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Foggy Foggy dropped his briefcase in the entry hall of their apartment and flopped onto the living room couch next to Marci. He gave her a perfunctory kiss, then declared, “I can’t take it any more!”“Foggy Bear,” she said, knitting her brows worriedly, “what’s wrong?”Foggy sighed. “It’s Karen and Matt.”“They’re fighting?”“No. It’s worse. I almost wish they were fighting.”“Worse than fighting?” Marci asked, puzzled.Foggy frowned and shook his head. “They’re being a couple of idiots. You’d have to see it to believe it.”“Oh, I believe it,” Marci asserted. “What’re they doing?”“They’re acting like a couple of teenagers with a crush on each other. You know, acting all nonchalant, like, ‘nothing to see here, nope, not interested, just friends’.”“But they are? Interested?”“Big time,” Foggy assured her. “Karen’s out of the office a lot, you know, doing research, tracking down witnesses, stuff like that. You should see the expression on Matt’s face when he hears her coming back. He just lights up. But only for a second, before he shuts it down. Karen does the same thing when he comes back from court. And I’ve caught her gazing longingly at Matt a couple of times, when she didn’t know I was there. They’ve both got it bad, real bad.”“Do they know,” Marci asked, “how the other one feels?”“They have to,” Foggy told her. “I know Matt can’t see how Karen looks at him, but he can sense how she reacts to him. And I’m pretty sure Karen has caught the expression on Matt’s face when he hears her voice or notices that she’s there. But they keep putting on their little act. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.”“How so?”Foggy thought for a minute. “They think they’re putting one over on everyone, but in reality, you can see right through them. The way they talk to each other, you know, it’s just a little too casual, like they’re trying to convince themselves they’re just friends. And if they touch each other accidentally, it’s like they just touched a hot stove. Most of the time, I have to hide in my office so I don’t laugh in their faces.” After a moment, he added, “And that’s not even the worst of it.”“Do I even want to know?” Marci muttered under her breath.“I swear, when the two of them are there, the office feels like a pheromone swamp. I can almost see the pheromones flying around. And I bet Matt can smell them. Honestly, sometimes I just wish they’d go into the conference room and jump each other’s bones right there on the table.” Marci shuddered. “Ewww.”“OK, OK, I know. I don’t really want them to do that. We eat lunch at that table. But things can’t go on like this. There has to be a way to get their heads out of their asses.”“Hmmm.” Marci snuggled closer to Foggy and thought for a minute. “Maybe you should fix them up.”“Fix them up?” Foggy asked. “You mean, fix them up with someone else and try to make them jealous?”“We could do that,” Marci replied, “but that’s not what I have in mind. I think we should fix them up with each other.”After she explained her plan, Foggy considered it for a moment. “That just might work.” He kissed her, then said, “You know you’re brilliant, right?”Marci nodded happily and curled up with her head on his shoulder.
Foggy was the first to arrive at the office the next morning. Karen would be out of the office, doing research at the County Clerk’s office, until at least lunchtime. Foggy took advantage of her absence to make his pitch to Matt. A half hour after Matt arrived, he strolled into Matt’s office and took a seat on one of the client chairs. “You know, Murdock, you’ve been falling down on the job lately,” Foggy began.Matt raised his eyebrows quizzically. “What do you mean?”“I mean, my friend, that you’re not living up to your reputation as a ladies’ man. That famous Murdock charm is going to waste. You need female companionship.”“Let me guess,” Matt observed dryly, adjusting his glasses, “you have someone in mind.” He came out from behind his desk and sat on it, facing Foggy.“I do indeed,” Foggy confirmed. “A friend of Marci’s, Katherine Booker. Her friends call her ‘Kate’.” Matt waved his hand as if to say, “go on.” “She and Marci were friends in college. After college, Kate went to the New School and got a Ph.D. in clinical psych, specializing in kids and teenagers.”“Wait a minute,” Matt interrupted. “Let me see if I have this right. You think the right woman for me is a kiddie shrink?”“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but now that you mention it – ” Foggy broke off when Matt punched him in the upper arm. “Ow!” he exclaimed. He rubbed his arm, then said, “But you have to admit, she would know how to handle it when you get all dark and broody like you do.”