Disclaimer - I do not own Homeland. That pleasure belongs to Showtime. No copyright infringement or money making scheme intended. This is purely for reading enjoyment.
A/N Here goes. Caution for swearing and adult themes...possibly.
He watches TV and feels a rising, sickening feeling course through him. He lifts the morning paper, reading the headlines and feels the fury flow through his veins, from his head to toes and back again, until he feels like he might explode.
"Sweetie, what's wrong?", his wife asks, concerned, as she joins him in the kitchen.
He just shakes his head at her. He does not speak. Words would be insignificant to explain his anger. They say you take your anger out on the ones you love. His wife already puts up with enough because of his job, so he stays silent. He's not sure that he could find the words anyway. It's like when you are a kid, the bully always has something to say and you find yourself furiously tongue-tied at the unfairness of it all, unable to stand up for yourself.
His wife now looking at the TV takes his hand, grasping it tightly in support. God, he loves this woman. She lets him know that she understands in the way that has become theirs. She does not speak, but her eyes full of understanding, speak volumes more than any words ever could. She sits with him for a while, still holding his hand as he stares helplessly at the news he does not want to see, but can't look away from yet.
"Sweetie, I have to go pick up the kids", his wife says to him.
He nods his head, trying not to let her see, but she can read him like a book. She stands up and moves round so she is standing in front of him.
"Oh sweetie...", she says with compassion and love, as she reaches up to brush away his tears. "The world is not fair. We know that. You're a good man. You care."
He nods at her as she leaves to go pick up the children, still unable to verbalise his feelings. She's right. He does care and because he cares, he is angry. He is angry because they don't care. They cause devastation for people and fuck off to their next mission, leaving it all beind for everyone else to deal with.
Watching the new head of the IRGC speak on a news segment simultaneously makes him want to vomit and throw something through the screen. It makes him want to find him, to get a hold of him and throttle the life out of him. He fills a glass of water and takes some to try and help.
He's not a stupid man, has been in Law Enforcement for a long time and that case is not the first time he's had the CIA involved, but it will be the last. At first, his anger was directed solely at the man who appeared to admit to the murders, the bastard he wouldn't be able to put away for it, protected as he is by his status. He hates those people.
As the days and weeks went on, however, news came through about the assanation of Akbari and then about improved relations with Iran, he began to wonder. He did some digging, more digging than was probably clever, but it was eating away at him. He found out who those women really were, who the child is. More specifically, whose child he is. For the boy does have a father and as he looks at said father smirking away on the TV, he breaks the glass he's holding.
"Damn it."
He has cut himself, though not too badly and there is broken glass on the floor. Broken, he snorts. He thinks that case has broken him. He knows not if the man that admitted to the murders really is the murderer, he doubts it, but what he does know is this is all their fucking mess and they get to walk away from it. He knows in his gut that Javid Javadi is involved and it makes him sick to his stomach. Why would the man be smiling and making friends when the mother of his child was murdered on American soil, when his child is alone in America, unless he is involved?
There is a buzzing in his ears and he focuses on cleaning up the mess on the kitchen floor and himself, trying now to block out the voice of that horrible man.
The grass could probably have waited, but he needed to get out of the house and do something. There is something soothing about cutting the grass with the lawnmower. Up and down, back and forth...or there used to be. Screaming inside his head, the child who hadn't stopped screaming, not that day and not since he has become obssessed and enraged with the whole mess of that case.
He knows where he should start, but he isn't allowed. He isn't fucking allowed to do his job. He would like to scream until his throat is raw. The child is there at the back of his mind, everyday and he would bet the fuckers that caused all of this haven't lost a wink of sleep over that kid. The child screamed non-stop that day as if he knew, somehow, that his mother was lost to him forever. Goodness knows what will become of him now that he has been robbed of the people that loved him most.
"DADDDY", his five year old twin girls yell as they escape the car. He has his back turned to them. He takes a deep breath before turning around to face them. As he does, they are practically already on top of him. He falls backwards, taking them with him onto the grass, tickling them, as they giggle loudly.
Eventually sitting up, he sees his wife smiling at him, with their twin girls. He sees his 10 year old son rolling his eyes at his antics. He reaches forward and pulls him into a hug.
"Daad,dad, stop it", Jay exclaims, "I'm not a baby," before running into the house.
Watching Jay go, he supposes he isn't a baby anymore. He is growing up too fast.
"Come on girls, lets go in and let daddy finish cutting the grass. We can get some juice", his wife says.
He feels a lump form in his throat as his beautiful little girls say together, "we can get daddy some too."
He watches them go into the house, knowing he will protect them with everything he has, but that might not be enough.
He sighs at his fear and negativity. It is time to walk away from the job. He has always wanted to make a difference, to be a good man. But it has never been clearer to him than it is now, that people won't let you be a good man when it doesn't suit them. Even a name can be turned into a cruel possession when they use it to turn people on you, just because you tried to do the right thing. If you can't make a difference, then what is the point? He remembers the day his mentor told him he was leaving, that he'd had enough of the bullshit. He'd been young and foolish then, dismissing his mentor's feelings. Now he knew exactly how he felt and what he meant.
"Daddy", he looks up from the grass to see his twin girls standing staring at him.
"We have your juice, daddy", Louise says, as Melody hands it to him.
"Thank you", he says smiling at them, taking the pink, plastic Cindarella cup from Melody and noticing that they are looking at him uncannily like their mother does when she knows something is wrong.
"Daddy, are you ok?", Melody asks, quietly.
Putting the cup down, he reaches out and pulls them down to the grass with him again. He'd like to make the people that have ruined that little boy's life pay, but he has seen often the evidence that an eye for an eye does not work. He and his wife had agreed no more kids after the arrival of the twins and so he had a vasectomy. However, they could foster. His daughters' laughter soothes him and as he lies there with them, he wonders if they'd like a little brother...