Matt's confession felt so monumental to him - representing a seismic breakthrough after months of denial and self-delusion - that a part of him thought those words alone would be enough to pull Calina out of her coma.

But there was no change in her still, sleeping form.

Matt wiped the tears from his eyes and moved up onto the mattress. He stretched out beside Calina and hoped that it might trigger some sort of sense memory of the mornings they would lie like this in his bed.

Then he continued talking.

If the Widows were right and there was even the slightest chance that his words could reach her and bring her back, then he would talk until his voice gave out.

And as the words spilled into the quiet room, it felt cathartic in a way. He'd spent months denying himself the truth of his feelings, and sublimating all the love he harboured for her. But now that he'd finally admitted it to himself, it was as if the floodgates had opened and all the thoughts and feelings and dreams that he'd stashed away came pouring out into the open.

He talked to her about the first time he saw her,

"...I think I fell in love with you right there and then, as crazy as that sounds. There was just something about you, standing there on that rooftop, your hair blowing in the wind...It was as if a part of you called out to me, and I couldn't help but answer. I haven't been the same since..."

And how the mystery of her intrigued him,

"...I heard you once, when you were in your apartment. Well, the truth is, I actively listened. You were playing music, one fragment of a song after another, and I couldn't figure out why. But now I know - you were trying to find out what you liked to listen to. I remember that you stopped on a Nina Simone song, and you listened to it all the way through - we listened to it together..."

He told her of all the experiences he wanted to share with her,

"...I hate that you missed so much growing up the way that you did. I even started keeping a list of all the things I want to show you, and all the things we could do together. Just simple things, like going to the movies. You could sit and watch the film, and I could sit and just be near you as you enjoyed it. We could drive out to the seaside and talk a walk along the shore, or go on a proper vacation and be tourists together. I'll do anything you want. As long as we're together, I'll be happy. If we did nothing for the rest of our lives but play chess and hit punching bags together I would be so incredibly happy, Calina. I'd only regret that I never found you sooner..."

How the apartment didn't feel the same without her,

"...the new couch was delivered yesterday. But I couldn't bring myself to sit on it. It feels like our couch. And it didn't feel right for it to be there, in the apartment, without you...the place feels so lifeless now. So cold and empty without you..."

He spoke of everything and nothing, his voice hushed as he filled the air between them with teasing jokes and memories of the time they'd spent together.

"...you said you could only really sleep when I was beside you, but you're taking it a bit far now, Calina...you need to wake up for me, sweetheart. I need to hear your voice. I've been going crazy without it. Talking with you is one of my favourite things, did you know that? I love to hear your views on things, and I love it when you get excited about a topic and want to tell me all about it. And I love to make you laugh. God, you have such a great laugh..."

And all the while he touched her. If his voice was the beacon in her darkness, he wanted his touch to be her anchor. To draw her back to the world...and to him. He played with her fingers. He ran his hand up and down her arm. He caressed her face, tracing over the arch of her eyebrow and the curve of her cheek.

At one point he propped his head up on his hand and smoothed his other palm over her head. He felt the braids in her hair and started to loosen them. "I remember you saying in the gym that you never wanted to wear your hair like this again." When her hair was free, he ran his fingers through the long strands. "And I said at the time that I like your hair. The truth is, I love your hair. I'd sometimes wake up in the morning with my face buried in it. And I'd always stay like that until you woke, just enjoying the scent and the feel of it against my skin..."

As the hours ticked by, he sensed the shadows in the room shift as dawn approached. The chorus of birdsong in the woods changed from owls to larks, signalling morning. His voice got quieter, and his head started to feel heavy on his hand. He settled down on the pillow next to hers, and draped his arm carefully across her waist.

"...I heard you called for me, after it happened. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me. But I'm here now. I'll always be here - if you'll have me. I'm sorry I messed things up between us. I swear I'll make it up to you. But you need to wake up to give me that chance. Please wake up, sweetheart. Please come back to me..."