“It’s called depression, Fog,” Matt said quietly. “It’s a real thing. And, for the record, I don’t need someone to ‘handle’ me.”“You’re right,” Foggy said, chastened. “Not funny. I’m sorry, buddy.” But he wasn’t so sure about the “not needing to be handled” part.“So what does this perfect woman do with her fancy training?”“She works for a program for at-risk teenagers, you know, kids with parents in prison, or living in neighborhoods controlled by gangs, that kind of thing. Marci thought that would appeal to the do-gooder in you.”Matt smiled. “She wasn’t wrong. It does.”“And she’s a fighter in her own way. She goes up against the system all the time, like when they try to send the kids to juvie, or put them in some crappy group home.”“Like an orphanage, you mean?”“You could say that. Let’s just say, Marci and I think she would get you – uh, both of you.”“You told her?” Matt asked, looking alarmed.“No, of course not,” Foggy assured him.“And she’s OK with . . . .” Matt gestured at his eyes. “. . . the blind thing?”“Yes,” Foggy replied, making it up on the spot. “She said her dad had . . .” He searched his brain frantically for the name of an eye disease and blurted out the first one he remembered. “. . . um, glaucoma. So she’s cool with it.”Matt shrugged. “OK, I’m sold. When do I meet this wonder woman?”“How about dinner tomorrow?”“Sure. That’ll work. But if she makes a joke about a ‘blind date,’ I’m outta there.” He went back behind his desk and sat down, his arms folded across his chest.Foggy returned to his own office and breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good. Somewhat belatedly, he wondered if Matt knew that everything about “Kate,” including her very existence, was a lie. He probably did, Foggy concluded. But it didn’t matter, he decided, as long as Matt went along with the plan.
By the time Karen returned with the results of her research, Matt had already left for a meeting with a prospective client. She gathered her papers together and went into Foggy’s office to report. When she finished summarizing what she’d found, she rose from her chair and started to walk away. Foggy spoke up before she could leave. “Uh, Karen, do you have a minute?”She turned around. “Sure. What’s up?”“I have this friend, from college. We met for a drink the other night. And, I don’t know, but when I was talking to him, I thought of you . . . .”“Wait a minute,” Karen said. “Are you trying to fix me up?”“Yeah, I guess I am.”“I’m not ready, Foggy,” Karen protested. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be.”“Just hear me out – please.” Foggy gestured toward the chair Karen had just left, and she turned around reluctantly and sat down. “His name’s Mark Parsons. Like I said, we were friends in college, undergrad, that is, not law school. After college, he went to the West Coast for law school. Stanford. When he graduated, he could have had a job at any of the big white-shoe firms in L.A. or San Francisco. He turned them all down and moved to San Diego to work for the California Innocence Project instead.”“You’re trying to fix me up with some guy who lives in San Diego?”“What? No, no,” Foggy replied, nonplussed. “After a few years, he got homesick for New York and decided to come back. He’s working for the Innocence Project here in the city now.”“So, what? You think we have the whole ‘crusader for justice’ thing in common?”“Something like that,” Foggy agreed with a smile. “Plus, he’s a great guy, smart and funny – and good-looking, too.” He took out his phone, pulled up the photo of a random good-looking guy he found on the Internet, and showed it to Karen.“Hmmm, OK,” she said thoughtfully, after looking at the photo.“And there’s one other thing,” Foggy said. “He’s kind of an adrenaline junkie. At least, he was when we were in college. He was into stuff like rock climbing and extreme skiing – anything risky, basically. But we both know you like the bad boys.”“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested archly.“Two words,” Foggy said, giving her a reproachful look. “Frank. Castle.”“Oh, c’mon, Foggy,” she scoffed. “I cared about Frank. Still do, to be honest. But not like that.”“Really?” Foggy asked skeptically.“Really,” Karen replied firmly. She stared him down for a moment, then said, “If this Mark guy’s so great, why is he still single?”“He just moved back here,” Foggy explained. “He doesn’t know many people in the city anymore. You know what that’s like. Just give the guy a chance. What’ve you got to lose?”Karen folded her arms across her chest and sat back in her chair. “OK,” she finally said. "But only because he’s your friend. And if it’s a disaster, that’s on you.” “Good. You free for dinner tomorrow?”Karen sighed. “I guess.”
