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He almost doesn't go to the party.
The invite comes on ivory card stock, in swirling green script with a small sprig of holly stamped in one corner. A holiday party hosted by Nelson, Murdock & Page, in some swanky part of the city that Frank would normally not be caught dead in—if not for the fact that there, at the bottom, she'd handwritten their names. Foggy. Matt. And Karen.
The envelope is addressed to the place he'd just moved to a few weeks ago. Curt had helped him find it, after a night of too much whiskey, and some resolutions for the new year that Frank had been surprised to hear himself actually say out loud.
And maybe he's gone a little soft, or maybe Curt's gone out on one too many limbs for his sake—shit, and not just in the figurative sense—but Frank figures the least he can do is this one thing he's promised and move into a halfway decent apartment.
Which is how he winds up on the upper floor of a small but reasonably functional townhouse, helping the old lady downstairs with her groceries on weekends, walking her dog when the weather aggravates her new hip.
And receiving this holiday invite from Karen, whom he hasn't spoken to in six months.
He's wanted more than once to reach out, and not just because he'd told Curtis he would. There are things he wants to tell her, about where he is now. Not just the apartment, but the fact that no matter how small it is, its emptiness only seems to expand. The fact that he'd left the vest behind, and in its place is the softer side of a dream she'd once offered him.
One that he hasn't stopped thinking about since.
It turns out that when it comes to his physical location, at least, Karen doesn't need any of his help in finding him. His address is printed clearly on the envelope. More than that, however, there's no postage—which means she must have gone to the trouble of delivering it herself.
He wonders what this could mean. He wonders—
…
He goes to the party.
It's at some penthouse in Midtown East, a place where Frank's only gone for the bagels. The moment he steps inside the building, he realizes he shouldn't have bothered with the suit. The last tie he'd owned had burned with the rest of his house—not that Nelson's doorman needs to know that. The guy puts on such a forcibly polite smile that Frank might as well have shown up in his gym clothes, or one of Red's ridiculous costumes.
He flashes the invitation without a word, and in a similarly taciturn fashion, the doorman escorts him to the elevator, visibly relaxing as soon as the door slides closed on Frank.
The party is already well underway, which is exactly what Frank had intended. He knows none of these people, but at least they've formed a crowd to blend into, loose with drink and song and all that merry kind of shit befitting the holiday.
He doesn't see Murdock there yet. Nelson is on the other side of the living room and hasn't seemed to notice Frank. So much the better—he doesn't want to have to explain himself to either of them before he's had a chance to speak with Karen.
And then he finds her, with an ease that's so startling it arrests him in place for a moment.
She's angled slightly away from him, relaxed against a doorway as she sips on champagne and talks to some guy in a suit. Some guy in a suit with a proper tie, and a smile that looks like it walked straight out of a magazine ad.
Some guy who—has a hand on Karen's arm, and is standing a lot closer to her than anyone who's just some guy at a party. It's more than that. He's standing there like he's a someone, to her.
The guy looks pointedly upward, drawing her gaze to the mistletoe pinned to the door.
Frank turns away. He's always known how this story was going to end for him, and it was pointless to ever pretend otherwise.
…
"How was the party, dear?"
Frank looks abruptly over a head of lettuce at her.
"The holiday party?" his neighbor adds helpfully. She opens her door, ushering him and her groceries inside.
"Right," says Frank. "Fine. It was fine."
"Your friend seemed nice. The one who dropped off the invitation the other day."
Frank manages a noncommittal sound, stepping over to the kitchen and setting the grocery bags down on the counter. He already knows that it couldn't have been Karen. She may have moved on, but she wouldn't display it like that to him. No—this was something else. This was someone's cruel idea of a joke.
"Very handsome young man," his neighbor goes on, sounding rather fond of the memory. "A shame about the—you know," and she taps the side of her glasses in a meaningful manner. "He had to ask for my help finding the right mailbox for you."
Frank starts unpacking her bags so she can't see him scowling. He picks up a red bell pepper and feels his hand literally creak with the effort not to form a fist around it.
"He swore me to secrecy, but I don't suppose there's any harm in telling you now, after the fact! Oh, Peter, I can get that." She gently pries some bananas out of his other hand. "Thank you, dear. What would I do without you?"
…
He takes to the roof on New Year's Eve.
He chooses his spot carefully. It's a relatively balmy night for this time of year, and the rooftop bars in Hell's Kitchen are all in full swing. Ninth is uncomfortably close to Times Square, and Tenth already has its fair share of sirens, so Frank makes his way to Eleventh and finds a place overlooking the water.
It's quiet enough, all things considered.
