Disclaimer: I own nothing. All Daredevilish things you see within and recognize belong to Netflix, Marvel, and whoever has legal hands in that particular pie. This is completely for enjoyment. See profile for further disclaimer things.

A/N (revision edition): Alrighty everyone. So, for you new people, you get the improved version of this story. Please carry on to the story.

For anyone returning and interested, I've gone through and proofread everything, so hopefully there aren't too many grammar/typo mistakes left (I always end up missing a few no matter how hard I try). More importantly, chapters 9 and 10 are almost doubled. I tried to give them more purpose, so now I suppose they're purposeful fluff. (Thanks to Like It Random for giving me the idea to chew on. It did need more stuff happening.) I'm much happier with them. Also, 8, 11, and 12 have a few new things, mostly for continuity's sake. There's a tiny bit of new content, but it probably doesn't warrant a re-read...unless you want to, which is totally fine with me. :D I feel much better about this and I hope you guys do, too. I don't for the life of me remember who mentioned wanting to read more about Matt, but that ended up happening. I guess, let me know if 13 is just sort of awkwardly hanging on to the end of the story or if it works. Thanks so much!

January

Karen's feet were slowly dying as she further shouldered her bag and trudged up the third flight of steps that would leave her at her floor. She'd upgraded from her dump of an apartment—where the landlord refused to even fix the high caliber bullet holes in the walls unless she paid for it—but she wasn't quite to a building with an elevator yet. If she didn't retain a healthy fear of toxic debris on the stairs, she'd have slipped off her heels as soon as she was in the door.

It had been a long day, a long week. Chasing down leads hadn't necessarily been hard, but shit had it been tiring. She was doing a lot of walking these days, again without a vehicle as she was. But she liked it. She liked her new job, the purpose that came with it. As much as she still achingly missed the times with Matt and Foggy, having that support system, so directly being involved in helping people, she liked where she'd gotten.

In just the few months since Frank Castle had come to Hell's Kitchen, since she'd held onto finding the truth with both hands and Nelson & Murdock had taken on the trial of the century that would spiral them into extinction, she'd changed. She couldn't be quiet, timid Karen who appreciated having Foggy or Matt to hide behind if she wanted—or didn't want—and filed files and made coffee and convinced them to take cases. She'd grown out of some of that and she didn't mind. She actually reminded herself of Ben sometimes. That made her proud and her sore feet worth it. Sometimes, she just wished being like Ben wasn't so to the bone exhausting…and scary…and lonely.

Looking up and down the hallway before putting her key in the lock, she didn't release the yawn desperately clawing to get out until the door was closed and dead-bolted behind her.

Running a hand through her hair, she flicked on the light while covering another yawn. She was just about to set her bag down when she saw the shadow just outside her window. Her pistol was immediately in her hands. They still shook slightly, but she didn't really see herself getting over that particularly soon. The shaking hadn't impeded her aim before.

Gun still in front of her, she crept toward the window. What she saw sitting on her fire escape nearly knocked the air from her chest.

"F-Frank?"

She'd recognize the haircut anywhere, the set of the shoulders. Feet propped up against the railing, he didn't look like he minded the subzero temperature in the slightest, nor did the assault rifle across his lap. She could just see the white of the skull on his Kevlar in the city's night glare. His face was too much in the dark to see its state, but he didn't look particularly hurt.

A weight of relief she hadn't realized she'd been carrying immediately dropped from her chest and into her tired feet. She hadn't seen him since that night on the roof with the ninjas and Daredevil and the weirdness that was just her life. Even if she wouldn't admit it…she'd worried. Because Frank Castle deserved to have someone worry about him.

Letting the gun fall to her side, she pushed the window up and stuck her head out. "Frank?"

"Ma'am." He didn't so much as turn to look at her, still staring out at whatever he was watching. His voice was still deep and gravelly, but a bit less raspy than last time. She imagined his throat had healed up some.

Crossing her arms at the chill, she heard the words coming out of her mouth without really deciding to say them, "Do you want to come in? It's cold."