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Karen
Karen walked into the restaurant right on time, at 7:30. She scanned the booths and tables, looking for “Mark Parsons,” but he was nowhere in sight. She sighed. Apparently Foggy’s scheme to fix her up was a bust. Then she spotted Matt, sitting in a booth in the far corner of the room. He stood up, having noticed her arrival. “Karen?” he said, at the same time she said, “Matt?”She crossed the room and slid into the booth opposite him. “You’re my date?” she asked.“Looks like it,” he replied with a wry half-smile.“Foggy?”“Yep. He fixed us up with each other.”Karen rolled her eyes, then said, “As long as we’re here . . .”Matt completed her thought. “We might as well have dinner.”“But Foggy’s totally paying.”“You better believe it,” Matt agreed.An uncomfortable silence followed their nervous laughs. Matt finally broke the silence. “So, here we are . . . .”“Um-hmmm.”“Foggy said this place is an ‘Asian fusion’ restaurant. What is that, anyway?”Karen replied, “Let’s find out,” and opened the menu to read it to him.Once they’d explored the menu and the waiter had taken their orders, they lapsed into silence. Seconds turned into minutes. “Get a grip, Karen,” she told herself. “This isn’t some stranger. It’s Matt, just Matt. You never had a problem talking to him before.” But she still felt tongue-tied. They hadn’t been together like this, just the two of them, since before Nelson & Murdock – everything, really – fell apart. And ever since Matt came back, they’d all been walking on eggshells – Foggy, too – trying to keep things together. Finally, she and Matt spoke, at the same time.“So, how was – ”“So, what happened – ”They both laughed tentatively. Then Matt waved his hand. “You first.”“So, how’d it go in court this afternoon?” she asked.“Well . . . .” Matt gave a pained half smile. “Our motion was assigned to Judge Butler.”“Oh, no.” Karen knew exactly what that meant. Among courthouse regulars, Judge Butler was well-known as a devotee of the three-martini lunch. If you had to appear in his courtroom in the afternoon, you never knew whether you were going to get the sleepy drunk or the mean drunk. “So which one did you get?” she asked.“The sleepy one,” Matt replied. “He dozed off – or passed out – in the middle of opposing counsel’s argument. I noticed it first.” Of course he did. “But I couldn’t say anything. I think opposing counsel must have noticed it next. Apparently she gave some kind of signal to the clerk, who went up on the bench and woke him up.”“Our justice system in action,” Karen muttered sarcastically. “Did he at least grant the motion?”Matt shook his head. “He didn’t rule from the bench. He took it under submission.”Karen shook her head. “You gotta be kidding me.”“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “Who knows how long it will take for him to make a ruling? And the case is basically in limbo until he does.”“Damn.”They both contemplated the stalled case for a moment, then Matt asked, “So how was your day?”“You know the witness we’ve been trying to locate in the Lopez case?” Matt nodded. “Well, I finally tracked her down . . . .” Karen’s voice trailed off.“And?” Matt prompted.“Can you say ‘witness from hell,’ boys and girls? She blurts out whatever pops into her head. I don’t know if she’s on something, or just eccentric. Either way, she’s a loose cannon. Please tell me she isn’t a critical witness.”Matt considered this for a moment. “Maybe we can make the case without her.”“Or maybe you could take her deposition, get her on the record under oath,” Karen suggested.“But if she’s as bad as you say, she could say anything at trial, and we’d end up having to impeach our own witness. Not a good look.”“Not a good look,” Karen agreed.As she spoke, the server arrived with their food. Over dinner, they talked of this and that – superficial things, really. They shared bites of each other’s dishes, Karen described the restaurant, and Matt told her about what he’d heard while eavesdropping on the conversations of some of the other customers and the restaurant staff. “You didn’t!” she said in mock horror. Matt smiled.A few minutes later, they finished the meal and put down their chopsticks. “Do you remember Tyler?” Matt asked.Karen nodded. Of course she remembered Tyler. She wasn’t about to forget the blind orphan Matt had befriended, at Sister Maggie’s urging. “How’s he doing?” she asked.“OK, I think,” Matt replied. “He finally had his first self-defense lesson the other day, with Colleen . . . you remember her, right, Colleen Wing?”