Brennan Tierney is just having a really awful day.

He wakes up bright and early to the sight of a pleasant summer sun streaming light in through the window – which only aggravates the sinus-induced headache that's become so common these days. He mutters grumpily, rolls over, and considers going back to sleep. One benefit of an early retirement is the luxury of being able to choose when to rouse.

Unfortunately, his wife isn't having it. "Get up," May says, batting at him half-heartedly. "We promised the O'Fennan's we'd stop by today, remember?"

"You hate both of them," Brennan mutters, because it's true.

"Yes, but they're not allowed to know that," May responds tartly. "More importantly, Sean is expecting you to do some consulting work when we drop by..."

So much for being retired. "Alright, alright, I'm up."

May makes eggs while he manages the bacon, except he overdoes it; not even bacon tastes good when it's burnt to cinders and crumbles away in black flakes on his tongue. "Honestly, Brennan," May says.

His favorite jacket has mysteriously developed a hole in the pocket, which he discovers while the two are walking to the subway. He hates the subway. Most people hate the subway, in fairness, but Brennan is mostly concerned right now with the fact that he hates it.

He gains a new reason to hate it, this day.

He's looking to the side, squinting at a ludicrous sign lit up with neon lights, when he hears the sound. Metallic squeals ring out and rattle his teeth. His bones shudder with the trembling of the earth. Around him, people are gasping and ducking away. He catches a flash of legs and sneakers darting by as people move. Brennan turns.

A semi-truck is screaming down the road, the back-end twisting around and raising up angry sparks on the pavement. It swings dangerously close to the side-walk, but not close enough to hit Brennan.

There's a squeal of tires from behind him, and a flash of silver.

In a panicked attempt to avoid the collision, another car has veered away and is coming right for him. Brennan twists, throwing up a hand in futile denial – but the breath is knocked away from him far too early.

He hits the ground hard, gripped tight by a kid who doesn't come up to his waist. Wide brown eyes stare up at him as they roll. Blood smears the side of the boy's face.

Somewhere, there's a crash.

Brennan doesn't quite know what happens after that, except that he's trying desperately to get out of the way of oncoming cars and people. Everyone's panicking. Traffic grinds to a halt. Emergency teams arrive. There's a smell of chemicals and oil in the air.

Eventually, he catches sight of the kid again.

He's on the ground, and there's a man leaning over him. They have similar coloring. People are pulling up Brennan by the arms, talking to him, asking him questions. "Your kid saved my life!" Brennan babbles, because he still can't believe it. Because this guy should know.

The man looks up at him blankly, eyes wide. Then he looks back down to the boy.

The kid who saved him is screaming on the ground, hands scrabbling at his eyes with unfeigned panic. His voice is high and reedy with shock. "Dad," he keeps saying, and the huge man kneeling next to him seems frantic. "Dad, dad, I can't see, I can't see - "

The man's crying as he tries to calm his son, who is now rubbing frantically at his eyes. Paramedics show up and swarm the pair, blocking them both from sight. Soon, they vanish into the distance under the shriek and wail of an ambulance.

It's been an awful, awful day, Brennan thinks. It's been an awful day but he's still alive and whole and well, and there's a kid in the hospital in his place. A kid screaming because he can't see.

He braces himself on shaking limbs and decides he would really like to go talk to May now.

Jonathon Murdock - "call me Jack" - agrees to the visit. But he won't look at Brennan when they talk.

"Your kid's a fine boy," Brennan says. Jack clenches his jaw.

"Matt saved my life," Brennan says, and Jack nods, eyes carefully focused on the wall, because this is true.

"Not many boys could have done that," Brennan says, and Jack emphatically agrees. Matt is splendid. Matt is remarkable. Matt is -

Matt is peering at them from around the corner of the room. Or, he is turned and tilted toward their direction, really. "Who is there?" he wants to know.

"No one," Jack chokes, and shoots Brennan a quick and sharp glance like he means it.

