Notes: Generally when I post something, I've already done everything I wanted to with it. But I get so much joy out of hearing from all of you – I may be a bit addicted – that I started this back in August after a couple of people requested it. It's been nearly abandoned several times, but there are a few bits that I like that I couldn't bear to part with. (And, after a fic passes a certain word count, it always seems a shame to never let it see the light.) So I kept coming back to it and it kept getting longer, and though I'm still not happy with it, I think I'm finally ready to be rid of it. Suffice it to say that if you're tired of what I do, you won't find anything new to entertain you here. But if my absence has made your heart fonder, I invite you to please enjoy. Hopefully.

I still make no money, because they still don't belong to me.

The MRI machine is agonizingly loud, the earplugs they'd given him useless against the vibrations that thrum through his bones. An enclosure claustrophobically cylindrical, and his fingers twitch with the impulse to stretch his arms out to beat at the walls, the ceiling. He can't breathe in here. Can't think around this booming noise.

He wants to get out. He's got to get out.

"You need to relax, Matt. We're almost done." The voice is familiar, female. Winding through the cyclical pattern of sound with a soothing certainty. But suddenly he can't place it, and there's another flush of panic. "Matt? Listen to me: you have to hold still."

It's impossible to gather a sense of the room beyond the scanner; the interference from the machine is too insistent. The universe tastes only of plastic and antiseptic. "… can't… have to…" Matt chokes. He can't hear himself, isn't certain he's speaking aloud. Doesn't know who he's talking to. Pleading with.

Gravity grabs at his ankles, dragging everything into an unexpected whirlpool spin. He instinctively fights to keep himself from being pulled into it, but his clawing fingertips bump over the ridges in the walls. There's no viable handhold, no way to stop the slide. That voice, virtually shouting now; the room explodes in a abrupt expansion. He launches himself toward freedom and his feet find the floor – where are his shoes? – and though he thinks he's standing the magnetic waves tingle over his skin, distorting his perceptions. Leaving him uncertain. Clinging to the edge of whatever he'd been lying on he tries to ride them out, but there's a growing buzz filling the room, filling him. Overwhelming. He's falling.

Falling falling falling and it seems he's on the ground but still he's falling falling falling falling every bit of him vibrating, each molecule at a different frequency, no beyond, no before, just this, only vibrating, falling falling falling falling…

Claire's hands are the first external sensation to break through, instantly recognizable even with the world so confusing. They are, as always, defined ultimately by their professionalism, and he wonders – not for the first time – how much of this is the skill that he knows directs them and how much is due to the distancing latex. Her hands erase the vibrations by inches, and his lips move to thank her. If she hadn't found him, if she hadn't taken him in… He'd be dead.

Claire is life. Beauty and kindness and life and –

"And while that's all very sweet," Claire says, next to his ear, "maybe now's not the time."

"But…" He barely remembers the escape, let alone hauling his broken body into that dumpster. The impulse to hide, the impossibility of anything past that. The awareness that closing his eyes there was nothing less than a surrender. That he probably wouldn't be opening them again. "Thank you, Claire. You…"

"We're not the only ones here, Matt." He works to translate this with muted senses; entering the busy hospital had felt like being tossed without warning into the deep end of a pool, and the only way to keep from drowning had been to shut it all out by hastily erecting every painstakingly-learned barrier he had. There's little getting through, even from Claire right beside him. "I know you're not going to like this," she says, "but I want to keep you here overnight."

Who else is here? Foggy had said something about a phone call, Matt remembers; as soon as they'd met Claire he'd left them. Matt doesn't think he's returned, but he can't be sure. Though it seems somehow inconceivable that Foggy could be nearby without him being able to tell. So if not Foggy, then…

Wait, overnight? "No." The word doesn't fit in his mouth. "Claire, no."

"You're already here. What's a few more hours?"

He can't stay here. He won't stay here. They can't force him to. He'll sign himself out AMA and get a cab if he has to, the minute she's called elsewhere. She can't watch him every second.

"Wow. You really don't like hospitals," Claire murmurs. Matt doesn't know why, but he's glad she's finally beginning to understand this. "Okay. Before we get into all that, let's get you off the floor. Ready to try and get up?"

The paper gown is an insufficient layer between his skin and the chill of the linoleum, a problem he's only just noticing. "Yeah." It's more of a grunt than anything else.

"Hang on," she says, standing and moving away. He loses her after only a few feet. Bleach and alcohol, a faint tang of ozone. Rubber and metal as she returns pushing a wheelchair in front of her. It stops inches from him; he maps out what he can reach with his fingertips, the throbbing of the now-silent scanner still echoing in his head. Matt tries to use his own strength rather than hers to maneuver himself into the seat. An optimistic goal, and he's covered in sweat by the time that he's settled. "All right?" she asks, her gloves finding his pulse again.

Clinical but not cold, those fingers. "Yeah." The assurance comes so quickly that even he doesn't believe it. "So, m'I gonna live?" And that was supposed to sound like more of a joke.

She releases the brake on the chair, and the room swirls around his head as he's wheeled into a u-turn. "Looks like it," Claire says, over his swallowed moan. "But I'd feel a lot better hooking you up to some of these expensive machines for a while to be sure."

"Wanna go home." It's cranky, the whine of a child. The truth, but he hadn't intended to blurt it out like that. They pass through the doorway, and the corridor unfurls in either direction; he's trying, but keeping everything out takes a focus that he doesn't really have. Matt fights to sit up instead of burying his aching head in his hands. "Claire, please…" There's got to be something, some way to explain it to her. "I can't be here."

The chair jerks to a halt, with a squeak of the wheels and a shudder that travels the length of his frame. "Why not? If someone's looking for you, Matt, we can talk to hospital security. Give them a description and –"

The past oozes through the cracks in his present, and for a long moment all other knowledge is blotted out by the thought of the kid they'd taken. He can't recall exactly who they are in this wet fugue, but clearly he needs to get out there and find them. He'd slipped up, giving over the advantage the last time – and this headache won't let him forget it – but he won't be so careless again. Get out of here, get the kid. Even vague as it is, it feels the most well rounded plan he's had all day.

But first he has to get out of this chair, and there's a hand on his shoulder that seems absolutely determined to keep him down. It's difficult to get out from under it, struggling as he is to hold onto some kind of invented sense of orientation as the air moves around him. The floor is as far away as the ceiling and everything's swinging, and his mental marker looks less like a compass and more like a cross.

He can't say why this strikes him as funny. Seems like the kind of thing Stick would usually have an opinion on, but there's nothing.

"Matt, stop." Latex, talc. A hint of vanilla. Claire. "Where are you going?"

He doesn't realize that his eyes are burning until he closes them against the artificial breeze in the hallway; it tickles over the hairs on his bare arms, his lower legs, and he suddenly feels incredibly exposed. Matt tries to let the details of Claire color themselves in without allowing his attention to spill over her lines into the rest of the hospital. It's her hand on his shoulder. She's in front of him now.

