Even as he was coming up the stairs, Matt could hear Foggy and Karen talking in the office, and he had rarely felt so lonely. Some part of him wanted to run away and leave them to it. The scared, guilty human inside him might; the Devil of Hell's Kitchen would never do something so pathetic. So which was he, really? His nightly self had thrown him into this mess, but ultimately the blame lay with that weaker part of him, the one that had kept quiet about his "world on fire" for so long. It was too late to go back on that now. Maybe it always had been. He could run from this moment, sure, postpone it – and Lord how he wanted to – but weak as he was, he was not a coward.

Foggy made a quip about marijuana, Karen answered with a smile that didn't quite belie the tears in her voice, and Matt was suddenly at the door. The war inside him raged on, but now he felt silly on top of weak and cowardly, because they could probably see him through the glass anyway. The decision was taken out of his hands when Foggy pulled open the door. Matt heard his heartbeat stutter and then gather speed, his breathing stalling. They both stood frozen in place for seconds of eternity before Matt stepped aside to let him pass. Foggy didn't start breathing properly until he was several steps down the corridor, and even then it sounded like he was actively controlling it, knowing Matt could hear him.

As he stepped through the door, Matt's ears were still tracking the heavy steps down the stairs and he almost started when Karen spoke up.

'Well that wasn't awkward…' Hiding exasperation behind sarcasm, just like Foggy always did. Matt had nothing to say to that, and the scent of his best friend still hung in the air; he had to distract himself, distract her.

'What are you doing here so late? Or early or… whatever it is?' he asked flatly, leaning his cane in its customary corner.

'Couldn't sleep,' Karen replied at length, her voice carefully controlled. She was slumped over her desk, reeking of whiskey and shower gel and stress, and Matt could tell something was off. He didn't have the energy to pursue it.

'Lot of that going around,' he sighed as he stood in front of her desk.

'Seems like it's the only thing we still all have in common…' Karen said, and no. He could not get into this.

Turning away, he said, 'I'm sorry, Karen,' and headed for his office.

'For which part?'

'All of it, pretty much.' Please, Karen, just leave it.

She did. 'You want coffee?'

'Yeah, please.'

He set out his laptop as she fetched him a cup, but instead of handing it over she simply stood at the door with it clamped between her hands, and her voice had lost most of its fake neutrality as she said, 'You know, he thinks he got her killed. Elena.'

'He didn't.'

'Wanna try telling him that?'

Foggy made that coffee. It smelled smoother than Karen's, round and familiar. Matt did want to tell Foggy that – not the coffee bit, the Elena bit – but where words had been between them, a gaping chasm now stood. No amount of parkouring could get him across that.

'Oh right, that would be if you two were still speaking to each other!' Karen went on, going heavy on the sarcasm this time.

'It's his choice.'

Karen finally set the coffee down. 'Only if you let it be.' She was back to that carefully controlled tone, like she was a hair's breadth from crying. She remained there, waiting, but Matt couldn't take her devastation over this Nelson minus Murdock debacle on top of his own. He just kept facing her direction until she turned to go.

She stopped in the doorway, and he could tell she was about to say something else from how her throat was working and how her heart rate was speeding up. His head drooped in defeat, then raised abruptly as she sucked in a harsh breath.

'You know, I'm starting to feel like I made a mistake, coming to work here.'

Damn it all anyway. 'Do you wanna leave?'

'No,' the word as sharp as her movements when she turned back towards him, 'this is my home. You and Foggy, you're the only good things in my life right now.'

Her voice was actively teary now and wait, what? This was definitely something more than them, then. He'd really known that from the moment he smelled her, coming in.

'Karen, did something happen?'

Karen was barely breathing anymore. It took her time to gather her voice enough to respond. 'Yes.' She swallowed, seeming to try and regain control. 'The world fell apart. Didn't you notice?'

