A/N: This episode was amazing. I have no idea how they're going to wrap it all up! Wow!
The higher they fly, the farther they fall. It goes for men and myths, and it goes for hope too.
Far to fall, Karen thinks, and she does fall, to her knees on the roadside. The gravel bruises her knees and the shot is still ringing in her ears. Was it mercy? Is there mercy or grace to be found in the swift brevity of the kill?
Does it still make him a monster?
She hopes it doesn't, but it certainly doesn't make him a man.
Karen is crying. She's been crying since she got out of the car, clutching her sprained arm. Is this always going to be her lot? Finding herself on both wrong sides of a gun?
She just wants truth.
She just wants love.
And she thinks of Matt's church, of the crucifix, the twisted broken man who hangs on it.
Truth and love.
Karen doesn't know why she even tries. Or maybe she does. Maybe, if she lets herself, she's in the diner with Frank, before that all went to hell, or maybe she's in the rain, and Matt is smiling against her lips. Maybe it only ever gets this bad when there's something good to lose.
If it were littler—the ordinary ugliness of day in, day out human life—she's blame herself. Maybe she's the problem. Maybe it's her past, maybe it's her failures.
But the truth is—the only truth she's been able to find—is that this all so much bigger than she is. Bigger, darker, crueler.
The farther they fall.
Karen didn't start this, not really. Everything she's started has ended in blood, but it isn't really her fault. That's almost the worst part. The truth is slipping out of her hands at every moment, because she isn't strong enough to hold onto it.
She isn't strong enough.
And she's crying on the roadside, because Frank Castle's gotten his revenge and she knows it's just as empty as she feels now.