“Sure,” Karen said. She would never forget Colleen, and all the other people who were there at the Harlem precinct, the night Matt didn’t return from Midland Circle. It still made her angry – and sad, too – when she remembered the way he had thrown away his life so carelessly. But seeing Matt’s smile as he described Tyler’s lesson, she felt a sudden rush of affection for the man sitting across from her. She had missed Matt, missed this, so much. For a long time, both before and after that terrible night, she’d lost hope they could ever find each other again. Now she was beginning to think it was possible. She reminded herself that Matt wasn’t the same man he’d been before, in the early days of Nelson & Murdock. But she wasn’t the same, either. They’d both gone through too much to remain unchanged. And she’d learned they were alike in many ways, maybe too many.The server arrived to clear away their plates, interrupting her thoughts. After he left, she looked up and asked, “So, do you think our ‘dates’ are real people?”Matt thought for a moment, then said, “No.”“I think you’re right,” Karen agreed. “I’m seeing Marci’s handwriting all over this. My date sounded just a little too good to be true.”“Mine, too. She sounded nice,” Matt said, a little wistfully. “But, you know, the things I liked about her reminded me of you.”“The way Foggy described ‘Mark,’ he sounded like you in some ways. And that makes sense,” Karen observed with a smile. “After all, he was setting us up with each other.”They finished the last of the green tea and set their cups down. The check had been paid. It was time to leave. Karen stood up and held out her hand. “Walk me home?” Matt took her hand, and they walked out of the restaurant hand in hand.As they walked the six blocks to her building, Karen couldn’t help remembering the other times they’d walked each other home, before everything between them went so wrong, in a toxic mix of secrets and lies. Surely they were past that, now. But were they? They’d been dancing around each other, and their feelings for each other, for months. They were still keeping things from each other, and lying to themselves. She decided that would end, tonight. When they arrived at her building, she asked, “Do you want to come up?”Matt seemed to hesitate, but only for a second. “Yes,” he said simply.Upstairs in her apartment, they sat next to each other on the couch. A little tentatively, Matt put his arm around Karen, who moved closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. “Foggy was trying to tell us something, you know,” she observed.“I know,” he agreed. “He wasn’t wrong.”“No, he wasn’t. But what are we going to do about it?”Matt answered by leaning in and kissing her. When he raised his head, she pulled him toward her and kissed him back. Then she kicked off her shoes and curled up next to him, tucking her feet under her. He cupped her face in his hand and drew her in for another kiss. Afterward, he ran his hands lightly down her torso, brushing her breasts through her blouse. She drew in a shuddering breath, then let it out with a sigh. She snuggled closer to him. She traced his lips with a fingertip, then kissed him again. When Matt started to unbutton her blouse, she reached for his belt buckle, then hesitated, resting her hand on his waist. “Not here,” she whispered. She rose from the couch, took his hand, and pulled him to his feet.As she led him to the bedroom, he asked, “You sure about this?”“Positive. You?”“Positive.”The months of dancing around their feelings were finally at an end. Now they danced with each other, the timeless dance of man and woman. They made love in a whirlwind of emotions and sensations. At its heart was the connection between them, the same connection she’d felt on the night they met. Somehow it had endured, stronger than the secrets and lies that had almost torn them apart.Afterward, Matt was lying on his side next to her, propping up his head with one hand and smiling down at her. It was almost as if he was looking at her. She supposed he was, in his own way. She looked back at him, her eyes filling with tears. They overflowed, trickling down her cheeks. It happened soundlessly, but Matt knew. A worried look replaced his smile. “Karen?” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”She shook her head. “Nothing.” She sniffed. “It just feels so . . . right, being here . . . with you . . . like this.” His smile returned. He caressed her damp cheek, then kissed her.“It does,” he said quietly.“Oh, God,” she said, “we were such idiots. What were we doing?”“I was afraid.”“Of what?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.“You and Foggy not giving up on me when I came back after . . . you know. That meant a lot to me. I couldn’t risk losing that. I was afraid of fucking things up again, like I did . . . before.”“I know,” she said gently. “I didn’t want to lose what we had, either. I told myself I was OK with it, working together, being friends, being part of each other’s lives again. I almost convinced myself it was enough.”“It isn’t enough, is it?”“No.”He gathered her in his arms and held her close. They didn’t need to say anything else. Not in words. This time, they took their time.
