Chapter 5: You always know where to start. You just never know when to stop

In the end, it's Olivia who finds Matt.

Well. She doesn't exactly find him per se, it's more that she lures him into showing his face.

After Foggy walks out on his sister – and right now he can't even think about her or the things she said without wanting to punch something –, the kids insist on helping him and Karen look for Matt. So Foggy grabs Oli and marches left, towards the main avenue, while Karen grabs Ruthie and turns right, in direction to the local park, while Colin waits dejectedly at home, in case Matt shows up on his own.

For a whole three blocks, Olivia doesn't say a word. Which is more worrisome than Foggy can deal with at the moment. He himself can't think of anything to say to reassure her either.

"It's my fault," she blurts out, after they've talked to a man doing his morning jog and he's said he hasn't seen anyone else wandering the neighborhood the whole morning.

"What are you talking about?" Foggy demands, distractedly. If he was a emotional wreckage, blind man with super senses, where would he go to hide from his problems?

"It's my fault everyone got upset," Oli elaborates, refusing to meet his eyes. "It's because of what I said that Matt left and mom shouted at you. I should have kept my mouth shut. I'm sorry, Uncle Foggy."

Foggy freezes in his tracks, causing the girl to collide with him. Lowering himself until his at eye level with her, he puts his hands on her bony shoulders and waits until she tilts her head back up before speaking. "Olivia, it's not your fault. You have nothing to apologize for." Foggy runs a desperate hand through his hair and wishes he still had long strands to pull on. "You just– You were just brave enough to say what none of us dared to."

The girl shakes her head violently. Tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. "I always ruin everything. I ruined my parents marriage and now I've pushed Matt away again, just when he started to visit us again."

Foggy frowns, bewildered. "Oli, your mom and dad splitting up has nothing to do with you," he explains. "Their fight is between them and them alone, do you understand that?"

"It was me who asked mom about dad's friend," she confesses. "But I didn't know! I had no idea mom would be so upset. I didn't want them to fight."

Foggy has to hold in an inappropriate curse. How could Candace and Henry have missed this?

"Listen to me very carefully," he says, desperate for her to believe him. "None of this is your fault. Not your parents' divorce, and certainly not the shit going on with Matt and me. I'm sorry we made you feel like it was."

Olivia nods tearfully, but she seems marginally less upset.

"Now," Foggy straightens, looking around, "let's continue our hunt."

His niece suddenly perks up. "Wait. I think I have an idea!" She exclaims, sounding excited about being able to help.

"I'm all ears," Foggy replies, intrigued about what she could have come up with.

"Follow me," she commands, walking briskly towards the avenue.

As they approach the main street, Foggy notices the increase of people and traffic. Many stores are closed, seeing as it's Christmas Eve, but many others are still working.

In a narrow part of the sidewalk, he has to stop to let an old couple go through. When he looks up again, he's lost sight of Olivia.

"Oli!" He shouts, searching left and right for her, to no avail. He wonders if she's gone into one of the shops and starts to peek through the glass windows.

"Shit," he hears a man close by curse. "What's that kid doing?!"

Turning around, Foggy follows the man's line of sight. He almost collapses at what he sees.

"Olivia!" He screams, dashing in her direction.

She's standing in right in the middle of the avenue, stepping over the yellow lines that divide the road between the cars coming and going. Closing her eyes, she begins to walk, putting one foot in front of the other, as if the double lines were some sort of tightrope in a circus, and she was a performer.

What's she thinking?

"Olivia! Come here right now!" Foggy orders. He's reached the asphalt, but the traffic is too intense for him to safely cross.

Around him, other people seem to realize something's wrong too. From the other side of the street, people try to approach, but the cars and motorcycles are moving too fast.

"Oli!" Foggy bellows, not caring in the slightest if he sounds like a lunatic.

She seems to slip. There's some oil on the ground, and when she steps on it, Olivia almost loses her balance. She manages to straighten up in the last minute, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a motorcyclist who is passing a car through the left. The man honks and shouts, and the girl falters in her steps, suddenly looking frightened.

Foggy's heart beats so loudly in his ears that he can barely hear the people around him screaming. He starts to move forwards before he even knows what he's doing. He'd rather risk getting hit by a car than let his niece be hurt.

He steps into the asphalt, not looking anywhere but at Olivia. Then, something pulls him back by the collar of his shirt. All he sees is a flash of bright red and all he hears is the deafening sound of the truck that would have hit him, had he proceeded to cross.

