It was cold, bleak, and wet. New York's winters were always that way; at least, if it was a normal day. And each day was pretty much normal, too normal these days. The clouds poured above the buildings in a thick fog, where Daredevil used to be. It was just as everyone predicted, once he was gone, he was gone, and there was no coming back from that.
It was as if both the famed vigilantes of Hell's Kitchen had disappeared after that faithful night of the kidnapping of everyone Daredevil's ever saved. It was like something had died that night, or quite possibly someone.
I stood at my spot on the rooftop of my building. It was somewhere I took my breaths; a place I could get away from the chaos. That's all I ever wanted to do, get away from it.
The cradling sounds of sirens whirring through the streets below always seemed to bring the slightest comfort to me. Although, I would've loved those sirens more if they had made it to save my family that faithful tenth birthday of mine.
I sat criss-crossed near the ledge and began to breathe, taking in all of my surroundings, feeling each movement and gust of wind around me. My blood pulse through every vein and every nerve on its highest sense, I find my center, and I get away. If I didn't, I'd probably be like the Infamous Punisher.

"Hey, T."

That voice pierced through my heart like steel arrow.

"Thought you vigilantes were out of this town by now?" I sharply replied.

He stayed quiet, but I heard the clicks of his boots inching closer to me. Turning around wasn't an option. After a few steps, he was now behind me, and I kept my stance in meditation.

"What do you want, Frank?" I asked. He still stayed quiet. And he would continue to stay that way. This wasn't like Frank, at least not usually. And it's been awhile.

"Open your eyes, kid."

I opened them to see his face bruised and bloody, arm tucked under his armpit clearly also tucking away his pain.

"God damnit, Castle, why do you do this to yourself?" I exclaimed. He only looked at me sternly, that same look in the battlefield. Piercing, yet yearning.

I jumped out of my meditation position and slung his arm around my shoulders.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming to see me, Frank."

The Punisher hung his head low in exhaustion, and the world seemed to go black.

"Get to the helicopter! We gotta make it to the extraction point!" Beaker yelled at the top of his lungs.
The teams heavy, clanking guns were useless at the moment. Every bullet the team had was exhausted, and everyone had either a gun shot wound or a broken bone. Each step felt like gravity had taken a hold of us, that something kept pushing us down that didn't want us to make it.
I had Castle on my shoulders with 5 shots to the chest from an M16, and all I could think about was getting him to safety. My captain and my teammate, I'd do anything for that man.
"Get Castle a blood bag, stat! He's bleeding out over here!" I shouted, finally making it to the helicopter.
I looked into his eyes and told him, "I promise, I'll get you to your family, at all costs."
Everyone made it, no casualties, that's how you knew it was a good day. Until—
"Padgett, we can't fit you!"
My heart dropped among the strong swirling of the helicopter. What?

"We'll come back for you!"

The noise was deafening, my breath leaving my body almost completely.
"Padgett, I'm sorry!" Frank yelled, and the helicopter began to ascend. In the middle of the desert, he threw a jug of water at me with saddened eyes. And to my dismay, he whispered to himself as he watched me blend in with the sand.

"I'm sorry, T..."
…

If my couch wasn't dirty before, it was definitely dirty now. I hadn't seen him since that day in the sand, in the middle of nowhere. Part of me wanted to leave him there to die, I could always buy a new couch. He looked at me with those hardened eyes I knew all too well. My humanity inside me couldn't let him die, he was a good man, although he abandoned me; a classic case of pure fucking abandonment.
I gathered what medical tools I had and did what I could. He had a huge cut on his abdomen above his ribs, and a graze on his right arm. White towels scourged into red, and cheesecloth and gauze was going to be his best friend for awhile.

"I'm sorry about your family, Castle," I started as I stitched his gash. He only stayed quiet once more. "If only I could've made it home, you know, with the team."

"Ahhgh!" He writhed in pain as I pulled the stitch a bit too hard, purposely of course.

I finished cleaning his wounds and gave him a glass of water. Walking over to the window, I lit a cigarette on the sill and leaned my legs on the ledge.

"You still smokin that shit, huh, T?" He said under his breath. His hoarse voice always seemed to find some softness in it. Either way, I ignored him as he had me.

"I'm sorry for coming here," he continued. "I wouldn't have came if I didn't have to."