He didn't answer and she sighed slightly. Stubborn, pain in the ass man…

Flicking the safety on her gun, she opened the window further and started the awkward process of climbing out. Nearly falling on her face when her heel got stuck in one of the grates, she tore her shoes off and absently threw them back inside. Their clattering on the fake wood floor was the only sound other than the traffic below as she settled in beside him, gun in her lap, arms across her chest.

"How have you been, Frank?"

"Just fine, ma'am."

There was zero readable emotion in his voice. Fine was a copout word anyway, but he was making sure she didn't know. She couldn't tell if he was mad at her and shutting her out or just putting shields up for his own protection. She was trying to figure out a way to see which when he spoke again. "You make a habit of talking to dead men, ma'am?"

There it was. And she really couldn't blame him for not being sure where she stood. She'd been pretty emphatic last time…

"Unfortunately, this dead man has a history of miraculously starting his heart back up, to hell if I'm angry at him." Smiling faintly, she wasn't sure if the spurt of air that came out of him was a laugh he didn't quite get stopped or just him breathing, but she was hoping it was the former. She didn't wait to see which before pressing on. "I'm sorry, Frank, for saying all that that night."

For the first time, he turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised in confusion. Aside from a shiner on his right eye, she noticed his face was for the most part unharmed. It added to that relief pooling in her stomach from earlier.

"It took me a little bit to get it, but I realized that you must've already figured it out, why he targeted your family. You already knew so you didn't need information. All that was left was to kill him. I won't bug you to tell me, but I'm glad you got your answers and I'm sorry for what I said." She ran her hand through her hair again, pushing it out of her face to hide how her hands were shaking. "In my defense, I'd just been hit by a truck and dislocated shoulders hurt a lot more than I thought they would. I was a little slow on the uptake."

"It okay?" he asked in his low voice. "The shoulder."

"Yeah. It's fine." A quick trip to the ER to get it hauled back into place and some Tylenol had set her right. She hadn't even needed a sling, just been told to go easy on it. Being kidnapped by ninjas a few days later hadn't done wonders for it, but she'd survived. She always did. Suddenly feeling the need to shift whatever it was they were having to something lighter, she looked to his arm right beside her. Pointing at it, she asked, "Are you hurt here at all?"

His eyebrow rose again. "No."

"Good." Without much actual power, she punched his bicep and accused, "You totaled my car, Frank!"

His chest shaking slightly beneath his body armor, she could tell he was laughing this time. Leaning her head back against the brick of the building, she smiled.

Her toes were beginning to ache with cold and she hadn't had supper yet, but Karen didn't move even as his quiet chuckling subsided and they fell to silence again. She missed this…just sitting with someone she trusted, she liked, who made her feel that much safer in her ridiculous world.

"Why are you here, Frank?"

She was saying his name a lot and she wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe saying it out loud made it that much more real that he was actually there, sitting on her fire escape after six weeks of nothing. She'd thought he was dead once before. She hadn't liked the feeling. Maybe it was because she doubted he was hearing his name from anyone else these days. Either way, she liked saying it.

"You're being followed." He nodded down toward the street where a car was parked, two occupants in the front seat. She didn't recognize it and couldn't make out anything about the two men, but she did memorize the license plate number. She'd done a couple of articles since Christmas that could've pissed people off. She wasn't sure which one the people down there were angry about. It didn't really matter.

"I'll call the cops in the morning and give them the plate number."

Even as she mentioned the cops, her eyes glanced down to her gun for a moment before flicking over to Frank. He was staring at her with those intense but unreadable eyes again. Logic was telling her to be afraid, be scared. Those eyes were somehow telling her not to be. And she was as careful as she could be, she knew that. A little fear couldn't keep her from doing her job, from exposing the truth.

She couldn't feel her feet anymore.

Shifting her pistol into one hand, she rose. "Come inside, Frank. It's cold." The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile for a second, but he didn't move. "Come on, I haven't had supper yet. I'll attempt to cook."

