Carrie V
Carrie opens the door, drops her keys on the table, thinks how it all feels so normal and so strange. Just another day home from the job, tired from the commute, last licks of jazz still in her head. But also the first day back after months off, after all the shit that has been her life.
She takes a deep breath, tries to talk herself down. It's a little too much to think about, going from hiding in her house with Quinn to the middle of an operation. Javadi of course, a glitch in his consolidation of power. And of course he insisted on dealing only with her.
Which is a real mindfuck considering she's been trying to keep that conniving bastard out of her head for the past months. Because thoughts of Javadi only ever bring her back to her own grief, of the moment he told her that everything was over, that there were no more chances.
And now he's back needing help to reconsolidate power when that was the whole fucking point of capturing and killing Brody. Carrie steams as she thinks about it, about this whole thing. She can't say no or else the whole Javadi play would have been for nothing, all that shit she went through, Brody's death. But she really doesn't want to say yes either, to suck it up and work for Lockhart.
Carrie's so lost in her thoughts it takes her a few minutes to realize that something feels wrong. She looks around, wonders where Quinn is, thought he'd be right at the door asking her about her first day back. She doesn't hear him, thinks maybe he went out to grab them some food but when she goes into the kitchen she sees a bag of takeout on the table.
Carrie wonders if it's just her, if her intuitions are off after being anxious and depressed for months. But when she sees that the bag only contains her preferred foods and none of his she knows he's gone.
She goes upstairs to double check and 'his' bedroom is stripped and tidy, everything reset to how it once was. For a moment Carrie wants to cry, feels the emotion in the pit of her stomach. It was only three weeks, she supposes - but she had gotten used to it, would even grudgingly admit to herself that she sometimes liked having him around.
Rationally she knows he couldn't stay there forever. It was already hard to explain to Maggie and her dad - she wasn't the type to take in strays or house wayward friends. And with the baby coming her family was going to be around a lot more. And with her being back at work it was getting more complicated. What if fucking Adal came looking for her one day and found Quinn in a house robe, making coffee.
For all of those reasons and more it is best that he's gone. And she knows he must have come to the same conclusions and left so she wouldn't have to tell him to go. But Carrie still finds herself standing frozen in her now-empty guest room - the room her family wants to turn into a nursery - overcome with waves of sadness, anger, loneliness.
She stands there dumbly for a few minutes, trying to push back her emotions, trying to remember she never wanted him there in the first place. Too intrusive and concerned, like a fucking mother hen. She wonders what happened to the cold-blooded assassin, the maniac who stabbed Brody through the hand, the man who watched them at her cabin, ready to kill at anytime.
Finally Carrie convinces herself to leave the room, walks down to the kitchen and throws away the bag of food. She's no longer hungry and can't deal with her overly large meal for one of all her favourite dishes - the ghost of Quinn still trying to fatten her up is too much for her right now.
What she would really like is a fucking drink, a double of something raw and hard, something to deaden her emotions. But even that's not possible, her one consistent coping mechanism fucking taken away from her when she needs it the most.
"FUCK!" she snaps at everything in general.
Paces a few steps, tries to sit down and be calm but just ends up standing and pacing again. Tries to remember what she used to do at home after work, comes to the conclusion she used to drink on the few occasions she wasn't working late into the night.
"Fuck," she says again.
She can't believe she's so stricken, she's always been on her own, it's the way she's made. She should be glad he's gone, out of her space. But all she wants to do is call him, make sure he at least made it back to his shithole. Which is fucking ridiculous, she knows. He's a big boy, a fucking assassin.
Carrie glances at the phone, picks it up and sees that there's a voicemail. Tries to ignore the fact that her heartbeat quickens in anticipation as she dials to hear it. Tries to pretend she's not disappointed when it's Maggie, saying she's going to be by to drop some stuff off and say hi on the big first day back to work.
Of course as soon as she's done listening to the voicemail there's a knock at the door and Maggie walks in, bearing bags of baby crap, harbingers of her near future.
"Hey Carrie," she says brightly as she puts the bags down. "How was work?"
Carrie tenses, was not mentally prepared for a Maggie visit. She groans in her mind, grinds her teeth. She loves her sister, she needs her sister; but she doesn't love or need her in pre-baby excitement mode.
