7106/Another Chance at Paradise

Another Chance at Paradise
Date of Scene:	31 March 2019
Location:	Greece
Synopsis:	Elektra and Matt return to Kairos where they put old wounds to rest and find a new beginning.
Cast of Characters:	Daredevil, Elektra

---

Daredevil has posed:
Matt hadn't questioned Elektra's field trip upon their arrival to Greece, it'd worked out, as someone who rarely left the island of Manhattan let alone the continental United States, he'd been jet lagged to hell when they arrived in Athens, and was more than happy to sleep the day away to help himself get over it.

As well, there was something sinfully pleasing about doing nothing when he was used to doing so much all the time. So by the time Elektra had returned he was firmly in vacation mode ready to set his cares aside and actually enjoy himself for a change.

When their boat arrives at the doc, Matt actually smiles, a real honest smile, as the smells, sounds and tastes of the island hit his senses. There was no sweat, blood or tears in that air this time. No sense of aching loss in his chest. He breathes a deep sigh on the deck of the ship in the sunshine. He might actually enjoy himself.

Reaching for Elektra's presence with his senses he turns his head her way showing her that smile in the process, "This was a good idea," he declares.

Elektra has posed:
She's been quiet the entire trip over, leaning on the rail of the ship, watching her beloved Kairos grow larger on the horizon, until they bump gently up against the dock, and can disembark. The entire journey, feelings growing within her that are mixed and complex - so many ghosts to lay to rest.

Her visit with Dragon had gone well, she and her Sifu discussing matters, and deciding upon a location where they would meet. Elektra imagining they would also meet closer to home, but she understood part of his reasons for chosing the Rhodes site as well, knowing that the closer she was to her roots, the deeper she could reach within herself and discover who and what she was.

It had been a wise choice on his part.

"We fought upon this beach," she murmurs, turning to him, letting the skeleton crew of the ship do what they must to dock, and help the couple disembark. They would leave the island and return in several days time, leaving the couple out of touch with the rest of the world for the interim rather than stay docked. There would only be the single landline in the villa itself in case of emergencies.

"The timing was right," she smiles back at him. "Ready?"

Daredevil has posed:
Matt had been quiet too, though it wasn't his usual pensiveness that spoke of worries and the weight of thr world on his shoulders, instead it was a calm more fitting Danny than Matt, a zen like state of peace.

"We did,," Matt says of the fight, scooping up his bag and hanging it from his shoulder by the strap. He'd packed light, no suits, casual clothes and not many of them. Beyond that all he'd brought was his Bible and his phone. "Can't remember who won though," he teases her lightly as he extends his hand to let her lead him off the ship. At least until they were out of sight of the crew where he could drop his ever present Act and really enjoy himself.

"Going to be different without all the people around," Matt remarks before adding with a touch of eagerness. "Better. It'll be good to have some time without distractions."

Elektra has posed:
"Nobody won," Elekta says quietly, remembering. "You must have known it was going to happen here." Her fingers find his and squeeze, even as she takes up her own bag - equally as lightly packed. No need for anything fancy this weekend, other than, perhaps, if they cared to enjoy a candlelit meal, but even then there were other ways to dress for that.

Elektra leads Matt to the beach, and starts them slowly up the path to the villa, listening for the sounds of the boat undocking even as they go round a bend, hiding them from view, allowin gMatthew to drop the pretense.

The ground is damp from an earlier rainfall, and the air is chill, but spring is definitely here much sooner than back at home in New York. "The daffodils will be out," she remarks with a smile. "We won't see them till morning, but I'll know they're there." Then, "Where was it you had me buried? Will you show me."

Daredevil has posed:
A smile forms on Matt's lips as Elektra remembers. "You're right, we let it go at a tie." The rest is met with quiet at first as Matt remembers his knowing what would come viscerally with axiety building in his chest. "Yes," he says whith an exhalation of breath the stress goes with it. The circumstances had passed, Elektra was back and whole again.

He squeezes her hand back and follows her from the boat onto path up to the villa. He breathes in the smells of the place again, it was different on the shore than at sea, less salt, more of that earthen scent that filled the air after a good rain. It smelled fresh, like a new beginning.

"I'd like to see them." Matt says of the daffodils. "Like you showed me New York from the cab."

