Carrie paces her office, her head flying through possibilities. The general had given her confirmation that the Syrian MiG had been taken out, that the Technicals on the ground had been destroyed as well. And by all appearances, the package she had asked for had been picked up.

Which was a good thing. Probably.

But had been dark by the time the drone flew by twenty minutes after the F-22 had left the scene, so all it had been able to register was a few sparsely spread out heat sources on its infrared sensors. So it could have been Quinn's group or any other survivors of the battle, possibly ISIS militants.

The impossible part is not knowing, giving into the fact that she can't figure something out. Damascus isn't going to keep letting her use the drones to cover such a small area of concern, especially not for some covert op going on right under their own noses. And Carrie's not exactly used to being in the dark, unable to access the information she desperately desires.

But she's bullied them into this one night of drone use, so she can look for him while she still knows his general vicinity. Not that she has any idea which direction they went or if they even survived the original battle with the MiG.

Carrie sighs, tells herself not to feel guilty, that she got the fucking F-22 there as fast as she could. But it's hard when she's facing the facts - a small team on the ground being bombarded for hours by a MiG and mounted heavy machine guns. If it was anyone else but Quinn she would have already written them off completely.

It's the nagging feeling that she should be doing more, even though she knows she's done all that she possibly can, more than could be expected. Combined with the constant rising fear that she was too late, that she had watched as he died falling thirty feet, crushed by rubble.

It had been the only time she was sure it was him she was watching. And then an instant later the wall he was on had been obliterated by the MiG, crushing everything in its path.

Carrie takes a breath, barely holds back the rising emotion she's been battling all day. She feels tears forming and angrily forces them back, tells herself she can't fall apart yet. If he's on the ground and still alive she needs to be at her best, sharp and in control.

In a way he taught her that, she realizes. Holding her back whenever her emotions were making the decisions, keeping her in check even when she'd almost lost it completely. Regardless of the consequences, even though she had been so pissed off at him she could have shot him herself.

Carrie's never sure whether to smile or swear when she remembers those moments in Islamabad, spitting mad at each other, on the edge of mutual annihilation. She knows he must have wondered why the hell she asked him to go back there with her if she was just going to fight with him every step of the way. She's not sure if he realized it was all, in a way, part of her plan.

She had needed someone she trusted, someone who wouldn't let her down no matter how bad things got. Someone willing to make the hard choices, someone who would never back down.

And he'd been everything she needed. So of course she'd fought it tooth and nail, been epically pissed off at him the whole time. Even though she'd set the whole thing up herself, put Quinn up to playing his part.

Mentally exhausted from regrets and fear, Carrie finally sits down as she waits for the drone to loop back around to the area she's scouring. Fighting back another spate of tears she bites her lip, tells herself she can't give up. That he's still out there, that he can still make it back.

She's still trying to convince herself that he's alive when she hears approaching footsteps, looks up to see who's approaching, braces herself for an onslaught of bullshit.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Dar Adal fumes as he enters her office. "What gives you the right to interfere with my operation?"

The contempt she feels for Adal at this moment is almost too much to bear. Ever since their argument at his house she can't look at the man without thinking about him making a deal with Haqqani. And then turning Saul into a fucking monster as well, convincing him to make a deal with the devil, dishonouring everything that had happened in Islamabad.

Working with scum like Adal is a constant reminder that she's chosen to live in an immoral web of death and deceit, that she's already lost her soul, given up her humanity. It's almost enough to get her out of the game, make her look at the hard choices coming up in her near future.

But for now she has to stay. Just until she can get Quinn out too - or at least give him the chance.

"I just fucking saved your operation," she snaps right back. "I saved their fucking lives."

Adal sneers, gives her a contemptuous look.

"You saved nothing. And pissed off a fucking dictator, an entire army," he snarls. "For what? You two and your fucking mutual destruction. Peter is smart, Carrie. He left for a reason. He was never yours. And he will always leave."

