Chapter 37

Day 1

Quinn stares at his phone, the screen lighting up with Lily's name. He's already called her three times today—left two voicemails, one text. But the silence on the other end is deafening.

She's not coming back, he tells himself. He already knows that. But the compulsion to reach out, to try one more time, gnaws at him. He wonders if she's picked up, if she's listened, if maybe, just maybe, she's reconsidered.

He presses the call button again.

Her voicemail picks up.

"Hi, you've reached Lily. Leave a message."

He hangs up before it finishes.

Day 7

Quinn stares at his laptop screen, the letters blurring before his eyes. It's been a week since Lily left, and in those days, he's buried himself in work—meetings, briefings, intelligence reports. Every task is a distraction, every phone call a reason to avoid the silence. The agency has its needs, and he's pushing himself harder than he ever has, trying to outrun the thoughts of her.

But they always come back. The gnawing, empty ache in his chest. He remembers the days where he could just escape his feelings by throwing himself into a high-risk operation—in Syria or Afghanistan or Iraq—where he could disappear into the chaos. He's done it before. When everything felt pointless, a dangerous mission felt almost like a relief. At least it would give him a reason to stop feeling like this.

But that's not an option anymore. He's too senior. Too visible. He can't just disappear into a terrorist enclave in Aleppo again. The agency needs him—hell, his whole damn country needs him. All he can do is keep going, even though the weight of it feels heavier with every day that ticks by.

If only I could stop thinking…

His phone buzzes on the desk—a message from Carrie. He doesn't answer it.

Day 14

The clock on the wall reads 10:17 p.m. Quinn doesn't notice, but the quiet hum of the office feels like it's growing louder. His hands are stiff, his neck sore from hours hunched over a desk, but he doesn't stop typing. The latest intelligence report is more of the same—nothing urgent, nothing that requires his immediate attention, but he reads it anyway, skimming for anything, anything that will distract him from the ache in his chest.

He takes a break only to make his daily call to Lily—after 14 days, he's not actually expecting her to answer or return his call, but he checks in on her every day just the same. He can't believe this is it; this is how it ends when you've given your entire self to someone else. One day they just walk away and it's over. Done. This is why it's so fucking dumb to open yourself up to someone else. He wonders what Dr. Kelly would think of the lesson he's drawing here.

He hears Lily's voicemail pick up and waits for the beep. "I miss you," he tells her voicemail. "I love you. Goodnight."

Day 27

Quinn stands in front of the window, looking down at the grounds of Langley below. It's empty, quiet. Tonight it feels like an extension of his own isolation.

His mind drifts back to Saul's words from their last meeting, his voice low but filled with a quiet concern. "Quinn, you need to take care of yourself. You've been running yourself into the ground."

Saul always had a way of cutting through the bullshit. But even he, the ever-present steady force, could only offer platitudes now.

It doesn't change anything. I'm still fucking alone.

He thinks about what he's lost. About what he failed to protect. He thought the extreme measures he took to keep Lily safe would be enough to shield her from the darkness of his world. But in the end, it wasn't. It never was.

If I'd just listened. If I'd just—

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Another update. Another report. Another way to keep his mind from wandering back to her.

He doesn't respond.

Day 33

The dim light of a hotel room cuts through the heavy silence. Quinn lies in bed beside a woman he barely knows—tall, blonde, attractive. She's already asleep, curled on her side, but Quinn's mind is elsewhere. His body moves on autopilot, as if this is just another distraction, another way to fill the aching void inside him.

But even as he presses into her, he can't shake the feeling of emptiness. The pull of her warmth is there, but it's fleeting. His body moves mechanically, but his mind is elsewhere. He's thinking of Lily—her face, her laugh, the way she used to look at him before everything turned to dust.

I didn't protect her. I couldn't protect her.

The thought lingers as he reaches for release, but it does nothing to quell the anger and loss inside him. He finishes quickly, closing his eyes and rolling over, trying to bury the feeling of failure that rises like bile in his throat.