Before Foggy gets the chance to twist around, someone – a man – is stepping over and in front of him. Quickly dashing through moving cars, he reaches the yellow lines. He puts his hands on Olivia's shoulders, making her turn to him. Then, he says something to her, to which she nods, once.

Foggy sees Matt – with neither cane nor glasses – pull Olivia into his arms and sprint back the way he came, placing the shaking girl neatly into Foggy's reach.

It all happens so fast that Foggy doesn't have time to worry about his friend getting killed, or getting his niece killed, or being found out.

Around them, people are applauding and clapping Matt on the back, congratulating him on the miraculous save.

A mother of three is frowning at Foggy, telling him that he shouldn't let his daughter wander off like that.

Olivia is hugging him like he's a lifeboat and she's in the middle of a ship wreckage. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she's mumbling against his belly. "It was a bad idea. I'm really sorry."

Matt is standing right in front of them. He has one hand on Foggy's elbow, and the other on Olivia's back, like he's making sure they are both really there. His hands are shaking. Without his glasses, Matt's expression is an open book for Foggy to read from. The fear and relief are clear and to be expected, but the guilt and the regret take Foggy by surprise. Matt tries to direct his eyes in the general direction of Foggy's, but as always he misses by an inch or two.

"I-I," his friend stutters out, and Foggy is abruptly reminded of Matt's speechlessness during breakfast. It's been less than an hour, but it feels like a long time has passed.

"Let's get out of here," Foggy decides for the three of them. Holding tightly to Olivia's hand, he pulls her forwards, towards the direction of his parents' place. He does his best to ignore or sidestep the small crowd around them; assuring those who ask that yes, they're fine, no, they don't need to call an ambulance, and yes, he's taking her home now.

Matt gets in step with them, walking confidently, like a sighted person.

"I know a shortcut," he says, and leads them into a side street that Foggy hadn't even known was there.

Then it's just the three of them in an empty passageway, protected from view by trees and bushes.

"Olivia," Foggy begins coming to a full stop. Now that the numbing fear has subsided, he's impossibly angry. He counts to ten as not to say something he'll regret. "Olivia. What the actual hell was that?" He asks, and if even he feels his voice trembling with barely-suppressed outrage, for Matt it must sound like an earthquake. "What were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed! You could have gotten me killed! You could have gotten Matt–"

He cuts himself mid-sentence.

A crazy, impossible idea comes to his mind.

"Olivia," he starts slowly, watching as the girl fidgets under his implacable, badass-lawyer stare. "Did you put yourself in danger because you knew Matt would come to save you?" He asks, disbelieving.

A tiny nod. "Yeah," she mutters, still refusing to meet his eyes.

Foggy turns to Matt, who's leaning with his back to a wall covered in green moss. Foggy spares a second to wonder how in seven-hells had moss grown there, of all places, before shaking himself out of it. Matt's eyes are closed, and he seems to be trying to get his breathing under control. He doesn't seem surprised or worried about the recent revelations. In truth, he doesn't seem to be paying much attention to them at all.

"How–How did you know?" Foggy inquires, looking back at Olivia. "And don't lie," he adds, before his niece has a chance to open her mouth.

Oli's gaze flickers to Matt, before returning to her shoes.

"You remember my 6th birthday?" She asks in return. "It was May 14 2012," she says, without waiting for him to reply. "The day–"

"The day of the Incident," Foggy interrupts. "Yeah. How could I ever forget the panicked running around for our lives?"

"Matt saved us that day," Olivia tells him, ignoring his attempt at humor. "You didn't see it. You had your back turned. But I did."

Foggy wracks his brain to recall the details of that day. It had been Oli's birthday, and he and Matt had taken her to choose her gift. They would have a test or something on the day of her party, and as they wouldn't be able to attend, they were making it up by going out with her that day. They had just left the subway when Foggy heard the screams. Then, it was a blur of people, and crashing cars, and the police trying to evacuate the area, and fucking aliens. Foggy had held on to Matt with one hand and grasped Oli with the other and he hadn't let go until it was all over.

"We were running, trying to get away," the girl continues. "Those aliens were flying over us, smashing things, breaking windows – glass was flying everything. I was so scared," she visibly shivers at the memory. "And then, a huge stone block got loose. I just saw it when it was already coming towards us. In the last second, Matt pushed us out of the way. He couldn't possibly have known, but still, somehow, he did."

