Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

November 14th, 2017

Switzerland

Lauren Lewis knew when it was time to call for help. She gave a nod to a bartender to hit her again and took out her phone. Her fingers were shaky as she dialed the number, completely forgetting she had it on her speed dial for situations exactly like this one. She pressed the call button and smiled when it was answered first ring, despite the late hour.

“Kiddo, you ok?” Lily’s voice came through, concerned and soft.

“Not qu… quite,” Lauren managed, looking into the brown abyss of her next whiskey shot. At the bottom of that glass, she expected to find all her troubles, and all the troubles of the people she came to care for. But, sadly, no glass was big enough at this point to drown her pain.

“Be there in twenty,” Lily said simply. Because she always knew when she was needed.

“Thanks, Lil,” Lauren tried to smile, but a new wave of nausea made her lips quiver instead. “You’re a rrreeae… real…”

“Yeah, I know, I’m a fucking saint,” Lily clicked off.

She was never a woman of many words. She was a woman of action. Day or night. Call Lily. Sixty-five-year-old gatekeeper. Smiling and full of love and chocolate. She would be there to pick up the pieces of your life. And your heart.

Lauren made an effort to put the phone back into her pocket, and after missing it twice, she thought she managed. If she didn’t and it was on the floor now… who cared.

She was done. Done for good this time. She couldn’t take it anymore. SEven years beforehand she took a one year sabbatical to come and volunteer in an obscure rehabilitation facility for veterans. Her previous job gave her the necessary security clearance and her family was quite excited to spend a year in one of the most beautiful places in Europe. She came here full of hope and motivation, looking forward to making a difference for a cause she truly believed in. Seven years later, her husband was gone, her children spent most of their time in the States with him and his family, and she was still here, still believing in the cause, surrounded by great friends and people, who cared as much as she did and were as reluctant to let go. She pushed through, holding on to their determination, watching her own fade away each day, but still hoping to find it in herself to be stronger.

After a while, her life had been reduced to a revolving door, bringing in broken souls dwelling inside broken bodies, and then, following a short time (sometimes not so short, but never nearly enough), spitting them out into the world, which wanted nothing to do with them. Or maybe, just didn’t quite know what to do with them. Those were not people coming home from war. They were war machines to her country. She was supposed to be a part of the process, which would patch them up and send them back. In most cases, she didn’t even know back where . But judging by the very few stories she did manage to hear, it was never a place you would hear about on TV. Special forces veterans, in particular the ones brought here, in most cases had no families to come home to, or a world where they would ever have a chance to start one. Wounded, body and soul, they were coming to a place that didn’t officially exist and which could never become a home to them, surrounded by people who would never know who they were, what they had done or where they had been. Nor would they ever be able to perceive the horrors they had seen. And done to others. And yet (and it took her some time to realize that and to come to terms with just how heartbreaking it was), their measured stay here, for most of them, was the happiest and as close to home, as they would ever get.

She watched friendships being born here. Between people, who often didn’t know each other’s real names. She watched those friendships broken by orders of being recalled. She watched friends say goodbye, knowing that it was for good, not being able to leave a phone number or an email. Walking out of each other’s lives the same way they came into them - a shadow of a soul, a glimpse of a smile, a memory to be soon faded into the past. She would have a session with a patient one day and be told the following day that they were gone. And she would shred their file, their lives, their dreams. And then wait for the revolving door to bring more. To start a new.

Nothing could ever prepare her for what she had met here. But she stayed. And the others stayed as well. After a while, she realized, that being in this place was not about what you knew, or about the skills you had, but about what you were willing to learn (about yourself, about your endurance, and about others) and live with. You didn’t have to be the best in your field, you just needed to care. All they needed, those people, whose life she was able to touch for a brief moment, was someone who actually cared. And she did. They all did. So, they all stayed, some, like Matt, for almost ten years now. Some, even longer. They all had breaking points. And they all considered walking away on more occasions than any of them cared to count anymore. And yet, they were all still here, a turnover of staff here being the lowest she had ever seen.

On her very first day here, Lauren learnt, that whatever her skills were, whatever her experience had taught her, it was worth zip, nada. Her job was about listening, making people talk, making them learn things about themselves, giving them skills to cope with their burdens. But how do you make someone tell you about their burdens, when they simply can’t? Sometimes, because it’s too horrific to relive, in most cases, because it’s too classified, and sometimes, because they can’t talk due to head trauma. How do you connect to someone, who can’t tell you their real name?

It was a game, what she did. A game of guessing and assuming. Sitting across from them and watching them being self-loathing, angry, offensive, abusive even, and not budging. Because you needed them to see you cared not about what they had become, but about who they were.

She had some breakthroughs over the years. They were all bittersweet. Watching someone being able to greet you with a smile, laugh at a joke, feeling at ease talking about the glimpses of something resembling normalcy, was almost as rewarding as it was heartbreaking to watch them being recalled to do whatever brought them here in the first place. And hope, that whatever they were able to learn about themselves, might keep them a tiny bit safer, make their sleep a tad better, make their thoughts a little lighter.

She thought she had a breakthrough with one of them a couple months back. And she was hopeful again. Every time was like the first time. Thinking, that she could help one . But then today happened. And she fell apart. Not during the session, but many hours later. What those people went through, no one should go through. And this man, the one who broke her heart in so many ways, he was every man . He was the face of every soldier going through the revolving door of her life. She managed to find a way for him to tell her his story. However, while she knew , he was doing better, she herself felt like a city poster poll covered with obituaries. All that death, all that pain… it was now inside her.

And now there was this .

She opened her bag and took out the letter he wrote during their last session, when she asked him about a woman he almost had a family with, a mother of his son. She asked if he ever said goodbye for real. And she got her answer. No. He walked out to keep her and his unborn child safe. He knew she remarried. He knew his little boy had a family. She asked, if there was anything he would like to tell them, about how he felt about them. She asked, if, going away on missions, he ever had to write a goodbye letter. He said ‘sure’. And he told her about a letter he wrote to another woman he loved. Once. And how he used to write letters to his son, never intending to send them. And even to the daughter of that other woman. But he never could bring himself to write an “If you’re reading this, it means I am gone” letter to a woman he loved once, to a boy he never got to be a father to. Because their sessions were an endless game of pretending, she asked if he would like to give it a try now, seeing how he was making great emotional progress over the past couple of months.

He didn’t mind. In fact, she saw his face brighten at the thought, that he was actually able to. Lauren felt herself curse under her breath. She just had to ask him to write this letter, didn’t she? She just had to bring this upon herself… Right, Lauren, go ahead and make it about yourself. It’s all about how sad it made YOU feel, ain’t it?

********************************

My love, my best friend,

I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you and I don’t think I ever really stopped. I stopped hoping, that we might have what we always wanted - a family we dreamt of. But I don’t think you ever stop loving a person, you know?

Letting both of you go was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I think you actually give your heart to people when you love them as much. And I am not sure whatever grows back can ever be quite the same. I know now, mine hasn’t been.

When I went away on my first mission after we had said goodbye, I found a flashdrive with a song you left for me. You always DID know me, didn’t you? And you always found a way to say to me what really mattered. I listened to it so many times that I know it by heart. And I wanted you to know, that I’ve been waiting for a day when I can follow its advice ‘when the night is overcome, you may rise to find the sun’. All those years passed, and I was still hoping to find my way back to you. Both of you. Or at least to find something that made me feel like that again. Someone to love, someone to love me back. I thought I did. Once. Scratch that. I KNOW I did. I fell in love again so hard that I thought the fall actually shattered every bone in my body when I realized what happened to me. I thought, being in the same world, her and I could actually make it work. We didn’t. And it’s all over now. I am gone. But you should know, every piece of love I ever had, I had because I learnt how to - with you.

I’m not sorry. I’ve been lucky to have two great loves in my life. I want to say, they made it tolerable. But they did more than that. They made me push through. No matter how hard it got. And they made me hope - for more.

I know you found a life with another man. It broke my heart. But, in a way, it also mended it. I hope he makes you and our son happy. And I trust you to kick his ass if he doesn’t. You were always the strong one. Strong enough to love me, strong enough to watch me walk out on you.

Please, give a kiss to our boy for me. And hold him for a long time. Never let go of the things you cherish. Those are the hardest ones to overcome.

Remember what we used to call ourselves? J+J+JJ? I still smile when i remember that. And I hope before I died, I had time to think of us. And smile.

I love you, my J+JJ.

J.”

***********************************

Lily walked into a bar and found her friend splashed on a table, a neatly arranged row of empty whiskey glasses next to her, a piece of paper sticking out from underneath her arm, folded to give a place to rest her head. Fucking mess . She always lets them fuckers get to her .

She sat down on the tall bar stool and motioned to the bartender to give her the usual. His mumbling about closing soon earned him a single stern look, that he knew better than to disregard. No one messed with Lily. And she had her glass of grey goose martini coming right up. She slowly slipped the letter from under Lauren's arm, and finished it in one go.

“Motherfucker,” she filtered through her teeth, referring to many things at once.

Lily put a soft hand on Lauren’s head. That poor soul carried all their pain, and all their desperation on those fragile shoulders.

“Hey,” Lauren lifted her head and sat up, her eyes red, her hair all messed up.

“Let’s go home, kiddo,” Lily gave her a sad smile.

Lauren saw the letter in her hand. Fuck . She really shouldn't have showed it to anyone. Lily was different. She was her Western Wall. And Lauren knew, she could keep a secret. But she still felt extremely guilty and highly unprofessional.

“You shouldn’t have…” she muttered, covering her eyes with her palm and squeezing at the corners. “ I shouldn’t have…”

“Yeah, you should have,” Lily covered her hand with her palm. “No one can bear this alone, dear. It’s bad enough those broken toys do. You shouldn’t.”

“You…” Lauren looked into her eyes, for the first time in seven years bringing up something she always suspected, “you know that world, don’t you?”

Lily shook her head, taking a sip from her martini. Sometimes, she didn’t care to. But she did.

“Yeah. Been my world for many years.”

“You never mentioned it. So it wasn’t a desk job, I guess.”

“Oh no. No desk for me. I was hands on. As much hands on as it gets, honey.”

“Like him?” Lauren pointed to the letter.

“Very much. Yes. We had a different name for it back in my days. But yeah. Like him.”

“You never said anything.”

“And now you know why. ”

“But, Lil. How did  you… manage? You have a family, daughters, granddaughters…”

Lily finished her drink in one go and stood up, taking Lauren by her elbow and pulling her up. She took her bag, the letter and started towards the door.

“We don’t talk about that shit in here,” she whispered next to her ear.

The air was cool and Lauren took a lungful of it. Lily offered her a cigarette. They both knew Lauren quit three years beforehand. But they both knew, she wanted nothing more now. Her hands were way to shaky and Lily lit up for both of them, as they walked deeper into the forest and away from civilization.

“You were black ops?” Lauren asked when they were far enough.

“I was… darker than that,” Lily smiled. “I was the first woman in special forces back in the day. And when I was recruited by the agency, I lead missions we don’t talk about. To this day.”

“Christ,” Lauren let out a white swirl of smoke. She tried to imagine this good hearted woman with a handgun, shooting someone in cold blood, climbing walls, setting up explosive devices. She couldn’t.

“I lived it. And I loved it. I sacrificed a lot for it. So, this letter,” she held a piece of paper in her hand in front of Lauren’s face. “I wrote one of those. To a man I loved. And it wasn’t Steven.”

“Did Steven know?” Lauren bit her lip remembering Lily’s late husband, who passed away just two years before.

“No, kiddo. None of them do.”

Lauren rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, “I feel special,” she chuckled.

“You are special,” Lily put an arm around her. “You are special to them and to me. And the fact that you let it break you speaks volumes to that. I can’t blame you, though. This one got to me, too.”

“He can never have it normal, can he? Not really…”

“I don’t know, honey. I did . And I didn’t even have you to guide me through what I had to sort out before I walked away. He does seem to be doing better. Alot better.”

“But can he really go back? To the mother of his son? To that other woman?”

“I don’t know,” Lily sighed, looking up at the starry sky. “It’s really hard. And in his situation, it’s quite… tricky. But… I have to hope. For every single one of those motherfuckers. I have to hope there is a life beyond what they do. They make sure we have that life. And our families. And no one knows how high a price they pay for that better than I do. So... I have to hope.”

“But…” Lauren couldn’t help her professional skills leaking into her everyday life. She studied Lily’s face. “He is special to you. Not like the others. Not like a kindred soul from your past.”

Lily let out a short laughter, “You see too much for your own good, kiddo,” she gave her a wink. “He is. And now just leave it at that.”

“C’mon, Lil, you know I am a grave of secrets.”

“True. You’re a good shrink. And you’re on to something. But now you’ll promise me you forget you ever asked me that. Because, as much as I like you, and, probably, because I like you, this is where the curtain closes. You simply don’t have the security clearance for this one. So, just leave it at that.”

Lauren’s eyes narrowed, “You never quit, don’t you? Not really.”

Lily shook her head and took out her car keys, “No, honey. You never quit.”

___________________________

Lily drove back to the compound and took Lauren home. It wasn’t really a home anymore, she knew, not since the year beforehand her husband left, and now her three children were back in the States with him for early Christmas vacation. It was just a place you went to at the end of the day.

She helped the young woman to bed and made sure there was a glass of water on the night stand and a bucket to barf into next to it. Then she drove home herself.

She found her new burner and looked at the time. Bright and early. She knew the man all too well to think he would be asleep at this hour. He answered first ring.

“What’s wrong?” his voice was tense.

“Everything,” Lily went outside and lit a cigarette. “The whole fucking world is wrong and you and I both know just how much, Saul.”

There was a long meaningful silence, “Ok. So what else is new?”

“I need a favor.”

Saul knew to tread carefully with Lily and her ‘favors’. He had been burnt before, “I am listening.”

“I am mailing something over to you. And I need you to personally deliver it to a mother of his son.”

“Are you out of your senile mind? You know I can’t do that! And you damn well know why.”

“Sure do. But you will.”

Saul had a bad feeling about this. He knew this woman for over forty years. She had that iron hard tone that he was always a little scared of.

“I won’t. I can’t. And you better tell me how you even know about it. Or… you know what? Don’t. Just make sure it dies with you. Whatever you found out.”

“Do you still have my letter?” Lily went for it with all the force of nature she was.

Saul felt his heart sink so fast it actually hurt. He took off his glasses and pressed his fingertips into the corners of his eyes as hard as he could without slamming them into the back of his skull.

“I do,” he said finally, very softly.

“You’ve been married for over thirty years. You’ve been happy. And yet you still have a letter I wrote to you when we were in our early twenties. That says something to you, doesn’t it?”

It did. You never forget your first love. You never let go of the moment she walked out on you. And you never stop reading a letter she wrote to you saying goodbye.

“Lily, please…” he felt like he was begging for his life. Which with Lily was always true. She was the single force in all of his days, that he was powerless to withstand.

“You asked me to look after him. You asked me to arrange a place for him here. You motherfuckers took away his whole life. Literally. You will do this for him or so help me God, Saul…”

“Don’t!” he warned her.

“I have so much on you, you don’t even begin to fathom, lover boy. Don’t fuck with a woman who can take your head off with a handgun from a two mile distance.”

“You wouldn’t…” he wasn’t referring to a ‘handgun’ bit.

“Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn’t. But we both know you won’t take that chance. Just send her the letter.”

“Fuck you to hell,” he cursed, knowing all too well there was nothing he could do at this point.

“Can be arranged,” Lily squinted her eyes.

“Why do you even care?”

“Because people should get closure, Saul. People like us. People like him. They should be allowed to say goodbye. That woman deserves to know what she meant to him. He deserves a measure of being treated like more than what this fucking world made of him. We owe it to him. Because no one else will. No one else knows. Or cares. We have to care. For our own we have to. Or it’s really all for nothing. And we really are all sidelined. Our lives. Our loves. Our hopes. They mean nothing to the people we protect. But they’ve got to mean something to us .”

“Goddamn you, Lil,” Saul felt like a deflated balloon. She always had that power over him. Too smart for her own good. That’s what that woman was.

“I can live with that,” she shot back. “Goddamn me and you and all of us. But not that kid. He had been damned enough for a lifetime. You give him that. You promise me you will.”

“Or what?”

“Or I pick up the phone and I call Carrie Mathison,” she spoke the words he feared more than anything since the time he called her to ask her a favor. He should have known Lily had it in her to dig up the truth. “And I tell her that the only thing she buried in that empty coffin was her heart.”

“Fuck you, Lily,” this was when the game was over. And Saul knew that she was well aware of that.

“As I said… I’m all for it. But for now, I am still waiting for you to say the words.”

“Send it. I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“Not enough.”

“I promise.”

“Good boy,” and just like that, Lily pressed the ‘end call’ button and went back inside.

Chapter Text

December 24th, 2017

Brooklyn, NYC

“Hi,” it was a long ‘hi’, a weirded out ‘hi’, with a high pitch something in the middle. Carrie looked at the pair standing on her doorstep. She smiled, but it was a strained smile. “How did you get here?” It was past nine in the evening. Christmas eve. Who goes to visit people unannounced on Christmas eve?

Wow. Good question. Really good question. Because the simple answer was I grabbed my car keys, a casserole dish, my son and I drove over . And that was probably an answer she should have given. At least that was an answer that normal people, like Carrie here, would expect. Julia cursed under her breath. She knew Johnny heard her. Wouldn’t be the first. She felt herself shrinking under Carrie’s quizzical glance. And all she could think about was that the answer was somewhere in between ‘I picked up a pile of dry cleaning fourteen years ago’ and ‘Ten years ago I was strong enough and stupid enough to watch the only man I ever loved rip his heart out of his chest with his bare hands and walk out the door’.

“I’m sorry,” she heard herself mutter. And there, right there , she knew she finally broke. After fourteen years she stepped over a promise to never say that. A promise she made to one stubborn-ass Erich Segal fan, who used to drill the ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ into her life until she believed it. Until she learnt to live her life like he did - owning up. And never being sorry.

“No, it’s fine,” if anything, Carrie looked even more puzzled now.

What am I doing here?

“I wanted to see you,” Julia blurted, answering the question her mind was grinding over, but saying it out loud. “I’m sorry, it’s really stupid…” she started down the stairs, pulling Johnny after her.

“Hey… HEY,” Carrie managed to grab Julia’s hand, making her stop and turn around. “It’s not ,” she found herself saying, smiling now for real, her eyes betraying more compassion than curiosity now. “Come on in.”