Expectantly, as if he's supposed to say something. Where are you going? Matt presses the heel of a hand to his forehead, like he might be able to force his thoughts back in line. Courthouse? He has to meet Foggy? This doesn't sound right. Save the kid. No. Claire says his name – again? – and he's horrified to hear his own voice admit in a whisper that he doesn't actually know.

"Now tell me again why you don't think you need to be here?"

"Because..." None of the reasons ring completely true. All of them do. "It's… it's too much, Claire." He's not sure if this is an explanation anyone else can understand. He wants to go home. To an environment more controllable, more comfortable. If nobody needs him to be anywhere, he really just wants to sleep.

She's facing him, bending close and breathing on his skin; he focuses on the rhythm of her respirations as she studies him, and by the time she's relented and straightened he's almost managed to calm his own to matching it. "I'm not off tonight until late," she warns, pushing the chair back into motion. "Can one of your friends keep an eye on you until then?"

He scowls at this thinly-veiled implication of helplessness. "Just gonna sleep. Don't need a babysitter."

"And if you decide to go running off god knows where like you almost did a second ago?" She's frustrated, bordering on upset; her voice crosses its arms over her chest even though he knows that her hands must be on the chair. "Come on, Matt. You know how this works. Concussion. I'd feel better if there was somebody around until I can come by."

"Not gonna…" Even as he protests, he's trying to remember where he'd been going. Where they're going now. "Uh…"

Claire wheels him around the stupid syllable, leaving it behind them on the floor. He worries that it'll be lonely. Trod on. That they should go back for it.

"Maybe I should talk to your friend Foggy. From what I've seen of the two of you so far, I'm thinking he might be the sensible one."

"S'not fair," he exhales. Her tone has relaxed its stance a little; Matt searches for the same note to his. "Only see me at my worst."

"Don't I wish that wasn't the truth," Claire says. He's probably imagining the amount of regret that shadows it.

She pushes him through another doorway. It's a small room empty of people but crowded by boxy shapes – most of them humming along at a steady voltage and smelling of the same antiseptic that covers every surface – which he slowly recognizes as the same place he'd started when they'd arrived here. She stops the chair beside the bed that takes up the center, and hands him a lump of fabric that his fingers identify as his clothes. His glasses are on top; he puts them on and instantly feels better. Comforted, more stable. Protected from prying eyes. The metal curtain rings clink together as she tugs at the privacy curtain.

"Do you need help getting dressed?"

"I've got it." It's too gruff to be reassuring. "M'okay. Thanks," he adds, taking care to round the edges. He finds his fingers repetitively twisting one of the shirt buttons; he's in danger of snapping it off. He fights to keep his hand still on top of the pile in his lap.

"I'm going to get your paperwork ready. If you need me, the call button's on the bed."

Matt thanks her one more time, tracks her footsteps through the door. The curtain resettles. He manages to wiggle back into his trousers without getting out of the wheelchair, but it takes most of his energy. He's sweating, sick. And the world's starting that fuzzy tingling thing again.

He puts his head down on the bed on the pillow of his arm, the room crumbling away from him like fistfuls of sand. It sifts through his grasp; he's falling. But he's not. There's the cotton sheet covering the mattress, the taut leather and metal of the chair. The bare arm his forehead rests on, slick skin against skin. Not falling. Not on the floor. Just past the curtain, the open door, two nurses discuss their dinner plans. The details of the corridor spiral into focus around them – a trilling phone, hurried steps; industrial cleaner and perfume and vomit – and Matt drags his attention back into his little room. It's easier to do with the insulating buzzing that's blanketing everything.

It fades gradually. Leaves him weak, heavy. He knows he needs to lift his head, finish getting dressed, but exhaustion tricks him into giving up a few minutes more. It outweighs the discomfort of the scratchy gown that still covers his chest and shoulders, of his cold toes. Matt realizes that he's expecting Stick to say something only when he doesn't.

He wonders where Stick's hiding. Probably sharing a flask with Sister Mary Elizabeth.

His body jerks when her hand lands lightly between his shoulders; another curls around his wrist. She's caught him. She'll be angry. Except the fingers seem longer, deceptively gentle, and instead of starch and soap there's a tease of vanilla. Coffee and the buttery taste of unscented lotion. It's wrong. But he knows for certain that he'll be in trouble for having been found napping; he forces himself to sit up too quickly, and chokes on the dissolving grains of sand.

"Easy," Sister Mary Elizabeth says in Claire's voice. The room begins to clump itself back together and he hears the soles of her sneakers squeak on the floor. The tearing of velcro coming apart. Something wraps around his arm – blood pressure cuff, not a restraint; calm down – and he counts the puffs of air as it tightens. A pen scratches across a sheet of paper. The pressure encircling his arm eases in tiny increments.

"Matt?" He's always liked the way his name sounds when she says it, has from the very first time. So much better than "Mike," clouded with her associations and just another mask between them. "Okay?"

"Yeah." The band is removed from his arm; Claire makes a noise that tells him that they're both wondering why she bothers to ask. "Can I go home?"

"Does my answer to that actually matter?"

"Not really."

"Great. Why did you come here at all?"

He wants to get the horrible hospital gown off. Like yesterday. His fingers fumble for the ties in the back. "Not m'idea. Foggy." He's slumped forward now, his words directed into the clothes in his lap, and still his flopping hand can't find the ties. Building frustration only makes the search more erratic.

"Here." Claire stops the motion of his hand; the bows slide out of their shapes, the itchy material slips away from his shoulders. He remains like this for a moment, enjoying the sensation of the air over his exposed skin. His shirt feels impossibly wrinkled under his fingers. "Nice to know there's someone whose advice you'll listen to."

Matt remembers not really having a choice. And that there'd been an ulterior motive to his acquiescence. "Foggy. D'you see him? Is he okay?"

She nudges him upright, pulls the hated gown off over his arms in movement more fluid than his tenuous balance can appreciate. There's a wisp of wind as she tosses it onto the bed, and the collared shirt disappears from his fingers. A couple of sharp cracks as she tries to shake the creases out.

"Are we talking about the bruise on his face? I didn't ask." The stiff cuff of a sleeve is angled around one of his hands, the bunched material tugged smooth up the length of his arm. "What, did you guys get in a fight or something?"

Matt flinches; Claire's hands freeze. Her heartbeat speeds up though her voice slows down. "What happened?" All humor evaporated, her tone carefully casual.

He's half in and half out of his shirt; he'd put some distance between them if the brake wasn't holding the wheel of the chair in place. But there's nowhere for him to go. Head hanging, he obstinately squirms his way into the other sleeve on his own. It's an effort. His hands tremble as he works to do up the buttons.

Stalling. He knows it. She knows it. "Matt?"