Day 41

The days blur. More work, more distractions, more women. None of it works. None of it touches the hollow ache that gnaws at his chest. He's barely holding on, running on autopilot, living only to survive the day.

Quinn wonders what his security detail thinks of the many nights they end up sitting in front of random women's apartment buildings, protecting his ability to fuck random strangers. Probably not anything good.

He calls Lily, his voice cracking for a split second as he leaves his daily message.

"I miss you. I love you." He hesitates and then adds, softly, "I'm sorry."

But silence is all that answers him.

Day 52

Dar summons him to his office. "There's a situation in Kabul," Dar tells him. "We need to help them on a... delicate matter. Mossad is involved. Ari is there. So is Carrie," he adds, raising an eyebrow skeptically. Even now, Dar can't stomach her. "Saul's doing," he explains, as if that weren't already obvious. "Can you meet them?"

"Yes," Quinn says without hesitation. This is what he does best, after all, right? Leave.

Dar's voice softens, and he adds, somewhat hesitantly—"And Quinn—take care of yourself."

Quinn doesn't respond to the advice. It's nothing he hasn't heard before. But Dar's warning—it cuts deeper than he expects.

Day 54

Two days later, Quinn lands in Kabul. The air is thick with heat and dust, the city alive with an urgency that mirrors his own fractured thoughts.

Carrie is waiting for him at the makeshift command center, her arms crossed as she scans the intel.

"You look like hell," she says with a wry smile when she sees him. "The Kabul glow suits you."

Quinn doesn't smile back. His fatigue is written all over his face, but the familiarity of her presence feels almost grounding.

"Not the first time," he mutters, his eyes scanning the room. "What's the situation?"

Carrie raises an eyebrow but doesn't push. "I'll fill you in. But first, I think we should grab a drink. You look like you need one."

That night, Quinn and Carrie are seated at a bar in downtown Kabul, the low hum of conversation and clinking glasses filling the air. Carrie's trying to keep the mood light, spinning stories from her last assignment, and Quinn listens, the weight of everything pressing down on him.

He drinks more than he should, not caring anymore about the hangover that will inevitably follow. Carrie's eyes flicker with concern, but she doesn't press him. Instead, she offers him a smirk, a piece of her old charm.

"Still not ready to talk, huh?" she asks, leaning forward on the table.

Quinn shrugs, his face unreadable. "What's there to talk about?"

Carrie doesn't push him further. The next hour is spent strategizing over drinks, talking about next steps and logistics. But even in the heat of the moment, Quinn's mind can't help but wander back to Lily.

A few more drinks and Quinn is lost in the blur of it all. The tension of the mission, the chaos of the city, the weight of his emotions—it all mixes together, making him numb.

Day 72

The mission consumes him. Day after day, Quinn is buried in strategy sessions, field reports, and debriefings. But in the dead of night, when the weight of it all gets too heavy, he finds himself back at the bar, drinking away his misery.

Quinn doesn't know how many women he's slept with since arriving in Kabul. A few. One here. One there. All of them related somehow to some Western embassy (US, UK, he thinks there might have a been a French woman in there)—nameless faces, distractions. They don't matter, but they give him something to focus on for a few hours—enough to dull the ache in his chest.

Carrie offers him some unsolicited advice."You know this is just making it worse, right?"

Quinn looks at her, his expression flat. "What else am I supposed to do?"

She sighs, leaning back in her chair. "I don't know, Quinn. But you're not going to fuck your way out this."

"You're one to talk," Quinn snaps back, but her words sting, just the same. He looks away from the flash of hurt that crosses her eyes, the faintest flicker of guilt crossing his mind before he pushes it down again.

Day 78

Quinn stands on the balcony of the hotel, the cool Kabul air filling his lungs. He looks out over the city, his mind a thousand miles away. What the hell am I doing?

His phone buzzes in his pocket. It's Saul.

