"I want to marry that woman," Foggy sighed.

Matt chuckled at the comment...which, apparently, was echoing the laughter he heard coming from Lanie on the other side of the lab. "i think she's already married, Foggy."

"Damn it!" Foggy cursed in frustration. "Why are all the good ones taken..."

Beckett shared in the amusement of the moment. "You two sound like you're feeling better."

Foggy nodded in agreement...which sent his memory back to why they had gone to the healer in the first place. "So now that we're not having to listen to the explanation through nasty migraines, talk. What happened to us back there?"

"The connection between a Sentinel and his Guide is one of the strongest bonds in the universe," Blair explained. "That test was designed specifically to see if you two have that bond."

"I guess we do," agreed Matt.

Blair nodded. "That bond was what you guys were feeling tugging at your brains...but when you laughed, it broke the connection. As a result, you got a nasty case of spiritual whiplash from snapping back into your own heads unexpectedly..."

"Hold it," Foggy broke in, shaking his head in disbelief, "Matt was in my head?!"

"That's why he was able to see," Blair agreed, nodding. "He was looking through your eyes."

Foggy gawked at Matt in amazement...while Matt was trying to recall every second of the experience. "That makes so much sense," he declared, thinking out loud.

"That makes sense to you?!" countered Foggy.

Matt nodded. "I was trying to figure out why I could see, but my hearing and sense of smell were nothing like they are normally. If I was using all of your senses, though, that would make sense."

The weight of what had happened in the context of his best friend's disability finally broke through to Foggy. "Wait a minute...you were seeing? Like, you had your eyes back again seeing?"

Matt smiled, glad to see that his friend had finally caught on. "Yeah, Foggy. For the minute or so that we were connected, I could see. My senses were all back to normal. Apparently, because they were yours." Matt then turned back to Blair. "There's just one thing I'm still not sure about, though. You said that when we laughed, we got distracted enough that it broke the connection."

"That's correct," said Blair.

"But we were talking just before that..." Matt insisted...until three heads around him were shaking 'no'. "We weren't talking?"

"Basic telepathy is a side effect of the link," Jim, to Blair's surprise, explained. "You weren't talking to each other. You were thinking to each other."

For Foggy, that last revelation was the straw that broke the camel's back. "Excuse me," he muttered as he staggered out of the lab. "I...I just need a minute..."

Blair started to go after Foggy, but Jim held him back, allowing Matt to be the one to run after his friend. "Let this one go, chief," Jim warned. "Sometimes things like this are best left to Sentinels and their Guides."

Memories of a hundred such conversations flooded Blair's mind as he reluctantly agreed.

#

Matt caught up to Foggy in what looked to be a dark, empty warehouse. Foggy was resting against a pillar, the light from the open doorway shining on him like a beacon and providing the only light in the room. "The Twilight Zone is a scary place," Matt announced, his voice echoing in the large space. "I thought you knew that."

"Thank you, Rod Serling," Foggy deadpanned.

Matt chuckled as he joined Foggy, sitting next to his friend so that both men could see. "You all right?" he asked, even though his senses already told him much of the answer to that question.

Foggy closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the pillar and sighed. "I thought we were coming here for you," he told Matt. "This is just..."

"I know," Matt agreed. The two sat in companionable silence for a while. "For what it's worth," Matt finally admitted, "that minute was one of the best moments of my life since my dad died."

"Really?" asked Foggy, the word heavy with hope and the need for reassurance.

Matt nodded. "When someone tells you you can't have something..."

"It becomes the one thing you want more than anything else," Foggy agreed, immediately understanding where his part...Sentinel was headed.

Matt nodded again. "When something like going blind happens to you, that feeling never goes away. Even after the doctors told me that the damage was 'permanent', after all the trauma counseling...hell, even after Stick tried to beat the desire out of me...it was always there, in the back of my mind. I wanted to see again. To feel normal, even if it was only for a couple of minutes. So as incredibly weird as the circumstances were..."

"You still got your wish," said Foggy.

"Yeah," said Matt. "Look, what happened out there scared me, too, okay? But..." He shuddered involuntarily as the memory of the Black Sky pushed itself back to the front of his mind. "You didn't see that kid, Foggy. You didn't feel what I felt in that kid's presence. I can't take him out on my own. And if Madame Gao really has control of that thing..."

Foggy sighed as Matt's words sunk in. "You think...you think I'm the one to help you with that?"

"I have no idea," Matt admitted. "But look what happened the first time we put your 'Guide' skills to the test. If that's step one of what we could potentially do as a team, then I want to see what else we can do."

Foggy sighed again, his energy building as his confidence grew. "Okay," he declared. "Then I guess I'm in, too." Foggy's hands started getting fidgety as he wished, more than anything, to be having this conversation in a bar. Over a couple of beers. "You know...if I had to go through this with anybody, I'm glad it's you."

"Same," Matt agreed.

Foggy stood up and pulled Matt up...then slowly walked around the pillar, taking in the starkness of his surroundings. "I wonder if it goes the other way," he mused.

"If what goes the other way?" asked Matt, not sure if he wanted to know the answer to that question.

"This...connection between us," Foggy replied. "Do you think maybe it might go the other way? Could...could I get to look through your eyes?"

"We can try," Matt replied. "If you're up for it."

Foggy's face lit up with an inspired smile. "I'm the one who brought it up, aren't I?"

"Okay," Matt agreed. "Sit back down and close your eyes."

The two men sat indian-style in the column of light coming from the doorway, their bodies facing each other and their eyes tightly closed. "You remember how to do this..." asked Matt.

"It's burned into my brain," Foggy insisted, cutting Matt off. "Shut up."

Matt had to stop himself from chuckling, biting his lip as the tug of the link beckoned to him. He gave in, opening his mind to the sensations and finding that the feelings weren't as awkward as they had been the first time. You there, Foggy? he thought.

Yeah, I'm here, Foggy replied.

It's less weird this time, right? asked Matt.

Foggy had to resist the urge to shake his head. Nope. Still pretty weird.

Well it's gonna get weirder in a second, Matt warned Foggy. I'm going to open my eyes. Remember, *don't* open yours!

The two men clearly felt Foggy's discomfort at the idea. Believe me, thought Foggy, that is *not* an experience I care to repeat.

Then you're ready? asked Matt.

Let's do this, Foggy declared.

Foggy gasped as Matt opened his eyes. Whoa...he exclaimed. *This* is what you see day in, day out, every day?

Yep, thought Matt. It's a little more crazy than a big, empty room, but yeah. This...is how I see the world. Most of the time.

Foggy felt himself gawking at the wisps of light and 'smoke' that refracted off of every line as Matt's heightened senses turned darkness into almost-dusk. I just thought your sight was blurry, but this...it's like looking through infrared goggles, thought Foggy. Kinda.

I wouldn't know, Matt thought with a mental chuckle. Ready?

Yeah, Foggy agreed. On three.

Once Matt closed his eyes, two minds thought as one. One...two...three...

The two men were smiling when they opened their eyes. "We did it," Foggy declared.

"Still think you can't handle life in the Twilight Zone?" asked Matt.

"Yes," Foggy insisted. "But I'm working on it."

"Glad to hear it." Matt and Foggy turned to find Blair standing in the doorway, blocking the light. "How're you doing?" asked Blair.

Matt helped Foggy back to a standing position. "Better," Foggy replied. "Thanks."

"Good," said Blair. "Then let's get moving. We've got a lot of work to do."

#