Short. Sweet. Better late than never.

- Red

Chapter 12- Same Page

Karen

My body was a test tube full of foreign complexities that no one knew how to analyse, treat or name. Though I still had choice, limited as it may be. I could surrender to the exhaustion and the unknown (of which there was plenty of both) or release Frank, let him be free from incarceration once again and be given a chance to find some peace.

Matt and Foggy didn't need to know. Let them be furious, angry and disappointed is better than grieving and in pain. Let them believe I'd compromised my livelihood to release Frank and to run away with him without a thought to say goodbye. No one will question it too hard, I'd already gone to bat for him plenty of times.

I stood in the woods in the early morning with a punisher coming steadily undone. Never good.

"Why aren't you in the hospital!" He yelled. His fists were wound tight, redness creeping into his complexion.

"They said if I spend any more time there, I have to get a subscription and I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment." Perhaps Frank would kill me before the sorry state of my biology did.

"Enough." His voice so guttural, it made me flinch.

"What do you want me to say? I'm broken and they couldn't do anything? They didn't have the first clue, so I decided to stop wasting everyone's time, especially my own."

He was all bruises and welts, as usual; it was a strange thought that I might fade before the swelling on his face. Sourness lined my stomach at the thought of dying and I'd been bringing up the acidic remnants of each forced down meal to prove it. Apparently, I had no stomach for the idea of perishing. I couldn't help but wish I'd accomplished more, I guess we all wish we could make some impact on the world before leaving. No use crying over it now though.

"How can you be so calm about it?"

I watched his face as pain distorted him. "Maybe I'm done."

"Done?"

"Look, I made my choices. There weren't all good choices, but it's all done now. The point is, I want to spend whatever is left with you, stop making it so damn hard! You're a stubborn, arrogant, take the world at gunpoint, glutton for punishment, asshole cowboy"

He squinted his eyes, trying to wrap his head around the ranting slosh of names that had just been fired at him. Frank silent was a rare occurrence. For an action speaks louder than words kind of man, he sure had a lot to say all the time.

He smiled, he couldn't help it and neither could I. This was all so ridiculous; it could only be our lives. Then he perched his ass on the stump of a tree and cradled his forehead in his hands. "It's not right. It's not enough." His eyes were wet when he looked up and I sank to my knees in front of him with no regard for scuffed knees. He held my head to his chest so tight I could hear his heart thumping wildly beneath his shirt.

"It'll have to be." My fingers found his and he squeezed them tight. I knew, sitting still wasn't natural for him. He needed something to fight, something to carve his frustration into but what happens when there's no one else left to punish? I did not expect him to seek closure but I hoped for it. I wanted him to find something to fill his days, absent of violence and chaos.

It was time he stopped chasing distractions in carnage. I'd make this time count, make the days matter.

"Ok," he said to no question.

"Ok?"

"Me and you. For as long as we have."

Oh, that question. The only question lingering between us since first meeting. 'Will you stay?'

The answer made my chest hurt because this is what it took for us to be together.

"Is that a promise?"

"Jesus Karen, I'm not going to bolt in the night. Not now, not ever again. Is that what you wanna hear?"

"Only if you mean it. Only if you want that."

He held me, tighter than I can recall ever being held before. "It'll never be enough time with you. Not even when you've driven me all the way mad," he whispered into my ear.

Frank

She was acting irrationally, and now I knew why. She believes that she's very near the finishing line and when you act like you're already dead because so much of what mattered before slips away. She was being reckless, using power she had no way of understanding.

I needed to get to her to a specialist. Yea, what had happed to her was unusual but not unheard of, seems like everyone was experimenting on people left and right these days. Stupid ass vigilantes running around in spandex thinking they were special to the world. There had to be people out there who specialised in what Karen had going on inside that head of hers and I had to find them.

She was different. I don't exactly know what happened in the weeks we'd been apart but I needed to know. I couldn't help her if she was hiding things from me. If there were things I didn't know there wouldn't be a chance in hell I could keep her breathing.

We'd hiked on through the woods for a while longer, silent in the early light of the morning. I'm glad she was quiet, I needed to think. Take control of this situation, get her safe, make her feel like she can tell me what's happened. Damn, it was time to call for help.

"Motel seems like a good idea. Running water seems like a real good idea." The cold strip washes between the solitary confinement whilst incarcerated had left me feeling grubby, layered in sweat and blood from their beatings, or their idea of beatings. I'm surprised Karen had any urge to be near me at all, with the way I must smell and look. If she noticed or minded, she'd not given anything away.

She looked at me with lingering suspicion, questioning everything I said or did since I tried to leave her. I would never have done it if I'd known she might be dying. I hoped Murdoch would take care of her but I wouldn't fully trust him to get the job done, there were things he wouldn't do but there was nothing that would stop me from saving Karen.

"Too risky remember? Luxury package and all."

"Not if we limit our time there. You can pay at the desk; I'll avoid being seen. We'll freshen up, rest and sort out our next move." Karen started to shift and groan and get ready to argue with me. "We need a plan, can't trudge through the goddam mud until we drop."

"One night. I mean it, I'm not going back. Anyone trying to make me do anything is not a great idea right now, just so you know."

I stopped walking, looked down at the pale skin of her cheeks beneath a beanie and I couldn't help but smirk. "Is that a threat ma'am?"

Her eyes shifted when ma'am was spoken and neither of us needed telepathy to know the other's thoughts. The water tower, the intimate darkness, how she asked for me to do things and say things like ma'am. The memory of her response made my body hum with a vital need to have her that way again, splayed out beneath me to savour until neither of us could remember anything else. I'd done everything she'd asked that night and things she hadn't thought to ask for.

I could live separate from her if I had to, if she'd be safer and happier but I wouldn't let this already shitty world permanently lose Karen Page, making it a lot shittier. I felt like I'd already died once. The husband and father I was followed his family to the grave. This felt like a second life, dim and cold but singular in purpose, clear in motivation, until Karen found me and questioned me every chance she got. It didn't feel like this second life was so infused with clarity anymore.

We would go the motel, I'd call Red, get him on the case and I'd chase down any and every lead until we find someone who could help fix her.

"I've thought of that night every moment after it," I confess.

She kissed me, so gently that no one would guess that she was projecting vivid memories and suggestive thoughts directly into my mind. I took a deep breath. Staying focussed around this woman took the strength of a titan.

We needed more time with eachother and it had nothing to do with what she was broadcasting to me in the present moment. I felt a desperate urge to fill my days, as many of my days as I could, with her light. I'd do anything, never kill, watch as the scum takes over New York without lifting a finger to the trigger again if that's what it took to keep her alive. We'd have nothing fight about but it would be worth it.