[All things considered, it's a pretty normal day. For Karen at least. For her, normal means she gets a good five hours of sleep. Has a quiet morning. Reads the news on her tablet. Stops to get coffee and bagels before she heads into the office, because it's her turn to remember breakfast.
She's working on a case with Foggy this week, tracking down leads regarding a shitty landlord that recently branched out into commercial properties. He's obviously cutting corners, maybe even bribing officials to pass inspection. It's not a particularly exciting case, but she doesn't hate that. Sort of relishes it, actually. She likes the long hours spent pulling permits and cross referencing equipment purchases.
It's late afternoon when she parks outside of one of the recently acquired shithole buildings. She decides it's not technically breaking and entering when there's nothing to break and lets herself in. Her purse is locked up back in her car, with her folder of research tucked inside. She's got her mace in one hand and her phone in the other as she moves through the space, taking pictures.
The first sign that something's wrong is the sound of a loud collision. The 'rammed into a building' kind. But it's New York. She's in Hell's Kitchen. That's kind of just a regular Tuesday at this point, which...should probably be more concerning than it is. But it's far enough away that she doesn't feel the need to get moving yet.
And then she hears a jarring crash right outside, followed by the echoing peal of a horn.
Frowning, she turns to look back towards the grimy, half boarded window. She picks her way over to it, and when she goes to put her hand on one of the boards, she realizes that she's starting to dissolve. Her hand is going first. Trailing away into dust as her phone clatters to the floor.
And then there's not even time to panic. Her heart beat barely has time to kick it up a notch.
( He does construction again these days. Now that the kid's gone, now that he's back out of all this shit again, he needs somewhere else to channel that excess of anger and violence and that need to exhaust his body. Turns out nothing quite satisfies him as much as slamming a sledgehammer into shit on repeat. It's not as bad as last time; he doesn't work himself bloody, he doesn't stay quite as late overtime bounding at concrete walls. He talks to the people around him from time to time. Likes a few of them, even.
So when the yelling starts, it's legitimately concerning. It's the sound of a jackhammer going wildly off the rails, of power tools dropping and consequently pinging around the room toward unsuspecting nearby pedestrians, who catch a saw blade to the foot or a stray from a nail gun. He thinks wildly at first that they're being attacked, and he grips his hammer, eyes searching out the man he plans to take it to, only to see three people disappear into ashes one after another after another.
And then he sees the people on the street begin to go. And cars begin to crash. And yelling, and people frantically pulling out their phones, and the next thing he knows he's moving, his own phone already pressed to his ear, calling a phone that sits in a dropped handbag, ringing away, answerable by nobody.
He'll look back on it and think about how stupid it is that he never even for a fleeting moment considered he might wind up ashes, too. It was just never gonna happen, he's not the one who dies.
In the coming days, he considers blowing his brains out once or twice. Just idly. Just because it'd be easier than having to feel it again, that grief, that all-consuming grief, and all the stupid regrets, and all the wasted time, and how fucking absurd it is that he spent years away from her to keep her alive, only to have her die to an act of God or an act of alien or an act of nature, whatever the hell it is. How she could've died to anything just the same way; car crash, some asshole on the street, cancer, anything, and he'd feel just as much stupid regret for all the wasted time.
People talk about them like they're coming back. Frank's not so sure. He doesn't get people back, but Murdock has all the hope Frank's missing, so he just waits and he just wait a little longers. He asks about where she'd been going, where she was when it all hapened, and he's fucking furious when nobody can give him specifics — but Nelson offers up a suggestion that's good enough for him to follow through on, and eventually, he finds her purse.
Pete Castiglione uses his seven-fifty credit score to buy the building. It's cheap, because there's an abundance of housing these days, and the place was a shithole already anyway. He turns all that construction experience into fixing up the place, and then he turns that place into a goddamn war bunker, and he keeps her purse and he leaves that gun in her purse and he nearly beats the shit out of Murdock when he tries to take her shit 'back to her place' even though her place won't exist in another year or two.
