On the way home with Franny, she let the tears flow, as the usual list of regrets started up in her head again, a bad movie set on infinite repeat. The story of all her mistakes, which she watched over and over, second guessing every decision that had brought them to this. Quinn had loved her, and after years of watching her, waiting, he had finally summoned up the courage to show her. What must it have cost someone who was so reserved, contained, protective of himself, to be open to another person? But instead of trusting him, her lifetime of inadequacies cropped up, and she shied. The consequences felt apocalyptic, they were a rupture in her soul.

After that magical night under the trees, Carrie had neglected to call Quinn. She had gotten more and more worked up about her bipolar disorder, and obsessed with the idea that her Mother had left her Father because her Dad had the disorder too. If my Mom left us, she had thought, then anyone I get involved with will eventually leave me. She had been convinced of this her entire life.

"Why didn't I call him up and tell him this?" she savaged herself, remorsefully. "Why didn't I say, 'Quinn, I need to see my Mother. Will you come?'" He surely would have come: he was eager to help her, be with her. But no, instead of calling him, taking him along, instead of emailing or texting, she just left. He waited, alone, impatient, for her to call. She took off like a maniac to drive alone to Missouri, to confront her mom and get the truth. A day passed, and the next time Quinn called, Carrie was still completely preoccupied with her Mom, and her newly discovered half-brother.

"I've been wondering about you," Quinn said. His voice sounded loving, worried. When she described her distress, he offered, "You want me to fly out? I could join you."

Why didn't she say yes? Or just tell him she loved him? They could have met at the airport, visited her mother, then driven back to Virginia together. After a weekend alone in a hotel, she thought, shuddering with deferred lust. He had wanted that, to be there for her. He got his strength when she leaned on him, she knew that now. But his resolution was faltering by the end of the call, and while she didn't remember precisely what came out of her mouth, it must have been discouraging, because what he heard was "no."

Later that day, she had realized her mother left her father because she was pathologically unfaithful. Nothing to do with bipolar at all. Hope leapt in her heart as she bolted back to the hotel room to call Quinn, but by the time she dialed his number, he was gone. Phone disconnected, email terminated, off the grid and unreachable. She could have screamed in frustration. Had she been a little more careful with his feelings, she would have realized that her perceived rejection made him feel like he wasn't worthy of her love. So he had brought her hope - and in return, she had crushed his out. He had lit out for the territories, with no forwarding address.

She had gone over it in her mind a thousand times in the aftermath. Despite visiting Dar Adal at his house immediately upon returning to Virginia, and using several different tacks, angles, slightly different attempts at prying the information out of him, she never got to the truth, until the last few moments.

"Give me what I fucking want," she had threatened, bringing the force of her personality to bear on the Black Ops leader.

"Carrie, even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Peter is gone; he's out on the Turkish border, about to cross into Syria."

"If he's on a mission, then you know how to contact him," Carrie insisted.

Adal, casual and unconcerned, shelled a peanut and ate it while Carrie watched impatiently. "Actually, I don't," he stated. "I just got off the phone with Ops 4. Peter's group went dark a little over an hour ago."

It clanged in her mind, idiotically. An hour. An hour. I missed him by an hour.

"The mission is open ended. They're responsible for their own extraction." Adal continued. Carrie's heart sank further.

"From Syria?" she asked, hysteria rising.

"From Iraq, most likely."

Adal was a brick wall, he had told her what he was going to tell her, and Peter was gone. She banged out the door of Adal's home, heaving enormous breaths, almost breaking into a panic attack in the car. She was thrown. There was no more game in her; there was no more leverage to apply. Quinn was gone, and gone dark. In her arms for a moment, his soft hands shining a searchlight down a path of normalcy, love, pleasure, and peace. Saying, heartbreakingly, that he wanted that life, but couldn't do it without her. The next, gone with a group of anonymous men and deadly hardware in a C130, up to their asses in loaded magazines, committing maps and numbers to memory, getting ready to drop into to Hell on a platter. Quinn in a fucking war zone. Without her. It was the worst kind of betrayal, she thought, too upset to even cry. In every way, she had failed him. Had she spared him a word or two, a moment of tenderness, a simple text message saying, "I need you," he'd be here right now.