He takes a seat, does a calculated check of his sidearm, and waits.
Ten minutes later, he feels it—a slight disturbance in the wind, followed by a silence so loud that he can't even hear the fireworks anymore.
"You rang?" a wry voice behind him finally speaks up.
Frank maintains his gaze on the water. "You got a real sick sense of humor, Red."
He waits for it, but Murdock doesn't argue with him. He's quiet for a moment, then says, "So you did make it. I wasn't sure if you'd show."
Frank scoffs out a humorless laugh. "What, you mean you couldn't sniff me out at the party?"
"Smell must have dissipated by the time I got there," Murdock says matter-of-factly as he comes up to the ledge. He deliberates briefly before sitting down next to Frank. "I didn't know she was bringing someone. Neither of us did." He pauses. "I'm sorry."
Those last two words clearly have a bitter taste to them, but Frank can't even find satisfaction in that right now.
He has questions. But he keeps his voice level, his heart rate fairly steady as he asks the one he probably couldn't care less about. "How'd you know where I was?"
"I didn't," says Murdock, quite frankly. "Foggy's the one who wanted to send the invitation. Albeit last minute, hence the personal delivery."
Frank thinks about this, and realizes he isn't surprised. Nelson had always struck him as the smart one, more than most people gave him credit for—and loyal, too, if he was willing to look past his own reservations about Frank for Karen's sake. Misguided as that's turned out to be.
What does surprise Frank is that Murdock had not only gone along with it, but that he had gone out of his way to help.
Murdock must have read all this on him, because he shrugs, and says, "I was curious what you've been up to." For a second, he looks like he might actually smile. "Your neighbor seems to be a fan."
"She means well," says Frank.
"My real answer, though," Murdock says, "is that he—we—want Karen to be happy." Each word is underscored by a kind of acknowledgement that Frank knows he won't ever admit to out loud. That it could've been him. It could've been Frank.
He nods at Murdock, and there's an unspoken acknowledgment in that gesture too. Not that it matters, at the end of the day. "Yeah. Well. Don't think you need my help with that."
He gets up from the ledge, suddenly feeling more tired than he has in a long time.
"Frank."
There's something different in his tone that makes Frank stop and look back.
"I was actually coming to find you tonight."
Frank snorts out a laugh. "That so."
"There's a party," Murdock begins, very carefully, like he can sense that he's about to lose him. "Karen's there."
"Yeah?" Frank replies, turning away. He doesn't care how predictable that makes him. "Thanks, but I'm not falling for that again."
Murdock's voice goes sharp with meaning. "Karen's there—alone."
Frank still doesn't look at him. But he doesn't exactly walk away, either.
"What happened to the other guy?" he asks gruffly. He has his pride, but then again, so does Murdock, and this conversation might as well be equally uncomfortable for both of them.
"Ended up being just that," says Murdock. "Just some other guy."
Frank doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to. He knows that Murdock will understand his silence well enough, anticipating his move before Frank's fully conscious of making it. Normally that would piss him off, but now—
Murdock gives him the address.
Frank throws him a backward glance as he goes—at Murdock sitting there on the ledge, with all his senses honed in on a world that's recently grown too big, too exhausting for Frank to find himself alone in anymore.
"You ever think about it?" Frank asks him. "Quitting all this?"
"Not tonight." And then, surprising Frank yet again, Murdock tilts his head without turning back and says, dryly, "Maybe next year."
Frank lets out a laugh before he can help it. He shakes his head, and turns to go.
…
It's two minutes till midnight when he gets to the bar.
It's a grungy-looking place named Josie's, only half of the letters lighting up before blinkering out every few seconds. The window's too grimy to see more than two feet inside, so Frank shoulders through the door, breathing in a lungful of smoke as he takes a look around.
It's nowhere close to crowded for a bar on New Year's Eve. There's a boxy little TV set suspended from one ceiling corner, showing a grainy version of the ball drop in Times Square. The place has a faintly sour smell, and the floor sticks a little when he takes another step forward.
He's starting to wonder if he's got the wrong place after all when he spots Nelson near the opposite wall, looking perfectly at home in a three-piece suit and a tie. He's drinking, and laughing, dancing with a blonde woman Frank recognizes only vaguely from their holiday party.
There's another blonde at the bar, when Frank does a second sweep of the place, but she isn't Karen. Karen is—
Not here, Frank realizes, as the countdown to midnight begins.
"Ten!"
Disappointment lodges firm in his chest. It's hard for him to breathe around it.
"Nine! Eight!"
He lets the door close on seven. Fucking Murdock. Frank shakes his head.
Six. Five.