Time passes.
He's finding just a little longers are harder and harder to come by, and so he works to keep himself distracted. God knows there's an abundance of it these days, with people taking advantage of the chaos. But then, there are also fewer criminals to put down when he does find the work, so it's over twice as fast.
It's a sad thing to admit, that Hell's Kitchen has never been cleaner. That there's some argument to be made for the truth, the proof of concept, that abundance is the antithesis to crime and violence. But Karen's gone, so fuck that, he doesn't give a shit what point it proves.
Maybe if he'd known she was coming back today, he'd have shaved. )
The hell of it is that it's just another normal day, for most New Yorkers. The real fight is going to take place upstate. Far enough away that the sound doesn't even carry. Bruce Banner snaps his fingers.
It starts small. Like a snowball that's going to turn into an avalanche. There's a sudden uptick of pigeons cooing, letting out an alarm call as they blink back into being. Somewhere in an alley outside Frank's war bunker, a stray cat comes back to life and falls into a trash barrel with an indignant yowl.
It picks up speed from there. The sounds of cars swerving and honking as people reappear on the street outside. A shout of surprise. Running footsteps.
One minute, Karen's hand is dissolving into nothing, and then suddenly all of the molecules that make her her swirl back together. Her heart picks up where it left off five years ago, beating at double time as she draws in a sharp breath.
Everything around her is - shifting and changing with a disorienting quickness. The window in front of her disappears. The walls get shored up and painted over. Things are just appearing from nowhere. A rack of guns. A bank of monitoring screens.]
What the hell...
[Her voice trails off as she turns in a circle and finds herself looking at Frank. There's no making sense of what's happening around her. Just the absolute confusion of a woman that's been lost to time for five years.]
Frank?
[There's just an edge of fear under that confusion. Not of him, never of him. But she's standing in what looks like a war room, and she last saw him - what? Three weeks ago? Clean shaven with short hair. Not nearly enough time to grow that mop on his head or a beard that full.]
You look like shit.
[The comment is out of her mouth quickly, the same way she's always coming at him unthinkingly. It doesn't really sound like an insult. More like she's repeating what the hell? Trying to ask him what the fuck is going on? when she completely lacks the words to describe what she's experiencing.]
( The first thing he'd done was grab a gun — because of course he did. It's the sudden uptick in sound, the voices outside, he's thinking it must be some coordinated kinda thing, a raid, another riot even though all that shit calmed down the last couple years, something like that. The slow formation of another person-shape did very little to calm his nerves — it's stupid, you'd think he'd have put two and two together, he just...
He lost hope. At some point over the last five years, he lost hope. Bought this place like a tomb, like a graveyard, like the headstone Maria's got out in the cemetery, except this one was for Karen, and this one he lived in. This one, he refused to crawl back out of. Once you've done it once already and you know how hard it is, the incentive to do it a second time...
The gun falls away from him, discarded, forgotten in an instant on the surface of some shelf or table, he doesn't know, he doesn't look. He can't look at anything but her. She looks- the same, exactly the same. He's aged five years without her, but she's-
He finds himself slowly drawn toward her, one boot at a time, like he's afraid if he moves too fast she'll scatter away again, back into dust. But the closer he gets, the less she scatters, the faster he moves, until he's on her, pulling her in against him, the tight curl of arms and a hand in her hair at the back of her head, fingers threaded through blond strands, heart beating wildly nearly out of his chest, breathless. )
[Frank's staring at her like - like she's a ghost, or an apparition. Maybe more accurately like she's someone he never thought he'd see again. That's how she knows something is wrong and not just weird. It might be laughable under any other circumstance. But that look on his face...Christ, what happened? For all the times they've argued and tried to push each other way over the years, one thing has always been certain. They always end up drawn back into each other's orbits. Inevitable.]
Frank?
