Sarah wasn't sure what she had expected when she agreed to meet Karen in the small, brightly lit noodle house. That they would spill all of their secrets over bowls of pho, bonded by their strange encounter at the post office?

Instead, they sat across from each other, a slightly sticky table top between them, and made stilted small talk while the tension of the conversation they had actually come there to have sat heavily at the table like a third person. It wasn't until after the employee behind the counter had already called out their order and they'd brought their food back to the table that the conversation began to shift.

Sarah pushed her hair behind her ear before she began eating, forgetting that doing so would reveal the bruise on her face. It had slowly started to fade from a bright reddish purple to a sickly looking green color.

"That looks painful," Karen noted, gesturing towards Sarah's temple with her chopsticks. To Sarah's relief, there was no follow-up question about how she got it.

"Not so much at this point," she said with a shrug. "It's fading."

They were quiet for a few moments as Sarah tried to figure out if she was supposed to follow this thread towards more serious subjects or continue to let the small talk linger. Luckily, she didn't have to decide.

"Last time we met, you said that you thought maybe you could help me," Karen said, watching her closely. Her eyes were a startlingly bright blue; they made Sarah feel oddly transparent.

"Yeah."

"What makes you think I need help?" she asked, her tone more curious than defensive.

Sarah let her gaze drift to the bright paintings on the wall as she thought about it. What had made her think Karen needed help? To be honest, she thought she had recognized something similar to herself in Karen the day they met: a rattled sort of loneliness that she often felt herself. But saying something like that would make her sound like a lunatic, which wasn't the image she needed to be broadcasting to someone who had seen her drop several photos of dead bodies all over the post office floor.

"You seemed nice," she said truthfully. "And I don't know a lot of nice people who don't need help after meeting James Wesley."

She watched Karen closely as she spoke to gauge her reaction to hearing the name. Sure enough, something dark flickered across her face, but Sarah couldn't quite place what it was.

Karen was silent for a minute as she leaned back in her chair and stared down at her food contemplatively, pushing her long blonde hair behind her shoulder.

"You're not a cop, as far as I can tell," Karen said suddenly, an apparent non-sequitur. "I Googled you."

Sarah blinked in surprise—first at the idea that anyone would think she was a cop, and then at the fact that Karen had been able to look her up.

"I...don't think I ever told you my last name," Sarah said slowly.

"You didn't. I saw it on your employee badge when you dropped your purse and your stuff spilled out. You work for Orion."

There goes any hope of keeping my workplace a secret, she thought. She'd been hoping not to reveal too much about her life to Karen until she had figured out more about her, but it seemed as though Karen was a few steps ahead of her. There was no point in lying about it now, anyway.

"Yeah. I'm...a secretary there." Though she wasn't really a secretary anymore, was she? She didn't really know what her title was anymore. Personal assistant? Body hider? Secretary seemed like a safe, non-suspicious sounding job title to give. "Are you a reporter, or something?" she asked nervously, put on edge by Karen's knowledge of her life. She didn't need this to become the second time in one week she inadvertently started talking to a reporter without knowing it.

A wry grin flashed across Karen's face at the question. "Uh, no. Although you're definitely not the first person to think that. I just like to know things. Like...the fact that Orion used to be owned by Wilson Fisk."

She brought up Fisk with so much nonchalance that it was painfully obvious she wanted to know more.

"It was," Sarah said vaguely. "Probably half of the business in Hell's Kitchen were owned by Fisk at some point."

"Is that how you knew Wesley?"

"Yeah. He...hired me, if you want to call it that," Sarah said bitterly. Blackmailed would be a better word for it.

Karen leaned forward on her forearms, keeping her voice low despite the fact that their conversation was already camouflaged by the sounds of the nearby kitchen.

"Why did you have that photo of him?" she asked, caught somewhere between fascination and confusion.

Karen wasn't afraid to ask questions bluntly, that was for certain. Oddly, Sarah appreciated it, despite the slightly accusatory tone behind her words. The blonde woman was cautious and guarded, but she was being straightforward about what she wanted to know.

