soft | murdock

18

Matt waits until we're on the street before speaking again. The wheels of my suitcase rattle pathetically against the pavement as I shiver, looking positively unhygienic in Matt's hoodie and basketball shorts. I was confused about the whole thing - I felt like my privacy was invaded, and felt a deepening hole in my chest at the fact that the mafia would not be letting me alone for the near future. I was just glad that Matt was here for the whole thing. 

"You okay?" he asks, pulling me into a gentle hug. He tips up his chin so that it's resting on top of my head.

"Yeah, I'm just scared, I guess," I reply as he lets go.

"Let's go to work. It'll get the whole situation off of your mind."

-

"Ow!"

"Oh, sorry, Sarah, too hard? It's supposed to hurt a little," I say to my wincing patient.

"It feels like you're ripping my muscles apart!" she whines as I roll my eyes. Well, good, because that's basically what I'm doing.

"So I've heard."

I got to the clinic at about ten thirty, and Matt went to help Foggy with their client. Eddie was floored when he saw me and supportive when I told him about what happened, as usual. He mostly just hugged me, but he's nice like that. Then we started working again like nothing happened. 

To me, the whole ordeal wasn't a big deal, but Matt was being particularly uptight about the whole thing, probably for good reason. He definitely knew a lot more about the big picture, about what was actually going on, than I did. 

I guess, with the benefit of hindsight, the mafia let me off the hook without much of a second thought, which was suspicious. And then there's the whole apartment ransacking thing. I'm not so much scared, which is what I'm supposed to be feeling, I'm more just annoyed because I quite liked how my apartment was. Now I'm going to be staying with Matt for "an indefinite amount of time," so that's not too shabby either.

I start digging my elbow a little too deep in her calf muscle and she starts whining again.

"That'll be all today, Sarah," I say, finally easing up. I'd changed into one of Eddie's extra work shorts that he keeps in the office, so I actually look halfway decent. 

Sarah, our last client before our hour-long lunch break, had left so that Eddie and I could sit around in our office in peace.

"Have you guys, you know, leg over yet?" Eddie asks, his legs propped up on an ottoman and tossing a tennis ball in the air.

"Leg over?"

"Have sex," he clarifies. Oh, Eddie and his British slang. He tries everything in his power to not be crude.

"No."

"Really?!" he says, genuinely surprised. He walks over to one of the cabinets on the wall and takes out a tin of British loose-leaf tea and a tea infuser. 

"Nope. Don't think we're going to, either," I say casually. 

"It's totally obvious you two both have the hots for each other," Eddie points out. However true that may be, it doesn't necessarily mean that I want to sleep with him.

He just mumbles in response, pouring some of the tea leaves into his tea infuser and turning on the electric kettle. I grumble a little and settle into the armchair I'm sitting in, deciding to take a nap during the break instead of eating some food. Rest was something I hadn't gotten a lot of in the past couple of days. No matter how much I slept, I woke up feeling lethargic and dreading everything. 

-

"Ready to go?" Matt asks, poking his head into the clinic's lobby as I wake up from yet another nap, rubbing my eyes.

Eddie left a while ago, since we had already closed. I stayed behind because Matt wasn't done with helping his client, and I was staying over at his place tonight anyway. The sun had set a long time ago, Eddie having closed the blinds before he left. I was tired again, and dressed in the same Champion hoodie and Matt's basketball shorts from this morning.

"Yeah," I grunted, pushing myself out of the armchair and flattening my clothing against my chest. 

"Want to get anything to eat or do you want me to make you something back in my apartment?" he asks, holding the door open for me as I slip through it. 

"Can we go back? I'm pretty tired," I sigh disappointedly and scrunch my eyebrows together as I lock up the clinic for the night. The nap had failed to soothe me in any way. If anything, I had a headache as a result of taking the nap. 

There was a light still on in the Nelson and Murdock offices, so I guess Foggy might be staying late to help fine tune some parts of the case. Matt's holding his briefcase in one hand and his walking cane in the other, and leads me down the hall and out of the building, since I seem to be having difficulty doing anything. 

I mope my way back to Matt's apartment, flopping down apathetically on Matt's couch pretty much the second he opens the door and lets me in. I pinch the bridge of my nose and pull my hood up over my head, snuggling into one of the pillows on the couch.

"You okay? You seem mopey," he asks empathetically as I glare at a spot on the wall. 

"Yeah. I kind of just want to curl up into a ball and wake up seven years later," I mumble as he chuckles at my response, turning on the stove and heating something over a pan.