"Good work, Quinn. I know things haven't been easy over there. Don't burn yourself out."

The words feel hollow, like they're meant for someone else. "Thanks," he replies curtly and ends the call as quickly as possible.

Carrie joins him on the balcony, offering him a bottle of beer. "Drink up. You earned it. We earned it," she grins at him.

He takes the bottle from her, but instead of drinking, he stares into the night. "I really fucked up, didn't I?"

Carrie's gaze softens. "Maybe. But you're still here. That's what counts."

Quinn takes a long sip, the cool beer settling in his stomach. He's not sure what he's doing, but for the first time in 78 days, he feels like he's not alone.

He looks at her. "Thanks, Carrie."

She shrugs, a slight grin tugging at her lips. "Anytime."

Day 92

Quinn is finally back in DC. The city feels oddly suffocating after Kabul. He barely notices the cars honking in the distance or the usual bustle. His thoughts are too tangled in everything that's happened. His mission in Kabul is winding down, but the real battle still feels like it's inside him.

The house in Great Falls feels so fucking huge and empty, he can't stand to be in it. Everything about it screams Lily. The furniture that she picked out, the rugs, the fucking house plants that are dying—or already dead—on his watch.

Why the fuck is he still living in this fucking house? He knows why: because every day he still thinks that she's going to come walking back through the front door, and this whole fucking nightmare will end. But it's been three months and she's still not home. Part of him wishes he were still in Kabul.

Quinn picks up his phone and hesitates. He hasn't called her in a week. He thought maybe... maybe if he stopped calling, she'd finally reach out to him. She hasn't.

The phone rings, he mindlessly waits for her voicemail to pick. Instead, Lily answers. "Quinn?"

Quinn is stunned into silence, his heart thumping wildly at the sound of her voice.

He hears a hesitant pause and her voice again. "Peter?"

"Hey," he finally responds. "Sorry. I'm—I just—I didn't expect you to actually answer."

She laughs nervously. "Yeah. Um, I—you stopped calling."

Quinn raises his eyebrows. "Um, yeah. I—I was in Kabul. And... I... well, you weren't returning my calls, so I... I thought maybe I should give it a break."

He hears Lily pause and swallow on the other end. It sounds like she's been crying. "I'm—I wanted to. I just—I wanted to the day after I... when I left. But I thought if I did I'd just... come home. And I couldn't—can't. So..."

Quinn swallows hard. She called it home. "I… just wanted to hear your voice," Quinn says quietly, the weight of the statement hanging between them.

Lily pauses. "I started texting you a million times," she replies, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm... I don't know what I'm doing."

"Me neither."

He hears her sigh on the other end of the phone. "Right. Look. I'm—I'm not sure about anything now. It's—there's so much."

Quinn swallows again. "I understand."

"I slept with someone," Lily says quickly. The sentence tumbles out of her mouth like she didn't mean it to.

The words hit him like a punch in the gut, even though, intellectually, he knows she's done nothing wrong. Nevertheless, it doesn't make it any less painful to know that someone else was fucking the woman he loves. Not that he has any room to talk, given his activities as of late.

"That was—forget I said that," Lily mutters. "I'm—you don't want to hear about other guys, so that's..." she trails off. "But I started crying," she adds. "During. Which definitely didn't make a good impression on my date."

Quinn can't help but smile, relieved that whoever that asshole was, he probably won't be calling her again. "Um. That's—yeah. Probably awkward."

Lily chuckles, and Quinn feels the tension easing. "Yeah," she agrees. She pauses. "Why were you in Kabul?"

"For work."

"You don't say."

Quinn smiles. "Of course," he adds superfluously.

"Right. Feels a bit like our conversations in Berlin. Are you or are you not a CIA agent?" she chuckles softly.

He laughs, too. "Yeah," he says quietly, swallowing the lump that's forming in his throat. "I remember."

Lily clears her throat and he can hear her sniffling on the other end of the phone. "I should go," she finally says, her voice thick with emotion.