"I, uh… m'not really sure." It's a mumble. And a lie. He's not paying enough attention; he gets to the bottom of his shirt to find that the buttons are misaligned. With an annoyed growl, he unfastens them and starts over. "I thought…" The sentence drifts away.

He's already missed another buttonhole. Back, again. Getting dressed isn't usually this difficult.

"You thought…?"

It seems like such a long time ago. The alley, the courthouse. He'd been trying to protect Foggy. He may or may not say this aloud; it sounds embarrassing enough in his head. Another attempt at lining up the buttons proves futile. Perplexing.

Clearly this shirt is defective. Though he doesn't remember there being a problem with it this morning.

Claire offers her assistance. He wants to insist on doing it himself – reflexive, the principle of the thing – but decides to let her see if she can make any sense of it. If only to keep from being here all day. Her fingers are efficient; freed from their latex and clever enough to decipher the secret to the shirt, she quickly accomplishes what he was beginning to think an impossibility. "He seemed fine. Worried about you," she assures him, adjusting his collar. It feels an unnecessary gesture, and oddly intimate. "But I'll see if I can get a look. You ready for me to bring them back here?"

He's tired of trying to force the events of today into order. Tired of the sticky smell of disinfectant. Matt wonders what time it is, whether he'll have a chance to sleep for a bit before going out on patrol. He doesn't ask; the thought of simply standing is met with an absurd preemptive vertigo. Tonight – however far away that might be – isn't going to be fun.

Claire's waiting for something. An answer. "Sure," Matt says, plucking a word randomly from the dark. Her question repeats in his mind a beat later, and the two seem to match up.

"I need you to sign this. Standard discharge form. I could read it…?"

Matt coughs out a laugh. "I trust you, Claire." He does, obviously he does. But mostly he just doesn't care. Not right now. Not through this incessant pounding in his skull. He'll sign anything she says is required – absolutely no questions and with a smile – if it means getting out of here. "Where?"

He holds out his hands and receives a clipboard and pen. It's easy enough to find her thumb resting purposefully on the paper, to scrawl some form of his signature below it. Harder to keep his arms from shaking as he gives the items back. His muscles are useless, out of his control; Claire doesn't comment.

Instead she says, "I'll go get your friends." Leaves with his signature and his train of thought. Matt debates putting on the suit coat that lies draped across his lap, before deciding that it sounds like far too much trouble. He wonders what happened to his tie.

Somebody's sobbing, a terrible fractured noise. It heaves down the hallway, surging in waves against the walls. Foggy and Karen enter the room abruptly, with the false cheer of a shopping mall at Christmas time. The contrast is startling. His brain scrambles to reset; there's something of a gap before his face can find the appropriate expression for this new situation. It's a shadow of a smile at best, but at least it feels like he got it right.

"Ready to go home?" Foggy's voice seems to be floating from more than one direction, from points that in no way correspond to his path through the cramped space. The brake's still snug on the chair – low in the back on a piece of medical equipment like this, difficult to twist around and try to reach it himself – and Matt can't turn to face him. Not in this thing. He'll get up.

But he can't figure out how to make his legs work – focus on one invariably leads to losing track of the other – and now Foggy's behind him. Close. A hand on Matt's shoulder that might be coincidental, supportive rather than restraining. He hears Foggy's shoe slide over the thick plastic of the brake as he kicks it off; it takes a few minutes, but Matt relaxes a little. Stays where he is.

Too bad the room refuses to do the same. It liquefies when Foggy steers him into a tight turn, melting to splash all over the floor with an irregular scattered beat. Like the first moments of a rainstorm. Distracting, and Foggy's midway through another sentence before Matt tunes back in. "… should know?"

Claire's here too; Matt listens more to the shape of her words than their meaning. A handful sneak through – fluids, confusion, orientation and after my shift – but there's no real inclination to tie them together, and he allows them to waft where they will. Closes his eyes behind the opaque lenses of his glasses, lets them talk on over the top of his head. Karen hovers about to his left, an anxious firefly with nowhere to land.

In the hallway, the sobbing swells.

His watch and Foggy's are a fraction out of sync, the ticking of the second hands leapfrogging over one another. Now that he's noticed it, it's all that he can hear. Ticktick. Ticktick. Squeezing between each breath. Ticktick. Ticktick. Under the hum of the traffic surrounding them. Ticktick. Ticktick. Shaping itself into the sound of the indicator light. Ticktick. Ticktick.

The driver takes a hard left, and Matt slips across the vinyl seatback into Foggy's shoulder. An uncontrolled slump, and he can feel his friend's surprise. "Matt?" It's calm, doesn't waver. Even if the rest of him does.

"Mmm…" At some point, it seems, he'd lost the ability to form real words. Foggy's no more comforted by this than Matt is; the muscles around his shoulder shift as Foggy twists his neck to get a look at him. Matt knows he should really lift his head, make an effort. He doesn't want to. He's not even entirely sure when they got into this cab.

Ticktick. Ticktick.

Foggy is substance and solidity, and he smells better than the odors meandering up from the floorboards; everything feels sticky, even if he's not touching anything. Good arguments, Matt thinks, for remaining where he is. He tries to share this reasoning with Foggy – with Karen, with the driver – but it comes out a hopeless jumble of syllables. Immediately he wishes that he could take them all back. They crowd the inside of the car with their nonsense.

"We'll be there soon," Foggy says. It only shakes a little bit.

"S'okay. M'okay." He just wants to sleep this headache away. Though it might work in his favor: maybe when Sister Mary Elizabeth finally tracks him down, she'll take pity on him if he's in pain. It's unlikely. She's not known for being particularly sympathetic, especially at this hour.

No, wait – it's daytime. He's in a cab, an adult. And Sister Mary Elizabeth is probably dead.

This last thought bounces around his brain; it feels scandalously sacrilegious. His hand moves automatically into a penitent Sign of the Cross, but it's a feeble and incomplete gesture with his forehead on Foggy's shoulder. Unnecessarily guilty when it's most likely a fact, an inevitability of the years that have passed.

He pushes down a childish fear that the thought alone might have been enough to kill her.

"So I'm thinking pirates," Foggy says, out of nowhere. Matt blinks behind his glasses, wondering what he's missed. "The fun swashbuckly kind, that is, not the terrifying modern day ones."

"What?" He's a bit pleased with himself. It's an entire word.

"The bruises. Pirates."

"What?" Unfortunately it's also apparently the only word Matt still knows. And his mind is absurdly reluctant to let it go.

"Or we stopped a bank robbery. Wrong place, wrong time, but heroically we saved the day." Foggy's talking too quickly; barely, but it prevents his tone from achieving the nonchalant note it's seeking. "But, before you vote, I should tell you that I'm partial to the pirates."

"Pirates," Matt echoes, not really sure what he's agreeing to. If he cooperates, maybe they'll let him off this boat.

