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Writers Note: This piece will have triggering themes. Calista did not live a good life. Please read at your own discretion.         Dear little Calista,   I’d like to say that you finally got the life and family you always wanted. In a way you did, you’ll meet the Avengers…A group of people that not only understand you but also take you in under their wings and love you for who you are, not what they made you to be. You’ll learn how to be your own person, you’ll fall in love…You’ll have two of the best friends that you would die for. (SPOILER ALERT.) Anyways, always spend time with Mama…We only get a short time with her so make it the best you can given the situation.   The world, our father…The Clave will be cruel to you, but it makes you a stronger person. Just go with it, you’ll know when to break free from them. Looking back, we’ve come so far. There’s going to be a lot of bumps. A lot of being knocked down. Get back up and tell them they hit like a bitch. Don’t let the punches hardened your heart to much though. You’ll understand when you’re older.   You’re stronger than you realize…You’re stronger than they realize, and later on it will scare them…Just always remember…There is no victory without sacrifice.   The /gift/? Is a curse…And don’t always trust what you see…And if you see something you don’t like. Change it, be a positive light in the world. Be everything they don’t want you to be. Love, and love often. Enjoying the little things…I know the harsh reality is you won’t be able to do any of that…But trust me when I say, you’ll have a family…They will find you…They will help you find your own way.   Just always remember to let that light shine…There is light within your darkness. You’ll find the ones that embrace both. You’ll find an anchor, you’ll find peace…I wish I could tell you more, but then that would change our fate…And I’d live a hundred lifetimes to be where we are right now.   Just remember one thing. They can break your heart, they can break your spirit but they will never break your soul. Give em hell.    

The Silent Oracle….   Oracle meaning: A priest or priestess acting as a medium through whom advice or prophecy was sought from the gods in classical antiquity.  Oracles are as old as time itself, known throughout history as the fates. Or simply the Oracle. Calista is one of the last remaining true Oracles. Given the code name The Silent Oracle because of an accident that caused her to loose her hearing in both ears. Rendering her /Silent/ She relied on sign language to communicate until Tony Stark developed a pair of cochlear implants that allowed her to hear again, thus having a reason to use her voice again. She is believed to be a mutant, and that any Oracle before her was the same. Her mother’s lineage can be traced back to the Oracle of Delphi, a strong indicator of how and why Calista is so powerful.  A draw back to having such a gift…Insane and massive migraines if her visions last for more than a few seconds. The last time she truly went under…She was out of commission for a week, nursing a migraine along with not being able to eat and barely drink…She usually hangs back on missions due to her hearing impairment, but when she is out in the field she has proven herself to be a worthy asset. Skilled in closed quarters combat, an expert Marksman and very adept with knives.  Any shift in one’s future can shift Calistas visions…Right before the snap happened, Calista could be seen dropping to her knees with her hands covering her ears. The Silent screams deafened her entire world. She could feel the agony of those closest to her affected by the blip. For months on end during the five years of the blip…Calista drank, and smoked weed to dull her mind. Metaphorically blinding herself from the power of sight.  When asked why she couldn’t see the events with the mad titan Thanos…She simply answered…”I only see what the fates allow me to see.” Which was her smart ass answer to the Avengers and Doctor Strange messing with the flow of time to much. Calista can’t see…Everything…She’ll get glimpses every now and then…Full blown visions only happen with those she is closet to. Calista is seen as a Bubbly, friendly and outgoing person…But that’s only on the outside, she uses her brand of humor and antics as a defense against the trauma she’s suffered throughout the years at the hands of her own father. Calistas past is covered in blood, innocent and the guilty….Living with that guilt every day. She struggles…She strives to be halfway normal. To feel something other than pain and distraught.            

The Meaning of Familywww.roleplayer.me/1959615 Benji took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell of his childhood home. He could already smell his mother's homemade tamales wafting from the kitchen. As the door swung open, Isabela enveloped him in a tight hug. "¡Mijo! You're finally here," she exclaimed, kissing both his cheeks. "Your father is in the backyard." Benji smiled, soaking in the familiar warmth and comfort of his mother's embrace. She ushered him inside, chattering away about her latest gardening projects. As Benji stepped into the living room, he was instantly transported back in time. The worn sofa, the antique curio cabinet, the faded family photos covering the walls - it was all exactly as he remembered. A pang of nostalgia tugged at his heart. "Papi, look who's here!" Isabela called out. Javier appeared from the kitchen, a relieved grin spreading across his weathered face. "Benjamín, it's about time. We were beginning to think you forgot about your poor old parents." Benji hugged his father tightly. "You know I could never forget about you two." Javier patted his back firmly. "We just miss you, son. It's too quiet around here without you driving your mother and me loco." They settled at the dining room table, exchanging the usual banter and catching up on each other's lives. Isabela constantly refilled Benji's plate, convinced he was wasting away as a soltero in the city. After lunch, Benji wandered into the backyard, memories flooding back with every step. He could almost hear the echoes of his childhood laughter mingling with the splashes from the pool. Javier soon joined him, two cool cervezas in hand. "You seemed a little distracted today, mijo," Javier said, handing Benji a bottle. "What's on your mind?" Benji let out a heavy sigh, gazing up at the cloudless sky. "I...I broke up with Sofia a few months ago." Javier's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Sofia? But she was such a nice girl. We really liked her." "I know, Papi. And I really did care about her," Benji admitted. "But eventually, the same old issues just...resurfaced." Javier shook his head knowingly. "This commitment problem of yours..." "I'm 30 years old and still can't seem to make it work long-term," Benji lamented. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for that kind of life." Placing a comforting hand on Benji's shoulder, Javier spoke slowly and deliberately. "You are a grown man who will need to decide what he wants out of life. But let me tell you, mijo - having a family, a true partner to go through life with - it's one of the most meaningful gifts this world has to offer." Benji felt a lump form in his throat as his father's words sank in. He knew his parents only wanted happiness and fulfillment for him. As Javier pulled him into a paternal embrace, Benji hoped he wouldn't run from love forever. ..   template credit.

It had taken Barry years of his life to overcome what he had seen when he was just a boy, knowing that the man who killed her was still out there. Taken from him way too young had caused him to focus on how he would go about finding this killer, and bring him to justice so that Henry Allen would be freed from a long overdue wrongful imprisonment; The flats of Barry's polished brown shoes rustled through the fresh cut grass of the cemetery, a gather of flowers in hand, and the youth was dressed in a black suit with a blue tie to make it less depressing then it already was. The skies were clear with the sun shining bright upon the tombstone of Nora Allen, touching the soil from which she rested to keep the area peaceful. Barry slowly approached and lowered himself down to a single knee, his face lowered to where a few drops had fallen from his glassy blue eyes and pelted against the soil of the grave. His hand reaches out to rest upon the gradually warming stone in front of him. The flowers he brought were an assortment of his mothers favorite flower, the daisy. Pink, yellow, red, and orange."Mom..I'm okay..I want you to know that, I'm okay. Its hard without you or dad..You were the best mother that I could have ever hoped for, and I wish...I could see you one last time." The lad for all of his bravado was still just a boy grieving for his mother, his heart ached, eyes puffy and red with the tears that wouldn't stop for the love he had for his mom. For a moment he thought he felt the weight of someone on him, the small reassurance of letting him know that he wasn't alone. It was a painful day for Barry Allen to visit someone who deserved to be alive today, but even after all of these years it never got any easier. He usually hid his emotions through how playful he was with the rest of the Justice League, they didn't need to know everything after all. "I love you, Mom..and I miss you so much.." He said, his eyelids squinted tightly, as he slowly lifted himself up, and kept his head down to mourn her. There it was again the smallest touch against the young heros cheek, nothing was there, and yet somehow he knew that he wasn't alone. Not terrified, only acceptance and the smallest bit of comfort - the kind that only a mother could give.

  To say that the interior of the new bank downtown was large enough to fit an entire circus into would have been the understatement of the year, from what he could tell there were at least 4 floors of employees taking care of each banking account across the city, and that was one of the reasons why Barry had visited. It was shortly after his birthday where he received a check for two hundred dollars. Every penny counted, and this would be going right into his bank account. The flats of his black Converse shoes danced a little while he was in line, his mind now powered by the speed force had been moving a million miles a minute. His fingers stuffed into the pockets of his red zipped hoodie, the center-parted to unveil the plain gray shirt beneath. His jeans were fitted pair, faded blue, and cuffed around the the tops of shoes. Barry's blonde hair had been neatly trimmed to give him a neater presentation for the line of work he was in. The golden speed force ring on his left hand shined flawlessly beneath the overhead lights.'Hey sonny'Barry slowly turned around to see the guard standing over him, well over six feet tall. 'Cashing the big one today?' The question kinda came out of the blue, but Barry shrugged his shoulders slightly. 'Yeah, it was for my birthday last week.' Barry said with a nod, and then it hit him. Knowing that he would lose his place in, but also he knew he couldn't quite hold it in. He wasn't working today, so he just made his way over toward the bathroom in a normal fashion. His fingers latched on the handle, and slowly pulled it open; Thereupon that moment automatic fire filled the interior of the hall, along with screams, and orders to stand still. He dashed at an inhuman speed over toward the door to slowly crack it open and then saw all of the civilians who were standing in line before had been flat on their faces while six clown-masked goons aiming their rifles at everyone, and then there were one who came running over toward the bathroom to no doubt flush out any stragglers. Barry felt the power of the speed force illuminating from his ring, and then he reached down to press the button on the top and time had slowed down to where a bright light had illuminated from the ring in hand. His fingers formed into a fist as a warm smile formed upon his lips, several red shards emerged from the light and surrounded the body of the youthful speedster.Citrus lightning zapped to different parts of his body, as the red plates slowly molded to the shapes of limbs, outlining each athletically built limb, gold plating had encased his lower legs down to his feet, each plate outlining with a bright citrus hue where it had set to protect the speedster. The citrus lightning bolt on the front of his armor illuminated brightly; the door had opened to unveil the crook with the rifle. "Hi!" Barry's eyes illuminated with a bright citrus light, as the speedster dashed toward him so fast that time all around him had slowed down for the Flash. Scarlet red left in his wake as his fingers detached several bolts and screws that held the firearm together. The weapon slowly coming apart in hand, as he dashed toward one of the goons where he moved his hand at an insane speed over the gun causing the firearm to shatter in hand. He reached down to grip the elastic strap of his underpants and lifted it over his head, and bolted over toward the next crook where he pushed him so hard that he slowly lifted off of his feet, and went flying toward his comrade.Barry had a moment while the thug's head had been turned to where his buddy had opened the bathroom door. He dashed over toward him with orange lightning snapping and popping from his armor, and then he hit the magazine eject on the side of his firearm and then pulled the slide back to eject the round that was still in the chamber. The last one was still in the vault clearing out the money, and to him he hopped over the counter and over toward him to where he could eject the shells from his shotgun, one, two, three, four, five plus one in the tube. He tossed a bunch of money around his feet, and then they all went back to real-time. The thug turning with the shotgun in hand, took aim and squeezed to only hear a hollowed click. 'You sonuva!' He stepped forward, and slipped on the that was in front of him. The hard fall knocked him unconscious. The thug he pushed earlier had crashed into his body and went sliding across the floor. The security guard watched as the two remaining thugs' weapons had fallen apart in their hands, and then the other on the floor had lifted to keep the criminals pinned to the floor. Barry himself had bolted back out to the floor in a gust of wind, citrus lighting popping from his velocity armor, as he appeared before the civilians rising to greet the red speedster. 'smile Barry, it's part of the job..' A warm toothy grin formed on his youthful tiers, as he lifted up a thumb to them.

OOC DRAMA = YEETTHOTS = YEETBANTER WHORE // FxCK DISCUSSIONSSH*TPOSTER - DEAL WITH IT  here 4 a good time, not a long time (c) made by creativian

Rebekah had shut her emotions off not because her love life had been a pile of trash don't be silly she couldn't really care about that now but she was still heart broken when she found about both Niklaus and Elijah had stabbed themselves with the white oak stake that was very hard for her why were her brothers so foolish even In the end! She hated that she cried so much the feeling of heartbreak was hard for her especially this time she wanted it to stop she was still in disbelief so she did the only thing she could think of she turned it off completely and left New Orleans and she did not look back! Rebekah ended up in Los Vegas It was a late night when she arrived to the city she remembered she had been to vagas once before with Nik this was right before he daggered her and left her in a coffin for 50+ years shaking her head trying to forget everything her heals clinked on the floor as she walked into  the  busy casino in a red dress all fancied up as she had her emotions off she really did not care about anything nor anyone for that matter   Rebekah usually never did this kind stuff gamble that day she was feeling no she was not feeling anything however she did decide to do a little gambling and maybe have some fun .Rebekah hummed some of the song that played on the radio some led zeppelin (Kashmir) tapping her chip as she was playing she  looking around the place. Rebekah placed her bet down but however she noticed real quick that the man who was dealing the cards as he shuffled them that he nodded to another player who gave a signal the the person as  she put the coin down to make a bet she lost when the card dealer put the last card on the table. the  guy who the dealer pushed all the coins over to the man in the black tux when the award was pushed over Rebekah was not going to allow the cheater to get away with it  with no hesitation stabbed the coins with a large dagger that she carries even though she really didn't not need such a thing she did anyways without looking at the man taking a long swig of her glass of achohal and said without even looking in the direction of the man *now now I couldn't help but notice that you cheated * the man's body guards walked over seeing the potential threat the man with a thick Italian accent waved away the guards away with a laugh thinking she was not a threat at all  but that was a mistake the dealer looked scared more so for Rebekah's sake knowing the man was a very dangerous man he was  other then a Don in the Mafia and he was well known as to be a ruthless murder but they didn't know anything about Rebekah yet the man stood up and looked at down at Rebekah and smirked * you see the camera's when you walked in sweetheart  I never cheat * he winked at her because of course he was trying to flirt with her Rebekah rolled his eyes * does it look like I give a sh*t * Rebekah said as she took a sip of her drink the man scoffed and said pulling out his gun he pressed it on Rebekah's  temple things had escalated quickly * you really should * he said to to Rebekah. Rebekah didn't flinch like others would she heard him ready to click it when Rebekah jumped up and within a second she grabbed the  gun she snapped it  into two pieces and grabbed the Mafia boss by the neck when the body guards realized  their boss was in danger . They pulled their guns out and  started to shoot and they didn't care who got shot as long as they got the boss into safety Rebekah didn't hesitate to snap the Mafia bosses neck she then dropped the body and stopped closer to the men Rebekah charged at the Mafia members she charged at them and and ripped our their hearts when Rebekah had no humanity she was viscous a real b*tch as well! blood all over her especially Rebekah's hands but it wasn't her blood she remarkably had no bullets in her she stepped over all the bodies she had left the three she picked up a chip but slid the rest to the scared as frozen dealer she smiled at  devilishly with obvious no who had been the closest to what * take a good vacation with these * Rebekah gave him practically it all but one chip that one she stuffed into her pocket Rebekah said * remember not to cheat * she said as she walked out  when Rebekah left the building without ever looking back from that moment and never cared to do  all things considered she had no emotions what so ever .