He did. It was still falling, not looking to stop any time soon. First Foggy, now Karen – everyone he cared about was always hurt by his choices and their consequences. He never meant for any of it to happen, he only ever tried to make the world better. He always knocked it down instead.

Karen was walking away, and Matt could smell her tears. She started gathering her things, breathing carefully and probably trying not to audibly sniffle. As long as he couldn't hear her crying, he shouldn't know, and so he couldn't do anything. He wanted to do something. What had happened to her? Had someone else tried to hurt her?

Karen's steps were hurried as she fled for the door, and still Matt stood there, staring blankly at the void she'd left. He figured he had probably come into the office for a reason, but his mind was empty except for the crushing guilt, guilt that so often morphed into a desperate need to get out and bash a few skulls in. Fighting had been his refuge with alarming frequency lately, and he wasn't even sure it would make him feel better this time. It might while he was still out there – the Devil felt no repentance – but when he got home, inevitably, he'd have another night to add to the list of things that disappointed his friends.

He could have been working right now. In an ideal universe, he could even have been talking to Karen, trying to ease some of her anguish that he had so clearly sensed. He wasn't the only one in this office with painful pasts and paths, and he did want to listen to her if she would talk to him. So why had he pushed her away?

Matt sank slowly into his chair, dropping his glasses on his desk with a soft clatter, and put his head in his hands. Stick's voice came back to him, but this time he was anything but proud of having obeyed it.

'Good night,' Karen told Ben, feeling for the first time in two days as though things might somehow work out. But stepping around her desk, she felt the gun in her hands again, the recoils, the swish as she flung it in the river. She collapsed in her chair, the weight in her chest returning full-force and dragging her down.

The door rattled wildly. Karen stood up with a gasp, mind flooded with wordless who could it be what do I do, but unable to move.

'Karen, Karen. You in there?' came Matt's voice, a tone of desperation to it, and the relief made her lightheaded. She collected herself and hurried over.

'Yeah. Just a minute.' She opened the door. 'Sorry.'

Matt tapped the doorframe with his cane before coming inside.

'We uh, locking this now?'

Shutting the door, Karen braced a hand against the white wood. 'Seems like a good idea.'

Matt turned towards her and Karen had to avert her gaze. She had no idea how he could look at her so intensely when he couldn't even look at her at all.

'Yeah,' Matt sighed, sounding defeated.

Karen looked back up at him, and he appeared to do the same before swallowing and licking his lips, then setting off towards his office. All his movements were excruciatingly slow; deliberate and weary.

'It's uh, late, you should, you should go home.' It didn't even sound like instruction or advice, just a statement of fact. Not her boss, now, not a friend – a stranger. Like he wasn't even here.

'Matt?'' Her voice sounded so small and uncertain, but it made him stop in his tracks. He stayed there with his back to her, and she had to. 'Is this what we are now? Three people who don't even talk to each other?'

Matt was swaying slightly. He turned marginally in her direction, and when he spoke, the non-sequitur caught her completely off guard. She suddenly realised how little Matt ever really talked about himself.

'I know this guy. We were close once. He, he told if I, uh… I'd have to… push the people that I care about away if… if I wanted to be effective at what I do…'

He trailed off, leaning against the door. Stuttering and leaning – Matt wasn't usually this vulnerable. Karen wanted him to keep going, but she was afraid if she pushed it, he would shut down.

'Seems like you listened,' she said. Not a question, exactly, and anyway, her voice was too broken to sound threatening or even inquisitive.

'Yeah. I thought I didn't.' Matt smiled wryly in her general direction. 'But this guy, he, he has a, a way of uh, getting in your head, you know…'

Karen was about to say something, anything, when Matt finally continued, his voice breaking all over his words. 'And here's the thing. I had a really shitty night.' There was that smile again, all teeth and false bravado. His breathing was growing uneven. 'The kind where you, where you think you've seen the bottom of humanity and the, the pit just keeps getting, getting deeper. You know?'