[He's approaching her slowly. Carefully. Like she might run from him. Like she's ever been able to do anything other than stand her ground and stare him down.
And then he's crashing into her like a wave, holding her tightly. His hand is in her hair. She can feel his face against the side of her neck.]
Oh. Hey.
[Her voice quiets a little, even though she's still lost, even though her own heart is still hammering. But she's almost always the one to initiate a hug like this. Something that's a lifeline and a reminder that they're both still here. That things are going to be okay. Her arms move around him without hesitation, just as tightly, holding him where he is. One of her hands is flat on his back, her fingertips pressing in just a little harder. She exhales shakily, letting her head lean in against his as she takes in the room behind him and around them.]
( He shuts his eyes. She smells the same as she did, exactly the same, he'd nearly forgotten. She sounds the same. She's been gone, and as much as people are gonna wanna say that in their hearts they always knew somebody they loved would be back, that they had some feeling or some bullshit like that, Frank never did. It never felt like she'd come back. It felt like loss, a devastating second loss, leaving him looking like a fool after that time he lectured her in the diner about giving anything to have that again, to have his old lady rake him over the coals and cut him deep and fight him. And then he went and let her go-
Like hell he's making that mistake again. He can't do it anymore. He can't do this a third time, it really would be the worst sort of charm. Third time's the curse, third time he swears to god he'll swallow a bullet. )
Five years.
( He manages, finally. His voice is rusty, throat more hoarse than normal. Catching on syllables like he hasn't spoken to anyone all day so it hasn't had the chance to wake up for real. It's mumbled into her hair, into her neck, and left to longer for just another second before he pulls back just a little. Enough to see her face, not enough to let her go. )
You and half the rest of the world. Gone. For five years. We thought you were all dead, Karen.
[His voice is rumbling against her neck, rising up from somewhere dark and shattered. It breaks her heart a little. Karen knows him better than just about anyone else, and there's a whole world of pain and grief in those two words. Five years. They don't quite make sense yet, but she doesn't rush him. There's too much to try to comb through in her own brain.
She lets him move back so she can meet his gaze, but she doesn't lean back herself. His grip on her has loosened, just a bit, but she can tell he's not letting go yet. She's not going to be the one to break the contact.
When he finally explains himself, there's a disbelieving look on her face.]
What?
[How could that even be possible? Half the world gone? Gone for five years? That uncertainty, that shock, lingers on her face for a moment and then turns into a concerned sort of curiosity. A surefire sign that she's about to start digging in to something.
But instead, she just moves one of her arms from around him. Rests her hand on his face. Her thumb strokes slowly back along his cheekbone as she stares into his eyes. No one keeps his shit together like Frank Castle, but this is the look of a man that's been undone by the world.
Because half the world had been gone. For five years. Presumed dead.
Because she had been gone.]
Oh, God. Frank.
[There's really no words. Just a terrible understanding. A rising tide of fear at what this all means.]
I - I don't even know - what -
[It's a little disjointed as she tries to process all this new information. Tries to figure out what it means to be gone for that long. There's a thousand things she's going to have to do. The look on her face perfectly reflects that thought.
( No, he's not letting go yet. Going strictly off the way he feels right now — the twisting knot inside of him spun tighter than it has in months in anticipation of relief just as soon as he can accept this as really happening — he may never actually let go of her again. She feels so solid, so goddamn solid, but what if. What if.
He used to have nightmares. He didn't get to see her go, but he saw other people go. He used to imagine it in different settings. In her apartment, on a park bench by the docks, in the passenger's seat of his van, scattering into dust out the open window while he begged and tried to hang onto the pieces with both fists like squeezing sand, only to wake up sweating through the sheets.
She says his name and he exhales, a soft sound, letting his forehead duck into her hand. )
I don't know. I don't know.
( Shit, he should be doing a better job at helping her reacclimate, but-- god, five fucking years, she's been dead. It's been hard. It's been so god damn difficult. )
Just give me a second. I'll tell you what I can, just- just gimme a second.
