Chapter Text
Ow. Ah, fuck. What the… Shit! The garage was set to explode. Oooww! Something fucking HURT.
Carrie had seen it just a moment too late. She ran towards the garage door shouting, and then she was lying on the concrete driveway, seemingly stuck to the ground, the smell of smoke and accelerant stinging her nose and lungs. Everything was strangely entirely silent. Quinn was there, thank God, bent over her and efficiently checking her body while using his right hand to do something painful to her midsection. He was covered with dust, soot, and blood.
“Quinn.” Her voice sounded strange to her.
“------”
“They booby-trapped the garage. Sekou’s van is destroyed. I’ve got to find the Solicitor General. Your immunity…”
“-----”
Quinn was talking but she couldn’t hear him. Fuck. She couldn’t hear anything… except maybe there was a high pitched ringing?
“I can’t hear you. It hurts like fucking hell.”
“------“
“It hurts, Quinn.”
He looked worried. Fuck. She had to warn Elizabeth.
“Where’s my phone?”
Quinn’s death stare was easy to interpret. He wasn’t interested in helping her find her phone. He wanted her to lie still.
“East coast time, Quinn. Rob, Keane’s chief of staff, said there was some kind of threat to the President Elect. A Delta team was coming in as additional protection.”
Quinn stopped moving and looked right at her for just a second. Then he shook his head and wrinkled his nose. She still heard nothing but she could tell what he was saying: “Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“---------” She couldn’t hear him, but she could make out he started with “We can’t.”
“Quinn…”
He looked at her for several moments. Then he stopped his efforts and stood up, looking around for where her phone might have been thrown by the blast. He returned a few minutes later, hunched down next to her, and manipulated the phone with his right hand. How the hell did he know her passcode? Life with a spy. She watched him speak into the phone, able to make out some of his words by reading his lips. She was increasingly tired and dimly aware that a fire engine and maybe an ambulance were arriving.
“Saul? Peter Quinn. -----------------------------”
*****
Quinn considered the situation as he looked around the blast site for Carrie’s God-damned secure phone. The secret service had given her the phone to communicate with Keane. Quinn had hacked into it and examined it pretty thoroughly the other night when Carrie was giving Franny a bath. In his judgment, the SIM card was not accessible to the NSA or General McClendon, but he couldn’t be sure. Fuck. Just risk it. He picked it up from where it had fallen on the grass and looked up the number in the contacts.
“Saul? Peter Quinn. I’m with C-Carrie. She’s been injured…”
“Quinn? What happened? I stayed at her house last night. She never came home.”
“Bomb. EMT’s are here. Carrie thinks Mc-McClendon may try to assas..ass…kill Keane with a Delta unit. They’re on their way to a-assist Keane’s detail n-now.”
“McClendon? Fuck. Well, he is a complete asshole, but Delta Force? That makes no sense. Are you sure? Those guys are smart and dedicated. No way they’d take action against a US official.”
“Agreed. He must have t-targeted these specific… I saw them sw- swap… the night before the bomb. Now the boy’s van is here… the delta team’s staging h-house.”
“They were behind in the Manhattan bombing? Shit.” Quinn heard Saul sigh heavily. “Max called a short while ago. He also has evidence suggesting Keane is at risk, and for some reason, you are being set up as the fall guy.”
“What?”
“I can’t figure any of this out, but I’m going to take it seriously. I’ll be with Keane shortly. Can I trust her people?”
“I think so. D-Dar is involved.”
“Yes, but it's complicated. What should I tell Keane’s security detail? The Secret Service is not military. I don’t think they are prepared to handle a delta unit….Quinn?”
“…E-expect communications to be com-compromised. So, radio s-silence. Hide Keane in the h-hotel. That's the… safe place.” If things really went south, they'd need to put the decoy at risk, but they already knew that.
“Got it. Let me know about Carrie.”
*****
Max shivered as he dressed back in his clothes after toweling off from the shower. His adrenaline rush had subsided since Adal dropped him off at his place, but only slightly. Time to check out the ideas that had been percolating in his mind since discovering the false intel on Quinn. He fired up his desktop, hacked into the Onyx remote backup server and began investigating. Sure enough, “Toxic Soldier” wasn’t the only sock puppet with a familiar face. “Blonde Avenger” had been busy online as well, posting remarks about anarchy, burning the system down, and warning people about an event that was coming. Fuck. A fancy security system wasn’t going to protect Carrie against this type of threat.
*****
She was awake again, and on a gurney being wheeled to an ambulance. She looked straight up into the calm gray sky, noticing how peaceful she felt when the world was completely silent. Then Quinn was there, looking down at her and touching her shoulder with his right hand. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. She smiled; he was saying goodbye. He understood how she’d want the comfort of his touch right now and… wait. Fuck, no. This is not fucking goodbye. I can’t lose you .
