Karen hadn't needed the full explanation until they were in the cab heading for Trish Walker's place. Foggy had just walked in (or kind of stumbled in, if he was honest) and said Matt was alive and she'd just stared at him for a long moment. Then she'd grabbed her bag and coat and told him to explain on the way. She hadn't even cried. He really thought she'd cry.

Jessica gave another, far briefer summary of what had happened as they rode through New York, keeping her voice low as though the cab driver might be one of Them.

Which, honestly? Was right on the line between paranoia and genius.

Hearing it all again, even truncated and far more PG as it was, made Foggy's heart skip into an unreliably shaky rhythm. Keeping his breathing steady suddenly required concentrated effort. But Karen held his hand in hers, her fingers a vice around his, and for the first time in months things felt almost normal. It was so good to see her.

In the elevator on the way up to the apartment, Foggy started having what he was sure was a mild cardiac event. He was sweating buckets, his hands shaking, his palm slick against Karen's but she either didn't notice or didn't care. He couldn't tell if she was shaking as well or if her bag trembled on her shoulder because that was the arm he clung to. Jessica was freakishly calm, totally unruffled, as though she reunited people with their dead best friends every other week.

She told them again how messed up his senses were, that he couldn't tell what was happening around him like he used to. Her tone clearly indicated the problem was more than just physical. She warned them that he probably wouldn't believe they were real at first – there were still trace hallucinogens in his blood – and feeling your heartbeat helped ground him. Apparently none of the psychos in IGH could recreate a person's heartbeat in their psychedelic torturey acid trips.

At this point Karen made a small sound somewhere between a sob and a tiny scream and held Foggy's hand tighter. He registered dimly that he may have broken a small bone in there somewhere, but the pain was as inconsequential as noticing it was lashing rain on a day you'd already decided to spend indoors.

The elevator stopped. The doors dinged open with a posh-sounding voice saying something Foggy's ringing ears couldn't pick up. Jessica led them to the door of the apartment, only about six steps from the elevator but it may as well have been a mile. Every step left Foggy's stomach further behind, put more pressure on his struggling lungs to suck in enough air. He felt light-headed. Dizzy. Karen's hand was all that kept him on his feet.

He didn't even register the fact the door had a thumbprint reader to open it. Didn't notice how thick it was, how heavy. How serious the locks were. How nice it was inside. How still.

He really didn't think he'd be this numb. An explosion could go off right next door and he wouldn't so much as flinch.

Okay bad analogy.

Jessica gestured to a closed door. Foggy stared at it, waiting for it to open itself and thoroughly terrified that it would. With an emphatic eye roll, Jessica pushed past them and opened the door, calling out to someone inside whose response was too quiet to catch. Then Jessica was half-glaring, half-smiling at them on the threshold, and Karen was pulling him forward and then he was in the door and Matt was sitting up in the double bed looking up at them as though he could see them standing there.

And Foggy couldn't move. Or speak. Even breathe. Everything just ...

It was Matt.

Karen's fingers slid out of his grip and he watched her half-run to Matt, gasping his name. Matt froze on the bed, his mouth snapping shut, his shoulders tensing. Karen stopped short, taking in the shaky mask concealing his obvious fear. She set her handbag down on the floor and spoke quietly, her voice shaking slightly with unshed tears.

"Matt? Matt, it's me. It's –" she sniffed – "it's Karen."

Foggy could hear her wide smile. Could imagine the tears blurring her vision. Why couldn't he move?

Matt's fists were white around handfuls of sheets. They were shaking. Slowly, carefully, Karen laid her fingers over his pale knuckles. The gasp that shocked free of his lips didn't belong to Matt, surely. It was far too timid, somehow, too ... afraid. Karen's fingers closed around his hand and Matt's sightless eyes were fixed on the point of contact as she gently pulled his fingers free of the bedsheets and raised it to her face. She held it there, against her cheek, her painted nails iridescent against the drab white of the bandages covering his forearm.

From where he tried to cut a tracking device from his arm. And almost bled to death. Possibly on purpose.

What if Jessica hadn't found him?

Why the fuck couldn't he move?!

Foggy just stood there, silent and staring, as Matt raised his other hand to rest against Karen's other cheek. She sat on the bed beside him, tears shaking her breath, the glimpse of her smile dazzling.

"It's me," she whispered, pushing Matt's hair back from his face and cradling his cheek. "It's me."

"K-Karen?" It was another desperate, un-Matt-like gasp but this time it was joy that shook the syllables, not fear. The sound cut right through Foggy. That voice. He had been so sure he would never hear that voice again and there it was. The best sound in the world. Then the corner of Matt's mouth turned up in a smile and it was Matt. It was definitely Matt. That was Matt. Right there. Alive. Smiling. Pulling Karen into a tight hug and holding on to her as though she were gravity itself and if he let her go he would just float away.