Then his gaze drops, again, because for all his anger Jack is not hateful even if he is resentful.

Brennan doesn't blame him for the avoidance. He can barely stand himself these days. What happened to Matt wasn't his fault. But sometimes he thinks, if I had turned faster – moved quicker – why, he wouldn't have had to save me, at all, and he'd be fine and happy and...

But the past cannot be changed.

"Matt will be fine," Brennan says, and Jack says nothing at all.

This would probably be the end of it, for most people. By all rights it should be, and Jack, at least, seems fine with the idea of never seeing Brennan again.

So it's a bit of a surprise when he picks up the phone one day, more than a month later, and hears: "Hi. This is Matt Murdock. Do you want to come to dinner?"

Brennan stands in place, stares blankly into the distance, and tries to think up an answer to this.

There's the sound of muffled voices over the line. Then the boy speaks again. "I'm sorry," he chirps. "Do you want to come to dinner on Saturday at six?" He pauses a beat. "We're having chicken."

"Uh," Brennan manages.

"My dad says it's fine."

...Which is an interesting statement in more ways than one. Brennan shakes away his shock. "I..."

He doesn't really want to see the kid again, is the thing. In fact, the idea of sitting across from Matt Murdock, staring into the child's absent eyes and trying to make small-talk, sounds fairly horrendous. Brennan does not have children. He does not consider himself particularly good with children, and as for blind children with a good reason to hate him...

Children he blinded. Let's not avoid that, he thinks.

But then. He owes this one, doesn't he?

"I – sure," he says. "Saturday, yeah. Sounds great."

"Perfect," Matt says. "You know the way. It was nice talking to you, Sir!"

The phone clicks off with a beep.

Brennan pulls it away from his ear and stares at it with a faint sense of betrayal.

Dinner is awkward. Jack moves around Brennan with slow, resentful motions, his eyes dark and hard. But Brennan can't even blame him for this, which is the worst part. He can see the way the scarred and hardened boxer visibly softens when he looks at his son. He treats Matt like the kid hung the moon and keeps the stars in the sky.

Brennan, after all, is just the reason Matt can't see them.

When the food is eaten Jack goes to the kitchen and Brennan can hear him cracking open a beer. Matt tilts his head but doesn't seem bothered by the sound.

It's the silence that prompts Brennan to speak. "I'll never be able to thank you enough," he says suddenly. Matt frowns a bit. Brennan knows he's jamming his foot in his mouth right now. He thanked the kid about a dozen times in the hospital, with Jack half-crying by the bedside and looking like he wanted to throttle him, but somehow he can't stop. "If I could take this from you, God..."

"You know, I think you're holding a lot of guilt in you," Matt says.

Brennan bites his lip. "You know, kid, between the two of us I don't think you're supposed to be doing the comforting here," he says.

He regrets it immediately, but Matt doesn't seem offended. "Everyone has been trying to pity me lately," he says. "Except for the kids at school who call me a cripple. But all the adults act like I can't do anything, except for my dad. Murdocks are stronger than that. I'm fine."

He tilts his chin like it's true, too, clenching his jaw. Somehow it only makes him look smaller.

"It can't be easy."

"Life's never easy. You just gotta get back up anyway."

"I guess that's true enough."

"So you need to forgive yourself," Matt says. "Bad things happen. But it's not your fault."

Brennan scrapes his fork along his plate. He's a little surprised to find it empty. He considers Matt. "My wife would say that that's it not what happens to you that matters, you know. It's how you react to what you're dealt. And good people will always make it in the world. You – you're something else, kid."

Maybe he shouldn't have said that, either. The kid looks embarrassed suddenly. But he ducks his head, and says wistfully, "Your wife sounds really nice."

Brennan's not sure what impulse compels him to say, "You should meet her sometime."

Matt and Jack look strange and out of place against the soft, muted colors of the Tierney's home.