As for the grave, he can sense where the grass beside the path gives way to a narrower one forking off from the main towards a buff overlooking the sea.

He nods his head in the direction of the bluff, "That way," he says taking the lead.

If there's no protest he leads her to a quiet spot upon the hill, a cyprus tree growing above the disturbed and sunken earth of Elektra's grave. A stone had been placed there before the Hand had come, a slab of cold granite still damp from the rains, with an inscription that read: Elektra Natchios with a scripture below: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, not crying nor pain, for the former things are passed away" - Revelation 21:4

"Here," Matt says coming to a stop at the edge of the grave.

Elektra has posed:
The walk up the slight hill, amongst the trees, to the cyprus is a quiet and solemn one. It's much as she expected, though it's still unsettling to be walking to her own grave. She /had/ died here, after all, and Elektra imagined it would be much the same entering the dojo for the first time again.

For now, though she confronts her grave, kneeling before the gravestone, unmindful of the dampened earth wetting her knees, and leaving stains; fingers running over the engraving.

"It's beautiful, Matthew. After all I did, and was, you still cared enough to do this for me." She'd known he cared, and that wasn't quite what she meant, either, but it was the closest she could come to expressing how he'd seen beyond everything else and shown her care that others would have failed to, and that it was beyond lipservice, but from the depths of his being.

"..for the former things are passed away. How fitting. How fitting for what I became, and what I am now. Thank-you for this, Matthew."

Daredevil has posed:
The stone hadn't been in place when they buried her, but he had chosen the inscription. It had been the passage he'd read at her small funeral, a brief pause in the Greek of the Orthodox ceremony. The smell of the earth and the sould of the wind in the boughs of the tree brought back the last time he was here, how he'd sunk to his knees on this very spot consumed with grief until he finally found the strength to get up and leave her and everything that she meant to him behind.

His hand tightens around her own, "I couldn't do anything else, Elektra, you know that," which was to say he cared, despite it all he cared and had seen her laid to rest with care and whatever comfort that might be had by the dead.

"Yeah," Matt says, he had no idea when he picked the passage just how prophetic it would be. He turns towards her then, still holding her hand, "You're welcome," he says, his voice soft. His free hand strokes her cheek, "I'm glad you're back, Elektra" he says. "Not sure if I've said it or not, but it's true."

He kisses her then, softly, at her graveside. A celebration of her new life at the place meant to mark her death. When his lips part from hers he, asks gently, "Need more time here, or do you want to go to the villa?"

Elektra has posed:
Elektra rises easily and reciprocates the kiss, slowly and softly. "I think for now it is enough. I may visit again tomorrow, after the sun is risen."

She'd bring some doffodils and lay them on the grave. Perhaps plant some of the bulbs here to replace the orchids that had been destroyed when the Hand had dug her up. She'd find a way to say goodbye to the woman she had been, who had truly died here on Kairos.

But first she'd need to see the dojo. All things in their order, and a complete circle.

Daredevil has posed:
"I bet it will be beautiful then," Matt says with a gentle smile and without regret for not being able to see it himself. In his mind's eye he can imagine what the spot would look like in the golden light of dawn.

As Elektra's wish to see the dojo is unspoken, Matt turns towards the villa and begins to step along the rocky path in that direction.

Elektra has posed:
As it happens, the path towards the villa is also the path towards the dojo - at least, that is, until where if you step off the path and head towards the line of trees that rings the villa, seemingly guarding it withouth break, and find the hidden path into the valley below.

Elektra pauses there, her steps having slowed all along the way up the path until this moment. Then, wordlessly, she breaks from him and heads that way instead, her intentions clear.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt had wondered if Elektra might veer off that way, he hadn't brought it up out of respect for her, not wanting to seem like he was for or against it, letting it be wholly her choice.

As for himself, he felt a clutch of apprehension in his gut as he turns that way to follow, jogging a few steps to catchup, the sound of his foot falls on the path reminds him of the much faster pace he'd run the night Elektra died.

Still, despite that feeling of unease he carries on beside her, quiet, an observer to this moment as much as he had been to her death.

Elektra has posed:
She doesn't speak along the way to the dojo, Elektra's walk upon the path surefooted and direct. She's been walking this way since she was a child, and even the darkness that envelops the island isn't a deterrent for her. She knows this place the same way she knows her own body: fully and intimately.