( That hand that had been at her hair drifts down, around the side of her neck, fingers curling at the nape, holding her still so he can just-- look at her, eyes flickering from one to the other, just to make sure the memory matches the truth. That he hadn't been lying to himself, that he remembered the color and the shape of them right. He did. )
[Karen lets him lean his forehead into her hand. Her thumb brushes back a strand of that too long hair. She rubs her other hand against his back, traveling a slow and steady path back and forth. Like a reminder that she's here now. They're both here.
It doesn't feel real yet. She hasn't been here, she doesn't know what any of this means yet. It's just - disorienting. Unsettling. The hard part is going to come for her in the coming days, as she tries to muddle her way through a million different things that there's absolutely zero precedent for. For right now, all she has to do is give Frank a minute to breathe. Make sure he knows that she's really here. And not going anywhere.
When he lifts his head to look at her again, she lets her hand slip back, her fingers running through his hair. They comb through the longer strands that curl over the back of his neck before she moves her hand over, running it over his shoulder to give his arm a gentle squeeze.
He's been a solitary kind of man since she's known him. Most of his contact with other people is violent. And if she has to judge by the way he's staring her down, like he's trying to reassure himself that she's actually here, she doubts that's changed over the past five years. Only she hasn't been here to grab him and hug him like this. To bicker with him about taking care of himself, letting himself have something good. What if Curtis had been gone too? Amy?
His gaze has a weight to it. It's heavy in a way she knows is only a portion of the grief he must have been carrying around. After a moment, she looks away from him to take in the space around them. The room's the same shape, but it's all been redone. And she knows with a sudden, awful clarity that this is what he's been doing the past five years. Renovating the place she disappeared into his base of operations. Sticking close by the last place she'd existed.
When she looks back at him, that understanding is reflected in her eyes. She takes her hand from his shoulder so she can hook her arm back around him and pulls him back in. Her mouth is close to his ear as she murmurs - ]
Hey. I'm back now. You're still stuck with me, Castle.
( The feeling of her fingers in his hair drives his eyes to close, squeezing shut tightly, a small sway in his form like he's drawn to her, a pendulum edging toward her gravity, toward the desire to dip in and press his forehead against hers again — only to sway back when he catches himself, when he locks himself into place with what little restraint he can muster.
He wants to wrap his arms around her again. Pick her up, haul her off somewhere safe, hang on with both hands and shoot anything that got too close. He wants to fight the rest of the world off so that nothing like what happened can ever happen to her again. He also... wants to be even remotely sane and not overbearing about it, but god damn is that a much smaller impulse than this wild, slightly feral need to guard and protect and keep.
He's never gotten back someone he's lost before. He doesn't know what to do with himself. )
Yeah. ( He manages after a breath, thick, too meaningful for a single word. He cracks his eyes open to see her, and nods again, ) Yeah. Okay. Okay...
( She needs a sitrep. She deserves to know what's going on, but he's not so sure he can manage words just yet, so instead, one of his hands goes gliding down her arm. Fingers thread together, and he takes her by the hand, pulling her across the short space toward a powered-off cheap television sported by the same table as a few other security cam footage monitors. He flicks it on, and there they stand, side by side, as an emergency news bulletin breaks across the screen.
MILLIONS RETURNING FROM FIVE-YEAR BLIP, INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES AND EMERGENCY SERVICES FACING OVERWHELM
It's just as much chaos as the snap had been, but in reverse — with people flooding the streets, people abruptly in the path of cars, people appearing in apartments that were once theirs but that now belong to new families. Dogs in strange places, zoo animals in exhibits changed to house other incompatible animals, people reappearing within walls.