Jack seems to be aware of this, raising one hand to touch a gauze of red-dotted cloth stuck to his face. His skin is scabbed over and hard, his lip puffed and swollen. He smiles tightly and politely at Brennan and May, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

Matt, though, is painfully earnest. When May greets him he switches the side holding his cane so he can wave his hand in front of him, trying vainly to shake a hand that isn't there until she bends down to accept the gesture. "It's very nice to meet you," he says, undeterred. Brennan can tell his wife is smitten already. Her sister, Jenna, has joined them tonight and doesn't even look as grumpy as usual.

They go to the kitchen to eat fried fish on nice plates and ask Jack how work is doing (fine) and Matt how school has been (better than the week before, apparently) and Brennan tries to ignore the glances Jack gives him all night long, the ones that ask, What are you even doing?

Because if he figures it out, he'll let Jack know.

Maybe Matt has an idea, though. "I've heard it said," he tells them at the end of dinner, "that people's lives can be connected forever. Even after death."

He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't really need to.

After death. He clings to that. "You're religious?" Brennan asks, for lack of anything better to say.

There are a lot of Irish people around here, of course. Brennan's a lapsed Catholic, he supposes is the term, but old enough that he barely remembers the sensation of knocking his knees against the floors in church. Matt is nodding; Jack isn't. "His grandmother was... devout," Jack says. He doesn't sound like this pleases him.

"Grandma used to say everyone believes in a god. Even if they say think they don't. Some people believe in ideas and hopes and dreams. And that's almost like God, sometimes."

"What about bad people," Brennan asks, just trying to be devil's advocate.

"They have idols," Matt says. "Which isn't really good, but – but, there's something everyone worship and loves. No one is without love."

"Well," May says. "That's a nice thing to think."

Matt frowns. He looks a little puzzled. " - Is it?" he asks.

Jack calls them up a week later. He's bruised a few ribs in an out-of-city fight. He's laid up and won't make it to Hell's Kitchen for a few days.

"And, well, I could ask some of the guys I work with," he says. "But, some of them ain't so good with kids..."

"We'd love to have him over," Brennan says, barely hearing his own words.

Jack clarifies that he is certainly not asking Brennan to host Matt, he would just like the couple to maybe check in on Matt once or twice, because of course the kid can take care of himself.

Brennan doesn't really like the sound of that. So him and May drive over to the Murdock place and take Matt back with them, anyway.

Matt seems pretty unfazed by all of this. "Happens all the time," he says. "Dad's always fine, though. Nothing can keep him down."

Brennan asks how often Matt's alone at home. "I can take care of myself," Matt dismisses. Nevermind that he's a nine-year old blind kid in the slums of Hell's Kitchen. "And Dad does what he can," Matt adds, which is a little reassuring, but not very.

He loves his dad, though, that much is clear. When Jack comes a few days later, face covered in purple splotches, Matt drops his cane and lunges for the door to wrap himself around the man's legs. Battlin' Jack looks oddly soft when he reaches down to touch Matt's hair. He sighs, and the air sweeps out of him with the creaking sound of a broken house. He seems tired.

Brennan feels like an intruder; so he's not sure why, when Jack looks at him, he offers, "You know, we'd be happy to watch him any time."

It spirals, somehow.

Jack isn't crazy about either of them; but Matt is, clinging to them with the utterly incomprehensible, single-minded devotion of a child who has decided he is fond of something and has no intentions of being deterred. And since Jack can hardly refuse having some real supervision for his son, Matt ends up staying at the Tierney's house frequently.

They learn a lot about him.

He likes to listen to music, but nothing loud, nothing that kids should, Brennan thinks, like to listen to. It's all soft classical music and jazz, not even the savage Rachmaninov or Vivaldi, the bouncing jives of Calloway or Armstrong. He listens to Chopin, Mozart's gentlest pieces, Benny Goodman.

Brennan learns that Matt has a bizarre obsession with Thurgood Marshall, and this sort of bewilders him. At that age he was obsessed with baseball players, movies... He might understand fiction, even, but Thurgood Marshall?