november 4th, 1987 -august 14th, 2007 This is a multi ship and verse page. CANON CHARACTER DISCLAIMER; This account was created as an rp blog, based on and inspired by the character [Felix river Catton] from [saltburn 2023] by [emerald Fennell] as published by [liestill, lucky chap entertainment and MCR ] within the greater [canon 'verse, if applicable; ex.: saltburn ]. This page is a fanmade production of fictional works otherwise unaffiliated with these persons/companies, [Jacob elordi], or any associated professional projects and/or intellectual properties. All its original content should be considered works of fiction, and any resemblance to existing works, characters, or persons beyond those listed should be considered coincidental and free of malicious intent. Works posted here are not for sale for any profits whatsoever. Do you want to hear a story ? They call me the angel of death. Felix Catton was born to elspeth Catton and sir James Catton after they had venetia the oldest . Everyone loved him and he was a happy child and he was raised by nannies and sent to boarding school at age seven and he was with his cousin farleigh and the two became close like brothers and they were always together all the time. Felix came home for the summer to saltburn and he was happy being home with his family even if it was for a short time as it is. Felix was a party boy from a young age. Getting the best of drugs and the best of everything but it never made him happy or have love that he so craved. . as he got older school wasn't a big deal for him .he got good grades by sucking off the teachers just for that grade to keep his family happy in the end . Getting into Oxford University Felix ended up being the center of Everything it helped him having a massive f*** all castle and a title to go with it. Everything changed when he met Oliver quick a boy who helped him with his flat tyre and they became close after learning that Oliver had a horrible life his mum was on drugs and later on Felix learned Oliver's dad died from falling and being high. taking him to saltburn like the other boys before him Eddie and Felix thought that Oliver would be his and no one else's .Felix found his phone in the bathroom and Felix decided to talk to his mom and he took him to her house for his birthday and he learned Oliver was a liar and he came from a good home with a dad who was alive and not an addict as it was . Felix hated him and he was at his birthday party using cocaine and having sex with India in the maze and the two had a fight killing Felix with the bottle of champagne laced with cocaine in it and everything changed with Felix being dead as to what was an overdose and no one asked questions but they never did status alive verse dependent. People change and so have I . Felix Catton from saltburn loved by Thomasina they /them Headcanon Felix is someone who numbs his pain and learned to avoid his problems by using drugs and f***ing them away . He can't deal with ugliness and with anything dark . He uses cocaine and all drugs to numb his pain and he's not addicted to drugs but he loves them and that is something he can't get rid of . Headcanon Felix since he came back from the dead he is very different.. he had to learn to walk and just do everything again. He feels like something dark is inside of him and he isn't afraid of it because he wants to give in and kill people which is something he needs to feel alive and he uses drugs to help with the pain of his desires and sometimes the urges are too much for him. And he thrives on it and it makes him happy. Headcanon Felix is someone who has a messy room at college and saltburn and he don't care about cleaning it because he likes things that way messy and just his way and if you try and clean it he will get mad at you and think you are treating him like a child .only the rich can afford to be this filthy and he is good with living that way it's his life his rules. He was never told what to do when he was younger and he always told the staff and anyone else never touch my stuff because I will know meaning look for drugs or anything else as it is . When he was first killing he would wear angel wings in gold and act like he's an angel and just judge the sinners who hurt the innocent and he stopped wearing them because of the cops looking for someone with wings . verses main Felix is in college and he's popular and loved by everyone and he meets Oliver who helps him with his flat tire and he learns about his past and his drug addicted parents and he invites him to saltburn for the summer and learns his parents aren't addicts and that he lied . So Felix is murdered by Oliver thanks to him putting cocaine into the champagne bottle and this takes place in the events of saltburn v the angel of saltburn: Felix is dead and haunts the halls of saltburn and he is watching Oliver and waiting to get his revenge and when people come to the house to take pictures and look around he kills them and he wants to get stronger to become human again but he can't . He has to stay dead a ghost like his granny and the rest of his relatives that are in the home . v : time to pretend: Felix lived in this verse and he is now on his own. He was saved by the people at the furnral home and he ended up getting better and being in a hospital and he never felt human . And he had to learn to live again as a human and talk and walk again. He is filled with dark thoughts and he is ready to get his revenge on Oliver or not Leaning the comfort of his new home with the funeral director and his family. He took off to los Angeles and he met at a diner angel and he decided to talk to him and become his friend and he killed him in the hotel room and he cut his hair and changed his look and became him . He shed the skin of Felix Catton and became angel . He is killing people horrible people and he is very different in this verse. .more to come for him Call me sir Felix Catton: Felix is older and he lives and he gets married and has to be someone else and he is confused with his sexuality and he is using drugs and just a mess and he's painting and he was saved by Oliver and he was in rehab for his addiction and the truth is Felix wants to be himself and not what he has to be. He's 20- 37 now verse : Mabye in another time in another place Felix is an actor like Elvis and he's doing musicals and playing the romantic lead and he is on drugs and like Elvis in this verse . verse : Felix is in the asylum after getting arrested for murder and he's dealing with the monster inside him and the fact that he's not really Alive .everyone wants to know his story and he is looking for Oliver And he wants to find his former toy and get revenge on him for taking his family and killing them. he is broken now and just wanting to live again. Even if the demon wants him he will try and stop the monster inside him or will he? Sexuality: closed Tattoos : on his hand the stars from the Catton crest and his sister has it too - verse dependent. Headcanon Felix in his serial killer verse is very much someone who don't sleep with anyone really he is just like I can't do it again let myself feel something again and get hurt like with Oliver . He has to let himself be numb and just not be that way again. So if he does feel something it would be rare all he feels is nothing . Carpe diem on his upper right arm up and down it . Angel wings they are on his right side and he keeps them uncovered because he is the angel of death in his serial killer verse. His right eyebrow is pierced verse dependent. Headcanon Felix taught himself not to talk with a British accent and he talks American now and sometimes it slips out and he has to correct it . He likes talking as someone else and not being Felix the weak boy who was dead and who was weak. He wants to stay angel and not be Felix Headcanon. Felix likes being watched by people and paying attention to him so he always puts on a show for people and makes them want him . He left the bathroom door open for Oliver when he was taking a bath and masturbating and he wanted him to see him to Mabye join him in the bath . But when he got a call from Ollie's mum he locked the door and took everything from him that's how he does it and he likes it having control over people and playing mind games with them . -----+ more on Felix Headcanon Felix has had many toys in the past boys he took home to saltburn and he was in love with them Eddie was his best friend and he had developed a thing for Felix's sister Venetia and things got messed up for them and Felix never likes sharing his toys even the ones he don't want to play with anymore. Headcanon Felix is closed with his sexuality and he's very confused about who he is and has to be because in his family he got to get married and become sir Felix Catton and have a child someday to carry on the name . And he fears it and he thinks something is wrong with him and in the decade he is in its wrong being who you are -----+ more about Felix . Farleigh start cousin alive in all verses sent home after Felix died and was exiled by the family because of the cocaine he had from the party and Oliver wanted to blame him for the cocaine and Felixs death. Elspeth Catton : status alive verse dependent. Murdered by Oliver quick in the future after having Oliver come to live with her and he ripped her breathing tube out of her throat. sir James Catton - alive verse dependent. Died from suicide or just from the pain of being without his children . venetia Catton sister: alive verse dependent. Killed herself after Felix died . Oliver left two razor blades on the bathtub and she killed herself thanks to Oliver pushing it . Headcanon Felix is closed with his sexuality and he's very confused about who he is and has to be because in his family he got to get married and become sir Felix Catton and have a child someday to carry on the name . And he fears it and he thinks something is wrong with him and in the decade he is in its wrong being who you are . Headcanon Felix learned how to stop his heart and he did this after being killed by Oliver in his serial killer and other verses and he was able to come back after being away from the house and at the morgue . It was like breathing for the first time in a very long time and he feels he came back differently like something is inside of him . Something dark and he knows he's not that boy anymore and he's learning to embrace who he is and considers himself reborn as a fallen angel. Headcanon He has always been connected to the dead and he knows when he dies he can't leave saltburn he is meant to haunt the halls of the estate and never go to heaven and be with his family. 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You know Nick wasn't always such an  ass * Rebekah smirked with a chuckle but then her face turned serious as she pulled the bodies that Klaus had left into a pile when done she flicked open a lighter and when the flame started she stepped back knowing things would get hot she threw the flame on the bodies it burst into flames the bodies started to burn she did not flinch at the site or the smell of it for that matter she stood in the bayou she glanced down then turned her attention to _____ _____. Letting out a sigh . I remember when Nik was young ... And much more innocent  he wasn't always a monster he was made into it . The one my father terrorized it was never kol not Elijah or me father's anger was always a nasty one to see or for that a nasty thing to deal with Klaus always got the brunt of it ... * He poked the fire with a stick and watched the smoke go up in the air. * Before my mother turned us Nik was always in danger of death he feared my father because it was the right thing to do I will admit my father was a bastard * she threw the stick down and started to leave as she walked away her hair blew in the wind ever so slightly ... *  

If you're a patient in a hospital, wouldn't you want to knowexactly how many people have died in the room                                                                 you're currently sleeping in?                               How many hearts have stopped beating, how many                                                               lungs have deflated, how manypupils have stopped responding to light—                                                          ­                 how long CPR was                                                                ­             performed before                                                                ­            Time     of     Death                                                           ­                       was called?How many DNR patients waltzed into the afterlifewithout so much as a half-hearted chest compression?Ribs can break during CPR.How many cracked ribs have echoed                                                                ­  across the walls of your                                                                ­            hospital room?                                                           xEve was made from Adam's rib.God plucked the bone and                                                                ­                  fashioned it into a                                                                ­             subservient woman to                                                                ­               replace the wild one,                                                                   the first one, the no good one,                                     the woman made from the same soil as Adam:      Lilith.                                                           xWe break ribs, break wishbones, break most things we don't understand. A confused patient will take out his IV, his PICC line, even pull at his chest tube or his LVAD driveline.If it doesn't make sense, we will try to eliminate it in the sake of                                                                ­                               normality.                      ­                                     xSome time in August, we had two codes within one hour.  After 30 or so minutes of chest compressions, they pronounced the second man dead.  He wasn’t my patient that night, and I didn’t know him.  I think his ribs snapped under Alyssa’s hands when she tried to revive him.                                                            ­      And what does that feel like?   Not just the desperate rush of adrenaline,        of trying to bring someone back to life—not just the emotional,                                                                ­           but the physical of it all.The cracking of the bone beneath the heels of your hands.  Your fingers laced on top of each other                                                                ­ pounding and                                  pounding and                                                                ­                                  pounding                                                           against the sternum.  One, two.  One, two.  One, two.                                                            ­            The bone cleaves in half.And how much pressure does it take?  I’m sure science could tell us, but                              how does it feel in your arms, in your shoulders—                       will your muscles remember the strength it takes and                                                      stop you next time?                                                           xHow hard did God have to try when he ripped out         Adam's rib to make Eve? And                           how long did it take Adam to recover from the loss?(Maybe he never did.)                                                           xHealthcare is still so barbaric.  You must hurt to help.                                 Saw through the sternum to get to the heart.                   Insert a painful tube to remove the excess fluid.                               Drill through the skull and remove                        potentially useful brain matter.I have nightmares of tripping over IV tubing andripping out PICC lines.   I am terrified ofdropping someone's chest tube on the floor,                                                 of it ripping violently out of their lungs.It's not my blood, it's some else's,                                               and that makes it so much worse.                      Being responsible for another human's well-being                                             is actually terrifying.I just want to be helpful.  I don’t want to hurtful.  But so often,                                         I find myself damaging the ones I love.                                                           xI would rather have my brain-dead sternum sawed open thanrot in some hole in the ground like my mother if it                                                        would mean that I could be useful.                                                   And all we really want is to be useful.To feel something.  To be something.  To be proud like the original sin.Remove my ribs.  All 24 of them.  Make them into several new women withseveral new names and                                           faces and                                                            eye colors and                       skin colors.Their lives would be more beneficial than my death ever could be.Like Eve with Lilith, replace the bad, with the seemingly good.                                                           Replace the soil with the body.                                                  It all has to come from somewhere.                                                             x                     How to keep the self close and yet distant from trauma. 