"What, did they attack the courthouse?" Karen asks. She sounds amused.

Matt has no idea why; he's sitting up now, struggling to find his balance. If the people at the courthouse are in danger, they have to get over there. He doesn't have the costume with him, but –

"Home," Foggy's voice cuts through his head. "We're on the way to your apartment, buddy. There's nothing wrong at the courthouse. I swear. We were kidding."

Oh. This explains the laughter, at least; those two usually go together. Matt allows his forehead to return to the steady wall of Foggy's shoulder. He wonders if there's any way to get the timing of their watches to match up again.

The ride is lengthened by a tense silence in the car; Matt's not sure when it started, but it prickles over his skin. Up and down his neck, along the curves of his scalp. He can't find its source. Can't find the words to break it.

Eventually he gives up.

Somewhere in the trip – and the driver must be following his own set of unique directions, because no way was the hospital this far from his place – his head ends up against the window, his position more vertical. The glass is cool, smooth against his face, but it rattles with each revolution of the wheels. The world pulses red in time with his heartbeat, and every turn lurches through him with a rubberband snap of momentum. There's something caught in the undercarriage; tiny, inconsequential. Maybe forced against the tires, being constantly shifted to keep reluctant time with the shivering window glass. It almost sounds like a quacking. Ducks.

Central Park, a pond, and the sound of them filling the air to paint a picture even if he couldn't see the shine of the sun on their feathers. Sitting with Foggy, enjoying the tentative warmth of a spring afternoon. Or had that been with his dad? The memory yellows and curls a little at the edges when Matt finds he can't say for certain.

The vibrations of the window jiggle through teeth and bone to jar the wound on the other side of his skull. He remembers Claire mentioning that she would have probably put in a stitch or two had he come to her last night when it'd happened. Or thinks he remembers; maybe he's imagined this. Because it sounds like something she'd say. It might not be ducks, that quacking. Higher pitched, more of a squeaking, and it's possible it's a loose spring instead. In the seat?

He's not able to tell. He should be able to tell. The rattling's making him nauseous, crawling through him like an insect on a hundred wriggling legs.

"Okay?" Foggy asks. Matt makes a vague noise that's meant to be an affirmative. He swallows, wishes it felt more like the truth.

The driver sees an obstacle ahead, slams to a stop without warning; Matt goes face-first into the back of the passenger seat before the chain of events can register or hope to elicit any kind of a response. It takes a while for the flickering stars to recede into the darkness. When they do, the cab is moving again.

The driver grumbles about seatbelts. Preemptive defensiveness overshadowing any hint of concern.

In the dream, Foggy is a six-foot rabbit that only Matt can see. Or maybe merely dressed as one. Until he's not, shrinking and morphing and now wearing the Daredevil's costume instead. There's a crowd here, too – mute, shuffling – but as far as he can tell everyone's just milling around. Self-absorbed.

Until they're not.

The figures in the alley turn as one, turn on Foggy. Converging on his friend, swamping him. Attacking with fists and feet; Matt can't get a sense of him any more, surrounded by that wall of angry flesh. He tries to get to him but the cement slides by underneath, a moving sidewalk powered by a motor of nightmare logic. It keeps him maddeningly stationary, despite the exertion that's chewing his muscles.

A yell presses his lungs against the interior wall of his chest, taking up too much space to allow them to properly inflate. Claws at his throat but can't manage an escape, even fueled as it is by such desperation. It follows him out of the dream and into the world, into his bedroom. Finds substance – freedom, bursting and brief – in a choked moan that seems to echo in the silence.

Wisps of delusory cobwebs cling to his shoulders, his face, and he sits up with a hazy plan to get away from them. The room sloshes about on either side of his raft of a bed – changing blood flow, and if he could just concentrate he could feel it, track it, measure it – and though he tries to hang on, wait it out, the ocean douses him with an icy wave. The staggered route into his bathroom is one carved deep into kinetic memory. One that thankfully needs no conscious input from him.

The retching aggravates his ribs, what must surely be a literal crack split into his skull. The linoleum bites into his knees. It's a pointless battle on behalf of his body, since he can't recall the last time he ate anything; this thought is enough ammunition to wage another brutal but futile skirmish in the campaign. Nothing will stay still – not the ground, not the air, not his thoughts – and he's too consumed with how wretched he feels to notice any more motion in all that's already there.

So it's unexpected when Foggy's voice precedes him through the open doorway. "Matt…? Oh. Sorry, man."

Matt acknowledges the sympathy, the awkwardness, with a noise that's somewhere between a grunt and a groan. He's searching for a tenable position in which he can hold his head, testing through a series of minute readjustments; this mythical position seems not to exist, every angle as painful and disorienting as any other. He decides that he might as well be uncomfortable back in bed. The bowl's empty except for some spit, a bit of bile, but he flushes anyway. A bad idea. The water is a roar so near to his ears.

He uses the counter to haul himself to his feet, uses it to keep himself upright once he finally gets there. He can't remember going to bed – if he's honest, their arrival at the apartment is mostly missing too – isn't sure if he's supposed to know that Foggy had hung around. Or returned. He has no idea what time it is.

"Can I do anything?" Foggy asks from the door. Matt risks losing the support of one arm just long enough to make a dismissive gesture with that hand. Back to the counter.

He's judging his balance, plotting his path to the other room. It takes a while. But he only stumbles once on the way out, his careful focus shattered when the reek of scorched coffee suddenly breaks over him. He realizes that the air of the apartment is drenched with it. "Forget to turn off your coffee?" Matt jabs, unable to suppress his annoyance.

"Not me, my friend." Foggy trails him the distance to the bed. "Funny, I don't remember you having a problem with that."

"Still don't. First time it's happened." The truth, but Matt's easily as unnerved as his friend is pretending not to be. Had he not deactivated his presets? Made a pot this morning before court and simply walked away? He doesn't know. Only a mistake, and one that he tells himself could have happened to anyone. Doesn't mean he's incapable, that he can't take care of himself. Even if he can't say right now whether or not this is actually still the same day.

He finds the mattress with his knees, crawls over the mess of his silk sheets toward a guess at its center. A barely controlled descent sprawls him there, and he listens idly to his neighbor banging around on the opposite side of their one shared wall. Not angry, but unflagging. It's been going on for days now. It has the definite sense of a quest for something specific, but what that is – and the exact nature of the items being continuously rearranged – Matt's been unable to figure out. It seems impossible that they could have so much stuff to move.

"What time is it?" he mumbles into the sheets. Because it feels like he should care.

Foggy sits on the bed, dipping the mattress into a shallow depression. It momentarily seems a crater that Matt fears he might tumble into. "I think I'm supposed to ask you that."

"How would I know?" God his head hurts. "How long … long v'you been here?"

"A few hours," Foggy says. It doesn't give Matt any practical information, but he lost interest in the answer the moment he'd managed to get out the question. "Do you know where you are?"

