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There's only so much Frank can do in one day when he's left alone to his own devices. Of course, he could just work on the list of things that Karen has left him to do; fix the lock, the door squeaks, laundry, stop the leak in the bathroom.
He'll get to them... Sooner or later. His worst habit when she's gone and he's left home alone is to snoop. He knows he shouldn't and he definitely feels bad about it, but he's also really good at doing it. Karen's never caught him, he always puts things back right where he finds them.
It starts off as an accident, he's looking for a pen anywhere in her apartment, which should be a lot easier to do considering Karen's a writer. He's in her bedside drawer looking for a damn pen when he discovers a small notebook tucked behind a bag of pistachios. He flips through it, knowing he shouldn't, and slams it shut when he realizes it's a diary.
But then he quickly opens it and scans through it. It's mostly day to day stuff, nothing too interesting, until he gets to where they first met. And he gets an eye full of her thoughts about him – the most prominent one about a dream Karen had about him when they first met.
It makes his ears turn red and he shuts the diary again, shoving it back where he found it. He can't look at Karen when she comes home later in the day and he never did get to write down whatever he was looking for.
It goes on for weeks, Karen leaving Frank alone with a list of things to do, Frank ignoring said list, and Frank snooping. He would like to say that he tries not, but he doesn't try very hard.
When Frank pulls out an old box of chocolates with a thick layer of dust on it, Frank wonders for a moment if he's crossing a line. This is clearly private, clearly something that Karen hasn't opened in a long time. But before he can really think about 'should I be opening this', he's opening it.
On top is her bus ticket from Vermont to New York, the date too faded for Frank to make out what year she moved to New York. He thinks he can remember that she said she came her after she graduated. Under the ticket is her graduation pamphlet, a few college letters, and senior pictures. She was cute in high school. Was that weird to say?
Frank discards them on the floor and starts going through the photos in the box. The first thing he notices is the other blond in the photo. He's a few years younger than Karen, he thinks, and clearly related. He flips to the back of every photo but there's no description, no names, no years, nothing.
Karen doesn't talk much about her family, but what's she has mentioned is her grandmother, her parents, a few cousins, he thinks an aunt or an uncle. But she's never mentioned a brother. He can't be mad, he can't remember the last thing he told her about his family – wife and kids or otherwise.
Every single photo after Karen's senior photos include the mystery blond. Sometimes the photos are just of him. They start from teenage years until it's when the blond is a baby and Karen is around two years old, he thinks.
He's got the photos lined up in the order he's looked at them and Frank doesn't know what to do. He's crossed a line, he knows that, but he still doesn't know what to do. He can't ask her about it, that would tell her she's been snooping. He can't let Karen know that when she's gone, he goes through her things.
He's just about to put them back together and in the box when the door to her apartment opens and Frank has been so caught up in the photos that he hadn't even realized that she was going to be home soon. He's caught, red handed, with these photos and memories that Karen has worked so hard to push away,
She catches sight of Frank in front of her bed with her pictures and the way her face contorts in betrayal kills Frank. It's worse than her face when he ruined the trail. It's worse than the face when he used her as bait. It's worse than her face when he killed The Blacksmith. He'd relive all those moments if he could take this one moment away.
“I'm-” Frank starts to apologize, but he stops when Karen starts walking over to him. He expects her to start shouting, to tell him he's an asshole, to kick him out, to do anything. But she sits down on the floor across from him.
Then she starts to cry.
It's the crying that you can only do one of two ways; alone or in the presence of someone you love and trust. It's unashamed, unabashed, ugly sobbing. Her face is contorted in pain and misery and she's shaking, staring down at the feet.
Frank Castle five years ago would have reached over to comfort her. Frank Castle five years ago would have said something.
Frank Castle five years ago would have never gone through someones personal belongings like this. Especially not someone that he trusted and cared for. Maybe even loved. If he could feel love again, he thinks he would feel it for Karen.
He doesn't know how long she cries for, but it's got to be for more than twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of listening to Karen cry. Of not doing anything but feeling like an asshole.
“Kevin.” She speaks after she's stopped crying. Her voice is hoarse and still shaking and he opens his mouth to tell her she doesn't need to tell him, but she starts talking again before he can. “He was my little brother, just by a few years. But he was my best friend. We did everything together. We got into trouble together, we explored the woods behind our house together. From the moment he could walk and talk, we were inseparable.”
Karen picks up one of the photos, the photo of them in the hospital when he was born. “He's dead. He died when I was nineteen, he was sixteen.”
She doesn't go into detail about his death and Frank doesn't budge. If she wants him to know why and how, she'd tell him.
If she had wanted him to know about any of this, she would have told him.
Slowly, Karen starts to pick up every picture and she tells him about each day, handing over the photo when she's done with it. He doesn't think she realizes he's looked at every single photo and inspected it, but she doesn't seem to care. She tells him the story of every photo, hands it over to Frank, and then takes it back to put it in her box.
Her memory is impressive. Her ability to not knock him out is even better.
Before Frank can really realize what's happening, the stories are over and the box is filled again and shut and Karen is sitting next to him.
And his arms are wrapped around her and she's tucked by his side. For the first time since the night he tackled her to the floor, Karen's touching him and he's touching her. His arms are so tightly around her he worries it's going to hurt her.
“Are you okay?” Frank asks, looking at Karen. She looks up at Frank and nods slowly, letting out a deep breath. Her forehead presses against Frank's and his breath catches in his throat.
For a second he worries she's about to kiss him, but she doesn't.
“That's the first time I cried over Kevin.” She admits. “I couldn't bring myself to do it when he died. Crying made it real.”
Frank can understand that. It took him a long time to cry over his family.
He sits there with Karen until she's snoring softly in his arms and Frank can't bring himself to move or wake her up.