Karen sees him in the shadows. He'll be there in the corner of the room, watching her as she continues to live the life that she took away from him. She's learned to ignore him, even if he never truly goes away and serves as a constant reminder of the blood on her hands.
When she's alone, when there's no Matt or Foggy or anyone to serve as a distraction, she'll hear his voice. His smug, confident drawl that threatens her loved ones and reminds her that she's a murderer. That suggests to her that he might have never actually killed anyone himself, so does that make her worse than him? Of course not, she'll hiss at him when he's impossible to ignore. Go to hell and leave me alone.
And those moments show up often, because he is everywhere. She hears of Fisk, she thinks of Wesley. She talks to BB, she thinks of Ben, she thinks of Wesley. She closes her eyes, she sees his face. She looks at her hands, she remembers pulling the trigger, she remembers the blood seeping from his body. He is a part of her now. She has accepted that, however much it haunts her.
Wilson feels his presence in the car, and that presence takes the form of an empty void where he should be. The car could be packed with his security detail, it could be filled with his political team, but it still feels as though there's an empty seat by his side.
Even after so long, he can still sometimes forget. For example, he can be looking out of the window, lost in thought with only a vague outline of someone beside him in his peripheral vision. It's easy enough to pretend that the person is waiting with a tired smile and an intelligent comment and perfectly fits the Wesley-shaped void in Wilson's life. Then he'll turn around and be reminded that... no. No, he's gone. There's someone else beside him, usually Buck these days, but that person is never enough to fill that space.
It's funny, not long after he became mayor, Wilson was reminded of Leland Owlsley's words of all people. "Shame not everybody will be there to see it," he'd said as the two of them stared at Wesley's body. Wilson does truly wish that Wesley was here to see his achievements, to be the one by his side, but he also understands grimly that the space will stay empty forever.
Buck sees him in the mirror sometimes. He'd trained himself very early on to shield himself from the ghosts that followed him and to avoid thinking too long about his blood-soaked hands, so he'd expected James Wesley to just be another one of those faceless memories he simply moved on from.
Then he was appointed to his new position by Fisk, and he needed to buy a suit. He tried on a black one, went to check the fitting in the mirror, and there he was. Wes was staring back at him with the same shock that Buck was feeling. This is YOUR job, mate- he'd thought to himself. I'm good at shooting people, but you were always the organisation guy. He decided in that moment that he couldn't be Wes, he couldn't even pretend to be Wes, and doing so would be an affront to his memory. He bought a light grey suit instead.
When he walks by Fisk's side, he does sometimes feel as though he is walking in Wesley's footsteps, like he's constantly stepping on a grave that should be left alone. The one ghost he can never escape because it's a part of his reflection. When Fisk turns to him for advice, he can tell that his boss wants another voice to answer back to him. But Buck isn't Wesley, and they both seem to know that, even if it does make it feel like there's a third person in the room when it's just the two of them.
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