The Devil's Moon (Finished)

Chapter 85

Matt's POV

After Karen left, I tried cleaning up some of the mess that was my apartment. I only managed to pick up a few things when I ripped open some of my stitches. I knew I could call Luna and she would come back but I really did not want to deal with her attitude, so I called Claire. She was not happy to hear that I had hurt myself again but came anyway. I lied down in bed while she finished stitching me up.

"Are you okay?" She asked me.

"You talking about the stitches?" I asked her.

"Mostly. How'd you open this up again?" She asked.

"I just wanted to see how much I could move and clean up a little." I answered her.

"You really should be moving at all." She told me.

"I know." I responded.

"You really need to rest. Let yourself heal." She ordered.

"I mediate for that." I told her.

"You mediate?" She asked.

"I learned when I was a kid. Helps with the pain...and healing faster." I let her know and I could not help but wonder if that's how Luna healed herself. If she found a way to speed up the healing prosses with advanced meditation like I did but better. Or was it something entirely different.

"Is that why you're still alive?" She asked.

"Or I'm just a lucky son a bitch." I joked.

"Either way, you really need to ease up, or ill be stitching a corps next time around. You really should get some kind of body armor, like I told you." She said.

"Yeah, I'm thinking you might be right." I answered as I sat up.

"Where's Luna I told her to watch you?" She asked.

"I sent her home. Her constant watching was driving me crazy. When Fisk came at me in the warehouse Luna slashed his jacket open." I told her.

"She cut him?" She asked.

"No...he was wearing some kind of armor in the lining." I said. "It was light and tough like nothing I've come across before."

"That's what you get when you have all the money in the world." She responded as she started to clean up.

"Hey, you want a drink or something." I asked her.

"No, Matt... I don't want a drink." She responded.

"Second woman today that's turned me down." I told her.

"Got a revolving door, do ya?" She asked.

"That's not what..." I started to say but did not know how to finish so I stood there and scratched my head.

"Forget it. I have to get going I need to pack." She told me.

"Pack?" I asked her.

"Yeah. Taking some time off. Get out of the city for a while." She answered.

"How much time?" I asked her.

"Why? You gonna miss me?" She asked and truthfully, I was going to miss her.

"And if I said I would?" I asked her.

"I didn't think I was ever gonna see you again...not alive. Not after that last call. The night half the city blew up." She told me.

"I left you a message when it was over." I reminded her.

"Yeah, you left a message." She responded angerly.

"Come on. What did you expect, Claire? You made it pretty clear you didn't want to move forward with...whatever this was." I reminded her.

"You know what it was..." She answered. "What it could have been."

"If I stopped." I reminded her of the conversation.

"I'm not looking to go around in circles, Matt. I know your not gonna stop." She told me.

"Not until this city is safe from like Fisk." I told her.

"Which is never. It will always be something, someone you know that right. You told me you me you where the man this city needs. I think that was a half true. I think you also need the city's cruelty for better or worse.

"I'm sorry you got pulled back into this." I told her.

"At least I got to see you with your shirt off again." She answered. "So, hey...it's not all bad."

"Thank you, Claire. I know I keep saying it, and it probably doesn't mean anything at this point, but...thank you..." I told her.

"I'll always be there...when you really need me...to patch you up. Beyond that," She responded.

"Yeah." I responded not knowing what else to say.

"Yeah." She said as she headed towards the door but stopping before she walked out of it.

"You know the only thing I remember from Sunday school, is the martyrs. The saints the savior they all end up the same way. Bloody, and alone." She told me.

"I never said I was any of those." I told her.

"You didn't have to." She answered before walking out my door for the final time.