Izzy here, with my fanfic, “Still Shaking,” the fic that I ended up starting after finishing watching the first season of Daredevil, even if it wasn't the first I finished. Foggy/Karen. They belong to Marvel.

Still Shaking

By Izzy

When Karen had finished talking, Foggy’s initial feeling was pure shock.

When she and Matt had lingered in the office after Foggy himself had gone home, he’d thought he knew what was going to happen. Now that the two of them were starting to get serious about their relationship, it seemed to have sparked a thought in Matt that she ought to know his own secret, that her making this commitment to Foggy sealed her place in the world of Nelson & Murdock enough for that. It had been obvious to Foggy, when he’d heard the two of them intended to go back to his place that night, and he had asked her to stay alone a little bit after, it had been so he could tell her. When she’d been eager to agree, Foggy hadn’t thought anything of it. After all, she had already pretty much known there was some secret that needed to be told.

That she might have secrets to tell too had never crossed his mind. He had never expected her to come home, having apparently taken Matt’s confession in stride, but still looking as shaken as he had felt when he’d found out, and then sat him down, and told him that after Matt had told her, she had told him two secrets of her own, and now she was going to tell them to him.

And now she was sitting there, on that rickety old chair his cousins hadn’t wanted, and she said, “Matt actually told me, just in case I wasn’t planning on doing it, that I needed to tell you all that tonight. He also said he didn’t blame me for anything, and he had no desire to…” She had gotten choked up more than once while talking, and she did now, and when she resumed, it was just to sum up, “He doesn’t think we need to do anything about any of this, unless you feel otherwise.”

Foggy did have to think about it for a minute. Which clearly just got her more anxious, so he found himself saying, “If it had been me in your position…if Wesley had kidnapped me and demanded I do *that*…and threatened if I didn’t he would kill you, Matt, my entire family, all my other friends, probably even Marci…I think I would’ve done exactly what you did.”

When he didn’t say more immediately, she asked, fearfully, “Is there a ‘but’ in there?” There was, and Foggy could feel its presence, but he wasn’t even sure what it was. Karen tried to guess: “What about what I did when I was a teenager? I know plenty of people would hold me responsible for that.”

Foggy shook his head. “Not one of those people. It’s not that. I mean, you’d even sworn it all off by the time you were eighteen, except the…” He waved his hand. “And even that I can’t blame you for; I know too much about how that kind of things works. Honestly, I’m just glad you got out of it and you’re alive and well now.”

But he knew there was something about the whole thing still bothering him. He thought back to his interrogation of Matt, the question he’d asked him about his motives, but Karen’s motives had been perfectly sound.

She tried again. “On the other hand, you never would’ve been in that position, would you have? Because you never would’ve lied to Ben the way I did in the first place.”

“No,” he said. “And for the record, I do think that was wrong of you, and that it would’ve been so even if the guy hadn’t ended up dead.”

“Yes,” said Karen. “I know it was wrong.” But of course she did now. Foggy did find himself thinking he wasn’t so sure she would’ve thought it so if the consequences hadn’t been so dire.

Still, he had to say, “It was very brave of you, though, doing what you did. I never would’ve dared.”

They were both braver than him, he thought, she and Matt. Braver and more stubborn and more idealistic-except that their own feeling of righteousness led to them doing things they didn’t always even realize were wrong, even though they ought to. He remembered the satisfaction in Matt’s voice when he’d finished the story about the pedophile father, and then, finally, he realized what he needed to ask her.

“Tell me…” This wasn’t easy to say at all. “Just tell me, when you shot Wesley, you weren’t enjoying it.”

When she didn’t burst out in immediate denial, his heart sank.

But then she said, very carefully, “It wasn’t enjoyment so much as…relief. That I wasn’t helpless after all. That this man, who had held me in his power and threatened me…now he was afraid of me. All this time, he’d hurt people and killed people and thought he could get away with it all, that I couldn’t touch him, oh no, I was giving him what he had coming.” She was talking faster as she went on, her breathing fast and audible, and her face was as fierce as Foggy had ever seen any woman’s be. “I was so angry for so long and now I could finally, finally do something about all of it, and you know what, Foggy? If Matt feels that way when he’s out beating people up, I don’t blame him!