The look on his face was one where he was trying to figure out how to tell her no without being overly rude. She wasn't sure why he was so reluctant, but she was cold and she was tired and, as ridiculous as it was, he was her friend. She wasn't just going to go about her night while he sat on the damned fire escape trying to keep her safe.

Rolling her eyes, she then narrowed them at him. "Frank, I am tired, so fucking tired. My feet would be dying if I could feel them. I've been chasing a serial domestic abuser for most of the week. If someone tries to shoot at me, just tackle me again. It'll be fine. Come inside and eat the food I attempt to make you. Please."

The side of his mouth quirked up, though he quickly ducked his head so she couldn't see it for long. "Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you."

Glancing back to make sure he was actually getting up, she somewhat gracelessly crawled back into her apartment. Kicking her heels out of the way and setting her gun on the bookshelf, she turned back to hold the window up while he climbed in after her. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed his assault rifle so he could steady himself with both hands.

It was heavier than she'd thought it would be and she couldn't keep herself from staring at it in her hand, her arm straining slightly to keep it up off the floor. Even more than with her pistol, she could feel the horrible power of it, was no longer was so awed by the holes it could leave in people. She felt a tad bit invincible just holding it and the thought scared her.

"Jesus…"

One of Frank's large hands appeared beside hers, taking most of the gun's weight. He was silently staring at her again. She hadn't quite decided if it made her uncomfortable or the opposite yet.

Letting out a breath and trying not to obviously falter as she pulled her fingers away, she turned and shoved the window down, locking it. "J-Just for my admittedly shaky peace of mind, where's the safety on that thing?"

The gentle expression returned as he held the gun on its side, the slot where the magazine went facing her. He pointed toward a small switch on the metal near the trigger. "Right here. It's not going anywhere."

Nodding, she let out a breath as he leaned it against the wall. She doubted that knowing where the safety was actually made her feel better. She did feel safer that he was the one dealing with it.

Forcing herself to stop staring at it—it was a gun, she slept with one of those on her nightstand, not as big a deal as she was making it—she pulled off her coat and walked it over to the hooks beside the door. "You allergic to anything?"

"No, ma'am. I'm a Marine. I'll eat anything."

She vaguely wondered if he was ever going to call her by her name.

"Easy enough," she replied with a smile that didn't feel so strange. She was at home. Her day was done. As bad as she was at it, cooking was normal and she craved normal most days. It wasn't work.

And she wasn't alone. That was reason enough to be in a good mood.

"You've probably got time to shower if you want," she noted gently, trying not to look at him as she suggested it.

She caught the raised eyebrow he sent at her anyway. "You saying I smell, ma'am?"

"I'm saying you have blood on your nose…and your knuckles and your neck and," she took a step closer and went on her tiptoes, "I think there's some in your ear."

She was teasing the man about being covered in blood. Blood that wasn't his. Blood that he'd forcibly beaten out of people…who probably deserved it. Karen was far too worn-out to dwell on the morality of it.

"Alright, ma'am."

Fighting a yawn, she nodded toward her bathroom, "Towels are in the cupboard over the toilet."

With the purposeful, thudding steps she'd come to associate with him, he crossed the space, stopping in the doorway of the bathroom to unlace and take off his boots and put them on her shoe mat. His heavy black coat went above it on the hook right next to hers. It took up so much space it practically covered hers. His Kevlar went on the floor beside his boots, next to where she'd dropped her work bag full of files.

It was strange, having another person in among her things, her home. Foggy had been busy with his new job on the day she packed up her meagre belongings and moved. She and Matt still hadn't really been talking at the time. This was the first time anyone but her elderly neighbor had been inside.

When she realized she was staring at him, he was already gazing back. She gave a small smile before turning toward the corner of the studio apartment that doubled as her bedroom. The bathroom door shut a moment later and she hastily climbed out of her pencil skirt and blouse. A hoodie she lazed around the house in and a pair of leggings were the first things she found on top of her dresser and she hauled them on as fast as humanly possible. Glancing at the wall with the bathroom on the other side of it, with Frank on the other side of it, she shrugged to herself.

She was tired. It didn't honestly matter.