Summary: 'They're asking us because these soldiers have absolutely no one left to write home to,' Sakura thought with a frown. So she signs up for the Shinobi Letter Exchange, not realizing how large the consequences would be. - AUish one-shot [KakaSaku]A note: A KakaSaku AUish one-shot where more is exchanged than just letters.."As you are all aware, proud men and women from our village are fighting in a war that's been going on for quite some time now," Iruka said to his classroom of students.'Four years, three months and two days,' Sakura clarified in her head."Some of these brave shinobi have been there a long time and need reminders of home and what they're fighting for," Iruka continued on. "As such, the Hokage has implemented a new volunteer program. Anyone who wants to can sign up with me, and you'll be assigned a soldier. While there are a lot of regulations and you can't talk about everything in case the letters get intercepted, and you won't know his or her real name for their safety, it's a rare opportunity to directly help in the war."'They're asking us because these soldiers have absolutely no one left to write home to,' Sakura thought with a frown. 'There're away from home fighting for their lives and they have no one.'"For those of you interested, please come up to me after class. Now, for today I thought we'd work on…"Usually the studious Sakura listened to Iruka-sensei with acute attention, always eager to learn more about the glamorous shinobi world. Yet today his special announcement had caught her off guard and Iruka's voice drifted into the background. Were there really lonely men and women out there who did not realize just how amazing they were? Just how heroic the sacrifice they were making was?Coming from civilian parents, Sakura knew how hard it was to believe in something strongly and to not receive the reinforcement and praise she always desired. Her parents understood on a fundamental level why she wanted to become a shinobi, but did not sympathize when she got home dead tired. Why would she want to purposefully throw herself into something that would no doubt kill her?But Sakura was stubborn, and she thought those soldiers who refused to leave or die at the front lines must be as well. They deserved to have someone to hear from, to know there was one individual out there that cared about if they lived or not.Feeling full of self-righteousness, Sakura strutted up to Iruka's desk after being excused for the day."I had a feeling you would be interested, Sakura," he said with a kind smile that Sakura easily returned. "And I know just the person to assign you to. They're being a little stubborn, and a lot of people have quit since they didn't write back. But I think this person needs a pen pal the most out of anyone else, and you're just the equally-stubborn individual for the job.""Is there anything you can tell me about him or her?""Well, like I said, everything is going to be strict and regulated. I'm sorry to say I can only give them the number they're assigned to. You'll have to wait to get their return letters to know anything about them."Sakura looked at the slip of paper he gave her. It only had a four digit number: 2284. She frowned, thinking it odd that a person had been reduced to a number. Maybe it was for safety, or consistency. Or maybe it was easier to organize people if they were just numbers."Whenever you want to write a letter, put the number on the envelope with 'Shinobi Letter Exchange' underneath. Don't worry about the postage or address. Others will take care of that.""Ok," Sakura said, suddenly feeling very small at the responsibility."And Sakura?" Iruka asked as he reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, "Thank you."Sakura found herself grinning again from the sincerity in her teacher's voice..Sakura sat at her desk, short legs swinging under her and toes wiggling. She pulled at her hair and nibbled on the end of her pen, wondering what she should write.She had written a very select few letters in her life. She had grandparents that lived in the country and a few times a year she sent them a letter. And of course she signed her name on their christmas cards. But this letter was entirely different.Not only was this to a stranger, but it was to someone who needed a little support in their life. And they were probably at least double her age. Yes, she felt proud for finally turning past ten into eleven last year, and Iruka said she was quite intelligent for her age, but they were more than likely way smarter than her. It was more than a little intimidating."Well, I bet their handwriting isn't nearly as good as mine," Sakura muttered to herself before she put the pen to the paper.Dear 2284,She crumpled up that piece right away and resisted the urge to tear it to shreds. If she did not like the idea of referencing people as numbers, she was sure her mystery person would hate it all the more. She started again and only got one word in.Dear...But then who did she address it to? Soldier? Fellow shinobi? Stranger? All these options sounded empty and weak in her head. She wanted to inspire happiness in this person, no matter now small.She crumpled up that piece of paper as well. Sakura took a deep breath.Yes, this was a war-aged shinobi, but they were just a person. Just a human like Sakura, with the same organs, bone structure and senses. And once she thought about it, it was almost comforting to imagine just writing without trying to actively impress this person. And writers had always said to start with what you know.What did Sakura know best? Well, herself she supposed. And she thought that introductions would be a good place to start if any.So Sakura took a deep breath, counted down from ten, and started writing..Hello.Unfortunately I'm not allowed to tell you my name or anything that might give me away. You may address me as anything you prefer, if you so desire and it makes you feel better. Although, it's probably best that you wait a little bit to get to know me more before choosing a nickname suddenly. I will do the same.Honestly, I don't exactly know what to write to you. I cannot empathize with what you're going through. My daily life probably seems inconsequential to the amazing heroics you preform daily. And even if you're not fighting every minute of the day, you're still putting your life out there.The person who assigned me to you told me that others have given up on you, and I am sorry that happened. I hope you don't hold it against them. I don't think they stopped writing because they disliked you, but people really like positive reinforcement and when they don't get it they probably get a little surly.I'm mad that I can't ask you what it's like out there in the front (it's a strict rule on the regulations page given to gave me). I just hope that while you have no one back here in the village, that you have people you care about out there with you. Although, I'm sure that's very frustrating. Being thankful that there are people you can connect to out there, but that you don't want to get hurt.What I'm trying to say: is I hope that you have friends out there. I hope you're not alone.I really only have one friend, but she's been there my entire life and she's amazing. One time when I was younger some classmates were picking on me because of my unusual hair color and she stood up and defended me. I hope that nothing bad ever happens to her. Friends are very important, aren't they? I hope maybe one day you can think of me as a friend.I wish I had more to say, but I think this is enough. I hope that you write back soon, so I can have more points to talk about with you. It will get awfully boring if it's just me talking all about myself.Stay safe..Hello again.It's now been a week since I sent you your first letter. Maybe you never got it? I don't know if it's a lot quicker to send mail out there than to get things imported into the village. I was asking my school instructor about the process, and it seems really extensive.I'm a little embarrassed that not only you will be reading these letters, but also the person who screens them. (Greetings to you, too, second mystery person.) Then they pass or send it back, or black out certain names or whatever, and send it on its way. I will try my hardest not to break any of the regulations so that my letters will be able to get to you as soon as possible without any omissions.I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm reading an old book, and a worm has eaten away a word and I'll never know what it is, I get really mad at everything. And then I wonder about exactly what those words could be for much too long. Usually I can do with the gaps, but just the fact of not knowing makes me very irritated. I would hate it if I made you go through that.Anyways, not much has changed since my last letter. School has been going alright. I got the highest score on the test again, but still the boy who I think is the cutest won't bother looking at me. I'm sorry, that was probably really boring and sounded like I was bragging, but it's simply fact. I am definitely the smartest, and arguably the prettiest, girl in the class. Aren't you lucky you have me as a pen pal? You should really show your gratitude by writing back.Have you ever been in love? I'm sorry again, that's very forward for only a second letter. I really should start over again, but I've already gone this far. I might as well keep going.I only have one more year in the academy before I'm assigned a new teacher. That is, if I manage to pass. My teacher says that I have nothing to worry about, and that if I try really hard I'll be able to get a really good teacher. Also if I begin to think about what exactly I want to do I'll have a better match and won't end up good at something I'm not naturally proficient in. I do like genjutsu, but other than that, I don't know.I wonder what it was like for you, who probably was taught in a group of three. Since so many shinobi are away, it's more beneficial just to have individual pupil-to-teacher ratios. While it's more intense, this way we get more time to study with our teachers, and we can become more specialized.Dad says that it's just a quicker way to teach us so that we can be shipped out into the war faster. But he's just a civilian, like my mom, and while he is very smart, I don't think he really understands our world somedays. If anything, we're getting better training so we can better protect ourselves.This is all just a very roundabout way of me saying I hope I get a good teacher so I can do well.Unlike the last letter, this one has gotten quite long suddenly. I eagerly await your response.Until next time..Good morning.Or, at least it's the morning here. I have no idea when the mail comes in for you.Yesterday I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival with my best friend I mentioned earlier (let's call her Sunflower) and it was very fun. The flowers were very pretty. I could watch the petals fall all day and be perfectly content.Are you happy that winter is so far behind now? I bet the winters out there are really bad, if it's so cold here in the village.At the festival it was really nice to see our village come together, shinobi and civilians alike. But I wished people wouldn't get so publicly drunk. I bet if you're off duty you're allowed to drink. My parents say that it's relaxing after a long day, and I think you guys have the longest days without a doubt. I don't care what anyone else says, I hope that our taxes go to those sorts of comforts.I bet you and all your friends at the front would've enjoyed the festival. Maybe you did your own thing? Probably not. I just hope that you didn't have to fight a lot of people yesterday. Everyone deserves some type of peace, no matter how brief.On other news, I just finished reading this great book about the Sannin. Apparently one of them wrote it, so there's the problem of bias. But he didn't hold back on disgracing his friend for his betrayal. Some days I wonder if I'll even be able to stand in their shadows.I know that I'm still young, but I feel that I want to do a lot. Did you feel like that when you were younger? It was the reason why I became a shinobi. Did you have a reason? Or are you part of a clan? Hah, that would be funny. Me, writing dribble to someone from one of the four honorary clans. Or even one of the lesser ones. It'd make me all the more embarrassed about this.Anyways, I'm going to start reading more non-fiction. There have been so many famous shinobis from our village, and I know that I can learn at least one thing from each of their lives. I'm just having a hard time determining if I want to go back into the more obscure, older accounts or into the more contemporary ones. Maybe I'll switch back and forth until I meet in the middle.Do you read a lot? Maybe sometime I'll send you a book. Right now not a lot of books are printed, since the materials go to scrolls and explosion tags and everything. War really does change everything.I hope that you are still looking out for your health and safety.Until next week..At first Sakura had not been overly concerned by the lack of a return letter. Iruka had explicitly warned her when she volunteered that this person had been abandoned before because of his habitual lack of response. Still, after she had sent out her twelfth letter and she still had not gotten anything in return, she began to feel concerned.After the sixteenth letter that went unanswered she just felt angry.But surprisingly, even to herself, she sat down and wrote a letter to this person every week. It was therapeutic in how every Saturday morning she would sit at her desk and write. Sometimes Ino wanted to go out and play on those mornings, but Sakura held firm that she wanted to stay and write her letters. Ino's dad was out there as well and the blond girl wrote letters to him almost daily."He calls me his little piglet as my codename. I have no idea why, considering he could have just called me 'Blossom' or something actually flattering," Ino had complained about it to Sakura one day."I named you Sunflower for my code," Sakura shared.Ino answered her with a wide, toothy smile and a tight hug that Sakura eagerly returned.So even though she was writing to a complete stranger, Ino understood that Sakura just wanted to keep writing. And keep writing Sakura did.She was fueled my a mixture of long standing annoyance that this person had not responded and that she would keep going until something finally came in her mailbox. Iruka called her one of the most stubborn people he had ever met, and also said she had probably been a little hardened by the war prematurely. But Sakura still found the time to coo after Sasuke between her studying.Sakura still somewhat resented this person from never writing back, but soon she envisioned that maybe they just physically or mentally could not do it. Yet at this point, Sakura would be happy about getting an abstract splatter ink drawing.But her annoyance became slowly eroded by the simple monotony of writing. It was relaxing and freeing in a way, knowing that the other person would not respond, no matter what she put in the letter. So she vented, shared and talked about anything that struck her fancy. Her days of intimidation by this mystery person were long gone.Despite this, Sakura hoped that whoever this was read her letters. They probably were bored with them, but Sakura had started this and she was going to keep going with them..Good morning to you on this fabulous day of personal accomplishment.Remember how I wrote to you all that while back about getting a new teacher? Well, guess who I got?TSUNADE.(To the person screening this: it is very old information that Tsunade is Hokage. This is not new information in any way, so I request that you do not black out the name. There is no way, even if this letter is intercepted, that the enemy can glean any new information from it.)You read that name correctly (because there really is no reason to black it out). I got the honored Hokage as my new teacher. Let me just write that again- the HOKAGE. I'll call her the Slug Queen in future letters.Apparently she was there when we were screening us for abilities and she noticed my 'exceptional chakra control,' as she said so herself. I never thought that I was particularly good at that, but apparently I use the exact amount for my jutus.My training starts this week and I'm so nervous I feel that I may throw up that morning. Or even now. Really, any moment lately.While I know she's beautiful and really accomplished, she's very harsh on those around her. She demands that everyone around her live up to their full potential. I'm sure this war would have ended a long time ago in our disfavor if she wasn't our leader.I wonder what it was like living under the past Hokage like you did. It's crazy to think that the assassination of him and his wife was the tipping factor for why we started planning for war. I've read all about him, but did everyone really love him as much as all the literature says?Do you know about the myth that they had a child but hid it away because they knew war was coming and they didn't want him to be in danger? But that's just what the younger kids at the Academy whisper about, so it's obviously bogus.Anyways, back to myself (since you never respond). It's kinda sad graduating and knowing everyone's going their own separate ways. I'm really going to miss the boy I like, and even that annoying blond kid. Even the kid with all those bugs. Especially my Sunflower friend, even though she's still mad and won't talk to me anymore because I like the same boy as her. I've already been missing her for a while now.It just really feels like everyone is growing up. I just hope that we don't grow apart.Please keep yourself hydrated through this warm summer and be careful..Sakura's training was tough, but she pushed herself through it daily. She thought about Naruto and Sasuke and how well they were advancing, and how there were rumors that maybe they could finally end this war through their raw talent and power alone.It made Sakura envious, which made her angry, which made her a little reckless."What were you thinking trying my taijutsu like that already?" Tsunade snapped as she wrapped up Sakura's left hand. The right one was already done, and Sakura was staring at it morosely. "You could have done much worse than breaking all those bones."Sakura winced as Tsunade unnecessarily tightened the bandage; it hurt plenty enough already.As if sensing just how down and useless Sakura was feeling, the pig-tailed woman sighed and sat down beside Sakura. Tsunade wrapped her hand around Sakura and pushed her comfortingly into her impressive bossom."I know you're seeing your friends Naruto and Sasuke succeed by leaps and bounds. But they're not learning what you are: which is how to save and protect everyone else. Without medics, and people like you who can think and make plans and then actually execute them on skill and not just raw luck alone, this war would have been long gone."Sakura sniffled pathetically."I know it's hard, but you're doing great. I already know you're secretly doing my Strength of a Hundred Seal. And it seems unlike my ability to create valleys with my fist, you're getting that jutsu down just fine.""Really?" Sakura asked with a hiccup."Sakura," Tsunade said with a sigh before pulling back and looking into her tearful green eyes. "Despite you being my only student I've ever had, you're also my best."The girl frowned at that."But still, I'm not going to fully heal your hands or give you medicine to take away the pain. You need to learn your lesson about being impatient."Sakura huffed before saying: "Fine.".It was not like Sakura was helpless with two broken hands, but it was still frustrating. It allowed her to focus on strategies if she ever did get her hands incapacitated, and working on taijutsu with her legs, but it was mostly just a pain.Even little, simple tasks took four times longer than