"You don't know how many people I am willing to piss off to fucking save his life. I don't care if he doesn't fucking want it, I don't care if he never speaks to me again," Carrie fires back. "I will get him out of Syria alive so he can make his own fucking choice on what comes next."

Adal sighs, glares at her.

"Why, Carrie," he asks tiredly. "Why the fuck would you go to this much effort to save him from his own fate? He doesn't fucking love you. Peter's like you - he doesn't know how."

Carrie stops and thinks. Realizes she knows that's the truth, that they are each flawed in that way. And it's not that she has some fantasy of a life together with Quinn, civilian jobs, a house with a yard. She knows it may all blow up in her face, that he may be pissed off at her for interfering in his life, holding onto something that was never really there.

If she had even done anything at all, if she wasn't too late.

Yet it doesn't matter, mainly because she's set her mind to this. She may not be responsible for whatever Quinn does in the future but Carrie knows she bears some blame for him being in Syria. And she spent so much energy trying to save the asshole in the first place, it now seems necessary to help keep him alive.

Because really it all came down to one thing. She sent Brody on the mission that killed him and it was almost more than she could bear. For it to happen again with Quinn...

She already knew it would be too much.

"Because he deserves a chance," she finally says. "I owe him at least that much."

Adal scoffs at her, gives her his knowing sneer.

"By your own account you saw him fall thirty feet in a bombing. If that didn't kill him, it would certainly have slowed him down," he says. "And weakness doesn't survive in war."

"You think he's dead," Carrie states flatly, rolls the idea coldly around in her mind.

Adal doesn't answer right away, just gives her a smug look.

"Let's just say he's gotten weak," he finally says, his accusation tense in the air.

"He's not dead," Carrie replies, tries to sound completely sure.

Adal sneers again.

"And how do you know that?" he asks sarcastically. "And don't give me some sentimental bullshit about being able to feel it if he was dead. I don't go in for that shit. Anyone can die out there, and, in the end, most of them will."

It takes all her fucking willpower not to just go over and kick Adal in the balls. Acting so smug about it all, the fact that Quinn was on the ground, likely injured, possibly dead.

"Fuck you, Adal," she snaps back. "Quinn is a survivor. You know how resilient he is."

"Until lately he's never had a single problem, not a mark on his dossier. And then he met you," Adal returns. "Since then he's a fucking liability, almost as bad as you."

Carrie grits her teeth, pulls back the urge to scream in Adal's face.

"Did you ever think you just picked the wrong guy?" she asks. "You fucked up, chose someone who doesn't want to kill people for the rest of his fucking life?"

Adal sighs, looks at her tiredly.

"He's got a funny way of showing it," he says. "It's over, Carrie. He's gone. Even if he isn't dead now, the mission is ongoing and he will go with his team. He is not thinking of you, he is not thinking about anything other than completing the job. Like he always has, like he always will. I don't fuck up. Not when it comes to this."

She wants to throw something at him, nail him right in the smug kisser with a paperweight. Even looks down at her desk, casually looking for a decent projectile.

It's then that she notices something on her computer screen, sees that the drone is back flying over her search area. It's still too far away to tell what the object is but it's lit up in infrared, which is odd in itself.

Carrie looks up to see if Adal's noticed what's going on. And he's still wearing the same self-satisfied sneer but also maneuvers his way over to take a look at her screen.

The drone flies towards the odd light and soon it's directly overhead of whatever it is. From her office thousands of miles away it looks like a circle made of infrared light, maybe to mark a landing area for a helicopter, for some sort of pre-dawn attack.

But it didn't make much sense because there didn't appear to be anything of value in the area, just some small huts, sparsely located, likely uninhabited since the turmoil in Syria began.

And the infrared sensor on the drone wasn't reading much life nearby, certainly nothing indicating a military maneuver.

"Helicopter landing," Adal says casually.

Carrie snorts, knows he's bullshitting.

"For what helicopter? For what reason? There's nothing there," she says.

She knows she's right and Adal must know it too, scowls at her comment irritably.