And then there were just more pants for breath; the speech had taken a bit out of her. But she was alight now, eyes burning with remembered excitement, her earlier shame at least momentarily forgotten, and when at the beginning of his questions he’d thought her shrinking back into her chair, now she had reversed and was leaning forward, sure of her position and uncaring if anyone agreed with it or not, like the most defiant of witnesses in the box, unafraid of even the most skilled of lawyers, even thinking themselves better than them.

Even under the circumstances, Foggy couldn’t help just a tiny little bit of adoration in his heart. Noone could say that Karen Page was not a truly remarkable woman.

And… “On one level,” he said to her, “I kind of understand what you mean. On another?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I ever will.”

“I’m not going to be different,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to be,” he said, as the ultimate answer to all her questions came to him: “I don’t think I’m ever going to approve of that. But I think now I can accept.”

“Accept enough to…” she asked, and she seemed out of breath again.

He nodded. “Yes.”

When he got up to go over to her, she rose too, and they met each other halfway. Her kisses were frantic, demanding, and in his arms her body was shaking, almost violently so. After a few he found himself gently pushing her back, asking, “Are you sure you want to do this tonight? This has taken a lot out of you, hasn’t it?”

“We pretty much knew when we agreed to meet tonight what we were going to be doing,” she reminded him.

“Well, yeah,” said Foggy, “but I didn’t know this was coming.”

“But I did,” said Karen. “So don’t go worrying about me. I want this. Thinking about it was what got me through confessing to Matt, and if you still want me, you shouldn’t deny me out of that concern.” When he opened his mouth again she surged forward to take it once more with her own, their tongues tangling together and sending enough of a surge of lust through his body that for a moment Foggy forgot all else.

But Karen hadn’t stopped shaking, and even if he still did want her, it definitely wasn’t right this minute. So he forced himself to pull away and get out, “We’re eating dinner first. That was already in the plan and there’s no reason it shouldn’t stay there.”

Reminded of that, she nodded. “Yes, dinner’s good.” None of this was making her tremble any less, though. Foggy really hoped some food would relax her. “Are we getting take out?”

“You think I’m that cheap a date?” he managed to grin. “No, my lady, tonight, you shall be treated to some delicious pasta and fromage a la microwave!” He’d thought of that line ahead of time, imagined how it would make her laugh. At least it made her smile, even if she commented that she believed that actually cost less than takeout.

It was a fortunate choice of dish, though, what with being comfort food. It was also something that felt appropriate enough to eat on the couch, where they could be at ease, while sitting next to each other, and they had the ability to brush up against each other while not actually being forced to.

Foggy really was very experienced at seducing women. Especially in law school, when there’d always been plenty of girls around thanks to Matt, but unlike his longtime friend, he actually had to work at getting them interested. Even after he’d gotten almost as good as Matt was in bed, at least according to those girls they’d both fucked, it had taken work to get them there. He’d be the first to admit he’d been a lout about girls as a college freshman, but he had long since learned being friendly and putting a girl at her ease actually worked a lot better than the popular view claimed it did.

Technically, of course, he didn’t have to seduce Karen, because she had already made her decision to go for it, and stuck to it even when he’d flat-out asked if she didn’t want to back out. But this was one women he still couldn’t blame if she got cold feet even closer to the event. At least he needed to make sure that wasn’t because of anything he had done.

Also, another thing he had learned the hard way was that it was best for all parties concerned if any suspected sexual trauma and/or hangups were gotten out into the open beforehand, which made him all the more grateful Karen had made her confessions that night, but meant there were still some questions that needed to be asked. So when they had settled down with their macaroni and cheese, and made a few comments about its quality, he said, “I’m sorry to have to ask this, Karen, but I really do need to know. You history…how does it affect you in bed? Are you likely to freak out? Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do, or I shouldn’t do?”

She looked a little embarrassed, but said readily, “Don’t come on me. Ever. Come in me, or maybe eventually you can come in my mouth-but not tonight-but never on me.”

“Okay,” said Foggy, glad she had been straightforward about it. “Won’t do that.”

“Though you know,” she said, “another thing Matt and I talked about…I told him if we ever got a case where we would take on the porn industry, especially if it involved representing anyone who had suffered what I did, we had to take it. He didn’t object. I hope you don’t.”

“Nope,” said Foggy. “Did he tell you, by the way, how he got started with the whole vigilante thing?”

“He told me,” she said. “And of course I already knew about the human trafficking. Which he fears he failed to shut down completely, though he hasn’t found any victims to rescue for a while.”