“No! No! Come with me! Fuck!” Carrie screamed, bucking and flailing so that the EMT’s had trouble keeping her gurney steady. The world seemed to lurch as she grabbed at Quinn’s jacket. I lost control of the situation in Berlin and that won’t happen now.
The EMT seemed to be yelling at her, but of course, she couldn’t fucking hear, and also, she didn’t fucking care.
But the EMT was pushing Quinn away, and suddenly she thought about the difficulties she’d had getting access to Quinn when he was in the hospital. ‘Are you his wife?’ Fuck . No way the hospital staff would let a former colleague stay with her, especially struggling to speak as he was. All sorts of shit was going down and she was really hurt. He needed some authority to make decisions.
That wasn't all, of course. The real danger was that he would leave. Again . But how to prevent that when she was so injured?
“He’s my husband!” she insisted. “I need him with me. Please.” Was she pleading with the EMT or Quinn? She stared at Quinn in horror for a second, but he rolled with it like a consummate professional. He spoke to the EMT’s and grabbed onto the gurney with his right hand, helping them load it into the ambulance. Carrie felt a wave of relief surge over her.
“Don’t leave me.” She said to him in a commanding tone. She didn’t have to hear his response. She knew it would be “OK,” and with that thought, she released all her efforts and slipped into unconsciousness.
*****
Quinn couldn’t fucking believe it when he saw the number pop up on Carrie’s phone. “Go fuck yourself.” The couple sitting nearby in the trauma waiting room both looked up in shock. Apparently, that wasn’t how they typically answered the phone.
“Peter? I thought you’d be with her.” Adal’s voice conveyed exactly what he thought of Carrie Mathison. “Listen, the president-elect is going to be the target of a hit, possibly today. McClendon is planning to set you up as the fall guy."
Fuck. “Don’t care.”
“Carrie might.”
“She shouldn’t.”
“Quinn, Carrie needs to warn the president-elect. Keane and her staff trust Carrie. She’s the only one who can get through to them.”
“Carrie’s in surgery.”
“Fuck. Then you’ve got to get the message to Keane’s people. McClendon’s got a dirty Delta unit.”
“I don’t gotta do anything. You could be pulling all the st-strings.”
“For God’s sake Quinn, you can’t imagine I’d champion a hit on a future president or a bombing inside the US? I just wanted more credibility in terms of Iran. As I’ve told you many times, the only way to win this game is to play both sides. If they do succeed, it won’t do anyone any good for me to be shut out of power. Our best chance is for them to listen to the voice of moderation and reason, but I can’t be that voice if I’m not at the table. I’ve neutralized Senator Coto, but there is still an ongoing threat from the Deep State. I have to stay viable.”
“I never heard of Senator Caleson and I don’t care about him.”
“Peter!”
Quinn sighed. “There’s a limit to how much sh-shit I can shovel to make sense of this clusterfuck. Call S-Saul.”
*****
Hospital. She knew she was in a hospital, a setting that had become so familiar recently. But this was different because she was the patient. Which made sense, because she felt like shit. Slowly it came back to her how she got here. Fuck. What about Quinn’s immunity deal? Was she right about the delta team being out to get Keane? Did anyone know she was right?
Carrie opened her eyes. The silvery winter light suggested mid-afternoon. Thank God, Quinn was right there sleeping in the chair by her bed. Her ears were ringing, but she knew she was picking up some of the ambient sounds in the room. Quinn could help her.
“Quinn.” Fuck . She must have been intubated. Her throat hurt like hell and no sound had come out. She swallowed to try again.
“Qu…” Before she could speak, she was struck by how gray Quinn looked — exhausted. God, he had been so miserable back in the flag house, before they started looking at the whiteboard. Figuring out the conspiracy would perk him up again and put the two of them on the same team, which felt so good . They really worked well together.
“Qui…” But .
She’d screwed up in the past by focusing on the thrill of the hunt and the impression that she was doing the right thing by fighting evil. She would never forget Astrid’s reaction to her “nine days” admission. So, sometimes a 40-year-old needs to come first. She’d heard that fucking shrink and she was going to try. She had tried, right away, tried to be a good friend to Max. And, to be fair, she had tried to put Quinn first by caring for him when he was incapacitated and completely disabled. That had seemed hard, but really, she had been in control. This part, putting him first now, was harder. He would do whatever the fuck he wanted now, and he wanted her to let him go so that he could give up on himself without feeling guilty. Fuck that. Eventually, she knew, her determination would not be enough. How could she get him to understand “why” he should want to save himself?
“Quinn.”
“Hey. How’re you feel… ?” He pointed to his ears.
He sounded like he was speaking to her from under water. Carrie shook her head to dismiss the question.
