Quinn had taken a couple of days leave. He figured he deserved it. This last one had seemed like it had been a long assignment, though he guessed it hadn't been really. He had done right by Carrie and Brody and he actually felt kind of good about himself. He had declined the open invitation to all CIA officers at Langley to attend Walden's memorial service. He didn't consider himself CIA and he didn't care much for politicians, anyway. He had headed back to Philly to see his mother. She wasn't doing so good. Emphysema.
His job meant that he kept strange hours, moved around from place to place at short notice, was stationed abroad a lot and couldn't always check in as much as he should. It was right that he went to see her when he got a rare opportunity. His mother thought he was a 'Security consultant'. She didn't quite know what that was, but she felt sure that it was a waste of a Harvard education. Physician, lawyer, architect - wasn't he supposed to have become something like that? Still, he had money and he said that he liked his work, so she let it go. He was a sweet boy, he just needed to find a good woman and settle down, she sighed, the exhalation catching in her chest.
"Ma, would you just sit?!", Quinn snapped, eyeing the array of pill bottles and inhalers on the small side table next to her armchair. She fussed him into the room. Quinn noted that she wasn't hooked up to an oxygen mask just yet but every time he came home he dreaded that he might find a gas canister next to her chair, anchoring her to her apartment. Not that it wasn't a nice place. He had set her up there, opposite the park, plenty of trees cleansing the air in the hope that it would give her failing lungs a break.
"Let me see you, John", she said. "You look tired. Do you have woman trouble?", she asked eagerly. Quinn groaned, he was hardly through the door and she had started up on his love life already. This was record time, even for her.
"No, mom, thanks for asking. I've just been working hard is all. That's how come I'm home, I'm taking a few days.".
"You have time off work and you've come to see your mother. There definitely can't be any women on the scene.", she persisted. Quinn rolled his eyes and wondered at the way her company always spun him back to adolescence within mere minutes. "And I suppose it's too much to ask that you might have brought my grandson to see me...".
She was really on a roll now. "Ma! Stop, would you please? You know I hardly get to see him myself.". He shook his head at the shit he was getting. "Anyway, I knew I wouldn't get a look in with him in the room. Maybe I want you all to myself?". He put his hand over hers and grinned, he knew just how to charm her.
"Just like his father.", thought Catherine, to herself.
He cooked for his mother. Quinn had no great skill but his company and the novelty meant that Catherine ate more than she normally would and he was encouraged by this. It was only pasta but he liked taking care of her, it soothed his guilty conscience at not being there for her much. He never troubled her with aspects of his lifestyle that would worry her, which had ruled out his calling her when he had been shot at Gettysburg, or 95% of everything else he got up to, for that matter. She chatted excitedly, gave him family news, told him something or other about the neighbor's daughter's kid and he just let her continue. Although she was sick, and her illness was debilitating and would only get worse, he noted that she still had plenty of light in her eyes and seemed happy enough. He thought back to his childhood. Catherine was always the most glamorous mom he knew of. His dad had been a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and was a pretty smart guy. Catherine was always meticulously dressed and made up, always with a cigarette in her hand. They had both been proud when their son had shown early promise at school, his dad pushing him harder to achieve, while he was always just his mother's blue-eyed boy and she would defend him to the last, even if he had been out of line. Quinn's father covered politics at the paper, mostly humdrum stuff, though scandal, vice and corruption and the thought that good journalism could help bring the bad guys to account really fired him up. Quinn shared his father's quest for justice, he mused, thinking back to his recent encounter with Estes. Sadly his dad was long gone and Quinn dearly wished he was still around so they could take care of each other since he was such an absent son.
She still hadn't let up talking and she was getting breathless. "Mom, do you need to take a pill or something now you've eaten, use one of those inhalers or something?", he asked, worried. She waved off his question.
They watched some old movie together. Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Catherine was clearly enjoying it but between looking at his mother and pondering her condition and his mind flitting back to Langley, he quickly lost interest. When it was over and it had grown dark outside, he asked his mother if she wanted to turn in for the night. Catherine explained that she rarely slept in her bed anymore, that she preferred to sit up in her chair dozing, where her position made it easier to breathe. This is new. She really is getting worse, thought Quinn.
In order to let her get some rest, and because he was on holiday after all, he headed to a bar he knew a couple of blocks away. He sat at the bar with a beer, absent-mindedly watching footage from a baseball game on the tv. Quinn wasn't very good at 'down time'. He preferred to keep moving to stave off boredom.
The bar wasn't as busy as he had seen it before but he spied two women across the room, one of whom was very attractive, being hassled by a burly guy in a baseball cap. He watched the scene, amused, thinking 'Dream on, buddy'. Rebuffed, the thick set man wandered over to the bar, a few stools away from Quinn.
"I dunno, fella. I just don't know what the hell is going on with this world no more, I honestly don't.". Quinn wasn't sure who he was addressing, it could have been himself, or the bartender, or both. "I mean, what a day, huh?". This time he turned to Quinn, who nodded politely, not really wanting to encourage a whole conversation. "Nothing's what it's meant to be no more. Women ain't women, they're lesbians...and not the fun kind, either." he said, gesturing in the direction of the two girls. Quinn swivelled round to see them giggling back, knowing what his tipsy new friend had just disclosed. Quinn grinned back, waving, doubting that their story had been anything more than a ruse to get rid of the cap guy's unwanted advances, but pausing to entertain certain thoughts nonetheless. The guy went on, "And now this. Terrorists dressed as soldiers turning on our guys in Afghanistan and fucking U.S. marines blowing the place sky high at home! Apple-pie lookin' mother fucker too! I'm tellin' youse, the world flipped upside down today!".
Quinn took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?". He looked at the guy in the baseball cap, trying not to seem too intense when he realised his fists were clenched on the bar.
"Lesbians." he replied, "Nothin' doing. Don't waste your time.".
"No. I meant the other part...a U.S. marine did what?", Quinn clarified, trying to stay patient.
The guy, and the bartender for that matter, looked at Quinn incredulously. "The Washington bomb? Blew the CIA sky high? It's all over the news today. How have you not heard?" said the young bartender, grabbing the remote and switching to CNN, "I only put the ball game on because everyone was depressed enough with it already".
The cap guy started up again, "Yeah, that PoW guy they rescued from Iraq? They say he went crazy, on account of them kicking the shit out of him every day for years...and he finally snapped. Kaboom! This world has gone crazy!".
Quinn watched approximately thirty seconds of the rolling news broadcast from Langley. He reached into his pocket for his cell and remembered that he had turned it off when he got to his mother's place, just in order to give her his full attention for once. He had left it switched off all the while they were watching Clark Gable to humor her.
"Oh, holy shit", muttered Quinn, throwing some bills down on the bar, grabbing his jacket and bolting for the door.