“Mom, who is it?” they heard a ringing voice from inside the apartment. From the sound of it, it was coming closer. There was a flash of red curls and then Franny’s face popped up from behind Carrie’s leg. It lit up the moment she saw their guests. “JJ!!! You came to spend Christmas with us?”

Johnny still didn’t know what to make of that little bouncy girl, who was always so lively and cheerful. He’d been here a couple of times before, visiting Carrie, listening to her stories about his father. But every time Franny would come home, the whole place would become a story about how a fireworks display met a tornado. He found himself smiling despite the tension in the air.

“Hi, Franny,” he said, extending his hand.

She didn’t shake it. She grabbed it and before he could realize what was happening, he was pulled in, past Carrie, who barely had enough time to turn sideways and let them pass.

She laughed and turned to Julia, “So… that’s taken care of.”

“Yeah,” Julia tried to smile, but her jaw twitched instead.

“Are you ok?” Carrie led her into the hallway, one arm around her shoulder, the other taking the casserole dish from her hands.

They walked into the kitchen and Carrie put the food on the counter. She offered to take Julia’s coat and ended up helping her out of it, along with a long scarf and her gloves. She disappeared into the hallway again to put them away, only to come back and find Julia’s slim figure on a chair, curled against the side of her table.  

“I was going to get a bottle of wine,” Julia’s voice sounded apologetic.

Carrie opened the wine cabinet (well, it was NOT just the wine cabinet) and meaningfully motioned with her eyes to its content, “Got it covered. Just choose your poison.”

A man’s head popped in. He had a long face, pale greenish eyes and round-lensed glasses.

“Max, Julia, Julia, Max,” Carrie made quick introduction, taking out two wine glasses, and Julia noticed a quick glance exchange between them.

She could see they were close enough to understand each other without many words. But there was also something very strange about that closeness. Julia had been a cop all her life. She knew when two people weren’t romantically involved. It made her curious about the nature of their relationship, but she said nothing.

“Hi, Max,” she got up and shook his extended hand.

He just nodded and looked at Carrie again, “You guys need anything in here? The kids want to watch a movie. Should I make the guest bedroom?”

Carrie rolled her eyes - despite often wondering how she’d ever managed her life without Max, sometimes he was just too much of a mamma goose, “We’re fine. Enjoy, you guys. Will you be staying over?”

“In the basement, yeah. But I thought…” he motioned to Julia with a slight nod of his head.

“It’s fine,” Julia smiled, “thank you. But I think we’ll be out of your hair soon enough. Don’t trouble yourself.”

Max seemed unconvinced. He shot another meaningful look at Carrie, and Julia thought that she caught a feel of it this time. And, rather surprised to see this kind of perception in a complete stranger, she found herself relaxing a bit. Somehow, seeing this strange man giving a silent legitimation to her being here, late and uninvited, made her feel less of a dork.

“I’ll make the guest bedroom anyway,” he insisted and then looked straight at Julia. “It’s really nice to finally meet you,” he said with a hint of a smile.

There was a sadness about that smile and the way he looked at her. And Julia knew what it was about. What everything here was about. She was a walking (sitting) reminder of a friend those people lost. There was an elephant in that room. And she wasn’t a detective for nothing. Max didn’t say ‘it’s nice to meet you’. There was a ‘finally’ to it. He knew who she was. And he knew who Johnny was. And what his eyes were telling Carrie was ‘She is not going anywhere tonight’.

“He’s…” Carrie started when Max left. Then she stopped. Then tried again. “He’s a friend…” and after another pause she added “A live-in friend. It’s… complicated. I mean… obviously not romantically complicated. Oh, the fuck with that,” she stood up and poured herself a glass of chardonnay. Then half emptied it in one go. The feeling of the familiar warmth spreading from inside made her think of how tense she was, sitting here with this woman, who was nothing but a reminder of so many things she worked so hard to not think about. “He had hard time dealing, after… you know. I guess, it brought us closer. I know it seems like a weird living situation, but... it doesn’t feel like that most of the time. Besides… someone should keep an eye on Max. He can get… pffffffff… a little too emotional.”

Julia was surprised and her expressive black eyes showed it. She had a question at the top of her tongue. But she had learnt over the years to hold back on questions like that. She was impulsive, and her job required a great deal of self-restraint. When she first made detective about three years ago, her captain, a man she had known from the time she was a rookie, warned her about it. And she listened. But, somehow, it didn’t feel right to hold back right now. She wasn’t sure what it was, that brought her here, but maybe Carrie’s ‘live-in friend’ was right - this is where she needed to be. She came to talk to the only person, who knew the father of her son, a man she loved so much and for so long. She came here, because she couldn’t bear being alone anymore. And there was no one else in the world she thought would understand why. She came here, because it was Christmas. And, a while ago, she had found a way to love Christmas again - to sing carols with Johnny without breaking into tears, and to think about how much his father would love seeing them smile and laugh; to figure out a way to be happy again, even if it was just a tribute to what happiness really was; or used to be. But then there was last Christmas. And this Christmas. And, for the first time in ten years, finding the courage to play that fucking Sinatra’s song again. And dancing with a ghost. And, finally, learning the difference... between ‘gone’ and ‘gone’ .

“Do you have something stronger?” she heard her own voice, as she stood up and just walked over to the the liquor cabinet.

Without getting an answer, she dug in. And she found a bottle of Tullamore Dew hiding in the back. Eying Carrie, she got a dismissive nod telling her to go ahead and be her guest. Irish whiskey. Perfect. Like any woman around the kitchen, she found whiskey glasses without any trouble. Looking at Carrie again, she said nothing, but got a silent ‘go ahead, why not’ in return. So she poured two and was back at the table.

Liquid courage they called it. And so it was. Two shots later, she cleared her throat and was ready to ask that question.

“You said Max had hard time dealing,” she started, trying to find a gentle way to approach the subject. “You didn’t?” Subtle, Jules. Reeeeally subtle .

But, if Carrie was taken off guard by her blunt straightforwardness, she never showed it. She thought about it for a while, though, the tip of her finger circling the edge of her wine glass, then doing the same to the whiskey one.

“I think…” she said finally, meeting Julia’s eyes, “I just wasn’t as surprised by it, I guess. I mean… you know he almost died over half a year beforehand, in Berlin. I think, if he died there, I would probably… I dunno… feel worse about it.”

Ok. That was interesting. Julia leaned over the table, “How so?”

“Pffffffffff....” Carrie refilled her glass and gulped it down. The feeling of burning sensation rolling down her esophagus brought an urge she needed to continue. “You know he was a soldier. Deeply devoted and very patriotic. What happened to him in Berlin… I guess I always felt it was the worst death a soldier can hope for - helpless to do anything about it, knowing the entire world is watching you go down in such a terrible way.... Am I making any sense?” when Julia nodded, she felt relieved. It was hard. Harder than it was thinking about it. “I guess, him dying like he did, protecting the office of the President of the United States, taking her to safety, throwing himself in front of those bullets… I don’t think he could ever hope for a better death for himself. I mean, if you live your life pretty much knowing you’re going to die doing what you do, you can at least hope that you die for the cause you spend your life fighting for.”

Julia looked down. She felt her eyes fill with tears and her heart twitching inside her chest, sending painful waves of agony. She knew, on a very practical, cold, rational way - Carrie was right. But how come she was so wrong, too?

“But he wasn’t…” she blurted, her voice breaking. She looked up, tears overflowing her eyes now. “He wasn’t just a soldier to me . He wasn’t a  hero to me. This life he had, this fight he fought, it wasn’t everything he was. Not by the long shot.”

“Well…” it came out way too harsh, cold even. Carrie felt a strange urge to stand up and get out of here. She felt annoyed, and she didn’t know why. This woman clearly couldn’t separate her personal feelings from the truth. And the truth was - after a while, this was his life. The job. The fight. And the truth was, he was lucky he had another lease of life to be able to go down fighting. She had to believe that. The moment she heard her next words, even before they came out of her mouth, she knew how condescending they would sound. But that was the truth - she knew him at the time of his death. Julia - didn’t. “Maybe you just didn’t know him as well as you used to anymore. Because I was here , and I watched him struggle every day with disabilities, with what his life had become. And even before then. He was one of the best operatives I ever worked with. Probably the best one. His job was his life. His dedication to it was his cause. Maybe… years ago, when you two were… involved. Maybe then it was different. I mean, he did want to get out for a while at some point. But in the end, I guess he ended up realizing it was the only thing he could do.”

“It was never the only thing he could do!” Julia felt the rage flood over her, blinding her for a moment.

“Ok, clearly we’re not talking about the same person,” Carrie was starting to lose her patience and seriously regretting getting into this. “I mean, same person, but different times in his life. Whatever he was to you, I don’t think there was much of it left in the end. Just take my word for it. I had hard time letting go of it either. But, believe me , he was very convincing by the end.”

“ Convincing??? ”

“He couldn’t care less if he lived or died. And this death, in the end, was all he could hope for. Call it redemption if you will - a last shot at long lost dignity. Call it whatever you want. He got a chance to go out doing what he did best. Something, most veterans never get. He didn’t end up living the rest of his life broken and hiding from the world, which he believed had no place for him any longer. And it was not for our lack of trying to convince him otherwise,” Carrie felt tears breaking her own voice. There was an anger rising from deep within her. Or was it anger? She couldn’t be sure. But it was something very misplaced, very misdirected. She wasn’t sure if it was meant for her or for Quinn. But it was very powerful and after pausing for a while, she felt it had a numbing effect on her emotions. And she felt herself go softer, more quiet, when she continued. “Things happened to him… in his life… right before he died. A woman who was… who meant alot to him, died because… it was partly his fault,” she took a small sip of whiskey and let several deep breaths bring her to being able to say it. “It broke him. More than he was broken before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so… just gone . He begged me to let him go. I don’t even know what he meant by that anymore. But he pleaded with me. It wasn’t a cry for help. It wasn’t just shying away his disabilities and not wanting to be a burden. He was done . I thought it was bulshit. But I could see that he believed it.”

Carrie went silent after that. She didn’t drink. She didn’t stare. She wasn’t expecting a reply. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure what more could be said on the topic. She looked at Julia, just a quick glance, not because she felt uneasy, but just because . Then she looked back into her glass. Then she shrugged, pulling up just one shoulder, and immediately wondered what brought that on. There was a thought, which crossed her mind very quickly, and it made her physically shiver, and it happened so fast, the thought being so faint and vague, that she didn’t even have time to grasp what it was about, but, apparently, her shoulder did. As if saying ‘so what’ to something. She knew she was right. She had to be. Whatever else her mind was telling her, or trying to show her, it was all just irrational. A weakness. She missed him. She would always miss him. She could admit that much. So, whatever woke her up in the middle of the night, whatever brought on those nightmares of seeing his lifeless face over and over again, rising from behind his seat, realizing the worst had happened, and pushing herself past it - whatever it was, it was natural, it had to be. Part of the grieving process, she figured. But her mind was doing the right thing. She was able to see past the pain of losing him. She was able to acknowledge the fact, that, in the end, the bullet that pierced his heart was a mercy shot. An act of compassion to end a life, that was done. And then some. She was able to detach herself from whatever part of her, that cared for that man, and to see that he got the death he would want. She had an upper hand over her own weakness. It was because she cared about him, that she was ok today. Because she knew him. And what he had become. And what he wanted. He asked her to let him go. Repeatedly. And she did. Because she might have not loved him the way he loved her , but she loved him enough to see that he really meant it. And because she understood he needed to go. Needed to be free of the pain, the guilt, the rage. His words that day were burnt into her memory: there is nothing here, there never was . She knew it was bullshit. Quinn had a heart bigger and truer, than anyone else she ever met. But she could see he meant it. He had hit the rock bottom, and there was no coming back.

Julia did look at Carrie. She squinted her eyes like she always did during interrogations, and she tried to understand if she was really that wrong. Half a year beforehand, this woman called her and asked to meet. She drove to Philly the same day and sat across the table from her in her own kitchen. She said Quinn died. Which Julia knew already. She went to the memorial service, but never got out of the car. She cried for several hours, just sitting there, and then she drove back. He wasn’t out there anymore. He wasn’t taking the fight to the enemy in some distant part of the world. He was nowhere now. Gone for real. And, even though she hadn’t seen him in over five years by then, it broke her. So, when Carrie told her the story of how he died, and a little bit of how he lived for some time before then, she was very grateful. And she felt a strange bond with this woman, who cared enough about Quinn to do something like that to the people he never had a chance to be a family with; to a child, who was orphaned of a father he never knew. Julia thought it took real courage. And real kindness. Carrie introduced herself as ‘John’s friend’. After talking it over, being lost in all the names they could use, in the end they settled on ‘Quinn’. It was easier for Carrie. But not for Julia. She wasn’t convinced at the time about the ‘friend’ bit. But Carrie handled it so well - she was calm, compassionate and rational. So, Julia figured, probably just a ‘friend’ indeed. But then she wasn’t sure anymore. And it was because of what happened with Johnny. They had met several times since then, Carrie and him, to talk about Quinn. And she watched her ten-year-old boy transform before her eyes from someone, who had one parent (excluding her ex-husband) to a child so passionately fascinated and obsessed with his father, that it felt like he had known him his entire life. He couldn’t get enough of Carrie’s stories and he made Julia tell him everything she ever knew about him. Over and over. Some time ago she found a notebook in his room, with short stories, and, without reading all of them, she knew who they were about. His father, a man he never knew, was his hero. You could tell a story in many ways. And, in that moment, Julia had the perfect example - the man she knew and the man Carrie was portraying were so profoundly different. But that wasn’t what Carrie was telling Johnny . Julia heard the stories, she heard the details , she could feel the passion behind them - the longing, the admiration. So, Julia thought, she didn’t buy the ‘friend’ bit anymore. No one could bring so much love and passion into stranger’s life without it being a transference of their own. She wasn’t good at many things, but she was always a good judge of character. Carrie cared for Quinn more than she led on. Julia never commented on that, she never asked - she respected Carrie’s decision not to let her in. After all, there could be many reasons for that. One - them  being complete strangers, two - Julia being the ex. But that just made her admire Carrie so much more. She did this for Johnny and it was probably tearing her apart. She loved him. Julia was sure of it. That was, until today. Until right now.

She gulped down a heavy shot this time and went all the way in, “Were the two of you…” how did Carrie put it so eloquently? “...involved?”

Carrie’s eyes opened wide. She turned her face to Julia and stilled for a moment. Many different answers to that question varied from ‘remind me how it’s any of your business’ to ‘what does that have to do with anything ’.

“No,” she said in the end, keeping her voice calm. And she made sure her face reflected it. But then she felt her eyelids flicker, not all the way, just a brief tremble, and, at the same time she could see the expression in Julia’s change from defying to soft. Fuck. Fuck this shit. She knew she had lost the battle of ‘let me be very clear’ on that one.

“So, kind of ,” Julia cleared any doubt Carrie might’ve still had about that ‘flicker’ being misinterpreted.

Carrie let out a long puff of air and reached for her drink. There was no way around it now, “It was…” God, she hated that word, “complicated.”

“But you loved him,” not a question.

“I… think so,” slight nod, long sip of whiskey. Then, “In a way I did.”

“Did he love you ?” nailing the coffin.

“Yes,” without hesitation, without a doubt, without a drink. But with tears betraying everything she stood for in the last year and rolling down her face.

Julia reached for her hand, but stopped. A loud and fast thumping of feet against the wooden floors was coming closer. She saw Carrie turn away, one quick motion, bring both hands to her face and use the heels of her palms to wipe her tears, then quickly swiping the tips of her fingers under her eyes and over her eyelashes. Experience , Julia thought and her own chin trembled. You learn that. Being a mother. Being a woman. You learn to seem happy for your children.

By the time Franny got to her mother, Carrie’s face was one big smile and she caught her daughter half leap, scooping her into her arms.

“Well, hello,” she left a trail of loud ringing kisses from Franny’s cheek all the way to the curve of her neck.

“Mom, tickling,” the girl laughed, trying to get away.

“Not my fault that you’re so yummy,” Carrie pressed her lips to the tiny nose. “What’s up, bug? Are you guys having  fun with Max?”

“Yes,” Franny nodded hard and her red curls bounced around her head.

“I’m sooooo glad. Is Hop having fun, too?”

“Well, NO . He is protecting the tree, remember?”

“Right. On duty. Got it,” she turned to Julia and gave her a meaningful wink. “Hop is our guarding rabbit. He protects us. And the tree.”

“Yes,” Franny beamed seeing her mother playing along. And she looked at their guest as well. “Because he is like Peter Rabbit. Get it?”

“Oh, I definitely get it,” Julia smiled. Her eyes didn’t. She stole a quick glance at Carrie. She could tell that this wasn’t her favorite game.

“Mom,” Franny turned her attention back to Carrie. “Max says it’s almost ten and it’s time for me to go to bed soon. But he said if you say it’s fine, I can stay up later, ‘cause it’s Christmas and JJ isn’t going to bed yet. And we can watch a movie. Can I? Please?”

“Because it’s Christmas. And because JJ is here,” Carrie gave her another ringing kiss. “What are you guys going to watch?”

“Well,” Franny tilted her head to the side, her face very serious, which made it even more adorable, “JJ wanted to watch ‘Die Hard’, but we’re thinking ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.”

“Ah-ha. Very Christmassy choice. Although, I thought we usually let our guests decide.”

“We do. But we watched ‘Die Hard’ last year. Don’t you remember?”

Right. Remember . Because forgetting your four-year-old trying to pronounce ‘Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker’ and claiming, to her defense, that ‘... but you say it, and Max says it, and Quinn used to say it…’ was an option .

“But maybe JJ didn’t.”

A head popped in from around the door frame, “It’s ok, Miss Mathison. I have . And I’m always ok with Star Wars, anyways.”

“I see. And it’s Carrie . For the thousandth time!” Carrie smiled watching Johnny come closer and reach for Franny’s hand. Her daughter slid down from her lap and was ready to surge back to the living room. “I see you two are getting along.”

“Yeah,” he let out a short meaningful chuckle. “We made friends.”