Matt
Matt woke up with a jolt. His heart pounded. Then he remembered where he was. Karen’s warmth and her scent surrounded him. He breathed deeply. His heart rate slowed. He wasn’t sure what had awakened him. He didn’t detect a threat. Probably some random sound. It wasn’t unusual for something to wake him up during the night. His senses never really shut down, not completely. He found his watch on the night stand and checked the time: 5:40 a.m. He was fully awake now, no chance of going back to sleep. Sleep never came easily for him, not even in his own bed. It was more difficult in a new place. Last night, he had remained awake long after Karen was asleep. The soothing rhythm of her heartbeats finally lulled him to sleep.He lifted the covers and slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Karen. The room was chilly. He found his shirt and boxers on the floor where he’d dropped them, and he put them on. He padded silently across the room to the rocking chair in the corner and sat there, thinking and rocking. What had Karen said, last night? That it felt right, being together. It felt right to him, too. He had almost given up hope of it happening. After he’d reunited with Karen and Foggy, and they started working together again, he’d hoped Karen would give him another chance, someday. But she’d seemed content to be his friend and co-worker, nothing more. Until last night. He had Foggy to thank for that, he guessed. But he’d be damned if he was going to tell him that. Not right away, anyway. Payback had to come first. And he had an idea of how to get it. He smiled.Karen’s breathing changed. She was awake. She ran a hand over the empty side of the bed, then looked up. “Matt?” she asked.“Right here.”“What’re you doing?”“I woke up, couldn’t get back to sleep. Didn’t want to wake you,” he explained.“Come back to bed. Please.”She didn’t have to ask twice.Later, as they snuggled, half asleep, under the comforter, Karen turned to him and asked, “What were you smiling about? I mean, when I woke up earlier.”Matt thought for a moment. Oh, that. “I guess we have Foggy to thank – for this,” he said, waving his hand over the two of them. “But I don’t want him to know, not yet.”“But we can’t keep it a secret,” Karen protested.“No, we can’t. But we can’t let him get away with playing us, either. We need to pay him back first.”“I love it,” Karen said, after he explained his plan. “But do you really think we can pull it off? For someone who lies as much as you do – ”“Used to!” he asserted.“As I was saying, for someone who lies as much as you do, you aren’t very good at it. You look guilty, you know, kind of shifty, when you’re lying.”“But I kept Daredevil secret for years,” he pointed out.“Maybe I didn’t guess the truth, but I knew you were lying.”“Not fair,” Matt whined with a fake pout. “You can see my ‘tells,’ but I can’t see yours.”“Oh, please,” Karen replied. “You’re playing the blind card?” Matt grinned. “Really? Give. Me. A. Break. What happened to Matt ‘I know when people lie to me’ Murdock?” He had no answer for that. “Oh, and don’t look at me when we’re with Foggy,” she added. “You’ll make me crack up, and then he’ll be on to us.”“Not looking. Hmmm.” Matt stroked his chin and tried to look thoughtful. “OK. I can do that.”“You!” she exclaimed, and threw a pillow at him. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said as she got out of bed. “Want to join me?” He did.A half hour later, Matt was sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in an old terrycloth bathrobe Karen found in the back of her closet. She microwaved a cup of coffee and handed it to him. He set it down on the table. Microwaved coffee? Really? Who drank that shit? He did, apparently. As did Karen. Oh, well, no one’s perfect. He sighed inwardly, remembering Foggy’s incessant bitching about the quality (or lack thereof) of the coffee Karen made at the office. She had finally called Foggy on it. “Where is it written,” she’d demanded, “that the woman has to make the coffee? If you think you can do it better, make it yourself!” So he did. Matt took a small sip of his coffee and made a sour face, hoping Karen didn’t notice. If he and Karen were going to be together, he would have to take over the coffee-making duties.Karen