"Then why did you have to," I trailed off into my cigarette.

"I didn't think you'd still be here—"

"You didn't answer my question, Castle."

He sighed deeply, and his gaze finally changed from his beaten fingers to me. Here was a real answer on the way.

"I'm leaving this city. I wanted to say goodbye."

"You already did 2 years ago, Frank. Should've saved yourself the trouble."

"It wasn't my call, T! You know that!"

"Neither was me helping you to the extraction zone, but I did it anyway, right?" I started drudgingly, "You abandoned me. Left me to rot in the sand with those dead assholes we killed on the mission."

"Things went south, kid. I'm sorry."

"Sure you are," I sharply stopped the conversation. I had nothing left to say.

"I had to get back to my family."

"And that didn't work out so well, did it?" I felt my heart tense from the anger I felt deep inside. "I guess karma's a bitch, isn't it?"

He got up so fast from the couch I barely saw his movements, and crushed the cigarette out of my hand. Before I knew it he was holding me against the wall by my throat, but he knew that didn't hurt me.

"Don't you ever talk about my family, Padgett."

"I did my best, Castle."

I saw his tears in his toughened eyes. There's a first.

"Really Frank, why did you come here?"

Our eyes were locked with an endless ocean of emotion. Hatred, depression, terrible sadness, regret, revenge... They mixed together in a boiling pot of human flesh, inside a small New York apartment. He slowly let me down, and that began to shock me. His hands moved from my throat to my shoulders, from shoulders to waist, and he embraced me.

"Frank...?"

I began to feel warm tears in the nape of my neck, and his breath became choppy with each drop. Now this, this wasn't like Frank, not one bit. I began to shudder with emotion, not knowing if I should hug him back, but something buried inside my grudge towards him pushed me to shove him off.

But I didn't. I'd do anything for that man.

…

The night was cold, but dry. Grains of sand that blew in the wind seemed to stick to my lips like super glue. The moon was bright, yet daunting, seeming as though it was laughing at me. It knew I was alone in the darkness, just like it had been. The sand never felt so blistering, and my skin felt like a piece of sandpaper. Licking my lips was an impossibility, and finding shelter was the same. The sand was my home for the moment, or maybe forever?

He told me he would be there for me, just like I had for him. My captain and my teammate, we watched each other's backs, never let each other go, we had that bond, you know? We weren't in love, but it was pure and sanctioned trust. We did anything for each other.

But why did he leave me behind? I could've fit on the copter, what was the hidden motive? What made Beaker make the chopper leave? Why leave me behind?

My tears had dried away with my saliva, and the water jug was at its last sip.

"I promised you... I fucking promised you..."

My whispers were the only thing that seemed to drown out my loneliness in the sand. Thoughts raced through my head even louder, and the winds began picking up. Sand was now residing in the corners of my eyes and in between places it shouldn't be. I had to find some kind of shelter, the middle of the land couldn't keep solace

I genuinely thought I was going to die. My heart was beating slower with each step in the moonlight, and there was nothing in sight for miles. Hope was slim, and so were my vitals. My legs finally gave out, and I laid in the sand.

I was going to die.

And it was all his fault.

…

Memories of my abandonment filled my mind in our embrace. His arms were wrapped around me tight and the tears continued to flow. Now, it was my tears that fell, and anger began to take over.

"Get off me, Frank."

His grip only got tighter, and my anger only got worse.

"Please, Frank, get off," I repeated.

He seemed to feel my body burning with anger, and he slowly let his arms fall to his sides. His face still buried in my neck, he whispered—

"I'm sorry, T."

I shook my head and slowly pushed him off me.

"If you were really sorry, you would've came back for me."

I felt his body shudder at my words, and he understood my heated actions. If he only knew what I had gone through to come back, the things I had to endure, what I had to do to survive, maybe he would understand my heart of steel. As we stepped away from each other, I walked over to my bed. It was silent in the one-bedroom apartment, so silent you could hear the drunken homeless man yelling at himself on the street. Frank still stood next to the window where he had held me, his emotions cracking through his shell. Head held down, he whispered again—

"I'm sorry, T."

"Tell me why," I replied softly. My hands were gripping the bedsheets, about to rip the seams.

He turned around slowly, and walked over to sit next to me.