"Unlike us, he actually has a brain in that head," May contributes dryly when he raises the point.

He wants to be a lawyer.

"I've never met anyone who wanted to be a lawyer," Brennan admits. "How do you even come to that conclusion?"

"The people who talked to me and my dad after the accident were real nice," Matt says. "They helped us out a lot. But it can be hard – Ms. Ilnez, down the street, her home was taken away because she couldn't pay her bills, but that's only because she was robbed, and her lawyers couldn't do anything to stop it. Dad says it was wrong."

"Yeah, well, the system isn't perfect."

"Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process," Matt says, and it sounds like a quote. "But, a good lawyer helps. I want to help people."

Brennan's worked with lawyers before. Somehow, it's never occurred to him to question their motivations before. How many of them have wanted, really, sincerely wanted, to help the people they represent?

How many, in the dredges of Hell's Kitchen, have failed?

"I'm sure you will, Matt," he says. "In fact I don't doubt it at all."

At one point, nearly two weeks go by where Brennan doesn't hear from the Murdocks at all. Which is fine. Jack doesn't talk to them more than he can help, though Matt calls frequently for at least brief chat. He's very excitable, Matt, and he likes to boast about Jack's wins in the ring, or his latest success on a paper.

But lately there's been nothing. Now Brennan rolls open the newspaper, feeling the soft material unfold under his fingers. The articles don't hold his interest today; his attention is wondering. He flips through the pages, sighing.

A picture catches his eye, in a far corner, and at first he thinks: Did Jack win a match?

Then what he's looking at processes properly. He calls for May and leans over the paper, smoothing out the wrinkles and reading it with a sinking feeling.

Jonathon Murdock

April 21, 1960 – August 1, 1999

Jonathon Joe Murdock was shot in killed in Hell's Kitchen, New York on August 1, 1999. Murdock was born to the late couple Sean and Britta Murdock. He is survived by one son, Matthew Murdock...

He takes the subway home the next night. In the darkness, children wander sleepily around their parents' legs. Some of them have brown hair, and the clicking of metallic gears sounds like the grieving tap of a cane.

He goes to the funeral with May on his arm. Both of them are dressed in black, and the day is purpling into evening when they enter the Catholic church where the funeral will be held.

The room has a few stout men with scars; a group of assembled men and women at the back of the room, solemn but not especially mournful, many of them wearing crucifixes. A spattering of unknown faces.

And, at the very front, Matt sitting at the side of a man in a suit.

He and May find seats near the back. They sit through the service without words. When it ends they don't get a chance to speak to Matt, but they hear the crucifix-bearing group whispering things about St. Agnes' Orphanage.

The orphanage isn't as bad as he expects, really.

It takes Brennan longer than he would like to admit to get around to visiting. There's no clear etiquette to this situation. He can't just drop out of the boy's life, but intruding on his grief is a thought equally as abominable. It takes nearly three weeks before he even picks up a phone-book and looks up the number for the place.

There's a stereotype that exists about strict, no-nonsense nuns, but the woman who meets him at the front seems kind enough. When he inquires about Matt Murdock he feels a stab of guilt at the way her face crumples in relief.

"I hope your visit will cheer him up," she says. "He's been getting worse and worse. We don't know why."

This seems like a strange thing to say. Jack Murdock is dead; the reason for Matt's depression should be evident enough.

Brennan doesn't understand until he sees.

Sweat is running is fat bullets down Matt's face; Brennan didn't even think a kid could sweat that much. He's twisting tiny child-fingers into the blankets, kicking his legs uselessly into the air and taking in great, sucking gulps of air. His chest heaves with these breaths, his ribs showing with every second lurch.

He's clearly in agony.

"Haven't you had a doctor here?" Brennan exclaims, leaping forward.

"No, don't - !"

As soon he touches Matt's wrist, the kid screams.

Brennan flinches away as though he's been burnt. "Matt!" he shouts. "Matt!"

Matt just yells louder. His flailing arms come up and wrap around his head.