On the stroll home, the tears that ran down her face in the winter light felt so hot that they burned her cheeks.

Carrie arrived at the house with Franny, and got her into a clean diaper for a nap. She fought the lethargy of her depression, trying to focus on what she had left of hope. Maggie waved at her as she moved through the kitchen to the mud room to hang up the winter gear, she could see Carrie was on the phone with Langley, and kept her peace. It was 2:30 on a Saturday, but she still wanted to check in with the Middle East surveillance desk, to see if there was anything new for her..

After Quinn's departure, Carrie had been paralytic with remorse by night. But by day, she forced herself to suck it up. Who knew what kind of hellhole Quinn was in right now? The better functioning she was, the better chance that she could be there to respond to him, help him, when he surfaced. She dug deep for her courage, and decided she had to try to do something to get him back, to find Quinn, to apologize, and see if they could start over. She refused to accept the possibility that he wouldn't come home at all.

Two weeks went past after his departure. Then three. After the congressional hearings and the internal debriefs regarding the Embassy incursion were completed, Andrew Lockhart had invited Carrie to his office for a chat. Carrie had found herself surprised to find that Lockhart was a pretty decent guy underneath his political exterior, an impression that was reinforced by his crusty use of language. "Carrie," he said tightly, "How you holding up?" He shook her hand warmly.

At that point, Quinn had been absent for four weeks. She wasn't sure how much Lockhart knew about Carrie's feelings, or her singleminded desire to extract Quinn and get him back in one piece. In retrospect, she had probably been the only person in Islamabad who hadn't known she was in love with Quinn. Even a cheerful blowbag like Lockhart understood what love was. He had brought lasagna to her Dad's funeral wake, for God's sake. Carrie had been too upset to eat it, but Maggie had said it was damn good.

"I'm ok, Chief," she said. "How about yourself?"

"I'm alright, I suppose. I'm still Director for now, though I don't know for how long. Or how much I can really do. So I thought we should spend some time now and review your options, before I don't have anything to say about it."

Carrie looked at Lockhart across the wide mahogany desk. "I can't accept another foreign posting right now. I don't feel comfortable leaving my daughter at this time, and there's…"

She looked at the floor, clamming up in midsentence, completely preoccupied. Lockhart contemplated her exhausted visage with sympathy. It looked like she hadn't slept for weeks.

"I can't move you up, not here. But I can give you a lateral position in the Middle East Surveillance Unit," he said. "It will keep you local, but give you the reach you need to look for, well, what you want to look for," he finished discreetly.

Carrie gratefully made eye contact with Lockhart, her expression grave. "I would be pleased to accept that position," she said. She stood to shake his hand again, and as he rose to meet her grip, a splash of coffee spilled from his mug onto his white dress shirt.

"Oh, mother fuck ." he hissed, then muttered, "Sorry."

Carrie repressed a snark of laughter. "Here, let me," and used a Kleenex to help him mop it off.

So that summer, she had started on a local posting, working nine hours a day with the Surveillance group. After work, she'd come straight home and relieve the nanny. In the early evenings, she and her sister spent time reading to Franny, cooking, folding clothes. Carrie helped Maggie's girls with their math homework in the evenings, while Maggie looked on, gratified. Carrie had considered renting a new condo nearby Langley, but in her current distracted state, Maggie suggested she stay. She was glad she had agreed: the support of Maggie and the nanny, as well as Franny and Maggie's two older girls provided enough noise and light in her life that she didn't worry about Quinn 100% of the time. "Only about 99%," she thought, sighing. More than just help with childrearing, Maggie was a calming influence in whom Carrie could confide her stories, theories, and her worries, as well as her feelings for Quinn, when she felt able to share them.