"Okay," he says, trying hard to maintain his own composure.

"Thanks for calling," she murmurs.

"I'll talk to you soon," he replies quietly.

"Okay," Lily says, her voice softer now, something unspoken hanging in the air.

Quinn puts the phone down, a faint buzz of hope in his chest, but also the weight of his own regret. He's not sure what comes next, but for the first time in months, it feels like maybe there's something worth hoping for again.

Day 93

9 p.m. Quinn's stomach is in knots; he can't get Lily off his mind; what else is new? Just as he's contemplating calling her—after hoping against hope that she'd actually call him (she hasn't)—Carrie calls. He considers letting it go to voicemail, but at the last second, decides against it.

"What's up?" he asks.

"Welcome home to you, too," she says with a teasing laugh. "What are you doing? Hiding from the world?"

Quinn chuckles, but the sound is low, tired. "Yes." He pauses. "I'm fine," he adds. Unconvincingly.

"You sure about that?"

"I've just been busy," he says, rubbing his hand over his face. The conversation with Lily is still lingering at the back of his mind.

"Come out with me," Carrie presses, her voice light but knowing. "You've been holed up too long. Plus, we need to celebrate our massive success."

Quinn hesitates. He's tired, and he's not sure he's up for a night out. Plus, there's Lily—and their conversation last night, as uncertain as it felt, gave him his first real ray of hope that their relationship is salvageable. Intellectually, he feels like nothing good can come of this. On the other hand, sitting at home moping over Lily feels equally (or more) ridiculous. And besides, something about Carrie's tone makes it hard to say no to her.

"Alright," he agrees finally. "Where?"

10 p.m. The bar in Arlington is bustling when Quinn arrives, the murmur of conversation mixing with the low hum of music in the background. Carrie's already there, a drink in hand, with her usual confident smirk.

"About time," she says, eyes lighting up as she motions for him to join her. "Thought I'd have to drink alone."

Quinn laughs and pulls up a chair. "I doubt you ever have to drink alone," he grins, waving his hand to get the attention of the bartender.

The banter between them is easy, flowing naturally. He finds himself relaxing into the rhythm of their shared history—dissecting the absurdities of Kabul, and then Islamabad—talking about nothing that matters.

Carrie makes him laugh, makes him forget, even if just for a couple hours. At some point in the night, after far too many drinks between the two of them, he feels something in her expression shift.

"Come home with me."

Quinn stares at her momentarily, and then shakes his head, pushing away his glass. "I'm drunk, but not that drunk."

"Ouch," Carrie pokes him. "Do you have a better offer?"

Quinn laughs and shakes his head. "Come on, Carrie—this is a bad idea on every level."

She arches an eyebrow. "Sitting on my couch and having a drink is a bad idea?"

Quinn sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "What about Frannie?" he asks.

"She's with Maggie tonight," Carrie says matter-of-factly, as if she's thought of everything.

Quinn glances at her. His mind is fuzzy from the drinks, but he's still sharp enough to know that sitting on the couch and having a drink isn't what she has in mind. He opens his mouth to decline, but something inside him shifts.

He's tired. Tired of the silence. Tired of being alone. Lily flits across his thoughts again, and then he thinks about how pathetic he is—after three months, he can't even be out with another woman without Lily living rent-free in his brain. Lily broke up with him. She's stonewalled him for months. So what that she finally deigned to pick up the fucking phone on his 92nd try? So fucking what? If she wanted him back, she'd have him. She doesn't.

He glances at his phone one more time, to see if maybe Lily has called. Of course she hasn't. Okay, then.

He looks back at Carrie with a shrug. "Fine," he says shortly. "Let's go."

Midnight. Carrie's apartment is quiet when they arrive. She's already removed her shoes and is casually throwing her jacket over a chair.