———

He woke to the feel of fingers gently brushing through his hair. He must have shifted down the bed during the night, because his head now rested on Calina's chest - as if he'd needed to feel the sensation of her breathing in his sleep to convince himself she was still alive.

The soft touch came again, and he froze, scared to hope that it was real. Terrified that it was just a dream.

Then she spoke. "Matthew?"

Her voice was barely more than a whispered murmur, but it was the most wonderful sound he'd ever heard.

He squeezed his eyes shut to stem the tears that wanted to fall and pulled her tighter against him with the arm he still had around her waist. "It's Matt, remember?" he managed to choke out.

"Hmmm, Matt." She sounded groggy and only half awake, her usual early morning disorientation amplified by the length of her sleep and whatever drugs were trickling through her system.

He lifted his head and wished that he could see her face. He wanted to see her open her eyes - he longed for that visual proof that she was really back. He settled for listening to her breathe instead - stronger and faster than the night before.

And he basked in the sound of her voice...even though she was talking nonsense. "You're gonna be late f'work," she mumbled.

He smiled and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I'm not going to work today, sweetheart."

Whether it was the caress or the affectionate name, something caused her heart-rate to jump. The beeps from the machine monitoring her chimed out at a staccato rate. "Shhh," she admonished to the inanimate device. "You'll give me away."

Matt laughed. "I can hear your heartbeat without that, remember?"

"Hmmm."

Unfortunately, the sound of her accelerated heartbeat brought the rest of the Widows running, and their arrival shattered the peaceful intimacy of the moment.

"Calina?" Yelena called out as she ran through the door. "You're really awake!"

Calina turned her head away from her sister and nestled against Matt. "Still sleepy. Go'way."

Matt laughed again, the relief bubbling up within him and spilling out as joy. He'd have been happy to follows Calina's lead and fall back to sleep with her in his arms, but her sisters had other ideas. The medic - Sofia? - tapped him on the arm and said, "Give me some room."

Her touch was polite but her voice was brisk and no-nonsense, so he reluctantly moved off the bed and waited in the corner of the room as she checked Calina's vitals and examined her wound.

"Thank you," Yelena said, coming to stand beside him. "We couldn't bear to lose her too."

"Too?"

"Kira...she didn't make it." The weight of Yelena's grief was heavy in her voice.

"I'm sorry."

She nodded. Before she could speak again, there was the sound of feet running through the cabin, and a desperate cry from the young Widow he'd met yesterday, "Anya called! The helicopter is back."

"Fuck," Yelena hissed.

"What's going on?" Matt asked.

"Anya's been monitoring the satellite feeds from this region. There's been some suspicious activity over the last few hours - helicopters searching in a grid, SUV convoys on the roads to the east of us, that type of thing."

"You think you were followed?"

"Perhaps. It might be nothing...but I'm not going to take any chances. Inessa, is Katya back yet?"

"Yes," the other Widow replied, catching her breath. "She just parked up outside."

"Good. Sofia, is she good to move?"

Sofia looked up from where she was checking Calina's IV. "It's not ideal, but she's stable. I'll give her something so the travelling won't disturb her."

"Travelling?" Matt asked. "Move? What are you talking about?"

"We're getting out of here," Yelena answered. She turned her attention to the other Widows and started barking instructions. "Be ready to leave in five. We need to scrub this place and make sure there's nothing left behind that can link to us. We'll ditch our phones on the way - I want us clean when we arrive at the new base."

She marched out of the room and Matt followed her. He tugged on her arm to get her to stop. "Are you sure this is the best idea? She just woke up. What happens if the journey sets her back?"

"Then we'll deal with it at the new base - where they'll be a dozen Widows at our back in case we're found again."

"If it's about safety, I can stay here with you and protect her."

"This isn't your fight-"

"Her fight is my fight."

"That's...sweet...or whatever. But we're leaving, and that's final. We'll drop you off somewhere outside Manhattan."