This made her gloomy, which was understandable, but Foggy didn’t want her gloomy any more tonight. “Hey,” he said gently. “That’s all over for you now. You’re safe. I know it must not feel like it a lot, but tonight you are completely safe.”

“It’s not over,” was her sad response. “I know what you’re saying, but for me it never can be entirely.”

They were silent for a minute or so, Foggy carefully chewing on his mac and cheese, as he tried to think of what to say next. But instead she said, “You can’t tell me you’re not at all unhappy to learn the truth about me, and my history.”

“Maybe…maybe a little,” he admitted. He tried to figure out if there was anything else he could say that wouldn’t be the wrong thing. “But then, I suppose I never thought you were a perfect angel.”

“Foggy,” she said, and her voice turned very serious, “if any of the three of us is an angel, it’s you.”

“Me?” he demanded in shock. “Um, Karen, you do know that if it wasn’t for Matt, I would probably be some fat cat in Landman and Zack, maybe thanking my lucky stars I hadn’t gotten arrested? And that would be if I hadn’t-I mean, I don’t think I would have ever gone so far as to do what some of those guys did, but I might have been dangerously close to being Marci.”

“You wouldn’t have gone that far,” said Karen, sounding way too certain. “I’ve seen the way you make decisions. You would’ve backed out when things got seriously wrong. That’s what you do, Foggy. You might set the line out a little further than some would like, but you always stay on the right side of it. And you know, no matter what he says about it, I think Matt really needs that, someone who reminds him that there’s a good reason those lines exist. And I know I do. I mean, I might not go out every night, but…”

She had scooted over to him as she spoke; she took his hand when she got close enough, which was how he discovered she hadn’t stopped shaking entirely, though it wasn’t as bad as it had been. “That’s a lot to ask of someone,” he said softly. “If you want, maybe I can try?”

“Please try,” she said, and kissed him.

For a while they just kissed, letting what they hadn’t eaten grow cold. She still wouldn’t relax. Foggy remembered girls like her during his last years of high school and first of college, all bundles of nerves he really hadn’t know how to handle back then. Now, at least, he could gently stroke down her back, whisper, “It’s all right, it’s all right, you’re safe,” in between kisses, move with her as she slid the rest of the way into his lap and pressed him against the back of the couch so she could easily straddle him. His dick was stirring a little bit, but he was still too anxious to really get hard.

Maybe she was trembling marginally less when she started to go further, slipping her hands under his shirt to touch the bare skin of his stomach, undoing a couple of the bottom buttons, then lifted her own shirt until it was bunched up around her breasts, and his hands were on her back. They had been roaming without thinking, but when they touched the back of her bra, he suddenly stopped them, too aware.

“Take it off,” Karen whispered, her voice husky. He was very aware of her breathing hard against his neck as he took a moment to figure out how the clasp worked, then got it unhooked. To get it off would require her to pull back, though, and when he still thought now wasn’t the time yet, he waited for her to do that on her own. When she didn’t, he just continued to stroke the skin, now completely unimpeded, and encouraged when she made tiny sounds into his own skin.

When she shifted a little, clearly intending to press against his dick, and found it maybe not as hard as she might have expected, she sighed and said, “Should we finish eating?”

“Might be a good idea,” he said.

So she got off him, and went back to her bowl. But her shirt remained bunched up, and she made no move to change that. As she moved her arms it fell back down enough that her front remained covered, but her back was exposed, and Foggy couldn’t help looking at it. “Good cheese,” she murmured when her macaroni was all gone, then scooped some of it up with her finger and licked it off. Foggy watched her lips move and flex, her eyes flutter shut as she savored the taste. He wondered if it would be a good idea to try to kiss her then. He wanted to.

Then she did it again, glanced at Foggy’s own empty bowl, and looked at him pointedly, and he went.

She drew him back and down until he was pressing her against the couch, her hands under his shirt again and this time going further, getting up to flick at his nipples going down back down and out to cup his crotch. He still wasn’t hard, especially because she still hadn’t stopped shaking, but he was thinking he could get there, especially when he managed to do a couple of things with his tongue that had her moaning into his mouth. And he’d dealt with trouble getting it up back in college, when he’d drunk too much. There was plenty he could do to keep her happy while he worked on that.