microwaved a cup of coffee for herself and sat down next to him on the bench. The scent of mint from her shampoo (mostly) drowned out the smell of the coffee and even made it somewhat palatable. They drank their coffee in silence for several minutes. Then he took her hand and turned to face her. “Why’d you do it, Karen?” he asked. “Why’d you give me a second chance?”She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When you were . . . gone,” she began haltingly, “when everyone thought you were dead, I had to . . . accept . . . that I would never know what we could have been . . . to each other. When you came back, it felt like we’d been given a second chance. But you were so . . . different. It was like something was . . . missing. Foggy said part of you had been buried under . . . under Midland Circle. I didn’t want to believe him.”“He wasn’t wrong,” Matt said quietly.“I know. I saw it myself. I was sad . . . for you. But it was also scary.”“Karen, I would never – ” Matt began.She was quick to interrupt him. “I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared for you. It was like you didn’t care what happened to you.” He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. “Then I started catching glimpses of the Matt I knew . . . or thought I knew. You, not the haunted stranger who made it out of Midland Circle. So I allowed myself to hope, a little. Then the whole shit show with Fisk happened, and we decided to work together again. I thought maybe we were finally starting to know each other, for real, you know? But I needed to give it time, see what happened.”“Why now?”“You know, at one point after you came back, I decided we were done. Like Sister Maggie told me, it was just too exhausting, trying to save you from yourself.”“Karen, you don’t have to – ”“I know. It took a while, but I finally realized it wasn’t up to me to save you from yourself. Just like it’s not up to you to save me from myself.” He started to object. She pressed a finger to his lips to silence him. “Saving yourself, that’s on you, Matt. If you want to. I don’t think you do. You are who you are. Once I accepted that, the decision was simple. I could choose to be with you, as you are, or not. I made my decision last night.”He pulled her closer to him and held her. “We’ll make this work. I promise,” he said.
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Foggy
Anxious to find out the results of the “blind dates,” Foggy arrived at the office early the next morning. Matt appeared about twenty minutes later. Foggy gave him a few minutes to get settled at his desk with a cup of coffee, then went into Matt’s office and sat down across from him.“So, how’d it go last night with Ka– Kate?” he asked, in his best “man to man” voice. He started to say “Karen” but caught himself just in time. Damn, he thought, he told Marci they shouldn’t make the names so similar.Matt stopped reading and raised his head. “She never showed up,” he said sadly.“What!” Foggy exclaimed, feigning surprise. He decided to stick to the story, for now. “That doesn’t sound like Kate. Maybe there was a mix-up about the time or place.”“Or maybe she took one look at me and got cold feet,” Matt suggested.“I doubt that,” Foggy told him. “I’ll ask Marci to call her.”“You do that,” Matt replied indifferently. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have a depo in an hour that I need to finish preparing for.”“Oh. Right. Sorry about that, buddy,” Foggy said as he stood up and went back to his own office. What the hell just happened? He was sure Matt knew there was no “Kate.” Matt was playing him, but to what end?A half hour later, Karen arrived just as Matt was leaving for his deposition. “Good morning, Matt,” she said when they met in the entrance to the office.“Good morning, Karen,” he replied as he walked past her and out the door.It took all of Foggy’s self-control to wait to talk to Karen, but he needed to make sure Matt was too far away to hear the conversation. When he was certain Matt would be at the deposition halfway across town, he got up from his desk and tapped on the partition outside Karen’s office. “Come in,” she said.He went over to one of her client chairs and sat down. Trying to look and sound casual, he asked, “So how’d it go with Mark, last night?”