Brennan wavers helplessly, and he doesn't protest when the Sister grabs him by the arm and pulls him back outside.

"So that's maybe not such a good idea," she says, and he wants to laugh until he cries.

Matt gets both better and worse. The sisters keep him secluded and consult both doctors and other clergy. He can't get excited, they tell him. He can't be around loud noises, he can't be touched, and even strong smells upset him. This all sounds like such old-fashioned, outdated nonsense about the ill that he's half-inclined to think that they're wrong. That they're the ones making Matt worse, that he can get better if they just give him some fresh air and a chance to breathe. Isn't that what all kids need?

But he remembers Matt thrashing, and the sound of that scream.

And it's true, too, that if he visits at night – a special privilege only allowed because of Matt's circumstances – the kid is usually more calm. "It's quiet," he will whisper. Matt always whispers now. "More quiet. It's never – New York is never silent."

"That's true enough," Brennan says.

He must speak too loud, because Matt flinches.

"...It's quiet here, though," Brennan adds. And this is true, too. The orphanage is almost eerily still at this time of night. The lights are out; the children are sleeping; the only sound comes from the slow shifting of weight from Sister Valerie, right outside the door. That's all.

But Matt doesn't answer.

May visits less often, because her leg troubles her these days, but Matt's always happy to talk to her. Sometimes her sister Jenna comes along, sighing and grumbling, which is less of a happy occasion.

Matt even likes her, though. He seems to like everyone. He tells them about school and what he's learned in English lately. His continuing passion impresses Brennan; he can't imagine enjoying books much on a good day, much less when the only way to enjoy them is through Braille or a stilted audio-track.

A nun shoos them out halfway through Matt's recitation to lecture the kid about some disagreement he had with a few other children, and the three stand outside the door.

"We could adopt him," says May.

It's somehow not a new thought, once she says it aloud. They could adopt him. He's quiet, kind, bright – a good boy. Like family. That's the most important thing. They're old, but it's not like Matt's an infant.

"It'd be difficult on you," says Jenna, looking between them doubtfully. "With his... situation."

May shoots her a look, half-angry, half-embarrassed. Embarrassed, because she doesn't deny it. They don't know how to care for a blind child. Don't have the money to provide him with personalized equipment, books, other miscellanea. But Battlin' Jack didn't, either, he thinks. Didn't stop what happened.

"We'd figure it out," he says. And this has a ring of truth to it.

When the nun comes out they tell her they want to talk to her before they leave, then let themselves back in.

For someone who's just been scolded, Matt's smiling brightly enough to outshine the stars.

Matt's screaming.

He screams when they try to touch him, spine arching and snapping. He claws at his head – not at his eyes, but his ears, tearing at his own soft flesh with pale nails until the skin tears and thin red welts rise and bleed.

The nuns come in and usher out the Tierneys, finally, but they let Brennan stay. Perhaps it is a kindness, or perhaps a cruelty. One nun runs into the room with dust-covered straps that they use to bind Matt's arms to the bed.

"These were used in an exorcism, years ago," says the young women, and Brennan wonders why she tells him this.

He doesn't want to know.

And the tears are horrible. There's always something tragic in a child's tears, which are so fast and futile, but usually shallow, too. Matt's tears, though, are warranted, even if perhaps no one can understand why. There is something here, a real tragedy they can't fathom, one which Matt can't – or won't – tell.

When he cries his eyes continue to stare straight ahead, blank, unseeing. These eyes can't help him any longer, but they can still bring suffering.

He doesn't quiet until night, when most of the nuns have filtered away and the orphanage is silent. They have been considering calling a doctor, and the change is a relief.

But when Brennan reaches out to grasp Matt's hand, meaning to comfort him, the boy flinches away.

"It's too much," says Matt.

"What is?"

Matt shudders. His bony arms twitch and pull against the bindings, testing them, weighing them. His head lolls to the side, and his tongue swipes out to flick over his teeth.