The reality of a changing world and static presences rejoining it are equal parts joyful and horrific, and a reporter will spell it all out for them both in grizzly detail. He grips her hand too tightly throughout it, refusing to let go. )
[The smile Karen offers him as he pulls back is a little worried around the edges. Not just about him, but about the state the world must be in on the other side of that locked door. About - trying to catch up and figure out how to live in a world that's been ticking on for five years without half the population. Her hand takes a detour to squeeze his shoulder as she lets him go, and she nods her head as she holds him in her gaze.
His hand is gripping hers, and she returns the pressure of it, building a lifeline between them as he moves them across the space to the little TV that sits in among his security monitors.
The footage is hard to watch. The reporter on screen is visibly harried, moving quickly, followed by a cameraman. They're just exiting the studio, setting up out on the street outside. Karen's shoulder leans in against Frank's as she watches, her thumb brushing against the side of his hand.
While the reporter talks, asking some very well phrased questions about what all this is going to mean and how the government is going to respond, Karen distantly notes that it is an impressive display of journalistic integrity. This might even be a strong contender for a Pulitzer if they can keep their shit together and stay focused on the topic at hand.
The camera pans out, covering what's happening outside the studio while the reporter talks. Karen's free hand comes up to cover her mouth. It's just - chaos, anchored by little moments of joy here and there.
She finally turns back to Frank, her hand dropping from her mouth to rest on his chest.]
I - do you have a phone? I have to call Matt and Foggy - were they both still around?
[Seeing everything that's happening out there, that's the most pressing thing she has to do. Let them know that she's back, that she's safe. Stop Matt from haring off into the city to look for her. Which will also stop Foggy from having to run off himself to look for Matt.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terrorisms • good luck 2 thanos
She's working on a case with Foggy this week, tracking down leads regarding a shitty landlord that recently branched out into commercial properties. He's obviously cutting corners, maybe even bribing officials to pass inspection. It's not a particularly exciting case, but she doesn't hate that. Sort of relishes it, actually. She likes the long hours spent pulling permits and cross referencing equipment purchases.
It's late afternoon when she parks outside of one of the recently acquired shithole buildings. She decides it's not technically breaking and entering when there's nothing to break and lets herself in. Her purse is locked up back in her car, with her folder of research tucked inside. She's got her mace in one hand and her phone in the other as she moves through the space, taking pictures.
The first sign that something's wrong is the sound of a loud collision. The 'rammed into a building' kind. But it's New York. She's in Hell's Kitchen. That's kind of just a regular Tuesday at this point, which...should probably be more concerning than it is. But it's far enough away that she doesn't feel the need to get moving yet.
And then she hears a jarring crash right outside, followed by the echoing peal of a horn.
Frowning, she turns to look back towards the grimy, half boarded window. She picks her way over to it, and when she goes to put her hand on one of the boards, she realizes that she's starting to dissolve. Her hand is going first. Trailing away into dust as her phone clatters to the floor.
And then there's not even time to panic. Her heart beat barely has time to kick it up a notch.
She's just gone.]
rip in peace
So when the yelling starts, it's legitimately concerning. It's the sound of a jackhammer going wildly off the rails, of power tools dropping and consequently pinging around the room toward unsuspecting nearby pedestrians, who catch a saw blade to the foot or a stray from a nail gun. He thinks wildly at first that they're being attacked, and he grips his hammer, eyes searching out the man he plans to take it to, only to see three people disappear into ashes one after another after another.
And then he sees the people on the street begin to go. And cars begin to crash. And yelling, and people frantically pulling out their phones, and the next thing he knows he's moving, his own phone already pressed to his ear, calling a phone that sits in a dropped handbag, ringing away, answerable by nobody.
He'll look back on it and think about how stupid it is that he never even for a fleeting moment considered he might wind up ashes, too. It was just never gonna happen, he's not the one who dies.
In the coming days, he considers blowing his brains out once or twice. Just idly. Just because it'd be easier than having to feel it again, that grief, that all-consuming grief, and all the stupid regrets, and all the wasted time, and how fucking absurd it is that he spent years away from her to keep her alive, only to have her die to an act of God or an act of alien or an act of nature, whatever the hell it is. How she could've died to anything just the same way; car crash, some asshole on the street, cancer, anything, and he'd feel just as much stupid regret for all the wasted time.