The lights are off. Or maybe they aren’t. But it’s dark now. Carrie isn’t sitting. She is walking. Her feet hurt - been on high heels for the whole day. Her chest feels uneasy, the sadness is all around her. And yet, there is a lightness, too. She lost her father. But there is also a feeling of something found, something treasured, something cherished, something almost lost as well, but NOT. A feeling of fabric brushing against her exposed arm. It’s a sleeve of a suit. Someone is walking right next to her. A sensation of being safe. Being protected. Being home. You and Franny seemed to have hit it off , she hears herself saying. The feeling of joy is overwhelming, almost too much. The feeling of ‘maybe’. It scares her a little, but she can’t give in to that fear. She needs to hold on to this. Just a little longer. There is an image in her mind. Of a happy baby. Happy man. Strong man. Strong hands holding a fragile child. Her child. Her man? There is so much tenderness to that image, so much revelation, so much bliss, so much hope. Yeah, we made friends , she hears in return.

“Mom? Mom?” the light turned back on slowly - a vignette image clearing from a center. She was still in her kitchen, on a chair. But everything was a little blurry. Franny was there, she was tugging on her arm. “Are you and Julia coming to watch with us?”

Too late to wipe her tears now, Carrie realized. She didn’t even remember how they happened. She smiled, “In a little while, honey. Sure. You guys go have fun.”

She looked at Johnny’s face. His steely blue eyes were full of concern, “Carrie,” he managed, for the first time since she had known him. “Would you like a glass of water? You look a little pale.”

She didn’t answer at first, drowning in those eyes. Don’t look away , her mind begged. She blinked, forcing herself back. Wiping her memory clean. There was no use for that. It was a weakness. It never happened. Not for real. It was just a moment from a long time ago. In the end - it remained just that, a moment to remember. And in this case - to forget. There was no use.

“I’m fine, Johnny. Go ahead,” her voice was calm again, her tears absorbed back into her eyes. Her smile - sincere.

He took out a glass and filled it with cold tap water. Then he put it on a table next to her, “Just in case you change your mind,” he whispered, leaning closer and awkwardly kissing her cheek. It was the first. And it was as bittersweet as was everything about this boy.

Carrie watched them go away. Back into their childhood, back into the living room, where it was safe. She took a deep breath and let her head fall back against the wall behind her. Without looking she found her whiskey glass. It was full. Julia. She took three big sips.

“It’s the eyes,” she heard Julia’s voice finding its way to her mind. “The older he gets, the harder it becomes to look at them without seeing .”

Carrie turned her face without lifting her head. Back here. The frustration was back in a heartbeat, the need to flee overpowering to the point of feeling her leg muscles twitch. This was a bad idea. She was doing great. She knew the truth. She didn’t just believe it. She was so sure. She didn’t need this woman telling her who Quinn was. She knew him. She was the one watching him drown in his self-loathing day after day. She was the one in that car. Getting into that car. Knowing she wasn’t supposed to stay down for nothing. The windshield was bullet proof. But not hundred bullets proof. She needed to stay down, because they both knew sooner or later the bullets will get inside. And they would hit whatever they met. And they booth knew what they would meet. And they both got into the car, anyway. Him - in front of the bullets. Her - behind her human shield. She did what he said . She made that choice. She lived with it. And she was ok. Really ok. And Saul was wrong. She wasn’t going to hit a wall. It’d been a year since. And she still believed it. She still carried on.

A shiver ran down her spine. What now ? She was beginning to get used to that. Every time she would rationalize her feelings, her coping, which was so right and so true, something would make her shrug, or shiver, or ripple her arms with goose bumps. And every time the thought would come to wipe it clean - whatever it was. It was a different thought every time: sometimes ‘so what’ and sometimes ‘I don’t care’ and sometimes, a more disturbing, ‘ leave me alone ’.

“I need to…” Julia stood up and pointed backwardly with her thumb. “Bathroom? Where is it?”

“Oh,” Carrie snapped out of it and sat up. “There is one on this floor, but it’s been acting up. Upstairs. You can use the one in my bedroom. Or the guest bedroom.”

“Ok, thanks. Be back soon. Sorry,” Julia disappeared into the living room as well.

She walked into another plane of existence. There were smells of food and freshly made popcorn. There was a big tv on the wall, with yellow letters flying into a distant dot in space. And there were three people on the couch across the room, three pairs of feet on a coffee table next to it, cuddled together, Johnny’s arm around Franny, Max with a laptop on his knees, eyeing the movie and the kids from time to time, and smiling. There was a life in this room. And she felt her trembling subside slowly. Franny was talking non stop - a mouthful of spoilers. Luckily, nothing was a spoiler for Julia’s son when it came to Star Wars, or Star Trek for that matter. But he gave her all his attention, listening closely, acting surprised, fascinated. There was a bond there, which  made Julia’s heart flutter. She regretted coming here. She was terrified of what she had found. But she was also happy. Now. Seeing her son chatting with his five-year-old groupie. Seeing him happy. He was a child. His happiness was simple. And yet, his eyes, his father’s eyes, looked the same as they did when they were happy. A long time ago.

She looked at the Christmas tree in the corner. It was a real mess - small, missing branches, decorated with colored strings, paper clips and stormtrooper figures. But it was beautiful, too. It felt like a family worked on it, everyone bringing a part of who they were. And there was an off-white plush bunny sitting on the window sill next to it. Looking very serious. On duty. Julia crossed the room and touched a hand to the long fluffy ear. There you are . The tears ripped through her eyes with a vengeful force. There you are .

She could feel someone coming close from behind her.

“You ok?” Max asked.

“ Really not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“See,” Julia turned around. Her eyes were full of pain and fury. “This is what people say to each other, when they suffer a loss of a loved one. They say ‘I’m sorry’. They don’t say ‘I’m actually kind of ok with it’. Or ‘this is what he would want’...”

“Ah,” Max interrupted. He was familiar with that line of ‘sayings’ all too well. “You’ve heard the ‘he got the best death a soldier can dream of’ speech.”

“And then some,” Julia cursed under her breath. “Max, what the fuck is wrong with her?”

“Shhh,” he shot a look at Franny, happy that her attention was engaged elsewhere. “Let me show you where the bathroom is.”

“Carrie told me.”

Max rolled his eyes and took her elbow, “Ok. Let me rephrase that. Let me take you to a place where we can talk. I’d think an ex of a spy would be more familiar with the talk .”

They walked up the stairs and Max led Julia into an empty bedroom. He left the door open a crack so they could hear the kids. Then he turned to her, and even in the gloom of this barely lit room she could see the desperation in his eyes.

“What’s wrong with her is everything ,” he uttered, emphasizing almost every word.

“You don’t say!” the sarcastic tone of Julia’s voice slashed through the air. “I just watched her black out in the middle of talking to her kid. And my kid. One minute she was there, smiling, and the next she was… woooooo… GONE. Mumbling something, smiling, tearing. This is not ok, Max. Forget the fact that it’s not grieving , it’s…”

“Sick,” he finished her sentence, his voice as low as a whisper. But very clear, too. “She is sick, Julia. She has bipolar disorder. And it’s poorly managed as it is. Then this happened.”

“‘ This ’ again!” she snapped. “Do you people all have difficulty saying it? The whole time she was talking, she barely said his name once . This is called ‘Quinn died’. I don’t know who he was to you, or to her, but this has a name. And a face. And I don’t know what kind of help Carrie needs, but you all seem to be living in the shadow of this .”

“Hey,” Max grabbed her hand. She tried to set herself free, but he just squeezed tighter. For a man with a face of a dork, thin rimmed glasses and not a whole lot of height, he was surprisingly strong. “You don’t understand the half of what that woman has been through. Don’t judge. Maybe we don’t call it by name because we don’t have to . Maybe it’s because we all live it . Every day. You don’t know what it’s like to live here. And I don’t live here because I have no place to go. I am here because someone has to be. Because she is my friend. And no matter how screwed up she can get, she is the most brilliant person I have ever met. And the kindest one,” his grip on her arm got loose, and he knew she wasn’t going anywhere now. “You… You get on your high horse and throw things like ‘she went bananas in front of my kid’. Were you ever going to tell your kid about his father? And if you were, would you ever know the half of who he was and what he did after you two split? Do you think it was easy on her? It shredded her. The last remains of her. That ‘blackout’ you saw? It’s not a blackout . It’s a flashback . Probably bordering a hallucination. She has them all the time. Sometimes days go by without one. But, every time after she meets with Johnny, she has weeks of them, on and off, all the time. I live here, so I can make sure Franny is ok. So that nobody else knows. So she doesn’t end up institutionalized again. And I stay here when she talks to JJ, because she asked me to. So I can watch over her. Make sure she keeps it together. See, she knows what it costs her. And she does it anyway. Because this is Carrie. She does this for Quinn. It’s her own fucked-up way of making it up to him. She is eaten alive by guilt and she doesn’t even know it. This speech she gave you, about being ok with his death, it’s a cover of a book. And it’s a beautiful one, too. But be glad you never got to open it. Because inside it’s scorched and rotten. Pages ripped out and entire chapters redacted. And those flashbacks, like the one you saw… they are the glimpses you get. Into what the book is really about,” his voice broke hard, and the tears were not just in his eyes anymore.

Julia touched his hand, tearing up herself, and she nodded, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t know . I’m just making things worse.”

“Oh, that’s the thing,” Max swallowed some tears. “You should have come. You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here. I am…” he looked away, catching his breath. “I am at the end of the rope, Julia. I need help. I need someone . Someone who knows. Someone who cares.”

“Wow… pfffff… no. Nah-ah,” Julia took a step back. “This is way out of my league. I am in no position to intervene. I don’t have the skills, I don’t have the training , I don’t even know what bipolar means besides it being a psychiatric disorder. Fuck, this is not something i can help you with, Max. I am sorry. I wish I could. I really do.”

“I… am not asking you to be a psychiatrist,” he shook his head from side to side. “Just… try. Talk to her. Make her listen. See, the only things I can talk to her about she already knows. They are all in that damn book of hers. She keeps it locked away. And I can’t get through. But you… you know things she doesn’t. I dunno… Maybe I’m way off here. Maybe I’m being naive and she does need to be locked up. But I can’t. Not yet.”

“Max,” Julia’s face was a painting of compassion over a layer of pain. She took his hand into hers now. “I don’t know you. But I don’t have to really know you to see what a great friend… and person you are. But you’ve gotta see this is over your head. Both our heads. The kind of help she needs, we can’t… we would never be able to give her.”

“But we have to try,” he pleaded, refusing to let go, gripping her hand so hard that she winced in pain. “I can’t give up on her. I can’t. Quinn would…” his voice choked in his throat and it took him a while to find it again. “She doesn’t even know, what she lost. And, what’s worse, she is convinced she does … Oh God,” he threw his head back and closed his eyes. “You don’t know how bad it is. The nightmares. They were bad at the beginning , but now… She screams in her sleep the way I never heard anyone scream. I run into her room and find her covered in cold sweat, mumbling his name, then screaming it again. I can barely wake her up. She takes sleeping pills. And now… Oh fuck…” he looked down at Julia again. “Something happened couple of months back… something I can’t even… I don’t even know how to… I can’t believe I’m actually… FUCK! Oh, Jesus…” he turned his face away from her, panting, hurting, breaking down.

“Hey,” Julia stepped closer, first her hand, then both her arms making contact. She was convinced she was in no position to help, even more so now, but that  just made her heart break harder. Not for Carrie. For Max. She held him. “Shhh… just… stop. You don’t have to talk about it.”

Max breathed out an angry sarcastic laughter. Right. He didn’t have to talk about it. And the truth was, he didn’t even have to think about it. But he could think of little else ever since that night. Wondering. Was he being a friend? A ghost? A hand reaching out from another world to put a plaster over a gushing wound?

“She takes Ambien,” he blurted. And he knew now he was about to tell a total stranger something he thought he would never tell a soul.

Julia looked at him, her eyes narrowing, “For sleeping. Right? It’s a sleeping pill.”

“Well, yeah. But not just . She has been self-medicating for months now. You don’t know Carrie, but she’s a very resourceful woman. She gets things she wants. I can’t do anything about it. She takes pills by a mouthful… pills I don’t think her psychiatrist prescribed. All I can do is read on them and be ready when the side effects kick in. So I can know what to expect,” he let out a bitter laugh. “And I should have known what to expect when a borderline unstable and constantly drunk bipolar woman started taking Ambien. But hey… it’s Carrie. You never know what to expect with her.”

“Max,” Julia interrupted, making him turn and face her now. “I know you’re telling me this trying to convince me to help you… but… If anything , you’re convincing me of what I already told you - this is NOT something you or I can fix. She needs professional help. I mean, I feel for you, I really do - you love her, she’s your friend and you want to help. But you seem like a smart person. You should know that the best help you can give, sometimes, is by doing the hard right thing.”

“I can’t ,” he leaned closer, not even trying to stop his tears anymore. “I can’t have her committed. Not for this . I am not a professional, I know that. But I also know what she needs. And it’s not more meds. Or a support group. Carrie is different. She handles things differently. And, maybe I will find out the hard way how wrong I am, but I think all she needs is to… open that damn book and look inside. And deal with it. Like we all had to. Deal with what she really lost a year ago. Because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen one night without nightmares,” he was breathing hard, getting dizzy, shivering from inside out just remembering that night. “One night I woke up and found her sitting on my bed, in the basement. She was saying something and I tried to make sense of it, but then I realized she wasn’t talking to me. She was mumbling things like ‘how can you even ask me why ?’, having a whole conversation about things I can’t even begin to imagine. She was sleepwalking and it was a whole new can of worms none of us needed. Thank you, Ambien…” he saw Julia open her mouth to say something, but he couldn’t let her. Not right now. Not when it was almost out. “But then… she does the next best thing. And she climbs into my bed.”

“Oh my God,” Julia felt her own eyes close, and her chest felt like it formed a ball of fire inside.

“She gets under my covers,” Max went on, not being able to stop anymore, tears streaming down his face, his voice so broken it was barely audible. “And she has her back to me. And she smiles and closes her eyes. And I know it’s not supposed to be me there, next to her…” he took a deep breath, looking into Julia’s eyes then. “You know what I did?”

“Got the fuck out of there and let her sleep in your bed?” she managed to utter, her lips moving with great strain.

“No,” Max looked away for a while, embarrassed, but then leveled his eyes with Julia’s again. “I stayed. I put my arm around her. And I whispered ‘It’s f-f-f-f…ok, Carrie. I’m here. J-j-just sleep.’”

Julia started to say something, but no words came out. What can you say to that ? Even her mind was quiet for some time. Her thoughts hid behind a wall of whatever was sane and normal about her own grief. She came here to talk to a woman, who knew a man she loved once. And she found a pile of ashes, that were once someone’s life, someone’s love.

“She slept that night,” Max said finally, after calming his breathing, and his voice, “and she didn’t have nightmares. I stayed up. And I took her to bed at dawn. She is so heavily medicated she never remembers waking up at night. It was the only night I remember her not screaming. And probably the only real, happy smile I’ve seen in this whole year.”

“Jesus Christ, Max…”

“You see, I figured, it was the only time those two worlds were bridged - the one she lives and the one that lives inside of her. I am afraid if (or when) they clash for real, she won’t survive it. And I thought, maybe this is what we can do. Maybe we can bring new pictures into her head. Of Quinn. But not the ones she has locked away.”

“I don’t know…”

“Please,” he took her hand again, softly this time. “You loved Quinn. At one time. I did, too. He loved her so much. If not for her…” he exhaled, hating himself for doing this. “Do this for Quinn. He would want her to be ok. To move on. And I can’t get to her. Not on my own.”

“Hey, blackmail is not cool,” Julia tried to smile and for a moment it even worked. And she could see the corners of Max’s lips curve up as well. She sighed. Then looked up, an expression of sadness being replaced by an iron hard determination. “Shit, Max...”

Max couldn’t even utter a ‘thank you’, but it was written all over his face.

“I’m gonna pop into the bathroom… for real now,” Julia wiped her tears. “Then I’ll go back. Can you find and download a song for me?” she gave him her phone and a name of the song. “It’s not an iPhone… so might need to…”

“Got it,” Max was already clicking something on her screen.

“The password is…”

“Got it. I’m in.”

“Unfuckingbelievable,” she shook her head and disappeared behind the bathroom door.

___________________________________

Julia found Carrie in the same position, still sitting at her side of the table, both her wine glass and her whiskey glass next to her. She looked tired. But, when Julia walked in, she could see a tiny smile touching the corners of her eyes. It gave Julia hope. And strength. She took her chair and moved it to the front of the table, so that she could be closer, right across the corner from Carrie. She didn’t take her drink. And she didn’t apologize for taking her time in the bathroom.

She could see one of Carrie’s eyebrows move up a little, as she watched her bring her chair even closer and put her phone on the table, “So…” Carrie was the first one to break the silence. “The interrogation continues…”

Julia laughed at that, and shook her head, “Sorry about that. Old habits…”

“Hey… I get it. Been there .”

Julia slid her elbow across the surface of the table and propped the side of her head on her palm, facing Carrie. She moved her lips from side to side, considering the right words to start with. But then decided to go with what mattered most - the one thing that could be a good start in ‘bridging worlds’ - the truth.

“The reason I came here today is because I felt sad,” she began. “Christmas is always hard on me. And I will tell you why in a little bit. I came to you, because you were the only person in the world I could talk to about Quinn. Something happened last week and it broke me all over again. And I needed to be with someone, who would understand. Someone, who would know. I thought…” she paused, gathering her thoughts again, “that maybe you would like to have someone to talk about him, too.”

“Thanks,” Carrie went for a smile and actually managed it. It wasn’t so hard after all. “I’m fine, though. I told you.”

“Yeah, and I can see that now,” Julia lied with a straight face. Occupational hazard. “I wish I were strong enough… or brave enough… to see the things as clearly as you do. But maybe you’re right. Maybe I didn’t know him the way you did. Not recently, anyway,” seeing how Carrie wasn’t going to say anything to that, she continued, slowly moving her game up a level. “You did something for us… that’s so extraordinary. I can’t begin to tell you… I could never tell you what it means to me. And to Johnny. And I can only imagine that it hasn’t been easy, bringing up all those memories. I just wanted you to know, I am grateful beyond what any words can say.”

Carrie’s chin trembled, and slowly the twitching moved up, to her lower lip first, then to her eyes. They became almost transparent, glistening with tears. She said nothing. But she nodded. And Julia found the courage to reach for her hand.

