Karen calls in sick the next day by way of an email. Foggy would honestly rather not even deal with her at the moment so he's not exactly put out being down an employee for the day. Matt doesn't seem to care one way or another, just asks Foggy to set the incoming calls to his office phone which Foggy does though he says he will switch it to his own phone for the afternoon. Matt waters Karen's flowers. They go on about their day as normal.
By the next day Foggy has regained his inner chill. It helps that Karen was not in his face the day before and that Matt had been calm and focused on work, totally not hucking office supplies around or throwing mini shit fits. When Foggy arrives in the morning he sees Karen and Matt holed up in Matt's office but there's no raised voices, nothing is going flying and nobody is in tears so he leaves them to it and starts on his own work. By mid morning he's got stuff to discuss with Matt and so heads to his office and plops down in the chair opposite the desk. And that's about the time he notices something new on Matt's desk.
Matt's desk is normally completely and totally boring. It usually has exactly no personal effects tucked away amongst the paper files and various pieces of equipment. Foggy has been trying for years to get him to put something, anything that's fun and not directly work related on there but no matter what he gives him it gets tucked away into a drawer and the desk stays sad and boring. And he's said this repeatedly from the time they shared a dorm up until as recently as a few weeks ago. He's gone so far as to insist the state of the desk makes him depressed FOR Matt, just seeing it all sad and "worky" but to no avail. All fun, decorative and not directly tied to work items are always stashed away despite the fact that Matt would never actually have to look at them.
So it comes as a surprise to see there's a new addition that's definitely not work related. And Foggy instantly fears for its safety cause its definitely the right size and placement to be the next victim of Matt's inner house cat channeled rage.
"Uh, what is that?" he asks, files in hand instantly forgotten.
"It's a fish," Matt says sounding decidedly happy about this new addition.
"Yeah but … why?"
"Karen got him for me. She said he's very pretty. He's a betta fish and he can breath air!"
"He is pretty," Foggy confirms, still not getting the why or how of this random addition to Matt's desk. He thinks this is possibly the stupidest thing anybody has ever bought Matt given that he can't see it and obviously shouldn't touch it. Or at least he thinks that right up until Matt puts a finger against the little glass bowl exactly where the fish's face is. He proceeds to somehow get said fish to follow his finger around the bowl as he traces a path against the glass. So that answers that – Matt can definitely tell where the fish is within the bowl. When he stops moving his finger the fish proceeds to pretty much ram his little face against the glass and puff up all his fins like it wants to go into battle with the offending digit. And somehow Matt's able to sense the reaction cause he promptly gets an idiotic grin on his face as the fish silently rages in his little glass prison.
Okay sure, maybe this is not such a bad idea after all. Maybe Matt will be less likely to keep throwing shit if there's something breakable and alive at hand. Maybe its will help curb that impulse.
"You know you have to name him, right?"
Matt looks terribly serious as he withdraws the finger and the fish stops his concentrated attack of the glass.
After a moment Matt announces, "Thurgood Marshall," nodding to himself.
"Of course," Foggy says, head shaking but a fond smile creeps across his face.
As it turns out Matt ends up adoring the fish and after the first time the glass bowl almost gets chucked across the room several weeks later, Matt reins in his temper at the last possible second and carefully sets down the bowl. He literally apologizes to the fish. Out loud. Unbelievably, it does seem to mostly cure him of the propensity to throw random shit around the office. If for no other reason than that the fish becomes a welcome mascot and a running joke. When Matt gets too fired up both Foggy and Karen take to suggesting (or fake reminding if a client is present) that Matt has a meeting with Mr. Marshall in his office. Surprisingly, Matt doesn't find this condescending and actually does go disappear into his office for awhile to calm down and play with the fish. Though neither Foggy nor Karen can figure out how, Matt inexplicably trains Marshall to take wild leaps above the water surface to jump through hoops made of bent paperclips. Its not long before Karen takes the in-office joke live and literally starts answering the phone, "Nelson, Murdock, Page and Marshall," which amuses all of them more than it should. Things only start to get awkward when a client insists on personally meeting their paralegal Mr. Marshall to thank him for all his hard work on her case. Foggy, who started the story that Marshall was a behind the scenes assistant to Matt, scrambles up a story that Mr. Marshall, while being a brilliant legal assistant, has crippling social anxiety and is unable to meet with clients. He says they value their employee so very much for his skills but respect his considerable mental health impairments, poor guy would not likely be employable anywhere else, but they are, as a firm, committed to offering an employment opportunity to him. Its all fun and games till a local paper gets wind of the tall tale and wants to do a feature on their inclusive hiring practices… but that's another story entirely.
All of which is to say Matt adores the fish in a way they never saw coming and the effects of the tiny mascot turn out to be overwhelmingly positive.
While Foggy never hears a word of what was said between the two, he decides Karen has adequately made up for her mistakes with Matt by offering a very well received apology gift.