A/N: Yes, I know it didn't happen exactly like this, or in this order in the movie. But this is the way I "saw" it, OK?! Takes place during the scene on the rooftop.

He knelt beside Elektra, listening to her heart. It was a sporadic beat, the sound of a tired drummer failing. It meant everything in the world to him. Softer, softer, then it skipped a beat. He felt his own heart skip, as if in response, in disbelief.

"No..." A quiet, hoarse whisper.

Her blood was red on the cement rooftop, staining it like a red rose. Matt put his hand on the ugly wound, trying to keep her life in her, hopelessly. It only slipped faster through his weakened fingers.

She stared up at him, green eyes wide in pain and surprise. He couldn't see them, but he knew that they also held love. If only he could read her lips, if she would only speak... He trembled, and listened with all his strength.

Once.

Twice.

There was no third.

The slow beat of her heart had stopped. He could still hear the traffic down below, a man shouting at his wife in a nearby apartment, a singing drunk. All the normal sounds of Hell's Kitchen, with an aching silence where she had once been living music in his ears.

Her skin was cool, the scent of rose oil was fading. He held it in his lungs as long as he could, praying to an absent God that did not answer.

Despair filled him then, and he shuddered. Was this the end? He would take his mask off and wait for the cops, keeping her silent company as he had done with his father, letting them see his face, uncaring...

As he had done with his father. Unbidden, Bullseye's voice repeated itself in memory, vicious under the soft Irish lilt.

"The rose was Fisk's idea. I don't go in for that kind of shite."

Kingpin. Fisk. Grimly, he stood up. Vengeance awaited him, and he could not afford the luxury of breaking down now.

Daredevil swung off the rooftop, leaving the slim, crumpled body of Elektra Natchios behind him.

(For I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep…)

Stopping through Woods on a Snowy Evening