usual. She had to struggle to turn the page on her books. Sakura was forced to drink a lot of her food now. Most times she just lied around moping and storing up energy for her seal. She wondered what color it would be. If it would be the same shade as Tsunades or maybe something entirely different.Sakura did not even realize she had not written her weekly letter until her mom told her she had gotten something in the mail."For me?" Sakura asked, a bandaged hand scratching her head confusedly."Well, it had our address and your name, so that's what I naturally assumed. It's up in your room."She looked at it for a long time as it just innocently sat on her desk. It was a little battered, and it seemed that at one point it had gotten waterlogged, but she opened it with the excitement of a shiny, perfectly wrapped present on Christmas morning.Because it had finally happened: her mystery soldier had written back!Before she took out the piece of paper, she closed her eyes and dreamed about what she might read. Maybe there was even a clue about who they were? A fun, silly anecdote about when they'd been her age? Not being able to take the anticipation anymore, Sakura pulled it out.Why did you stop writing?She turned the page up and over, but that was it. The person had not even really signed it, and had only drawn the crude face of a scarecrow at the bottom corner on the sad. This almost entirely empty piece of paper with five scrawled words and a cartoon face did not constitute as a true letter in any way or form.Well, if anything, at least she finally had a nickname to call this person by..Dear Scarecrow,Your first attempt at a letter was the antithesis of pathetic.But I finally have something to make a nickname for you. I did not know I was corresponding with such an obviously skilled artist.I want to thank you for finally responding back. I do not know if you have read my letters, and if so, why you have decided to remain silent for so long. First, I thought it might be because you were injured and recovering. I imagined that you had cut your hands while saving your friend from a katana, funneling chakra into your hands to stop the blow. But still you got your hands cut deep in the process, making it impossible for you to hold a pen or pencil.Then I thought that maybe it was too wet where you were stationed, as it was typhoon season and apparently the front lines were heavily hit. Didn't people nearly drown from refusing to move from a strategic river spot? Don't respond to that, they may burn your letter. Or maybe it was the winter, and you were shivering too badly that your handwriting became illegible.I imagined that you were just too busy with a war going on to write back to a silly little girl. And I realized that this was the most viable option.There was recently the Cherry Blossom Festival here again. I wrote to you about it last year. I almost can't believe it's been over a year and a half since I started writing to you weekly. No wonder I'm still in shock of your lacking response. I forget to write one week and you call me out on it while you haven't done it this entire time? Hubris: look it up.I've written you almost seventy letters and you can't even manage to give me seven words. Congratulations. Clearly you're a genius among us mortals.To show just how frivolous I am, I have included a flower I pressed at the festival. I hope that some of the sweet scent manages to stick around when you receive this. Even if you don't deserve it because it was kinda rude to make me wait that long. Fun fact: the petals are nearly the same shade as my hair.Please stay safe..I have never had any family or friends to write back to. They are all either dead or here. Excuse my inability..Dear Scarecrow,I apologize for my lack of finesse in my last letter. I didn't even bother explaining why I didn't write for a week either, the sole point in your own letter.I tried doing some secret, personal training of something I'd seen Slug Queen do, and ended up shattering the bones in my hands. Slug Queen healed some of the breakage, but only enough that it would heal correctly. So for the past few weeks I've been learning how to live without hands for the most part.This was actually the main reason why my letter was so aggressive. It's very painful to move my hands, but I really wanted to write a letter to you. I could have just written a bereft thing like you have the clear skill of, but I was just very excited about finally getting a response from you.Please don't feel guilty. I could have just asked someone else to write down what I said if I really needed them to. But I really don't want to do that since (even though those screeners read these before you) I feel that this a very personal endeavor for me to you.As for your lack of experience, it's really not that hard. Obviously you're able to write, and that's the biggest hurdle. The second is being able to read, but that usually goes hand-in-hand with writing. Although I honestly have no idea if you read my letters, or just simply cast them aside for another time. Yet judging by how you immediately realized I'd missed a week, I think you're more than just aware of them.Other than that, you write about anything you want. At first I was nervous, but eventually I didn't hold back.I think since you're older, you should share some anecdotes about when you were a kid. Despite our age difference, maybe we grew up with similar fashions or sayings or favorite foods. What are your happiest memories?Again, I'm sorry for my lack of sympathy in my last letter. I think I've almost fully healed my hands, so I should very soon be back to writing you novella length letters.Until next time when you respond with that scratching you call handwriting..When I was promoted to jōnin I took on a mission that got my teammate killed. My happiest memory was realizing, as he died, that he was my best friend. I had not realized how much I loved and appreciated him until that moment.My second happiest memory was realizing I loved the girl who had made herself die at my hand. She was the girl my best friend loved and who I'd promised to protect right before he died.Please don't ask about my parents.I warned you I was bad at this..Dear Scarecrow,I do not know what to say. I have known pain (my hands are all healed now), but I cannot even begin to imagine what that must be like. But surely those aren't your happiest memories. If not, I hope that someday you'll be able to replace them. That's not to mean that you should forget about your friends.And I don't mean to insult you by saying I don't think they want you to remember them like that. I'm supposing they were part of your three-genin group and I'm sure you went on better missions and had better days than their deaths. Apparently there was a cat that always got loose- did you and your friends ever have to chase it down? I heard the cat burned in the great fire. I had been very young during that fire, but I can still remember the heat.I wish you could tell me their names so I could go put some flowers on their graves. Maybe I'll try and research it, but it would be impossible to know if instead their names are on the cenotaph. I'm guessing your best friend is. I should go and do that always. A lot of people visit there now and there's always flowers.Maybe this will make you feel better: I saved my first life today. A boy had been training and had cut his leg clean off, and the Slug Queen let me try and reattach it all by myself before he bled out. The bone was a little tricky because the cells are more complicated, but I managed it all the same. He didn't even have a scar when I was done. Slug Queen said I did a really great job and soon I should be able to lead more surgeries so she can focus on other things.It's now been almost a year since my training began. The Queen says it's a waste of my time since I'll obviously pass, but I need to sign up for the chūnin exam. I know the usual age of passing is thirteen now. Before it used to be fifteen, but the war speeds things up I suppose. I bet you were much younger than me when you made chūnin, if you were already a jōnin still in a three-man team.I want to apologize if the beginning of my letter seemed preachy, or if I overstepped my boundaries. I have not lost any close friends to the war. I lost relatives in the great fire I previously mentioned, but I was too young to really remember them.I wish I could think of something better to cheer you up with than my own accomplishments. But it probably helps to know that the next generation has not been weakened by the war. If anything, we've become stronger.What do you do with your friends over there to kill time? Like I've said in past letters, I read a lot when I want to relax. Do you do the same? Maybe your short responses are hiding your literary prowess. They probably hide a lot.You took two weeks to respond this time. Is everything alright? I hope it is and I will be able to hear from you promptly.Farewell for now..I can't write as fast as you, and there's not much I can tell about here other than the food is horrible. I do enjoy reading, but all my books are ruined by the rain and mold.He'll like getting flowers from a girl. He also would have been the one needing his leg reattached like that boy. Congratulations on that..Dear Scarecrow,First, I want to thank you for responding so quickly. I asked the postman the other day how long it usually takes for a letter to get to the front lines, and it can be as quickly as two or as long as four. Sending back letters is usually quicker, only one or three days. Since your latest response arrived five days after I sent my letter, I can safely assume you dedicated yourself to a speedy response. And now you get to have a letter from me all the faster. Aren't you lucky?I'm sending you a book with this letter, if they haven't confiscated it. I don't think they would, unless the saga of 'The Dragon King' is illegal. It's really just about love, so I can't see how it would be taken away. I hope that you'll enjoy it, as I've loved it ever since I was very small. I enjoy the simplicity of the story: that not all guys who are bad have to be, that anyone with a strong, sure heart can make it through anything.The postman also said that if it fits in an envelope, he'll mail it for me. I plan to bribe him with fresh baked goods so he'll pass along larger envelopes. (Maybe even large enough envelopes that I can fit some cookies into it for those who screen it.) I will also try and find some yarn so I can knit you a scarf. It must be getting really cold out there, and it wouldn't do good to let your face get cold and for your senses to dull because of it. Do you have a color you'd prefer? I might not be able to get it, but Slug Queen does owe me a favor for attaining some more sake for her on the side.Everything over here as been fine for me. Slug Queen has put me up for more hospital shifts. At first I was a little worried about working there because I still am fairly young, but everyone there is very friendly. Also, most nurses are my age and the doctors are very old. Anyone in between is already out there with you guys, or out at neighboring villages offering aid.Also, I've started working on identifying poisons and learning how to remedy them. Apparently Slug Queen is second to none in making them, and that she says I'm fairly good at them. Not as good as my natural affinity for chakra control (I can now create an earthquake with a punch- how cool is THAT?) but if I practice and work enough I can learn how to be better.I hope that you're still trying hard out there as well. Again, I hope you enjoy the book. I know it's small and a fast read, but please enjoy. Also please be careful with it and keep it safe. It was the copy from when I was a girl. I know you're not allowed to send anything back but letters, so you'll have to keep it safe until the war ends and I can pick it back up. (Yes, this is me giving you another reason to make it through if you didn't already have enough.)Maybe you'll start responding faster and we can correspond every five days instead of seven now. Wouldn't that be nice.Goodbye for now..It's really dreary around here (the mushrooms love it) so something bright and soft. Yellow if you can manage it?I enjoyed the book..Dear Scarecrow,I hope you like the yellow I picked out. While I like this goldenrod shade, I think it's a little darker than what you were imagining. All the same, it is the color you requested so I'll count it as a victory. Don't you dare get blood on it! Just kidding, I can just make you another one now that I have finally gotten the hang of it. The stitches are still a little bulbous, but I like the way it looks still. I made an infinity scarf so you don't have to worry about an enemy grabbing hold onto one end to pull you down. This way it can sit quite snuggly around your neck and shoulders. I hope it's not too bulky.Last winter I tried making you a scarf, but I was not confident enough in my ability. It's a sad excuse of a thing, bright red with way too many holes and misaligned lines. You and no other will ever see just how badly I failed at my first attempt. I pride myself in being a fast learner, but this took a lot of patience.I have leftover yarn from the scarf and I tried to make you matching gloves, but like the first scarf, it did not turn out well. Although, I don't think you would cut a very intimidating sight to the enemy dressed in matching, obviously homemade knit articles.Yes, I can see through you fishing for more books. Try working on your stealth more. I'll send you another one from my collection next time, since the scarf took up all the space in this envelope.I hope that you're doing alright out there. I know that the weather is soon going to change for the worst. In my haste to finish the scarf I had to omit taking time to write up a nice long letter to go with it, so I'll try and sum up what's been happening quickly.It's flu season, so of course the hospital is in total disarray.I assisted Slug Queen in some complicated, experimental surgeries I wish I could tell you more about, but it seems I have some secrets to keep on my side as well now.I moved out of my parent's and into a quaint, old apartment closer to the hospital. I really like it so far.I got a plant. I still do not have a name for him. Any suggestions?I think that's it. Please stay warm and hydrated, remember to wear layers. During seasons like this, more soldiers die from exposure than enemies.And remember most of all: don't get sloppy or careless and get yourself killed..Sakura's warm breath crystalized as she waiting at her mailbox, large envelope held tightly against her chest. It was snowing, but the snow simply brushed off the clear tape she had wrapped the envelope in to avoid just this occurrence. It would not do good to have her newly made scarf get soaked and then freeze. She was sure her scarecrow would not appreciate a gift to warm him coming in a block of ice.She eyed the postman coming around the bend and jumped to grab the thurmous. She poured a cup of hot chocolate and offered it to him as he approached."Ah, good afternoon yet again, Sakura. I see you have quite a large letter for me there," he said, gratefully taking the offered cup with a smile."If it wouldn't be too much trouble," she said hopefully."Maybe… if you give me the rest of this delicious hot chocolate," he said with a chuckle, smile widening behind the curling steam.Sakura felt her shoulders straighten in pride before passing over the envelop and beverage container to him wordlessly."Thank you," she said as she watched him put the package in his satchel.His smile turned a little sad for a moment before he reached forward and ruffled her hair, causing the snow that had accumulated there to drift down onto her jacket..The scarf is perfect and all my comrades are envious. I suggest Mr. Ukki..Dear Scarecrow,I thought about knitting you a hat, but stopped. For one, because of my inability to do so, and two, because just like the mittens, I think it would clash horribly with your cool-guy reputation and that you wouldn't wear it. Although, if you're so tickled-pink about showing up your friends, you probably would wear it just to spite them.The book I included are some old histories of the four noble clans of Konoha. I thought it was a little dated, and obviously biased in some aspects, but interesting none-the-less. I just wish it had better information on some of the newer clans and bloodlines.Slug Queen is making me do research on bloodlines and such, so I can better understand all types of patients. I'm a little fearful that all this extra assignments outside of training and the hospital is her preparing me for her position, or at least for the next Hokage's assistant. While it would be amazing to be so high-up, I mostly enjoy the hospital.I wonder what it was like to do missions outside of our boarders. I've done a few missions, but they were all safely in the village. Slug Queen says I shouldn't bother myself with such stuff when other younger, less specialized kids can do it. But I like them, and some days I dream of begin able to leave the village to travel. I cannot believe that in a few years the war will be over a decade long. Yet I believe it will not go on that long, and soon I will be able to travel.Did you travel a lot before the war? I feel that you have a lot of fun stories to tell, and probably a few are from abroad.Speaking of stories, you have never commented during the entirely of our correspondence about the war before. Maybe you think a higher-up will see your lack-luster opinion and criticize you? Although, you must have one dumb general if he thinks this war is still glorious. More likely, no information about the war can be given. Or you're thinking about it so constantly you don't want to have to write it down.Regardless, I still hope you're doing alright out there after being gone for so long: both mentally and physically. I cannot even imagine the homesickness you must go through. Although maybe it's been so long you're just numb to it all. In case you're wondering, the village has barely changed at all. Yes, people are growing up, but the buildings and businesses are nearly all still here. And they'll stay here waiting until you return.I'm sorry for feeling so nostalgic today, and if it's painful for you to think about, but I realized the other day that it's now been about three years since that first letter to you. It's hard to believe, but the drawer full of your sparse responses is evident of it. And if I have such a collection, I can scarcely imagine the horde of my letters you have. Or maybe you don't have room to keep them. I won't blame you if you didn't.I really can't wait to meet you after the war. It's happening, don't argue. We'll figure it out somehow.Also, I appreciate how your responses have become speedier. Thank you.Until my next letter.Oh, and before I forget: I told Mr. Ukki all about you and the name you gave him. He seems very happy, and similarly cannot wait to meet you. He seems a little lonely all by himself though, so I think I need to go get a Mrs. Ukki now..I have never written about the war because there is nothing to say about it. I grew up into the beginnings of it and I'm just living through it. I will be fine. I always have been..Dear Scarecrow,Alright there, man with a heart of immovable ice. I thought I told you to stay warm during this winter. And it's pretty obvious to nearly anyone that only those who say they're fine really aren't. But I can tell that you don't want to talk about it (or for me to try and talk about it and you just ignore the heavy hints).I did get another plant, and she is quite lovely. I think that Mr. Ukki is very happy with his pretty, young new wife. It helps him get through this cold winter, since I don't want to waste money on heating my one-room apartment. Maybe I'm being thrifty, but I'm trying to save money for when I can travel, or really just for a better time to spend it