"Someone...gave it to me," Sarah replied. It wasn't a lie. "To—to make a point about something. Why did it bother you so much?"

"I just want to know why someone who works for one of Fisk's companies just happened to run into me while carrying around James Wesley's crime scene photos. Just a coincidence?"

Her odd wording caught Sarah's attention.

"You make it sound like there's a reason it wouldn't be," she noted carefully, but Karen just wet her lips and looked away, obviously not planning to elaborate. Sarah really didn't want her to bail on the conversation, so with a sigh she looked back down at her noodles as she twirled them around her fork. "So...did you find anything interesting? When you Googled me? I've never really checked out my internet presence."

Karen shook her head.

"Not a lot. Some YouTube videos of you playing the piano," she said. Sarah had forgotten that some of the recordings of her rehearsals and accompaniments had been posted online. Karen offered her a hesitant smile. "You're really good."

Sarah's heart twisted a little. It was a compliment she used to receive all the time, to the point where it had almost stopped meaning anything. Now it had been so long since anyone had heard her play that it felt strange and alien to hear someone's opinion on it.

"Thank you. I, um...I don't play anymore, though."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Karen said, and maybe Sarah was reading too much into a stranger's tone, but it sounded like she genuinely meant it.

"It's okay. It happens."

For some reason, the subject of Sarah's piano playing seemed to calm some of the suspicion that had crept into Karen's tone earlier. Maybe it was just the reminder that Sarah existed outside of her role at Orion. When she spoke again it was with a tentative openness.

"When I told you that I used to work for a big company and I hated it?" Karen prompted. "That was one of Wilson Fisk's companies, too. Union Allied Construction."

Sarah's eyebrows went up in surprise. Karen had implied that she'd worked for a company similar to Orion, but Sarah hadn't expected it to be that similar. "What did you do there?"

"I was secretary, too. You can get into a lot of trouble as a secretary, it turns out," Karen said, running her hand through her hair.

"How did you leave?" Sarah asked.

"Not on good terms," she said darkly.

"No," Sarah said, shaking her head and leaning forward. "I mean...how did you leave? They just...let you quit?"

Karen frowned, looking at her intently. "Is that...not an option for you?"

"Not really," Sarah said, trying to pick her words carefully. "The...job offer that Wesley gave me didn't exactly include an unemployment package."

The other woman was quiet for a beat as Sarah looked down at her bowl and stirred the noodles around as she thought about the night Wesley had shown up at her door. It seemed like a long time ago now.

"Who did he threaten?"

Sarah looked up in surprise.

"My family," Sarah said slowly. Then, taking a chance, she asked, "You?"

Karen's mouth twisted into a sympathetic frown before she answered. "Same."

It felt so strange to talk to a relative stranger like this; dancing around the details and specifics, but being so sure that she understood on some level anyway.

"Wesley liked having people under his thumb," Sarah said, reaching for her water glass. "So he could play mind games with them."

"Yeah, well, that kind of shit how you end up getting shot with your own gun," Karen said darkly, almost speaking more to herself than to Sarah.

Sarah's hand stilled over the glass and she glanced up at Karen, who was stirring the food in her bowl around with that same haunted expression she had worn in the post office that day. In the days after Wesley's murder, the details of his death had circulated around Orion over and over again, to the point where Sarah was very familiar with them. Everyone knew that he'd been found in an abandoned office building, that there were seven bullets lodged in his chest, that Fisk had been so outraged at his death that he'd beaten a member of his security team half to death afterwards. Up until Wilson Fisk himself had been arrested, the gruesome details of James Wesley's death were all anyone at work had talked about.

But no one had ever mentioned anything about it being his own gun that killed him.

Karen didn't seem to notice her slip, and Sarah resisted pushing the subject, not wanting to scare her off. Seeming to snap back from wherever she had drifted to, Karen's eyes met Sarah's once again, the troubled look pushed to the back once more.

"Hey, do they sell booze here?" she asked.

Sarah exhaled a small laugh; it was exactly what she would usually ask during a conversation like this one. "Yeah, they have some pretty good beer on tap."

