The ruckus from downstairs had eventually quieted, and between that and the drugs, Quinn rested for a long time. It was refreshing sleep, and he felt a lot better when he finally started to come to, after midnight. He didn't move at first, but opened his eyes, and saw Carrie still awake, sitting in the chair next to him.
Her chair was turned toward the window and she had leaned forward, putting her folded arms on the sill, making a hollow where she cradled her chin. He watched her silently as her eyes scanned the street. No doubt Hussein was sleeping on the couch in the sitting room, and with both doors closed, they were not in immediate danger of being barged in upon. If Zayd had intended to come after him, he'd have done it already. Hussein's cautioning that Peter was a guest must have created a line that the jihadis weren't ready to cross yet.
Downstairs, there was no hubbub of conversation, as Zayd and his men had either gone out, or gone to sleep. Somewhere in the building, Quinn could hear a baby crying distantly. A bit later, the crying tapered off. But that was all. Carrie didn't look concerned about what she saw in the street below, but she was keeping watch all the same.
Quinn watched her for a while, thinking about their situation. She had been as good as her word, and had gone out safely, and come back. But now they had seemingly conflicted issues, both pressing: Carrie's need to find out why a hit had been put out on her life, not to mention his, and the jihadis downstairs.
Thank God her name had ended up in his kill box. He was able to protect her then, though not before she tried to shoot him. He had expected that, had known how resourceful she was. That was why he was wearing the vest. He had massaged his sore spot, cursing irritably, after knocking her out. He felt horrible that he had to do it. But it was the only way to get her out of there fast and safely. So Quinn had nabbed her, and together, they set up the fake death photo. The one problem being that Carrie couldn't believe that Saul was the one behind the order. So off they went together, to the kill box.
Another day, another attempt on his life – and they had miraculously survived that, too. The shooting at the post office drop nearly took him out. He should have worn the vest again, but he hadn't expected the hit on his own life, not at that time, and they were in a hurry. He wanted to let her see who picked up the evidence, and get her the hell out of town. It had been his only concern, and he'd behaved so singlemindedly that he'd almost gotten killed. Carrie had hauled his ass off the street and saved his life.
Whoever was behind it thought Carrie was dead, creating a window of safety. But how long would that last? It was likely that his faked picture would convince them for a while, but it was also possible that someone was not buying it. They could be following up right now, and trying to track either of them to this location. The documents leaked from Berlin Station had something to do with it, but he couldn't guess what. Somehow Saul's operation was blown, and anybody at all could be giving orders through that kill box. Without either Saul or this reporter woman, Laura, giving them access to those documents, they wouldn't be able to figure out who it was, or anything else. It was infuriating. And there was another player, this Otto Düring, that Carrie had been working for. Quinn knew nothing about the guy, didn't have a good read on him, whether he was trustworthy or not. At this point, he preferred to trust himself and Carrie, and nobody else. He just hoped her message got through.
Then, there was this matter of the assholes downstairs. They were planning an attack right here in Berlin. He was sure that he wouldn't be able to get out of the building without running the gauntlet - Zayd would want him dead. They didn't know Carrie was up here yet, thank God. But even with her in the picture, would he be able to just bail, and let them go do their thing? Whatever else Quinn was, he was loyal to his team and his country. If he knew about a terror plot, he couldn't just wash his hands of it and walk away.
If he called Dar Adal that night, would there be sufficient information to trace them, thwart their plan? He didn't think so. He wasn't sure what they were planning, but it sounded large-scale. But he had no details – no location, no timing, methods: nothing. Quinn needed to consider the best path. In the past, without Carrie involved, he might have done something crazy, like go undercover and join their team. Try to get to their stronghold, and paint and kill. Once they got back to their HQ, he'd have Dar send in heavy ordnance. Then he'd boogie, and watch with binocs from a distance, while the M-9 Reapers were called in, and wiped them all off the face of the Earth. That was the way it worked in principle, anyway.