“I don’t know if it would make me feel better, or if it’s my dorky way of saying thank you,” she continued. “But I would like to return a favor, if it’s ok. Or maybe... just to have someone to talk to about it. Because in the last ten years I never did,” without waiting for Carrie’s reply, not willing to take the risk of being refused, Julia unlocked her phone. The music player was open and the song paused at the very beginning. Max. She smiled. “I’m going to play a song to you now. It’s beautiful. And Christmasy. And it’s very special to me. It was Quinn’s favorite song in the whole world. Well, he had a lot of favorite songs. But…” she paused and let the memories wash over her, her eyes closing for some time, then meeting Carrie’s again. “It was the most favorite, because Christmas was his favorite time of year. We moved in together pretty much right away. And we had this tiny apartment in a huge city block. It was always such a mess. But.. you know… a happy mess. Books, CDs, clothes, guns … pretty much all over the place. And it was never tidied up. I swear…” she laughed and her face just stayed lit when she went on. “Quinn had A LOT of crazy ideas about Christmas. And he made me do ALL of them with him. But mostly, every Christmas eve… around this time, actually… he would play this song. And he would have me dance with him. Slowly… moving around the mess on our floor… giggling at that… then getting serious again… And then he would say we didn’t do it right , and play the damn song again, and we would dance again… . And again.... So, if it’s ok, I would like to listen to it now. And then I would like to tell you a story.”

“A story ,” Carrie found her voice choked, but she did mouth it.

“Yeah. A love story. My love story,” Julia smiled, thinking of a good way to start. “You ever read the actual book ‘Love story’ by Erich Segal?”

“Mmmmm no, I don’t think so. But I watched the movie. God, it was… phew… so long ago. I think I was in high school,” against all odds Carrie found herself relax a little. And she didn’t think it was the alcohol, that did that.

“Good,” Julia frowned a little, trying to remember the exact words. “Then you probably remember how it begins. It’s such a dead giveaway spoiler, that it’s hard to forget,” she had to keep her voice very calm and very steady to be able to say what she wanted to. The way she wanted to. “Quinn…” then she stopped herself. No more Quinn. And she continued from the place that was only hers now, “ Johnny … he might have changed, you’re right. But I don’t think he changed where it really mattered. He was a bookworm… did you know that? Big time. I used to tease him, that he would read a restaurant menu if it had more than two pages… and then make me discuss it with him. And he could get into anything , from classics and short stories, to science fiction, to fantasy, to thrillers… anything . And he had a head full of quotes, too. I think he read ‘Love story’ long before we met, because from the get go he had a quote from it for every fucking occasion ,” she smiled, “But mostly, he loved that beginning . He always said it made him feel that this is what love was really about - the sum of things we were to each other, the things we would always remember. And now, today , I know he was so right. I’ve lost him twice. And yet, all I can think about is what I would say about him… what I want to say and remember about him,” she let the past come closer. And she let it have her. Once more. Just once more. “ What can you say about a forty year old man who was killed in the line of duty? That he was beautiful.  And brave. And brilliant. And funny. And a little silly. And stubborn. And sweet. And hopeful. That he loved Sinatra. And The Beatles. And feeding street cats. And making grilled cheese sandwiches at five in the morning. And Christmas. And me. ”

She pushed play and got a better hold of Carrie’s hand. They were both crying now. The tears were light. Almost happy. The image was colorful and a little silly. But it was true. And the feeling of Christmas had a whole different scent to it now: a scent of love - a love shared, a love lost, and yet treasured beyond words. And, as the first accords of the song rang on, coming from both phone’s speakers and a distant, but cherished memory, Julia smiled. And Carrie found herself squeezing her hand back.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

Next year all our troubles

Will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Make the Yuletide gay

Next year all our troubles

Will be miles away

Once again as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Will be near to us, once more

Someday soon we all will be together

If the fates allow

Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow

So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Chapter Text

To say that Max was puzzled by the sounds of laughter coming from the kitchen would probably be an understatement of the century. It came in bursts, following long intermissions of talking, but, when it did, it was quite eruptive and very disturbing, considering the supposed topic of the conversation. At some point he thought he heard Carrie laugh so hard, she made a loud snorting noise. What the fuck? Just how drunk are they? About half an hour beforehand he had been happy to realize that, despite appearances, he wasn’t crazy thinking, that it was… well crazy . During one of such bursts, he saw Johnny lift his head and ask if they were talking about his father. To which Franny, never failing to be her sensible self, said “No, silly. Talking about your father makes everyone sad. Not laugh.” And, boy, was Max proud of her at that moment. Thank you, five-year-old voice of reason , he thought and reached above Johnny’s head to stroke Franny’s hair. Although, then she added “Like uncle Max, right after your father died, he used to get really drunk and cry in the kitchen.” After that comment, Max was considerably less happy about Franny’s sensibility and, in particular, her being able to articulate it quite so effortlessly.

The movie was almost over. Well, it was almost over for him . The other two ‘viewers’ were fast asleep next to him and had been for some time. Franny ended up sliding all the way down the back of the sofa, so that her head was basically the only thing against it now, while the rest of her body was half curled half stretched all the way across the seat and the coffee table. Johnny had fallen somewhat to the side, his arm still somewhere above Franny’s head, hovering over her.

Max closed the lid of his laptop and looked around. The voices coming from the kitchen showed no sign of the conversation being anywhere near the end. After giving it due consideration, he stood up and walked over there. It really didn’t sound like they were talking about deep and personal stuff. And, if anything, he was beginning to get more curious than puzzled.

The first really audible thing he heard was “...n’t imagine Quinn caroling for neighbors…” in Carrie’s voice. Then that laughter again. And then they  noticed him standing there.

“Max,” Carrie waved him over, “Would you ever imagine Quinn singing Christmas carols?”

Imagine? Max always thought he could imagine quite a bit, actually. But no, not that .

He was about to answer something, when Julia stopped him with a motion of her palm, “Why imagine? Hold on a second…” she picked up her phone and quickly unlocked it. To his horror he could see she was scrolling through a long list of voice recordings, mumbling “Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, that it’ll come back to bite you in the ass, Johnny,” she seemed to finally find the track she was looking for.

“You don’t actually have a…” he started, feeling a sudden chill running down his spine.

“Are you kidding me? I was running out of ways to make him stop! In the end all I was left was an attempt of blackmail. You have no idea how annoying he could get, dragging me around with him every year . After the first time, the following year I was ready. I actually pulled my service weapon on him and said that I was gonna end him right there and then, but there was no way in hell I was doing that crap again. He would just go from door to door… and you can imagine a huge city block… knock and start spreading the cheer … wearing his sweat pants, a hoodie, home slippers and a dorky red hat. And he wouldn’t let go of my hand and wouldn’t stop staring me down until I joined. And mind you, none of us could carry a tune… But you know what… here you go: judge for yourselves,” she pushed play.

“Wait,” Carrie paused it, “you pulled your service weapon on him and what ?”

“What do you think ?” Julia rolled her eyes. “He pulled his . And it was bigger . And he said ‘just give it up and let’s go, Jules’”, meaningfully motioning me to the door with a barrel .”

“Ok, I can imagine that ,” Max nodded.

“Yeah,” Carrie snorted again, “same here,” and she unpaused the recording.

There was a commotion in the background, then something said in a low familiar voice, then Julia’s hissing something back, then knocking. The door seemed to open and they heard children laughing and clapping their hands - obviously not the first year they had seen that duo standing in front of them. Then…

…”Which one?” in whispering Julia’s voice.

“How the fuck should I know?” very appropriate for the present children response.

“Johnny! The kids!”

“Oh, fuck! I mean… damn… oh, screw it. Deck the Halls? Go…”

“What go? I’m not doing the lalalalala part again.”

“Ffffffsssake,” a deep sigh. “Ok, I’ll do it. Just start.”

“Are you guys going to sing Christmas Carols or not?” an impatient child’s voice.

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly…” in high pitched very off tune Julia’s voice.

“Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…” not, actually, that off tune and surprisingly cheerful Quinn’s voice, sounding a little younger than Max and Carrie remembered, but yet, unmistakable…

Muffled laughter. Julia’s. Then not so muffled anymore. Then Quinn’s whisper, “I swear to God, Jules…”. Then Julia’s apologetic “Ok, ok, sorry… ‘Tis the season to be jolly…”

““Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…” …

The recording wasn’t very long. And yet, somehow, it seemed to be stretched over so many things. Max felt the stinging of tears behind his eyes. Happiness could be silly, he thought, and real.

“Ok, I can believe the first part,” Carrie scrolled back a little. And Max wondered if anyone else wished the same thing could be done with life.

“So,” he hated to be the party pooper, breaking the silence, that followed. “The kids are out on the sofa. We should probably take them to bed and move this convention to the living room. And we should definitely get some food into you both. To supplement the liquid courage,” he motioned with his eyes to the empty bottle of Irish whiskey and an almost empty bottle of chardonnay.

“Definitely,” Carrie repeated, standing up and immediately grabbing the edge of the table to steady herself. “Oh wow… I’m…”

“Yeah. My point.”

“We still have the… the…”

“... food left over from dinner ,” Max suggested an ending for that sentence and shook his head. “If you can reheat some without burning down the house, that’d be great.”

“I dunno,” Carrie frowned, stumbling to the fridge and opening the freezer side. “I actually feel like having some fries… Jules? ” she turned around, holding a pack of frozen french fries, and clearly imitating Quinn’s way of calling her.

“ Speaking of burning down the house,” Julia was no firefighter, but she could recognize a fire hazard in dealing with hot oil in their condition. “How ‘bout we leave the responsible adult here…” she nodded in Max’s direction, “to take care of food and go put the kids to bed instead. Not many ways that can go wrong,” she stood up and stretched, completely stable.

“Hey… heeeyyyyyy…” Carrie attempted to close the fridge door and ended up swinging on it. “I’m Irish… how come you can hold your liquor better than me?”

“I dunno,” Julia took her elbow, closed the freezer and wormed her arm around hers. “Could have something to do with me having four shots and you… well, the rest. Just guessing here. Let’s go, lassie .”

Carrie nodded, her chin wrinkling and her mouth curving down to emphasize owning up to it, “‘Tis a good point, Jules,” then she thought about something else. “Hey, how were you going to use that recording to blackmail Quinn?”

“Ah. That,” Julia smiled. “I told him that one more caroling fiasco and I was gonna mail it to his boss at the CIA.”

The next burst of laughter had to do less with the lame attempt to stop what seemed to be a very determined Quinn from doing what he clearly had his mind set on in that ‘dead’ way they all knew so well, than with imagining Dar Adal’s face should he ever get this recording.

“Now, that is a good Christmas story,” Carrie wiped her eyes, still laughing. “Wait, you knew what he did?”

“From the very first day.”

“ All of it?”

“All of it.”

“Wait, how did you two meet? Your story is all backwards!”

“Yeah, well, seeing how before I had a chance to start it you asked me ‘Quinn could dance ?’, it kinda had to go downhill from there. Now, kids, then the rest of it. And we do need to move to the couch, ‘cause my butt feels as flat as that chair.”

“Your butt’s just fine,” Carrie, being led away from the kitchen, turned to sneak a peek. “I mean, fine .”

“Ok, for the future, I am pouring your drinks.”

Max was about to take out the leftovers, but he thought better of it. He followed them to the living room and took out his phone, instead. He wasn’t big on taking pictures, as a rule, and he often teased Carrie on having her gallery constantly overflowing with junk that she ended up deleting to free space on her phone’s internal storage. He was wondering if it had to do with Julia keeping this recording for so many years, and it eventually finding the way to the lives of people she hadn’t known when she took it, and bringing them a memory they never lived through, of the man they never imagined had a life like that (or was capable of having a life like that, for that matter). The thin line between sadness and laughter was even a bigger mystery to him now. He found himself smiling, and then chuckling, just thinking about it. But, for some reason, he felt an urge to keep this moment, and, above that, to share it with someone, who, being half a globe away, was as worried about Carrie as he was. He opened the stills camera, but then switched to the video mode. It wasn’t much. A short clip. Of two women who had so little in common. But who had been brought together by however little that was, nevertheless. On a night, when they say miracles could happen. And, he figured, it didn’t get much more miraculous than this in their lives. There could be years, he thought, before these memories would bring comfort to someone. But he was going to make them, nevertheless. Just in case. Because, he just witnessed first-hand how much it could mean, when you have something lost and something found being meshed together. Whether it was their booze talking or his wanting for it to be a beginning of a bond, he couldn’t tell. But one thing he knew for sure - he was going to take pictures. And videos. Of every day. So that sometime, maybe, to someone, they would mean finding courage to smile again. To laugh. To hope. It wasn’t a long clip. But it stretched over so many things.

He opened a new incognito chat in Telegram and, without much consideration, pressed ‘send’. He could see the other person coming online within seconds. He always did.

-Hello to you too. Is that?...

-Yep

-How did THAT happen?

-Christmas miracles

Saul Berenson was skeptical. For once, he didn’t celebrate Christmas. Above that, he didn’t believe in miracles. But mostly, and that was a big mostly, he was well aware of just how ‘man made’ (more like ‘woman made’) that miracle was .

Sitting in the back of a town car in Paris, being driven to the airport, he watched the video clip again. Goddamn you, Lily . He was never an easy going type. He dreaded mailing that letter. And now, seeing, without a doubt, where it led, he couldn’t help wondering how it’s going to make a full circle just to come and bite him in the ass. Did Julia understand? Did she buy the story that it was just a belated goodbye letter delivered years post factum to its beneficiary? Why was she at Carrie’s then? Why did they both look happy? He wished he could ask Max. But Max didn’t know. He could never know.

With a heavy heart he opened the soft keyboard again. His thumbs lingering above the virtual letters he thought about the best way to reply. Was there a way to find out? He couldn’t think of one.

-Some miracles. Did Carrie invite her for Christmas because of Johnny?

-No. Just showed up

Fuck. FUCK. Fuck you, Lily!!!

He decided to let it go for now.

-She looks better

-Maybe

-?

-Maybe… it’s a start

-They talked?

-Yeah

-About?

-Shopping, Saul. And eggnog recipes. And diaper rash. What do you THINK?

Fair point , Saul thought, appreciating a good sarcasm even in the messenger window. He figured something he could try to find out more.

-I guess Julia is grieving, too

-Yeah. She needed to talk. I thought it was good. For both of them

A wave of relief washed over Saul. There was even a smile. Sad smile, but all the same.

-Gotta go now. Say hi

-Really?

-No. Figure of speech

-See you tomorrow

-Sure, bye

Saul deleted the incognito chat, but not before saving the video. He sat there for a while, deep in thought. Then he opened the mail app. Attached a file.

*********************

Hey,

They say miracles happen on Christmas. I think it’s bullshit. You were right. We do things for our own. We owe them.

This is what you did. Fucking enjoy it, you pain in the ass.

Miss you. Merry Christmas.

Lover boy.

***********************

_________________________________

Max ended up making those damn french fries. Because he was a softy. And he was so much of a softy when it came to Carrie and what she wanted, that he didn’t even mind it. He had some leftovers brought over, too, as well as the sweet potato casserole, that Julia brought with her. There was no place for their feet on the coffee table now. So, Max and Carrie stretched each over half the couch, while Jules fell into a matching armchair, sideways, her feet dangling over the edge. They were all quiet for some time, digging into the food, and digesting it, along with the weird situation they found themselves in - especially the part about it not being as weird as it should have been…. Probably.  Both women sobered up a bit, but, for some reason, their mood didn’t. Max considered to put a halt on the booze intake for the night, but it just didn’t feel right. So he brought a six-pack of Guinness, seeing how the Irish seemed to be the motif tonight. And he ended up gulping down two shots of vodka straight from the freezer. Out of solidarity. And to help loosen up his imagination. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

Carrie reached for more french fries and actually managed to pop one into her mouth on the first attempt. Practice helps. Duh.

“So… you got a voice recording of the first time you two met?” she asked, grinning at Julia.

“Don’t I wish,” Julia opened a second can of beer and licked off the foam. “But I do have a file on it at my old precinct.”

“See, I was right,” Carrie kicked Max in the shin under the throw blanket on top of them both. “ Told you she arrested him.”

“ Shocker ,” Max rolled his eyes, turning his attention to Julia. “Who did he shoot?”

“ Drun-ken dis-or-der-ly ,” Julia set the record straight. She said it slowly, so there was no mistake, pronouncing each syllable. “And public disturbance with an intent to cause bodily harm.”

“Again… shocker .”

“So, a bar fight?” Carrie looked fairly amused, chewing with an open mouth.

“Yeah. Big time,” a light chuckle followed by a full blown laughter, Julia shook her head. “There was no way for me to know it back then, but there was no ‘small time’ when it came to the things he did. Always had to be an ‘all go or a no go’. Somehow, I’m sure he never changed in that ,” one loud scoffing sound and one deep sigh were an answer enough. “I figured.”

“So, a love story starting with cuffs… kinky,” Carrie snorted.

“Cuffs. And almost having my head taken off with a bar stool. And some taser action. But yeah,” Julia laughed. “I was a rookie back then, barely two years on the force. On a car patrol with my partner. We get a call about a bar fight. I really didn’t want to go. And it wasn’t even in our area. But the other car, closer to the bar, had just been called to a home disturbance, so we took the call,” she stopped, taking another sip from her beer, and feeling a slight shiver, realizing for the first time how different her life would have been today if a drunken wife hadn’t been throwing frying pans at her husband that evening. “Anyway, we get to the bar and… it was a public disturbance alright. Imagine all hell breaking loose. There were maybe a dozen people in there, including the bartender (who was hiding in the back and screaming bloody murder), but, fuck , did they have the place in pieces by the time we got there. There were Johnny and two of his buddies (all special forces) against six or seven poor souls, one of which had the misfortune to comment on…” she stopped trying to remember what it was that started that fight. No luck. “I’m not sure I ever knew what it was he commented on… But the moral of the story is - while in a bar with strangers, shut your hole… you never know if there is a group of black-ops chilling after a mission at the next table. Man , they beat them up… to a pulp. And were still at it when we walked in and yelled ‘Philly PD. Hands where I can see them. And outside. NOW’. It was like walking into a war zone. So, my partner, Dave, pulled out his gun (so did I) and called for backup. I just had to be a hero… I remember thinking, by the time the backup gets here, some of these guys would end up in a coma. At best. So, I start advancing towards one of them (guess which one) and I order him to stop. I am holding my gun with one hand and, stupid me, I am reaching to grab his shoulder with another.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Max sank deeper into the throw blanket.