Reaching behind her, she unhooked her bra and pulled it off under the sweatshirt. She was done with it for the day.

Feeling like a person again rather than a mass of skin held together by cotton and elastic, she made for the kitchen. She was peering into her refrigerator, trying to figure out something she wouldn't mess up too badly, when Frank's voice rumbled through the bathroom door, "Do you have anything that won't make me smell like a woman?"

For whatever reason, she couldn't hold back the bark of laughter that escaped. Snatching up the only other soap in the apartment, she leaned against the doorframe and held out her lemon scented dish soap without looking inside.

He grumbled under his breath and she couldn't make out what he said, though if she were to take a guess it sounded like something along the lines of 'smart ass'.

"You know, people aren't going to stop running from you in terror when you find them in a dark alley just because you smell like coconut." She wasn't going to apologize for her body wash choices.

She heard the huffing sound that she'd realized was him quietly laughing before he noted, "My wife had a bunch of coconut shit. She had this lotion that I hated. It made the whole damn bedroom smell. But I'll be damned if I hadn't actually missed it when I got home and our bed smelled like it."

Pulling the dish soap back to her chest, she glanced into the bathroom before she could remind herself not to. He was still fully clothed, so she didn't immediately avert her eyes once she realized what she'd done. He was staring at the bottle, sad smile on his face that she'd seen before that first day in the hospital.

"She had good taste," Karen offered, making his eyes jump over to her. The sadness that stared back at her speared her right in the chest. That, that look, was why she had believed him. No one could fake that look. "I'm sorry. I don't have anything else."

"It's alright. Soap is soap," he replied, setting the bottle back down and starting to pull off his socks. She took the hint and pulled the door closed and retreated to the kitchen.

Another thorough search of her fridge indicated that she was going to be making mac and cheese. It was one of the few things she could successfully make from scratch and she didn't feel like spaghetti or something frozen. She could be a normal human being and make dinner. She was still capable of that.

When she found the pull-apart cookie dough hiding on the bottom shelf, she smiled.

Fifteen minutes later when the shower turned off, she was perched on her kitchen stool, stirring the cheese sauce while reading the paper and drinking leftover coffee from that morning. Her batch of cookies was in the oven and the cooked noodles were in a colander in the sink. Frank emerged minutes later.

His face was clean in the light, the blood gone, but it made his black eye look all the worse. When she glanced down to his hands, his knuckles were in even worse shape. Internally cringing, she wondered if they were just constantly sore. She couldn't imagine. Her feet were bad enough.

With a nod, she directed him toward beer in the fridge if he wanted one and then dumped the noodles into the sauce. Without incident, she was soon sitting on her couch and watching the nightly news, eating macaroni and cheese with Frank Castle. Fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies were waiting for them on the counter. After the murder reports began, she changed to the first innocuous show she could find. Brady Bunch reruns were what came on the screen.

She doubted either of them was really watching anyway.

She could feel him eying her for a while before he broke the silence. Though he'd never been terribly prone to using it in excess except for that one time in the diner, she liked his voice. The colonel had mentioned impressions and the idea was so at odds with the man beside her at that moment, she almost couldn't imagine. She envied his family a little for having heard it so often, probably hearing him laugh with it. It would've been great for bedtime stories and cheering from sidelines. Maybe even making dinosaur noises… Karen effectively canceled her thought before she wondered at how his wife had heard it.

"How are you and Red?"

Turning, she frowned at him until she realized he was referring to Daredevil's costume, outfit, whatever was the right word.

"Oh, you mean Matt?" At his nod, she wondered aloud, somewhat incredulous, "Does he know you know?"

Frank shrugged, "Probably. I had him chained to a roof just a couple days before he showed up being my lawyer. He doesn't try to disguise his voice. I saw his face that night with the ninjas."

"You had him chained to a roof!" She remembered to lower her voice halfway through her sentence. His smirk went unappreciated.

"Water under the bridge," he said with a shrug, smirk getting a bit more smug at her glare and subsequent eye roll. As she took another drink of coffee, he repeated, "So, how are you two?"