"That day was something I couldn't ever get out of my head," he started. "Seeing your face, the noise of the chopper; they were all stuck like glue."

His hand found his way to mine, and gripped it tight. His rough hands engulfed my scarred ones, both entangled in a fist on the bed.

"When I got back, all I could think about besides finally seeing my family was if you were alive. I tried to get the team back out there for ya, kid. If I could've thrown myself off that plane to trade my place for yours, I would've. But, you brought me back to my family."

He took a deep breath, and I could feel his eyes burning through my skull. I couldn't look at him, especially since we were talking about it.

"And… Endured the worst pain of my life. Having everything out of my control. In a flash, they were gone. Everything and anything I ever cared about, taken from me in front of my eyes. They were gone, and you gave your life for me, T. I had to make those people pay—"

"So you went on a killing spree?"

He looked away when I said that, as his burning gaze shifted to the far wall.

"It was for the better."

For knowing Frank as who he was, killing was something we were taught in the field. You shoot to kill, and those on the other end of the gun were deserving of the bullet. No matter the cost, you finish the mission.

"So, before I left, I had to come find you," he finished.

I finally broke my steady gaze from the floor to look at his face, to see if there was some kind of ulterior motive behind his words. With Frank, there was always something kept in the shadows. But this, this was real.

"Wish you would've came when you knew I was back." My eyes began to tear uncontrollably. Emotions ran wild once more, and our eyes locked in a stare that was long awaited.

"I've been alone, you know," I added. "I had no one to come back to, yet I felt a pull to this place. I came back and found out what happened, and I wanted to see you…"

"But you couldn't."

"But you could've," I yelled back. Frustration and resentment poured into my words as thick as venom, "Instead, you decided to be the big bad Punisher."

He threw me on the bed, the grips on my bed sheets threw them behind us, and he held me down again. Both hands on each side were held by his, and we were face to face, body on top of body.

"I couldn't, T! I had to keep you safe!" he yelled in my face. Tears were streaming on each side of both of our faces, but our training kept us from any type of sob to escape our lips. We were locked in a kind of limbo, being pulled towards revenge as well as, well… Whatever this was.

…

The days seemed to lose their significance, as I had lost my appreciation for the Middle East sunsets. Their colors mocked me; such beauty, done completely effortlessly, with nature being it's only entity to blame if any color had been out of place. I had made due with the water jug by excavating some from deep within the sand, only finding about a glass.

Walking was my only way to keep myself from dying, although at many moments, I wanted to die. Just fall into the pools of grains and sink beneath them, my body becoming more a part of it than it already had been.

They never came back…

"They're never going to!"

My head was filled, my voice screaming for hope. Parts of me thinking the team was really coming back were shown each time I looked up into the sky. I have never shed so many tears than I have now, neglecting the comparison to my parents' murder. That was something different. This… This I trained for. I was supposed to be prepared for. Just like he taught me.

He never cared about you…

The voices got louder as I reached the top of another dune.

"God, make it stop."

You loved him, but you knew he had a family…

"Please, stop…"

He just thought you were some hot piece of ass to stare at all day…

"Please…"

My heart was pumping through my chest, and the world was slowly getting blurry. Sweat was past the point of cooling me down.

You're denying it… You love him…

"I…"

I buckled under my weight, and fell down the dune. It must've been a tall one, because falling had never felt so long. As I reached the bottom, my body started to shut down, and the world was turning black again. I began hearing voices, not my own, speaking a language I didn't understand. It had to be hallucinations, but as I fell into darkness, my body was being lifted.

The time was even more irrelevant now, as I awoke inside of a dark, desolate room. The walls looked worn, like this used to be an old interrogation room at base camp. This didn't look like ours, though. Without realizing, I looked down at my hands and feet, both locked down not by rope, but knives. In each hand were two small pultruding daggers in the middle, whilst my feet had a bit more protection from my boots. The pain was numbing, actually, compared to the dire wrath of heat and sand, but my blood was already dried, meaning I had been here for quite a while.

Pain was something that seemed more like a normality at this point. I've been trained, SEAL to Marine, but they don't exactly prepare you for this.

The heavy door screeched open with a sound that seemed to deafen me, and two men with hijabs walked through. What else was I expecting, the cavalry? They approached me with those disgusting, evil eyes they all bore as the shitbags they were. They began speaking to me in their language, and among all my exhaustion, I just sat and stared.

