And so they were together again.
Quinn had recovered from the effects of the Sarin gas, seemingly all at once. Carrie had visited, and waited, to no avail. And finally, one day a message had come from the hospital's physical therapist, who had called Carrie and said, 'He's awake. He's talking."
She rushed to Walter Reed, and there he had been, sitting up, acting blasé about the whole thing. He had been perched, shirtless, on the edge of the hospital bed, and had discarded his hospital gown, frowning down at a new pair of socks that he was pulling on seemingly without difficulty. Evidently, Dar had already stopped by, and brought Quinn a Macy's bag of new clothing, an assortment of Quinn's typical styles and sizes.
"You're ok," Carrie had stated, more concerned than she dared show.
"Yep," Quinn had answered, after eyeing her briefly.
"No neuropathy? Double vision?"
"Nope," he'd answered. When that hadn't been enough for her, and she'd continued to stand, stricken with relief in the doorway of the hospital room, he'd added, "Not until I get myself around an Irish whiskey tonight." He had snapped the tags off a new, gray button down, and pulled it over his shoulders, matching buttons to buttonholes by touch, only.
Carrie allowed herself to exhale completely.
"OK, Quinn, but I don't think you should be boozing so soon," she advised. He hadn't even dignified that with a look, only peered at himself in the mirror and straightened out his hair, longish now and needing a trim. He really was OK, and the previous few months were starting to feel like a bad dream.
"So, I'll see you at work?" she finished. Of course she had come back, and of course he was coming back. It was who they were, and what they did.
He turned to face her, cocking his head slightly to one side, and rolling the shirtsleeves back from his wrists, answered lightly.
"Yeah, I'll see you at work."
The reunion was over, just like that. But Carrie had felt like she was walking on cotton candy as she floated out of the long-term wing. The nightmare was over.
So of course they were back together, and sent out together into Turkey to gather intel on the group that supplied the chemicals to the German ISIS cell that nearly gassed every man, woman and child in the Hauptbahnhof. They'd made an appointment to meet with the supply group, a rogue element which combined pseudo-expertise in chemical synthesis, fanatical secrecy and above all, a desire to acquire as much money as possible. Quinn and Carrie had come to Istanbul and worked their story up, practicing straight through the night, getting their English and Russian banter down cold - Carrie, in one of her trademark sleek charcoal pantsuits, with a voluminous purple headscarf and brown contact lenses, posing as the interpreter, and Quinn, all impatience and entitlement, flashing a Rolex watch that cost more than Carrie's car, ready to make a large cash purchase of some of the necessary items to make a large batch of one of the worse gas-based weapons of mass destruction known to man.
In the middle of the negotiations, Quinn broke off his English for a moment and broke into Russian, demanding from Carrie, "Tell them I'll pay, tell them to hurry up." A planned moment, not that difficult to act and execute when you'd been in the business together as long as Carrie and Quinn had. But she pretended to act worried, pretended he'd just outed himself. Carrie turned back to the leader of the group, standing in the center of the three men, his dirty white coat concealing a shoulder holster, his eyes taking on a more worried look.
She quickly tried to "cover" in Turkish. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she tried to stall, "Mr. Cavendish, he is wanting revenge. For his wife," Carrie explained. Quinn looked around, irritated, and glanced at his expensive watch again. Meanwhile, they'd sussed out the groups capabilities, their strengths, their secret synthesis location, in the basement of this gray stack of concrete block that formerly functioned as a hospital – it must have been abandoned quickly, as Beryl, their local embedded agent had pointed out – all the rooms still had a bed in them, some more than one, many were stacked against the walls on this single story, and some were piled in corners and many, if not most, still had sheets and blankets on them.
Their work was nearly done, Quinn pulled on Carrie's shoulder and said in English, "I'll have to think about your price, and we'll be in contact." Carrie translated to Turkish readily and they soon excused themselves, starting towards the door and turning and walking at a rapid clip, together down the hospital hall. No one followed them, not at first. Both were certain that they'd be followed but had no idea where or when the tail would begin. They could walk out of the building like the paying customers they were pretending to be, or, Quinn thought, there might be another way.
"Let's shake them," he said nearly under his breath.
"What?"
"Let's hide. Let them try to follow. Then we go out the window. Later."
"OK," Carrie said, uncertainly, wondering if gun sights were leveling at their backs that very second. "Where?"
"Quick! We need to find a bed, and lie down in it!"
Quinn grabbed her hand and pulled her into the intersection of another hallway and took another rapid left turn, towards the end of a wing of patient rooms. He pushed one of the doors open and saw a room with five or six beds in it - one pressed against the wall, three stacked haphazardly around the room, one stacked on top of the other, and all heaped with loose sheets, blankets, and patient gowns.
"Quinn, what are we doing? We can't hide in here," Carrie protested breathlessly.