The dojo, as it happens, hasn't been opened since that fateful day, and when Elektra opens the doors to it, there is the faint smell of stale air, with tinges of old blood and sweat mingled in the mix. Stepping inside, she tends to her usual ritual, lighting candles and incense at the braziered shrines at the cardinal points of the periphery, and makes her way to the middle of the floor.

It's there that she stops, hestitating a moment before kneeling down, a hand reaching out to the unmistakable browned stain that has etched into the wood of the flooring, fingers splayed along it, much as Matt's had splayed over her chest while she had lain there, dying, him begging her not to.

"It was here," Elektra whispers. "Here is where I died."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt follows Elektra a silent shadow ghosting by her side.

The smells of blood and straw mats brings that night back. The sound of her dying, the inevitable slowing of her heart until no new beats came. He had cried so hard that night he'd burst the blood vessels in his eyes laying in a bed that he'd shared with her only hours before. The scent of her lingering like a ghost until he couldn't take it any more and he left, eschewing sleep until he was home in America...

Her words bring him out of the past and into the present, kicking off his shoes he strides across the mats feeling the rough texture of the straw under his feet until he stops and places a hand on her shoulder noddin,. "I remember," he says the words soft and packed full of all the feelings that moment had held for him.

Elektra has posed:
Her hand lingers over the stain her blood had left behind. She hadn't been sure if anyone would have cleaned it up, nor, until this moment, was Elektra sure if she'd wanted it to have been dealt with or not. Now, she's glad of the remains, the proof that she'd been who she'd been, done what she'd done, even if it's still hard to fathom that she's also here now, no longer dead.

Then again, she's no longer living, either.

"This was always a place I found peace. My father had it built for me when I was young. He wanted nothing more than for me to be happy. I think he believed that perhaps if I had here, I wouldn't fall into the path he feared for me."

Slowly, her fingers come together until she curls her hand into a fist that lies over the spot still, like a heart. Like her heart had been.

"I don't know if he knew what would happen. What was to become of me. I like to think he didn't. I wonder, though, now that I am here."

The dojo had been hidden away from the world so carefully that it was questionable what Hugo Natchios had guessed about his daughter, or what words might have been whispered into his ears. It was certain, though, that he had loved her.

"I was cold." Her memories drifting, now, to that day. "So cold. I couldn't feel you in the end." His voice though - as her world had gone grey, then darkened to pitch black, his voice had been the last thing she'd held onto of this world.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt sinks down to his knees behind her, wrapping her in his arms. "I'm sorry you were alone," he says of ther last minutes not knowing his voice had peirced that final darkness, "Or felt that way." This at least he didn't blame himself for.

"And I hope he didn't know what you had to do back then," Matt says of her father, "But, I think he would be proud that you did it, I know I am, you died to protect us all," he pauses a moment before he uses the H word: "You were a hero."

That the Hand had twisted it didn't matter because when given a second chance to choose, she still chose right.

Elektra has posed:
Her fisted hand is brought to her chest to lay over his where he's wrapped his arms around her. "I don't feel like a hero. I wanted to change things. It didn't work."

Her voice is soft, and saddened as she says that.

She didn't know if her father knew much of her future, or how she'd been viewed by either the Hand or the Chaste. Perhaps he'd heard rumours, or been approached. Perhaps. He had chosen Kosmos to be a close insider of the family, and while Kosmos didn't have connections to either, he'd been a silent and protective sentinel of Elektra her entire life, always working to keep her secrets just that: Secret.

"In the end I was just someone trying to fix what I'd broken. They both wanted me to be something I was not. I think I tried to be, though." Tried and failed, at both.

Daredevil has posed:
"I disagree," Matt says quietly. "It didn't end things here, but it ended things, your choice set in motion your turning and the Hand's defeat, don't sell yourself short, you did what you set out to do even if it didn't happen how you figured it would." As it turned out it was easier for Matt Murdock to forgive others than it was himself.

He holds her close, his senses giving him little to know view of what she felt, there was no heart, or hormones, or other tell-tale signs she just there, silent, and inscrutable. Even so he could guess where her mind was taking her, what paths it led her down.

