Disclaimer: I do not own Homeland, or any of its characters or plots. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.

Carrie did not come home that night. Nor the following one. She kept texting Quinn letting him know that they were not making any actual progress. She was continuously complaining about the field agents and officers in Afghanistan, who, according to those on the team at Langley, kept being too slow at following the instructions they were giving them. She was clearly frustrated, and Quinn braced himself for impact when he heard her tone. When they had been working together that tone had always been a prelude to impulsive action. Nothing good had ever come from that particular mood.

"I don't know, Quinn, they're fucking slow and at this pace I'm afraid we're not gonna be able to stop him… Who knows what he's planning on doing on American soil and our agents on the field seem to be plating house..." Carrie complained once more when she finally called him two days after she had rushed back to the CIA Headquarters right after their conversation.

"How are you, Carrie?" Peter worriedly asked, momentaneously foregoing her complaints. He was well aware of the toll those two days working non-stop could have taken on her. Doctors had always warned them that the lack of healthy food and sleep deprivation were the perfect breeding ground for triggering a manic episode. Carrie herself could attest to that. Those situations were certainly to be avoided. No matter how well she had been doing for the last years, the risk of a crisis was always around the corner if she didn't keep up with her meds, regular meals and restful sleep.

She sighed. She knew that question was coming, and was glad he had let her vent before posing it. It was for things like this that she loved him, and that realization immediately triggered a heavy sense of guilt. "I'm good, Quinn. Stop worrying, I promise I'm taking my meds…" Carrie managed to say.

"You're eating well? Sleeping?" he directly questioned her. He had no doubt she would be taking her meds, but he was not too sure she would make the effort to remember to eat and to sleep in an orderly fashion while she was completely focused on pinpointing Haqqani's actual whereabouts while the clock was ticking..

"Quinn…" she sighed.

"You eating at all? Come on, Carrie, you know that's important. Saul's there?" Peter inquired again, hoping that her mentor and boss would notice for sure if she was showing any concerning signs. To say that their relationship had not been good since Carrie felt Saul had betrayed her and all those in Islamabad during the attack on the embassy along with Dar was an understatement, but Quinn had no doubt that, despite all that, Saul still cared about Carrie and would keep an eye for her if they were working under extenuating circumstances that could compromise her mental health. He had seen her at her worst, and Quinn knew Saul would do his best to prevent that from happening again.

Carrie shook her head as she answered his question. "No, he's still in Kabul trying to coordinate all these motherfuckers that are slowing us down…" she replied. Peter's concern immediately grew knowing that there was no one there to watch her, besides Dar Adal, whose ability to detect and actually act on any health impairment in his wife Quinn seriously doubted. He then focused on her complaint, and laughed. "What?" she said, wondering why he would find that funny.

"Carrie… Remember when you were a field agent? How you used to complain about, what was it, 'those bastards dressed up in suits moving us like pawns from behind their fucking desks'? That rings any bell?" he chuckled.

She shook her head suddenly aware that she was actually behind a desk at Langley. In fact, she had just risen from her chair and stretched her legs while she called home and was currently leaning on her desk as she spoke to her husband. "It's not the same, Quinn…" she whispered, realising that he had a point. She was now on the other side, and guilt washed over her again when she realized that she really wished she was on the field.

Peter chuckled again, completely oblivious to her current thoughts. "Oh, yeah, exactly the same. But you're on the other side now, so, please, calm down and take a deep breath…" he said, trying not to sound too worried. He knew firsthand that Carrie had a tendency to clam up and do exactly the opposite when she felt she was being pushed into realising that she had to take care of herself, and that was the last thing he intended to do now.

She took in his words. She didn't want to worry him either. "Okay, I will. How's Franny?" she suddenly asked, changing the topic. She had really missed her daughter during the last days and was hoping she was doing well. After all, her mother had been a constant presence in her life since she could remember and she was sure her little girl had noticed the change. "Not that I was in her life when she was a baby," Carrie thought once more, feeling a pang in her heart, automatically pushing that idea away and focusing back on Quinn and his response.

"She's good," he exclaimed, happy to report that their daughter was doing well despite her mother's absence during the last days. "She misses you though…" he added with a bit of hesitation. Peter was certainly worried about Carrie, but he did not intend to pile on bringing up Franny. She had enough on her plate already.

"Tell her I miss her too," Carrie managed to say, tucking one strand of hair behind her ear as she tried to focus on the fact that Quinn had said that Franny was doing well, and nothing else. Guilt would have to wait until that Haqqani bastard was in their custody.

"Carrie, you know you don't have to save the world, right?" he slowly and gently continued, sensing she was feeling conflicting emotions right then.

She chuckled. "I know, Quinn, and I also know that I can help… I thought you said that you supported me 100% on this…" she trailed off, biting her lower lip in an effort to stop it from quivering.

"And I do, I really do, but I don't want you to overdo it…" he offered, trying not to push too hard. Quinn really wished they were having this conversation in person, so he could look her straight in the eye and see how she was feeling. She had never been very good at hiding things from him, and he smiled at the thought.

She shook her head again as she held her cell phone tighter. "I won't, I promise. I'll try to be home as soon as I can. Tell Franny I love her," she said to finish the call before she could no longer keep her emotions at bay.

