah said as she slipped into her bedroom and closed the door partially behind her. "Like, thirteen months?"

"Ugh, I think this kid is just planning on growing up in there," Lauren's muffled voice replied. Sarah heard the television flick on, and grinned as the opening music to some trashy reality show floated through the air.

She quickly wiggled out of her work clothes, leaving them in a pile on her floor and grabbing a dress from her closet. It wasn't a very fancy dress—so hopefully they weren't going anywhere too upscale—but she liked how the blue brought out her eyes, and the way it still fit her well even after she'd lost a bit of weight.

As she slipped her shoes on, her gaze lingered on her purse with the papers inside. She glanced at the door. It wasn't like Lauren could easily sneak up on her; Sarah was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to get up from the couch without help. She could take at least a moment to look at what she had just stolen.

Sarah tip-toed over to the bed and took the papers from her purse. Shuffling through them, she saw that for the most part they seemed fairly innocuous. No death ray schematics, no newspaper-letter ransom notes. Disappointed, she picked up the notebook and flipped through it. She raised her eyebrows. Most of the pages were blank, but there were large chunks of perforated paper on the side where someone had clearly ripped out many pages at a time. Yates? Or someone who had gone through his stuff after his death?

Sarah ran her fingers over some of the blank pages, and she could feel small indents from where Yates had written with enough pressure that it left an impression on the next page. She knew that going over the indents with a pencil to see the writing was something that only worked in movies, but maybe a certain blind man could make out the words with his annoying heightened senses.

She opened her desk drawer and threw the papers and notebook in, before grabbing her purse and returning to the living room.

"Do you know how long you were in there?" Lauren asked. "I already had my baby; he grew up and went to college. This baby in here? My seventh child. That is how much time passed while you were getting ready."

"If you have seven children, I'm going to leave you," Sarah said.

"You can't leave me. Only boyfriends and husbands can leave; best friends are stuck with me. Help me up?" she said, and Sarah reached a hand down to haul her up.

"Speaking of boyfriends," Lauren continued. "What's happening with your love life these days? I can't believe I even have to ask that, I should already know. Any guys keeping you busy at night?" she asked, winking.

Not in the good way, Sarah thought, frowning as she thought of the only night time visitor she ever got. She didn't think intimidating masked men were what Lauren meant. "Um...not really."

Lauren jabbed an accusatory finger at her. "You hesitated! There is someone. You always do this, you never let us meet guys until you've been dating them for decades. Secretive Sarah."

"You would scare them off after the first few dates! And also, there is no guy! Just me."

Her friend looked unconvinced. "You remember what I said happens when you lie to a pregnant woman, Sarah."

"I remember, I remember. Hemorrhaging, death, etcetera. Come on, let's get to the bar and find Greg. He never grills me about my love life."

Their usual bar was crowded as always. Sarah remembered that they had especially great drink specials on Mondays, something she had regularly taken advantage of back when she actually went out with friends all the time.

"Where's Greg?" Sarah called over the noise.

"He's saving a table for us near the back," Lauren responded. Sure enough, Sarah spotted her friend's husband near the back, sitting by himself at one of the tall tables. He jumped up as they approached and guided his pregnant wife as she hauled herself up onto the tall bar chair.

"Sarah!" he greeted cheerfully in his clipped British accent. "You are alive! Lauren kept telling me you were dead. Or maybe she said dead to her. I don't know, but it was very dramatic either way, so I'm glad you're here to be the level headed one."

Lauren glared at him. "I have waited my whole life for an excuse to be overly dramatic and demanding, and now that I finally have one, you're going to try and take it from me? What's the point of even having a baby, then?" Their server appeared with food menus and cocktail lists, and Lauren beamed at him. "Hi! I'd love a sad, non-alcoholic lemonade, please."

"I'll take a double whiskey," Greg said, then pointed to Sarah. "And so will she, and we'd like for you to keep them both coming! Thanks!"

"Wait, what?" Sarah said, but the server was already gone. "No, no, no, I have work in the morning!"

"Well, maybe if you had come out on Saturday like we asked, we wouldn't have that problem," Lauren said sweetly. "Besides, it's on us!"

"What? Lauren—" Sarah protested.

"I'm insisting! If I can't drink, you need to drink for both of us, because we all know Greg is a lightweight," Lauren said, and Greg shrugged and nodded. "Plus, I need you to be just a little drunk soon."

"Why?" Sarah asked suspiciously.

Greg leaned over and whispered loudly to her, "Because she's going to ask you to plan her baby shower."

"Greg!" Lauren scolded.

"She gets too agreeable when she's drunk, it wouldn't be fair to ask her then! I would feel bad. It's like tricking a child. No offense," he said to Sarah.

"Well, offense...kind of taken," she mumbled.

"Yeah, Greg," Lauren said. "Sarah is a grown woman who can totally hold her liquor, and she's also pretty and smart and perfect and exactly the kind of friend who will definitely throw my baby shower for me," she finished, smiling widely at Sarah with huge eyes.

Sarah glared at her. "Do you not remember when you asked me to plan your bachelorette party—"

"I do, but this is different—"

"—and I had to call up all your old sorority sisters because you insisted on inviting them—"

"Most of them live out in the suburbs or rehab now anyway, so you don't have to worry about that!"

"—and I had to talk to your mother, who hates me—"

"No! No, she hates Greg, she just resents you because you introduced me to him." Greg raised his glass and winked. Sarah ignored him.

"—and then you made me change the date five times in three months—"

"But I only have a little over two months til I'm going to pop, so how many times can I possibly do that?"

"—and while I was doing all of this, you called me at least five times a day to check and make sure I was planning everything right."

"I will almost definitely probably not do that this time."

Sarah stared at her skeptically. She already knew she'd say yes, but she never passed up an opportunity to remind Lauren of how bad she was at letting people plan anything for her.

The server set the whiskey down on the table and Lauren pushed it closer to Sarah. "Did I mention you look so great tonight?" she said. "That is such a pretty dress."

Sarah looked down. "You gave me this dress."

"And you probably didn't send me a thank you note, so plan my shower?"

Sarah rolled her eyes, then looked down at the whiskey. She brought the glass to her lips and threw the entire drink back in one go. The warm, fuzzy feeling spread through her body immediately. She closed her eyes, relieved to have some sort of relaxation, some reprieve from everything that had been going on. When she opened them again, Greg and Lauren were both looking at her hopefully.

"If I say yes, just how many of these are you planning on buying me?"

Lauren beamed at her, and from that point there was no turning back.

The server kept drinks for both Sarah and Greg in ready supply, and they both steadily became more inebriated, while Lauren laughed so loudly and told her stories with such wild hand movements that several bar-goers gave her dirty looks, obviously believing her to be drunk as well.