But he can't even muster up the anger for it—these are his own hang-ups, not Red's. Frank has no right, coming around and expecting Karen to, what, be waiting for him? There could be any number of reasons why she's not here, and she owes Frank exactly none of them.
Four. Three. Two.
One.
"Hey. Fr—shit, that's not—Pete. Pete!"
Frank turns, frowning.
Nelson is standing there at the entrance. He lifts his hand awkwardly, then looks at it like he's not sure what he'd been trying to do. He clears his throat and walks briskly over to Frank on the sidewalk, nodding a greeting at him instead.
"Counselor," says Frank, after a moment.
Nelson gives him a strained kind of smile. But then he says, "You just missed her," and Frank realizes the smile had been an apologetic one.
"Murdock," says Frank, by way of explanation. "He, uh—told me she'd be here." And then, for some reason that Frank doesn't quite understand, he keeps going. "Don't know if she would've wanted to see me, but I guess I won't be finding out now."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," says Nelson. He shifts his weight between his feet, his smile turned a little tentative. "I know you were there, the other night. And I may have just told Karen about it."
Frank looks sharply at him. "You knew?"
"I know now," says Nelson. At Frank's blank expression, he adds, "I was on my way here, and the doorman went on this weird rant about ties. Which struck me as oddly familiar, for reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss, but anyway." Nelson frowns then. "Kind of wish he'd said something sooner. Don't take it personally, though. You obviously don't need a tie to—I mean—"
"I don't," says Frank. "Take it personally. But I don't see what this has to do with—"
"Right," says Nelson. "Sorry." He takes a breath. "You said you weren't sure if Karen wanted to see you. So I think you should know that—Karen's the one who addressed all the party invitations."
Frank stares at him, unblinking.
"I found the one for you tucked under some files on her desk. I don't think she ever meant to send it, so I, um—" Nelson looks somewhat sheepish now. "Well, Matt and I did, on her behalf."
Frank has gone very still. "Karen didn't want me there."
"What?" says Nelson. "No, that's—that's the opposite of what I'm trying to tell you."
"You told me she never meant to send it," says Frank.
"I think," Nelson disagrees carefully, "she decided it was less painful not to than to be let down when you didn't show up."
Frank's chest constricts painfully. He'd never given Karen any reason to believe he'd do otherwise.
"So you told her. Tonight." He swallows. "Was she—?"
"Pissed?" Nelson supplies. "Absolutely. Not at you, though. She seemed to think you being there might mean something." He says this last part with a cool kind of restraint, as if challenging Frank to see what'll happen if he tries to prove her wrong.
"It did," says Frank. "It does."
Nelson looks thoughtfully at him. "You know what I told my doorman about you?" he asks, after a moment. "I told him you were really important to a good friend of mine. And that I hoped you might consider sticking around a while longer next time."
Frank doesn't know what to say to that.
"Next time," he repeats, like the concept of it is utterly foreign to him. The possibility of it. The hope. "You think—?"
"I think the night is definitely not over," says Nelson, with a meaningful look in his eye. "Next time might be sooner than you think."
Frank nods. He feels the tension inside him unspool, a strange kind of lightness taking its place. "Christ," he says. "You and Murdock are a fucking comedy of errors, you know that?"
"Believe it or not," Nelson deadpans, "you're not the first person I've heard that from tonight." He steps back. "Anyway. Happy New Year, Frank. See you around?"
"Yeah," says Frank, "you too," and means it.
…
He makes it home in record time.
And he realizes how much he'd let himself hope, when he rounds the corner onto his street and feels his heart drop at the sight. No Karen.
He sits down on the stoop and checks his phone. There's a text from Curt, about some plans they'd made for tomorrow. A phone call from Mrs. Rosenbaum, which must have been a pocket dial—there's a twenty second message of her moving around in the kitchen while a TV plays in the background.
Nothing from Karen.
His movements feel heavy as he walks up the stairs, slotting his key in the door.
Fuck. Of course there'd be nothing from Karen. Had he not heard a goddamn thing that Nelson was trying to tell him? Karen was never the one who needed to show up for him.
Frank gets out his phone again, and dials her number by heart.
It rings, and rings, as he lets himself inside. The silence of the empty hallway only seems to grow louder, the longer she doesn't pick up. It finally goes to voicemail, and he ends the call before he can figure out what to say.
He could text her instead. Ask if he can come over, if it's not too late. He could—
He's about to take the steps to his place when he sees it. His neighbor has left him these small notes before, taped to the foot of the railing. Usually to remind him of trash day, or to let him know when she's made too much lasagna again.