But it took Carrie three more days to go home, and, when she did, in the middle of the day, Quinn was working and Franny was at school. "Maybe it's for the best;" she sadly thought as she quickly went upstairs and headed straight for the shower. Since that first call three days before, she had been calling home at least twice a day, being extra careful to make sure that Franny would be home and awake when she phoned. She had also thought about the possibility of Skyping with Quinn and the little kid, but she soon realised she would probably look like a mess, with big purple spots under her eyes that no make up could conceal, and she didn't want them to freak out. Especially her husband, who insisted on reminding her to eat and sleep properly every time they spoke on the phone, bringing more remorse and guilt into her already conflicted mind. All those days she was glad to notice that at least he still trusted her to take her meds, which was a sign of how far they had come along since they had decided to build a life together as a family outside the CIA.

The last five days had been totally crazy at Langley. The CIA operatives had been really close to appenhend Haqqani at least twice, but everything that could have gone wrong had, indeed, gone very wrong every time. First, they suspected that he was tipped off by someone in his inner circle, because by the time the Special Ops team got there he was nowhere to be found. Instead, the whole compound was empty, with clear signs that it had been left in a hurry.

And the second time it was even worse, because the secluded location they finally reached was obvious that had not been inhabited for a very long time. So the intel they had been working on for long days had not been accurate at all, probably providing Haqqani with a unique opportunity to flee the country. As much as it frustrated Carrie, the truth was they had been wasting their time and resources on wrong intel.

At last during the last hours they seemed to finally be making some progress. This time the intelligence was coming from an ex-CIA CI that had been contacted in Kabul by Saul. It had been kind of a Hail Mary, because he had stopped collaborating with the Agency the moment Carrie set foot out of Afghanistan almost four years before, and he had refused every recruiting effort made by new officers since then. Saul had tracked him down, thinking that it was worth the shot, and finally located him in a remote village near Hindu Kush. To Saul's surprise, their former CI was willing to collaborate with them again only if he was able to speak with Carrie in person. He only trusted her, he kept saying. Not by phone, not by video call, he had to see her in person, in his village in Afghanistan like old times. No matter how much Saul insisted on the fact that Carrie was working with them from stateside, and it would take some time to bring her to the other side of the world, their CI had not changed his mind.

So there was Carrie, quickly hopping out of the shower at home and packing a bag with clothes and a few toiletries to fly to a region of the world she had sworn not to set foot again. Once the bag was packed she quickly ran downstairs and sat down to write a note. She had long debated internally since she had left the CIA Headquarters how she should break the news to Quinn, and after much consideration she had opted for a note, instead of a phone call or, even better, a conversation. She had been very close to driving to his office before getting home, but she had decided otherwise in the end, because deep down she was afraid that a conversation between the two of them would make her change her mind and stay home.

Carrie was fully aware that this was the coward, easy option, and would certainly drive Quinn mad, but she kept telling herself that it was the quickest way she could think of. The sooner she could be off to Afghanistan, the better. She kept reminding herself that there were lives at stake, and her husband was bound to understand that.

Her note was brief, and her hands were shaking as she wrote it. She did her best to make it sound warm and even casual, knowing that nevertheless it would be a shock for Peter.

'Quinn,

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to see you and Franny. I've come home to quickly pack a bag on my way to Kabul. Please don't panic… It's just for a few days. Remember Ali Hadd? Well, he's our last chance to get to that bastard Haqqani and he's insisting he's only coming back to work for us if he speaks to me in person.

I know you'll understand. I promise I'll take care of myself and call you as much as I can. Will you please tell Franny I'll see her soon?

I love you,

Carrie'

Mixed emotions washed over Quinn when he came home before picking up Franny from school and found the note neatly placed on the kitchen counter. He had made some changes in his work schedule since Carrie was stuck at Langley, in order to spend as much time as possible with Franny, and was thankful he had decided to quickly run by the house before taking her home. That at least would give him time to try and process everything before seeing their daughter. "I should have known," he kept saying to himself as he read her short message over and over again, trying to find an explanation. He felt that the life they had striven so hard to build together as a family had just been shattered, as he strongly believed there was no possible way Carrie could come back from Afghanistan unscathed.

He suddenly reached out for his cell phone to call Dar Adal. "All this is his fault," Quinn blamed him, not stopping to think that it had not been Dar's threats and his own eagerness to shield her from his former boss and mentor's play. He was still too shocked, too disappointed, too mad and too sad to see that once Carrie knew she could help the CIA track Haqqani she would have gone back no matter what. She had never been the one to hide whenever duty called, and that had not changed over the years regardless of how much she lost in her last mission in Pakistan.

Quinn started speaking as soon as he heard Dar on the other end of the line. "You, fucking bastard… you finally got what you wanted from the start… she's on her way there and…"

"Good afternoon to you too, Peter…" Adal calmly said.

"Cut that crap, Dar. She's now in danger and…" Quinn snapped.

Dar Adal just chuckled. "Always so melodramatic, Peter. She's a big girl and can take care of herself. But you know what, you can still help her. It's up to you, Peter…"

"What the fuck do you mean?" Quinn angrily asked, wondering what had Dar planned this time, and thinking that probably nothing good would come out of it. But if there was a chance to help Carrie he would not hesitate to cooperate with the devil himself.

"There's a plane flying out to Kabul tonight. It's carrying a Special Ops team and we'd really like you to join us, Peter…"