“It didn’t,” Karen told him crossly. “I waited a whole half hour, but he never showed.”“What! You gotta be kidding me,” Foggy said, hoping his “surprised” act was convincing. “I’ll call Mark, find out what happened. I’m sure there’s a good reason.”“Don’t,” Karen said firmly. Then her voice softened. “Look, Foggy, I know your heart was in the right place. But don’t try to fix me up again. OK?”“OK,” Foggy said, secretly relieved. “If you say so. But I’m really, really sorry.”“Don’t worry about it. It’s OK, really.” She paused for a moment, then said, “You know, I have a shitload of work.” She waved her hand over the stack of files on her desk. “These reports aren’t going to write themselves.”Foggy took the hint and retreated to his own office. He should have been working on the motion that was due the next day, but he couldn’t get anything done. He was too preoccupied with what was going on with Matt and Karen. Their reactions this morning were odd. Neither one seemed to care that their “date” hadn’t shown up. They were up to something, that was for sure. But did that mean his plan had worked? Or not? What the hell happened last night?He tried to analyze the situation logically. Karen had to have seen Matt at the restaurant. And Matt would have noticed her, too, as soon as she walked in the door. They wouldn’t have ignored each other, would they? Foggy didn’t think so. And if they compared notes about why they were there, they would’ve figured out what he’d done. That was the whole idea, really – to send them a message. But was the message received? And, if so, what did they do about it? Foggy had no idea. They hadn’t given him any clues when he talked to them. He could only hope they would slip up and give themselves away.They didn’t. In fact, they hardly spoke to each other all day. When Matt returned from his deposition, he disappeared into his office and stayed there, emerging only for occasional cups of coffee and trips to the men’s room. Karen hid behind a stack of files on her desk, apparently writing her reports, until she left around three in the afternoon to meet a witness, saying she would see them tomorrow.By 6 p.m., Foggy was ready to call it a day. Maybe a couple of drinks would loosen Matt’s tongue, he thought, tapping on the partition that separated Matt’s office from the main room. But Matt begged off, saying he had “work” to do that night. In other words, Daredevil had work to do. Foggy sighed resignedly and told Matt to be careful, then headed for home.Foggy got home before Marci. He sat on the couch, stewing, until she arrived. He greeted her with a kiss, then starting pacing between the windows and the couch. “They’re driving me crazy!” he exclaimed.“Who, Foggy Bear?” Marci asked.Foggy stopped and looked at her. “Matt and Karen, of course.”Marci rolled her eyes. “What’re they doing now?”“They’re acting like nothing happened, you know, last night.”“Maybe nothing did,” Marci suggested reasonably. She sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. Foggy stopped pacing and sat down beside her.“No, I’m telling you, they’re up to something,” Foggy insisted. “There’s no way they could’ve missed each other at the restaurant. No, something happened, and this is Matt’s way of sticking it to me.”“Why would he do that?” Marci asked. “If you’re right, you did him, and Karen, a huge favor.”“You didn’t grow up in Hell’s Kitchen like Matt and me,” Foggy told her. “In the Kitchen, payback is everything.
It's a way of life.
Trust me. I know how his mind works. Well, at least about something like this.”Marci considered this for a moment. Then she said, “If Matt can get payback, you can, too.”“OK. But how?”“We need to find out exactly what happened at the restaurant last night. And I know how to do it. We represented them last year, when a customer sued, claiming she got food poisoning after eating there.”“Wait, what?” Foggy interrupted. “You sent Karen and Matt to a restaurant that poisons its customers?”“Of course not,” Marci replied, giving him her “don’t be silly” look. “It wasn’t the restaurant’s food, it was the potluck lunch at the plaintiff’s office that day. Anyway, as I was saying, I know the owner. I’ll call him tomorrow. Then it’ll be payback time – for you.”