at. I have so much to do at the hospital that but the time I get back I'm dead on my feet.Recently Slug Queen started this charity program for the hospital. It takes possessions from dead shinobi, stuff their families don't want or need, and then sells it off. The money generated goes to funds for more medicine and supplies for soldiers still fighting.Anyway, there's was this fairly large section of books and I bought about eight boxes, nearly all of it. Slug Queen though it both odd and hilarious that I spent nearly an entire paycheck on dusty old books, but then she spends hers on illegal sake so whatever. She can mentor me on some things, but others I don't trust her on. What this all means is that I can now send you a book with every letter for a bit now! I know, it's exciting, calm down. Cool guy reputation right? Heart of ice that you can't allow to crack?I realize you probably won't be able to keep so many books, so you should just hand them over to your friends once you're done. I can't knit them all their own scarves, but at least this way you can help share. Although maybe they get much more than you. My Sunflower friend sends her father stuff nearly daily. It must be nice to be that loved. I wish I could send you more things.I expected to be more lonely living by myself, but it's actually not too bad. Friends come and go, and I can always just write to you if I get lonely or bored. And now the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Ukki are here to keep me company. I hope that your friends take up a ridiculous amount of time to distract you from everything. My opinion all those years ago about taxes being used to get you all properly drunk sometimes still stands unmoved.This is somewhat embarrassing, and I wasn't thinking of adding this, but I can't help it. Sometimes when I'm bored at work, or I just need to relax, I draw really bad renditions of what your face may look like. I know it's ridiculous, but I'm stupidly envious of everyone who knows you. I admit, I have always been curious. The fact that I can write to you about anything except who know who you are is infuriating to me.Anyways, I'm never including one of those doodles. Ever. No argument.For your response I eagerly await..I wouldn't dare to share the books with the others.It's good that you can't send more than you do. I'm already indebted to you as it is. To be honest, I enjoy your words just as much as these published verses. Yes, that even includes the one time you wrote about that new flavor of yogurt you loved for two (very lengthy) paragraphs in vivid detail.You must realize you don't need to see my face to know me..Dear Scarecrow,So I think maybe you're just acting like a petulant child unwilling to share rather than actually worrying about how your friends treat literature. You must have been an only child. It's so obvious.Onto more important matters: a seal I've been working on for the past three years has finally shown up. It's on my face, and I can't tell if I like it or not. It's a little disconcerting to suddenly have something new and obvious on your face, directly in the middle of your forehead. I didn't get to see it manifest, but when it did Slug Queen suddenly stopped and gaped at me when she was lecturing me, so it probably looked at least a little cool.And the Queen says it doesn't matter if I like how it looks or not, because it will probably save me and all my comrades lives one day. In classic mentor fashion, she told me not to get full of myself and to put even more chakra into it daily.I agree with her like almost always, but it's hard not to care about your appearance when one of your best friends is the town beauty queen. Yes, the Sunflower friend. By the way, did I ever tell you we've made up?It's extremely rewarding to see such long term investments finally begin to pan out. Sorta like your letters. I think you beat your record in that last letter. Four paragraphs, twenty sentences in total? Don't strain your hand too much now.Maybe this is as boring as when I used to droned on about my Moon friend, but boys are starting to notice me. I know that I'm older now, and my body shows just that, but it's still a little odd to feel that sensation of being watched to turn around and see guys staring at your behind.Tsunade says not to worry about it, and that if they really annoy me I can just break their ribs. There's a lot of valuable organs around there that would be a shame to get ruptured. In a way, sometimes it's fun to flirt with them and get them flustered, only to leave them just as they finally remember where their tongues are. Maybe it's cruel, but it's still entertaining. Oh god, I'm such a jerk, aren't I?This brings me back to that letter I wrote that was all about my hair routine. Maybe initially my letters had a serious tone and a vocabulary that made me seem like a stiff grandma. I don't know whether to be happy or sad that I've loosened up my writing style.Like always, stay safe mighty guard..I admit: I thought you were a forty year old mother from your first letter. Imagine my shock finding you were an Academy student.Don't be too cruel to those poor boys. I'm sure many are falling over themselves, and they just don't know how to spot danger and and run from it just yet. Good thing they aren't out here, else they would have been gone within hours.Forget about breaking their ribs, those heal quickly enough. Break their hearts if they really bother you. That pain will last much longer..And so the letters continued on for months and then years more.Sakura realized in utter dread that her scarecrow's letters became increasingly depressed and clipped. Sometimes she could get him to write more than a few sentences, but it kept getting harder and harder as time wore on.Yet he still made every effort to write back, and Sakura continued to gather his letters carefully in a drawer. Before she had just put them in randomly, but one day she took time away to organize them into a photo album. The responses were usually just slips of paper and easily fit into the plastic squares. Some days when she felt down, like when a patient could not be saved, or a young widow came in from malnutrition caused by heartache, Sakura flipped through them.She had not yet gone through them all individually. She was saving that for a special day. Maybe they could go over them together?Sakura had thought that she loved Sasuke, and her feelings she felt for this mystery person was akin to that, but not identical. Was it even possible to feel so strongly for a person she had never met? Not to mention she did not even know who this person even remotely was. She had only decided this stranger was a man because of his messy handwriting and clipped tone. It was a little biased based on gender, but Sakura had seen enough handwritings from doctors for some semblance of reference.Their correspondence still covered everything and anything, and always nothing about the war even if Sakura burned to know about it. To know her scarecrow faired in it, and if those enemy creatures were as horrible as soldiers said they were. But the rules were strict, and he never offered anything.Then something seemed to have recently switched for the man. Because in the past few weeks her scarecrow was channeling all that anger and aggression towards the war into his writing for her. While before Sakura had been lucky to get a few sentences, now he wrote pages. Just the other day Sakura had gotten a three-page long letter from him. True, nearly all of it was describing his ninnken and how each one was special (although all equally amazing). She had enjoyed the attached sketches of the dogs the most, which were a lot better than any of the doodles Sakrua had ever made of his imaginary face. It was a clear bribe to get one of those, but she was not giving in.He also demanded that if anything happen to him, she would have to take care of them. Right now they were still out on the field with him, but because he had no one else to fall back on, she would have to take custody of them. He even made her sign a contract in blood, which she sent back with mixed feelings of honor and worry. He assured her that his dogs already adored her on her lingering scent on the letters alone.Sakura wrote back about her life as well. Some days she could barely put a pen in her hand, when her fingers were stiff and shaking from half-day long surgeries, or had just done hours of taijutsu training with Tsunade. But she just mercilessly cracked her knuckles, bit down the grunt of pain, and filled up at least a page with her neat handwriting to send off.Her scarecrow was the same in his resilience to write no matter what. Apparently one time he got his entire right hand severed, and barely an hour after the reattachment surgery he had written her a letter. It had threatened the delicate restitching and his medic had yelled at him for a five minutes. Sakura would have yelled at him for a good hour. She stomped around her apartment yelling for that long, until a neighbor came and asked her politely to please stop making it sound like the village was being invaded.Sakura worried that her scarecrow was writing so much and so frequently because he was worried he would not be around much longer. That he had to get things out, to tell her silly things and stories, before he physically could not anymore from passing on.Still, the war carried on and his letters gave her an equal amount of hope as well as trepidation. Lately there had been a lot of soldiers brought in from the front who were too severely injured to be treated adequately there. Apparently the creatures were getting more active; Madara seemed ready to unleash himself on the world. Infiltration attempts to find his lair failed each time, only resulting in losses. Sakura watched as Tsunade became increasingly stressed; she was sure if not for that jutsu her Slug Queen would look much older than her actual age.Sakura had mixed feelings about the soldiers coming in. Half of her wanted her scarecrow to come, but the other half wanted him to remain strong and steady as he had all these days, months and years. Eventually she realized it silly to think that he would come back to get healed; he would die out there trying before abandoning it.So every time Sakura got a letter, reaffirming that he was not dead and very much alive and fighting, she felt not just a wave, but a tsunami of relief pass over her..Dear Scarecrow,I turned sixteen today. Apparently I'm a full fledged adult in the shinobi world now. I don't feel like it. It's just all very surreal.My blond friend (or my Sun friend) gave me a gag gift of some porny literature that his mentor apparently writes. I read it, and it doesn't seem too bad despite the gratuitous descriptions at the sex scenes. I've never heard so many inaccurate nouns for 'penis.' Sun's mentor gets points for creativity at least.I thought that you might like it, so I've included it for you.Not to say that you're a pervert, but I feel that you're a romantic in some ways. And while there are sad parts in the book, overall it's uplifting. I know you'll appreciate that. And not to get sexist, but in my experience a lot of guys like porn.Anyway, it's small but I bet it'll really pack a punch for your overgrown love of romance. I hope you enjoy it.As always, please be safe..The book was amazing. The best by far. Send more if at all possible..My Scarecrow,I know it's impossible to miss the presence of someone you've never met, but I still cannot help but feel that with you. I wish you could have been here today for me to see just how far I've come.Anyways, I made jōnin today, and so did my Sun and Moon friends. My Sunflower friend only got a partial advancement, but she's ecstatic all the same.For entertainment to the public, they had us compete against others and the person I went against made fun of my hair to try and break my moral. I kicked him out of the stadium, and he had such grievous injuries that Slug Queen had to personally heal him. I thought she would be mad, but when I explained what he'd said about me, she laughed so hard she cried. Then she gave me a whole bottle of sake and we drank it in celebration. I don't think she should help foster my temper that has gotten a bit drastic lately.Maybe that's why I said that convoluted sentence as a start. It's kinda weird and funny being drunk. I like it. I approve.Is my handwriting different? Am I not using as many big words as usual? I wonder if you thought it weird when I was beginning to write and already knew so many. I really pride myself over my vocabulary. And I was really trying to impress you because I was so scared that you wouldn't respond or would think me stupid and hate me.But I know that you don't hate me. Maybe you even like me in some sort of way. I like you quite a lot, when I think about it.I'm getting pretty sleepy suddenly. I should metaphorically sign off before I embarrass myself even more.I really wish you were here. And again, I miss you.Until next time when I'll be sober again. Maybe. I really do like this feeling. Why aren't people drunk ALL the time?Goodnight..They'll try sending you out here now. Promise me you won't go.Hope the headache wasn't too bad..Dear Scarecrow,The headache wasn't the best, but it also wasn't the worst. After you've dealt with woman in labor screaming for hours, you get used to a ringing in your ears and an inability to feel like yourself for a bit.I don't know why you're so worried. I'm just a medic so even if I am involved in the war, I would just heal people in the back lines. Not that I can't take care of myself. Didn't I say I explain how I punted a guy out of an arena just for making fun of my hair? I can take care of myself.I see that you're back to your small responses. Do you not have a lot of time anymore? I enjoyed those times when you sent me long letters. Did I ever tell you I keep all your old slips of responses in a photo album? Some of your letters were too long to fit in the small plastic squares, so I keep them in their original envelopes. I'll hopefully find some larger plastic sheets soon enough. I also want to frame those sketches of your lovely ninken. Say hello and give them a nice long belly-rub for me.I'm sorry I similarly can't write as much lately. The hospital has been overrun, and Slug Queen has been stepping up the training. I feel that something is really starting to form.Until another day and letter..You need to promise me..Dear Scarecrow,Since you're clearly ignoring everything else I'm saying, I promise that I won't volunteer to go into the war. The Hokage says I have way too much to learn anyway before I'm remotely ready to head out there. I could make a difference if I went now, but I can change the war if I stay and continue working. But, again, you must know I'm strong and able to protect myself.I think she's planning something with my Sun and Moon friends, though. But there is no use in worrying, and I'll just have to wait. I just wish she would include me more on her plans.Did you know, I've been calling you by the same nickname this entire time because of your funny little signatures, but you have never given me one? I would be a little disheartened that you did not care if not for your speedy responses.Can you believe it's already almost winter again? I wonder if your scarf has kept up over all these years. I bet it's pretty dismal despite how well you might've taken care of it.Also, Mr. and Mrs. Ukki now have five lovely children! They were getting a little big, so I cut them back, and then thought I might try to propagate some of the clippings All the cuttings took, and now there are small little bits of themselves growing. You will obviously get one when you get back, as it is your right as their godfather. Don't argue, it was decided the moment you named him.Just think: after this war is finally done all you'll have to worry about guarding is a small plant. You can finally live up to the full potential of your nickname from me! Hopefully you can think of another winning name to give to the little tike.Me and the lovely Ukki family await for your response..The scarf is still well, as am I since you finally agreed.I apologize, as I cannot write much but this today. Even though I know you will, do not worry..Sakura hummed as she arranged paperwork on Tsunade's desk. She could feel the older woman's eyes on her. The full sake cup in her hand sat forgotten. Finally giving in, as she felt she may instantaneously combust any moment now by Tsunade's intense gaze, Sakura turned to her with her eyebrows furrowed in silent question."Sakura, I need to talk to you about something," her blond sensei said with a sigh, suddenly not looking like the pillar of strength and ability she was known to be. This must be really serious if she was looking older than she liked her jutsu to show.Taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, Sakura crossed her hands atop her lap and waited patiently for her mentor to speak."As you're aware, Madara is nearing an end to his hibernation. Soon he'll stop with his defensive warfare and start wiping out all the villages, picking them off when they are weakened by physical separation."At the idea of her entire world disappearing, Sakura shivered."In that vein, I have decided that we're going to do one last, final push. Naruto and Sasuke are ready to face him. I recognize it's a risk allowing Sasuke to get close to the other Uchiha, that he may be converted. But it is a risk we have to take."Sakura looked down at her lap and counted her breaths up to ten before she trusted herself with speaking."Naruto is going to be estatic about being a hero," she said as she stood with a start, willing her tears to not fall. "No matter how much I tell him that war isn't glamorous, he is set on the idea of becoming a hero.""He's going to be alright, Sakura. You, and everyone else now, need to trust that he's ready to do this.""I'm coming, obviously," Sakura said with a huff, green eyes flashing with more than just unshed tears."I would never leave my favorite apprentice behind when I need her the most."There had been times when Sakura felt like she'd grown up: saving her first life, advancing to chunin and then jonin, turning sixteen, when she lead her first major surgery. But suddenly, realizing that she was actually going out there directly to the war, she knew that she had truly grown up at the tender age of seventeen."It's going to be alright, Sakura," Tsunade said as she stood and gave the teenager a hug.Sakura thought about the promise she had made to her scarecrow. Throughout the years they had made many promises: always brush twice a day, remember to stay dry, bring back her books, take care of the dogs if anything happened to me. But all those fell away to that one promise that had clearly meant so much to him. Now she had to break it."I know," Sakura whispered, hoping that everything would turn out alright..Dearest Scarecrow,I'm heading out to the front lines.I wanted to tell you sooner, but the less time you had to worry the better. I'm sorry I can't keep my promise of staying out of the war. But don't worry- you're well aware I'm a medic second to none except for Slug Queen! 