Quinn stands in the living room, his head spinning with the remnants of alcohol. He thinks about Lily, about their conversation, about the small flicker of something he hasn't felt since she left him. But the moment passes, and his mind is pulled back to Carrie, who emerges from her kitchen with two glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

Her smile is mischievous. She pours one for him, one for her, and they clink glasses. He immediately throws back the liquid—it burns his throat—and she pours him another one. He downs it again. She downs hers.

They look at each other, and in that moment, Quinn knows—with certainty—

what's going to happen next.

Carrie doesn't say a word—she just pulls him in by the collar, and kisses him.

Quinn freezes for a second, caught between the pull of the moment and the knowledge that this is most definitely a terrible idea. They haven't kissed since the night in front of her sister's house in Virginia, the night after her father's funeral—years ago. Then, that kiss held so much possibility. Now, it doesn't. Not for him, anyway.

Which means he should stop this. He knows that Carrie still has feelings for him; that much has become pretty obvious in the last few months. He knows it would be a really shit move to lead her on, especially given what a good friend she's been to him during an otherwise dark time.

But he's not leading her on, is he? She has to know how he feels; she's had a fucking front row seat to his self-destruction since Lily dumped him.

And in that moment, the alcohol, the exhaustion, the loneliness—it all catches up to him. He doesn't pull away.

Instead, he deepens the kiss and wraps his arms around her, pulling her closer to him.

Finally, she separates from him slightly, her cheeks flushed, her eyes light. "Come to bed with me," she murmurs.

Quinn doesn't say anything. He doesn't argue. He just follows her to the bedroom.

2 a.m. It's after that the weight of it sinks in. Quinn lies awake, staring at the ceiling, his mind racing. He can feel Carrie next to him, warm and breathing softly, but it's a hollow feeling.

The phone buzzes on the nightstand. Quinn glances at it. It's Lily. Fuck. Fucking fucking fuck.

His heart is hammering inside his chest, and he knows that he can't stay here. This was a bad fucking idea. And now he's going to pay the price for it.

He quietly gets up, careful not to disturb Carrie, and pulls on his clothes.

"Quinn?"

He freezes, hearing her voice coming from the bed.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he murmurs, turning to face her as he buttons his shirt.

She looks confused. "What time is it?"

"It's late—early," he corrects himself, "Sorry."

Carrie rubs her face and reaches for her alarm clock, slamming the night light feature on to check the time. "It's 2 a.m."

"Yeah," Quinn mutters, doing up his last button and searching for his belt.

Carrie switches on a night lamp, bathing the room in a warm glow. She stares at him. "What are you doing?"

As if it weren't obvious. Quinn narrows his eyes, wondering how to respond to this. He knows that women generally don't like it when he leaves after sex, but he figured that Carrie would understand. They're not living in a fucking Disney fairytale. "Um," he finally responds. "I was... leaving."

The look on Carrie's face suggests that, again, he was mistaken. What a fucking bad idea this was. One in a series of many, you jackass.

"Oh," is all Carrie can say.

Quinn looks at her and hesitates. He sighs and sits down next to her on the bed. She grabs a sheet to cover herself, suddenly feeling shy in front of this man whom she feels like she's known forever.

"Look," Quinn runs a hand over his face. "I'm—I don't need to tell you how fucked up I am right now," he smiles ruefully. "This wasn't... I care about you, I really do."

Carrie's expression grows colder by the second. "Don't," she cuts him short. "I'm not some random woman you can placate with your 'let's be friends' bullshit, okay?"

Quinn considers this. "I don't normally ask the women I sleep with to be friends," he says mildly, scrubbing his now-scruffy jaw with his hand.

"Fuck you, Quinn. I get it. Okay? This was a great fuck, and fabulous—glad we got that out of our systems five years late," her tone is bitter. "Just think, if you hadn't taken off to Syria for two fucking years, we could've checked this off the bucket list much sooner."

Quinn blanches at the bitterness in her voice. It always comes back to Syria.