"Great," Karen said as she slipped out of her seat. "I'm going to go check that out. Do you want one?"

It was tempting. Very tempting. Normally Sarah would have agreed automatically, but tonight she just sighed and reluctantly reached for her water.

"I...can't. Thanks, though."

"Alright," Karen said, frowning curiously. "I'll be right back."

As Sarah waited for Karen to order her drink, she idly traced the faded scars on her palm. It was a nervous habit she had developed, and one that she would probably keep, given that the scars appeared to be permanent. She looked up as Karen slid back into her seat, a glass of amber liquid in her hand.

"Why did you wait so long to call me?" Sarah asked her.

Karen took a deep breath, stalling for a moment before answering. "Well...I was watching the news today and I saw that there's a police officer missing."

Sarah stilled. "You mean Aaron McDermott."

"You know him?"

"No," Sarah said quickly, then cleared her throat and spoke more evenly. "I mean, I just—I saw the news, too. Um, why...would that make you call me?"

"He was the police officer in charge of Wesley's murder case," Karen said. "I guess it made me think of you...just with the timing and all."

There was nothing accusatory about her careful tone, but Sarah felt a twinge of panic in her chest anyway as she thought about what connections Karen might have made in her mind.

It made sense that McDermott would have gotten assigned Wesley's case; Fisk wouldn't want any actual, honest cops looking into it and stumbling across things they shouldn't. But a dirty cop like McDermott would only look exactly where he was supposed to. Did that mean that Donovan was now in charge of the case, or had it fallen between the cracks now that it had been so long?

"This place is really good," Sarah said abruptly, hoping to change the subject. It was painfully transparent, but then again, so was this whole conversation.

Karen looked disappointed, but didn't protest. "Oh. Uh, yeah...I've come here a few times since you suggested it. I like it."

"Did your bosses end up liking it? The picky eaters?"

"Yeah, they did," Karen said with a soft laugh. "Well, really Matt is the only picky one. Foggy will eat just about anything."

Sarah blinked, staring at the woman across the table.

"...what?"

Karen looked up in confusion, still chewing on her food, then shook her head and held up a finger while she swallowed. "Oh, sorry. My friends, Matt and Foggy. The two lawyers I work for."

Sarah felt like she had been dunked in ice water as she put two and two together. This was Karen. The same Karen who spoke a little bit of Spanish and liked cheesy soap operas. Karen who Foggy was very clearly in love with, and who Matt would absolutely not be happy about her meeting up with without his knowledge.

Did Karen know about Matt being Daredevil? Foggy was obviously in on the secret, and so was Claire. But the fact that Matt had never talked about her beyond a passing mention—much less ever involved her in anything to do with Sarah—made Sarah think she probably didn't know. Meaning Matt was probably intentionally keeping her away from that side of his life, and here Sarah was bringing her into it. And it was becoming more and more clear that Karen obviously had a side of her life that she wasn't bringing Matt into either.

Would Karen have called her to have this vague, tense conversation if she had known that Sarah knew her friends and coworkers, that she didn't actually hold the mysterious stranger status that Karen thought she did? The idea of letting Karen confide in her without Sarah being completely honest with her about who she was felt deceitful.

"I think I need to go," Sarah said suddenly. "I...just remembered that I'm really tired."

"Oh," Karen said, slightly taken aback, but nodding. "Okay. Uh, let me just get us some takeaway boxes."

As Karen slid out of her seat to go grab the boxes, Sarah found herself wondering how it was possible that Hell's Kitchen could be so small.

Karen lived in the opposite direction from Sarah, and they parted ways outside the restaurant. Sarah tried to be as friendly as possible during their goodbyes, but her head was spinning with the new information of who Karen was. She knew she should call Matt and tell him now, before this whole thing blew up in her face. Fishing her phone out of her pocket, she blinked when she hit the home button and an unfamiliar background lit up the screen.