I met Mi Tesoro in the back of a taxi cab, and we fell in love. I spoke the Italian phrases my Papa sang to me as a child into his ear, my teeth grazing his cheek and his neck still.But stolen Italian lullabies led to stolen kisses under bridges, and Mi Tesoro became more than my treasure, he became distruzione in my eyes. An unstoppable path of rosso and arancia, growing taller and taller, lapping at the trees.My treasure was lost to the seas of hatred and forced love under stormy clouds in the pitch black of night. The lullabies I was gifted once upon an aging knee vanished.I forgot my Italian words where I misplaced my innocence, somewhere among the broken records and shipwrecks of a disastrous relationship.My second lover was a girl who wore smiles like they were free; she turned my cheek to the side whenever I thought she would place her lips upon mine. I was thoroughly enamored by the grace of her, by the pure wonder in every glance of pure vert.Her hands held pencils and pens meant for crafting worlds you found in storybooks, and she wouldn't stop until she had written the beauté of life into existence.So I kissed her fingertips and wrote Mon Cœur on her collarbone in red sharpie, and God did she look good wearing my color, dancing along to a song she didn't know.But unchecked amour crumbles as only it can do and I am left without my heart pulsing in my chest; I stare after her as she folds her hand over my beating life source and slowly drains the resistance out of it.I do not mourn my missing organ that was pulled forcibly from my ribs, only the girl who stole it when I wasn't looking.I didn't fall in love the third time, but I used my Babcia's language out of trust. I wrote things of the Polish language inside her mouth, offering her the cool refreshment of poetry when it was too difficult to gulp down.I gave her a name my Babcia called me once, while looking up at the sky. Raj. She became as so; my light in eternal darkness twinkling upon the barren earth. I looked to her for guidance. I poured my heart and soul into who she was.But there is a reason Polish is not a love language, and she redefined that the day she pulled from my friendly embrace and left me in the shadows.Znaczysz dla mnie tak wiele.Sleepless nights follow, and a feeling of blame is constructed by us alone. We thought we were being careful. You were blind. I was intrusive.But we had been przyjaciele, not lovers.Nothing changes because life refuses to wait; it is a fixed set of courses we overcome to truly breathe in fresh air. So I face my past head on.I meet mi tesoro in a coffee shop and buy his girlfriend a drink. We talk of handsome boys and girls with winning smiles while he sneaks furtive glances her way. I do not see the angry love I had grown in his garden; I see the soft cariad of summer nights and smelling of each other.I reconcile with raj with an apology following hers. We take turns speaking on misguided footsteps and all the places we should've trusted and we should've listened. Our souls are filled with a cariad I am not so used to; one between friends that I wish to last a life time. And oh goodness when I see I've amused her again, I wear gwenu of satisfaction.And the girl who has stolen mon cœur arrived back into my life with a plate full of options. I chose her; I chose biting into the apple of forgiveness, of new beginnings, and she kisses the juice off my chin. It will take forever to convince her that we are truly éternel, but the exhilaration of loving her is all I need. I speak my words to her upon the midnight hour, always filled with cariad.Je t'aime mon cœur.Yet something has changed within my own self, something extraordinary. So I adopt a name to call myself in honor of the trials and tribulation I see on the palms of my bloodied hands.Cariad.My native tongue envelops me as it has always done, and my nature, my affection, and my love is all carried through on one term. So I become what I beheld in my languages of love.DictionaryMi Tesoroitalian ; meaning "my darling" or "my treasure"Distruzioneitalian ; destructionRossoitalian ; redAranciaitalian ; orangeVertfrench ; greenBeautéfrench ; beautyMon Cœurfrench ; meaning "my heart"Amourfrench ; loveBabciapolish ; means "grandma" but can also mean "great grandma" as it does in this caseRajpolish ; meaning "heaven"Znaczysz dla mnie tak wielepolish ; "you mean so much to me"Przyjacielepolish ; friendsGwenuwelsh ; smileÉternelfrench ; eternalJe t'aime mon cœurfrench ; "I love you, my heart"Cariadwelsh ; means "love" or "lover" 

Summary: “Why didn’t you tell me you were hallucinating?” Frank asks in an undertone. Something somber in his voice. Laying low isn’t as fun as it’s cut out to be, Frank thinks, specially when you have a TBI patient whose lawyer brain and sheer stubbornness won’t be hindered by his memory loss, someone dead set on killing said patient and your own internal crisis going on. Notes: Poems and excerpts taken from (in order of appearance):Symbol for static grief, Gilbert MaxwellSwift shot, Kynafrom Bodies of water, T. GreenwoodMake me human or give me death, May Yangfrom Flux, Afaa Michael Weaver Happy reading!❤️     White noise; a constant background noise that drowns out other sounds.   No color and no wonder... Wanting no end at all, yet vaguely seeing Something of peace in breathing and not being.   PAPERCUT   tragedies become memories, living, dying. Sound is dead. Breathing is only a feeling.   Frank finds the edge of the tattered fleece blanket and pulls it over Murdock’s shoulders for the fourth time since dawn before going back to his research, hands flying over clacking plastic keyboard, faded white letters and stains roughly the shape of his digits. Possible Punisher sighting. He reads the article quickly - lacks evidence besides a female eyewitness claiming she recognized his silhouette from the news and the fact that bullets where found on scene. The address isn’t mentioned, neither is Murdock’s name. No news of six dead mercenaries found at the wanted lawyer’s flat. No police report of shooting. Nothing. FBI agent investigated. Albanians killed. Fisk’s transport detail ambushed. FBI agents injured and dead. Nothing pertinent, not now. Besides the guy’s face - strangely familiar. The same that has been going through his head since the attack on Murdock’s house two days before returns in a loop, running useless circles around his brain: Fisk makes a deal with the Feds, gets shanked in supermax. Transferred to the Presidential hotel, ambushed by Albanians, saved by one lone FBI agent. Red calls him, Frank finds him brained in a warehouse covered in blood, dead guys all around them. The moment Red steps back into his flat, Fisk sends mercs on broad daylight to take him out. He either wanted to get back at Murdock for putting him there, or- Or he knew he was Daredevil. Mercenaries on broad daylight, though? It either showed desperation or a man who had nothing to fear from the police or the Federal Bureau itself. Frank digs his digits into the corners of his eyes, thumb and forefinger holding tight to the crooked bridge of his nose. An exhale, and his large, aching palms snapped the laptop shut. Murdock shifts at the sound, a tiny jump of his shoulders indicating the startle. The covers shift with his squirming, fall again to expose a pale shoulder prickled like a Braille page from the chill. He had spent the day before in some kind of dissociative state. Obeyed commands sometimes, but mostly just lied there, eyes open and body completely still. Except when he did talk, but then it was just one word, caught in a loop: “Danger.” “Nobody is in danger, Red. We’re okay.” “Danger.” “You’re okay, nobody’s hurt. Go back to sleep.” Frank stands up - takes the corners of the blanket again with a sigh and tucks them back around Red’s neck. Out of habit more than necessity he checks the sutures for any sign of bleeding, plus or serous liquid. He had cleaned them, checked the scarring over Red’s lower abdomen and thigh now that the sutures were out. Didn’t touch the ones in his head, though. He was due a check in with Curt, anyway. The bandages around his hands were still pink. One of the cuts hadn’t been deep enough for stitching, but it was in a bad place: every little twitch of Red’s knuckles got it bleeding again. Nicks and shallow cuts surrounding it, framing them like a halo. Nothing Murdock hasn’t survived before, which isn’t saying much. Last he heard of the Devil before this sh*t show, he had been trapped under a collapsed skyscraper in Hell’s Kitchen. Had the whole thing fall on top of his head. Figures that wouldn’t have taken him down. Frank is tempted to say nothing can by this point, but circumstances have changed. Only takes one wrong move, Frank, Curt would say, tearing the wrong ligament, severing the wrong muscle, and you’re down. For good. Murdock’s breathing changes like an omen moments before he awakens. Frank’s been getting used to the sound of it - deep, relaxed breaths turning choppy, shallow - and hadn’t noticed. He listens to the change, the shift of ribs allowing lungs to expand full of air, for the tell tale- There. Abrupt inhale, a pause and then a long, carefully measure exhale. Frank sits back against the creaking old chair and watches Red twitch under the sheets, back turned to him. He moves, the blanket falls from his right shoulder again. Frank doesn’t try to straighten it back this time. “Hmm.” He meets Red’s first words with a grunt of his own, brings restless fingers to scrape over smooth wood, catches the splintered edges with his nails, digs them into the hollowed out nicks - carved again and again with fingernails until he couldn’t wash out the dark stains anymore. He stands up once Red turns, pushing the blanket down his torso and staring up at the ceiling. Heads to the kitchen. The whole emotional trauma sh*t and activity from two days before hadn’t done him any good and he was clearly still out of sorts. Eyes lethargic where they oscillate from the ceiling to the wall, sunlight reflecting dully on the damaged retinas. He peruses for a clean glass - one thing he’s come to realize about Red the last twelve days, you can fool his ears if you try but you can’t fool his nose. Or tongue for that matter. Unwashed cups gets him the disgruntled, pissed off face; anything he doesn’t like eating gets Frank the puppy dog f***ing looks. Shoves the glass of water into Red’s hands as soon as he’s up and leaning against the headboard, peeks over his shoulder at the sound of rustling sheets and fleece blankets before getting one for himself. Gets back only to see Red doing his smack-of-lips routine, tongue working over his teeth with that puppy look again, forefinger twitching along the hem of his sweatpants, scratching at the skin under it. His right hand is unsurprisingly uncooperative on the task of getting a proper hold of the cup. When Murdock fails a third time, Frank throws patience out of a window and sits down by the bed, enveloping a cold, shaky hand with his and helping him find a grip around the cup, clenching his fingers forcefully over Red’s. “Thanks,” barely loud enough for his ears to catch. He ducks his gaze in favor of missing that ridiculous look Red puts on his face when he’s thanking him, catches glossy red paper from the gift half-hidden under the pillow. Looks away. Matthew drinks slowly, blinking sluggishly through each gulp. Frank gets tired of the f***ing creaks of the chair and brings one from the kitchen, straddles it at a reasonable distance from the redhead - close enough to jump in should he let go of the glass. There’s been enough broken glasses around Red recently for him to know it’s not safe, should that cup break. With his head messy like it is, Frank isn’t sure if he would jump away from it or clench his palms around the shards until it bled. “Headache?” “No,” a frown. “Why can’t I move my hands right?” Frank squints at his face; every inch as clueless as he had expected. He had been doing it a lot, recently. Having episodes and forgetting about them afterwards. “A window broke. You got hurt.” Murdock’s head snaps up, eyes big when they land between his arms and torso. “You’re lying.” Yeah. Frank ignores it. “Who am I?” Matthew’s eyes go up to the ceiling in what Frank recognizes now as an attempt to roll in disdain. “Do we really have to-” “Yeah, we do,” kid almost gets himself shredded in a broken window and he wants to know- “F***ing hell, Red.” Shoulders go back, his spine straightens, chin goes up. Sh*t, and it’s not even a fighting stance. Frank had seen that in the hospital room, yeah. But mostly, he saw that one in court. Kid’s geared up. “You’re Frank,” a shaky right hand pulls the fleece blanket away from him, exposing his naked upper body. “You have military training but apparently doesn’t answer to anyone. You don’t have a job or a license, but you carry a lot of guns. You killed people yesterday and yours vitals kept steady like you were washing the dishes or doing your laundry. You’ve had me for almost two weeks and you somehow failed to mention that I’m a target for someone powerful enough to send armed mercenaries after me in the middle of the day.” Murdock takes a long breath, lets it out with a defeated sigh. “Who are you, Frank?” Can’t lie, right then. Not with those eager, desperate eyes stripping him bare. “A while back,” voice goes low, Frank clears his throat, “there was a shooting at Central Park. Three gangs.” He can almost smell it, the stench of death when it started creeping up on him. When he woke up and realized- “They killed my family,” a whisper: “all of them.” Matthew turns to him, then. The same attentive, considerate gaze Frank recognized from the graveyard. Willing to carry a few more burdens, a few more pains. Like he didn’t have enough of them. Gets him remembering that this is the man that cried for his daughter, for Frank. Frank who had bounced a bullet off his head not a week before, who had terrorized him into killing, taped a gun on his hand and chained him to a chimney. And now Red was here, with a whole less baggage than he had the day the met - all those years wiped clean out of his head -, and still willing to hear it. Share that burden again. “Got shot in the head,” a flinch, “but I survived, Red. Went after them, took all of them down.” He lets go of the wooden backrest once it protests against the strength of his grip. “You were my lawyer, when I got caught.” A head tilt. “I got you out of prison?” He asks in a small voice, slightly odd. “Nah,” he fixes his eyes back on Red, “that was me.” He frowns, considering the new piece of information. Maybe putting more questions in his head than answering them. He’s a lawyer in the care of a wanted murderer. “You helped me then,” he offers, it’s barely consolation but it’s all he can give. “Even when I didn’t want you to.” He’s waiting for a lot of things. A speech about revenge not being the same as justice. About second chances and life is sacred, Frank. He’s certainly not expecting what he gets: “I’m sorry.” A pause. Frank lets it stretch until it snaps too thin. “What?” “About your family,” a flicker of pain through his eyes, “I’m sorry you lost them.” Nausea hits Frank hard. Maybe it’s something about hearing it coming out of Red’s mouth - the raw truth of something morbid, horrifying coming from someone... sh*t, someone good. The type of good you don’t believe when you see it. Looks unreal. “Yeah,” he looks at him. Really looks at him. “Yeah, Red, me too.” The silence grows but it doesn’t offer much more than an attempt at catharsis; maybe an understanding. Facing a shared loss, loss of loved ones, of memory, of control. Seems like hours later, maybe, when Murdock finally speaks up again. “What do we do, now?” He asks, voice cracks into a whisper. “What do they want with me?” “See if we can wait the dust to settle. Head back to the cabin if we can, get ya out the city.” Although Frank seriously doubted it. This whole thing smelled of Fisk - of power and manipulation and well thought-out plans. Smelled of him past the point of pulling strings - a**hole’s running the whole show. “This place...” “It’s a safe house,” Murdock nods. “Might keep us out of trouble for a while.” Frank sighs, stands up with his trigger finger jumping against his upper thigh. Talking of them got his whole skin creeping, stress building up, muscles tensing. The carousel song going round and round in his head. “How’s the head, Red?” As if on cue, Red reaches to touch the sutures. Frank snatches his wrist, avoids pressing into the bandages. “Hey, don’t touch it.” Doesn’t let go, for some reason, calloused fingers tight around the shivering skin. “It’s... it’s fine.” His voice goes tight, breathing goes odd. He does that thing again, spilling out of himself like a broken cup, head flying miles away from his body. Or at least, he attempts to. He’s back in the room soon, flinching at sounds Frank can’t hear. Hyper-alert, goosebumps rising in cycles all over his arms. Frank sighs, leans back while slowly letting go of Murdock’s wrist. Frowns when Murdock flinches, hand slamming down against the mattress and immediately clenching around the fleece, bunching it and letting it spill from the cracks between his fingers. He worries the fabric between his palm and the bed until his breathing evens, his shoulders stop jumping and muscles coiling at everything. “You know, you’re gonna have to tell me sometime, Red.” Murdock either does everything he can to avoid his eyes landing on Frank or he has no clue where Frank is in the first place when he responds. “Tell you what?” Frank sits back down. Cocks his head back. “Com’on,” he chides in an undertone, “Don’t do that.” Murdock deflates with a shaky sigh. “I know,” he scratches at his neck gingerly. Frank eyes the scrapes on his forearms from jumping that building. “But I didn’t lie, the pain isn’t too bad.” “Right,” he sighs softly. “Hey, Red?” Matt turns to him, eyes lost somewhere on his neck. Chest going up, up and down in stutters. Up, up, down. “Breathe.” A flush rises up to his cheeks and colors his neck pink too, but Red tries. He’s been needing that a lot - someone to remind him to eat, breathe, take a break. “C’mere,” Frank stands up once more, sits down on the edge of the bed. Leaves plenty of space for Red to retreat away if he needs to. Can feel him reading him before he makes a decision, curious little head tilts before deciding and inching slowly towards the marine. Frank is mindful as he traces the sutures, checks for the third time for any signs of infection. The sickly red is down to a less concerning shade of vermilion - the wound didn’t close as quickly as the gunshot to the thigh or the slash on his stomach, but it was scabbing. “Should pay Curt a visit, to be sure.” He grunts, presses his palm against Red’s forehead before making a sound to indicate the movement. Red reacts better to it when he knows something’s coming. “Can’t tell if it’s healing as it’s s’pposed to.” “Who’s Curt?” “A friend, helped me when you were hurt.” Matthew smiles softly and Frank stops where he’s moving, drawn back to the slight push of lips. His whole face lights up with it. “I thought you were the one who put my head back together.” Frank can’t help a snort at the quip. Shakes his head. “Let’s go.” He walks up to the closet first, perusing for something Murdock could use. It was a fierce cold outside and winter was approaching. Grabs a pair of black wool gloves, threadbare and probably smelling like all the years it spent on the bottom of Frank’s bags. Forages for a scarf and a thick sweater to go with the coat he had brought from the kid’s place. “Put that on,” Murdock cocks his head in that ridiculous way of his before taking the offered items. Frank frowns at the pouty, plush mouth when the redhead licks over the chapped lower lip. He finds that he can’t look away. Red suddenly goes still, straightening up subtly. Frank clears his throat and turns away, feeling see-through. “I’ll get you a goddamn chapstick on the way back, yeah? C’mon.” Ding ding , he lost that round. Red stays still for a moment longer in appraisal and Frank feels like an a**hole who just handed over ammunition to the enemy. He strolls towards the door, ignores the nagging chip on his shoulder until he can’t: “And drink some f***ing water, Red.” He opens the apartment door after checking his handgun, shoving an army knife in a holster and extra ammo on the inside pocket of his jacket. Leaves Red’s cane and glasses where he can find, although he doubts he’ll be taking them. Keys. Burner. Money. Curses himself as he reaches for some paracetamol, in the likely event that Red’s headaches make a come back. Murdock shouldn’t be moving half as much as he is but this sh*thole has not elevator, which makes getting him a wheelchair to avoid stairs useless. Waiting for Red to get on with it, Frank leans against the door frame, eyes casually sweeping his surroundings. There was the possibility that Army lady and Knee jerk were alive, if they were, they either recognized Frank or they didn’t. If they did, there’s a small chance Fisk has people trying to find where he is. He had nothing but contempt for the son of bitch, but there was something about the immediacy with which Fisk established his control. Managed to get himself out of supermax, put the FBI after Matt Murdock and sent someone to kill him the very second Red stepped inside his apartment. Trigger finger taps, taps, taps against his thigh. He knows the layout of the Presidential Hotel by now. Frank could drive Red to Curt’s and go there, end this. But that meant leaving his one-legged friend and the concussed, amnesiac idiot on their own to fend against more mercs. And then the guy from the warehouse shows up and what in the world are they supposed to do with that? Murdock steps closer as he hides a reddening nose under a dark, coffee-colored scarf. The threadbare fabric probably had some stains from when Frank had to use it as a tourniquet, but it was functional. Walking down the stairs, Red misses some steps, fingers digging on Frank’s biceps the first two or three times his knees decide to buckle out of nowhere. From there on, the marine manages a subtle grip on his upper arm, steering him close so he can guide him properly and keep him from keeling over if he can. If Murdock is confused about the different car and the blood under the back tires, he doesn’t mention it. By the time Frank drives away from his building, Red’s already asleep, face nestled in Frank’s scarf.     