He swallows and tries again, carefully steering clear of this fight that they've now had one too many times. "Carrie, I'm—I don't know what to say. You're—you're important to me. You are. But, you know what I'm… I'm not... I'm not available."

Carrie narrows her eyes and gives him a hard look. She's silent for a minute before she finally responds. "Feels more to me like you don't want to be available."

Quinn holds her gaze for a minute. "I should go," he finally says, his voice quiet. "I'm sorry."

His hands are shaky as he pulls the door open and steps into the hallway.

"You've been saying that a lot lately," Carrie calls after him, her tone tinged with resignation. "Maybe you should stop doing things you have to be sorry for."

The words hit him hard. She's right about. He does need to stop doing things he has to be sorry for. And, for him, that starts with Lily.

3 a.m. Quinn stands in the doorway of Lily's apartment, his heart pounding. When she opens the door, his breath catches in his throat.

Lily's gaze softens when she sees him, and for a moment, the tension between them evaporates.

"Hi," Quinn says, his voice rough.

"Hi," she answers, just as quietly. "It's so late." She ushers him inside her apartment and closes the door behind him.

"Yeah. It is. I'm sorry."

"I'm the one who called you," she smiles sheepishly. "Why are you sorry?"

There's a pause, a long one, filled with unspoken things. They both know there's a lot to say, but neither of them is quite ready to say it.

"I'm glad you called," he finally says.

Lily looks at him for a long beat, and then simply says, "I miss you."

The words land between them, and for a moment, neither of them speaks. Quinn feels a weight lifting, but also the familiar, painful knot of uncertainty in his chest.

Finally, he swallows and takes a step toward her. "I miss you, too. So much."

They stare at each other for a long moment, neither sure what's supposed to come next.

Quinn speaks first. "I'll do anything, Lily. Therapy, whatever you want. I just—I love you.. and I want to make this work. Work for you, not... not the way it was before," he adds softly.

Her eyes well up with tears and she brushes them away, swallowing hard as she processes what he just said. It takes her a minute to respond. "You mean it about therapy?"

There's no hesitation in his response. "Yes."

Lily looks at him for a long moment. "What changed?"

Quinn looks back at her and pauses, considering his words. "Everything changed," he finally replies quietly. "You left me. I didn't think... I thought the only thing that could..." he trails off, shaking his head.

Lily takes his hand and leads him to the sofa. She sits down and he sits down next to her. She lets go of his hand, and looks back at him. "You thought?" she asks gently.

Quinn exhales the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, and continues, tentatively. "I thought the only thing that could wreck me was if I lost you to the..."—he looks down at this hands and swallows; he can't say it—"to something outside of my control," he tries again. "And I was willing to do anything to keep that from happening—again. As you know," he adds ruefully, his voice breaking.

He quickly clears his throat, willing himself to keep it together. "But, um," he looks back up at her and meets her eyes. "Obviously, I lost you anyway."

Lily looks at him for a long moment, tears welling up in her eyes again. This time they fall down her cheeks. She's shaking her head, trying to keep the dam from bursting.

He reaches out a hand hesitantly—softly—and wipes her tears away, before returning his hand to his lap.

They don't speak for a long time.

"I love you," Lily finally says, softly. "Leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever done. Just so you know," she adds with a smile, unshed tears still glistening in her eyes. "I mean, you know, if crying during sex with another guy wasn't an obvious sign of that."

Quinn smiles back. He doesn't respond.

Lily grabs a tissue from the side table and wipes her eyes and nose. "This isn't just going to fix itself overnight," she finally says. "Dr. Kelly—she's helped me think through how the ... incident ... affected me. And how I reacted to you, and maybe pushed you away when I should've ... I don't know. Both of us fucked up. It wasn't just you." She swallows and meets his eyes. "But there's a lot to work through."

Quinn nods. "I understand."

"And you want to..." she trails off, not quite sure if she believes him.

"I'm want to," he replies immediately, feeling a heavy weight lifting from his shoulders as he watches her smile back at him, almost shyly.