“You think ? I don’t even remember how it happened, or when it happened, but his right hand moved from his victim’s chest to his throat, picked him up to pin him against the wall, and his left lifted a bar stool, swinging it in the air, as he turned towards me. I froze. Literally. They say your life flashes in front of your eyes when you think you’re about to die? It doesn’t. You just stand there and you know you’re about to be smashed to death, and you can’t move. Luckily, he had better reflexes than I did. Because, I have no idea how, but he realized there was a police officer behind him. And he stopped. Just like that. A huge bar stool in his hand. Holding a grown man against the wall. And he stopped dead . Like a steel statue,” she reached for some left over salad and filled her plate. “Anyhow, it gave me just enough time to duck and zap his ass in the gut. You’d think it made him go down, right? The guy he was holding went flat on the floor, all twitching. Johnny just dropped the bar stool and was standing there, tall and a little trembling, staring me down like I was the problem. So, by that time, his two buddies also realized it was over, and… all and all ‘hands behind your back, face to the wall’ we cuffed them and dragged their sorry asses to the car.”

“Jesus,” Carrie was wondering if that was the first time she took a breath in a while.

“Yeah. Talk about a story to tell your grandkids about how you two met. And it’s not like it’s the end of it. We hauled their asses into the holding cell, eventually, filed all the papers. So, I come to take off his cuffs. His two buddies are already blacked out on the floor. He is sitting on that bench, looking up at me, so drunk, eyes red, hair…” she lifted her hands to her head and spread fingers in all directions. “I don’t know if you ever noticed that hair story of his, but it always seemed to have moods of its own. Anyway, he looks up at me, all wasted, and goes ‘Officer, you’re fucking breathtaking.”

“Awwwwww,” Max sighed.

“...and then he bends over and barfs all over my shoes,” Julia finished, giving him a defying look. “ Now you can go ‘awwwwwww’. Not funny,” she turned to Carrie, who was snorting hard again. “I had just polished them that morning.”

“Oh God, my stomach hurts,” Carrie wasn’t about to stop. Not even close. “So, you waited for him to get out? Doesn’t sound like a first date material so far…”

“You don’t say,” it was Julia’s time to scoff. Max looked at her appreciatively, she had a knack for picking up habits. “I went back on patrol with Dave. After throwing my shoes away. And by the morning none of them were there. An officer who was there that night, said a car came, a man got out, handed him papers ordering their release on the spot, he kicked the three of them awake and they were all gone.”

“Ah…” Carrie lifted a finger, then realized it was actually a french fry, took a bite from it and continued. “The ‘national security’ bit. My favorite.”

“No idea what it was, but… I guess, something on those lines. Anyway, we figured they were special forces… or something. And it wasn’t the first time. To cut the long story short, I didn’t give it  much thought. Went home, slept it off and was back the following morning on day shifts.”

“So, you arrested him more than once?”

“Oh, no, just the one time. Probably should have on many different occasions later on, but that’s another story which has to do with my professional integrity and personal objectivity. And how little I cared about it when it came to Johnny,” she smiled, deep in thought. “The next day I came to work. And so did he . I walked in and there he was, sitting on my desk. Apparently he showed up half an hour earlier (I had to stop by the human resources for some shit) and brought a huge box of donuts for everyone.”

“The way to a cop’s heart.”

“Something of sorts, yeah,” she chuckled. “I gotta tell you though, the man cleaned up good. He was all aces: shaven, ironed blue shirt, suit pants, elegant slackers, shining belt buckle, even the hair…” she stopped to consider it a bit longer. “Well, the hair was still spiky at the front, but it just made him look even cuter. I swear he looked like he came to the very least to ask for my hand in marriage. And I was annoyed enough to actually comment on that, pushing his butt off the papers on my desk. And you  know what the motherfucker replied? While biting on a donut and looking all cheeky? ‘I was thinking we go out for a coffee first, maybe dinner. But yeah, that’s the plan’.”

“Go Quinn,” Max raised his fist straight up.

“You have no idea! I told him to fuck off, of course, repeatedly. And go get a life. Elsewhere. He never budged. I had to go out on patrol and was hoping he’d give up. Little did I know - I come back five hours later - he’s still there. And made friends with everyone in the precinct. So, I went for ignoring him. Along with everyone else, fucking cheering and admiring his ballsy ass. I went home. The next day - he’s back. Same routine - donuts and all. High-fiving his new ‘pals’. I told him I would give him a note for his boss if he went back to his real day job, to which he said he was in between jobs so, and I quote, ‘no rush’. So, I just went another day ignoring the menace.”

Carrie reached for a can of beer and click-hissed it open, “Pffffff… I gotta say I have a whole new found respect for you,” she raised her hand and extended her thumb and her index finger, moving them across the air, as if outlining an imaginary headline. “SURVIVED BEING STALKED BY A GOVERNMENT TRAINED ASSASSIN.”

Julia chuckled. It was a short sound, merely acknowledging the sentiment, and her face turned serious with a hint of dreaminess when she spoke again.

“The thing is… it didn’t feel like I was being stalked. Or intimidated. It was annoying, for sure. But I think,” she paused to find the right way of putting it, “the most annoying part of it was - that it really wasn’t . It seemed like… he was having fun , you know? And Johnny had this thing about him - when he was happy - everyone had to be happy, or else . Like… If I ignored him, he would just go about his business and act ignored . He wouldn’t get in my face. He was just there . He would leave a sandwich on my desk when I’d come back in at lunchtime. And for the first three days I just gave it to Dave. But on the fourth day, when I was too tired to care, so I sat down and dug into it, he just looked at me across the room where he was standing next to a xerox machine, and he gave me a small smile. And went back to making another bunch of copies for our secretary. He was polite and attentive and nice to everyone. By the third day he knew how everyone liked their coffee and tea. It annoyed the hell out of me, that they all played along. Some guys stuck on a desk duty and bored out of their minds were chatting him up, dragging him outside to have smoke breaks. He listened to their boring stories about their wives and kids, and he laughed at their dumb jokes. At the end of the day, when I would be heading home, he’d walk me out of the building and ask if I didn’t change my mind. And when I’d tell him if he means if I still want him to fuck off, then no, I didn’t change my mind. He would nod, wave, say ‘Night, Jules’ and walk away. He never followed me home.”

“But he’d be back the next day...”

“Yep. For five days.”

“It took you five days to give the man a fridgin’ phone number?”

“Well, I was kind of convinced by the end of the second day,” Julia laughed. “But by then it was a matter of principle . And man did I pay for that.”

“He stopped coming,” Max felt like he was watching a thriller, fidgeting and nervously cracking his knuckles, and, mostly, ignoring Carrie continuously kicking him for it.

“On the sixth day I come to work and he’s not there. Stivenson, our sergeant, comes straight at me and he’s like ‘Yo, Jules, how come your man ain’t here today?’. It was past eight and the man was as punctual as a swiss clock. At first, I figured - good riddance. I mean, it’d been fun, but it was getting old. So I went on patrol with Dave. Speaking of Dave, he did try to give Johnny my phone number two days beforehand. But the motherfucker shoved it into the shredder without even looking. He had to get it from me , fair and square. So, anyway, we were driving around, taking calls, bringing people in… and I felt… weird. And uneasy. By lunchtime I realized, I knew nothing about him. I didn’t have his phone number. Or his address. Or his last name for that matter. Emmmm… I think I failed to mention… although it’s probably needless to say (to you guys, anyway) - everything I had on the three of them on their arrest files was bogus - fake names, fake addresses, fake phone numbers (well, not really fake, but let’s say belonging to a dry cleaner’s downtown). So I literally had nothing to go on. And, what’s worse , the more time passed the more I realized that I fucking missed the asshole.”

“The asshole was probably called away on a mission,” Max sighed.

“Well, duh . But I had no way of knowing it, did I? I figured, I screwed up, with my principles and all. By the end of the day I was such a mess. I couldn’t think of anything else. The guy coming to switch me from the graveyard shift owed me one, so I called in a favor and he came an hour earlier.”

“He’d be back ,” Max waved her off.

“I didn’t know that. And I was in no condition to think about it rationally. I figured, the guy gave up. And it pissed me off to no end just how much it bothered me.”

“So, you just went over to his place?”

“ What  place?” Julia threw her hands in the air. “What address? I had nothing ! I checked all their files again, I talked to the guard who was working the night we arrested him for any info on the man who came to release them, I double checked the release forms - it was all a dead end. I even found the bloody donuts box (in the dumpster ) to see if there was a credit card receipt - something .”

Max laughed out loud, “All that taxpayer’[s money, and that’s what the police is up to these days.”

“Ok, first of all - fuck you , second, I was off duty, third… Like you guys never used your resources for personal shit,” seeing them both kind of look elsewhere all of a sudden, she grinned. “Right. So shut it. Anyway … I ended up back at my desk, looking through my papers, having no idea what I was doing anymore, when I saw a yellow paper triangle sticking out of one of my drawers.”

“Awwwwwww…’ Max sighed again. “He left you his phone number?”

“Ah-ha, because you fuckers are just that easy.”

“I’m betting on paper chasing,” Carrie raised her hand.

Julia pointed at her and nodded, “As I said - fuckers. The note said, and I quote, ‘Good donuts, don’t you think?’. So, I go and check the donuts box… again… after I threw it back into the dumpster. And I swear, I must have had torn that thing apart. Nothing. ”

Max grabbed some fries and rolled his eyes, “Go to the donuts place , you amateur.”

‘Gee, thanks,” Julia gave him a scorning narrow-eyed look. “So I did . The moment I walk there, the owner, a guy of sixty, maybe seventy - old fella, jumps up and runs to me. ‘Miss Julia, finally. We’ve been waiting and waiting’. So, by that time I kinda figured there was a play in place, and, when he said it was ‘so nice to see me again’, fully knowing I never stepped foot in there, I was just playing along. He handed me a ‘phone I forgot on the counter’.”

“Good one, Quinn,” Max laughed. “The ‘forgotten burner’ routine. Was there a single phone number in the call log?”

Julia figured there was no point asking him how he knew that, so she just sighed and continued, “Well, yes.”

“But it wasn’t his phone number.”

“As I said - if only things were ever that easy… Anyway, I called it. A man answered. Since I wasn’t sure what to say and who the man was, I just went with ‘Hi, this is Julia Diaz’. There was a moment of silence before he replied ‘Of course, Miss Diaz. Your table will be ready momentarily. We look forward to seeing you’. And I was like… what table? Where? So he gave me the address. It was this cute little bistro just two blocks away. By the time I got there, I had a corner table, serving for one, and a waiter giving me a menu with completely redacted prices . I was told the dinner was my choice. Anything I wanted. Soooooo… since it was getting late, and I was quite hungry, and pissed, I figured… I might as well get a dinner out of the sneaky menace. When I was done, I was brought a note. It had an address on it.”

“Not his address,” Max stated again, with all the confidence in the world. “Too short a trail.”

“And I am the one wasting the taxpayer’s money,” she chuckled, but nodded. “So, no. Not his address. It was an italian gelateria on the next corner. Where I was handed a strawberry ice-cream cone with another address on a napkin. That one was actually across the town. So I took my car and drove over. And guess what.. It was that dry cleaner’s place. And what’s worse? I was actually given a pile of dry cleaning to pick up. It had the final note, saying ‘Sorry, Jules. Ran out of bread crumbs. See you at home’. And the guy behind the counter looked at me with this… how do I put it… I dunno - wise, I guess - smile , and he said ‘We do deliver. In case you’re wondering. And the gentleman said if it’s too heavy to carry, you should just leave it and we’ll take care of it’.”

Carrie frowned and turned to Max, “Just how bored was Quinn between his missions?”

“You’re really not getting this, are you,” Max let out a frustrated sigh. “Quinn knew he would be called away at some point. Or have to stop coming. It was his exit plan. And he knew it would be up to Jules eventually to take the last step. So, he made it nice - riddle, dinner, ice-cream… So, if it’s a goodbye, it’s a nice goodbye. I think he left it up to her to the end. I mean… if she never followed that trail, all it would cost him would be a cheap burner. They are not worth much. But if she did… a woman who would be curious enough, interested enough, dedicated enough… that is worth everything .”

“That’s it. I’m confiscating your chick-flick collection,” Carrie waved him off, laughing.

“No, seriously,” Max didn’t give up. “It’s more than that. The guy at the dry cleaning… He said it - ‘if it’s too heavy to carry, leave it’. I think this is what he was instructed to say. I think, it’s what Quinn wanted to say. I have enough faith in you to give you my address and my phone number. But I also have enough respect for you to give you a way out. This is the last choice - come home to me, or walk away - no harm done . Like… he knew what his life was like. He probably figured Jules would have an idea - she was no fool. And he is saying… I know I’m asking for a lot of trust here. So, if you think it’s too much, or too hard - just leave it.”

“Ok, I know how romantically CIA/spook that sounds, but I seriously doubt that’s what he meant.”

“I think he did,” Julia, who was listening to their interpretation of what was probably the  most important decision she ever made, wedged in. “In fact, I know he did. And, at the time, I understood it exactly the way Max does. Because I stood there for a while, the last six days going back and forth in my head. And I felt like I was given a choice, which was ‘all in or all out’. The way he put it… ‘see you at home’... I knew he meant it. It was a sweet and silly game, but it was serious, too. It felt like a proposal - yes or no, leave the laundry or come home and have a life with me. So… I looked at the owner and I said ‘I’ll take it’. And he smiled and handed me the bill stump. With a phone number and an address. And, before Max ventures another guess, they were Johnny’s. Later on I learnt that the guy was his contact. For real. CIA/spook real,” she added, imitating Carrie and sticking out her tongue. “The guy also said that ‘the gentleman’ was away now. And that he could be gone for a while - weeks, sometimes months. I said it’s fine. And walked out. And I drove over. By the time I got to his apartment door, it hit me… All those things I kind of knew about him: he was special forces, the way him and his buddies were hauled away from the holding cell meant probably a government job, or some other clandestine service agency… in short, to my horror, I realized… there was a chance he was never coming back. He could be dead by then and I would never know about it.”

There was a silence when she paused. She looked at Max and then at Carrie. None of them said a thing. But they both nodded. Those people knew better than anyone just how true it was.

“I kept coming back,” she continued. “Every day after work. I’d stay there, waiting for him to come home. Just standing by the door, you know? And a week later he did. The elevator doors opened and he walked out of it. And then he saw me and stopped dead. He looked like hell - exhausted, dirty, a heavy bag on one shoulder and a rifle bag on another, his lips were cracked they were so dry, there was dust in his hair and it looked all greasy and messed up,” Julia took a deep breath and swallowed hard, looking down at her lap. “I don’t think I had realized… I mean really realized, how far he had gotten under my skin by then, until i felt tears just bursting out of my eyes at the sight of him standing there - being home, being safe. I don’t remember ever being so relieved. In the years we were together there were a lot of missions, but I don’t think there was ever a moment like that one. We just stood there, not even smiling, looking at each other, saying nothing. Then he walked over to me. He took my head into his hands and smudged my tears with his thumbs. Still not smiling, still not saying anything. And i just grabbed a fistful of his shirt, yanked him in with all the force i had, and kissed him. He pulled away after a while and he was still holding my face and he said ‘I wanted to call and let you know. Didn’t have your phone number”. And he grinned , the motherfucker. And I was like… The hell with it... I said ‘You wanted a date. Let’s go’. Fully knowing he was in no condition to go anywhere . But it was sort of like - you mess with me, I mess with you. And you know what? He didn’t even flinch. No excuses. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and it was probably true, and like he was about to fall asleep standing. But that was Johnny - all about the ‘fair game’. He unlocked the door, threw his bag and his rifle in, locked it again, took my hand and  said ‘Sure’. And we went on a date. I asked if he had dinner already, seeing how it was past eight PM, and he thought about it, clearly calculating the time difference, then gave it up and said ‘I’m not sure I had breakfast’. And he walked to the elevator, holding my hand. And I think, in that moment, I knew I wanted to spend my life with him. As crazy as it all was… I wasn’t thinking if I was in love with him, or if he was in love with me. But I could picture myself growing old with him. Having his children. And I think it was because I saw what kind of person he was right there. I’ve seen many people in my life - people I worked with, people I interviewed or interrogated. But to this day, I’ve never met anyone like that. He made things simple. If he wanted to say something, he said it, if he wanted to do something, he did it. He was always present . He never did anything he couldn’t own up to. And if he set his mind on something, he made it happen. He never played games, he never held back, he was unstoppable in the way he lived. And in the way he loved. I never had to wonder or guess what he was thinking or feeling. He showed it. His heart was the least of mystery in the world. Once you had it - you owned it. All of it. When we were in the elevator, he squeezed my hand, and when I looked up, he asked ‘Not gonna ask me where I’ve been?”. And the truth was, I wasn’t going to. I figured, it was probably classified. And, although I was wondering, how you could possibly build a life with someone, who can’t tell you what they do, it just… didn’t seem to matter much. So, I thought about it, and went ahead and said ‘I figured if you could, you’d tell me’. He kissed my hand. And he said ‘I can’t tell you where I’ve been, true. I’m with the CIA. Special ops’. And you  know, when people say shit like that, you usually take it as a joke. Because you know it’s not something you just blurt out if it’s true. But he was serious. And I knew it. And then he said ‘But when we get married I’ll quit’. He was smiling, but not joking. It was just that simple for him. I laughed and said that it depends on how well it pays, because my job payed like crap and when ‘we get married’ we could use an extra cash. He considered it and said ‘Fine. We’ll decide then ”. He asked if I could drive. He always knew his limits. And I felt bad for dragging him out in his condition, but even then I knew there was nothing I could say to change his mind. So, I drove to the restaurant, which was barely fifteen minutes away, but by the time we got there, he was out, fast asleep on the passenger seat. I turned around and drove back, to his place. I didn’t try to wake him up. I just turned on the heating, and I watched him sleep, thinking that it probably wasn’t the worst place he had to sleep in. And soon enough i dozed off myself. And so we spent our first date sleeping in my car.”

“What, the whole night?” Carrie gasped.

“Yep. I woke up several times. I probably don’t have to tell you how comfortable it is to sleep in a car,” Julia grinned. Then smiled for real. “But he never woke up. Never even moved. It broke my heart just trying to imagine where he had been, or what he had to do, how broken he was and how tired. In the morning though, I had to sneak out and go to work. I was going to take a taxi.”

“Tried to sneak out of a car with a black-ops operative in?” Carrie raised one eyebrow.

“Ah… See, I was still naive then,” Julia laughed out loud, nodding. “The moment I leaned towards the door, his hand was on my arm. He unbuckled himself and moved closer so he could hold me. I thought he was going to say he was sorry… or comment on the fact that I should have woken him up. But he just kissed my head and stroked my hair and whispered ‘Thank you’. You know how people say ‘It’s been great. Thank you for a wonderful time’ after the first date? That ‘thank you’, for just letting him sleep it off after a mission… he had me at that .”