"Why are you here?" one said, heavily filled with his native accent. My head hung low in exhaustion, being out of the sun, no matter the circumstances, felt like ecstasy. Amid my contentment, I felt a sharp hit to the cheek.

"Why are you here?!" he yelled again, this time with a gun pulled in between my brows.

My eyes wandered the room trying to focus on their covered faces as I spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. One stood in the back with his hands folded in front of him, while the other held his stance in front of me. I finally gathered the energy to answer.

"Go to hell, you piece of shit," I spat. The pain from my hands began to throb uncontrollably, and then came in slow, hard waves. He didn't like my answer, as I would've thought, but he still asked me again,

"Why are you here, American," his accent seemed to thicken, making me cringe in disgust. "This place is highly forbidden. How did you get these coordinates?"

It started to seem to be falling in place, I knew these walls looked somewhat familiar. It was our interrogation room. It looked worn, like something bad had gone down in here. My heart began to beat out of my chest again, like when the chopper had left. The noise came back to my almost shattered ear drums, deafening me once more.

"I was stranded five clicks out by my team," I grimly replied. They looked at each other with smug looks, and he lowered his gun. They spoke their language, seeming like they were somehow easing up. I hung my head again, exhausted from just saying a few words. It was so terribly hard to speak, my throat felt like it was the one with the daggers sliced through.

The man who was standing in the back of the room came towards me, and the other was in front of my left hand. He stood menacingly, and they both took their stances. Each of them grabbed a dagger on each hand, and ripped.

I've never felt such pain. It was agonizing, but it was also motivating. My adrenaline rushed through every muscle in my body, and with my feet still mounted to the floor, I quickly snatched a dagger from one of their hands and sliced their throats. Their bodies fell to the ground, writhing in pain for the few seconds their brain could stay alive. I soon fell on the ground next to them, my feet bleeding from the daggers once shoved inside of them.

Why didn't you just let them kill you… You're pretty much dead already.

I gathered the strength to drag myself to my pack, and began doing whatever I could to stitch up my wounds. My head was fuzzy, but I kept to my mission. You always stick to the mission, no matter the cost.

You don't even know what's out there…

"Shut up."

I dragged myself to find the doorknob, and opened it to a blinding light. The sun had greeted me with a hot and dry embrace, back out into the world again. It was my base, abandoned, completely destroyed. The rec house was burned to pieces, and the bunks were a hole in the ground. As my eyes scanned the ruins of my home for the past year, I began to cry. The pain, the sorrow of these past however many days…

"How long was I gone…"

It must've been long, because I saw Beaker's body to my left almost completely covered in the sand. At least, what was left of it, anyway.

"No…"

I fell to the ground hard, every ounce of hope I still had was shredded to pieces, like my hands.

Just let go…

No more pain…

In your heart, you know the truth…

I closed my eyes, and let the voices take me. The world became black again, probably for the last time.

No more pain…

I hope it was worth it…

…

Memories flew through my mind at a million miles a minute, and I snapped back into reality. Our tears had stopped, and eyes became hardened.

"You have no idea, Castle."

I pushed him off me hard, and maneuvered my body to be in control. Both legs straddled, I snatched my hidden blade from my ankle holster and held it to his neck. He kept a straight face with tear stained cheeks and chapped lips, my teeth grit against each other hard to hold back what I was going to do.

"Have you ever felt so much pain that all you wanted to do was die?" My knife was as close to his neck without making a clear cut.

"Yeah."

"If you know that, then how can you look at me?"

"You never knew the truth."

I froze. My heart beat quickened, and my hand began to shake from its trained form.

"What truth, Frank?" I started, "Cause I sure as hell know that you don't have a shred of it."

"It made me hate myself."

I pushed the knife closer into his neck, a drop of blood seamlessly trailed down to the bed.

"I hated myself too. I still do."

Now he asked the questions.

"Why?"

I hesitated, my breath sharp. An answer was scarce; my emotions were screaming through my heart. Just, say it.

"Because I loved you, Frank."

Tears began to flow tremendously, my grip still hard on the knife but my intentions were softening. My scarred hands began to shake as our eyes locked in a gaze that could burn through the sun. As I realized what I said, I slowly dropped the knife along with a waterfall of tears.