Peter, it reads, please come by when you're home. There's a delivery for you, and you know how I am with the stairs. Don't worry about the time. Love, Mrs. R.
Frank sighs. The last thing he needs is for her to wait up for him. He walks down the hall, lifting his knuckles up to her door when his phone lights up in his hand. Karen's name flashes across the screen.
"Hey," he says. He hadn't stopped to take a breath before answering, and it comes out sounding rougher than he'd wanted. "Karen?"
"Hi, Pete."
Her voice is oddly hushed, and it takes him a moment to process what else sounds strange to him about it. Pete? She would never call him that unless—
"Hang on, give me a sec," she's saying. There are rustling sounds on her end of the line.
And then he hears the lock turn. Mrs. Rosenbaum's door is opening. And Karen is standing inside.
Frank lets his hand drop, the one holding onto his phone. He stares at her, looking all soft and impossibly real in that doorway. Hope spills out through all the cracked little surfaces of his voice as he asks her, "You my delivery, Karen?"
Karen looks behind her, into the semi-darkness of the living room where Mrs. Rosenbaum's dozing by the TV, and smiles. "She found me outside earlier and was very insistent on feeding me something until you got home. Wouldn't take no for an answer, so. Here I am."
"Sounds about right." It would be easier, to say this next part without looking at her. Instead, he lifts his gaze, and lets her in, telling her everything that he can with that one simple look. "Thank you. Karen. For coming. For staying."
"Almost didn't do either," she says, showing him the softer edge of her smile. "But Foggy really pleaded your case. Matt, too, actually." She waits a beat. If she wasn't before, she's definitely teasing him now when she adds, "And we know how well that worked out the first time."
Frank ducks his head with a laugh. "You're right. Really wouldn't've blamed you for leaving."
"Well," she says, still smiling slightly, "I didn't."
He feels his breath come up short, and fuck, he thinks that light kind of feeling in his chest must be going to his head a little, and she's looking so pretty, and—"I'm just really glad that you're here."
"I got that, yeah." She bites her lip. "For the record, I am too."
He gestures up the landing at his apartment, feeling like a goddamn schoolboy and not finding it in himself to care. "Can I offer you a beer, or…?"
"Beer sounds fine," she tells him. "Let me get my things."
She checks to make sure the door is locked before closing it behind her. He doesn't move back, and she doesn't press him as she eases herself into the hall, only filling that space with more and more warmth.
Frank grins a little crookedly at her. "I don't need to sign for you first?"
"Stop that," she says, mock-sternly.
He takes her up the stairs, fumbling around for his keys. His pulse jumps a little once they reach the landing, and Karen's close enough again for him to catch a hint of her perfume, count every beauty mark down the curve of her neck if he lets his gaze go astray.
"Was it lasagna?" he hears himself ask as he gets his door open.
"Chicken parm, actually," says Karen. She shrugs off her coat and her bag, and he takes them, grateful to have more to do with his hands. "It was pretty good."
"You guys save me some?"
"I'm sure there's already a Tupperware with your name on it." She sounds amused, but also somewhat distracted now—he can hear it in her voice, the way she's gazing around the small living space, taking in the sparseness of it.
"It's not much," says Frank, as if she's the type of person who'd care.
"It's whatever you need it to be," she disagrees with him, gently.
And the moment he turns, he realizes that not much is, in fact, all that he'd need to call home, so long as Karen is standing there with him.
"I've wanted to show you," he says. "This place. All of it."
"Yeah?" She turns to look at him, her expression utterly soft.
"Yeah." He swallows, but he doesn't waver. Not anymore.
"Okay," she says, simply. "So show me."
Her eyes are bright with meaning on his as he closes the distance between them.
"Frank." She puts her hands on his chest.
He feels them sway, and doesn't know where the movement came from, him, or her, or if the momentum of this—of them—is just finally, finally, converging together. Carrying them forward, instead of apart.
"I don't have any mistletoe," he tells her.
"You missed me at midnight, too." She smiles. "Guess it wasn't meant to be."
"The hell it isn't," he murmurs, pulling her in.
Her lips are soft when he kisses her, and so is the way her body curves with him, settling into this new kind of heat. This new kind of wholeness that's almost—almost—too much all at once for him to believe that it can be real.
He breaks the kiss, his breathing ragged. "Karen," he says, his voice etched over with wonder. "Is this—?"
There's an intensely vulnerable quality to the way that he says it, but it's Karen who's always seen him, known him. Touched every dark corner, letting in light.
And it's Karen now, smiling. It's Karen, pulling him back into her, and her kiss is a yes, and a yes, and a yes, and to Frank, it's everything that there is.