Months after the aftermath of "The Punisher", Karen Page was at an interesting place in her life. She wishes she could say that things had quieted down but if anything the situation in Hell's Kitchen had exploded even larger in recent days. The difference was that Karen had finally figured out just where she fit in all this madness.

Nelson and Murdock had gotten back together (I mean who was anyone kidding, her boys were meant for that law firm), but Karen had decided to stay with The Bulletin. She was through being the background character in her own life and had realized that she could do more good for the victims of Hell's Kitchen as a journalist.

As for Matt Murdock, after his big reveal the two had made up and were now closer friends than ever, but they had both accepted that's all they would ever be. Matt was clearly looking for someone pure and innocent who could quietly stand by his side and follow his lead, and Karen Page had finally realized she would never be that person.

She thinks it was Frank Castle who clued her into that.

She remembers the first time she picked up a paper and saw the headline "Massacre" painted across the front page followed by a gruesome story of an Irish gang mowed down where they sat.

She was thrown into this man's life before she could blink. One day suddenly finding herself dragging an injured client down a hospital hallway completely, totally, and utterly horrified for her life. She had glanced behind her and that's when she caught a glimpse of him for the first time. The hospital lights were flashing and alarms were going off and people were scattering and in the midst of it all was this man, this man who seemed completely calm as he took his time chasing her down to end her life, and she was sure she had never seen anything more evil.

But then flash forward and she's standing over this broken man tied down to his hospital bed and she's handing him a picture of his slaughtered family and he's whispering "thank you ma'am" as he stares up at her and into the very depths of her soul.

And then as the weeks of his court case go by they spend hours and hours together and he tells her intimate stories of his children and one day she finds the worst day of her life just spilling out of her and she tells him every bit of her time with Westley. And he doesn't look at her any differently as she recounts the feel of the steel in her fingers and the look in his eyes as the life drained out of him. And when she finishes Castle simply mutters "Bastard had it coming" and they both move on.

And then she's in a courtroom and he's screaming that he's guilty but he's also doing everything to avoid looking at her and she knows, she just knows that the man before her isn't him.

So when she hears that he's escaped prison, she'll never admit it to a soul, but a small breath of relief comes shuttering from between her lips.

And when she sits in the small office with Matt and Foggy and hears the DA claim that Castle has threatened her little girl, Karen wants to laugh because she knows he didn't, he couldn't, he wouldn't.

But then she's pinned beneath Matt's body and bullets are shattering the room around them and she can't believe that he would do this, that he would hurt Foggy, and she's ashamed but she can't help wondering if he knew that she was there in that room too.

So when he shows up at her apartment and declares it wasn't him she wants more than she's ever wanted anything before to believe him, but she refuses to be naïve so she keeps the gun between them. And when he realizes she's in danger he risks launching himself right at that gun and lands on top of her just as the bullets shred the walls above them and in that moment she genuinely thinks she's never felt more safe.

And later when she steps into the hotel's car garage and sees him sitting there in her car, she teases him to cover up the passing thought that he looks like he belongs there.

Then they're in the dinner and she knows it's a mistake but she lets herself pretend that it's real and she imagines him before his life was torn apart, a war hero and a gentleman. But at that moment, like the perfect synopsis of Frank Castle, he goes from guzzling coffee and giving her love advice to effortlessly spitting open skulls. And she's hiding in the back and listening to the massacre and she's horrified, she really is, but there's also this small part of her that wonders if this is what justice is now.

So she follows Castle to that dock and she watches him go up in flame and she lets the cops mistake her heartbreak for trauma.

And then she's throwing herself, her whole self, into this article to explain to the world who Frank Castle really was because if she doesn't, then what else is left.

So she goes to the Colonel's house and she realizes he's The Blacksmith and she's certain that now she's going to end up just another unfortunate victim of Hell's Kitchen. But then the Colonel is forcing her into her car and that stupid song is coming through the speakers and Karen knows that she's going to be okay, because, somehow, Frank Castle is out there and he's going to save her.

And he does.

But then she's having a moment of clarity that she can no longer be an accessory to Frank's assassinations, and she knows what she's asking of him isn't fair, that this is his ultimate enemy, but she tells him that if he kills The Blacksmith then he can cross her out of his life.

And he does.

Yet days later she half expects it to be Castle who comes crashing through that window to save her and the other hostages, but it's not. And it's not him fighting a small army on that roof as she looks on from the alley below either. She wonders if she's happy about that.

But then, just when Daredevil's defeat seems eminent, it is him appearing on a nearby rooftop and effortlessly saving her friend's life. And then it is him staring straight down at her, she swears he is, and then stepping backward into the night.

And then for three months…

Nothing.

I mean Matt has told her that he's shown up now and again, getting The Devil of Hell's Kitchen out of several sticky situations. And she's certainly felt the gaze of some unseen eye on her on more than one occasion. But he's stayed away. Perhaps because it's what she thought she wanted or perhaps because it's what he really does. Regardless, Karen Page had finally been able to make peace with where she belongs, fighting for those in Hell's Kitchen who have no voice.

Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Frank Castle definitely taught her that.