"Let me come with you. To your new safe house." He could hear the desperate pleading in his voice but he didn't care. He'd just gotten Calina back - in more ways than one. He didn't want to let her out of his sight again.

"No-"

"Please, Yelena. I'm- I'm begging you."

She paused. Then sighed. "We'll discuss it on the way. We don't have time for this right now." She strode off to join the chaos of the cabin. The Widows were running from room to room, grabbing gear and weapons, and frantically wiping their prints from every surface.

Matt slipped back into Calina's room, a still point in the centre of the storm. He sat on the bed and rested his hand against her chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall as she breathed. With her eyes closed, and all the wires and IVs already removed, he could be fooled into thinking she was just sleeping.

But he could smell the morphine in her veins, and the other drugs Sofia had just given her.

And he could sense her injuries. He'd noticed them last night, but he'd been too preoccupied pulling her out of that deep, far away place in her mind to properly catalogue them. Now they stood out - and they proved just how beaten up she was.

He skimmed his fingers lightly over the swelling on the side of her face, likely made by someone's fist hammering into her cheek. The bullet wound in her side was a hot, angry tract tearing through her tissues. The knee that she'd wrenched weeks ago was inflamed again, and she was littered with bruises and scrapes and small cuts.

And she smelled like gunpowder and smoke, as if she'd been in an explosion.

"We're apart for a few days, and look what happened," he whispered, brushing his fingers through her hair. "I guess the sensible option is for us never to be apart again."

Convincing Yelena of that would be difficult. But he was a lawyer, after all - he could reason his way around Yelena's stubbornness.

"Murdock?" the woman in question called from the doorway. "We're ready to go. Can you bring Calina out?"

Matt nodded and gently gathered Calina in his arms. Her head was a heavy weight on his shoulder, and he could feel her hair tickling the side of his neck. He spared a brief moment to press a kiss against her forehead and breathe her in deeply, relishing her beautiful scent. Then he followed the other Widows out of the cabin.

Where a large, long vehicle was parked in place of the van he'd arrived in yesterday.

"Is that an RV?" he asked, his voice incredulous.

"Yeah," Katya replied. "We traded in the van."

"Isn't it a little...conspicuous?"

"We're in a vacation spot. Driving a blacked-out van through the woods would be more suspicious, don't you think?" She opened the door for Matt and he walked up the few steps into the spacious interior. "Besides, this way we have somewhere for Calina to sleep comfortably."

She guided him to the bed at the back, where Sofia was waiting to monitor her patient. He lay Calina on the mattress and let the medic have her space.

As the vehicle started lumbering out of the clearing, Matt took a seat at the small table opposite Yelena. He opened his mouth, ready to fight his case, ready to plead with the other woman to let him stay with Calina...but he never got the chance.

He felt the prick of a needle against his neck instead.

And for the second time in less than 24 hours, his world went black.

———

"Hey. Hey, man. HEY!"

The insistent shouts and the light shove against his shoulder roused Matt. He scrubbed at his face and shook his head, trying to clear away the fogginess that still clung to him.

"Oh, good, you're alive. Thought I was gonna have to do mouth-to-mouth or something." The speaker followed up the words with a laugh that soon descended into a hacking cough. It sounded like an older man. He was to the left of Matt, and they were both seated on a cold metal bench.

Matt tried to stretch out his senses, to get a feel for where he was, but his mind was still clogged by the drug.

The drug!

The Widows had fucking drugged him again! Then they'd dumped him somewhere while they'd driven off-

Calina!

The thought of her travelling miles and miles away from him jolted him out of his daze. His head shot up off the glass structure it was leaning against. "Where are we?" he croaked out to the man next to him.

"Bus stop. Waitin' on the No.7 to take me downtown."

"Downtown where?"

"Danbury."

Matt searched his memory. Where the hell was Danbury? "Wait, in Connecticut?"

"That's the one. And here comes my ride."

Matt heard the sound of a large engine approaching. It stopped in front of them, then there was the distinctive whoosh as the bus doors opened.