Carrie felt a familiar shivering sensation ripple through her body. She was waiting for that fleeting thought to make it go away, to dismiss it out of hand by saying ‘leave me alone’, but it never came. There was a painful pinch somewhere inside her chest. And she felt the muscles of her face twitching, the corners of her lips curving down.

“He never needed much, did he,” she heard herself whispering.

Julia shook her head, “No. He didn’t,” then looked at Carrie with some concern. “You ok?”

“Pffffff, sure!” Carrie forced a smile and waved her off. “So, you went to work? He went home? Is there a real first date coming?”

“Not really,” Julia smiled. “I don’t think we ever got a real date. It was like… the life started. And right away it was beyond dating. When I told him I needed to go to work, he looked a little… worried. So, I kissed him, and said he better be well rested and showered by the time I come over in the evening. And he had a smile of a happy child, when I did. I left and I wasn’t even around the corner when I get a message on my phone. Took him barely a minute to find out I added my number to his phone’s contacts when he slept. It read ‘What kind of food you like?’. We messaged on and off all that morning. And I remember feeling the time not moving fast enough. At some point he stopped replying and I hoped he went back to sleep. Which really helped me concentrate on my job. But then it was lunchtime. And I walked into the precinct to find him sitting on  my desk: no donuts, no nice shirt or suit pants, but hair still wet from the shower, wearing old jeans and a hoodie. And holding a bag with two sandwiches. I will never forget the cheering the the woohooing as I walked across that room. I’d feel embarrassed if I didn’t feel so happy. He said he should have waited outside, a little embarrassed himself. I didn’t care how much louder that cheering and woohooing got when I kissed him, right there, in front of everyone. I motioned to the lunch he came to share with me and said ‘I could get used to it’, to which, he said ‘You will’. I think it was the only thing resembling the first date we ever had. We went outside, it was sunny, and he sat down on the stairs, pulling me to sit one stair below him, between his legs, my back against his chest, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and handed me a sandwich. Chewing, he said ‘Not exactly a dinner date. But I kinda like it’. I laughed. And said that I have no idea how to make the time move faster. And that he had no idea how hard it was to wait to see him tonight. He kissed my cheek, I can still remember the tuna smell on his breath, and he kissed my ear next, and whispered ‘I’ll make it up to you’. And no , that didn’t make the waiting any easier.”

The next involuntary shrug threw Carrie into an angry frenzy. She could feel her hands become cold and begin to tremble, her heart racing, a wave of rage washing over her. She wasn’t nearly as drunk as she would like to be anymore, and the fucking beer wasn’t helping. Get up. Get out. Walk away. You don’t need this. You never needed this. Whatever chance for THIS you EVER had was gone years ago. And you were fine with it. REALLY ok. You cared. But NOT like this. Not like you SHOULD have. Should have? What’s THAT supposed to mean??? You never HAD to do ANYTHING. She was on her feet before she could realize she was getting up.  She knocked her end of the throw blanket off her lap a little too hard. And that earned her a puzzled look from Max, who almost got it in his face. She managed to give him an apologetic smile. It wasn’t his fault. Nor was it Julia’s. Carrie took a deep breath and said the beer just went through her and that she’d be right back.

Julia was really worried now. She looked at Max, a question in her dark eyes, and he replied with a slight shaking of his head. There was a feeling of relief about him. His eyes were sad. Really sad. But they were hopeful too. If Carrie needed to get angry, whether it was at herself or at Quinn, or at Julia, so be it. If she needed to be jealous, so be it. At least she was something . Something other than ‘he died a good death for a patriot’. Something other than ‘I cared about him. But I had to let him go’. And, if anything, angry was a good place to start. Because she should be angry. Because she was dealt the bad card. They both were. And she had to become angry about it sometime. Maybe. At this point, being hopeful was all he could afford.

The bathroom was cold. Too cold. She turned the heating on and leaned against the wall next to the heater fan. Her reflection was staring back at her from the mirror. And it didn’t look happy.

And then it changes. She is cold. She is wearing a warm coat, a scarf and a hat. But she is still cold. So cold. And the reflection is not her anymore. It’s Quinn. He is yelling at her. All she can hear is ‘... your mission, the mission, the mission…’. And this time she yells back, with everything she has got. She screams at the top of her lungs ‘ My mission? I’m all about the mission???’. And she doesn’t let her feeling bad for him and his fucking condition stop herself from being angry anymore. She doesn’t say “That is not true!’. She tells him. About how she went to his house after he just upped and left for Syria without so much as a fucking phone call . How she used to stand by his door every night for weeks . How she almost drank herself into oblivion wondering if she would ever know if he died. How she ended up hospitalized for almost a month. How she ended up hurting Saul, a man she loved like a father, because she was so angry at everyone, she couldn’t stop at sabotaging his directorship chances. She said things to him. Things she could never take back. She let the old man become her punching bag. And he didn’t even know why. And how it was her psychiatrist, who insisted she needed a change of scenery. And how she upped and went to Germany. To get away from her life. To never see that spot on the road next to her father’s house. To never think about how she actually considered opening her heart again. Letting someone in. Someone she thought she could trust to never hurt her. Or leave her. To never remember, how she learnt, that trusting someone with your life was not the same as trusting someone with your heart. Because he ended up breaking hers harder than anyone . And she keeps yelling. Just throwing it all back at him. His mission. His choice. And he doesn't leave. He doesn’t do the monkey dance. He holds her. He is sorry. She begs him to just let it all go. Like they should have done years ago. She tells him her answer was a ‘yes’. And it was still a ‘yes’. And she sees he’s happy. For the first time in so long. Really happy. He has a smile of a happy child.

Carrie stops. She thinks. Quinn would never be so easily convinced. She expected a fight - long and loud, cursing and screaming. It’s not like him to just surrender his position. He was so angry just minutes ago. This is wrong. It doesn’t seem real. She reaches with her hand and touches the greenish fabric of his coat. The texture is unmistakable. Her finger slides over the button. It’s all real, substantial, tangible. Something is off, though. Something… But before she can allow that thought to go any further, she stops it. Does she really care? Is it really that important? Why are those things always so important? He is smiling at her and all she can think about is how this can’t be, how he must have an ulterior motive, how she needs to understand it.

And suddenly she is as brave as Julia. She grabs a fistful of his coat, buttons and fabric, and she yanks him closer. And she kisses him. His lips are cold. At first. But they warm up under hers, she feels him responding, covering her  mouth with his, deepening the kiss. His breath tastes and smells of smoke, but also… tuna? She stops, reluctant, and she can hear him muffle a moan, desire and frustration, as she breaks from his lips. When she pulls back, his blue eyes are the ones of Johnny. Not Johnny his son, Johnny him . He is that happy man - charming, daring and, beyond all, hopeful . The sun is high in the sky. People are walking around them, up and down the stairs that they are sitting on. She is wearing a sky blue shirt. Fuck . This can’t be real. This is Julia’s life. Not hers. It’s Julia who makes him so happy, so hopeful.

The sky grows dark again. His face changes back. He is Quinn now. Her Quinn. They are back in that house. And he is still smiling. It’s not Julia’s chance anymore to make him happy. It’s hers . It was hers. It’s a different smile now, though. More weary, more sad, and, like everything else about him, it’s older, much older. The years are written all over his face - years of endurance, years of suffering, years of loneliness, years of courage to push through. But he is still smiling, still hoping. Was that why he asked her? That night? Was he just hoping for an answer that will show him a way back? It’s Carrie’s chance now, it’s her time, her choice. She smiles back and she holds him close. And she whispers… ‘In case you ever wonder why again. This is why’. His body is still broken, there is only his right arm around her, but his soul , his heart - are whole . He doesn’t ask her to let him go. And she doesn’t have to step away from the door to let him pass.

She takes his hand and they walk downstairs. The rifle stays behind. It all stays behind. They drive away. Go home. They will get Franny back and go away. And live a life far from exploding vans and insecure presidents. They have figured out all the plots, all the riddles. And, above that, they have figured out what they both wanted. She lets him drive. He is safe. No one is shooting. He just drives her home. He turns to her, when they stop at the red light, and he takes her hand. They both know it won’t last, because it’s the only hand he can drive with, so they savor it, seconds of feeling close.

“This w-w-wasn’t so d-d-d- hard, now, w-was it?” he asks. She is not sure if the question is meant for her or for himself. But she nods. And squeezes his hand before he needs it back to handle the wheel.

And none of the shit that happened the next day ends up happening. He doesn’t die. He doesn’t die. He doesn’t…

But he does.

Carrie’s own face is staring back at her from the mirror now.

He did.

Because she wasn’t brave. Because she didn’t say any of that. She just let him walk away. She let all the things unsaid and all the roads not traveled be his doom. She let him go. She let him die.

The bathroom was so hot now, that she felt her face burning. Carrie stepped closer to the mirror. It was just her staring back now - her own face, her own shame, her own grief. Because, really, there could never be anything else now. There was no more time to fix things. The time had run out a year ago. She splashed cold water on her face and let her palms remained there, covering her eyes. There were things in her life, that always seemed important. More important - things to sort out, things to understand, attacks to avert, people to save. And, for the most part, she always succeeded. For the most part…

In the living room Julia whispered a horrified “Oh my God,” and she covered her mouth with her palm, tears glistening in her eyes. And in Max’s too. His face had it all. That’s why I needed you to stay . She nodded. She had realized it was ‘complicated’ like Carrie said. She imagined it had to be heartbreaking. But this …

When Carrie’s voice, her screams , quieted down, she swallowed hard and got ahold of her breathing.

“Did you know?” she asked Max. Meaning Syria. Meaning life promised. Meaning hearts broken. Forget broken. Wrecked.

“No,” he shook his head, fighting his own tears. “I always knew something happened. But I don’t think she ever told anyone. She… keeps things.”

“And Quinn?”

“I… was actually not there when it happened. And I mean… really not there. I lost someone close to me right before her father died. I never went to the funeral. And I was out of touch for almost three years after that.”

They both went quiet as soon as they heard the bathroom door open. Carrie was about to say that she was sorry it took so long, and that her digestive system wasn’t agreeing with the neverending Christmas dinner, but then she saw their faces, the tears in their eyes. And she didn’t have to be good at reading people to know . What was she supposed to do now ?

She walked to the sofa and bent down. Quite unceremoniously, she kicked Max’s legs off of it, making him sit up.

“Make room for an old friend,” she heard herself saying, like from afar, like it wasn’t her own voice, or her own words. And she sat close to him. Really close. She waited for his arms to wrap around her. She looked at him for a long time. “Max.”

“Yeah,” he answered, almost a whisper.

“I’m sick. I think. Again,” she uttered, barely getting those words out.

“Oh, Carrie,” he pulled her head closer and placed a kiss on her temple. “Not sick. Sad . You’re just sad.”

She scoffed, pulling away, looking at him at an angle, “You always talk to imaginary people when you’re sad?”

He sighed and held her tighter, “I’m a nerd, I talk to imaginary people even when I’m happy, Carrie,” then chuckled.

“ Not funny,” she said, louder, but with a smile. The she shivered. It was time. Time to face it. Time to say it. “I’m serious, Max. I know this is not right. At all . I’m not ok. I think I need to go to the hospital.”

“Maybe,” he put a palm on her head and stroked her hair, his lips curving down, new tears bursting through. A breath he drew in sounded like a sob and he couldn’t hold it anymore. Right there and then it became too much. Whatever strength he had left, he used to shake his head. “But I don’t want you to. I really don’t want you to.”

“Jesus, Max,” Carrie threw her arms around him. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “ So sorry.”

“I think…” he mumbled, his words muffled into her shoulder, “maybe you just need to be… sad. For a while.”

“Sad?” Carrie pulled away, both eyebrows lifted, a puzzled frown on her face. “I have been sad.”

“Not really,” Max wiped his tears, calming his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carrie went on defensive, pulling away completely. “Because I can actually see things for what they were, means I’m not sad? I’m not grieving?”

“Are you?” he dared to ask, tentatively, barely saying those words out loud.

“Yeah, I am,” her eyes were shooting sparks now, angry again. “What? Because I don’t cry at night or try to drown myself in booze, means I’m not grieving? That I don’t miss him? That I don’t mourn his death?”

“But you do !!!!!!!” Max raised his voice - really loud, really bitter. He took her by the shoulders and shook her with everything he had. Then he stopped. Took a deep breath. His hands slid up to cup her face. “You do ,” he repeated, a mere whisper. “You do cry at night. Every night. You scream his name. And then you cry. Carrie,” his thumb went to her face and she could feel it make a smudge. He lifted his hand in front of her eyes, showing her a drop of moisture he just picked up. “You’re crying right now .”

Carrie opened her mouth to say something, but then she didn’t. She stilled, looking at the drop of pain on his thumb. Her pain. The words didn’t come easily anymore, but she had to say something. She always had to say something.

“Well, I’ve lost a friend. So I’m sad. That’s what I’ve been saying... all along ,” she muttered, not in a very convincing way, but… Yeah. It was rational. Quite rational . She felt herself nod to her own thoughts.

“You’ve lost the man you loved , Carrie. Not a friend,” Max touched his hand back to the side of her face and she shivered again, feeling the cold tear touch her skin under his thumb.

“Pfffffff….”

“Carrie,” he stopped her, making her face him - really face him. “You’ve lost the man you loved.”

“I heard you,” the first time .

“And I’ve heard you . Right now. Right in that bathroom. I’ve heard you crying and screaming at Quinn. About how he broke your heart, after promising you the world. About how you waited for him. About how none of it didn’t matter right now. Because you still had the same answer for him. You were still waiting.”

Carrie moved away. She removed his hands from her face and pulled up her legs, her arms went around her knees. She stole a look at Julia, and she curled inside herself even deeper. Exposed. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. Too weak to close up. Then she looked at Max again. She had it. What she needed to say. What she was trying to say all along.

“Well, hence needing to go to the hospital .”

“Are you manic? Depressed?” Max was losing his patience. “‘Cause I don’t think so. Hell, I wish there was a hospital I could go to, if it meant making the grief go away. I wish we could all have our brains zapped if that would make Quinn’s death any easier. You told me that Saul said you’d end up hitting the wall eventually. This is it, Carrie. This is the wall. You’re at it. It’s one thing to have denial as part of a grieving process. It’s a whole different shit to be in denial about needing a grieving process. I’m not an expert.. But I still think that all you need is to fucking be sad. And not for a soldier, or a hero, or a broken man with a death wish, who asked you to let him go. For Quinn. Peter Quinn. The man who gifted his heart… and his life to you. Over and over again. The man, who loved you so completely, for so long. The man you loved. The man you never got to make happy. The  man you lost before you could tell him how much he meant to you,” Max moved closer away and cautiously put his arms back around her. She didn’t pull away this time, her eyes wide open and fixed on his face. “It’s the guilt, Carrie. The regret. We all have it. Because death is… final. You can’t fix things after death. All you’re left with is wishing you’d done things differently. And knowing you never can now. It sucks. And hurts. But that’s what grief is. Being angry… being sad. It takes time to… move on. But time helps. It helped me. It helped Julia. It helped Saul. And it will help you. Once you start. Because grief is in the hours, and days, and weeks, and months. But it has to start so it can eventually end.”

Carrie blinked. Then once more. Suddenly she was dizzy. Her mind was a twister, a tornado, picking up pieces of thought, questions, feelings, answers and swirling them around. She needed one. Something to say. Something to ask? Something to anchor her to the outside world, to Max’s words. She could literally see herself standing on the ground, watching that tornado pick the shreds of everything she was and mixing it up. She had to grab one. Yet, she couldn’t get too close. She couldn’t afford to be sucked in, to break from the solid ground, to lose control. She felt her hand reaching out and grabbing onto something. It wasn’t nearly a good enough thought, but it was something .

“Do you think he knew?” she heard herself blurting it out. Her eyes focused on Max’s, searching his face for the one answer she wanted - needed really.

But he didn’t have it.

“I don’t know,” he said, slowly, pronouncing each word separately. “And neither do you. And we also never will ,” he leaned closer and kissed her forehead, “I think… that this is what death is about. It’s not just the life that’s lost. It’s also the chances . The time . To say things, to ask questions, to answer questions. To find things out. It’s all lost. And it’s the one thing that makes it so much more difficult, than just missing a person - the things we never got a chance to do, or say, or give. And I think… that’s why you locked it all away. Because it hurts too much. But Carrie… it hurts everyone. It’s supposed to hurt. Time had run out. I can never tell Quinn again, what he was for me, how much I admired him, how grateful I was to him. You can never tell him that you did love him. You can never make him happy. But what we can do, and what we should do, is acknowledge it, face it, be sad about it… so that in the end, we can move past it. And remember the life we all shared. For what it was. And not for what it could have been.”

“He didn’t die happy,” Carrie whispered, clutching that thought, clinging to it now.

“No,” Max shook his head. “But I’m thinking… maybe he died… hopeful. Because I am listening to Jules now… and I can’t help thinking, that a man like that, who had so much courage to pursue love, to insist on having a normal life despite what he did, knowing this world for the ugly place it is probably better than any of us… I don’t think a man like that would ever give up on life. Or on love. Or on a chance to find that happiness again. Maybe he didn’t die happy . But he died still hoping. I’m sure.”

He did , Julia thought. She touched her pocket, feeling a folded piece of paper. He always hoped. He always loved. She was wondering if she should show them the letter, which brought her here - the one he probably wrote a long time ago, going on one of his missions. And she knew, that one day she would. But not today. It was Carrie’s time now. But it made Julia smile - the realization that, without ever reading that letter, the people in his life (his other life) knew who he really was. Loved him for it. And it made her happy, knowing that, so many years later, he was still hoping, still looking for it, never giving up - unstoppable. I’m not sorry , she remembered his words. I’ve been lucky to have two great loves in my life.

“It’s snowing,” Carrie said, suddenly, her eyes on the window. She got up and walked over to it,  yanking the curtains open. “Wow, it’s really snowing.”

The snowflakes were large, clumped together, heavy. But the wind wasn’t nearly strong enough, and it made them dance, and swirl around, fly away, come back, jump up, fall down, bounce off of each other. The patterns in their random movement merged with Carrie’s thoughts - showing, making out something coherent, then falling apart, flying away, turning into something else.

“Did Quinn love snow?” she asked, surprising herself with the dreamy calmness of her own voice, turning to Julia.

“Very much,” Julia smiled.