"Well, okay then. We're not going to solve it all tonight, and I'm exhausted."

"Right," Quinn rises quickly from the sofa. "I should—I should go, let you get some sleep."

Lily watches him, her voice soft but firm. "Quinn. It's after three. Stay."

Quinn blinks, caught off guard. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," she says, with a small smile. "It's late, and you've come this far. You might as well stay."

There's a beat, and then Quinn nods.

"I'm not sleeping with you, though," Lily adds.

"Got it," Quinn replies quickly, with a small smile. "What makes you think I want to sleep with you, anyway?" He adds, casting an amused glance in her direction.

"Oh, please," Lily teases him softly, leading him to her small bedroom, off the main living room space. "You wanted to sleep with me on our first date."

"You wanted to sleep with me, too, as I recall," he grins.

"I did," she concedes, moving to her dresser and opening one of the drawers. "Only because I was very shallow and you're very good looking."

He sits on her bed and laughs, watching her rummage through the drawer. "And here I thought you wanted me for my brilliant wit," he teases.

"Too bad for you," she grins at him and throws a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and an old Baltimore Ravens tee shirt in his direction. "You can wear these."

"Thanks... Are these mine?" Quinn raises a skeptical eyebrow in her direction.

"Well, I—they got mixed up in the stuff I took with me when I..." she trails off, her face flushing.

He grins at her silently.

"I have some extra sweats for you in the morning, too," she adds.

"Just how much of my clothes did you walk out with?" he asks in an amused tone.

"Enough," she pokes him. And for a minute it feels like old times.

Then he hesitates, growing more serious. "I need to tell you something." His voice catches in his throat.

Lily turns to face him. "What is it?"

Quinn exhales, running a hand through his hair. "I… um. I slept with Carrie."

The words fall out of his mouth and they hang in the air like a confession. For a long moment, Lily doesn't say anything. She just looks at him, the hurt slowly creeping into her eyes.

"When?" she finally asks.

Quinn pales. He hesitates before answering. "Tonight."

"Tonight," Lily repeats slowly, as if she doesn't quite understand.

"Yes."

Lily nods slowly. "I, um, wow... Well, so much for the question of whether she still has feelings for you."

"I'm… sorry. It was very dumb. In my defense, I drank a lot tonight…. Not just tonight, actually."

Lily just stares at him. "Do you, um... do you have feelings for her?"

Quinn narrows his eyes, confused. "No," he says immediately, his tone incredulous. "Are you serious? I mean, I left her to—because you called. I love you. Why would I….?" he trails off, shaking his head. "I'm—it was stupid. I was drunk. I was lonely. I was... angry that you didn't call me…. After yesterday. It felt like we had this moment. And then you just... like if I'm not chasing you, you're not there."

Lily swallows, her gaze softening. "I didn't—I didn't mean to make you feel that way," she says quietly.

"I know I messed up," Quinn says quietly, his voice raw. "Not just with her, by the way."

Lily's frown suggests that she's fully comprehending the meaning of his words.

"I can't undo it. Any of it. But I want to be with you. I'll do whatever it takes to be with you."

Lily's eyes soften. She pauses for a beat. "I know," she finally says simply. "And I broke up with you. I…. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm just…. Obviously I don't love the idea of other women… touching you."

Quinn meets her eyes. "Right, because you're not the jealous type," he smiles softly.

Lily laughs and shakes her head. "You can be a real jackass, you know?"

His face grows more serious. "I know," he says softly.

"So. Can we go to bed now? But maybe take a shower first," she adds, arching her eyebrow at him.

"Okay, I can do that," his lips curl into a small smile. For the first time in months, Quinn feels a genuine flicker of hope. It's small, but it's real.

He showers and changes, and then climbs into bed next to Lily, listening to the soft sound of her breathing, steady and calm. He closes his eyes, finally feeling like he can breathe again. This is where he belongs. He doesn't ever want to be anywhere else again.