Frank notices them when it’s almost too late. He keeps his eyes open and alert all the way to Curt’s place. It’s half an hour from East Harlem to Midtown, give or take, and low blues rock filled the car from the radio station he had settled in when Red kept flinching from every horn in his sleep. Taking the FDR Drive had been a bad idea. They’re just driving past East 59 th street when Red suddenly jumps in his seat, sluggishly fumbling for Frank’s arm, blinking in sporadic, forceful motions. “Something isn’t right.” Someone blares a horn, a loud screech of tires and two black cars flank them from both sides. A woman in a red Bentley just behind them screams when the left car forces her to move out of the way, Frank immediately spins the steering wheel right, stabs his feet down against the accelerator. There’s too much traffic. A car tries dodging out of the way and loses control. Left car can’t avoid crashing against the lower part of the vehicle. A silver Honda crashes against a truck on his right, a man screams, Red’s fingers dig into his forearm and pulls him away from the window when the first gunshot flies over their heads. The silence precedes the telltale drop of a canister outside the van. Frank can’t recognize its shape, can’t see where it landed. Unbuckles his seat belt in under a second before throwing himself on top of Red, covering his whole frame with his at the same time he pulled his head closer to his chest, making a shell out of his hands to protect his break. Instead of exploding, smoke bursts up into the air and keeps spreading high. His visibility will take less than a minute to be shot to hell. Another canister, he uses the little time he’s got to shove Red in the floor between the passenger’s seat and the dashboard, under the glove box. “You stay there, Red, don’t you goddamn move-” Another canister, this one hits the window before it falls to the asphalt. A symphony of horns not far behind them work in tandem with screams, people running, another car crashing. Frank pulls his AK from under the back seat with a painful tug, two mags. “Frank, there’s too many-” “You don’t move from there, Red, you hear me?” “Frank, you have to listen to me!” The gunfire starts. He manages to open the backseat door and jump to the ground, crouching low and squinting through the smoke. The worst of it gathers in front of the car, wind blowing west and taking the fog with it. Frank looks back to Red, curled up impossibly small under the glove compartment, breathing hard with each gunshot and shattered car window. Sh*t, he can’t- he can’t leave the car. Can’t force them back and take them one by one as he’d usually do. Can’t leave Red unguarded and helpless in the f***ing van and- Frank takes his eyes away for just a second. Crouched low and waiting for a reprieve on the bullets to return fire. Just a second and it’s long enough for Red to shout out and Frank’s finger to twitch violently against the trigger. When he turns his gaze back, Red has his face splattered with blood, an assault rifle in his hand and a guy shouting, holding a broken nose, bleeding profusely all over his fingers. Red’s relentless, Frank had forgotten. He doesn’t give the blonde bearded guy a second to as much as step away before he’s driving a powerful kick between two ribs once, twice, three times until Frank’s sure he heard one of them break. Still manages to shove the butt of the gun to Blond Beard’s mouth and finish him off with a kick to the throat. “Jesus Christ, Red,” he turns away and stands up. The smoke finally dispersing enough for him to spot heads and weapons. At least five from the left, another three from the right. He points and he shoots two down before they notice where the bullets come from. A man screams, getting out of his car with a kid pressed tight to his chest, scrambling away from the black-clad, armed mercs approaching Frank’s van. He drops into a roll, throws a look over his shoulder. “Keep your head down, Red!” Gunfire starts again. Frank curses under his breath. There’s heat coming from both sides, Red is already spent from a few kicks and looks ready to pass out. Got not time to kill them if he wants to keep Red from getting shot again, for good this time. “Frank, there’s more-” He sees it before Red’s finished speaking. A third car approaches from the other side of the road. No identification plaques, black. “F***’s sake,” voice gets lost in the roaring gunfire, Red screams out some kind of warning seconds before another smoke grenade is thrown at his feet. He takes it and flings it as far as he can before jumping up and returning fire. Another goes down, he narrowly misses a bullet coming from the right. But the mission is change, his focus another: maintains shooting until he’s safely back inside the van. Thinks he sees another come down before slams the door shut and keeps firing. “Put your seat belt on-” “Frank-” “Put your goddamn seat belt on now!” Red jumps back to the passenger seat and buckles himself in with shaky hands. He drops the AK with the empty clip down and takes his handgun with his left, the right hand grips at the steering wheel just as he presses down the accelerator. At the sound of the gunshot, Red goes from erratic to completely still, freezing against his seat. That same panic again. “Just hang on, Red,” he maneuvers between two crashed cars forgotten in the middle of the road and drops the handgun as soon as he gains just enough speed to get the others running towards them. “Just hang in there.” He stops. Matt’s breathing is still too quick. Frank uses the time it takes for four remaining bad guys and the other two joining the party to circle the car. The moment three of them step in front, he shoves his feet hard against the pedal. One barely manages escaping. The van jumps when it runs over his legs, and everything else from the other two. The shock of it seems enough to startle Red out of his panic. Ragged breaths turning shallow and angered turn towards him as he manages a hasty escape, lowering down his head from time to time when stray bullets manage to hit the back glass. “What the hell , Frank?!” Doesn’t offer anything in return but a look that Red, somehow, manages to hold. Frank hasn’t apologized for who he is in a long time, he won’t start now. WATER   This is what I know: memory is the same as water. It permeates and saturates. Quenches and satiates. It can hold you up or pull you under; render you weightless or drown you. It is tangible, but elusive.   Murdock is barely coherent by the time they find a place to ditch the car. Frank has to drag him and sit him in the cold grass by the roadside and get him to breathe properly. Waits at least twenty minutes until he’s sure the younger man can manage to move. It’s not news - Red seemed to have some delayed responses sometimes. Pushed through the trauma to get through the fight and crashed right after. He can’t be picky and there’s no other illegal stolen cars around that he knows of to rob from bad guys so Frank goes with the least worse option: take from one of the local gangs he knows off. It’s risky, some of those guys have friends in high places, but he’s got Red to think of and dangling him around security cameras is a bad idea, so no walking. “You stay there, stay hidden.” Frank orders, eyes all the while jumping from Matt’s face to his surroundings, to every car that passed. “I won’t take long, I’ll stay close, yeah?” Red nods with a heavy shrug, whole body drained. Frank nods, attention orbiting the redhead’s face again. The blood splatters dusting his right cheek, his eye, his neck and jaw. His lips. The muscles around his wrist and forearm tense and ripple with a spasm, fighting the urge to reach out and clean the dark-red dots. “Stay safe. You notice something, you run.” Matt nods through a sigh, whole body deflating as he finds somewhere to sit and wait, out of sight. Frank’s footsteps take a while to move out of his hearing range. The attack in the middle of FDR Drive, in plain daylight, opens his eyes to the severity of the situation. Someone is desperate to either kill him or take him and Frank knows who it is, Matt wasn’t fooled by his routine for a second. He has a feeling Frank knows that too. The shameless, unapologetic way the man presents himself as nothing else than Frank is somewhat fascinating, even if Matt isn’t sure he has the time to dally over it. The marine had been nothing if not a solid beacon of composure and steadfast single-mindedness through the whole time he’s had him in his care. If Matt shivers, Frank brings him a scarf. If he has headaches, Frank gives him his meds. The car isn’t safe, he finds another one that is. Mercenaries came after Matt to kill him, Frank killed them instead. No second thoughts, no regrets. He thinks of it while feeling oddly out of his own body, resting his head against... something. Isn’t sure what. Something solid, cold, echoing the vibrations coming from the ground. Reality downs on him at the same time it feels far away, held distant from his own body. Maybe it’s the physical exertion or the rapidly building migraine. Maybe it’s because he’s been in his second gunfire in under three days and feels oddly unafraid of the fact. Maybe it’s because he’s already witnessed Frank Castle kill ten or more people and he still feels safest with him. He wonders if it’s because Frank’s the only person he remembers and knows clearly, untouched by the fog circling thick around his mind. Or because, even terrified at the prospect of a man that kills so easily, so efficiently, Matt can still identify a slight thrill of the simplicity of it. The finality. It horrifies him and settles him, too. Knowing that those people can’t come after them, can’t hurt anyone else ever again. “Always had the dark inside,” he whispers, isn’t sure why but can’t feel his lips moving, only his voice. “Murdock boys.” What was it Grandma used to say? He remembers sitting by her feet in the living room, drinking something pleasantly warm. His reflexes aren’t exactly a surprise. He remembers Stick training. Remembers getting ready for the war - a voice like that of a drill Sargent: it’s time to stop taking a beating and start giving one. Stick knew. He smelled it in him, the day after. The tears in his face. The other man’s scent. He reeked of it, couldn’t get it out of himself. Milk? Something. She’d tell her neighbor sometimes, a punishing strong hand clamped around Matt’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure what happened, but she said Matt did something wrong. That something was wrong with him, inside him, just like his Dad. There’s something wrong with me, he remembers thinking, gritting his teeth because his wrists hurt and his back did too. God is punishing me for being bad, like Grandma said. Sitting on the breakfast table, the nice nun who smelled of black tea and antiseptic asked what was wrong. Why did Matt cry all night long, and he couldn’t answer because- because- Because he doesn’t think about it. Because he couldn’t say it, she’d see it like Grandma saw it. The bad thing inside him. The dark. But Stick knew it the moment he went down to the basement. He smelled it in him and for the first time, Matt heard his heartbeat skip in surprise. And then anger, and something he wasn’t sure of that he later learned to identify as sadness. Sh*t, kid. And then he had nodded, hadn’t he? He nodded and for the first time, didn’t tell Matt off for crying. I’m gonna teach you to defend yourself first, he said, fancy kicks later. If you can’t use your arms, use your legs. If you can’t use your legs, bite that f***er’s throat out and make him bleed. And Matt did, not a month later.     The headache hits him hard when the hazy, floaty feeling dissolves, sitting on the passenger seat of a car. And with it, the sense of danger, of not being safe. Of having eyes all around him. Doesn’t remember Frank coming back, now that he thinks of it. But Frank’s heartbeat pulsates in steady, strong thumps by his left side, one hand in the steering wheel, head leaning back against the back rest. They’re moving - car, Frank came back with the new car -, the noises of the city considerably less grating with the closed windows. He thinks about asking Frank if he had slept, but it wouldn’t do to give it away that he had no idea what happened in the time span between sitting in the cold grass thinking about his childhood and being in the car. Last time he could properly recall being conscious it was still afternoon, maybe close to sunset, but now the car roof was cold and so was the asphalt. The air lacked the heat sun brought with it. Frank opens a crack of his window with a sigh and the rush of smells makes Matt suddenly dizzy. Mexican food (a block away), car exhaust (everywhere), sweat, garbage (garbage truck few yards behind them), dogs (several, park), Hudson (to the right), cheese (pizza? No, Italian place), alcohol (a bar, cheap beer). Hudson. The same scent he smelled on the clothes in his kitchen floor, the day before. Or what Frank said was his kitchen floor. Everything smelled of him although dust had settled in the place. It didn’t feel lived in. But the clothes, the river had washed away a lot of the smells and covered others, but there were some Matt could pinpoint clearly: blood, a considerable amount of it, gunpowder, smoke and leather. Car seat leather. His chest hurts. Matt hears his own pulse stutters before it quickens, the throbbing pain climbing up his neck and reaching the fracture tearing at the right side of his head. Panic builds in his throat and he doesn’t know why. The smell of the Hudson clogs his nostrils, mixes with the scent of military-grade smoke bombs that he remembers from earlier. The handgun and the sound it made when it went off. Somehow so much worse than the assault rifles and shotguns. Terrifying in a way being attacked hadn’t been. He clenches his fingers around his knees. He can’t do this again, he’s been panicking over nothing all the time now and he needs to tell Frank to shut the goddamn window but the words can’t seem to come and his voice is lost somewhere, buried deep- Drowning. Matt remembers drowning. In the river? He couldn’t breathe. The car went deeper and deeper, water broke the front windows and cracked the windshield and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find a way out- His breath leaves in a ragged cough before he remembers how to breathe, inhaling brokenly and having his whole frame shudder with the strain of it. Fingernails dig deeper in his legs, enough to sting. The pain isn’t enough to snap him out of it. Isn’t enough, he needs- ”...Red, Red,” doesn’t sound like the first time he said his name, “Red, goddamn it, open your hand.” He flinches away from the knuckles resting against his forearm before registering the heartbeat against the skin - Frank. He tries to tell him, tell him he can’t breathe, that there’s no air, that his chest feels too tight and he’s scared, and doesn’t know why, that he was drowning and he needed help- “Open your hand, Red, com’on. You’re okay.” He does as told, fingernails unlocking painfully from the skin above his knees and the fabric of his pants. Two small pills get dropped on his shaky left palm. “Just swallow ‘em, it’ll make you better.” Frank seems to take his hesitation as stubbornness which works just as fine for Matt if it covers for the fact that he can’t remember how to move without panicking more. “What is the other one?” His voice is embarrassingly small and choked up - no air left in the room for the words to come out completely formed. Chest goes up and down too fast. But he doesn’t recognize the chemical smell coming from the second, oval-shaped pill, compared with the capsule-like shape of the paracetamol. Frank nods softly in acknowledgment. Of what, Matt’s not sure. “It’s Xanax, just take it, Red.” He drops the pills in his mouth with trembling hands and struggles with pushing them down his throat enough that Frank feels the need to check him before hissing out an alarmed sh*t. Matt startles, body straightening up in his seat, muscles tensing around his arms and shoulders as he hones his senses outside, one arm coming to grab Frank and pull him back, away from the windows. He isn’t sure why but they stopped and all the other cars around them did too. Spot the threats, tame the pain into submission. Has to protect Frank, cover the car, find the threats, make sure no one is hurt. He’s gotta make sure no one gets hurt- “Hey, hey, it’s fine,” spot the threats. Three teenagers laugh in the car behind, a dog barks, someone blares a horn, a motorcycle drives past them, a glass breaks, sirens far away. “Red, it’s fine, there’s nothing there-” Matt presses Frank back when he tries to move, away from the windows. Away from the shooters and the bullets. Has to find somewhere safe to hide him, has to spot the threats before they- Hands close around his wrist. Matt flinches away with a cry before recognizing the heartbeat pressed against his own pulse. Frank. “Red,” heartbeat too fast, thundering over his ears, how can he spot the bad guys if he can’t hear them over his own heart? “Red, calm down. There’s nothing out there.” Nothing? No, that’s not right, Frank was surprised by something, he saw something that alarmed him. Has to find the air so he can fight and protect him, keep them away from the car, buy Frank time to escape and- “Red. We’re both safe, listen to me, do that ninja thing you do. I’m not lying, am I?” Matt tilts his head towards him, every breath burning in his chest. No. He’s not lying. They’re safe? “C’mere,” Frank’s hands direct him to turn his body towards his left. His voice is surprisingly soft. He thinks it’s the first time he heard it like that. “Your nose, s’bleeding again.” Oh. But why was Frank scared? He sounded alarmed, worried maybe. Frank takes something out of the glove box in a movement that, in his drowsiness, Matt can’t track before the marine’s leaning closer to him. Letting Matt get a whiff of his scent before blood drips over Frank’s shoulder. His blood. He wants to apologize. He should apologize. But breathing is still difficult and Matt can’t figure out the words. “Why-” words. Words, he needs to find the words. Frank presses a cloth against his nose, a palm cradling the back of his skull and helping him tilt back. “Why were you scared?” “I wasn’t scared,” a pause. Frank presses slightly harder before letting go and checking his nostrils, using the cloth to wipe the blood staining his lips and chin. “Just, shouldn’t be bleedin’ like that. It’s the third time already.” Oh. Worried. About him? The bleeding seems to have stopped, but Frank doesn’t let go immediately, no. Cloth-covered fingers rub at the bridge between his lips and nose, as if wiping a particularly nasty stain. “Did it... stop?” He asks partially because he wants to know if he should worry and partially because he isn’t sure what to think of Frank’s intense focus zeroed solely on him for such a length of time. Skin prickled with the idea that it felt like Frank had found something he really liked and it was either the sight of Matthew bleeding or his lips. Or both. Matt isn’t sure which one he prefers. Not for the first time, he speculates on which kind of relationship Frank and him had before... whatever happened to him, happened to him. A friend? A colleague? A father figure, a lover? Maybe Frank just felt the need to take care of people or maybe he got stuck in this situation without wanting to. Maybe Frank, under all the crassness and walls he built to keep people away, felt the incessant need for connection too. Maybe Matt was projecting. He could live with those three possibilities. Anything else was too much right now. Puts the control of their relationship on Frank’s hands and not on Matt’s lacking memory. Frank clears his throat before letting go of the cloth, dropping it carelessly over the gear lever. His heart does something odd when he turns to look at him again and finds Matt staring right at his eyes, where Matt can hear his eyelids move. Not the usual telling sign of pity or discomfort drawn from his dead irises, but a falter. Like surprise. “We’re clear,” he says and Matt comes to realize they’re moving again, just pass a heavy buzzing he came to recognize as streetlights. “I’m taking you to Curt now.” “Who’s Curt?” Frank’s heartbeat does another surprised little jump. His voice sounds oddly monotonous when he answers. “A friend that helped me when you were hurt.” Matt smiles softly, slightly confused at Frank’s forlorn tone. “I thought you were the one who put my head back together.” Frank’s heart stutters again but not in amusement at the quip. Something farther away from anger and closer to dread that Matt couldn’t quite figure out.       