Brennan barely hears the response.

"Everything."

The orphanage tells them that they have found someone – a good man, they say – who can help Matt. Another blind man. Someone interested in fostering him, teaching him, helping him adapt.

"He's been having such a hard time," says Sister Valerie delicately. This is in reference to his recent fits. "We think this person can help."

But they won't give out a name. Standard policy, of course. Names can't be shared. Just this; there is someone who might be able to help Matt, and it is not them.

"We have to do what's best," says May, and Brennan agrees.

So they drop their plans, quietly, without consulting Matt or causing him conflict. It's too bad that they don't plan ahead, though – because the next time they visit the orphanage, Matt's gone.

"He doesn't even have our number," says May. They walk slowly and carefully away from the orphanage, clinging to each others arms, looking back at the familiar building occasionally.

"It's probably better this way," says Brennan, blinking slow and hard. "A clean break. Right?"

"Right," she says. " - Right."

And that's the last they hear of him for a long while.

But familiar habits are hard to break, so after two months of uneasy peace something snaps. Brennan picks up his hat one day, twists a tie around his neck, and steps out into a sunny stream of light with his foot still wavering over the threshold of the door. He isn't quite sure what he's doing. But he leaves, and by the time he reaches St. Agnes', he still hasn't made up his mind. The nun at the entrance seems surprised to see him.

"Matt isn't here," she says, because he is known.

"I know," he responds, because it's a painful truth. "But I wanted to know if I – if there's anything else I could do here. If I could volunteer - "

She smiles.

There's not much an old man with arthritis sparking through his knuckles can do, so he thinks. But he sits inside on rainy days and reads Alice in Wonderland to the younger children. He wrestles over math puzzles with the teenagers and exchanges stories with the older, half-wary residents who don't know quite what to do with his presence and sometimes don't even want him there. None of them are Matt. But it can be nice.

He tries to go at least once a week, sometimes more, because it's not as though he does much work these days. And it becomes a habit, for over a year, until the path to the orphanage is more engrained in his mind than the way to the nearby grocer's or his own sister's house. His routine never differs too much. So it's a shock, a real shock, when he steps up to the doors of the orphanage and Sister Lian flutters her hands at him.

"Oh, good," she says. "Please, come with me, maybe you can help. He's been so upset - "

Brennan follows at a distance as she leads him inside. Children he knows stop and go quiet as he passes, staring at him and turning away. Some look embarrassed. Some look resigned. A few, especially the older ones, look angry.

They walk to the end of a familiar hall, one vaguely remembered, and Sister Lian opens a door. His breath catches.

"Go away," says Matt Murdock.

Lying morosely on his bed, Matt looks old and thin and worn compared to the last time Brennan saw him. His arms have formed banded cords of wiry muscles, and bruises – hand-shaped bruises, some of them – are splotched visibly under the short sleeves of his shirt. Brennan stares.

He doesn't understand.

"Matt," he says.

The boy freezes.

"Matt," he says again.

Slowly, though it takes an age, the child shifts his shoulders and rolls around so he's facing the wall. "Go away," he says again, more softly.

The two adults wait. When no other reaction is forthcoming, they eventually do.

In the hall, Brennan Tierney closes his eyes and rests against the wall. He think about hands that can bruise. He wonders about how easy it is to make mistakes.

Matt is different now, distant. Vigilant. Brennan tries to think traumatized, except that's not quite right. It should be. He knows enough about Matt's situation, after all. The boy was blinded, then touched the still-warm face of his dead father after the man was gunned down in an alley. Now he's been abandoned back at an orphanage after some treatment he still won't talk about. But though his movements are careful, his words cautious, he is never afraid.

If anything, he is confident. But cold.

"He's not the same kid," Brennan tells his wife one night over dinner.

"He's older," May answers, and prods her sister when the woman seems to linger too long over a suspicious-looking speck on a plate. "Of course he's not the same."

"It's not that. I don't know that I can connect with him – that he would even want me to."