"Huh?" It's stupid; of course he does. He's in his apartment, being battered by the unidentifiable symphony of his neighbor's obsessive redecoration. How many possible combinations of object placement can there be? It's going on way too long to be some amateur attempt at feng shui. He's got to be looking for something.

He? She? Matt can't recall who lives over there. Doesn't have the resources to try and work it out.

"Okay – not exactly the answer I was hoping for, Matt. Crap, I shouldn't have said that. What if you didn't remember your name until I told you? Now I can't ask that one, because you might just be cheating and repeating the answer… though I guess if you can't, that would be an answer in itself…"

There's more, but Matt's registered what's happening. And how worried Foggy sounds. "Fog. S'okay. Stop." There's an extended scraping sound from next door. What is that? Is he moving furniture? "M'here." No, that's not really right. His voice rumbles unpleasantly through his head, but he tries again. "I know. I… M'okay," The silk envelops the words. Swallows them.

"Yeah, well… I'm not sure your opinion is the one we should trust here."

"S'fine. Thank you. Go home." He wants the silence back. Hadn't it been quieter when he'd woken up? If he could just get a little more sleep, a few more hours… He's got to get up soon anyway. He should find out what time it is.

"Sorry. I promised Claire I'd stay."

"I'll tell her… did." The only chance at palliation seems to lie in not shifting his head – eyebrows, eyeballs, lips, cheekbones – at all; the side of his face feels smashed into an odd contortion against the sheets under the limp weight of his skull. The silk is damp where it pushes its way between his lips, where he drools on it. "Go 'way."

"I'm going to get you a book on etiquette. Being a better host."

"Can you get me water first?"

"I can." The mattress tilts, tips, as Foggy rises; he leaves, and Matt drifts in his absence. The neighbor shuffles more nameless items around. An indistinct conversation begins. It sounds like it's originating from his kitchen.

Sister Mary Elizabeth? Karen. Now it sounds like it's coming from next door. If Karen's still here, maybe he should move out into the other room; apparently Foggy's not too far off in his estimation of Matt's hosting skills. His fingers tell him he's wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt – the angle and length of the tiny notch in the tag at his neck confirms this, tells him that the shirt should be blue – not excessively inappropriate attire for company. Especially if they're the sort who would camp out uninvited in his living room.

He doesn't want to get up.

Foggy returns before a final decision is made; he's alone. Matt suddenly can't remember where he left the costume, if he'd put it away when he'd changed last night. Was it only last night? Surely he had, habit taking over even if he wasn't thinking straight. But then there's the coffee. So maybe not.

"Where are you going? I brought you water."

The floor is cold against his bare feet, the icy pain it spreads up from his soles merely an annoyance in its addition. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, but there's a blank space when he looks for the motions that got him here. He's really thirsty. A sour taste coating his tongue.

"I know," Foggy says. "Hence the water."

A cylindrical shape with the length of an arm behind it floats in the air by Matt's temple. He'd reach for it, but he's afraid to release his grip on the edge of the mattress. Might fall off, the way everything's pitching around. Now the glass is in his hand. How did that happen? The water's lukewarm, and he can't feel its path down his throat.

Hydration brings with it a flirtation at clarity; he remembers the costume, its uncertain whereabouts. He's standing before he registers the intention of doing so.

The world drops away.

Fades back in to the awareness of a hand wrapped too tightly around his arm, just above the elbow. The glass disappearing from his fingers. Foggy easily directs him back down to sit on the bed – not difficult when he's so unsteady, when he's without any strength with which to build a basis for resistance – and Matt hangs his head and tries not to throw up. "You may as well get comfortable," Foggy says; he sounds tired. "It's not like you're going anywhere tonight."

Matt doesn't bother to argue this. He'll give it a few hours – what time is it? – and get rid of his company. What Foggy doesn't know won't hurt him. "S'Karen?" he asks instead. It's slurred, but he's fairly impressed that he got it out at all. His tongue feels swollen, clumsy.

"She left. You wouldn't stop calling her Sister Mary Ellen or something."

"I… what?" There's no recollection of talking to Karen, no clues as to what he might have said. A hole that's flavored with anxiety, and the air's gotten thicker, pressing in. It's taken on a tinny, distant ring.

"I'll be honest: she wasn't thrilled. Sure, it was a little funny at first…" The sentence wanders away; Matt's having trouble remembering how to breathe, barely notices. Not gasping yet – in, out, hold it together ohgodwhatdidIsay – but every respiration feels frighteningly artificial. Superficial. Wrong.

"… wasn't until you launched into what sounded like a surprisingly coherent lecture on urban self-defense that I actively started encouraging her to leave." Foggy finishes. "It seemed like the wisest course of action." Matt groans, pinches the bridge of his nose. Foggy still has a grip on his other arm; his tone is several shades lighter than the stormy tension that the lingering connection implies.

"What else?' The question grates up Matt's throat. Almost doesn't make it past his teeth. None of the memories floating to the front of his addled mind is anything he'd want to share. Not with Karen, certainly not babbling and without context. Foggy hasn't even heard most of them.

Sister Mary Elizabeth standing behind him, silent. There's no hint as to what she expects from him, even as her expectation is clear; she breathes down onto the top of his head, on the sensitive skin of the part in his hair. Sister Mary Elizabeth, making her rounds after the lights are out. The jangling of her keys announces her, as does the slight drag of her left foot when she walks; Matt scrubs at his eyes and holds his breath as he feigns sleep, hoping she won't get close enough to see the tear tracks stiffening on his face.

Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep And if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take.

If he dies here, where will they bury him? When it's stiflingly warm, in the summer, she has no choice but to leave at least one of the windows open. They sleep on the first floor; he's climbed out more than once to explore the old church graveyard. Mapped out its borders, tripped over the ubiquitous roots that crack up through the ground. There was no one to ask, but he'd gotten the sense that there wasn't any room left to bury anyone new here. If not at the church, then maybe near his dad? They'd dragged him away, dropped him off here and forgotten him; if there was any kind of a service, no one had told him about it.

It would be years before he'd know what had ultimately happened to his father's body. "W'else did I say?" He intends the words to be audible, but doesn't think he accomplishes it.

When Foggy actually responds, Matt's startled into raising his head. "Don't worry. Not much of it was incredibly comprehensible. Though I am starting to wonder what it is you're so obviously concerned that we found out. No more secrets, Matt. That was the deal."

You can't keep secrets from God, Matthew. He knows all of your sins.

Matt tries to pull his arm out of Foggy's bruising grasp; after a moment he relents, lets go. Matt squirms back to horizontal. It's a position still uncomfortable, but the one requiring the least amount of effort. "Secrets from Karen," he protests, in what feels a reasonable attempt at salvage. "The costume…" The costume. What about the costume?His neighbor has given up the search for another day. The rattling had been so intrusive, so irritating, but he can't say for sure when it ended.