When she speaks again, he nods, "I know," he says, "But like you told me on my rooftop, in the end the person who should be deciding who you are, is you."

Elektra has posed:
"You always loved me, Matthew," Elektra says gently. "Even with all my faults, you loved me."

Which is to say she believes he'd have these kind words regardless, it being difficult to see herself through his eyes. There are some truths in what he says, though, that she can accept.

"I remember the rooftop. All I wanted was peace. People to stop trying to tell me who I should be." Not being a whole person had hampered her all her life. Ironically, it had taken dying to free her from that.

Daredevil has posed:
"I have," Matt says. "I always have, Elektra."

The words ring honest and true; there's no hesitation in their giving as well. Another time, another place, he might have made a joke to take some of the naked earnestness from those words, but now's not the time to hide from each other.

"I can understand that feeling, I felt that all my life, living for my dad, living for Stick, then I met you and I saw there was more to life than just obligation, than just being what someone else wanted of me. I'm glad you've found some of that for yourself."

Elektra has posed:
There's a silent pause before she asks of him, "And now, Matthew? Do you still feel trapped in that?"

Eletktra's fingers unfurl over his own, her hand cupping his now, instead of being a stilled heart against his own. Mimicking the path her life had taken: Dying. Dead. Returning to life.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt shakes his head.

"No, now I know I am walking the path I chose for myself," he says. "I've been with you, I've been without you, I've been in the depths of an impossible struggle, and I've been free and victorious with the means to go anywhere, do anything, and in the end? I chose to be me, to be Matt Murdock, to be Daredevil and to be with you in whateve form that takes. This is the life I want to live Elektra, so everything that happened, as horrible as it was, at least it gave me that."

He lets his hand be cupped, letting his fingers twine with her own, choosing.

Elektra has posed:
There's a smile that flits across Elektra's lips as he speaks that, his fingers declaring something of an oath, the feeling near as binding as one as they twine with hers.

"In the warehouse, everything seemed to still. There was only choice there. It wasn't like when I decided to die, or my sttempts to change the path I was on. It was the truest moment I have known. I could see both outcomes and whichever I chose was going to shatter the other."

"There would be no turning back."

Unlike all the roads that had led to that moment, that moment obliterated all other choices she could make. Elektra truly became her decision that day.

"I only knew I did not wish to be that other vision. I'm still discovering who this Elektra is, or what it means to be her, but I do not regret."

There is a slow exhale as she acknowledges that, finally, not knowing until that very moment that it was true.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles too in that moment, in sharing the truth of his choices and what it meant for them both.

Then he falls silent listening, being drawn back to the moments where he had to choose who he would be and what shape his life would take. He knew that stillness, that quiet, and the knowledge that whatever choice he made it would be the path he walked for good.

"Must be strange, for as long as I've known you, you've always seemed so sure of who you were, who Elektra Natchios needed to be." He doesn't sound saddened by the change, indeed he sounds glad. It was a new beginning. Like it'd said on her grave stone: ...former things are passed away.

Elektra has posed:
"There was no you on the other path," Elektra says with a soft admission. "There is much of the old me in here. Some things, though, they can't exist with the choice I made."

Her shoulders rise and fall in a soft shrug. "I chose for myself, Matthew. And for a world with you in it." Her fingers pressing into his, now, in an equally confirming manner, closing that oath.

Then there's a low laugh from the woman as the last weights are lifted, the final chains broken away. "Do you think, Matthew, that you might wish to fight me tomorrow? Here. Greet the rising sun with our new beginning?"

Daredevil has posed:
Matt nods, understanding that choice, he'd faced a world without Elektra in it, it was a lonely one. Even when they had been apart, just knowing she was out there somewhere and understood him had made him feel less alone. Without her, he felt as alone as he did when Stick left, that his last tie to anyone who understood him was gone. He'd never choose to walk that path willingly.

"Thank you," Matt says, it's all the great orator can think of to say.

As for the fight, he chuckles, it's a warm sound, "Sure," he says. "Exorcise the ghosts of the past. I'd like that."

Elektra has posed:
That's all she needs to hear, Elektra letting his fingers go in favour of rising to her feet before reoffing him her hand. "Then perhaps we should find ways to amuse ourselves till then?" Tones both amused and suggestive. The morning will banish ghosts, but tonight she's banished demons.