Chapter 6

They were hunched over the table with the chessboard between them when he entered the apartment, although none of the pieces was in its correct place on the board. Foggy wasn't sure if he should be thankful that they'd attempted to make things appear to be on the up and up or annoyed that they definitely weren't.

He plastered a smile on his face until he'd reached a final decision. "Hey guys. How's everything going?" Matt glanced up. His glasses were nowhere to be found. He still insisted upon wearing those things around Karen most of the time. Foggy shook his head with a little too much disgust for Matt to let slide.

"What?" Matt demanded.

"I didn't say anything," Foggy maintained.

"You gave me a look." He turned to Liz for confirmation. "Did he give me a look?"

She stood from her place at the table, her hand casually grazing Matt's as she moved around him. "Why don't I head to the market while you guys talk?" She grabbed Matt's sweatshirt from the couch with the list they'd made a bit earlier. The door closed behind her a few seconds later.

Foggy rubbed his eyes. "Oh my God, Matt. Must you sleep with every woman who comes in contact with you?"

"I never slept with Karen." It was the first thing that came to his mind for some reason.

Foggy threw his hands in the air. "Well, I guess that's something."

"Let's not do this." Not now. Not ever. Matt wanted to add.

"Did you forget what you were doing this time last week? What we all were doing this time last week?"

"No. I didn't, but maybe just for once I'm going to forgo the guilt and sadness and just do what I want to do."

"Right."

"What's that supposed to mean?" huffed Matt.

"It means that you'll do what you always do. You'll have your fling with a beautiful girl, and then things will go sour, and you'll go all super-duper repentant Catholic with the sackcloth and ashes and whatever. And I had prepared myself for the Elektra fiasco, but I'm not ready for round two to come so soon."

"This isn't about you," Matt shot. "None of this is about you."

Foggy shook his head as he paced the length of the kitchen, his ire growing the more he thought about what Matt was undoubtedly doing would mean for all of them. "Not directly, but it affects me. Whatever affects you affects me. Have we not been through this before?" He finished his last lap in front of the table, and punctuated his question with a smack of his hand on its surface.

"Stop that. And stop yelling."

He took a deep breath and lowered the volume of his voice as he attempted to control his temper with a hard exhalation. "I'm really not yelling."

"It sounds like you're yelling."

"To you. Not everything you perceive is how it truly is, Matt. Remember?"

"I know, Foggy. Please let's not do this again." If letting Foggy have that point would de-escalate the situation, he'd give it up.

He paused for a fraction of a second, but Matt heard the acceleration of Foggy's pulse just before his voice rose half an octave and about 25 decibels as he started in again. "We don't know anything about her!"

Matt kept his cool now, although he struggled. "I don't ever know anything about any of them, not really."

"And you don't see this as a problem?" Foggy's heart rate continued to race, even though his voice returned a little closer to normal timber and volume.

Matt closed his eyes as he spoke. "I know you won't believe this, but she's different."

"And what brings you to that conclusion?"

"She just is." Matt sighed. "I think."

"Matt!"

Matt felt his own patience wearing thin. "We can't all get a Karen, Foggy," he snapped back.

"You could have had the actual Karen!" Foggy pointed out, as though this would be news to Matt, that he should have already thought of it.

Matt shook his head. "I was just a crush for her. You two could make a real go of it."

Foggy stopped, blinked three or four times and dropped into what had been Liz's seat. "You know about that? Of course you know about that."

"I'm happy for both of you. Truly."

"So this is about that?" Fatigue crept into Foggy's voice and quickly permeated his body. He couldn't help it that he was finally happy and Matt wasn't. He wasn't going to apologize for that.

Matt shook his head again. "I like pretty, smart, well-educated women with some fire in them. Is that so terrible?"

"It really isn't." It wasn't. Foggy felt a little unreasonable, but this never ended well.

"And she knows the truth. That has to make a difference." Matt sounded so hopeful. He almost believed himself.

Foggy nodded. "It did to Claire," he pointed out.

Matt closed his eyes against that thought. "I know. And I can't be sure that she won't change her mind when she's patching me up every other night, but for now we have a little time to get to know one another."

"Or, here's another idea that I'm going to throw out there - maybe you could just stop going out there every night, and no one would have to patch you up."

"Foggy."

"I know. I know." He really did. "But I'm still going to suggest it every now and then," he offered as an unspoken truce, effectively ending this portion of the conversation.

Matt sat quietly for another two or three minutes before he spoke. "She's back. Go down and help her with the bags."

"Sure." Foggy didn't move.

"She wants to make dinner for the four of us."

"Karen said she, um, bathed you last night?"

Matt unlocked the chair's brakes. "It wasn't like that."

"You weren't naked?"

Matt ignored him. "Please go help her! She's already on the second floor."

Foggy stood with a huff. "Why didn't you give her the elevator key?"

"I didn't think about it as she was rushing out of here to avoid the awkward tension between us. It's on the counter, I think."

"Okay," Foggy conceded.

"You're going to have to take the stairs now. She's halfway here."

"Is she part mountain goat?"

Matt glared at him; Foggy got the idea. He walked toward the door with a sigh and a shake of the head.

"I didn't sleep with her Foggy." Matt confessed to his friend's back.

"It's only a matter of time." Foggy mumbled, knowing that would be more than loud enough for Matt to hear him, before he walked back through the front door.