"What about it?" Foggy's voice circles the bed; the water glass makes a solid noise as its base finds the bedside table. "I know you're not asking me to get it for you."

"She see it?" he asks into the sheets. He doesn't care. Yes he does.

"Of course not. I mean, you definitely need to tell her; it's messed up to keep lying to her like this, and you know it. But I'm not making that decision for you."

It's not an argument that Matt feels up to having right now. His heart pounds in his temple, his jaw, the cavity between his ear and throat. Nasopharynx, his brain supplies unhelpfully; he wonders why it can come up with this, but so little else. There's the faintest rustle of silk in response to every pulse, his heartbeat punching through his skin.

It's driving him crazy. But he doesn't really have the energy to move.

"Should g'home," he slurs, maybe not for the first time. Forming whole words is strangely exhausting. "We…" A breath. Trying again. "… court t'morrow?" What time is it? Where's his phone? Matt can't remember when he'd last had it; a flare of adrenaline almost gets him back up. Almost. "… phone…" he hears himself mumble instead. It's a ghosting impression of his usual voice, and not quite a question. More like he's hoping to summon the thing to him by calling to it.

Foggy misses this, under his snort of an unamused laugh. "No, Matt. No court tomorrow."

Recent memories dangle around him in the dark like the frayed ends of broken threads; he doesn't reach for them. It's obvious that there's something he's supposed to be understanding in Foggy's words, but once he realizes this he's already forgotten their order. Why is Foggy still here? He should really go home.

"Say that another twenty times or so, and I might start to develop a complex. It's like you don't want me around." The duvet becomes a living thing, jerking and twitching as Foggy tugs it out from under his legs. He pulls it over Matt's body, remolding the bed to accommodate his new fallen angles. "And I know that's not true."

The blanket settles around him with a sigh. It's pleasantly warm beneath it, and if he stays completely still he can trick himself into ignoring the pain for entire seconds at a time. "S'not true," Matt agrees. "But go 'way."

"No can do, my friend; you're stuck with me for a while longer. Promises were made. And if I've learned anything at all in my tumultuous dealings with another lady I'm too much of a gentleman to name, it's that you never break a promise to a formidable woman. Not if you value keeping your anatomy intact."

"Might take out y'r tonsils," Matt mumbles. Trying to participate.

"Was that a joke? That almost sounded like a joke."

"Maybe." He's forgotten what they're talking about again.

He dreams of a bank robbery taking place in the courthouse, giant safes sitting where the metal detectors should be. He knows this despite being too far away to be able to truly discern it. When the shouting starts, he's up on the third floor.

It's coming from the lobby; Matt takes the stairs. He careens down them – tripping, tumbling – cut off from the action by these walls, by these steps made of concrete. They must be. They're so cold. He can feel their chill through his shoes; such an unimportant thing, but he's finding it hard to focus. He hears what he's positive is a car horn, a weird sound in this otherwise well-insulated stairwell.

Doesn't matter: he's nearing the lobby. The air is cooler down here, so near to the main entrance. He makes a pointless attempt to see the space, the people in it, before depressing the wide metal bar waiting under his fingers. More wasted minutes. It's like there's nothing beyond this thick door. He knows the layout, has been through it plenty of times, but when he reaches for the memory he finds it eroded and shifting. All he can come up with is lofty ceilings, ringing marble. Echoes and openness and a complete lack of cover. If he exits out of this door, it's likely that he'll be spotted instantly.

He's stuck, swaddled by doubt. But he can't just stay like this. Hiding here. Matt cracks the door, readying himself to move; as soon as he can pick a direction, he's going. But the lobby is oddly silent. All whispers and strange angles.

There: the impression of a figure darting past, near the front doors. Matt ducks back into the stairwell, but there's no resulting uproar, no approaching attack force headed his way. He takes a breath, tries again. The lobby sits inexplicably empty.

Smaller than it should be as he crosses it, too. Undulating and ill-defined. He has no explanation for where the people have gone, for how the chaos could have so completely dissipated. It's baffling. He stumbles toward the doors, toward the only sign of life he's detected; if there are answers to be had, this seems his most likely opportunity to get them. He doesn't understand what's going on. His legs drag like he's wading through water.

It smells like carpet cleaner, the same one they use in his apartment building. Which makes no sense, because there aren't any carpets in the lobby of the courthouse. Even stranger is the doorknob he finds he has to twist to get out; Matt's positive these front doors should be automatic. But the chain of his thoughts is joined with delicate links, and it crumbles when he steps outside.

Focus. Find him.

Find…? A breeze blows past, slipping frigid fingers through clothes to his skin.

Find him. Look. Matt searches for any hint that someone came through this way. But there are far too many, and he's having trouble deciding which are the most recent. He needs to move away from the entrance, to put some distance between himself and this morass of tracks. These ghosts clogging the air. They're swarming into his ears, his nose, muffling everything to leave him truly blind. Suffocating him, if he lets them. He should head for the street.

It's more of a plan than he's had to this point, and it gets him moving in what feels to be a relatively straight line. But the world wobbles. And the stairs arrive sooner than they're scheduled.

Matt knows he should have at least fifteen feet more; it's a shock when his next step comes down to find mostly emptiness. His heel slips off an edge, and reflex flails for any kind of a handhold as his legs go out from under him. Instinct jerks him just enough that he falls back rather than forward. He hits the ground hard, his spine screaming its protest along a multitude of nerves.

The impact leaves him stunned, confused. Combined with the smothering lassitude that's weighing him down, it seems easier not to attempt to get up. At least not yet. What's wrong with him? He's not usually this clumsy. Unaware. What's happening? He has no answers, can't even sort out where he is.

He concentrates instead on controlling his breathing, on slowing the panting to something that sounds less like a dog in the summertime. Anything more complex than this sends his thoughts skittering away into the dark. When he finally manages to establish a more normal rhythm, he tries to take an internal inventory to check for injuries – he's on the ground; didn't he fall? – but midway through he forgets what he's supposed to be looking for. His head throbs. It's mimicked by his tailbone.

"… your shoes? Mr Murdock? You listening to me?"

"What?" His lips move independently of his brain. But he knows this voice that comes out of nowhere, full and low and with honey dripping through its cracks. It doesn't connect with the courthouse though, it belongs to… "Mrs Jameson?"

"Who else would I be? What're you doing out here, son?" She doesn't give Matt time to answer. "Sitting on the steps in the dark. Scare an old woman half to death."

A resident of his building if not his floor, the first person he'd met when he'd moved in. He'd hired movers – could have done it himself, but it would have looked a bit suspicious – and she'd been downstairs when they first arrived. Waiting for her grandson, she'd said, a furniture delivery of her own; Matt had learned what seemed like everything about the kid but his favorite color before he'd shown up with the awaited armoire. "M'sorry."

"Don't need apologies, boy. Just need a path to the door so's I can get inside and off these aching feet."