He hated swimming. Specially after he went blind and his senses started developing. He couldn’t say his childhood had been sheltered in any way - Matt had learned to take care of himself from a young age and he remembered that particularly well, even a few gaps and chunks were missing. His clearest memories were from his nine to twelve years old, although the chronology had a tendency of getting lost on him. Matt didn’t have many friends when he was younger. His Dad worked a lot most of the day and Matt spent a lot of his time alone at home, forbidden from going out. That is, after Grandma died and he couldn’t stay with her. He did remember Lindsey Shelton from school. One Matt met only months before the accident - her appearance comes to him so clearly, then. Long, thin braids that went all the way to her waist, thin eyebrows, dark skin like chocolate, yellow hair clips over her year. Remembers how a lot of older kids picked on her because she was so much smaller than the other kids their age. Her and Matt, also scrawny for his age, quickly became acquainted. Remembers almost drowning in the public pool, the one day Dad managed to take them both, and drowning in the Hudson with so much clarity that, when they’re closer to Curt’s place and rain starts pouring down, his heartbeat doubles. He doesn’t panic, not this time. Maybe because he’s too drained or maybe because of the Xanax. It makes him loopy, weird. He’s in the car sitting by a man he barely knows but feels he can trust with his life, but he’s also hearing Dad’s alarmed shouts and Lindsey’s scared, distant shrieks. A car honks past them, Dad pulls him out of the pool. Frank says something, Lindsey’s tears fall all over his face when she cries over his chest. He doesn’t tell Frank what’s happening, is not sure of it himself. A flashback? No, he knew where he was. He was in the car with Frank. They just parked outside of Curt’s building. It’s raining. And Matt’s friend is scared, because she thinks it’s her fault he can’t swim. Stepping out of the car makes the ghost touch of her small, childish fingers disappear. Raindrops make the world around him come around in a myriad of bright, tonal reds and flashing embers and Matt has to breathe deeply several times before closing the door. Frank looks different than what he had imagined. Matthew can’t exactly see in the rain, he has zero light perception, his sight extends like an endless void in front of him. It’s just that the radar sense works perfectly with the tiny sound waves each drop create. Sometimes, it can be overwhelming, depending on the rainfall. But if he focuses, just like this, he can hear the symphony of drops falling over Frank’s face and body and outlining every curve and edge instead of his impressionist-like blurry picture from before. He can see. Matt sees his deep set eyes, the strong eyebrows curved over them and the beautifully well-defined jawline. He follows the raindrops to a Botticelli-worthy upper lip, sculpted into a curve just bellow a crooked nose, the bridge healed unevenly from too many breaks. His hair was kept buzzed at the sides and slightly longer on top. His ears were... endearing, to say the least. Matt can’t help a small, tired chuckle. Frank’s heartbeat falters and he turns to stare, his puzzled expression makes Matt turn up to the sky with a free laugh. He didn’t know his senses could do that. He can see. “You have ridiculous ears,” Frank’s pulse indicates surprise, once more, and something like disbelief. “And you broke your nose at least eight times.” Frank doesn’t snort but there’s something like amusement in his tone when he speaks: “How in the hell would ya know that, Red?” Matt only offers him a small smile in return, the exhaustion sank deep in his bones but standing in the rain there, listening to how Frank looks like, it feels like he can keep going, if only for a bit. “I just do.” He thinks Frank scoffs bullsh*t under his breath, but the raindrops like thunderclap hit the shell of his ear and Matt flinches. The sudden interference with his hearing throws him off balance, which is maybe why Frank is suddenly there. Just distant enough not to crowd him, but at a distance that allows him to catch Matt, should he take a tumble. Curt lives in an apartment and he doesn’t appreciate the stairs. He’s had more than enough panic attacks and commotion for the day. Frank doesn’t reach out to steady him until it becomes clear he can’t keep going on his own and, even then, he doesn’t ask if he needs a break. So Matt keeps walking when his head starts throbbing, he keeps walking when his shot leg protests fiercely against the steps, keeps walking when the pain builds up so high that he feels like throwing up and almost faints. And when he gets his feet under him he walks some goddamn more. Castle is a steady, solid presence through it all, if not for the grumbled curses of almost there and goddamn it, breathe, and keep going, soldier and Matt wants to tell him that he’s wrong, because he wasn’t a part of Stick’s war, because Stick left him, because Matt wasn’t good enough. Or was it Dad that left? No. No, Dad died. He found him dead in the alley with a gunshot to the head and a stab wound to the stomach. No - no stab wound. Who died with a stab wound? Who- “Get in,” an extra heartbeat among the myriad of others in the apartment complex gets Matt jumping. “Sh*t, Frank, he looks like a ghost, he was supposed to be resting, not walking around like-” “Yeah, yeah, place to sit him down?” “For the love of- His head was open a week ago!” “Curt.” “I found you a wheelchair. Why-” Frank’s trigger finger jumps against his thigh. “You try and make him stay still, Curt.” The man, Curtis, sighs before guiding the both of them towards a kitchen table and Frank finally gets Matt to sit down. The reprieve should feel like heaven on the overworked muscle of his left thigh, still recuperating from the gunshot wound, but his body is too out of it to register. He isn’t sure how much time passes from the moment the second heartbeat (not Frank, slower, two inches taller, broader, antiseptic and good coffee, metallic sounding leg) leaves the room to when he comes back. He digs his fingers into his healing thigh, the pain makes him sharper. Needs to stay alert, needs to- Flinches away from foreign fingers attempting to touch his hair, his hand forms a fist, his leg muscles tighten. The fingers go away, familiar ones close around his wrist. “Hey, take it easy,” bad coffee, gunpowder, smoke, Frank. “Easy,” danger. Needs to- “There’s no danger. It’s my buddy, Curt. He’s a medic. Take it easy, Red.” “I just wanted to take a look at your head wound, if that’s okay? If you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t.” Matt waits for the tell-tale skip of his heartbeat, the proof of a lie, nothing comes. His body is still hesitant to trust, muscles tense and about to snap even when he slowly nods. The fingers come back. Matt feels the foreign pulse through the skin as it prods around his scalp, feather-like touches tracing the scabbing wound. “Alright, Matthew, how’s the pain?” “I can take it.” A skip of two heartbeats, Matt tilts his head, smells the air. No anger, although Frank’s heart speeds up slightly before he forces it back down. Curt’s stays slightly faster. “Right, but is it bad?” What does it matter if it’s bad if he can take it? “Sometimes.” “Alright,” the man slowly tilts his head against the light, “it looks clean. Healing slow but well. Did you have any fever?” He realizes he doesn’t know the answer to that question just before Frank catches on to the same. “He didn’t.” “Ringing in your ears? Deaf episodes? Alterations in taste or smell?” “Ringing,” he mumbles, “sometimes.” Hands move to check his pupils, the man takes a flashlight, switches it on. “How’s the nausea?” “Hm.” “Throws up from time to time,” Frank answers for him. “Think it’s that Post-Concussion syndrome you talked about?” Curtis makes a vague sound in consideration. “Could be,” the flashlights are switched off, the man leans back against his own chair. “How’s your appetite?” Frank grunts from his place, arms crossed over his chest like a guard. “Eats like a goddamn bird.” Matt ignores him. He eats what he can keep. He’s not supposed to waste food, the nuns said... or was it Dad? No, he’s quite sure he heard something in the orphanage, too. And Stick said differently. Food is fuel, you’re not supposed to enjoy it. “How is your sleep?” “Uh, it’s okay.” Curt must see something in his face because he turns to Frank for confirmation and Matt does a poor attempt of hiding his scowl. He’s not a child, goddamn it. “Sleeps most of the day sometimes, but it’s fitful. Still having those episodes I told ya about.” He snaps his head towards Frank, frowning. He didn’t have any episodes, did he? He’s about to refute that statement out loud before remembering the day he woke up with glass shards all over his hands and a broken window. “Have you had any bleeding? From the wound, ears, nose?” “I don’t think-” “His nose did for a bit,” Frank mentions, and it’s the first time Matt catches something akin to reluctance in his voice, “after some running.” “Jesus Christ, Frank.” The man in question only shrugs in response. Curtis seems to shake his head before turning to Matt again. “It could be post-op hypertension. Blood pressure goes up, capillaries can burst inside your nostrils, causing the bleeding. Which is why you need to rest, as much as you can. Stress when you’re recovering from head injuries can be really harmful.” Another sigh, exuding barely contained disapproval. “Any numbness in your extremities? Motor impairments?” Silence stretches thin before Matt raises his eyebrows pettily. “Oh, I can answer for myself, now?” Curt snorts as Frank huffs through his nose. “No numbness, my right hand is getting better.” “That’s good to know, squeeze my fingers please.” Matt does as told, squeezing as hard as he can with one hand and then moving on to the other. “It’s improved, but the muscle is still weak. Are you doing the exercises Frank’s taught you?” “Yes.” “Good, you’ll probably regain full function, but I can’t be sure, it’s not my specialty.” He lets go and Matt’s go back to his lap. “Any periods of confusion, lost time or hallucinations?” He freezes. Immediately tries to conceal it with a careful shake of his head, pressing his lips thin. Frank’s gaze burns at his skin. “No,” Matt answers in an undertone, voice coming off too weak and little convincing. “None.” He doesn’t need eyes to notice Frank and Curtis exchanging a cryptic glance.   CHILDHOOD   This matters because I’ve lived on that side of life that you all have made for me partitioned the orphaned one   The itch under his skin spreads until it takes over; an unrelenting pressure at the back of his head. Fingers open and close around the steering wheel, he gazes at the new bottle of painkillers held tight in Red’s hand before his eyes stray towards the reflection of his sutured skull on the foggy window. Frank’s geared up. Every muscle is ready to act and he has to fight every single impulse that tells him to do something. He has nowhere to go, nothing to fight, so he clenches his fingers harder over the wheel and stays put. Heart pounding like a freight train that has got to be pissing Red’s sensitive ears off but he keeps quiet, and so does Frank. Glancing from time to time at raindrops reflecting in sightless eyes that can’t appreciate the beauty of it. Goddamn it. He abruptly changes course, turning left when he was supposed to go straight, finding a spot by Ruppert Park, empty. It’s a few minutes past midnight already and the roar of traffic in the 2 nd and 3 rd avenue are far away enough that Frank can just barely make it over the rumble of the engine. He takes another look at Red, then, whose head is slanted slightly towards him in silent acknowledgment of the detour. Frank sighs heavily, lets all the air leave his lungs before turning off the car and leaning against the back rest. “You gonna talk?” He drawls, left hand joining the right over his thighs as it drops off the wheel, trigger finger twitching restlessly. Nothing to fix, nothing to do. “Talk about wh-” “Cut the sh*t, Red.” Murdock’s jaw works. Frank considers him with creased eyebrows before angling his body towards him, his face set in the beginnings of a scowl to the point he carefully schools it into nonchalance. “I don’t know what you mean, but I do know that we can’t stay here. So if you will-” Frank’s scoff interrupts him before it turns into a derisive laugh, only serving to get Murdock worked up. Good. Let him burn along with Frank. “Better keep that bullsh*t o’yours before you run out of it, Red.” Matthew turns away from him and the sutures reflect in impressionist-like strokes of dull color on the window, the picture forming poorly on the droplets merging together to form bigger ones and collecting at the frame. The lamppost light catches on shaking hands. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hallucinating?” Frank asks in an undertone. Something somber in his voice. Murdock scoffs but there’s no humor in it, no real reaction besides a bitter, forced indifference. Or resignation, who knows. Red presses his knuckles against his teeth as if about to tear it off in frustration, turning to stare out of the window in a world he can’t see. Maybe it’s the realization of how vulnerable he must feel and how much he must hate it that Frank lets the accusation fall from his voice. “Hey,” when softer doesn’t work, he turns sterner, “hey.” It feels like calling Junior out on lying. Like telling Lisa she can’t get into fights, even if he was proud of her for protecting her friend from bullies. He shakes his head out of the thought when his guts twist and turn over themselves. Reaching out to tap Red’s upper arm, Frank reminds himself to do it slowly - first touch soft, showing he’s not a threat. The words in the crumpled paper inside his pocket burned in the back of his eyelids: Gunshot, touch, name. Nudges with a little more pressure behind it when Red doesn’t flinch, calling his attention back to the car - the present -, away from the rain or whatever was happening in his f***ed up head. “Red,” now gentler, coaxing him out of his shell like he used to do with his kids, when they cried. Back when he had people to hold on to, people he hadn't held strong enough. It doesn’t surprise him that it works and Red deflates, angling his head towards Frank, eyes staring vacantly while his lips twitched from time to time, fingertips playing with the hem of his sweater. Frank notices the little blood drops caught in the wool. His left knuckles are reddened by the jab he threw at Beard guy earlier, his right ones are soft. Long healed over from the warehouse fight. Frank suddenly wants to press his lips against it, against proof that Red maybe has a lot in common with Frank, but he’ll always be different. Better. Innocent. Wants to taste that innocence in his lips - the light Red had inside, that spark of wild fire he couldn’t erase. “Talk to me, Red.” “I don’t know,” he says, and it’s clear it kills him. Either the admitting or the pain of not knowing, swallowing him up. “Sometimes it’s like a dream. The world feels weird, there’s noises coming from nowhere and smells or tastes that I know aren’t there. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning.” Frank waits him out when he suddenly stops, allows his own knuckles, scarred and layered with bruises, to graze over the skin of Red’s forearm briefly. He was still losing a bit of weight, the marine noted vaguely. “The devil,” Frank’s heartbeat jumps like a bull against a cage before he forces it down. “I know it sounds.. ridiculous. But I know it’s him. Sometimes he’s just there and sometimes he talks and I don’t know why, I-” Words die before they make it out. Red shakes his head before turning to Frank. “I doesn’t happen often now, just sometimes and briefly. It’s fine.” Frank wants to laugh. Wants to do something with his hands. Shoot Red in the head and he comes back to save you from torture. Chain him to a chimney and he comes back to help you out of a death penalty. Hurt him and he forgives you, trap him and he tries to save you, take everything away from him and he’s still there. Body and mind soaking up abuse like it’s no big deal. “No it’s not, Matt.” In the silence that grows after his voice fades, there’s understanding. A distance Frank doesn’t try to impose by refusing to call him by name, an honesty Red doesn’t try and hide behind snark and stubbornness. Murdock looks a lot more like the guy Frank knew, before everything. The lawyer with the relentless sense of justice; the vigilante who’d sooner get killed than let someone get hurt. The guy who had two people who’d give him the world, if only he knew how to ask, and who he’d die to protect. And here they are now.     “H-h-hurts,” everywhere, and he can’t make it stop. It’s the first word through his lips once he wakes up. Smells blood, gunpowder, cordite, urine, dust. “Hurts, hurts-” “Red,” he’s moving, why is he moving? He needs to stop. He’s got to hide. He needs to hide before- “Red, it was just a dream.” “Hurts,” he isn’t sure what. His head. His head hurt. His belly, his thigh. It all hurts. “Red, what’s my name, huh? Can you tell me?” Voice. Deep. Tense. Familiar heartbeat. Gunpowder. Coffee. Shaving cream. Smoke. “F-rank,” a sob, “it hurts.” The moving stops, the word comes to a halt so suddenly Matt feels sick. Car? Clunk of metal, unfastening seat belt.