But that required embedding himself, and that was terribly dangerous for the operative. There had to be a better way, a safer way, so he could stay in Berlin, and assist Carrie, too. He understood better now, out of the grip of fever and delusion, that he had more reasons to stay alive than to die. To be near her, help her figure out the mess she was in, retrieve and repair the shambles of her normal life. She was going to insist on staying here, and solving her problems, not melting away. In retrospect, this was the only path she could take, and expect to have her daughter in her life. So this was no time for Quinn to be reckless with his own life. He cared about the outcome more than he dared to say.
The shambles of her life, ah, there was another matter. He considered the boyfriend. Was he still in the picture? Despite his outward concerns about the intrigue, the terrorists, the documents –he felt an undercurrent of personal discomfort around this. Did she love Jonas? Want to be with him? He wondered if he'd missed his opportunity two years before, and if Carrie would never again see him as more than a trusted colleague. But he didn't think so. She had come after him, to find him when he disappeared from the hideout. And it didn't feel like it, not when she had crawled into bed last night, not at all. Sharing a bed had felt better than that. Natural. But as usual, they hadn't talked about it.
Carrie turned her head to the side, closed her eyes, and laid her head on her arms. She was about to drop off, when she was startled awake by Quinn's voice.
"You don't have to sleep sitting up," he said quietly. Her eyes opened and she popped her head back up. He moved over carefully, and patted the bed next to him.
"I'm ok," she said. "Just resting my eyes."
"Sure you are. When you fall out of that chair, though, the thud will wake me up. So you might as well lie down," Quinn said, with a straight face. But she could hear levity in his voice.
"I'm ok," she repeated irritably.
Silence fell between them again, for a moment. Why was it so hard for him to speak of these things? Finally, Quinn surprised himself by blurting out a personal question.
"Did you see Jonas?"
Carrie looked at him, tried to calculate why he was asking. His face was neutral, as usual.
"No," she said, looking down at her hands. "I, … no."
"Do you want to call him? Tell him where you are?"
"When you bugged out, Jonas and I … well, he left. And not on the best terms," she said. She sounded like she was about to cry. Fuck, he thought. That's not what I wanted. He didn't know what to say next. So he waited.
"I don't think we'll get back together," she said dully. Finally, Quinn found his tongue.
He wanted to say, he wasn't right for you. Or, that ungrateful bastard, look what he threw away. "I'm sorry," he rasped. It was all he could come up with.
"Yeah," Carrie said. "Another link in my chain of dysfunctional relationships," she said. "All my fault, as usual."
"We're all dysfunctional," Quinn said. That got her attention, and she turned to eye him. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the plastic ties she had found the other night, the ones with his blood on them. She held them up, and Quinn looked at them, and then back at her. He felt pinned there, a guilty look spreading over his face.
"You left," Carrie said. "You walked out of the hideout, and took these. You were going to commit suicide, rather than let Jonas take you to a hospital. Why?"
"I wouldn't have left," he said accusingly, "if you had been there, instead of him."
Something flared in her eyes, then quieted down. She frowned at him. "Don't dodge the question. You were going to off yourself, and make sure your body couldn't be found. Why?"
"If they had found me in a hospital, or a morgue, they'd put it together. You'd get made, and you'd get tracked down again. You'd never be free, or worse, they'd just kill you," he choked out. He felt naked, he felt like someone had taken a butter knife and spread his feelings all over his face.
"I can't believe you thought I'd be better off without you," she said, desolate. She threw the plastic ties on the floor, and put her arms back on the window, facing out and away. She looked angry, but a tear trickled down one cheek, shining in the thin light. "That's insane."
"I don't feel like that now," Quinn said, guardedly, trying to feel his way through this. Emotional minefields were not his forté.
Carrie turned her head, just looking at him. Turned and stood, then sat down on the bed, where he'd indicated she should lie down before. Quinn squirmed. First he'd asked her to join him on the bed, and now that she had, he was uncomfortable. She reached up with one hand and wiped the tear off her cheek.
"You don't, huh." Carrie said, reaching out. "That's good." She put her hand on his shoulder, stroking up and down. Quinn was shirtless in the bed after Hussein's repeat suturing, and the direct contact of her skin on his made him break out in goosebumps. He tried, one last time, to be tough, resist blurting everything out.
"Yeah," he said, shivering. "I'd rather be alive than dead."
"Yeah," Carrie said, after a while, still stroking his arm. "Me too."