"We're not," she replied immediately, not needing time to know he was talking about their conversation in the diner. He'd had good points, every single one of them true, but that didn't change one very important thing. "The pain's only worth it if they love you back, Frank."

"Did Red tell you that?"

"He didn't have to. I could tell."

And she could. Something had broken between them on that front. She'd known ever since she saw the gorgeously exotic woman in his bed. At the time she'd just been upset, seeing the situation for what it looked like and being rightly angry. After—after the ninjas and he'd told her he was Daredevil and he'd so clearly been seeking just someone, anyone to wrap her arms around his problems and make them quiet for a little while—after all that, she'd realized that wasn't what made her so upset she was heartbroken. It was the so very blatant look of love and adoration, sheer and utter terror if something happened to her, in his blind eyes she'd never seen looking back at her. It wasn't that she didn't think he could come around to loving her, but she wasn't going to sit there on the line and wait while he moved on.

She deserved more than that. What was left of their friendship deserved more than her being relegated to second-best because his other choice was forcibly taken from him. She didn't want to be his only choice because the world had been cruel. She wanted to be the only one because he only wanted her. And besides, he'd kept secrets from her for a long time, she was still keeping one from him, she didn't quite trust her ability to stop.

"You sure about that? Red's a lot of things, but I didn't peg him for stupid."

Smiling into her mac 'n cheese, she didn't look up. "Thanks, but yeah, I'm sure. I think Matt either needs somebody who's just completely removed from that part of his life, hasn't been touched by that sort of dark and terrible," the face of James Wesley suddenly and painfully flashed through her brain, stabbing at her chest and snatching her air, shoving her face first into the dark and terrible, "o-or somebody who completely gets it."

She could feel her hands starting to shake, her jaw faltering and she hoped with everything she had that Frank would attribute it to heartbreak instead of what it actually was as the deep black hole in her chest opened up and started trying to swallow her.

Logically, she didn't have any problems. The man had sat across from her, taunting her with the power he had over her, to kill everyone she held dear, just to kill her if he got annoyed with the extra effort. She wasn't wrong in what she'd done. But logic had very little power against the dark times of night that brought his face back, that made her claw at her chest in an effort to breathe. Logic was complete and utter shit when pitted against that kind of fear.

Forcing a smile against it, she concluded shakily, "I'm neither of those things. We're still friends."

Putting her bowl down, she quickly downed what was left of her coffee. Using it as an excuse to get up, she moved past him without acknowledging that he was pensively, intensely staring at her. Refilling the mug, she glanced fleetingly at him, "Cookie?"

Without waiting for his vague head jerk, she grabbed four and set them on a plate. When she curled herself onto the couch again, setting the plate between them, she was worried he would push. She'd never let anyone close enough to even have reason to push about Wesley, to suspect, but she could tell that he did.

Frank didn't talk much, she'd realized, because he didn't have to. He said most of what he needed to with gazes and looks and glares. If he didn't quit with the gentle, pensive stare boring into her soul, she was going to start sobbing.

"Whose car was it? You said you inherited it."

Karen let out a sigh of relief as she started on her second cookie. He wasn't going to ask. And somehow that was disappointing as well as comforting.

"A friend. His name was Ben Urich. He was kind of my mentor. I've got his old job."

"Was?"

With an again shaking hand, she ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. "Yeah, he's dead. Wilson Fisk strangled him to death with his bare hands in Ben's living room."

"Is that why you cared so much?" Nonchalantly biting into a cookie, Frank was gazing at her again and though she didn't quite understand yet, his eyes were a lot more serious than his posture. He was asking a big question.

"Cared about what?"

"My family. Why they died. Why someone was covering up the truth. Was it because that asshole had murdered your friend?"

His voice was flat again, though she was getting more used to that. He was trying to sound less interested than he was. Maybe so she didn't feel pressured into an answer. Maybe so he could pretend it didn't matter that much to him. She knew it did, though.

