Outwardly seething, Carrie stormed down through the halls of the embassy towards the Intel suites, and steamed into her office. She had had a good cry in the shower – someone overhearing her would have characterized it more as agonized howling. How could he, she thought. What the fuck kind of game was he playing? Everything he said sounded so sincere, everything they did certainly felt sincere, and she could not believe that he would do this, after what had transpired last night. Going out after Haqqani, putting himself deep into harm's way, in enemy territory with no support? It was a suicide mission. Last night she did not feel she was in the presence of a man who wanted to die. Quite the opposite. It made no sense.

She turned on her computer and reviewed her email, scanning all the messages for any sign of where Quinn might be going. Nothing. There was an all-site email from Lockhart specifying the completion of the Failure Protocol – but there was no way she was shutting down the whole station and leaving Quinn here, alone, without backup and ostensibly to die.

She swiped her phone open and looked at her texts again. The last messages she'd sent – terse, full of profanity, question marks, obviously desperate, had gone out two or three per hour since she discovered his absence. There was still no response. She sent one more – no punctuation, just the word, "Please" and hit send. She felt like vomiting.

She got up and walked out to the main operations room, where plastic lined the walls and the bodies of her colleagues had been removed for transport back to the States. Max, Barbara, Chase and a few others were soberly working on the Failure protocol. In a few short sentences, she put a stop to it and ordered everything back up – databases, search functions, all the intel systems, everything. They stared at her, dumbfounded. "I thought we were shutting down," said Chase.

Without mincing words, she told her baffled colleagues that she was going to get Peter Quinn back. That she wasn't leaving without him. That she wasn't willing to lose one more person in Pakistan. They nodded morosely. Max said nothing, but his face crumpled. She walked back out to her office as Max left the room as well.

A half hour later, and alarm sounded. Someone was in the personnel safe where the diplomatic documents were stored. Carrie hustled to the HR room, now almost empty, and found Max there, digging in the safe and stuffing a duffel bag.

"Max. I'm still Station Chief. The system alerts me when someone accesses this safe."

"Yeah, well, I'm just…"

Carrie grumpily fixed him with a stare, and nodded at the duffel bag. "Can I see it?" she asked.

Max handed the bag over. Money, US and Euros. Quinn's passport. Another passport with Quinn's picture, but a false name and address. "Well," she said laughing humorlessly, "this isn't for you. Where is he?"

Max was a great tech guy, but a terrible liar. "I don't know," Max said to his shoes.

"Then where are you delivering this," she seethed.

Max swallowed. The wrath of Carrie was more than he was willing to risk. Especially where Quinn was concerned.

45 minutes later, Carrie tapped on the door of a second-floor walk-up four blocks from the German Embassy. The elegant, statuesque blonde who opened the door was four inches taller than Carrie and a good ten years older. Carrie sized the woman up and understood the situation immediately. Jealousy twisted in her stomach. Had Quinn been playing her? Would he really do that, say all those things, just for a fuck on the side? It didn't seem possible.

Still, she kept her head enough to speak to the woman, and inspect the apartment for signs of Quinn, and leave her contact information before she was shown the door. She got as deep into the apartment as the woman would let her and looked around as much as possible. No shoes… no jacket. No time to check the trash. But there on the floor of the hallway, were drops of water. Goddamn it! He was holing up here, had just taken a shower, and Carrie knew it.

Why the hell didn't he shower with me, she thought insanely. She had been promiscuous as hell in her life, and no doubt Quinn had many notches in his belt as well. It was the life they led. But the idea of him being intimate right now– loving - with someone else – someone she didn't know about… she didn't know whether to weep or slap this bitch.

Carrie had to give the woman credit, she did cover for Quinn as well as she could. "If you see Peter, tell him I said to fuck himself. He'll know why," the woman said in her heavily accented English, by way of farewell. Maybe that's the way it really was, but if so, why the fuck did he come here? Biting her tongue, Carrie left the apartment.

Ten minutes on the phone with Max, and she found out which car in the underground parking garage belonged to the German woman. She thought it was her best bet to catch him on his way out of her place, and stood next to the car. She made a quick call to base security, too.