May peers at him. "Are you sure you're willing to try?" she asks, not unkindly.

He sputters.

He doesn't know how to respond.

"We can't change how we are," he says at last.

"Or what's happened," she says strangely, which doesn't really help clear up anything.

"I mean, it's probably for the best," says Jenna.

He still thinks about it, sometimes, what it would be like to sit Matt down and ask him the question. That question. "Do you want to be family. Officially. Do you want..."

But Matt smiles a lot, these days, and all the smiles are false. Brennan is not sure what the answer would be. He is not sure where the answer would come from. He does not ask.

But when Matt watches over a group of smaller children playing hop-scotch in the yard, Brennan can't stop the questions that comes to his lips. "Did you want to go with him?" is the first one. And then, because that doesn't really mean so much; "Did you like him enough to want to stay?"

Matt stiffens. He even moves differently, now, shifting his head like he's being hunted all the time. He seems to weigh the question more than it's worth. "...He didn't want me," he says at last, and the simple truth of that statement is heartbreaking.

"That's not what I asked."

"I understand why the other families don't want me, I do," Matt says. "It's a lot to expect. There are other kids here who are younger, and aren't blind, and just easier. But we were the same. And he still didn't want me."

"You're nothing like him, Matt. Not in any ways that are important."

"In all the ways that are important," Matt says firmly.

Brennan sighs. "I – the nuns tell me he wasn't even a normal foster-parent. How did this happen?"

"They hired him specially. I guess they thought he could help."

"They hired him?" Brennan asks blankly. "With – with what money?"

"With my money," Matt says.

He says it simply. But the thought fills Brennan with fury.

"The money Jack left you," he says flatly. "They gave it to that – they paid him for this? With your money? What gave them the right to make that decision!"

"They just wanted to help."

"Some help!"

"People make mistakes."

Brennan shakes his head, furious, helpless. What makes him angrier than anything is the fact that Matt doesn't seem to understand the injustice in any of this.

"This isn't a mistake," he says. "What he did to you - "

"I should have been smarter," Matt says.

"No. You couldn't have known what he was like."

"He wouldn't have left if I was smarter, I mean. If I'd understood what he was after."

Brennan's throat seizes. He doesn't understand why Matt would want to stay with that man. He thinks of the bruises again. But Matt is turned away. His knee swivels slowly and he taps his cane against the ground in deliberate, even strokes.

"...Bad things happen," say Brennan softly. "But it's not your fault."

"They are," says Matt. "They really are."

It's probably for the best that they don't adopt him, Brennan decides in the end. People change. Matt changes and so does Brennan. But they keep in touch.

Matt gets his undergrad in English, then gets a scholarship to Columbia. What the scholarship doesn't pay for the rest of Battlin' Jack's money does. "He would be proud of you," Brennan says, and he means it.

He's not entirely surprised when Matt settles down with a law-partner to work his own, tiny firm in Hell's Kitchen. Trying to work with and for the people, with ridiculous idealism, sounds exactly like the thing Matt would do.

They meet for celebratory drinks not long after Matt passes the bar exam. Brennan's joints are horrible by now. Between him and Matt they make quite a pair, he's sure, the two of them shuffling down the street hand-in-arm.

The chairs in Josie's are uncomfortable no matter how old someone is, anyway.

While he's there Matt tells him about his new secretary, and Brennan updates Matt about May's latest schemes to get him out of the house. When the TV over the bar changes, he glances up and says, "Don't suppose you've heard anything 'bout that devil, now?"

"I assume you haven't gained an interest in Catholicism," Matt says.

"You know what I mean. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen, they're calling him."

"He seems interesting," Matt concedes. "He helped Karen. I'm reserving judgment."

"Good fighting form."

"Which is good if he's on the right side."

"True enough."

"What do you think of this devil?" Matt asks.

"...I like him," Brennan decides. " - He punches like a boxer."