"Well what do you think it is then?" he asks sarcastically.

And Carrie has to admit he's got her there, that she has no idea what the strange circle could signify, what purpose it could possibly serve.

Whatever it is emits a steady infrared light, which indicates military technology is involved. And it's obviously a signal, meant to be read by some sort of aircraft. But there is no aircraft nearby, except for their drone.

The drone flies by again and Carrie focuses on the image, freezes it on the screen.

Studies it closely, notices it's not exactly just a circle, that the circle has an extension.

And maybe she's reading into things too deeply, seeing things she wants to see. But the gears start turning in her head, still trying to connect the dots at the end of a marathon day.

A circle of infrared light, exactly what a black ops team would use to signal for a nighttime helicopter landing. Military grade flares, possibly set on a timer considering there didn't seem to be anyone left in the area to have manually set it off. A landing zone for a non-existent helicopter though. A circle of light directing no one, seemingly placed there for no military reason.

But it could be a signal to their drone.

And the more she looks at it, the more it's not a circle.

Adal's starting to look at her funny, must feel her energy rising. She can sense it too, the buzz of comprehension, the feeling of everything falling into place.

Carrie takes a screen shot of the drone footage, then pulls up another file, footage of the same area shot a few hours earlier by the same drone. Waits until the drone is in the same position, freezes the video and looks at Adal in triumph.

"This is four hours ago. Five heat signatures. Four of yours and their prisoner," she says with just a hint of self-satisfaction.

Adal sneers, doesn't look convinced.

"That could be anyone, Carrie," he says. "Probably fucking refugees fleeing to Turkey."

"In the exact same location as this light? So they just happened to be refugees with infrared flares?" she counters.

"Who knows why whoever it was set out a infrared circle. Maybe the mission was aborted. Maybe it's all just a big fucking practical joke," Adal replies.

"And maybe that isn't a circle. In fact, I'd say it's clearly a letter," Carrie retorts with a smirk.

For once Adal looks slightly rattled, glances at her irritably before taking another look at the two screenshots, four hours apart.

The first shows five human sized heat sources, likely inside a circular stone hut.

The second is the same hut. Clearly encircled in a large infrared letter Q.

And now Carrie's the one wearing a smug grin, giving Adal a condescending look.

"Well you did do a good job training him," she states. "He is fucking resourceful when he needs to be."

Adal doesn't even bother to argue that it's not Quinn, just snarls and starts to walk out of her office.

"Oh come on, stay and tell me again how he's dead, how the mission is the only thing he's thinking about," Carrie says loudly to his back, feels her anger mix with disbelief, happiness, relief.

Adal keeps walking, leaves her alone in her office, slouched in her desk chair staring at the freeze frames on her screen.

She stares at the image of five heat sources, wonders which glowing blob is Quinn. Imagines him huddled in a stone hut, injured and exhausted.

And really she has to admit she thought Adal was right, that wherever Quinn was he was not thinking about home, not thinking about her. This obligation she feels towards him has less to do with a future together with Quinn, more to do with not losing him too. Not after all that she's lost.

There had been all the naysayers, mostly Saul and Adal. Telling her to let go, give up. To let Quinn be, let him run around risking his life for something he doesn't give a shit about anymore. To forget about him, move on like he has.

And it may not be much, his little gesture of acknowledgement. She did save their lives, pulled every string as quickly as she could. But it proved he was alive, had thought of her. Had even put in the effort to send her a signal from the ruins of Syria, a small something to let her know he appreciated her work, was thinking of her.

Carrie leans back in her chair, closes her eyes and feels a slow smile spread across her face.

It may only be round one but at least she won this one, saw the proof in Adal's pissed off expression as he left earlier. And for now it's enough to lighten the lead ball in her stomach, unclench her shoulders.

Because somewhere in Syria Quinn still has a chance, has yet to be lost in the wreckage of war. And that means she still has a chance too - to make up for the mistakes of her past, to make good on the debt she still owes him.