Foggy remembers that moment with clarity. He remembers toppling forwards, having the breath knocked out of him by the impact. He remembers looking back and thinking that it was sheer, dumb luck they hadn't been killed.

In reality, it had been Matt all along.

"Shit," Foggy says, and the word can't begin to express how he really feels about it. "So that's how you knew."

Olivia is nodding emphatically. "It was then that I figured out that Matt can predict the future."

Sure, that's how she–

The what?

"Hold up," Matt suddenly says, straightening up and focusing on them. "What do you mean, 'predict the future'?" He asks. And finally – finally – Foggy isn't the only one looking completely lost.

Olivia's eyes widen. And now they are not one, or two, but three very confused people.

"Do you mean you can't see the future?" She demands, sounding almost offended. Like, how could Mat have disappointed her like that? "Then how did you know about the falling block? How did you know about the turkey catching fire? How did you know when to cross the street to get me?"

Foggy looks at Matt, and Matt turns his face towards Foggy's.

Then, Matt gives him his 'your witness' gesture and Foggy sighs.

They don't tell Candace about what happened. Of course they don't. She would freak out and then ask questions none of them had a good – truthful – answer to.

But before returning home, they do tell the truth to Olivia. Or at least, the PG-rated version of it.

Matt explains how his senses got heightened after the accident that blinded him, and how he uses cues like sounds and smells to sort of 'see' the world.

"So you're kind of like a bat," the girl concludes, as they're walking down the street to the Nelsons. She doesn't appear weirded out. She mostly sounds curious and impressed. "With a sonar and everything."

Matt – who has retrieved his cane and glasses from the mysterious place he stashed them before running to the rescue – shrugs. "Yeah, something like that."

"Neat," Olivia comments with an approving nod. "It's almost as cool as you being a seer."

Foggy clears his throat. "Listen Oli," he begins, careful with how he'll put it. "It's very important that you don't speak about this with anyone, okay? Not even with your mother, or with your brother and sister. It's supposed to be a secret."

"Why?" She ask, not doubtful or disagreeing, just intrigued.

Foggy glances at Matt, helpless.

"Because these abilities," Foggy tries, slowly speaking the words as they come to him, "make Matt different from everyone, you see." He pauses, thinking. "And being different sometimes is good, don't get me wrong!" He quickly adds, as so not to give her the wrong idea. "But it can be dangerous too. People might want to use Matt's abilities for their own ends. Or they might call him a freak and do experimentos on him." At that, Matt huffs indignantly, but keeps silent, letting Foggy lead. "So we got to protect him, alright?"

"Alright," Oli easily agrees. "I can keep a secret," she promises.

When they get home, Karen and Ruthie have already returned. Besides Ruthie and Colin's exalted questions about where Matt's been and how did Foggy and Olivia find him – which they brush off with little issue – everyone else acts like nothing has happened, which Foggy can tell Matt really appreciates.

He kind of expects Candace to be outright rude to him, or at least to shoot some passive-aggressive comments his way, but her demeanor is meak and the most offensive thing she does towards him is to avoid his eyes when crossing with him in the corridor.

The rest of the morning goes by without incident. Matt does play Marco-Polo with Ruth and the others, and even hops Karen into participating as well, much to Foggy's delight.

The three friends don't really get a chance to speak in private until well after lunch.

"So, what really happened?" Karen asks without preamble, when they're finally alone.

They are sitting around an improvised picnic table Foggy's mom put in the backyard. The rest of the family is inside, either watching TV, taking a nap or doing something in the kitchen. They told the others they wanted to enjoy the sun and the warmth while they could, and had been left to it.

"Why do you think something happened?" Foggy asks back, just to mess with her. (And, if he's being honest with himself, to delay the inevitable talk.)

Karen huffs, impatient, waving her hand at him. "Olivia can't stop grinning like a maniac whenever her eyes fall on Matt," she points out. "You, Foggy, seem to be on the verge of having a heart attack every time she opens her mouth to speak. And you, Matt, just– Something always happens with you. It's like you attract these things."

That makes Matt chuckle, but the sound is dark and sour in a way that makes Foggy uncomfortable. Matt's expression is closed off, and Foggy wishes he hadn't put his glasses on again.

"You may have a point," Matt concedes, trying to go for a cocky smirk, but doesn't quite manage to pull it off.