There's a pretty blonde who looks up from her desk when he opens the door, visibly startled. After a moment, a smile breaks out over her face. "Oh, hello! My name is Karen Page - " she stands, starting to move around the desk. " - How can we help you at Nelson and Murdock?"

"I'm not here for business," Brennan assures, and her smile visibly falters. "I'm here to see Matt – he's a... family friend."

The smile is back, though she still seems surprised. "Oh! Uh, sure, Mr. - ?"

"Do we have a – Hello!" a man has just appeared from one of the two side-doors. "I'm Foggy Nelson, one of the partners here - "

"He's here for Matt," Karen cuts off the newcomer, and the man pauses, then slumps.

"Of course you are," Foggy mutters. "Here, let me - "

Brennan doesn't exactly need to be shown around the tiny office, but Foggy steps around him and opens the only other door, letting Brennan step through. "Guest, Matt," Foggy adds. "Um – what's your name?"

"Brennan Tierney."

"Right! Uh – you do know him, right?"

Matt doesn't look much different than the last time Brennan saw him. Clearly his childhood tendency to find trouble has carried into adulthood. He has a healing cut on the side of his head, cleanly treated. Same Matt. His red glasses glint in the pale light.

"I – yes. Of course I do."

The healing scrape on his head must itch, because as he tilts his head toward Brennan, he makes an aborted motion toward the wound.

"...Wait, Tierney?" asks Foggy. "Hey, aren't you the guy Matt - " and he abruptly falls silent.

"Yes," says Brennan, because people should know about this. People should know about the sacrifice Matt made, should know what a hero he is. "He told you?"

"I – read about it," Foggy mutters, glancing between them. "Should I - ?"

Matt smiles his polite-smile. It's a development that was crafted in the orphanage. "I think Karen printed the files for the Reyes case this morning."

"Right. Sure, I'll start on those. I'll be... in my office."

With one more disconcerted glance at Brennan, Foggy leaves, closing the door behind him.

"I didn't expect you to come here," Matt says.

"It's ridiculous how little we see you, now that you live in the city again," Brennan says. "Besides, you have your own firm now! It's the dream, right, you big-shot lawyer?"

"Right," Matt murmurs.

"You'd a made your dad proud, you know," Brennan says, coming around and sitting in a chair across from Matt. He leans over the desk, though he knows Matt can't see him. "He was always saying – well, you know - "

"Use my brains."

"And you've got 'em."

A faint smile touches Matt's lips.

"You really should visit," Brennan continues. "May wants an excuse to spoil you silly. You're like family, you know?"

For some reason, Matt takes awhile to answer. He's oddly still for a moment. "You were always like family to me, too," he says at last.

"I'm glad you say that, you know? I never had a son. And I'm sorry you never had a father, after Jack."

"I used to think you would," Matt starts, and stops.

"What?"

Matt's throat works. Then he smiles once, quick and hard. "Nothing," he says. "Just something I heard... But I suppose it would have been a bad idea, anyway."

Brennan doesn't understand quite what Matt's talking about. But he can see that Matt's struggling with some idea. "Things always work out right, in the end," is the only platitude he can make.

"Right," Matt bursts, almost breathless. Brennan peers at him. "It – that's exactly what I thought. It would have... ended the same way, anyway." A pause. "...Everything ends the same."

When they walk, Matt's nostrils keep flaring. He twists his face like he smells something unpleasant.

But if he does, Brennan can't smell it. At one point, apropos of nothing, Matt asks, "Have you been keeping up with your medical appointments, Brennan?"

"I'm old," he shrugs. "It doesn't matter so much."

"No," Matt says. "I suppose not."

Matt seems somewhat subdued the rest of the day, but all in all Brennan thinks the visit goes well. They stop for ice cream on the way back to the office. It melts down their hands in the evening heat, and Matt insists on taking the cone-wrapper from Brennan personally. Brennan watches as he tosses it unerringly into a nearby dumpster. His blindness doesn't seem to hinder his accuracy.

It's nice, Brennan thinks, how well Matt knows his city.