Pondering her answer, they sat in silence for a while. She couldn't remember when, but Frank had turned off the television at some point and it was quiet. Except for his breathing. It was nice, having someone else there. Just as she opened her mouth to reply, she realized that it was nice having Frank there.

The realization threw her voice off for a few words, but she wasn't sure it mattered.

"No, that's not why I cared. I still do." It was true. She still wanted to understand. Ben had taught her never to do anything half-assed. Frank Castle's family was still on her mind when she delved into new articles, new cesspools of criminal intent. "No, Ben died doing his job. He was one of the few people in the whole city who managed to actually scare Wilson Fisk. I'm probably sitting across from one of the only other ones."

When she flicked her eyes up, he had a grim sort of acknowledgement on his face. It held promise. If absolutely nothing else, Frank wasn't afraid of Fisk. It was comforting, like having her .380 in her hand when she couldn't sleep and Fisk was why.

"I care because what happened to your family almost happened to me." Her hand went up to her hair and she realized just how potent of a nervous tell it was. Before she could push it from her face, she lowered her arm back down and hugged it across her chest, forcing herself to make eye contact with his surprised gaze. Once she had it, she immediately knew that she was completely helpless to break it. She didn't want to because she loved how he stared into her soul.

"Fisk tried to have me killed. First he tried to frame me for murder. When Foggy and Matt got me off for that, he sent men after me. They broke into my apartment, almost killed me. Matt saved me. If he hadn't, I would've been just like your family: a little anecdote without any truth to it. I would've just been one more person killed from a home invasion or however they chose to paint it. Or I could've just been a body at the bottom of the Hudson. My death would've meant nothing and no one would have ever known the truth. No one would've ever been held responsible…punished. Your family deserves better than that. That's why I care."

He let out one of his breathy chuckles. "Well shit, I thought you were just unlucky getting yourself mixed up with me and Red."

Smiling, she shook her head, "Nope. Nosy, not unlucky."

When he looked at her again, she heard the words coming out of her mouth. "Frank, are you the one who burned your house down?"

"Being nosy again?" She raised an eyebrow at him in annoyance, making him smirk ever so slightly before he nodded solemnly. "Yes, ma'am."

"Why?"

Sighing, he pulled his limbs back toward him from where they'd been spread toward her coffee table and flung over the back of the couch, comfortable. Much like her, he crossed his arms over his chest. She watched as he leaned his head against the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling.

"I was still out of it when they were buried. One minute we're in the park, I'm holding my little girl's bloody body, my wife's screaming, and in what feels like the blink of a fucking eye I'm alone in the hospital and they're in the ground. That's the last way I saw them, bloody and dying, their insides spilling out like I was back in a damn warzone…"

He trailed off, but aside from leaning against the couch more, Karen did nothing, just looked at him as he tried to find words for something he usually used bullets to say. The tears that were only ever there because of his family were in his eyes when he tilted his head to look at her. They immediately triggered hers because there was just no way she could look at this man, this big, intimidating, almost inhumanly resilient man crying over his lost family and not join him because they were the most genuine tears she'd ever see.

"Everything that was our life was in that house and they were gone and I didn't…I hadn't been there to say goodbye. Our house was…"

"You gave them a Viking funeral," she volunteered.

Sniffing and wiping at his nose, he jerked a short nod, "Yes, ma'am."

"Did you take anything with you?"

She wasn't sure why, but she just had this gut feeling that if he'd taken something with him from that house that wasn't a gun or anger, then there was that much more left of Frank Castle in the man beside her. He needed as much of that as he could get. She'd always liked that quote that talked about staring into the abyss and eventually it would stare back. He wasn't just staring into that abyss; he was living in it and shooting everything that moved in the darkness.

"Yeah, I…I tried to leave it but I picked up my little girl's book. It was on the table in her room and…"

"The one with the bears on the front? I remember seeing it. Umm, it had something to do with batches?"

He looked back at the ceiling. "One Batch, Two Batch. It was her favorite book."

At that moment, Karen realized she'd never actually said it. It was one of the few topics they talked about, although tonight had broadened that pool somewhat. But still, she'd never said it just because it was true, without any other motive, and that immediately didn't sit right on her tired shoulders.