People talk about them like they're coming back. Frank's not so sure. He doesn't get people back, but Murdock has all the hope Frank's missing, so he just waits and he just wait a little longers. He asks about where she'd been going, where she was when it all hapened, and he's fucking furious when nobody can give him specifics — but Nelson offers up a suggestion that's good enough for him to follow through on, and eventually, he finds her purse.
Pete Castiglione uses his seven-fifty credit score to buy the building. It's cheap, because there's an abundance of housing these days, and the place was a shithole already anyway. He turns all that construction experience into fixing up the place, and then he turns that place into a goddamn war bunker, and he keeps her purse and he leaves that gun in her purse and he nearly beats the shit out of Murdock when he tries to take her shit 'back to her place' even though her place won't exist in another year or two.
Time passes.
He's finding just a little longers are harder and harder to come by, and so he works to keep himself distracted. God knows there's an abundance of it these days, with people taking advantage of the chaos. But then, there are also fewer criminals to put down when he does find the work, so it's over twice as fast.
It's a sad thing to admit, that Hell's Kitchen has never been cleaner. That there's some argument to be made for the truth, the proof of concept, that abundance is the antithesis to crime and violence. But Karen's gone, so fuck that, he doesn't give a shit what point it proves.
Maybe if he'd known she was coming back today, he'd have shaved. )
more like rip in pieces amirite #snapjoke
Five years, gone, and she has no idea.
The hell of it is that it's just another normal day, for most New Yorkers. The real fight is going to take place upstate. Far enough away that the sound doesn't even carry. Bruce Banner snaps his fingers.
It starts small. Like a snowball that's going to turn into an avalanche. There's a sudden uptick of pigeons cooing, letting out an alarm call as they blink back into being. Somewhere in an alley outside Frank's war bunker, a stray cat comes back to life and falls into a trash barrel with an indignant yowl.
It picks up speed from there. The sounds of cars swerving and honking as people reappear on the street outside. A shout of surprise. Running footsteps.
One minute, Karen's hand is dissolving into nothing, and then suddenly all of the molecules that make her her swirl back together. Her heart picks up where it left off five years ago, beating at double time as she draws in a sharp breath.
Everything around her is - shifting and changing with a disorienting quickness. The window in front of her disappears. The walls get shored up and painted over. Things are just appearing from nowhere. A rack of guns. A bank of monitoring screens.]
What the hell...
[Her voice trails off as she turns in a circle and finds herself looking at Frank. There's no making sense of what's happening around her. Just the absolute confusion of a woman that's been lost to time for five years.]
Frank?
[There's just an edge of fear under that confusion. Not of him, never of him. But she's standing in what looks like a war room, and she last saw him - what? Three weeks ago? Clean shaven with short hair. Not nearly enough time to grow that mop on his head or a beard that full.]
You look like shit.
[The comment is out of her mouth quickly, the same way she's always coming at him unthinkingly. It doesn't really sound like an insult. More like she's repeating what the hell? Trying to ask him what the fuck is going on? when she completely lacks the words to describe what she's experiencing.]
rimshot
He lost hope. At some point over the last five years, he lost hope. Bought this place like a tomb, like a graveyard, like the headstone Maria's got out in the cemetery, except this one was for Karen, and this one he lived in. This one, he refused to crawl back out of. Once you've done it once already and you know how hard it is, the incentive to do it a second time...
The gun falls away from him, discarded, forgotten in an instant on the surface of some shelf or table, he doesn't know, he doesn't look. He can't look at anything but her. She looks- the same, exactly the same. He's aged five years without her, but she's-
He finds himself slowly drawn toward her, one boot at a time, like he's afraid if he moves too fast she'll scatter away again, back into dust. But the closer he gets, the less she scatters, the faster he moves, until he's on her, pulling her in against him, the tight curl of arms and a hand in her hair at the back of her head, fingers threaded through blond strands, heart beating wildly nearly out of his chest, breathless. )
no subject
Frank?