"Work was fine," Carrie finally replies, saying the most innocuous thing she can think of.
"So is that guy still staying here?" Maggie asks. "What's his name again? Quinn? You never explained his deal. "
Carrie scowls, unable to keep it in.
"He's gone so there's nothing to explain," she answers. "Anyways I told you, he was here because he got shot and had nowhere else to go."
Maggie gives her a funny look and Carrie feels herself start to put up her defensive shields. She isn't fucking ready to explain Quinn's place in her life to herself, much less to Maggie.
"Just seems weird he had no one else to rely on," Maggie continues.
Now Carrie feels her claws come out, tries to force herself to be calm, to remember it's Maggie and she means well.
But meaning well isn't always enough, Carrie thinks.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she retorts without bothering to hide the anger in her voice.
Maggie makes an innocent face, tries to backpedal.
"It's not supposed to mean anything, Carrie. I was just making an observation. Taking in injured work colleagues just isn't normally something you do," she says.
Carrie has to give Maggie that point at least - taking Quinn in was definitely out of character for her. But she isn't about to admit anything.
"Well, like I said, he's gone so that's that," she says flatly.
Maggie sighs and Carrie knows she's given in.
"Okay, well I have to go, dinner's waiting at home. I just wanted to see how you were and bring you these baby clothes I found in storage," Maggie says with her best excited aunt-to-be smile.
Carrie tries to fake a smile but knows it comes off more like a grimace. Baby clothes are not helping her anxiety, just pushing it as the inevitable comes closer.
"Thanks," she replies stonily, doing her best not to implode until Maggie leaves.
She thinks she's home free when Maggie suddenly turns around again.
"Are you sure you're okay, Carrie?" she asks. "You seem a little off."
Carrie nearly growls, forces it down with a deep breath. No she's not okay and no she does not want to talk about it with Maggie.
"Just tired," she lies. "I need some sleep."
Maggie gives her a critical look and a small shrug. "Well get some sleep then. And make sure you're taking all your supplements okay?"
"Yes, of course," Carrie replies. "Go home Maggie."
Finally Maggie really leaves, just before the scream that is building up in her is about to erupt. When the door closes, Carrie breathes it all out, a dragon breath of irritation, of fear, of relief. At least she is alone again, something she knows. But again, the once familiar doesn't feel quite right now that he's been around for so long.
Carrie huffs out another breath, tries not to grit her teeth. She still wants to scream, flail, rant at everything and nothing all at once. And she wants him to be there, wants to call him like they are actually friends, normal ones that do things like call and talk. But they aren't and they don't so either she stays at home alone angry and upset or she sucks up her pride and goes to find him.
Carrie makes an annoyed face, huffs another breath. Tells herself that it's worth it, that she can do this.
For a second she wavers but then she finds herself grabbing her car keys.
"Fuck it," she mutters as she stalks out the door.
It's dark when she pulls up to his place and she can already tell he isn't there just from how she feels - anxious and alone. It's the same feeling she had the first time she came there to find him bloody and dying and she tries to convince herself that it's just deja vu, that he really is fine now.
Carrie takes a deep breath, knocks on the door on the off chance that she's wrong but she hears nothing. Now what, she asks herself, already frustrated that she's there, that he isn't. She could let herself in but she doesn't want to sit inside with memories of his bloody emaciated body so instead she sits on the stoop, head in her hands.
She doesn't know what she's doing there, has no idea what she's going to say when he finally comes back. And what if he doesn't, what if he's rented a hotel room somewhere. God, this is pathetic, she thinks.
But Carrie doesn't get up, even long after her ass is sore from sitting on a concrete stair. And she's still trying to come up with what she's going to say to him when she hears approaching footsteps.
There's something off with his gait and she doesn't think it's his lingering injuries. Plus she can smell the booze on him before he even notices her on his stoop.
And of course seeing him pushes her anxiety forward until Carrie ends up doing what she usually does, talking without thinking first.
"Jesus, Quinn," she says angrily, "You shouldn't be drinking. Aren't you still on a million fucking meds?"
Quinn snorts, gives her a half-drunken sneer as he approaches.
"Are you fucking serious, Carrie?" he laughs. "You're going to tell me when I shouldn't be drinking?"
Carrie snaps, the sharpness of his statement too true and raw. She kicks him in the shin like an angry child and scowls in his face.