Matt needed a drink. He hoped Liz had thought to bring a six-pack. Or a case. It was completely true that Foggy knew him better than anyone, and he'd been the one picking Matt up off the floor, literally and figuratively, for the better part of the past eight years. Matt didn't always show the best judgment in regards to beautiful women, especially those with spectacular character flaws. That fact had been entered into evidence many, many times over. And he was smack-dab in the middle of an emotional roller coaster, which couldn't be helpful to the decision-making process. Matt didn't blame his best friend, his only real friend, for worrying about his next potential move with Liz.

The two of them returned a few minutes later, Foggy obviously having convinced Liz to utilize the elevator key from the fourth floor up, as neither was too out of breath despite the parcels in their arms when they returned.

"Does it matter where we put these things, Matt?" Liz asked as she entered the kitchen.

"I'm not walking anywhere right now, so knock yourself out."

Liz turned to Foggy as they deposited the bags on the counter. "If I'm going to be here for a little bit, you guys should at least get home-cooked meals out of it. I have a feeling that neither of you eats anything that didn't come from a Styrofoam container more often than once a month."

"Wait, who said you're staying?" Matt inquired. He turned to Foggy. "Who says she's staying?"

Foggy raised his eyebrows at Liz who indicated she would field this. "I moved some shifts around so I can be around here for the next week or so. That frees up Foggy and Karen to take care of your clients and your office." She took the seat beside him before she continued. "And hopefully by next week you'll be mobile enough to make it in there yourself."

"Maybe," Matt hoped.

Liz touched the inside of his wrist where she had earlier. "And once you're using the crutches well, navigating here will be no problem."

"Yeah. I guess." He pushed the wheelchair back from the table. They'd tried to keep the transfers at a minimum today after Matt's solo foray, as all the anesthesia from the day before was long gone, and Matt had blanched with pain a few more times since the roof. "But what about the office? What am I going to do about that?"

"I can stop by in the morning to pick you up," Foggy offered. "It might be smarter and easier to use the chair to get you to there, but then it doesn't matter how you move around if it's just us."

They both waited for Matt to consider this. Finally, he nodded. "That might work."

"You'll see Jim in about two weeks, and he'll let us, or you, know how things are going and a time frame of what to expect," Liz added. "Do you remember talking to him afterwards?"

Matt shook his head. "No."

"Not surprising. You were just waking up."

Matt nodded, feeling increasingly exhausted and not really wanting to talk about this anymore. "Can I have some water?" he asked, his throat suddenly parched. "And then I think I'm gonna take a nap." Foggy shot a glance toward Liz. That wasn't normal. Not for Matt. Liz filled a glass and sat it in front of him. She rested the back of her hand on his forehead. Foggy realized that Matt let her before he declared, "I don't have a fever."

She turned her hand ever so slightly so that her fingers brushed the stubble on the angle of his jaw. "I know. Habit." She recognized that she'd kept her hand on his face a little too long and pulled it back. "But you should rest now. Foggy?"

The other man stood back, watching in disbelief. Although, why shouldn't he believe it? What he was witnessing was hardly a rare occurrence. Women could not resist what Foggy jokingly called the "wounded handsome duck thing." And Matt always took full advantage of the superficiality it. Only this girl knew everything, and it really didn't seem to matter to her the way it had to Claire. Matt hadn't said anything about that past "It just didn't work out," because none of them really did in the long run, but Jesus. Again? And so soon after the last one? Foggy didn't know if he could suffer through another of Matt's heartbreaks, even if Matt thought he could.

But Matt needed him right now, and he could help. "Yeah. Sure." Liz helped Matt move the chair, her hand on his and he retreated both of his to his lap. That was new, too, watching Matt give in to help. Foggy faltered.

Matt spoke as though he'd read Foggy's mind. "I thought this is what you wanted. For me to just sit here."

"Couch or bed?" was all he could manage in reply.

Matt pondered for a second. "Bed. No, couch." That would keep him in the action, provided there was any more action. He tried his hardest to help Foggy help him, despite what had just transpired between them. But he quickly realized he proved to be little more than dead weight. He sighed for the hundredth time in the past hour as he pulled the plush blanket around him.

Meanwhile Liz busied herself in the kitchen with unpacking the groceries. "Foggy, dinner?" she asked as she held up a box of pasta.

"I guess I don't have anything else planned."

"He'll stay," Matt piped up from his repose on the couch. "Somebody should call Karen."

"She had a spin class. She'll be over after that," Foggy revealed.

"Oh." Matt closed his eyes as Foggy propped his left leg with an extra pillow. "Thanks, Foggy," he managed, his voice thick with sleep.

Liz assembled the ingredients she needed on the counter top. "Everything will be ready in about an hour."

"I'll be up on the roof," Foggy decided as he turned away from Matt. "Will you send Karen up when she gets here?"

"Sure," Liz affirmed as she began filling pans with water as she watched Foggy ascend the stairs. She glanced toward Matt on the couch. His back faced her, and his breathing settled into a slower pattern, but she had the sneaky suspicion that he wasn't actually asleep. Liz could imagine the gist of the conversation the two men had undertaken while she'd been gone. Foggy's pinched expression when he arrived to help her with the groceries had said plenty even if he hadn't. Liz sensed that she should probably steer well clear of Matt Murdock and this whole mess, but somehow she knew in the depths of herself that she wouldn't.

TBC

A/N: Thank you for your continued interest, reads, favorites and follows.