Author's note: Hello! I'm sorry to keep deleting/uploading the same chapters over and over. I am working through the grammar and tense issues I notice as I reread it and I want you all to have a good cut.

Enjoy!

So I'll stay unforgiven

And I'll keep love together

And I'll be yours forever.

I'll sleep close to heaven.

Maria.

Her smile, her laugh; the way she touched him and how it felt when she held him. The feeling had kept Frank warm, even when he was on a tour…but that feeling had disappeared, replaced by something cold and heavy in his chest. But he knew it was his fault just as he knew he would always feel the loss. It fueled him – his rage, hate; his violence and vengeance. It pushed him, goaded him. He had nothing else. The pain, it powered him. He didn't need anything else. Just the memory of those he loved the most dying before his eyes. Just his failure; his inability to protect them.

Frank.

"Stop," he whispered out loud.

That voice…he had only been hearing it in his sleep at first; a quiet intruder into his cacophonous life. He couldn't pinpoint when the voice began to come on in his waking hours. It had shocked him at first; he would sit on the roof of the building they were demolishing and he would snap his head to the right, then the left, to find the source. But he knew, deep down, no one was there; it filled his head. Maria's voice. But it wasn't her; he knew that; not because she was dead or because he doesn't believe in ghosts. No, it was the words that the voice said. In her soothing tone, Maria's voice would say: It's okay, Frank or You deserve more than this. The voice didn't come at moments of irrationality, like when he was being tortured, beaten, and close to passing out from blood loss; it didn't sound when Red was throwing his ass around a roof top, preaching at him. No, the voice came when he was alone in the quiet moments of his day, when his thoughts travelled to her. Karen fucking Page, a woman with the nose of a bloodhound for trouble and, instead of running away from it, she would run directly at it. Always did, even before she became a top reporter for The New York Bulletin and started getting paid to find it. He remembered her pointing that .380 at him with so much anger he thought she might pull the trigger. So much disappointment and sorrow because she believed him and fought for him. It was the same look she gave him in the woods. He knew that he had fucked it all up; she helped him remember so much that he had lost and he shut the door on her.

It's okay, Frank.

"No, it fucking isn't." He shut those thoughts of Karen down, ignored the flash of her blue eyes in his head, and pushed away the feel of her soft blond hair. He ignored the way she looked at him as he was pushing her at Murdock even though she was saying he hurts people; and he pushed away the flash of emotion he saw and how badly he wanted to reach across that table, across a chasm that looked larger than it really was, to touch. Would she have let him? He believed she would have at that moment; but not now. Not anymore. Not now that she knew what he was.

He hadn't seen her since the night Murdock's girlfriend died; not in a way that she would notice, not after Schoonover. That pain he couldn't ignore or push down; so he added it to the pain he always carried and could imagine that it was all from the same loss. In some ways, it was. He thought that once he had finished his business, once they were all dead, the pain would go away; but it lingered. It remained prominent, palpable. The pain of losing his family was there and always would be, he was sure. But he knew that he did it – avenged them. It could never make the pain stop, but it helped. A little. He couldn't save them but he put down all those bastards that killed them. Not just the ones who were there, no – he killed all of those were part of the gangs; those who made money from them; even those who were tangentially connected and dirty.

Gone. Bang. Bang. Done.

The pain of his loss eased with the completion of his task. Eased, never gone. This other pain, though, it shot through him when he least expected it. When he saw a copy of The New York Bulletin while walking to work, it stabbed him. He always bought one…always looked for her name. She'd become somewhat of a big name these days – Karen fucking Page. He felt that pain when he thought of her in those quiet moments, when he was all alone on his lunch break. He felt it when he was home, searching for sleep and suddenly, her face would pop into his mind. Tonight was one of those nights. He had given up lying down and sat in the kitchen, drinking a beer.

It's okay.

He shook himself and closed his eyes tightly. He focused on the loss of his family; remembered their deaths. The pain reemerged, the pain he could accept. It overpowered the other pain and kept it from stabbing his heart. He sat at his small kitchen table with the poor light above him and looked down at the headlines on today's Bulletin, then pushed it away, off the table. It fell to the floor and the numerous sections scattered. He finished his beer in one long drag, and pulled out the photo of his family. Its edges were creased and worn; he stared at it so long that his eyes began to burn and the faces of his wife and children, smiling so happily, went out of focus. In the moment that their faces became murky, they melded together and formed a pair of piercing blue eyes in a halo of blond hair. He shook himself again, more violently, swinging his arm out as if he could grab her, hold her, but she wasn't there. She never was. He stifled the growl that nearly escaped him and laid his head in his hands; he ignored the stab of pain that accompanied those eyes and repeated the word, over and over "Maria, Maria, Maria."

You deserve more than this, Frank.

Maria. But she wouldn't say that to him, right?

Frank.

"Stop!" He shouted into the dark kitchen. Luckily, in this run down hole of an apartment, he didn't have to worry about being quiet. The walls were paper thin and he was well aware that he woke up screaming, sometimes, but the management didn't want the cops here anymore than the tenants did. This place wasn't exactly full of law-abiding citizens, to put it mildly. Quite the opposite, but none of them were worth his attention. No, these days, he kept his head down along with the rest of them.