That evening, after the kids were in bed, Carrie and Maggie sat in the breakfast nook, finishing their tea. Carrie remembered to give her Billy's regards, and related a few stories from the chat they had that day. Eventually, Carrie ran out of small talk, and the conversation circled around to her biggest – her only – concern. They sat staring at a sky full of iron December clouds, which were threatening to snow.

"Maggie, I fucked it up, I knew I would," Carrie choked.

Maggie's heart could have bled for her. From what Maggie could see, Carrie's young man had obviously been very sweet on her, and it was clear she felt the same about him. "Carrie, if he can come back, he will. I wasn't around him much, but I could see how he felt about you," she finished.

Carrie turned to look at Maggie, a desperate light in her eyes, another sopping Kleenex clenched in her fist. If she could only hear this answer straight from Quinn! "How did he feel about me?" she asked, sniffling.

"Like he wanted to make a bunch of babies with you. A whole baseball team," she laughed. Her suggestive tone and ribald suggestion wrenched a laugh from Carrie's throat that was almost a sob.

"Maggie…" she said, tears coming again, "…. I miss him."

Maggie moved to sit next to Carrie. Goddamnit, she thought. More heartbreak, more pain. Carrie was the strongest woman she knew, the most loyal, and she loved most fervently. In her life, she had been through utter hell, but just kept getting back up. This man had been a good match for her in so many ways, and he was so very fond of her, anyone could see that. She chose her next words carefully.

"Carrie, I know he's off doing something… dangerous. You haven't said exactly what, but I can tell. Didn't you tell me, though, that he was really good at his job?" she said encouragingly.

"The best," Carrie said in a whisper, staring off desolately.

"Then have faith in him. He'd have faith in you," Maggie said. Carrie looked at her gratefully.

"I will. I do. But meanwhile, it's praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition. I have faith in Quinn, but I need to do something." she said, rising. Carrie grabbed her coat and her set of car keys.

"Where you going this time of night?" Maggie inquired.

"Franny's sleeping," Carrie explained, "SATCOM is uploading a whole new set of images tonight, just in from Syria, Iraq, all around that fucking armpit. I want to review them."

"Go," Maggie said, waving her off. Thank God she had something useful to occupy her, and knowing Carrie's determination and intellect, she might actually do some good. "I'll take care of fuzzy butt, if she wakes up."

"Ok. And, thanks."

Back at Langley that night, she was the only one in the restricted access suite, reviewing files, documents, looking at maps, poring over photographs. Marking, projecting them on the enormous HD screen. Comparing old pictures to new, going forward in the satellite data of the target region first 24 hours, then 6 hours, then 1 hour at a time, rolling back and forth on the images. Trying to detect troop movements, tribal patterns, anything unusual. Her target area was enormous, her search image, not that specific. But she was good at spotting patterns, good at making associations. It was her stock in trade, and the skill that had made her such a valuable agent to begin with. And after years of working with drone strikes, she knew what almost every kind of military and civilian vehicle looked like from above. She hoped for a break, for anything that would give her a clue. But as the months stretched out after Quinn's departure, her efforts felt more and more desperate.

She had been considering the lateness of the hour, and her lack of sleep, and was just about ready to button it up for the night when her iPhone rang. Maybe it's Maggie, she thought, telling me to get my ass home. Or saying to pick up some infant Tylenol. But the phone said, "Unknown number" and it was from an international exchange.

Hmph, maybe it's Aasar Khan, wanting to breathe heavy in my ear, she thought, bleakly amused. She slid the call to "on" and lifted it to her ear.

"Carrie?" said a familiar, ragged voice on the other end of the line.

Carrie came to her feet, eyes wide, heart thrumming in her chest like the engine of a Peterbilt.

"Carrie," the voice said again, "It's Quinn."