Such as getting his hands under her shirt too, and with her bra already unhooked it was easy to push it up and off her breasts, though he made sure to do it slowly-he ought to do everything slowly tonight, he knew, Karen’s history being what it was. Not that she seemed to mind his hands on her breasts at all, and as they gave beneath his fingers, Foggy wanted to bury his face between them, except Karen’s tongue was in his mouth now and he kind of really liked what it was doing around his cheeks. He was moaning himself, even more as she squirmed her body further into his and made him aware of every inch of it, made him want to touch, to kiss, to do everything.

They came up breathless and he gasped out, “Shirts off?” forcing himself to make it a question. She eagerly yanked at shirt and bra together, and there was her bare chest right in front of his face, and Foggy found himself bringing his head down-slowly, he had to remind himself.

“No,” said Karen, pushing it back off. “Your shirt comes off too first.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, although he wasn’t sure why she was so determined on that point; he knew well he wasn’t much to look at. He might have damaged the thing in his haste to get it off, but it was nothing his jacket wouldn’t cover, and then she finally let him, hands gripping his shoulderblades and gasps coming from her mouth as he explored. Her breastbone was sensitive; that was easy to discover, and he licked it up and down just to drive her crazy, until she finally shoved herself down and him back up so they could kiss again. His hands landed on her shoulders, and dammit, she still hadn’t stopped shaking, though he wasn’t entirely certain what was causing that at this point.

But when they parted, she still said, “Bed. Now. Please?” and he now had enough lust running through his system that he wasn’t up to insisting they wait even a minute longer.

She also walked into his bedroom a hell of a lot faster than he did, and by the time he reached the bed she was pulling down everything covering her lower half at once. He’d actually had fantasies about undressing her as they went, but maybe some other time. He himself stripped down to his briefs-he thought she should decide when his dick came out, but he was now getting erect enough his didn’t want to get his slacks dirty.

Onto the bed and she was kissing him again almost instantly, hands all over his body, but he could tell they still weren’t steady. But it was hard to think about what he should do about that when she was taking the aggressive, grabbing and pushing him down, moving to all but bite at his neck, and then she took his head in both her hands and guided it back to her breasts. They stayed in his hair as he worked on her, pulling hard when he tongued her nipples. That was something girls liked doing to him more than he liked having done, generally, but tonight it was worth it just to let her.

He kept his own hands busy, finding sensitive spots around her hips and the small of her back, mapping out a route for his mouth to take as soon as she stopped holding his head up to her chest. When they carefully cupped her ass, he could feel how clenched she was, and when he ran a finger up and along her perineum, he found her so wet it was running down her legs.

“Foggy,” he heard her voice gasp out, ragged and desperate, and her grip in her hair went slack. He started moving, maneuvering them until she was lying on her side and he was able to reach the places he’d found earlier, smothering them with lips and tongue as her hands found him shoulders again and squeezed tight enough to bruise.

There were tremors still running through her thighs; Foggy could feel them as he licked them up and down, before gently rolling her onto her back and getting his head between her legs, trying to avoid the wet spot already forming on the sheets. He forced himself to pause then, looking up and whispering, “Karen?”

She looked back down at him, and the raw hunger on her face was even more of an answer than her nod, although she also managed to get out, “M-my clit’s really sensitive; c-careful with that.”

So he went around it instead, lapping at either side of the hood before dipping below to get a proper taste of her-her taste was a little strange, but he knew instantly it would grow on him. The sounds that came out of her when he carefully pressed his tongue into her told him much. On a hunch he took two fingers, placed them on her labia, on either side of her clit, and pushed down.

He’d guessed right; Karen cried out, and her legs clamped down on his shoulders. It wasn’t easy to find a rhythm, but he worked his fingers best he could as he licked, and she was rocking into it, limbs flailing all around him as she continued to gasp and moan, and he even felt her hips move when her back arched, pushing herself hard against his mouth. With his other hand Foggy parted her further open, digging in with his tongue now, and when he carefully slid a single finger in with it, she was moving harder, getting hotter, grabbing his hair and pulling it again, once, twice, three times before she clenched and shuddered, her moan of release guttural, and Foggy kept going, working her through it until her cries ceased and her hips stopped moving.

But she was still trembling. With his face still pressed into her skin and without having a task to concentrate on Foggy couldn’t escape that. He wondered if there was anything he could do.