"She has many points, buddy," Foggy corrects, and proceeds to narrate their adventure.

Matt fills in the parts Foggy hadn't been around to witness. Like how Matt had been about three blocks away from them when he heard Foggy calling Olivia's name, and how he had rushed as fast as he could in the unknown terrain and almost didn't manage to arrive on time.

When they get to the part about Olivia believing for years that Matt's some sort of fortune teller, Karen loses it.

"I mean," Matt tries to defend himself, "I realized she's been suspicious of me since that day. The first few months she kept trying to trick me into revealing that I knew things I couldn't have known. After a while she seemed to have let it go. But I never thought that's what she came up with."

"That girl is something else," Karen manages to say, finally calming down. Foggy can still see the flush in her cheeks after laughing so hard. "The three of them are, actually," she adds thoughtfully.

Foggy would have brushed that comment off, but something in her voice – or her heart, or her breathing, or her freaking saliva – must catch Matt's attention, because he tilts his face curiously in her direction.

"How so?" He inquires.

Karen bites her lips, looking away for a moment. "After we came back, Ruth, Colin and I talked for a bit, and I realized something." She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, turning back towards them, smiling a small smile, with an edge of irony to it. "It's naïve how we, as adults, seem to think we'll able to protect our children if we simply avoid saying certain things in front of them. In reality, we're just protecting ourselves."

"What did they tell you?" Foggy asks quietly.

Karen grimaces a little, shrugging with one shoulder. "They mentioned their parents' divorce, and how it's been difficult at home. Olivia seems to be taking it particularly hard, according to the others."

"Yeah," Foggy interjects. "We spoke briefly about that. It's really fucked up."

They are silent for a few minutes, each lost in their thoughts.

Foggy wants to say something. He knows he and Matt need to talk about what the kids brought up at breakfast. About how to deal with his family's suspicions and hidden accusations. About the things that are still unsaid between them. But he fears that if he speaks of them, the barriers between the two of them will grow thicker. There's so much hurt and bitterness between them, and Foggy's tired of fighting, but he doesn't know how to talk about these things without it turning into a fight.

He doesn't want to have to walk away again, but he's afraid Matt will give him reason to.

"What did you tell her, anyway?" Matt suddenly asks, and for a moment Foggy's confused about to whom he's speaking.

"What?" Karen retorts, a little too quickly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Matt's raised eyebrows can be seen even behind his dark lenses. "I mean," he elaborates, "what did you say to Candace to get her so worked up?"

Foggy lets his mouth fall open in sudden understanding. "So that's why she's acting so strange. I thought she was just feeling guilty about our argument."

The fact that neither of his friends has to ask to which argument he's referring is a little disconcerting.

"I didn't tell her anything she didn't already know," Karen explains, unhelpfully. "I just mentioned a few things that might have, well, slipped her mind."

"For example?" Matt prompts.

"For example," Karen answers, voice calm and composed. Only the spark in her eyes betrays her true sentiments. "I pointed out how the circumstances of her divorce are completely different and unrelated to what happened between her brother and his best friend, and how it's totally unhelpful and unreasonable for her to project her issues into other people's relationships just to avoid dealing with her own stuff. I might have also observed that her brother is a responsible, educated adult, who's able to take care of himself and make his own decisions. And that if he chooses to remain friends with someone, then he must have a good reason for it, one that he may or may not choose to disclose to other people."

A beat of silence.

"Oh. My. God." Foggy says, just a little over the top with the dramatics. "You verbally obliterated my sister. Shit. You totally did! I wish I could have been there to witness it. Please tell me you made a recording of it."

Karen giggles at his antics, and even Matt can't suppress his amused grin.

"I plead the fifth," she replies, grinning in that mischievous, secretly-proud way she sometimes gets after writing an especially good article for the paper or cracking a particularly difficult case.

"I knew we shouldn't have taught Karen legal vocabulary," Foggy tells Matt in mock-despair. "Remind me again why we thought it was a good idea to give her even for ammunition against us?"

Chuckling despite himself, Matt takes a moment to think about the answer. "I believe it had something to do with the fact that Karen manages to get more done at the office than the two of us put together."

"Darn, you're right!" He replies, fisting the air. "Where would Nelson & Murdock be without Page?" Foggy asks, only half-joking.

"Absolutely lost," Matt replies, 100% serious.