He always paid his rent in cash and no one ever looked at his face long enough to think he might look even the slightest bit familiar. It helped that he had allowed his hair and beard to grow to make himself look as different from the face that graced so many newspapers and channels as possible. He'd been called a "hipster" which he didn't necessarily enjoy, but the change provided enough of a disguise that he could walk freely among the very New Yorkers who had called him a "monster" all those months ago. He'd hidden himself in plain sight.

He considered going to lie down again and looked at the clock on his nightstand. 12:25. He sat on the edge of the bed and sighed, letting his head fall backward and trying to summon the exhaustion he had felt when he finished his workday. After a few moments, he huffed a breath and got up again, grabbing his sweatshirt and zipping it up as he headed out the door. During his off time, when he wasn't still at the construction site, destroying walls to block out the voices and memories, he wandered the streets. Sleep hadn't been easy for him for such a long time; when he had returned from his last deployment, he barely slept unless Maria was holding him. After their deaths, he struggled to achieve even a few peaceful hours. So he often wandered the streets late at night.

Many of these nights, he'd ended up outside her building. Karen's. Tonight was one of those nights, he realized as he crossed the familiar streets. It seemed that she slept about as much as he did. Her lights were rarely on but, even in the chilly night air, her window was open and he could see the light from her computer screen. He wondered if she was hoping that Red would show up, but from what he had heard, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, the altar boy – Matthew Murdock – had died in some building collapse not too long ago. In the weeks after it happened, he'd watched her cry and with the warring emotions inside of him, he felt like he was suffocating. He wanted to hold her and tell her it would be alright. He wanted to leave and never come back. He wanted to kiss every single tear away. He wanted to forget her. The details of the collapse were sketchy and a lot of it was hush hush. Even Karen's article on it seemed incomplete, though he could hardly blame her for avoiding the topic.

In the months following Frank's return, when he couldn't sleep, he walked to her apartment without really thinking of where he was going. When it became clear where he was, he would pause on the sidewalk and look up at her window. He knew which one was hers and would stand beneath it for a few minutes, then move on. After a few weeks, he was able to access the roof across from her building and he would take the stairs two at a time to get up there just to check on her. To make sure she was okay; make sure she was staying out of trouble. To see her. But those short visits became lingering ones and, before he realized it, he was going every night and watching her until he felt that he was tired enough to actually sleep. She spent so much time working, her laptop open and that blue light shining on her, turning her crystal eyes a shade of silver. Sometimes, she was watching television, drinking a beer; but usually she was working. He thought sometimes that she noticed him; her eyes would flash up and look right at him, but he doubted she was seeing him. She had become more isolated since Red's death and Frank never stopped by on a Friday or Saturday night to find that she was out, or worse, had someone over.

Nelson, the other attorney, stopped by sometimes but she would send him away with a promise that she was okay, just busy. A woman came by a few times, wearing scrubs with her dark hair loose. She would hug Karen and look her over, then nod her head and leave. Frank watched it all. Karen was alone, just like him. He wondered what she would do if she opened the door and it was him. He wondered if she would blow his head off or hug him. Probably both. Not that he would do that. She was better off without him.

Frank.

He sat on the rooftop and let his thoughts wander, imagining that she would hold him close and cry. He imagined that her hands would run through his hair and over his beard; she'd make a smartass comment about it and offer him a beer. It would be awkward at first, but slowly, they'd fall back into that rhythm they had before... before she saw him as a monster, too. Before Schoonover. Tonight, Karen's laptop was open as usual, and that light was shining on her face, hair, chest, and the tops of her thighs as she leaned over the coffee table, typing furiously. She was wearing a loose, gray tank top and a pair of shorts and he wondered if she was cold, since her window was open. He cleared his throat and, even in the noise of the New York night, with the car horns and the voices, even at 1:30 on a Wednesday morning, she heard him and her head snapped to look in his direction. He held absolutely still, sure that she could not see him but unwilling to take the risk that she would if he moved an inch. He watched her stand up and walk to the window, her eyes seemingly boring holes into his own the whole way, and then she put her hands on the window and pulled it down, closing it. Her eyes stayed on him for a moment before moving along the rooftop, as if searching for the origin of the sound that startled her.

You deserve more.

"Stop," he whispered, though he knew she couldn't hear him anymore. Karen moved back into the dark of the apartment and shut her laptop, effectively bathing the room in total darkness. He sighed and stood up, walked to the fire escape on the alley side, to the right and kitty corner from Karen's apartment. He made his way down the stairs as quietly as possible, knowing that he was making more noise than Red would have, but not caring too much. He waited in the dark of the alley, taking one final look at her window before beginning the trek back to his place.

He ignored the feeling that he was being watched, ignored the feeling that he had seen a pair of blue eyes watching him go. When he reached his apartment, he removed his hoodie, jeans, and t-shirt, and lay down on the bed. Sleep took him quickly this time even while his thoughts were haunted by a pair of blue eyes.

Karen.