Karen's eyes were filling with tears as she stared at him. The world had contracted to nothing but Matt and his words, her own terror forgotten at the back of her mind. She just nodded, unable to speak.

'I… I can't.' Matt's voice cracked again but he kept at it. 'I can't do this alone. I can't. I c-can't – take – another step.' He stopped, breathing raggedly, mouth quivering.

Karen walked carefully towards him, but then she couldn't get there fast enough. Matt's head dropped forward onto her shoulder as she put her arms around him, and he leaned against her like he could barely stand upright anymore. Curling her fingers in his hair, she whispered, 'You're not alone, Matt. You never were.' She was crying as well, doing nothing to stop. His arms came up around her, tightly enveloping her shoulders, and she echoed the pressure with hers.

The nape of Matt's neck smelled vaguely of smoke; not tobacco smoke but fire, and Karen had no time to dwell on that, let alone ask about it, because his whole body was starting to shake as he groaned into her shoulder. Tears were running freely down Karen's face, dampening his jacket, but Matt was trying to fight his back, it seemed.

'It's okay,' she told him, rubbing her thumbs up and down, and he sucked in a great, painful-sounding gulp of air, then held it.

'It's okay, Matty,' she repeated, softly. The pet name was one she had heard Foggy use, but this was the first time she'd called him that.

And somehow that was all it took. Matt released his breath in a huge sob, followed by another, and another. His fingers were digging into her shoulder blades almost painfully, his chest heaving irregularly, and keening sounds were weaving themselves around the sobs. Karen's own weeping was far less violent, and through her tears she had started up a stream of comforting nonsense like what her Mama had used to soothe her.

Eventually, Matt relaxed his death-grip on her back. He sniffed loudly and shoved his face further into her shoulder – Karen took a moment to appreciate their similar heights – and she could feel his glasses coming askew. He reached a hand up to pluck them off, wiping at his face in passing, then let that hand fall limply to his side. He wasn't crying so hard anymore, but he was still trembling and leaning on her. Karen got the feeling that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

'Hey Matty, come on, let's go sit somewhere, 'kay?'

Matt nodded onto her shoulder, then mumbled '… sorry…'

Karen was so not having that. 'No, nope, you've got nothing to be sorry for, all right? Ask me, you were way overdue for this, anyway.' She released him, gently taking his glasses from his unresisting hand before leaning back a little. 'Hey. Sit? Vamos.'

He smiled weakly at that, nodded, then stepped back and dragged both hands down his face. That didn't really do much; he was still all red and puffy and his nose was literally dripping. He swiped the back of his hand under it, head hanging low. Suddenly he looked so young. He was so young, they both were, but what with the suits and the bearing and the eloquence, he normally appeared much older.

Before she could stop herself, Karen had raised a hand to his face, cupping his jaw to maybe swipe some tears away. Then she quickly caught herself and yanked her hand back, muttering an embarrassed 'Sorry, I'll just… I'll go get… hold on…'

She half-stumbled to her desk to get the box of tissues, held it out to let him grab a bunch, then set the box back down along with his tearstained glasses. She blew her nose, hearing Matt do the same behind her. When she turned back to him, he was staring unseeingly at the wet wad of paper as he fiddled with it, and she could see him fighting a losing battle against a fresh wave of tears. She carefully took the tissues from him, chucking the ball towards the trash can where it landed squarely on top of hers. Under different circumstances, she would have done a fist pump of victory, but no.

'We should get a couch in here, you know. What kind of respectable law firm doesn't have a couch?' she joked, but Matt didn't even smile this time. 'Hey, vamos a las sillas, then?'

When he nodded, she took him by the hand to lead him into the conference room, pulling out a chair for him and dragging one for herself up next to it. 'Hold on,' she said, hurrying back for the tissues. 'Okay, all set.'

Matt had an elbow propped on the table, face in hand.

'You okay?' she asked, placing her hand on the other one that lay abandoned on his lap.