She turned and lay down on the sliver of available bed, her back to Quinn. He had no choice but to move very close to her, or she'd roll and fall off. She was basically forcing him to snuggle. That was good. Her body heat was comforting. She could use a shower, but fuck it. So could he.
A hush fell over the room. The light from the nearby window lit Carrie's brow, her ear, and shone off her hair. The streetlights outside reflected off the wet pavement below, and in the azure glow, her hair looked almost white. Seemingly acting of its own volition, Quinn's hand came up and began to stroke Carrie's hair back from her forehead. It was so soft, like a chinchilla or a mink. He helplessly caressed it again. Downcast, he didn't know what else to say. He was a man of few words. He searched for some, the right ones, wanting so badly to connect, give comfort. Carrie closed her eyes.
"Quinn?" she said, his name a heartbroken syllable.
"Yeah?" he said, his voice growing hoarse with emotion.
"How the fuck did we end up here?"
"Where?"
"Here, in this place, being hunted. We could have done better together. We could have made so many other choices," she said. "I looked for you, you know. I really did."
He pulled closer behind her, her head nearby on the pillow. His breath stirred the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. He put his hand on her hip, and left it there.
"In every crowd, in every store, through every doorway. At train stations and mosques. I looked for you for two years. I had dreams about you," she said. "And you said it doesn't matter now. But it does."
"Yeah," Quinn said, not even knowing how to answer. She had dreamed of him. Was this a question? A test? He needed to answer correctly. It was like juggling Lalique figurines.
"Yeah," he ventured. "It does matter." He lowered his nose into her hair. Unwashed, uncared-for, and her hair still smelled delicious. How did she do that? Eau de Carrie, he thought.
She didn't move, she just lay still and felt him breathing into her. His breathing was slow and deep, like he was meditating.
"When we leave, we leave here together, ok? You can't just go fuck off, and take some crazy chances. Or disappear. Not without talking to me. I'm not losing you again."
Shamed, moved, and altogether humbled, Quinn answered as briefly as possible. His hand on her hip moved up and down, soothingly.
"OK, Carrie." he said. It was the best he could do. For now.
They had both relaxed. Quinn's hand still stroking her hip, she wiggled close back into him. And kept wiggling. Finally, she sat up, exasperated. "Shit," she enunciated, and pulled her jacket off. Quinn watched this development with hungry interest. What did she have in mind? He was shot, infected, he was in no shape for... but she wasn't disrobing. She just took off the shoulder holster, dropped it on the floor, and set the weapon loose on the side table.
"Keep it close," he advised.
"Always," she said, and jumped back in bed next to Quinn, resuming her spoon position, pulling up the covers as she lay back.
They settled back in together. Under the covers, Quinn's arm folded around her waist, as she got comfortable, with one arm crooked under the pillow. "OK?" she asked, referring to his injuries.
"Fine," he said briefly. If she moved any farther back, she would figure out just how fine. Sick or not, her immediate proximity had an... effect.
"You know?" she began, closing her eyes again. "Way back, when I was trying to pull one over on Majid Javadi?"
"Yeah, sure. Yoga class," he said sleepily. Exciting or not, her warmth was starting to put him back to sleep. Must be the medication.
"I said I wasn't sure whether I liked being watched over by you."
"Mmm-hmm," he replied. His nose was in her hair again. It was an animal thing, this closeness. He hadn't had enough of it, and certainly not from someone he cared about.
"You should know," she said. "I do like it."
"Good," Quinn said.
They fell asleep like that, police sirens, car alarms, shouting voices off in the distance, all of it seeming very far away and unimportant. Why was that? Quinn thought. They were in as much danger as ever. But at that moment, it didn't seem to matter.
The sun rose and the light woke Carrie first, who sat up and grabbed the burner iPhone, which was buzzing away on the desk next to her sidearm. She scrubbed a hand across her face, and swiped it open. The display said "Otto Düring." She thumbed the message open, and held it out to Quinn.
"Black Jack says 10:00 Ostbahnhof, Souvenirs Geschenke, under the clock."
Carrie's eyes lit with hope.
"Saul," she breathed, and swiped the phone shut.