“I thought so,” Carrie smiled back and looked outside again. She really did think so. Somehow, it made sense now. And it made her feel good, almost happy, to find out she guessed right. Maybe guessing wasn’t too bad. It was all that was left, now, after all - imagining, guessing, dreaming, hurting. “Did he kick your ass at throwing snowballs?” she asked, without turning around this time.

“What do you think?” she heard a reply, accompanied by a laughter.

Two for two. Good for you, Carrie. She closed her eyes. It wasn’t a flashback anymore. It wasn’t a hallucination. She imagined them going outside in the morning, Quinn, Franny, herself, and a little girl. Her heartbeat quickened. Yes. A little girl. Their little girl. Let her be blond. With blue eyes. And a great smile. With dimples. They were all dressed in heavy clothes. The snow was glistening in the sun, sparkling so hard it hurt her eyes. Everyone was laughing and giggling and chattering. Quinn picked up a handful of snow and within a moment it was a hard ball, his hands red from the cold, his eyes glowing with happiness. One of them closed, as he aimed, just for a brief moment, but a solid aim nevertheless. And, even though she knew it was coming, she cried out as the snowball crashed into her chest. “Hey, hitting stationary targets is no fun,” he scorned, picking up another bunch of snow, and waiting for her to start running. And she did, she was running away, hearing their children cheering and screaming in excitement. Instead of feeling another hit of snowball on her back, she felt his hands. And, in a heartbeat, she was on the ground, deep in the soft dry sparkling snow. He was on top of her, smiling, snowflakes in his hair, on his eyelashes, the bluest sky high above his head. “You run like a girl, Mathison,” he laughed. “Well, luckily for you , I am a girl. And it’s Quinn , thank you very much,” she gave him a teasing smile. He leaned down and kissed her smile away. “‘Tis a very good point,” he whispered against her lips. And then kissed her again.

Carrie laughed.

Then she cried. She let her forehead touch the cold window and she cried. Not much. But for real.

She used to have flashbacks, images from her past coming back, bringing the scent of something she cherished, something she lived through. Then there was today, being back in that bathroom, having another flashback, except not . Because, for the first time, it wasn’t just the image. Or the sound. Or the smell. She was there, really there, she talked back, she changed it. It was a glimpse of what could have been. Or maybe, of what was. Or, probably, what could never be. She wondered if the truth was something in between. And she knew Max was right - the truth was something she would never know. All that was left was this . The dream. She used to make those up awhile ago. Back when she was still hopeful, waiting for him to come back from Syria. She never dared to again. It was the hardest thing she ever had to do - letting go of those images, of that happiness. He came back years later. By then those dreams were buried and sealed deep inside her heart - to never hurt her, to never give her hope for something that could never be.

Carrie wiped her tears and exhaled - it was long, and heavy. She would laugh if it weren’t so damn sad. She was afraid to dream then . When he was still alive . She thought it was all lost. Fucking lost ...

She could draw a line, connecting the images from her past to her dreams. But it would never be a timeline. Not anymore. Because the future was cut when the time had run out. And it wasn’t something she hoped would happen one day anymore. It was - and would always be now - what was lost.

Chapter Text

Carrie felt a hand on her shoulders, softly sliding across her back. She smiled. For some reason, having Julia here made her so happy now. So safe.

“Drink,” Julia commanded, handing her a heavily condensed on the outside shot of vodka.

“Not fun when I’m sober, huh?” Carrie took the glass from her hand and emptied it into her mouth. “Mmmmmphhhhpphhhh waaaaaaa,” she commented on the freezing cold and yet burning wave following the liquid into her stomach.

“More,” Julia poured another one. Seeing Carrie’s hesitation, she nudged her in the ribs. “Fucking drink .”

“You’re really fluent in ‘Quinnish’,” Carrie obeyed, grinning. “‘Tis what Max calls it… the language .”

Julia winked, “ Fucking learnt from the best.”

Carrie looked deep into her black eyes, “Thank you,” she whispered, taken aback by her own sincerity.

“You kidding me? I should be the one thanking you ! I haven’t told those stories to anyone before. You have no idea how much it means to me that you were willing to listen.”

“Pfffffff… fuck off, will ya?” Carrie scorned, squinting your eyes. “Fucking Max put you up to it and we both know it. ‘Thanking me’ my ass .”

“Hey, why does it always have to be ‘fucking Max’?” came a protest from the couch.

Carrie left the curtains open and walked back. Sitting close to him again, she leaned in and kissed his cheek, “Don’t you know in Quinnish it’s a compliment?”

Max put an arm around her and pulled the throw blanket over both of them. Julia was about to fall back into her armchair, but he stopped her, “Right here, Quinn’s girl. You’re with us now,” he smiled, pointing to the other side of the couch and lifted the blanket. “Cuddle up.”

She did. It felt good. Even great. It was all quiet for a while. They were all smiling, the three of them. Somewhere, in the distance, a ‘Silent Night’ was playing. And it really was now - silent. Peaceful.

“So,” Max was the first one to break the silence, turning his head to Carrie. He wasn’t going to dance around those things anymore - his new year’s resolution. “Should I take you to the hospital or should we just sit here, warm and cozy, and listen to Jules’ ‘Johnny Tales’?”

Carrie raised her hand, drunkenly and enthusiastically, “Jules. I pick Jules.”

“Gee, thanks,” Julia burst into laughter. “Honored. Being picked over a psych ward. But hey… who cares. I never get picked, ever . So, I’ll just shut it and count my blessings.”

“Jules,” Carrie raised her eyebrows. “You were picked. Big time.”

“Right,” Julia’s face lit up at the sudden realization. “I was .”

“Aaaaand… go,” Max crossed his legs underneath him, picking his beer can. “The first date over. What then?”

Julia smiled, “Life,” she said simply. “With Johnny there was nothing in the middle. He wanted to have a life with me - so he did. His place was basically a dumpster. And too far from my precinct. So, the same week, he found one for us to move into. Like I told Carrie before, it was tiny, in a huge city block. But we couldn’t afford much bigger. Or nicer. And we did love it. He picked it himself. Then he came to pick me up after work and asked how long it would take me to gather my stuff. I didn’t even ask what he meant by that. I knew. We went to the apartment I was renting back then with two roommates and we basically threw all my stuff into his car and we drove off. The place was a mess. The central heating worked about half the time. In the summer there was no central air. It was a single room, a bathroom and a kitchen. But it was ours. Right away. It was a walking distance from my precinct, too. And Johnny meant it when he said I’ll get used to him bringing me my lunch. He did it every day. And we ate it on those stairs. Well, except for the days when he was away.”

“I was going to ask about that,” Carrie started cautiously. “It couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t,” Julia admitted. “Sometimes he’d be gone for over a month. I never knew when he was going to leave or come back. And of course I never knew where he was going. And thinking that if anything happened to him I would never know… that at one point the man I loved would just not come back… ever… It killed me. And it killed him, too.”

“But he was going to quit, right?”

“Yeah. But I don’t have to tell you how fucked up it is to quit the agency. Especially for Ops. And I understand he was active in both intelligence and Ops. So, sometimes, he had to go to work, like normal people. Drive to Langley. Be back in the evening. Or not. It was always a mess. Add my shifts to that.”

“That’s not what I meant, though,” Carrie shook her head, “That job , what he did… it didn’t make happy men. I’ve seen what it did to him, firsthand. And I don’t think it started there. I’m pretty sure it was never easy.”

Julia nodded, feeling whatever ease and dreaminess she was feeling give way to something very dusky, “The bad bits,” and answering the question in Carrie’s eyes, she clarified, “That’s what I used to call them.  Actually, we even had a piece of furniture with that name - an armchair… lazy boy style… by the window. I always laughed about how it was Johnny’s one true place in the world. I was only allowed to sit there curled at his side or on his lap. We used to sit there, sometimes, just reading books, for hours. But also, during the ‘bad bits’. It wasn’t always bad, when he’d come back. Most of the time he was just happy to be home - walk through that door, straight to me, lift me off the floor and hold me, kiss me… for a long time,” there were tears in her eyes now. “But I remember the first time, when he didn’t. He walked in and… just kind of stopped by the door, without even closing it. There was a look in his eyes, that I will never forget: he was looking around, at me, at our home, like it was a whole different world; and he was looking for a clue to find his way back into it. I saw something went wrong - very wrong. I couldn’t ask what. And even if I could, I don’t think he was in no condition to talk about it. I came closer and kissed him. He jerked like I just spilled boiling water on him. Then he tried to smile, and he kissed me back. But pulled away and walked away the next moment. I closed the door and picked up his bag that he just dropped there. We had dinner, in silence, basically me watching him play around with pieces of food on his plate. Then he got up and went to that chair of his. He just sat down, without taking a shower, or changing, and he stared out the window. Our bed was right next to the chair, taking up most of the room. I was about to sit on the edge, when I saw him reaching out for me with his hand… Silent at first. Then he looked at me and said ‘Jules…’ - just that, my name. I took his hand and he pulled me in, on top of him, all of me. He held me so hard that it hurt. After a while he whispered ‘Hold me’. And I did. He said nothing after that. We just sat there, holding each other. He fell asleep… although I think he probably just went out from exhaustion. And I just lay there, holding him, wondering what it was that broke him so hard. But mostly, thinking if that was it, the moment that the man I loved was gone,” she smiled then, looking up. “But in the end, it was that night when I learnt what real courage was, real strength. Johnny was a fighter. And that night I watched him fight the hardest he ever did. And win. I understood then, that it wasn’t the first and it wouldn’t be the last he had to claw his way back from what he did to who he was. From the job he believed in and what it did to him, to the life he wanted to have. And that he just needed time to crawl out of it, breaking it, making his way back to me. He was stubborn like that. And, like in everything else he did, really unstoppable. I dozed off at some point, right in that armchair in his arms. When I woke up it was almost dawn. And Johnny was awake. It took me a second to come to it and realize he was crying. Quietly, looking out that window. And when he saw me awake, he just let it go, and he cried for real, burying his face in my shoulder, sobbing and shaking. For a very long time. Until he couldn’t anymore. It ran out… the tears, the pain, the strength to stay awake… and he fell asleep again. When he woke up I was still there, still holding him, all cried out myself when he was sleeping. He looked at me for a long time before he smiled, a real smile - Johnny’s smile, and he pulled me in and kissed me. Not a word yet. But it was all there, in that kiss - he was back… and he was grateful. I never knew what that time was about, what went wrong. About some of the other ‘bad bits’ he was able to talk after a while. About some he wasn’t. But I learnt that night what he needed - time. And knowing that when he manages to break through the horrors, I’ll be there. He said once that at times like this his life seemed like a dark sea at night, black and cold… and he’d feel himself pushing through the dark, swimming towards the light on the headlands - me.”

Max, his hand still around Carrie’s shoulders, felt her body stiffen first and then flinch. He looked at her, concerned, only to see her face reflect the pain in what they just heard, But also… something else. But before he had a chance to wonder if another flashback was coming, she turned to face him and shook her head. And he let out a sigh of relief.

“The ‘bad bits’ is not the best Christmas story,” Julia said, quietly.

“No, it’s not that,” Carrie pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them again. “It’s just… I am listening to you… and, don’t get me wrong, I believe every word. It’s just sometimes I can’t help wondering how you remember all those things so vividly, all those conversations in such exact words. I guess it’s stupid of me, all things considered… I know some things stay with you just like that - to the last word. But this last thing you said… It’s just a confirmation of that… Of how true it all is. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s Quinn you’re talking about. And I need to think about something to connect the man we knew to the man you knew. But this … the ‘light on the headlands’... I heard that before. I actually read it before.”

“I think he always needed that,” Julia nodded. “Something to show him a way back. I am not surprised one bit he saw that in you.”

“Oh no… not in me. It was… the other way around, actually. But the same exact words,” Carrie stopped, frowning, mostly surprised at actually talking about it, for the first time ever . And with such ease.

She found Max’s hand and did something she never remembered herself doing before - she held it. She knew this evening, this night, would end eventually. And tomorrow was something she wasn’t ready for. Not really. It was one thing talking about needing to face her grief, but actually dealing with it was something she had never done before. Not like other people did. And she thought, that starting from acknowledging how it scared the living crap out of her was probably not a bad move. But also, allowing herself to be weak. Even if it was just for today, and just with Max and Julia. She didn’t remember herself being so close to anyone. Ever. She had a family, she had a daughter, she used to have lovers, and people whom she loved and let in for real (as much as it could get real with her). But she never remembered having friends. Despite referring to many people as such. She definitely never had a girl as a close friend. Hell, the very definition of friendship in her revolved around being able to trust a person when it mattered or not. And by ‘mattered’ she kind of always meant in operational scope. But Max was her friend, for real - the kind of friend that people should be willing to kill for. And, surprisingly so, so was Julia - a woman, who was instinctive and perceptive enough, strong and courageous enough, to never let go, no matter how hard things got, or how bad the ‘bits’ of your life turned out to be. And, a part of her, the part she dared to connect to, was actually jealous. But not of Julia - of Quinn. And it was probably another first for her - thinking of him as just a person, with an actual story. And she wished she had someone like Julia in her life. Someone to trust to always know what she needed. Someone to hold her through the ‘bad bits’. And she thought, smiling, that somehow, a year after his death, Quinn managed to give her another gift - one he probably cherished even more than his own life, and the one he promised to give her in that letter - his best friend, his light on the headlines, his one true beacon.

And so she told them. About the letter. And about how much it hurt her to see Quinn thinking that of himself, seeing himself as destined to be pulled into darkness. And about how she thought it was bullshit. And never read that letter again. Because there was enough pain in their lives after that. And because she never believed it. And, not surprisingly at all, she found them both agreeing with her. But beyond that, she knew she could trust them to tell her if she was wrong. But they didn’t.

“I need more ‘good bits’,” Max begged.

“Yeah,” Carrie nodded. She knew what was coming. There was a reason they never met Julia until after Quinn died, a reason he protected them all those years. And they both knew, that Quinn would never walk out on that life. Not by his own choice. “Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaseeeeeee more good bits.”

Julia laughed, “There were over four years of good bits. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Fair enough,” Carrie thought about it for a moment and then elbowed Max. “The most romantic moment. For this chick-flick enthusiast.”

“Ok… first of all - fuck you,” Max rolled his eyes, but leaned in and kissed her head nevertheless. “Second - yes please ,” he looked at Julia.

It wasn’t difficult. Finding the most romantic moment.

“I know it sounds weird,” Julia started, “But Johnny wasn’t a… conventionally romantic type. I mean, if you look at our life together - it was probably the most romantic story I have ever heard. But not… “ she tried to find the right analogy, “... the Valentine’s day romantic. Not flowers every day romantic. For one - we never fought. Not once. We argued a lot. About silly stuff. And about books. But for the most part - it was a quiet life. Just life. Actually… about two and a half years into it… (and it’s a good place to start that romantic bit, because that’s where it ended)... we were sitting on that lazy boy chair and reading. And then he puts down his book and asks ‘I know we talked about it and agreed… but I figured I’d ask anyway. Should we get married or something?’. And it was so Johnny - just making conversation, you know? But the truth was, he wanted to see if that’s what I wanted. Or needed. So I kissed him. And said ‘Sure. If you need a priest to tell us we will spend the rest of our lives together. Let’s get married.’. So, he picked me up, took me to bed, without saying a word… and about an hour later, breathless, whispered into my ear… ‘I don’t’. And we kind of never went back to that subject,” she smiled, a little blushed, and poured a glass of wine. “So, the most romantic bit…Did you know that he could pilot a plane?”

Carrie frowned, “Helicopter, probably. I think it was part of the training. But a plane? I don’t think so. Was he a pilot in the army?”

“Nope. But he was a certified pilot. I don’t think he had the time to clock all the flight hours for a more prestigious certification, but he was a private pilot with… what was it called? Instrument… something?”

“Instrument rating,” Max came to her aid. “I think it requires more flight hours.”

“Yep. But he also had some experience with his buddy in the US air force. Because it was no private jet we ended up in,” Julia continued. “So anyway... And I will have to back off a little. I have a niece, Christina, who was… I think about twelve at the time, whom I used to babysit when my sister and her husband would travel for work. So, Johnny and I used to come and stay in their house for days. Now, Chrissie was a lot like Max here, and was into all kinds of chick-flicks back then. And of course, she would make me watch them with her. I could never put Johnny through it, but she actually had quite a taste. And one night we ended up watching ‘Pearl Harbor’.”

“Oh I can see the plane relevance now.”

“Duh. Anyway… At some point, when we were both crying out loud at the end, Johnny came to see ‘what the fuck’s going on’. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was seeing me cry. It made him agitated and wanting to shoot someone. So, I was always careful telling him if someone upset me at work. So, he cursed at the movie, held me, and Chrissie… But we were like… no, it’s a nice ending. Sad, but nice. And Chrissie said she wished Evelyn would end up with Danny. Because he was so sexy and romantic. I agreed. Johnny lifted an eyebrow (to sexy and romantic), and asked to watch it with us. Again. So we did. Needless to say he found it ridiculous and couldn’t stop pointing our historical inconsistencies, and in the end I told him to just shut it and that it was a romantic movie, not a historical drama. And, although he said, that then it should have taken place under different circumstances, he did shut up and we managed to get through the movie. And when Danny took Evelyn up in the air to watch the sunset from ‘above’ I sighed and said that it was the most incredibly romantic thing I’ve ever seen,” Julia stopped and laughed. Then raised her glass. “Here’s to never underestimating how far our loved ones will go to prove that they can ‘beat Danny’.”

“Oh God… He didn’t. ”

“He did. It took him about seven months, as I learnt later, finding time between missions and when I was at work, driving all the way to the Burlington County, to the McGuire Air Force Base. But about eight months later I was working a day shift. Stevenson calls me to his office and tells me I can go home. See, Johnny was very good using the connections he made back when he was spending his days at our precinct. So I was not surprised. Johnny was waiting outside, in his car and, since our place was a walking distance away, I knew something was up. He also had a bag with a change of clothes for me, couple of those tuna sandwiches of his for us to eat on our way, and a very serious face. There was never a way to get him to tell me what he was up to when he was planning a surprise. So, I just got in and we drove away. By the time we came near the airbase, I did ask where we were going. And he said ‘To watch the sunset’ and he motioned to the sign saying ‘McGuire Air Force Base’ and then added ‘From above’,” she shook her head from side to side, her smile brightening the room. “God, he made it worth living. And loving. I wasn’t even surprised. I mean, I realized what he did… Just to make me live that ‘most romantic moment I ever saw’ for real. And I wasn’t even surprised. It really didn’t matter to him how stupid it was. If he wanted to do something for me, there was no small play - if it meant getting a pilot certification, why not, right? So, he parked the car a bit far away from the main gate. And asked if I cared for a walk. It was getting closer to the evening and it was a beautiful sunny day. So we held hands and we walked to the base. Then he called his buddy, who met us at the gate, and showed us to the hungar. Where we took an old model of SR-71 which they used for training…. Aaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd we went up. To watch the sunset from above.”