Her grandson plays the saxophone. No – there's someone playing a saxophone down the street. He's outside. How did he get outside? He can smell the particular blend of spices in the curry made by the Indian restaurant around the corner, the favored incense that always seems to be leaking from the building next door. Snippets of conversations, barking dogs, traffic. How long has he been out here?

"I'm not as skinny as I used to be, son. Ain't gonna be able to squeeze by you."

Two streets over, a car comes to a sudden stop; Matt winces as the shriek of thinning brake pads stabs through to his brain. She wants him to move. He needs to stand up.

"You alright, Mr Murdock? There someone you need me to call?"

Somebody on the second floor is chopping onions, the blocky sound and pungent odor wafting out of a window. "No, I…" The stinging chill of the pavement feels like a burn on his feet. Is he barefoot? He can't stop himself from wiggling his toes, finds no resistance. "'Scuse me. M'sorry," Matt mumbles, reaching for the wrought-iron railing that guards either side of the stairs. He finds it with fingers, uses its solidity to climb to his feet. The movement, the new altitude, compresses his skull, sends everything wavering. His performance feels less than convincing as he clings to it.

Behind him the door to the building is flung open with force. Matt turns to face the motion that's rushing their way. The world rocks violently around him, and he's bitterly aware that he can't protect her – who? – like this. Doesn't matter. Find something you can use. There isn't much time. And there's nothing. The nearest tree isn't close enough to hope to find a quick weapon from its branches; the railing's firm, doesn't even jiggle. He's going to have to let go of it if he wants to use his hands.

It isn't until Foggy skids to an ungainly stop beside him that Matt recognizes his friend; Foggy's sweating, practically gulping for air. "Hey, there you are," he says, with a nonchalance so forced it's ridiculous. Especially with all the gasping. "I was, uh, looking for you."

"Who're you?" Mrs Jameson challenges from further down the stairs. Matt can hear how fast her heart is racing, but there's nothing in her tone to betray this. "Mr Murdock, you know this person?"

He wonders what Foggy must look like; his breath is faintly sour, like he just woke up. Matt has no idea what time it is, but he thinks he remembers that Mrs Jameson works late. Maybe. The saxophone's sad song bends the breeze like crumpled velvet.

She's waiting for an answer, ready to jump to his defense. Matt's not sure exactly what that would entail, but he doesn't want Foggy to have to be the one to find out. "I do. A friend." His voice sounds foreign, stilted; keeping the sentences short is the best chance at preventing the words from running together. From bouncing out of order.

"Franklin, ma'am. Nelson," Foggy stutters; things dip and tumble around in Matt's head when he turns back that way in surprise. His fingers curl more tightly around the iron rail.

"Just that I never seen you," she mutters. Somewhat soothed, but still skeptical. Her pulse has slowed a little, but it keeps a hard beat. Determined. Prepared for action.

Matt's tongue is wrapped in cotton; he swallows, but there's no moisture at all in his mouth. He feels like he should offer something else, more of an explanation to appease her. Possibilities flick by. None of them fully shaped, and his mouth chooses one without tasting it. "Avocados," he hears himself say. He knows it's wrong the moment it escapes.

"What?" Her tone is a raised eyebrow, narrowed eyes. "What're you boys up to? You using drugs?"

There's a cicada in the bushes next to the steps. Loud and solitary. Calling for a mate? Demanding that they leave? He has no idea, but he wishes it would stop its shrill chirping.

"No, ma'am," Foggy says immediately. "No drugs." Somebody giggles. Matt presses his heavy tongue against the back of his teeth, afraid that it may have been him.

Foggy wraps a hand around his arm, and he realizes how cold he is only when it's contrasted by this circle of warmth. Especially his feet. Is he not wearing shoes? Did he already know that? "Time to go," Foggy suggests; there's a tiny creak from his soles as his weight shifts more toward the door. "Two steps to the top," he warns.

It's an old habit. Matt hears the hiccup in his heartrate when he remembers that he doesn't need to, never really did.

"Thanks," he says, sincerely. With all the distortion in his head, he's grateful not to have to figure it out for himself. He realizes now that his neighbor is still behind him, thinks he should at least say good night. Apologize, maybe, for being such a wreck. For preventing her from getting home. She'd been trying to get by, he recalls, though it seems as if weeks could have passed since then. Like they've always been out here. Doing this.

Say something. Focus.

He turns to her – his mouth open, though he doesn't know yet what he'll say – and the motion swoops sideways his equilibrium. Foggy's hold tightens, probably the only thing that keeps Matt from taking a header down the stairs. He clamps his jaw against a swell of nausea. Tries to hear through the blood pulsing thickly in his ears. … hit… mugged… There's a conversation going on without him.

Cicadas, onions, a lonely saxophone weeping in the wind. He wants to lie down. But they're moving – at least he thinks they're moving, that it's not just his own skewed vantage – Foggy leading Matt toward what he slowly recognizes is the front door. Matt struggles not to lean into him, but he finds himself listing inexorably that way. His legs can't find their normal sync; one of his bare feet comes down half on top of the other. He tries again, but doesn't lift the foot high enough. Stubs his toe on the concrete walkway.

The door opens outward, a cool flush of air. Matt enters first but Foggy presses in close behind, apparently unwilling to release his grip. He's too miserable to worry about anyone that might be gawking, making assumptions about his capabilities or lack thereof; he thinks the room is empty, but it shimmers oddly in the corners and he can't say for certain. The carpet's matted – a trampled trail that they follow to the elevator – Foggy in front now, dragging him along like they're late for something.

Are we?

He's pulled into the elevator, the door closing to seal them off before he can decide. The car announces its intention to move with a sickening lurch; Matt shuts his eyes, breathing shallowly, rapidly, beneath the rumbling that always accompanies its ascent. Though he doesn't remember it ever being this loud. Oil, perfume, dirt, asphalt; fried chicken and curry and stale cigarette smoke. Grass, dog crap. The mingling body odors of a crowd's worth of people. Too much. He can't see through it.

Foggy's voice whips out of the dark, exaggerated and oversized for the space. "What the hell, Matt? I woke up and you were gone."

There's no memory of leaving the apartment, but he must have since he ended up outside. This thought seems rational; the brief glimpse of rationality makes him feel a little more grounded. "Sorry," he's able to get out. Foggy must be exhausted, Matt realizes, if he'd managed to leave the apartment without waking him.

He doesn't remember. There's just something about a bank robbery. Dreamy and with no context.

"Like nowhere," Foggy reiterates unnecessarily. "Seriously, I think I had a mini stroke."

"Sorry," Matt repeats. A mushy mumble. The pain in his head is fluctuating, blood vessel fingers stretching ice cold outward from his temple. Piercing his brain with their snaking multitude of tendrils. It makes him want to throw up.

