A/N: Note that Karen is an unreliable and very self-deprecating narrator here.
There must be something about her, a strange magnetism she doesn't understand. Because Grotto trusted her, and Frank Castle asked her to stay, and Matt fell in love with her.
James Wesley saw it too. (And Karen still sees him, the blood and the staring, surprised eyes, and it makes bile rise to her throat.)
She is the weakest link, an unworthy constant in a world of chaos, that is drawn to and around her. Maybe she seeks it out. Maybe it looks for her.
She doesn't deserve the good of it, and she's afraid of the worst of it.
(Is it because she feels? Is it because she believes?)
Frank Castle's battered face was marked in and out with pain and suffering and death, and yet he wanted Karen—the pretty, insubstantial blonde—to stay. Couldn't he see?
Can't they all, even Matt, see?
They'll figure you out one day, she reminds herself bitterly. Figure out how pathetic you are. And she doesn't mean them, not Frank or Grotto or any of those—she means Matt, because she doesn't know how Matt came to care for her, or why. Hers was a schoolgirl crush. And it's almost shameful, how much she wants kisses in the rain to mean something.
This is all a dream, and some of it is a nightmare. But in the brighter moments, when they play pool and eat lasagna, when Matt's lips meet hers, stronger than a thunderstorm and gentler than rain—
Oh, that is the dream. And should she have it? Is she worthy?
Will it last?