[He's approaching her slowly. Carefully. Like she might run from him. Like she's ever been able to do anything other than stand her ground and stare him down.
And then he's crashing into her like a wave, holding her tightly. His hand is in her hair. She can feel his face against the side of her neck.]
Oh. Hey.
[Her voice quiets a little, even though she's still lost, even though her own heart is still hammering. But she's almost always the one to initiate a hug like this. Something that's a lifeline and a reminder that they're both still here. That things are going to be okay. Her arms move around him without hesitation, just as tightly, holding him where he is. One of her hands is flat on his back, her fingertips pressing in just a little harder. She exhales shakily, letting her head lean in against his as she takes in the room behind him and around them.]
What happened?
no subject
Like hell he's making that mistake again. He can't do it anymore. He can't do this a third time, it really would be the worst sort of charm. Third time's the curse, third time he swears to god he'll swallow a bullet. )
Five years.
( He manages, finally. His voice is rusty, throat more hoarse than normal. Catching on syllables like he hasn't spoken to anyone all day so it hasn't had the chance to wake up for real. It's mumbled into her hair, into her neck, and left to longer for just another second before he pulls back just a little. Enough to see her face, not enough to let her go. )
You and half the rest of the world. Gone. For five years. We thought you were all dead, Karen.
no subject
She lets him move back so she can meet his gaze, but she doesn't lean back herself. His grip on her has loosened, just a bit, but she can tell he's not letting go yet. She's not going to be the one to break the contact.
When he finally explains himself, there's a disbelieving look on her face.]
What?
[How could that even be possible? Half the world gone? Gone for five years? That uncertainty, that shock, lingers on her face for a moment and then turns into a concerned sort of curiosity. A surefire sign that she's about to start digging in to something.
But instead, she just moves one of her arms from around him. Rests her hand on his face. Her thumb strokes slowly back along his cheekbone as she stares into his eyes. No one keeps his shit together like Frank Castle, but this is the look of a man that's been undone by the world.
Because half the world had been gone. For five years. Presumed dead.
Because she had been gone.]
Oh, God. Frank.
[There's really no words. Just a terrible understanding. A rising tide of fear at what this all means.]
I - I don't even know - what -
[It's a little disjointed as she tries to process all this new information. Tries to figure out what it means to be gone for that long. There's a thousand things she's going to have to do. The look on her face perfectly reflects that thought.
What the hell is she doing to do now?]
no subject
He used to have nightmares. He didn't get to see her go, but he saw other people go. He used to imagine it in different settings. In her apartment, on a park bench by the docks, in the passenger's seat of his van, scattering into dust out the open window while he begged and tried to hang onto the pieces with both fists like squeezing sand, only to wake up sweating through the sheets.
She says his name and he exhales, a soft sound, letting his forehead duck into her hand. )
I don't know. I don't know.
( Shit, he should be doing a better job at helping her reacclimate, but-- god, five fucking years, she's been dead. It's been hard. It's been so god damn difficult. )
Just give me a second. I'll tell you what I can, just- just gimme a second.
( That hand that had been at her hair drifts down, around the side of her neck, fingers curling at the nape, holding her still so he can just-- look at her, eyes flickering from one to the other, just to make sure the memory matches the truth. That he hadn't been lying to himself, that he remembered the color and the shape of them right. He did. )
no subject
It doesn't feel real yet. She hasn't been here, she doesn't know what any of this means yet. It's just - disorienting. Unsettling. The hard part is going to come for her in the coming days, as she tries to muddle her way through a million different things that there's absolutely zero precedent for. For right now, all she has to do is give Frank a minute to breathe. Make sure he knows that she's really here. And not going anywhere.