They rested like that for several moments, despite Foggy’s dick clamoring for attention; he was now fully hard in his briefs, even though part of him felt more than spent already. Then she whispered, “You have condoms, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “In the drawer.” He pulled himself up onto his arms, but she was again faster, getting the packet out and handing it to him, then leaning in and kissing him again, all tongue and teeth, while she yanked at his briefs, cupping his dick through the fabric and making him worried he might come before he could get in her. He finally had to push her away with a, “Not yet, I have to get it on,” and yet she was still touching him, his arms, his chest, his sides, as he finally pulled the underwear down and got the condom on. It was only when he was fumbling with it that he realized how much he, too, was shaking.

Between the states they both were in, getting in proved a difficult process; the first attempt resulted in him accidentally getting an elbow to the chin, and on the second his dick pressed hard into her clit, and she winced and sent him hastily pulling back. But on the third they managed it, one of her legs slung over his hip, and her hands no doubt digging more bruises into his skin, drawing him in until they were tangled body to body, with her so tight around him, and fuck, but there was no way he could last very long. Especially not when his first careful thrust made her cry out again, even more so when he tongue found her neck, and he moved as slowly as he could bear, but she was moving faster, spluttering incoherent syllables, and it was too easy to stop thinking all together and just lose himself in her completely.

He thought maybe he lasted half a minute before he was up, orgasm hitting like a punch to the back, every nerve in his body flying white, leaving him wiped out and gasping for breath on top of her, shocked by how hard he had just come. But when he couldn’t move anymore she whimpered, “No, Foggy, please don’t stop, please I don’t want you to stop so badly.”

It only took another moment for it to occur to Foggy how most of the guys she’d known when she’d been too young had no doubt behaved once they’d been done with her, the final reminder to her that she was just a thing for them to use as they pleased, as if she wasn’t even a fellow human being. That got him moving forward and kissing her, moving to cradle her still shaking body with one of his arms as he replaced his limp dick with his fingers. His eyes fixed themselves on her face when he wasn’t covering it with kisses, looking into her eyes when they fluttered open, and whispering soft nothings to her that felt almost without form; just a way to caress her with his voice.

He worked her up for the second time like that, her moving to cling to him and fuck herself on his hand until he started to get hard again. Although he wouldn’t have stopped to get another condom on, except that he was going to need to come again and she’d said not on her, so reluctantly he drew his hand out and fumbled for the bedside table. Karen made a protesting noise, but then looked down at his dick and took the packet from him with an “I’ll do it this time.”

Now it was him rolled onto his back, and she took over, straddling him and looking down with her face still full of desire. “I like how you look like this,” she murmured, which was confusing, but he wasn’t going to complain, especially not when she lowered herself back onto his dick and rode him with her arms holding him down and her knees braced into the mattress so she could shove herself down onto him with every thrust, her eyes so intense they felt like another thing physically taking him, and all he could do was hold on and let himself be claimed.

He was trying not to come again when one of her hands moved between her legs; she leaned down and they were kissing again. “You can let go for me, Foggy, let me see,” she breathed, and he let go, though he felt her breath on his face almost more than he felt his body release. It took her only a few more seconds before she brought herself too off for the second time that night, seizing up and then sagging down, and then she was, at last, completely still against him, not the slightest of trembling to plague her any longer.

They looked at each other with identical grins. “Yeah,” she managed.

“Yeah,” he agreed. The thought was going about that they ought to shower, and at the very least she should go pee; he’d heard enough from Marci about urinary tract infections to be very aware of that. But he wasn’t sure when he would next be capable of moving.

Karen was in a better state than that; she managed to climb off him and stagger towards the bathroom with a, “I should…” He managed an agreeing noise and let her go.

He thought he might have dozed off then, because the next thing he was aware of was the sound of the shower going, and something else that for the first moment he couldn’t pinpoint. Then he realized it was the sounding of Karen crying, and he stumbled out of the bed and after her.

He found her standing in the stall, the soap in her hand, just letting the tears stream against the spray. She didn’t even acknowledge his presence until he asked, “Karen, what’s up? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t even know,” she sobbed. “Just…everything. I’ve done so much, and there’s been so much, and I just…”

“Shhh,” he murmured, stepped into the stall and offering his embrace, which she melted into. “Shhhh. It’s all right. You’re all right. And don’t you ever think you don’t deserve this, if that’s what’s bothering you, Karen.”