Leaning forward, for the first time without bullets flying through the air or playfully hitting him, she touched him. She curled her fingers around his bicep, or as much of it as she could at least, and waited for him to look at her. When he did, she felt that for perhaps the first time she was the one staring into his soul.

"I'm sorry about your family, Frank. I'm sorry they took them from you."

"Thank you."

She gave him a small, sad smile and a final squeeze before standing. Taking his dishes, she left the kitchen to be dealt with in the morning and moved to the bathroom to start brushing her teeth. She'd just spit out her mouthwash and was starting to take her makeup off when she realized he was staring at her again. As her mascara melted off and her couple freckles were no longer muted by her foundation, she glanced back at him in the mirror, wondering why he seemed…entranced of all things.

It wasn't until she was wiping off concealer and rubbing cleanser into her pores that she grasped that he'd probably watched a routine along the same lines as hers every day for years, however long he and his wife had been with each other. Once upon a time, he'd gone to bed watching the woman he loved take off her makeup and settle in to sleep. The last time he'd seen it was probably the night he got home, less than twenty-four hours before his family was murdered.

As poor a substitute as she probably was, she wouldn't take it from him. Without saying anything, she just finished with her routine, brushing her hair out and putting moisturizer on her face.

Coming out of the bathroom, she pressed her lips into another smile. "I'm going to get some sleep. You're welcome to stay if you need."

That pulled him out of his reverie and he promptly shook his head. "No, I have work to do. Thank you for dinner, ma'am."

"Of course. Anytime."

As she crossed the space to gather up her pistol and place it on her nightstand where it stood guard as she slept, she realized she meant it. She wouldn't mind spending another night in with Frank Castle in the midst of her ridiculous life. Taking her gun in her left hand, she hefted his off the floor with her right and held it as he pulled on his boots, armor, and coat.

When he took the rifle from her, he had another one of his unreadable expressions boring into her. The more he did it, the more she felt like someone was finally just seeing her without her having to say anything, without having to openly admit to the dark and terrible that lived within her. It was a bit addicting after keeping the secret for so very, painfully long.

Before she retracted her hand, before he had the full weight of the gun, his voice hit her ears. The rumble knocked the air from her chest and pulled a sob out of her throat.

"The part that hurts the most is keeping it inside, Karen."

Lip quivering, she couldn't pull her eyes away, shaken down to her poor feet that he'd just said her name and that he knew just what to say, even as she answered unsteadily, "Not tonight, Frank. Just," her voice broke," not tonight."

He just gave a gentle nod, "Okay."

Then he had the gun fully in his grip and he was moving toward her door, about to leave her alone in the space. "Stay safe, Frank."

He smiled over his shoulder at her and in that moment, she wondered if she'd prefer him without the bruises or if they had somehow become a part of him that she'd miss. She knew she'd miss the teasing in his voice until she heard it again when he tossed back, "Yes, ma'am."

Then the door was closed and she was alone and she already sorely missed his presence, hated the sound of his heavy footfalls going the opposite direction.

A/N: So yeah, this just kind of happened over the last 48 hours. There's about eight thousand more words of it sitting on my computer and I'm sure a few thousand more will pour out of me in the coming days. I'm estimating at least five or six more chapters. I'm not even entirely sure what I feel for these two is shipping. It just makes me indescribably happy when they're in the same room together, especially when I'm cringing like a five-year-old child scared of cooties whenever Karen and Matt were having moments. Everything about Jon Bernthal's performance was just superb (that cemetery scene: seriously, the best television I've seen in years, goosebumpy and blubbering good) and my muse has run with it. For anyone interested in such things, the songs "Devil Side" by Foxes and "Take Me Home" by Jess Glynne wrote this (there are some nice fanvids for these two using them on YouTube, FYI).

Okay, I'm officially babbling because no part of me expected this much, this quickly, with these people to come out and consume my life. On that note, thanks so much for reading, review if the desire takes you, and I hope you enjoyed. :)