"I'll be on the couch," Jessica muttered somewhere behind him as Karen whispered Matt's name over and over with pure wonder in her voice. "Napping." Her footsteps retreated and Karen was crying and holy shit so was Matt and this was real, Matt was alive, this wasn't some dream or drunken fantasy or whatever. It was real.

Foggy finally breathed. One deep, purifying breath that filled every part of him and was a balm to the deep fissures carved into his heart. He felt ... whole. The Ache suddenly wasn't so achy. He beamed at his two favourite people, each clinging to the other as though afraid they'd disappear, blinking away his tears and simply basking in this one perfect moment. All the crap of the last two years suddenly didn't matter. All that mattered was his chosen family was finally together again.

Was it possible to faint from happiness? 'Cause if so, he was in trouble.

Karen pulled away from Matt, holding his face in her hands again and tilting it to kiss his forehead with such tenderness Foggy felt like an intruder just watching. She looked over her shoulder at him, tear tracks flanking her splitting grin.

"Foggy?"

Matt's eyes were searching instantly, his briefly relaxed posture once again rigid.

"I-is he here?" he whispered to Karen, taking her hand in his.

She glanced from Matt to Foggy with that smile and they could've been in their office, in Nelson and Murdock, just joking around as they always did.

"Yeah, he's here. Standing in the doorway looking like a little kid seeing Santa for the first time."

Matt gave a little chuckle that almost sounded hysteric. Foggy worked his mouth, his lips already curling around his ready quip, but he couldn't make the words come. He was too busy staring at his best friend.

"Foggy?" Karen prompted, her tone gentler now, more compassionate than mocking. "You wanna, like, breathe?"

"Huh, yeah," he half-gasped and suddenly the spell was broken. His smile vanished, the tears surged like the Flood, his paralysed muscles broke free and he was almost running to them. Karen spun over the bed, sitting on Matt's other side to make space, one hand still on his shoulder as he flinched at the sudden movement. Foggy barely registered the apprehension on his old partner's face. He just crashed into the bed and pulled him into a hug that could never be tight enough and he was sobbing like a little kid.

"Matt, Matt, oh my god. Matthew, Matt." He crushed him into his chest, too focused on the fact that he was alive, right here, in his arms, even though there was a headstone with his name on it right beside his father's in a miserable cemetery, to notice how Matt froze against him.

For maybe three seconds. Then his thin arms wrapped around Foggy like a vice and he buried his face in Foggy's shoulder and he was shaking just as much, crying like a baby just as much.

"Foggy." It was a strangled groan and it held in its shaking syllables all the grief and pain and regret and joy and relief that was cascading through Foggy's heart like a category five hurricane.

"I really missed you, buddy," he cried into Matt's shoulder, holding him tighter still. Matt didn't answer – maybe couldn't – he just held on every bit as fiercely, as desperately.

Matt had never hugged him like this before. Matt's affection was always careful, always brief; a one-armed hug, a muttered compliment, a quiet, tight-lipped smile. He had never ... He had never held him like this before. That, more than anything, told Foggy how much his friend had changed since they had embraced in the precinct before he had disappeared to go save Manhattan.

The noble idiot.

Matt tensed. Coughed. A faint groan escaped his clenched teeth. Foggy drew back, holding him at arm's length.

"You good?"

"Yeah – ribs," he said tightly, his smile more pained now but that just made it more Matt.

"Shit, sorry." Then Foggy pulled him back into a more injury-friendly embrace. He spied Karen beaming at them and wiping tears from her eyes and he waved her forward. With a soft, tinkling laugh, she wrapped her arms around the two of them, resting her head against Matt's and letting out a deep, happy sigh that Foggy felt about summed up their little reunion huddle.

It was a long time before any of them were ready to let go. Eventually Matt's exhaustion broke the embrace as he needed to lie back. Karen had tissues in her handbag and handed them out while utterly failing to keep her face straight.

"I can't believe this is real," Foggy half-laughed, shifting his weight on the bed.

"Me neither," Matt sighed sheepishly. "I ... didn't know you guys, em, that you'd ..."

"Found out?" Karen offered. "Jessica told us like an hour ago."

Matt shook his head, his gaze aimed at his lap, where he was idly rubbing his thumbs over the back of Karen's hand. His feet were squeezed between the other two and Foggy kept his hand on his shin, half because he thought it would help, and half because he just could.

"Come," Matt finished quietly.

There was a beat of dead silence as Foggy exchanged a disbelieving glance with Karen.

