what they wouldn't do | DAREDEVIL

thirty eight

The first thing Matt heard when he woke up the next morning was the steady sound of a familiar heartbeat next to him. He opened his eyes, trying not to let his hopes get too high that his senses might be back. He could be imagining it, he reminded himself, could be still in a state of half-dreaming.

He set his focus on his immediate surroundings: the couch they were crowded onto, the thin blanket over them, the girl sleeping on his chest. Sarah's heartbeat sounded more distant than usual, like he was listening to it from floors above her, but he could definitely hear it. And if he strained his hearing, he could hear her breathing, slow and easy in her sleep. Her usual citrus shampoo was muted by the scent of his own supposedly 'scentless' kind—which absolutely still had a scent to Matt, but it was about as close as he could hope for—mixing together to create a pleasant combination to wake up to.

Something tight and painful in his chest began to unwind as relief rushed through him. His abilities were coming back, slowly but surely. Thank God.

He gently swept Sarah's hair away from her face, and as he did his fingers passed over the swollen skin, the burst capillaries underneath. Immediately, the memory of last night crashed into him painfully. She shouldn't be here, sleeping next to him. Didn't she get that he could have easily killed her? How close he had come to snapping her wrist?

But that train of thought wasn't helping anything now any more than it had last night, and Matt tried to push it aside.

He couldn't be sure, but it felt early. He knew he should probably get up, try to move around and see how far he could stretch his newly returned senses. But he closed his eyes, deciding to wait just a few more minutes before untangling himself from Sarah and getting up.

Lying there with her, he had the strangest sense of déjà vu. It wasn't as thought he'd ever woken up on this couch with her before, with her hair smelling like his shampoo and his clothes around her small frame, but it felt like he'd done it a million times. He thought about how odd that was as he inadvertently drifted back to sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, both the heartbeat and the weight of Sarah against him were gone. His slowly sat up, thinking for a second that his hearing had gone out again. Then he heard footsteps, and the sound of Sarah's heartbeat faded into his hearing again as she leaned over the back of the couch to talk to him.

"Hey," she said softly. "I didn't think you'd be awake yet."

Now that she was closer, Matt could pick up on more details: she smelled like mint toothpaste and the tap water from his bathroom sink, and she'd pulled her hair back into a loose bun.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Better," he said, slowly getting to his feet. Thankfully, the world didn't spin when he stood up. But it also didn't light up with sound and vibrations like it usually did; not beyond a radius of about five feet, at least. Beyond that, it was like the world was still muted; he could hear it, but not like he was used to. "My hearing is starting to come back."

"Really? How much?"

"I can hear things that are close to me. But beyond a few feet it's still...off," he said. He trailed a hand along the couch to orient himself as he moved around it. He could tell Sarah was watching him, but after a few moments she seemed satisfied that he wasn't going to collapse at any second, and she went back to whatever she was doing in the kitchen.

"I'm making coffee," she said. "Can you have coffee after you've been poisoned?"

"No idea," he said, leaning against he counter next to her as she messed with the coffee maker. "Never been poisoned before. But I'll risk it."