"Where were you going anyway?" Foggy asks, as the elevator stops with a jerk. The abrupt halt sways through Matt, threatens never to stop; the hand on his arm spasms, readjusts for a firmer hold. He wonders if he's going to have a bruise. Most days he'd be able to tell.

The door retreats along its track with a screech that feels malicious. How had he not noticed that on the way down? Maybe he'd taken the stairs, or… oh god, did he go out the window? They're moving again – they left the elevator? – the carpet less flattened here, but still worn into a definite path.

"So?" Foggy prompts. Matt's distracted by thoughts of synthetic fibers; Sister Mary Elizabeth cracks a ruler against the edge of her desk to match the snap in her voice. Pay attention, Matthew. "If you wanted something, I would've gone to get it. And you know you're not wearing shoes, right?"

Another pebble skip in the flow of time, and they're at his front door. "Yeah," he answers, unsure how long it's actually been since the question was asked. Entering his apartment is like slipping into a favorite sweatshirt; his shoulders, back, release the tiniest bit of their tension. The wood floor is beautifully smooth and unmangled under his feet. It feels polished, solid.

"You just decided to go for a walk? With a concussion and no shoes?"

He doesn't want to admit that he can't explain. His lips are dry and scratchy when he presses them together; Matt reroutes his steps into his kitchen. Grabs a glass from the cabinet, fills it from the sink's filtered tap. He drinks half of it before he realizes that he's lost his shadow, that at some point Foggy had relinquished his hold. He's a few feet away now, standing by the truncated wall that divides the kitchen from the rest of the room.

The water sits heavily in Matt's empty stomach; he dumps the rest of it, leaves the glass in the sink. The burnt smell has faded somewhat, though this close to the coffee maker it's still very present. He throws a sightless glare in the direction of the little machine. This does precisely nothing to resolve the issue.

"Do you even remember going outside? You don't, do you." It's less of a question than a revelation. An unhappy one.

Matt pushes off the counter he's slumped against, and the liquid inside his stomach sloshes around unpleasantly. "Can we just…" He doesn't want to talk about it, especially not with this weak, unrecognizable voice. This crushing headache. "Later, okay?" It sounds ragged – and too close to a plea – but he trusts Foggy to fill in the blanks.

He's more concerned with navigating this new tilt to his floor. An awkward, achingly slow shuffle seems to be his only option; it feels a speed at which he'll never arrive. He'll spend the rest of his days inching a path across this room, this apartment.

Foggy moves with him, keeping the unnatural pace. "Fine," he says. "Later. But only because I'm such a considerate friend. And you're all brain-damaged."

It doesn't feel inaccurate. At the moment it seems like his brain might be broken forever. Maybe it always has been. Maybe he's been like this for a long time – trapped in an endless cycle of amnesia and confusion – and Foggy's been forced to haunt this place like a ghost, tasking himself as Matt's unflagging caretaker. The thought crawls up his spine. His lips instantly move to tell him he should go.

But Foggy walks over the words, if they were even outside his mind to begin with. "At least I can be sure that you've got neighbors looking out for you. How have I never met that woman?"

Mrs Jameson. Matt hadn't said goodbye. Had he? Maybe that wasn't even today, maybe Foggy's talking about a different woman. But Matt remembers something else: "Franklin." It's a wheeze.

"Yeah, well… you didn't see her. I was terrified. Any second she was going to start throwing things at me."

"…'d like her." This part of the floor is dusty, slightly gritty under Matt's bare feet. How recently had he cleaned in here? An automatic thought, but plainly ridiculous when he can't track back ten minutes ago. He's already forgotten to whom he's referring.

"Probably," Foggy agrees. "I do like lots of people."

Hours later – and Matt's certain, it has to have been hours – they pass through the arch of the doorway into his bedroom. He wants nothing more than to collapse onto his sheets, but detours after a last second decision to first take a piss. He doesn't plan to move again any time in the foreseeable future. When he comes out of the bathroom, he can't immediately locate Foggy.

He finds him lying down, taking up half of Matt's mattress. But the far side, and Matt doesn't hesitate to claim the beckoningly vacant space right in front of him. "What're y'doing?" he asks, as he melts into the bed. It feels amazing not to have to hold his head up anymore.

"You're also getting a book about sharing," Foggy says, his voice bouncing off the ceiling. He's on his back; Matt's bonelessly sprawled on his stomach, head turned toward him. "This seemed like the best way to be sure I'll wake up if you go wandering again. Some of us actually need sleep, you know. Enjoy it, even."

Matt usually has trouble sleeping with another body in his bed, overly conscious of every tic, breath, heartbeat; it's difficult enough sleeping even in the same room with someone else. But this feels like a lot to convey. He makes an ambivalent sound through his closed lips, his exhale twitching the silk around his nose.

"So it's either this or I sit awake in a chair at the foot of the bed all night. Which I will totally do. But this seems easier, plus it's got the advantage of the whole sleep thing."

"S'fine." And it is. If it gets annoying, he'll just go crash on the couch for a while.

"I will, however, entertain a discussion about switching sides," Foggy babbles on. His pulse still races, mocking his cavalier tone. "If you're picky."

"Fog… s'okay. Go to sleep." It's an effort to get so many words out, and a few of them may be lost in the sheets. There's a dog barking out in the street – rapid, angry – a sharp repetitive noise that stabs at Matt's abused skull. He gropes around one-handed for a pillow, trying not to have to move anything other than his arm. Finds it, pulls it over his head.

"You first," Foggy says. The pillow does little to actually block out sound.

But it muffles things a little, helps him to narrow his awareness to this room, this bed. And Foggy's practically the definition of familiarity, so integral a part of his life for so long that his presence has been absorbed into Matt's picture of normal. It's nice just to lie here and listen to him breathe.

He's sure that he won't be able to sleep despite his own exhaustion, not with this beat in his head. He imagines it radiating pulsing sonar waves up to the ceiling, mixing with Foggy's exhaled air. Amazingly, Foggy's breathing is already beginning to deepen, even out; Matt absently traces his friend's descent into unconsciousness. Tracks the slowing of his heartrate, the way it vibrates minutely through the mattress between them. Admittedly, it's relaxing.

But he's sure he won't be able to sleep.

This is his last waking thought. He dreams of Foggy and Mrs Jameson, two shapes sketched in fire. They're dancing to the low wail of a saxophone.

end

End Notes: I refuse to hold stories hostage, ransoming them for reviews. So this is not that. But I've been chipping away at two other DD fics for a while now (both of them already fairly long, by my standards), and I'm interested to know if anyone might have an opinion on which I should try to finish first. One is a post-ep for "Cut Man" – as if that ep needs more MattWhump – and the other a fill for some kink meme prompts and the h/c bingo square "whipping/flogging." The first is with Claire, the second with Foggy. My intention is to complete both anyway, but I'm curious to hear what you think. With those vague teasers, any strong preference either way?