"Fuck you," she spits. "You don't need to tell me all the things I've fucked up."
Quinn grimaces, hops a couple unsteady step. "Shit Carrie!" he growls. "What was that for?"
"For fucking leaving without saying anything, for not telling me where the fuck you went," she replies angrily.
"Well you fucking found me," he replies testily. "So now you want to play house just because I left? You never wanted me there in the first place Carrie. I was just giving you some space."
Carrie seethes, knows there is truth in what he's saying but it only makes it worse. Because she knows it's unreasonable for her to be there, to expect anything of him. And she hates it that she's even there.
But she doesn't want to fuck things up forever with Quinn by letting any more of her manic anxiety through. She is with it enough to realize she's primed with the kind of volatile emotion that usually leads to fucking things up, sometimes irrevocably. And shockingly Carrie manages to force herself to shut up and think before she completely derails the situation.
Finally she must have been silent for too long and Quinn looks at her funny.
"What are you doing here, Carrie?" he asks, seemingly no longer angry.
Carrie takes a breath, looks at him and tells herself to calm the fuck down.
"I don't know," she finally answers. "You could have told me you were leaving."
Quinn nods, shrugs. "I thought it'd be easier without the conversation," he replies.
And in a moment of insight she really feels the loneliness in how Quinn has lived for the past however many years. Life without attachments, vanishing after every job. He's no better at this shit than she is but he's been there for her through everything. So instead of losing her shit at him again, Carrie takes another breath, tries to make herself to be rational.
"We both know I couldn't live there forever, Carrie," he adds, reasonably.
She glares at him for a moment and forces back an angry tear. "Well fuck," she says. "So you're just going to live here? With no fucking furniture?"
Quinn laughs, nods. "Yeah, Carrie. That's what I do," he replies. "Live in shitholes with no fucking furniture."
Carrie frowns. "That's really fucking depressing," she replies, wondering when she started caring if Quinn's life was depressing or not. He's an adult, he makes his own choices, she tells herself. But still, it's been hard to see him so conflicted lately.
He nods again in agreement. "Does that mean you don't want to come in?" he asks sardonically.
She knows he's mostly kidding but Carrie shakes her head anxiously anyway. "I can't go in there, Quinn. Bad memories," she replies.
He raises his eyebrows, looks at her oddly again. "You've seen a lot worse," he says.
Carrie shakes her head again, glances away from him. "It was pretty bad. I thought you were dead," she mutters.
Quinn looks surprised, then concerned. Carrie wonders if he thinks she's being a pussy, then realizes she doesn't care.
"Just come back to my place for now," she says with a sigh. "You can live at this shithole but you don't have to be here."
He looks at her for a long while and her heart freezes, wondering if he's going to say no, if he moved out because he is trying to get away from her presence in his life. He's not the only one who's afraid to reach out, who lives a solitary life.
Finally he grimaces at her and shrugs. "If that's what you want, Carrie," he says a bit sadly.
Carrie lets out a breath she doesn't know she's holding, feels an anxious tear slip through her defenses and tries to wipe it away inconspicuously, before Quinn notices. But of course he's watching her studiously, lets nothing slip by his sharp assassin's eyes.
He puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her towards him. She only offers minimal resistance, just enough to maintain the illusion that she tried to avoid his embrace.
"I wasn't trying to ditch you," Quinn mutters into her ear. "It was hard to make myself go."
Carrie feels the tight ball of anger, anxiety, and fear release in her chest. She hadn't realized that was what she had been scared of all along - that he would just disappear without a trace, the same as when he suddenly appeared in her life. She's come to rely on him and that scares the fuck out of her. But of course she doesn't tell him any of that.
She stays silent but leans her shoulder into Quinn as they walk to her car, lets his arm sit comfortably around her, feels his body heat spread through her.
"I'm sorry I kicked you," she finally says as they get to the car.
Quinn huffs a laugh. "I should have expected it," he replies with a wry smile.
Carrie shrugs, shakes free of his embrace, tries to look apologetic. "No, really. I overreacted," she tries again.
"You? Overreact?" he answers sarcastically. "Never."
Carrie scowls, gives him her best evil eye.
"Fuck you Quinn," she says with mock irritation. "Get in the car. Let's go home."