She groaned out loud as she realized that she had taken the wrong phone with her. Karen had the same model as her, and they both had plain black cases; it was easy to mix them up when they were both sitting on top of the table like they had been. Ignoring the exhaustion that weighed down her limbs, Sarah turned around to catch up with Karen, who could have only gone about a block in the few minutes since they'd separated.

Sarah used Karen's phone to dial her own number as she backtracked, hoping she would answer and be able to meet her halfway. To her surprise, she heard her own familiar ringtone echoing around in a parking garage a few yards away. Warily, she stepped over the concrete barrier that separated the garage from the sidewalk, pepper spray in hand as she quietly moved towards where she'd heard the sound. She could hear something else—a scuffling noise, and what sounded like muffled voices—as she rounded the corner.

Sarah swore under her breath as she saw Karen about twenty feet away, struggling with a man who Sarah immediately recognized as Officer Donovan. She broke into a run, dropping her takeaway box and her purse as she went.

As she got closer, she could see that Karen was putting up a good fight, though Donovan was significantly larger than her. He repeatedly tried to cover her mouth, and his hand was bloody from where Karen had dragged her nails across his skin. His other hand was holding a pair of handcuffs, which he was trying to get onto Karen's wrists, but she was struggling too fiercely for him to be able to get a good grip. With a frustrated growl, he slammed her into the side of a car they were parked next to, and even from several feet away Sarah could hear an ugly crunching noise as Karen's arm bent in away that it shouldn't.

Sarah hadn't really thought about what she would do when she actually reached the two of them, but luckily for her, her body seemed to react while her brain was still processing. From behind Donovan, she blindly grabbed his face, yanking his head back as he let out a surprised yell as he lost his grip on Karen's arm. Sarah immediately felt blood under her fingernails, and as he swung around she could clearly see several deep gouges near the corners of his mouth.

It took Donovan a split second to get over the surprise of a second person being there, during which Sarah—almost feeling like she was on autopilot—jerked up her hand that held the pepper spray and pressed the bright red button on top. A stream of bright orange liquid shot out of the container and directly into his eyes. Behind him, she could see Karen scrambling for something in her purse.

Donovan swore loudly, clawing blindly in the direction of Sarah, who hadn't yet backed out of his reach. His hands probably would have successfully found her throat, but a second before he made contact a loud crackling noise filled the air; a sound that Sarah was familiar with. It was the noise of several thousand volts of electricity being sent through a human body—and sure enough, Sarah caught sight of Karen standing behind Donovan, one arm held close to her body at an odd angle while with her other hand she was pressing a small stun gun against the back of his neck.

The electrical current made the officer's muscles spasm, and he reeled back uncontrollably, smashing into same car he had just bashed Karen's arm against. His head cracked loudly against the glass window of the car, nearly shattering it, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

The two women stood motionless for a beat, both breathing heavily and holding their respective weapons as they stared at the unconscious man on the ground.

Snapping out of it, Sarah knelt down next to the officer and pressed her fingers to his throat, relieved to find a pulse steadily beating in the spot where his partner's had been silent. She quickly reached over him for the handcuffs he had been holding, which had scattered a short distance across the ground when he'd dropped them. Looking around for anything close enough that she wouldn't have to try to move him, Sarah eyed the stop sign that was about two feet away. She quickly secured one handcuff around the pole of the sign and the other one around Donovan's wrist.

Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, she felt both his smart phone and small, plastic burner phone—as she'd been expecting. She took both of them out of his pocket, turning each one off and throwing them a good distance away, where Donovan couldn't reach them to call out and Ronan couldn't use them to track him.

Then she turned back to Karen, who was standing a few feet away, watching her while holding her arm at an awkward angle.

"Holy shit. Are you okay?" she said, still panting from her sprint across the parking garage.

"Yeah, I—" Karen hissed in pain, inhaling sharply through her teeth. "My—my arm. Something's broken, I think," Karen said, also sounding out of breath.

Sarah winced; it looked like Karen was right. "Okay, let's...let's get you out of here."

But when she tried to gently tug Karen along, the other woman didn't move, unable to take her eyes off of Donovan.

"Karen?"