"Why the hell would we not come?" he asked, incredulous.

Matt shrugged one shoulder.

"Uh-uh, Murdock. Speak."

That got him a weak smile. He shrugged again. "Just ... would've understand if you didn't want to see me."

"You know we've thought you were dead all this time, right?" Karen clarified.

"Yeah, yeah I know."

"Then I'm lost."

"Yeah, me too. Dude, we missed you like crazy. Why wouldn't we be ecstatic to see you? Which we are, by the by."

Matt kept his face hidden and said nothing for a long moment. Then, in a voice choked with captive tears, "I'm really glad you guys are here."

"Back atcha, buddy."

"Damn straight."

With a heavy sigh Matt slumped back into the headboard, his head thumping into the wood. Karen scooched over to sit by his side, looping her arm through his and playing with his fingers. She laid her head on his shoulder as though this was just the end of a night out, crashing in one of their apartments and chatting until they finally accepted it was time to sleep.

"Look, Matt," Foggy began, not entirely sure how to phrase this, but Matt cut him off.

"I'm so sorry."

"I – what?"

His face was scrunched up like it had been that godawful day Foggy had found out about his other life and this time there was no anger to protect him from the un-Matt-likeness of it. This time the breathless, shaking words, may as well have been knives sent right through his heart.

"I'm s-so sorry. I'm so sorry!"

As one, Foggy and Karen reached for him, half-hugging, half-rubbing soothing circles into his clothes.

"Matt," Karen said, her voice gentle and kind, "It's okay, it's okay –"

"No – I – it's – I'm sorry, I –"

"Matt, buddy, we're not mad. Really, we're not."

"But I – you were right, I shouldn't've gone in there, but I –"

"But you had to," Foggy interrupted calmly. "Look, Matt. I need you to hear this, okay? You got those superears turned on?"

"They're not so super anym –"

"Shut up. Just listen to me, okay?" He waited until he got an apprehensive nod. "Good." Foggy took a deep breath, a flicker of anxiety squirming in his gut. "Look, I've had a lot of time to think since you, y'know, died and all."

"Foggy," Karen admonished quietly.

"What! We freaking buried him, Karen! Y'know, minus the body –"

"Foggy, you are not helping," she shot back, her eyes on Matt.

Giving his head a little shake, he tried to reign in his babbling. "Right. Sorry, man. But look, I spent a lot of time thinking about why you went in there. Why you stayed in there. And yeah, I was pissed off because I damn well told you so, but I gotta say, it's hard to be angry with a dead guy. Especially," he added, his voice dropping to a more serious mumble. He needed another breath for this next bit. Oh, boy.

"Especially when you realise how all that stuff you were so mad about isn't as important as you thought at the time. I think ... I think I finally get it, Matt. The whole Daredevil thing. That doesn't mean I'm a hundred per cent okay with it, but I get that it's just ... part of you. That you need it. And maybe even more importantly, that we do too. All of us. The whole city. And – shit, you're crying. I thought that would be comforting somehow, shit, I'm sorry, buddy, I don't ..."

He stopped himself as Matt shook his head. He reached out for Foggy's hand and held it tightly, one scabbed fingertip pressing into his pulse.

Okay so maybe those were happy tears?

"I mean it, Matt," he said softly, watching his best friend's face shift through about eighteen different emotions over the course of three deep breaths. "I can't tell you how many times I wished you were back with us – how many times I wished Karen was right and you had somehow survived that explosion. Incidentally," he muttered in an aside to Karen, "I will never doubt your powers again. Anyway, Matt, they're right about the whole bargaining stage. And do you know what? The whole vigilante thing – while still stupid – stopped being the reason you died, in my head. You died because you need to save people. It's just ... who you are. Like Claire. You just ... can't stand by. And buddy, you have no idea how proud that makes me. Even if it also gives me the occasional heart attack."

He squeezed the bandaged hand and felt a tentative but strengthening pressure build in return.

"You're wrong," he breathed, eyes swimming.

"He's really not, Matt," Karen half-chuckled, not understanding the despair contorting Matt's features, why his jaw was clenched so tensely.

"No." It was almost a growl. "No, I'm not him. Not anymore. I'm ... less."

"What, because your senses aren't working right?" Karen snapped, sitting up and levelling him with a withering frown he was lucky he couldn't see. "Bullshit, Matt. Jessica told us what those shitheads did to you and it was – horrible, truly, just – beyond fucked up. You've been through hell, Matt. And yes, that's going to change you, but if you think for one second it's going to stop you being ... you, then you're wrong."