“I can’t believe it about Astrid. I don’t have too many friends, and what we went through together in Berlin... She was really good to me. I’m so sorry Quinn. You must be fucking upset.”
Quinn said nothing.
Carrie forged ahead. “After you left for Syria, I completely lost my shit and Maggie made me see a grief counselor. Apparently…” here Carrie forced a fake smile to indicate her contempt for psychobabble. “I cope with loss by compartmentalizing and focusing on a single goal, so that I don’t have any energy left to ‘process my feelings.’ My sister just calls it fucking cold.”
“What’s your point?” His tone was accusatory. Fuck.
She frowned with irritation. “My point is that we all grieve in different ways. Anger is a normal thing to feel when dealing with a big unexpected loss. You seem to be feeling a lot of rage towards me and towards yourself. We all gravitate towards easy and familiar targets. I get that, and I can accept that, but I’m not going to let you… fuck.” She paused and took a deep breath, “I mean, I don’t think you understand what it would do to me if you left… or destroyed yourself.”
“I d-did destroy m-myself.”
Now Carrie looked confused for some moments. “You mean by beating that guy to death? Quinn, you are not him. He killed Astrid. You didn’t.”
“I am just l-like him. You need to understand… that.”
“What part of watching you bludgeon him do you think I failed to understand? Did it make you feel better?”
“What do you think, Carrie?”
At that point, the nurse came in and scolded both of them for not pushing the call button. Carrie needed morphine. She drifted into unconsciousness almost immediately.
*****
Thankfully the nurse didn’t notice the wheelchair that Quinn had “borrowed” from a corridor elsewhere in the hospital and stashed behind one of the privacy curtains in Carrie’s room. He was treading a fine line between making sure she had the treatment she needed and leaving them enough time to get away. He also had very little concept of how long it might take to discover the completely bogus insurance information and addresses he’d provided on Carrie’s medical forms. Less than 12 more hours, for sure.
Quinn ran his fingers through his hair. He’d been able to divert the ambulance to a different hospital and he’d checked Carrie in under a false name, explaining that all of their identification had been destroyed by the explosion when their new electric car caught fire. If McClendon did pin this whole thing on him, none of these tactics would make more than a few hours of difference. Nevertheless, Quinn had reflexively maximized all his options. Carrie was so alone and his instinct was to be there for her. Time to reflect on that instinct.
God, she looks beautiful sleeping. The overhead lights were off and it was dark outside the tall window, but the yellow lights from the IV monitor bathed the room in a dim glow. Yeah, she was most attractive when she was looking relaxed, not worried. And, of course, not talking. He probably should just leave her right now and let this image be his final memory of Carrie Mathison. What would that do her? They’d both be better off without each other, right?
For sure, he’d be much better off alone. Assuming he could avoid getting killed by the authorities without her help. No problem. Then, he’d just rely on his instincts, which were to get drunk, to get high, and then to violently attack everyone who pissed him off. Yeah, ‘alone’ is not going to work.
He would just find some nice girl, someone who’d doggedly focus on clearing his name when he bashed a man’s head in right in front of her. Carrie hadn’t missed that he deliberately avoided the clean shot. Or, he could get a someone who’d still come running to him after he put her daughter through that ordeal for no good reason. He could easily find someone who’d help him relearn how to walk when all he had to offer was a bad attitude. Yep, no doubt he’d be better off without Carrie. Right .
Quinn shifted his weight in the bedside chair -- his shoulder wound fucking hurt. He couldn’t ignore that Carrie had not been there for him when he’d really needed her. She had just told the doctors to go ahead and give him a stroke so that she could be the one who saved the day in Berlin. That image actually made Quinn smile, thinking that Carrie wanted the glory associated with hero status. OK, so, she really had wanted to save others from the sarin gas. The idea of kids and happy people going through that hellish path towards death made his stomach clench. But shouldn’t he come first if she really cared for him? Couldn’t he ever come first? For someone? How could he really trust Carrie?
Quinn thought about Qasim, or maybe he was having a dream. Quinn could see Qasim hold a bottle of water to Quinn’s lips the day before the gas chamber. But Quinn hadn’t even been able to think about taking a swallow, he’d been so consumed with convincing Qasim to fuck up the attack. For a minute Quinn felt that urgency again as intensely as he had at the time. Some of the guys he’d served with over the years were the same way. Not all of them. But, the guys who thought and felt like he did, those were the guys he trusted the most.
Fuck me.
Well, Carrie would definitely be better off without him because... because Carrie was all about the mission, and she had made it her mission to atone. She didn't need him or want him, she just felt guilty. Even now she was totally obsessed with the fucking immunity deal. Fuck that. And well, OK, she’d called him on his shit last night, she had been through hell with him these past months, so... well fuck that, too. Why would anyone do that, except for guilt?
Why would anyone do that?
That’s what he’d asked Astrid.
Motherfucker.