"You coming?" the man asked, rising from the bench, his knees creaking painfully with the movement.

"No. I'll, uh, wait for the next one."

"Suit yourself." Moments later, the doors whooshed again as they closed behind the old man.

Matt patted down his pockets and sighed in relief when he found his phone - at least he hadn't been dumped and stranded with no means of communication. He hit the redial button for Calina's number, but as expected it just rang and rang.

He hung up then dialled Foggy's number. It went straight to voicemail. Matt checked the time and swore. It was just after 4pm - Foggy was in court this afternoon.

He tried Karen instead, and exhaled in relief when she answered. "Matt?"

"Yeah."

"Where are you? Foggy got this weird text from you yesterday then we heard nothing. Are you okay?"

Was he okay?

Physically...yes.

Emotionally...not so much. He was boiling with anger at Yelena and her decision to dump him like trash on the side of the road. He was annoyed at himself for not seeing it coming. And he was sick with fear for Calina. She was nowhere near ready for long distance travel - she'd barely woken from a coma five minutes before she was bundled onto the back of that RV. And God knows how far away they were going to take her.

God knows when he'd see her again...

"Matt?" Karen asked, sounding worried.

Matt shook his head. "I'm okay. But I, uh, kind of need a ride."

"A ride? Where to?"

"Back to Hell's Kitchen...from Connecticut."

"Connecticut?!"

———

Karen's car pulled up outside the diner two hours later. Matt had managed to find the small restaurant by following the scent of coffee grinds and cooking oil. He'd used the last few bucks in his pocket to buy a hot drink, then he'd passed the time hunched in the corner of a booth by the window, calling Calina's phone again and again.

The first half a dozen times, the line just rang out.

The next half a dozen times, he got an automated message: 'The phone you're calling is switched off, please try again later'.

He would have kept trying, but the battery on his own cell eventually died out and he was left to wait for Karen in silence.

He lifted his head when the sound of her decades-old Toyota entered the car park. She beeped the horn twice to let him know it was her, and he quickly gathered his coat and made his way outside.

"Do you have a phone charger?" he asked, collapsing into the passenger seat.

Karen laughed as she swung back onto the road. "Its nice to see you, Karen. Thank you for driving all the way out of state to come pick me up, Karen."

Matt gave her a sheepish smile. "Its nice to see you, Karen. Thank you for driving all the way out of state to come pick me up, Karen."

"That's more like it. There's a charger in the glove box."

Matt connected the phone, and the moment it had enough charge, he called Calina again.

"The number you have dialled has been disconnected."

Matt stared at the phone in shock as the new message sunk in. Then he remembered what Yelena had said in the cabin, something about arriving at the new base 'clean'...

He'd lost his lifeline.

"Fuck!" Matt yelled. He slammed his now-useless phone against the dashboard. "FUCK!"

"Matt! What's going on?"

"They ditched the phones. They ditched the fucking phones!"

"I don't understand! You need to start at the beginning - what happened? Why were you in Connecticut?"

Matt explained about the call from Yelena, and waking up at a cabin near a lake. He told her about Calina's coma, and how he'd stayed with her all night.

And how they'd been separated minutes after she woke up.

"And now I've lost the only way I had to contact her. I don't know where she's going, or what condition she's in..."

Karen reached over and grasped Matt's hand. "I'm sure she'll be okay. From what you've told me, she's a fighter. A little car journey won't take her down. And once she gets to this new base, she'll call you."

Matt laughed, the sound bitter and hopeless. "She never heard me, Karen. She was still unconscious when I explained about Foggy's mistake in the bar, and when I apologised to her for everything. When I told her I- I loved her...she never heard any of it."

"But you said it yourself, she woke up. She saw that you were there with her-"

"Yes, but she'd just woken up from a coma. She was still half out of it and delirious. She won't remember, Karen. And she won't call." Matt screwed his eyes shut, trying to block the desperate tears that wanted to fall. He covered his face with one of his hands, and whispered in defeat, "I've lost her."