Matt nodded. 'Crying in each other's arms…' he muttered, and she wasn't sure if he sounded put out or just tired.

'Oh yeah, wait till Foggy hears about that one, he'll have a field day…' Karen's sentence petered out towards the end, because at the mention of Foggy, Matt's face had twisted again. 'Hey, no, sorry, Matt, I…'

'He hates me, Karen!' Matt exclaimed. 'I fucked up, I've, I've fucked it all up and he, he, he hates me and I don't know how, how to f-fix it…'

Karen all but attacked his hand at this, squeezing it in both of hers.

'Hey, hey, listen to me. Foggy does not hate you, okay? He loves you, Matt, and he's just as broken up about all this as you are. I don't know what's up between you guys, and I'm not gonna pry, but please. You will fix this. We'll fix this. Together, okay? Nelson and Murdock and Page.'

Matt nodded, drew a steadying breath – and then crumbled completely. She thought he might be trying to say something in between sobs, but it was utterly unintelligible. He had dropped his elbows to his knees, his face in both hands now, and he was leaning so far forward that he was nearly toppling off his chair.

'Sch, sssch,' she told him, scooting her chair closer and putting an arm gently around him.

Karen had finally stopped crying somewhere amid the tissue proceedings, but hearing Matt like this was making her start again. Tears were never far away these days as it was. All of a sudden, Matt flung his arms away from his face to fumble around for her, and at that he actually did begin sliding off his chair. In the blink of an eye, Karen had half stood up and was lowering them both to the floor.

'Fuck chairs anyway, right?' she chuckled tearfully.

They were now practically sitting under the conference table, Karen unsure whose limbs were whose and Matt bawling into her shoulder again. He seemed to be going into that stage of crying where you simply cannot stop, almost hyperventilating with it. She rubbed his back, softly shushing him, rocking them gently back and forth, but nothing was helping.

Karen's eyes had dried when, at long last, the storm began to pass. Matt's breathing slowed down and he sagged against her. Her shoulder was soaked and her feet were asleep underneath them – and she didn't care in the slightest. She patted the table above her until she located the tissue box, handing it to him so he could yank a few out. He was still slowly rocking where he sat, dabbing at his face before sniffing and letting out a residual sob.

By unspoken agreement, they untangled themselves and Karen wiggled her toes to get the blood flow going again. Matt was on his second bunch of tissues and looking absolutely exhausted.

'Thank you, Karen,' he whispered.

'Any time. You know that,' she replied.

Matt smiled at her, straight at her, and as she looked into his swollen, red-rimmed eyes in the dim light, she smiled back warmly. He couldn't see it, but somehow she felt like he could tell anyway.

Matt groped around for his balled-up tissues, squashed them all together and slowly started to get up.

'Mind your head, we're kind of under the table…' Karen blurted out, instinctively putting one hand atop his head as they rose.

Then, inexplicably, Matt giggled.

Just hearing it made Karen grin. 'What?'

'"Fuck chairs anyway!"' he echoed, laughing, and she laughed with him, putting an arm amicably around his waist.

'Yes!' she said emphatically, in an unconscious imitation of Foggy's inflection. 'Let's just throw 'em out and sit on the floor instead, that'll get us all the clients!'

Matt giggled again, wetly. Karen, to her relief, found that the horrible pain in her chest that had been her constant companion for days had dissolved without a trace. Matt slung an arm around her and they were smiling together. Here, in this moment, they were okay; everything else would come around.

Karen led the way towards the kitchenette. 'You go wash up and I'll put some coffee on, yeah?'

'Tea.'

'Tea?'

'Please.'

'Tea it is,' she smiled as she released him to let him get into the restroom. He was still moving in slow motion, but she thought he looked less despondent than before. She counted that as a win.

A/N: Thank you for reading!
Just mentioning this in passing: I love love love reviews! ^^

Also, this is un-beta'd (except by me...), so if you find any errors, typos or out-of-character stuff etc, I'd love it if you told me!