She shifted her weight, clearly gearing up. Foggy sat back and squeezed Matt's shin, partly to comfort but mostly in sympathy. That Miss Page had a way of talking sometimes.

"I know they hurt you, I know they screwed with your senses. But that's not who you are, Matt, that's how you see is all. You're still the guy who stands up for others, who takes a scared woman home and gives her your shirt and makes her feel safe and protected and ... at home. You're still the guy who runs towards the screaming and the gunfire because he knows he can help. Foggy – hand me my bag."

Fearing her wrath, he snatched it from the floor in record time. She dug into its cavernous depths for a few seconds, then pressed something into Matt's hand.

"Nothing they could ever do to you could change that." she said, more quietly now. "You're still who you've always been, Matt. You're still Matt Murdock."

Matt held the small object carefully, as though afraid it would dissolve into dust.

It was his old glasses. Complete with one cracked ruby lens.

Foggy was suddenly very glad Matt's hearing was on the fritz because he was sure he would have picked up on how his heart sort of trembled at the sight of those old frames.

"Have you been carrying those around with you ever since ...?" he asked Karen, his voice an awed whisper. Luke had found the bag of clothes two days after. Foggy hadn't been able to open it for three weeks.

"Every day," she answered simply, not making eye contact. Putting a hand on Matt's wrist, she said it again, her voice low and sincere and heartbreakingly sweet. "Every day."

Matt was still for a long moment. Then his fingers curled slowly into a fist around his glasses, his head shaking.

"But I couldn't help them," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I tried but I just f-failed. Over and over."

"What are you talking about?"

"I could hear them." He was shaking now, his hands balled into fists. "Every day. I heard them scream and I – I couldn't, I ..." He took a shuddering breath that dislodged a single tear from his lashes. "I felt her die. I couldn't save her."

Oh. Oh.

Fuck.

Karen was faster. She pulled Matt against her, tucking his head under her chin and holding him close as she caught Foggy's eye over his shaggy head. She had understood too.

Matt wasn't just talking about IGH.

"I should be dead!" he spat suddenly, curling in on himself and breaking Karen's hold, his voice thick with a supressed shout. "I should've died in that pit, with her, then none – none of this – there wouldn't be – she'd still – be – here –!"

His fists were in his hair now, shaking the long strands as the words cut him from the heart. Strangled half-groans crawled through his gritted teeth and he was in a ball now, trembling and gasping and Foggy just flat out snapped.

He took hold of Matt's shoulders and shook him out of the foetal position – which quickly transpired to be a terrible move because now Matt looked scared as well as anguished as his hands flew out to push into Foggy's chest, the stance cautionary, defensive. Trying not to think about how he'd never really seen Matt scared before today, Foggy grabbed onto his anger and let the guilt take a freaking number.

"I swear to god, Matthew, if you ever say shit like that again I don't care how ninja-y you are, I will kick your ass!"

"Foggy!" He didn't even spare Karen a glance.

"You think you should've died down there? Why, 'cause of Elektra? Because you couldn't save an evil corporation-full of people while you were being tortured? Because it's your job to save everyone but god forbid anyone's allowed save you? Matt, look at me!" He waited, fuming, until the dark eyes were aimed at his jaw. "You made me a promise. Do you remember? You promised me I wouldn't lose you. And for six godawful months I thought you'd broken it. Someday I might tell you how shitty it is to live without your best friend, knowing you helped kill him, knowing you wasted fucking months being pissed off over stuff that doesn't fucking matter in the end! I thought you were dead, Matt," he said slowly and clearly, making sure every word got through whatever haze was clinging to those chocolate eyes. "And today I get a miracle I didn't even believe in enough to really wish for – you're alive. You're here, now!" He shifted his grip on Matt's shoulders, emphasising his words. "Somehow I get a second chance! Somehow – after everything, after – after all this time, you –" He took a sharp breath and forged on, his anger spluttering into something far less impressive as another battalion of tears made it over the no-man's land of his lashes.

"Somehow you still kept your promise." He could hardly breathe around the hot pressure in his chest. "So don't you say you should've died, Matt. Don't you do that. Because this, this right here?" He tightened his grip. "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. You are the best. Goddamn. Thing."

The hand over Foggy's heart shook against his shirt. The fingers slowly curled into fists, the material bunching as it was pulled, the glasses straining in his other hand. Matt's eyes were as naked as Foggy has ever seen them, and even though they couldn't make eye contact, something new past unsaid between them. With a shuddering breath, his shoulders sagged beneath Foggy's grip.

And a second later, Matt slumped forward into his arms with a quiet sob.

AN: There is more to come but the next chapter may be a day or two in publishing because life is busy and I may need to take the weekend for sleeping. Hope you're enjoying!