In the morning, Foggy went directly to court, not stopping by the office on the way. At the mid-morning recess, he rushed out of the courtroom to call Marci.“I talked to Mr. Ravindran – ” she began.“Mr. Who?” Foggy interrupted“The restaurant owner.”“Oh.”“He told me the server said the blind guy had dinner with a tall blonde. He heard him call her ‘Karen.’ The server said they spent a long time over dinner. They looked kind of uncomfortable at first, but were acting real friendly by the end of the evening. When they finally left, they were holding hands, looking happy. Mr. Ravindran also said the hostess heard the blonde asking the blind guy to walk her home when they were leaving. So I’d say the plan worked.”“Sounds like it,” Foggy agreed. “Love you,” he said as he ended the call. Game on, he thought. Look out, Murdock and Page. Three can play this game.The standoff lasted a week. Karen and Matt kept pretending nothing happened. For his part, Foggy was constantly on the lookout, hoping for an opportunity to trip them up. But Matt and Karen had been doing their “just friends” routine for months before their “blind date” and slipped easily into their roles whenever Foggy was around. And they left nothing to chance. They were careful to arrive at the office separately in the morning, and they always left separately in the evening. Matt was even going out as Daredevil, apparently. He’d shown up at the office with new cuts and bruises several times, all of which coincided with media reports of Daredevil sightings. Twice, when Foggy was returning to the office from court, he heard laughter drifting down the stairwell as he climbed to the second floor. But when he stepped into the office, Karen and Matt were sitting innocently at their desks, apparently working diligently.After a few days of this, Foggy was beginning to think he was losing it. He knew Karen and Matt were gaslighting him. They had to be. But he was starting to doubt himself (not to mention his sanity). Their act was perfect. There were no cracks in their façade, not even a tiny misstep. He wanted to bang his head against the wall out of sheer frustration. “Suck it up,” he told himself. Their act was a little too perfect to be real. And he knew what he’d seen over the past couple of months. He wasn’t wrong about them. Sooner or later, they’d crack.Foggy spent a sizeable chunk of that week trying to figure out a way to break the impasse that wouldn’t backfire and end up with Karen and Matt hating him. He came up empty. He tried calling them at random times before and after work, hoping to catch them together. No dice. After a couple of days, he ran out of pretexts for calling. Following them and bugging the office were out. Too stalker-ish and creepy. He didn’t have the skills, anyway. He could always hire Jessica Jones, but she was too erratic. He wasn’t looking to cause a shit show. He just wanted Karen and Matt to fess up. Maybe he could make Matt believe Karen was in danger – without putting her in actual danger, of course. Surely that would expose their true feelings. It didn’t take him long to decide that was a bad idea, a very bad idea. Matt and Karen would hate him if they found out, and he was sure they would. Besides, if Matt thought Karen was in danger, there was a very good chance he’d do something totally crazy.Foggy finally decided his only option was to be patient and hope he could somehow catch them in the act. Not The Act, he hoped. (And not on the conference room table). But in a sufficiently compromising position that they would have to come clean about their relationship. The problem with this plan was Matt. His senses made it nearly impossible to sneak up on him. But maybe, just maybe, Karen would be enough of a distraction to make it possible.His chance finally came one afternoon. Foggy was scheduled to be out of the office at a deposition for the rest of the day, but the witness failed to appear. As he left the other lawyer’s office, he checked the firm’s calendar on his phone. Neither Matt nor Karen had anything scheduled. They would expect to have the office all to themselves. He made his way back to Nelson’s Meats and climbed the stairs to their temporary office above the shop. He heard a giggle. A giggle? Karen didn’t giggle (or so he thought), but it was too high-pitched to be Matt. Intrigued, he crept as silently as he could toward the door and pushed it open. He glanced to his left, into Matt’s office.Matt was seated behind his desk. Karen was sitting sideways across his lap, pressed against him. Her head was thrown back, and Matt was kissing her neck. He was caressing her cheek with one hand, and the other was under her sweater. Yep, distracted. Very distracted. Karen was stroking his hair with her left hand. Her right hand was hidden by the desk. Foggy was thankful for that. He gazed upon this tableau, but only for an instant. Matt noticed him almost immediately, followed by Karen a few seconds later. They quickly untangled themselves and stood up, red-faced and stammering.“Oh, hey, Fog, um . . . .”“Um, we were – ” A nervous laugh. “ – just, uh, you know . . . .”“Yeah, just, uh . . . .”“Uh, aren’t you, um, supposed to be . . .?Matt was finally able to form a complete sentence, more or less. “This isn’t, uh, what it looks like.”Foggy had his answer ready. “No, buddy, it’s exactly what it looks like. You are so busted,” he declared with a shit-eating grin. “But don’t let me cramp your style.” He started to walk away, then turned around and added a parting shot. “You can thank me later.” Leaving Karen and Matt in gobsmacked silence, he went into his office and sat down at his desk. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back with a satisfied smile. Mission accomplished.