When he lifts his head to look at her again, she lets her hand slip back, her fingers running through his hair. They comb through the longer strands that curl over the back of his neck before she moves her hand over, running it over his shoulder to give his arm a gentle squeeze.
He's been a solitary kind of man since she's known him. Most of his contact with other people is violent. And if she has to judge by the way he's staring her down, like he's trying to reassure himself that she's actually here, she doubts that's changed over the past five years. Only she hasn't been here to grab him and hug him like this. To bicker with him about taking care of himself, letting himself have something good. What if Curtis had been gone too? Amy?
His gaze has a weight to it. It's heavy in a way she knows is only a portion of the grief he must have been carrying around. After a moment, she looks away from him to take in the space around them. The room's the same shape, but it's all been redone. And she knows with a sudden, awful clarity that this is what he's been doing the past five years. Renovating the place she disappeared into his base of operations. Sticking close by the last place she'd existed.
When she looks back at him, that understanding is reflected in her eyes. She takes her hand from his shoulder so she can hook her arm back around him and pulls him back in. Her mouth is close to his ear as she murmurs - ]
Hey. I'm back now. You're still stuck with me, Castle.
no subject
He wants to wrap his arms around her again. Pick her up, haul her off somewhere safe, hang on with both hands and shoot anything that got too close. He wants to fight the rest of the world off so that nothing like what happened can ever happen to her again. He also... wants to be even remotely sane and not overbearing about it, but god damn is that a much smaller impulse than this wild, slightly feral need to guard and protect and keep.
He's never gotten back someone he's lost before. He doesn't know what to do with himself. )
Yeah. ( He manages after a breath, thick, too meaningful for a single word. He cracks his eyes open to see her, and nods again, ) Yeah. Okay. Okay...
( She needs a sitrep. She deserves to know what's going on, but he's not so sure he can manage words just yet, so instead, one of his hands goes gliding down her arm. Fingers thread together, and he takes her by the hand, pulling her across the short space toward a powered-off cheap television sported by the same table as a few other security cam footage monitors. He flicks it on, and there they stand, side by side, as an emergency news bulletin breaks across the screen.
MILLIONS RETURNING FROM FIVE-YEAR BLIP, INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES AND EMERGENCY SERVICES FACING OVERWHELM
It's just as much chaos as the snap had been, but in reverse — with people flooding the streets, people abruptly in the path of cars, people appearing in apartments that were once theirs but that now belong to new families. Dogs in strange places, zoo animals in exhibits changed to house other incompatible animals, people reappearing within walls.
The reality of a changing world and static presences rejoining it are equal parts joyful and horrific, and a reporter will spell it all out for them both in grizzly detail. He grips her hand too tightly throughout it, refusing to let go. )
no subject
His hand is gripping hers, and she returns the pressure of it, building a lifeline between them as he moves them across the space to the little TV that sits in among his security monitors.
The footage is hard to watch. The reporter on screen is visibly harried, moving quickly, followed by a cameraman. They're just exiting the studio, setting up out on the street outside. Karen's shoulder leans in against Frank's as she watches, her thumb brushing against the side of his hand.
While the reporter talks, asking some very well phrased questions about what all this is going to mean and how the government is going to respond, Karen distantly notes that it is an impressive display of journalistic integrity. This might even be a strong contender for a Pulitzer if they can keep their shit together and stay focused on the topic at hand.
The camera pans out, covering what's happening outside the studio while the reporter talks. Karen's free hand comes up to cover her mouth. It's just - chaos, anchored by little moments of joy here and there.
She finally turns back to Frank, her hand dropping from her mouth to rest on his chest.]
I - do you have a phone? I have to call Matt and Foggy - were they both still around?
[Seeing everything that's happening out there, that's the most pressing thing she has to do. Let them know that she's back, that she's safe. Stop Matt from haring off into the city to look for her. Which will also stop Foggy from having to run off himself to look for Matt.]