I sat there straddled on top of him, and he slowly began to lift himself to meet my face. His sculpted right arm wrapped tightly around my waist and pulled me so close, I felt his breath. My heart skipped a beat, and the tears were starting to recede. His eyes were pools of redemption and sorrow, but there was a flicker of something I couldn't quite figure out.

"I hated myself," he started, his voice deep with leftover sadness, "Because all I could think about was you."

His eyes were dried, still harshly stained with remnants of blue bruises. The sorrow behind them was larger than any ocean. I felt his pain, but he also felt mine.

"They were dead, no comin' back, months of the worst pain a man could get hit with. Livin' in the dark, you entered my mind, and you never left."

He grit his teeth in anger and despair with a deadly grip around my waist.

"You helped me remember."

I began to think of how I saw the news a few weeks ago. A house had been burned to complete ash, nothing left behind besides a small bear that must've belonged to a young girl. No bodies were found, but the headlines read Frank's name. The pieces began to add up for the first time in years, but the picture was still blurry.

"Of what?" I faintly whispered.

"That I need to move on."

Within an instant, he pulled me into a kiss. Soft at first, but harder with each pull. His lips were tender, although chapped, and had a warmth that filled my body with a feeling that I thought was impossible to feel. The world had stopped for us, and my heartbeat began to soften. It was as though all the hatred and resentment I carried had vanished.

He lifted my small body with one arm around my waist and another under my bum for support, our lips locking with each kiss. It became harder, more aggressive, as he turned around and took control. My body was now laid on the bed, and he moved from my lips to my neck, and then down to my breast. His touch was burning through each fingertip as they explored my skin. Breaths were becoming short, and he came back to my lips.

Clothes peeled off with every moan, and the once cold and desolate room became hot with intensity. His sculpted body was filled with scars, as did mine, but it didn't matter. It was the coming together of two souls who had had something buried inside, like my emotions were dug up from the seemingly endless sands of the desert, and his burned with a flame brighter than any light. We both had something lost, and we both carried a feeling of redemption for those we had lost. This… This had felt so right, it was almost scary.

We embraced as he slid his pulsing member inside me, both of our bodies radiating. Each thrust became harder, faster, and the embrace slowly dissipated into the rest of the world around us. His eyes locked with mine, and the thrusts became softer. He kissed me again, it's tenderness never letting up, and my heart exploded with that impossible feeling.

It was like a dance between two lone wolves, with enormous amount of anger and love, and I felt his body shudder as he released inside me. My breath had been completely taken from me as we both laid next to each other. Every scar, every imperfection; we were completely vulnerable.

He stared at the ceiling, and pulled me close to him, my head now on his chest. His heartbeat brought a solemn comfort to my mind, it was something I had always wanted to hear, but denied every second. All the voices stopped, my heart was calm, and we laid there quietly, not needing to say a word. I brought his hand to mind and kissed it softly, feeling the heat from his body combining with mine once more.

"Thank you," I said.

His gaze towards the ceiling didn't shift, but he kissed the top of my head and stroked my arm with his. We drifted into sleep, and I had never felt more at peace in my entire life.

…

Hell's Kitchen Cemetery had been empty, besides a black figure looming among the tombstones. That figure belonged to Frank; wearing his black jacket and jeans, he had held a bouquet of white roses. His eyes were dried with the salt of tears, and his hands had bled from punching walls from unbearable anger and frustration. The tombstone wrote her name, with her medals and her smile. He set down the roses on the snowy grass, and kissed his hand to meet with her name. Rubbing his eyes with his jacket sleeve, he heard something fall from his pocket. A letter, with his name as the receiver, with her handwriting.

Frank,

There's words I've wanted to scream, wanted to rain down on you to make you suffer as I had. There's feelings I've wanted to speak, but couldn't bear the pain of not getting them back. You were everything I ever asked for, yet you had been the one behind betrayal, although you didn't ask to be.

You helped me remember what it was like to feel happiness again. Helped me remember how love actually existed, when I thought I knew it my heart it was a complete impossibility. You coming back proved the world wrong, and proved me wrong. And you showed me that even the most broken, can become whole again.

Thank you, for putting my aching heart to peace.

With Love,

T.