The Fifth Time
A/n: The feedback on this has been so lovely. I really really appreciate it. This chapter may seem a little odd? idk
The fifth time it happens Karen is exhausted, the weight of the world resting on her shoulders. The only thing she wants is to slip quietly into her apartment and spend the next ten years curled up in a ball sobbing. Her father is dead. It’s plain and simple and she should be relieved that her nightmare is over, but...
She can feel the grief churning inside of her, threatening to tear her apart. She needs something to hold her together, fear that the she’s going to lose some integral piece of herself if she just gives in to the sadness.
And it doesn’t make sense really. Paxton Page, the man that was her father, was dead long before tonight, long before she closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. Something happened to the quietly ruminating physicist he’d once been, insanity erasing all signs of humanity from his brain. The things he’d been doing… Karen’s fears had been merely a fraction of what was going on.
He was responsible for the disappearances… the deaths. Now, when she closes her eyes she can see the demented lab he’d built in one of the abandoned train tunnels beneath the city. She can see the faces of his victims frozen in torment, blood pooling in the floor beneath the exam tables. Her father had been driven mad, greed pushing him further and further with his experimentation, manipulating radiation in an attempt to create superhumans. Somewhere along the way things went sideways, the neural pathways in his brain misfiring more than not.
His eyes. She can still see them, bloodshot and lolling erratically as he tried to look at her. He hadn’t known who she was, running at her like a freight train with a saw in his hand. The image of blood blooming out across his chest, a half a second of pained recognition flitting across his face before he crumpled into a lifeless heap. It washes over her all at once and she collapses onto her bed fully clothed.
And Frank, half a second too late to save her from the awful necessity of putting a bullet in her father. She’d angrily pushed him away, running as fast as she could through the tunnels until she reached the damp rungs of a ladder leading back up to the street. Even now, thinking of the pained expression that flitted across his face fills her with self loathing. Frank really sees her now. The angelically sweet image, the one she always tries so hard to maintain has been ripped away like it was never there to begin with. For a long time it was easy to convince herself the image was real, to convince others. She’s certain that Frank will never want to see her again, now that he knows what a horrible person she is, killing her own father.
That’s the thought that does it, that snips the last thread holding her together. The sobs are loud and they echo off the walls of her tiny apartment, ring in her ears like the wails of a banshee. She clutches at the pillow on her bed, desperate for something to hold onto. She can’t hear the knocking at her door, the person yelling her name, begging her to let him in. She doesn’t even hear the door frame splinter when he throws his shoulder against the paneling.
It’s only when Frank sits on the edge of her bed, the cheap springs giving under his weight, that she opens her eyes, tears still streaming down her face. She turns away, curling up more tightly than before, hoping he’ll go away. But he doesn’t, instead he curls up next to her, occasionally running a soothing hand over her hair, holding her tight so she doesn’t fly apart.
Hours later, the sun streaming through her window, eyes puffy from crying, she sits up in bed. The sound of movement coming from the direction of her kitchenette catches her attention. He’s making coffee, drumming his fingers on the counter as he impatiently waits for the little drips to fill up the carafe.
She watches him silently from the bed, grateful for her open plan apartment. It feels like she’s intruding upon an ancient ritual. He’s shirtless, padding around her apartment barefoot, hair till mussed from sleep. Even though mere hours before their limbs had been tangled and she’d been snoring on his chest, she still feels a little blush creep up through her cheeks.
When he turns to her, one of her tiny little coffee cups cradled in his huge hands, the steam rolling off the top, she feels an overwhelming sense of relief. He stayed. He saw who she really was, and he stayed.
He clears his throat, seemingly nervous as he sits back down beside her. “I thought you could use something stout when you woke up.”
“I really could.” Taking the coffee, she leans into him, pressing a kiss against his lips, pouring all the gentleness she has left into it. The coffee is rich and smooth, settling in a heated pool in her stomach before the warmth seeps into the rest of her body. She’s still exhausted, circles under her eyes and a faint ache still in her chest, but in the light of day suddenly things don’t seem hopeless.