She sweated in the Islamabad heat as she waited. Ten, twenty, then thirty minutes. Half an hour, she mused, long enough for a quickie. The idea made her feel so defeated that she almost sobbed aloud. For a woman who had had so many broken hearts, suffered so much abuse, so much disrespect, she found herself amazed to still find her feelings hurt at the situation.

Her thoughts spun out, remembering his mouth on her body. This couldn't be the only time they would get to feel that way. It had been so long since she felt good about anything, since she felt anything at all. In the last few months, something had awakened in her, something that compelled her to come to him, to find him, to save him. Something selfless that she thought had died with Brody. Her mind went around and around the previous night's events. Breaking that barrier, making love to her, he had brought them both back to life. But now he seemed hell-bent on revenge, on killing Haqqani, so that he was willing to sacrifice himself to get to the power structure of ISI. These were not the thoughts of a rational person. If she could get to him, to slow him down. Get him to think, to feel, to speak to her.

Finally, wearing a dark gray t-shirt and with his wet hair standing on end, Quinn appeared in the parking garage, striding quickly towards Carrie. He looked more concerned than irritated, but irritation was in his voice as he said, "Well, well, look who's here. I told you not to follow me."

"Quinn. What the fuck are you doing? You told me you were leaving with me. Today."

"I'm sorry, Carrie, but I had a lot of time to think last night. And I don't have time to talk about it right now, but the bottom line is, I've been a bad guy. I think I can do something to balance out all the things I've done. You have to go home."

Frantically, Carrie said, "Quinn, you're on all the watch lists! ISI has you on a kill list. The attack was government sponsored! They're all looking for you! You might get Haqqani, if you can even find him, but you can't possibly survive! You have to come with me."

He kept his face neutral, but she could feel his emotions rising. "Carrie, you're used to getting your own way. But this time you have to trust me."

"Quinn," Carrie pleaded, her voice quavering, "We lost."

He shook his head, and turned away from her to walk to the car door. Just then, two burly security men from the IBD station came through the entrance. He looked at her disgustedly. Only two, he thought. How amusing.

"Oh, here we go," Quinn said. "Really, Carrie? Really?"

Carrie looked at her feet, embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said, and stepped away from Quinn as the men approached him. "Come with us, sir," the younger one said.

Carrie's eyes opened wide as Quinn dropped the first guy, slamming his head into a car, and with lightning speed, turned and twisted the other guy's arm behind his back and dropped him too, before either of the guards could react. "Quinn, Jesus Christ!" Carrie screamed. The second guy was big and fell heavily to the pavement like a side of beef. Quinn rapidly removed both of their sidearms, and tossed them one after the other onto the top of a wire equipment cage, far out of reach. He then stooped and checked the pulse of both of them, with two fingers on the neck. One ok – the other ok. But out cold. He stepped over their inert bodies, up to a horrified Carrie who was backing away from him with real fear in her eyes. God, he had frightened her. He hated himself and reached for her, to prevent her fleeing.

His nerves were up and his reflexes peaking after the fight, and he grabbed her throat with one hand, too hard. Her eyes bulged and she looked even more frightened. Exasperated beyond belief with her stubbornness, he spat, "For once in your life, you need to listen."

She almost cowered and put her hand over his hand. He realized he had almost choked her and relaxed his hold. His hand slipped to her shoulder. She looked less frightened. Peter breathed in and out rapidly and started to calm himself down. He put his other hand on her shoulder and held her at arm's length.

"I mean it Carrie," he said. "You can't follow me. You can't try to control me, or take me home. This time, you have to trust me."

"Quinn, I will NOT leave you here," Carrie raged. Her voice was low and hoarse. She took both of his hands and placed them over her heart, held them there by the wrists. "I will not let you go kill yourself. I will not leave you here, to be killed or captured or tortured. No." She shook her head slowly, her eyes not leaving his. Hot tears ran down her cheeks. His heart shattered, watching them. How much more would this woman be made to suffer? Fuck. And by me, her supposed protector, no less.

He walked back to the car and moved the younger guard, still unconscious, away from the passenger side door, as Carrie looked on, worriedly. He opened the door and held it wide.

With more menace than he felt, he snarled, "Get in the fucking car."