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It’s not a new thing to feel the cold grip of paralysis take over when he’s sleeping, but Frank would at least appreciate some variety in the delivery. He’s been through three different versions of his last homecoming since he laid down this afternoon, and at first he thinks this will be no different.
Until he sees the white roses. They send a spark of adrenaline through his system that he cannot make his limbs respond to. He’s just standing there. This isn’t one of those dreams where he is the one tied to a chair or strung up like a sack of potatoes. He’s just stuck, boots on the ground and hands at his side.
The rest of the details come in flashes as Frank takes in the rest of the apartment. He hadn’t noticed much about Karen Page’s new digs except that the furniture probably came with it. There’s so little personality there until you look up. The walls have photos and headlines and pieces of Karen’s life on display. Her walls are where she lays out those connections to the people who matter versus the simple functionality of the rest.
Maybe this isn’t even true, but it’s what Frank recollects so it’s what his traitorous dreams have brought out to play. Karen stands in her apartment as well, except she’s got an expression that she certainly hadn’t been wearing before. There’s fear painted over her features. Frank worries first that it’s directed at him - it wouldn’t be the first time, but damn if it wouldn’t hurt like a bastard again - until he recognizes that Karen is looking past him to the skinny entryway that leads to the rest of the apartment building.
It takes him a painful amount of time to realize that sound has joined the fray. Karen is crying out, no, it’s not that simple. She is begging for someone to leave. Frank cannot turn himself around. His brain won’t talk to his legs. Slowly, so slowly, he gets his neck to twist to finally see what has Karen so panicked.
He expects to see himself, maybe. That’s been a fairly common refrain lately - the good ol’ boy Marine Frank ready to take down whatever squishy faced civilian that his brain has conjured. Or maybe to throw in some variety there would be enemy combatants. Some slippery piece of shit Dogs of Hell enforcer who had bailed before the rest of the gang got what was coming for them.
It almost doesn’t matter who it is leveling that gun - her own damned hand cannon plucked from her purse on the table by the door - at Karen Page. The outcome is going to be the same. What matters is that Frank is locked in place by his own damn paralysis, and his only recourse is screaming himself hoarse. Sometimes he can get himself to wake up before there’s blood and brains splattered on the walls. Sometimes he can even twitch a hand or lurch forward to his knees.
But no matter what he does, Frank Castle cannot stop what’s coming in his dreams.