Eventually she calmed down, and they managed to get themselves reasonably clean just before the water went cold. As they stepped out, she said, “And…I can’t help but think about it, now that I know…”

“Matt, you mean?” said Foggy. He could still remember vividly sitting in that office with Karen, trying to concentrate on the Union Allied papers, just in case anything else useful popped up in them, his mind down on the streets with Matt, the first time(that Foggy was aware of) after they’d reconciled he’d gone out in the mask and left his friend to worry about him. It was only recently that the whole thing had stopped plaguing his mind every single night.

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s probably out there right now, chasing screams and sirens, facing down bad guys…and I know he can take care of himself, at least mostly, I mean, he’s been doing it for ages now, right, and here the two of us are…”

“Hey,” he said. “Matt wouldn’t want us feeling guilty tonight. Hell, he might even find it comforting to know his friends are happy…” And that led into an unavoidable thought: “Although, Karen, you do realize, what with the enhanced senses and everything, and I’m pretty sure he can smell when one person has had physical contact with another, so when we go in tomorrow he’d probably going to be able to tell…”

“Oh my God, yes, he will, won’t he?” Karen was now giggling. “I hope he isn’t too embarrassed…”

“Well,” said Foggy. “It’s not as if he wouldn’t have known anyway,” but he was almost giggling too.

“It’s good to know, though,” she commented as they settled back into bed together. “That he’s out there, protecting people. And you know if anyone for any reason decided to target either of us again…” Her lips were curved up again with the thought of it as she shifted around, snuggling up against Foggy as the little spoon, preventing her from seeing his face, which made him glad, because he wasn’t ready yet to confess to her how those words struck him, especially when she added, “He’s braver than either of us….” And then, with a last murmur of, “You’re warm…” she closed her eyes, and within a few minutes her breathing was even and she was unmistakably asleep.

He ought to follow her quickly, especially since he’d come twice within the past hour, but her last words had made him once again aware of the difference between himself and her, and how it was in the same difference between himself and Matt. And now a new thought hit him, that even if she didn’t view herself as being as brave as Matt, she was, maybe even braver, and she certainly had a determination about things that had only been made clear to him when she’d told him that night just how she’d ended up on the other side of the table from Wesley clutching that gun and shooting for all their lives.

Sure, she’d had a specific and personal cause driving her when it had come to Fisk. And she couldn’t do what Matt did, simply because she didn’t have the senses or the training or the sheer physical strength. But it was crystal clear to Foggy, even when it was the first night that he truly understood who she was, that she was not going to spend the rest of their lives just going home with him and hoping to God Matt would be okay when they showed up in the office the next morning. Sooner or later, he knew, another outrage would come that she would feel an overpowering need to do something about, maybe something involving the human trafficking if that hadn’t been completely stopped, and then, she would act.

And when she did, she might even have less scruples about what she did than Matt did. He remembered her open fury when Senora Cardenas had been killed, her words, “Make them pay.” Sure, actually killing someone had taken a huge toll on her psychologically, but he didn’t think it was one that would stop her from doing it again, if the circumstances were right. He imagined her staggering into a shared apartment having done it again, breaking down in his arms, him trying to help and having limited success. How very possible it was that his imaginings could someday become reality terrified him.

She might even help Matt out, now that she knew. Even if she probably wasn’t going to be much help in the fighting side of things, Foggy was pretty sure there would be times when the Daredevil could benefit from the kind of knowledge discovered by an innocent-looking blonde secretary who thrived on being underestimated, and Karen would no doubt be eager to do what she could for him. Foggy wasn’t sure if Matt would ever actually ask her, but Karen was sharp, and already she knew the business of Nelson and Murdock better than the two attorneys themselves did, and he didn’t think he’d have to; she’d figure things out and volunteer on her own if he didn’t.

He wouldn’t approve, of course, any more than he approved of what Matt did. But it was the 21st century, and Karen was her own person, and he didn’t have the right to stop her, when it came down to it. And it was as he’d said to her earlier; he would accept. He knew himself well enough to already be sure of that.

He honestly hadn’t expected to see his possible future laid out for him that night; he’d thought it still too early with Karen to have that kind of certainty. But now her words came back to him, about them both needing him, and her “Please try,” and yeah, for the sake of them both, Foggy was going to try the hell out of trying. These were the two most important people in his life now, the man he had taken back, the woman he had just made love to, knowing full well what they were in both cases.

Karen shivered in her sleep, and he scooted closer to her, wrapping her up more tightly in his embrace.


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