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It's the soft whimper that wakes him up, forcing him to open his eyes to find the room dark, excepting for the faint glow of the street lights from the windows. Letting his eyes adjust, he takes a second to remember where he was, when hears the soft sound again. Turning his head slightly, he watches and listens as Karen whimpers softly in her sleep, turning her head into her pillow. It's not the whimpers, but the way she gasps for air, as if she can't breathe that rattles him down to the bones. The only thing stopping him from attempting to wake her up is the memory of the look on her face when she sees the scratches she's left on his chest from the time before.
So he waits, and he watches as her eyes fly open as she gasps for air, her eyes darting around her bedroom, as if she's trying to remember where she is as she sits up. Sitting up next to her, he murmurs her name as he touches her shoulder, hating the way she flinches before she realizes it's him. She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder, and he can see the tears in her eyes, even as she tries to smile at him, before turning her head around and hiding her face in her hands, shuddering softly.
Moving to sit beside her, he gingerly moves the damp tendrils of strawberry blonde hair out of her face so he can look at her, "Want some water?"
"Yes.", she winces at the sound of her voice, as she lowers her hands down into her lap to look at him, before clearing her throat, "Please."
"I've got it.", he gives her knee a gentle squeeze as he got up from the bed.
Karen watched with a hand at her throat as he disappears into her little kitchen, and can hear the faint clink of bottles in the refrigerator door and soon he's back, cracking open a bottle of water. She can't help but watch the way his throat moves as he drinks a little more than half of it before handing it over to her, making sure the bottle's in her hand before letting go. He sits back on the bed, his back against the frame as he watches her take one sip of water, then another, before she finishes what there was left of it. She coughs softly, as he takes the now empty bottle from her, reaching to set it on the nightstand, before turning back toward her, "Better?"
"Yeah.", she nodded her head, her breathing felt like it was returning to normal, even though her heart still felt like it was going a mile a minute, "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't.", he ran a hand through his short hair as he studied her, "You know, this isn't the first time this has happened."
"It was nothing.", she shrugged, as she combed her hair back behind her shoulders with her fingers, "It was just a bad dream."
"That happens to make you wake up scared and gasping for your breath?", he asks with a raised eyebrow as she lies back down, pulling the covers up close as if she's trying to protect herself. He sighs, "I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like nothing to me."
"You know you can talk to me, right?", she watches him as he lies down on his side next to her, resting his head on his hand, watching her, waiting for her to say something. When she doesn't say anything, he nudges her gently, "I've got all night, I'm not going anywhere."
Biting her bottom lip, she glances at him, before she tightly clenches her eyes shut and whispers, every so softly that he almost can't hear her, "I killed someone."
He can't say he's all that surprised, given what they had talked about at the diner all those weeks ago, and he's about to say so, until she opens her eyes and in the faint light, he see the fear that lingers inside of them, inside of her. He slowly nodded his head, "I'm listening."
Letting out the breath she had been holding, Karen begins by telling him how she had come to work with Murdock and Nelson. How she had been falsely accused of murder because of an e-mail she had seen, the two murder attempts on her life, on in jail and one in that very apartment. She tells him about the bribes made to get her to keep quiet about what she knew, and her work with Ben Urich to reveal the truth about Fisk and what he was doing. Then her voice begins to tremble, as she starts to tell him about the secret that she has been holding in for so very long, that has been slowly eating her up from the inside. He grows cold as she tells him everything from the moment she had been kidnapped to the moment she had shot her attacker seven times, killing him after he had threatened her, her friends, and her family, everyone she knew, on the behalf of Wilson Fisk.
"They were a lot worse after it first happened, and sometimes I think I might just jump out of my skin whenever someone gets too close to me, but I don't regret shooting him.", she finishes as she stares up at him, her blue eyes meeting his brown ones, "And then there's you."
"Me.", that surprises him, "What about me?"
"You're The Punisher. You go after bad people.", she says softly, "And since I…"
"No. Don't even say it.", he stops her almost immediately as he stares down at her, "You were defending yourself against someone who wanted to hurt you."
"But…", she stars again, only to stop when he glares at her, her mouth snapping shut as he continues on.
"I kill bad people, sweetheart, murderers, child molesters, rapists, anyone who hurts the innocent and think they can get away with it.", his eyes are blazing with an emotion she's never seen before, "You're nothing like them!"
"And you, you…", he falls silent as he slips an arm around her to pull her closer to him, breathing in her soft scent. He doesn't want to think about what would have happened if that phone hadn't rung when it did on what he knows had to be a very scary night. That this beautiful, bright and caring woman could have died in a terrible way like his family had. His world would be a much darker place without her in it.
"Baby, there isn't one bad bone inside of your entire body.", he sighs as he pressed a tender kiss to her temple, tasting the faint trail the tears she had cried left behind, "Not a single fucking one."
When he hears the broken sob of relief that ripples through her body as all the tension and worry she's been holding onto drains away, he holds her close, not ready to let her go. Not now, if ever.