"Shut up and get in the bed," Quinn answered through gritted teeth, holding up a blanket and bed sheet so she could slide underneath. She stopped trying to reason with him and got into the bed to hide. Outside, in the hall, they heard shouting, and Quinn's head snapped back towards the closed hospital room door. Carrie had lain down on her back, and Quinn climbed into the bed and lay right on top of her, pulling wrinkled sheets and blankets all around them, over them, completely hiding their bodies from sight.
"Quinn!" Carrie said in a frightened whisper. "You're squishing me!"
"Shhhhhh," he hissed nervously. He wormed a hand loose from near their side and slipped it over her mouth, silencing further outbursts. She gave a muffled "Mmmph!" but then was silent, breathing heavily through her nose, Quinn's face inches from hers. He was heavy, hard and long, and something else was starting to feel like cordwood as he lay on top of her in the sudden darkness.
From the halls, more shouts and cries. Neither of them moved, and the air under the heap of sheets and blankets grew steamy with their rapid breaths. Quinn took his hand away, first parting the fingers so she could breathe, all his attention suddenly on her face, her eyes, her lips, swollen and wet in the near darkness. He dropped his head slightly, and his lips skimmed over hers. A skin-tight kiss, with his mouth barely open. His lips held her in place, the tension in her shoulders grew, and Carrie helplessly kissed him back. He drew back again, hardly moving, and his hand went again over her mouth. His head dropped to her shoulder, his lips again shushing her, as his body pinned her hotly in place. She was leveled by him, by this lethal attraction, and at that moment couldn't have cared less about anything outside the blankets. They were in a bed together, he was on top of her. And how good he felt, how healthy, strong, and virile. She dared to slide her hands up until one was on either of his hips.
The noise in the hallway quieted down. She felt Quinn's lips touch her earlobe once, then he risked lifting the blankets and peering out. All was quiet, and he had maneuvered them to the side of the hospital where a ground floor escape would be easiest. He sat up and removed himself from her person – she missed his weight immediately, and biting her lip, sat up from the bed.
He'd already opened one of the big dormer windows, and after Carrie tied the headscarf around her waist so she wouldn't tangle herself in it, he held her by both wrists as she straddled the windowsill and dropped one leg over the side. Quinn lowered her as far to the ground as he could, then let go. She landed lightly on her feet after dropping less than a meter, and he landed on the ground in a crouch next to her a second later.
"Now what," she panted, rewrapping her head in the reversible headscarf, this side black.
"Now we get the fuck out of here," Quinn said, and getting his bearings, led them on foot out of the neighborhood, soon to call in Saul, the special forces, and report their findings in a debrief to Dar.
"No," she said, puffing after him, as he turned through alleys and disappeared them both, far from the terrorists chemical sheds.
"No, what?" he said, and she knew he was pretending to be obtuse. That kiss had been no accident. She took a look around them, made sure no locals were watching, and then slapped him on the ass.
"Now, we find another bed. And lie down in it," she said.
Quinn put dark glasses on, but his smile was genuine as they slid into the seat of an Istanbul bus. He squeezed her knee familiarly, while looking straight ahead.
"Whatever you need, Carrie."
He was as good as his word, and twelve hours later, he'd found them a private room.
She had nearly torn his shirt off. So Quinn was shirtless again, kneeling between her legs on the floor, as if he were in prayer next to the bed. But he had forced her to slow down. His hands which had been hot upon her waist for the previous five minutes of necking slid up her sides, over her breasts and to her shoulders, then settled to her shirtfront, as he sat back and began unfastening one button at a time.
"Quinn," Carrie panted. He was undressing her slowly. It nearly killed her.
Top button undone. His right index finger reached in, touched the softness, traced down between her breasts.
"Quinn…"
Second button undone, then the third. Quinn's hands seemed huge, so their delicacy never failed to surprise her. She always thought he'd be incredible in bed, and now she'd finally find out.
He was staring at her body as he revealed it. Fourth and fifth buttons undone, and he was pushing her shirt back off her shoulders. He stroked her belly and sides, making her shiver. "Is that thing real?"
"Is what real?" he asked, breaking his reverie around the exploration of her breasts. He grabbed her hand, pressed it to the hard bulge in his pants. "You're fucking-A it's real, let me show you."
She laughed, pulled her hand away as his hands went back to the front of her bra. Front closure, deliciously easy, she thought. He popped it open. "No, no, your watch. The Rolex."
"It's real," Quinn whispered as he lifted the lacy covering back, exposing her pink nipples. Carrie shivered.
"How?" she sighed. She turned her head to one side as he leaned in, kissed between her breasts, then lightly slid his lips over the silken mound to the peaks, which were hard with cold and her nervousness.
Quinn sat back and looked Carrie straight in the eye. "Danger pay."
He pushed her back, and climbing on top of her, he dispensed with the rest of their clothes. He sank into her, as she wrapped her legs around him, his words echoed in her mind. Danger pay. They'd waited so long, and it was well deserved.