“Damn,” Max was literally all a cheesy smile. “Now I feel like watching Pearl Harbor.”

“When do you not feel like watching Pearl Harbor?” Carrie nudged him, laughing. Then added, turning to Julia. “I have to say… that does sound like something Quinn would do. I always thought he was crazy like that. And, like you said, quite unstoppable.”

“Yeah,” Julia sighed. “But then I found out that there was more to it than ‘beating Danny’. I was sitting in the RIO chair. And the jet was quite loud, so we could only talk on the radio. Quite frankly, we didn’t talk much. It was breathtaking. And incredible beyond words. But then I heard him saying ‘Jules, you there?’ and I was like ‘Jules here. And for the record, you did beat Danny. But go ahead. Over’. And he said… well more like asked… ‘Would  you walk with me and fly with me for as long as we both live?’. I knew it wasn’t a marriage proposal. But it was a proposal, alright. And it meant more to him than a marriage ever would. Now, I know I said it was beautiful and romantic, but by then I was mostly feeling nauseated and so sick to my stomach, that I could barely keep it in. So I said ‘Yes. But can we start by landing, so I don’t end up puking all over the plane?’. He aced the landing and was very full of himself after that. And had this smug expression on his face all the way back to the car. It was getting darker. And by the time we reached the car he stopped, took me into his arms, and said ‘Jules, I want to have a family with you’. I smiled and asked how big and he said ‘I don’t care. As big as we can afford to raise comfortably. So we can give them all a good life’. He took out a ring box. And I frowned, saying that we talked about it and I really don’t need a ring. But I should have known better. Because there was no ring in that box. There was a neatly folded form of resignation from the CIA. A copy, actually. Because he had already started the process by then. I asked if he was planning on starting a family when we get home or… and I motioned my head to the car. And he said that ‘it doesn’t have to be either or ’. So… To this day I don’t know if we made Johnny in the car or when we got home, or some days later… But a month after that I had a new reason to puke. And he had a new reason to smile.”

And then it happened. At first, neither Max nor Carrie understood what. They were busy laughing and feeling amused, and happy. And, when Julia bent over, just folded in two, they thought, at first, that she was laughing as well. It took them one horrifying second to realize that she wasn’t. It came suddenly. In a heartbeat. It became too big, too heavy - too much. By the time they knew she was crying, she wasn’t just crying anymore. They were both on their feet, leaping towards her - four arms around her… three hearts… one loss. And right there, right then it all fell away: the strength to carry on, the determination to be happy because he wanted her to be, because he gave up everything he ever wanted for her to be happy, for one of them to have a life that was meant for two . And the tears were not enough anymore. And it was why in ten years she never allowed herself to really cry - she knew this would happen, she knew if she let herself give in, it would break her. As the memories came closer, the world grew darker. Until there was no light anymore. And then the pain had risen to the point, where it could no longer be contained, or converted to the liquid state of tears. When she heard herself scream, she couldn’t believe it was her own voice. It sounded like a wail of a dying animal - raw and shattering. And yet it had all she was, deep inside, ever since that night, when she told him it was ok… she was going to be ok… they both were… and that she needed him to go now , because it was the right thing, and because once the baby was born, she wouldn’t be able to… and he wouldn’t be able to as well… and she watched him walk away… and waited for the door to close… and the sound of his footsteps to die in the night… to never be heard again… she waited to be sure he was really gone, because she couldn’t risk him walking back in to find her  on the floor…  so she could let her knees finally give up… and let her fall.

Julia could feel Max and Carrie holding her, she could hear their voices, and she felt herself leaning into their arms, and she thought she actually heard herself whisper ‘Hold me’, and that just made her cry harder. But then she wasn’t there anymore. For the first time in ten years she was back in the delivery room - the last time she cried like this, not being able to stop, wailing in pain, that had nothing to do with giving birth.

She labored for twenty eight hours. Her mother was there. And her sister. Her mother was angry at first - she was always angry - she didn’t approve of Julia’s choices in life ‘not one bit’. She was a devout catholic, and her daughter living with a man, having a child out of wedlock, was the greatest shame brought upon her family. But, beyond that, she was heartbroken. Because ‘she warned her! A man, who never wanted to get married, who wasn’t even there half the time… that’s no life. That man is not a husband material anyway’. That was Johnny’s nickname in the family  - ‘that man’. And it was even more unbearable to hear him being called that on that night. Julia remembered listening to her mother go on and on about ‘Now where is he? He wanted to have a family with you, got you pregnant, and now he’s gone? Brought a shame on our family… left you to raise the child on your own. I’ve been telling you… We’ve all been telling you, Julia. He was no good’. And her sister begging her mother to just ‘Mamma, stop. Now’s not the time’. And her mother replying ‘When is it the time? Did she ever ask my opinion before getting pregnant?’. It went on and on for hours. And Julia never said anything. She blocked out what her mother was saying, what her sister was saying… She even blocked out the pain of the contractions. She just lay there, tears streaming down her face, her neck, her chest; her hospital gown all wet at the top. And she couldn’t stop herself from crying. Or screaming. And when the midwife came back with an anesthesiologist to suggest that she might need another bolus of epidural, because she seemed to be still in pain, Julia remembered snapping out of if, for the first time, raising her head from the pillow and screaming at the top of her lungs ‘ Can you shoot it into my brain? Into my heart? No? Then get the FUCK away from me. All of you! Just leave us alone!!!’.

And then the curtain flew open. It didn’t slide - it was yanked with such force that the rail holding it almost snapped. And they all turned to see ‘that man’ standing there, tall and furious. ‘You heard her,’ he hissed in a low growling voice. ‘Get out. Now’. And he didn’t care that he was kicking out her mother and her sister along with the hospital stuff. He stared them down until they all left. Then he jerked the curtain closed again and turned to her. The anguish was written all over him, not just his face. But when his eyes, red and swollen, met hers, they filled with joy again. He closed the distance between them and sat down on her bed. Then he lay down beside her, wrapped her in his arms and put her head on his shoulder. He didn’t say he was sorry and that he was going to go away for real later. But not  yet. Not when she was in so  much pain. They both knew that was what was going to happen. He stroked her hair. And he put  a hand on her belly. He moved her as close to him as he could. And he said ‘Right here, my heart. Right where I can hold you’. He asked ‘Now seriously, Jules. Do you need more epidural? Because I’ll fucking drag them back in if you do. Ar gunpoint if need be’. She laughed, her tears drying up in a heartbeat, and she leaned in to kiss him, a long lingering grateful kiss, and then she stroked his hair, ‘I’m fine, you crazy badass motherfucker. Just stay with me’. And he did. None of them said it, but both of them put the heartbreak on hold. Pushing all that was already lost away. Like it never existed. He never told her he was going to stay. And she never told him they would find a way to make it work. They both knew none of it was going to happen. So, they just lay there, in each other's arms, listening to their son’s heartbeat coming from the fetal monitor, listening to each other’s breathing. And just dissolving into happiness, which wasn’t even bittersweet. Just sweet. And tender. And funny. And silly. And a little crazy.

He had been Peter Quinn for some time then. He came home one day and told her that he changed his name. She got worried and asked if something happened that had to do with his job. But he said no. Not the job. But something did happen. A very- very long time ago. And he told her what it was. And why this name meant so much to him. And she knew there was something more to it. To why it happened on that day. She could see a glimpse of something very dark about him. But she never asked. A part of her knew he would never tell her. Because he would never make her choose between loving him and her oath as an officer of the law. But she always kind of knew. He took care of the people who took all hopes for having a life from him many years ago. And he changed his name to something that would always connect him to the people he lost.

He never asked her to call him anything she didn’t want to. She still called him Johnny most of the time. And he loved it. Sometimes, she called him Quinn . Because he said his buddies in the SOG called him that. And he found it amusing when she did. And always tried to figure out which one of her moods came with which name. And when she called him Peter he melted. Because he knew that she knew how much it meant to him. And she often called him Peter when they were most intimate. Because she felt what it did to him. But he always said his most favourite was the ‘ crazy badass motherfucker ’. Although, he did express some concern as to her calling him that once the baby was born. He thought it was a ‘tough first word to pronounce’. It was her idea to call their son John Jr. She said she needed a ‘Johnny’ in her life.

That’s how the name was born, that very day. And they became forever J+J+JJ . His idea. He came up with it in the middle of the night. She woke up at the sound of him laughing. And, a quizzical look on her face, she asked ‘What is it now?’. When he told her, she just shook her head and held him closer. ‘You’re so silly, you know that? How are you ever going to raise a child when you are so silly?’. But he just kept getting sillier… making up all kinds of jokes around it. She suggested a P instead of J. Or a Q. He laughed at Q. And said it reminded him of Star Trek too much. She never watched Star Trek. So she just took his word for it. But he said it was J+J+JJ. ‘And that’s it’. And, because arguing with him when he got like that was pointless, she just closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

They laughed about it again, in her delivery room bed. And they laughed about many things. Hours went by. Life on hold. Pain on halt. He rubbed her belly during contractions, wincing in pain himself, looking like he was ready to shoot someone to make it stop hurting her, and he rubbed the small of her back in between. When she suddenly looked at him, seeing the glow in his eyes, and said she ‘must look like crap’, he ran his hand over her dark hair, picking and caressing silky strands between his fingers, and he rubbed his nose against hers, then kissed her, ‘No, silly. You’re fucking breathtaking, remember?’. She did. The first thing he ever said to her. And then he did better than tell her. He brought his face even closer to hers, and he started singing in a low, broken voice, ‘One day… when I’m awfully low, where the world is cold, I will feel the glow just thinking of you. And the way you look tonight’.

Johnny was born in the early hours of the following night. He only cried once, when his lungs opened and he drew his first breath. After that he breastfed a bit, and was perfectly content  being cuddled between his parents, not sleeping, but looking around with this stunned expression on his face. His father was crying now, holding his whole world in his arms. His mother knew those were not happy tears anymore. In her heart she thanked their son for taking his time coming into this world, and allowing his parents one last day of what would never be again.

He spent the night in her room. The nurses tried to tell him visiting hours were long over. Then the security did. No one could drag him away. He let them sleep on his lap one last time. Julia woke up at dawn. He was awake. He told her he was going to love her and his son until his last breath. And he was going to always keep them safe. None of them cried. Not even little Johnny. He was put into his mother's arms when his father finally managed to tear his own arms away from him. Then he was given a kiss that seemed to last forever. And then he heard his father walk away for good.

Julia never had to work hard to find it in her heart to be happy. Once you’re shown what happiness is - it forever remains a part of who you are. Even with the ‘bad bits’. She wasn't happy just because she owed it to the man who gave her the world on his palm. She was happy. Just happy. Because sadness, however great, can be a part of happiness too. She learnt that from the man she loved, from how he lived his life, walking in the shadows of death, but still coming back to her every time. She watched the sun rise from the window of her hospital room, holding their son in her arms. He was sleeping peacefully. Her heart was breaking a bit. But she was holding it together. And every time she looked at Johnny’s sleepy face, it became easier. And it was then, when she first sang to him, remembering his father telling her that being off tune didn’t mean you couldn’t sing. And she rocked in the breastfeeding chair and watched the skies change colors, and she sang ‘You’re my sunshine’ to their baby boy.

She took him home a day later. There, starting her new journey, she learnt the underlying meaning of loss - it was a series of ‘first times’: first time of opening the door, knowing that their home was empty, and not just because he was away on a mission; first time making  dinner for one; first time waking up alone, really alone, not because he was away, but because he was gone. But then, the first time she woke up in their bed surrounded by the new reality of her life, she realized that it wasn’t just the loss that brought her a long line of first times. It was also the fact that she was a mother now. To his child. A child who was loved before he was in existence. Born out of love that she could never regret having. And it was the first morning she woke up hearing him fussing in his crib. Overwhelmed, she jumped up and leaned to pick him up. ‘Good morning, sunshine,’ she whispered, breathing in his smell, kissing his tiny face. Knowing, that she would never be alone after all. And she will always have a ‘Johnny’ in her life. She had tears in her eyes as she was changing him. Then she cried a bit when she was breastfeeding. But then she was smiling again, when he lay on her arms… just looking at her. His face was getting clearer with every passing day. She didn’t believe in knowing who the babies looked like when they were this  young. But she wished in her heart he would have his father's eyes. And his father’s smile. And, some weeks later, she found her wish granted. “Your daddy was very generous with you, was he?’ she used to say to him. ‘He gave you everything you need to grow up a real heartbreaker’.

She remained happy for all those years. Raising Johnny was a bliss. And he grew up just as happy as she made him. Every day. When he was older, she told him that his father had a very dangerous job - protecting people, keeping everyone safe. And that many bad people were mad at him for doing what he did, and that he had to go away to keep her and him safe for always. But that he was still out there. And every day they woke up safe and sound it was because his father made it so. And because he was watching over them. For many years after that she knew just how true it was. Because, some nights, she would look outside and see a dark tall figure standing in the shadows.

She had been married since. Once. To Dave, her old partner. It took them a year and a half to realize that they both mistook something for love: her - needing someone familiar taking care of her, him - compassion for an old friend. They parted friends, too. Mostly, because Julia didn’t believe in becoming strangers just because you couldn’t make it as a couple. She never gave up on trying. And she knew now, neither did he. She read that letter so many times. But it only took the first time to see, that some things never changed. And that they both believed that once you’ve known love, you will spend your whole life trying to find it again. And never forgetting the one love that became a beacon of hope for all the others.

She remained happy even now, crying in Max’s and Carrie’s arms, reliving the life she ended up having without him. But finally having someone to hold her . And she allowed herself to let it out. Because there was no one out there anymore protecting the world. Not like he did. And there never would be. And she could let them know how much it hurt her. Because she knew they were probably the only ones who understood just how true it was, that no matter how many people lived in the world, a year ago it became one man short.

“Ok, no more stories,” Max concluded, when Julia finally pulled away, long after she stopped crying.

“I’m fine,” she smiled, wiping her face, and taking a glass of cold water Carrie was holding.

“Yeah. Really peachy,” Carrie scoffed and sat on the coffee table in front of her.

“It’s… been awhile,” Julia looked down.

“Drink then?” Carrie offered, with a surprising hint of an irish accent bursting through her drunken heritage.

Julia rolled her eyes. Then thought about it and gave her a ‘why not’ shrug, “That does seem to be the motif.”

Before he had a chance to consider consulting with Carrie first, Max found himself saying “Would you like to stay?”

“Emmmmm,” confused more than anything, Julia  looked at the time, then at the window.

“Oh no, he doesn’t mean tonight,” Carrie came back with three full shots and took her place on the coffee table again. “He means - stay. With us. For a while. For as long as you need to, actually. Or want to.”

“Pfff… wow,” Julia took her drink from Carrie’s hand, but didn’t drink it yet. “Thanks. I guess. But I’m fine. And usually I do keep it together.”

“I’m sure you’re fine,” Max smiled. “You’ve always been fine. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t use some holiday family time.”

“You guys have your own families. And I don’t have a Christmas vacation that long. In fact, I’m on the day after tomorrow first thing in the morning. But again… Thanks. You guys are really great. Maybe we can meet at our place on New Years eve.”

“Ok… this ,” Carrie drew an imaginary line between herself and Max, “is how big our family is. I have a sister, who’s in Europe now with her husband and kids. And well… Saul.”

“Saul…?” Julia’s forehead wrinkled into a question.

“Our… old boss… I guess,” Max clarified. “You’ll meet him at some point. He’s a… I wanna say nice guy… which he is. But he’s kinda still in . And a hell of an old spook.”

“C’mon, Jules,” Carrie kicked her in the leg. And then she winked. “Pick up the dry cleaning.”

“Ha-ha,” Julia started sarcastically, but then laughed for real.

The truth was, being here, was probably the happiest she had been in the last  year. And the thought of going home, back into the land of ‘everyday’, was the one thing she couldn’t bring herself to connect to in the past couple of hours. She thought about it when she first got the letter about a week earlier. She thought about how many times you can lose a person. To this day she could count three. And, although she had moved on many years ago, maybe Johnny was right - you never really stop loving someone; you give your heart away and you remain forever connected to it. She was mourning again, all over, like she was ten years ago, when he walked away, and like she was a year ago, when he died.

“I’ll need to call my captain in the morning,” she said, finally. “Well, not this morning, but the morning after. And we’ll need to go pick up some clothes and stuff.”

“Sure, we can go tomorrow afternoon,” Carrie smiled and Max thought how long it had been since he saw a smile that wide and that happy.

Julia leaned back and pulled up her knees, “So, since none of us needs to wake up early tomorrow… and I do owe you the rest of the story…”

“You don’t,” Max looked concerned and he shook his head. “Been enough ‘bad bits’ for a lifetime.”

“It’s not the ‘bad bits’ that get me, you know,” Julia emptied her shot in one go. “It’s the good ones. When you think how real it was. How right it was. How we never hurt anyone. How we just wanted to live our lives, simple and quiet,” she had tears in her eyes again. “I think sometimes people look back at their relationships and they can learn from their own mistakes, they have regrets, and they can move on… But Johnny and I… we never had regrets. There were no mistakes to learn from. And yet we both ended up paying a price for something that had nothing to do with what we felt for each other, or what we were to each other, or how we were there for each other. And, if anything, I promised you a love story. And I think, looking back today, the real ‘love’ part of it was how it ended.”

“Jules, we all know how it ended. Without you having to relive it,” Max moved closer and put his arm around her. “We met Quinn four years after you separated. He was still with the agency, still SOG active. I guess quitting didn’t work out. And, to tell you the truth, seeing how Quinn was, I’m not really surprised.”

“I don’t mind reliving it,” Julia shook her head. “Because he didn’t remain with the agency because he chose it over Johnny and me. He remained with the agency because it was the only thing left in his life. After he realised he was never going to be able to walk away without paying the price he wasn’t prepared to pay.”

“Jules, Dar Adal would never let him leave,” Carrie had a sad smile on her face when she sat next to her and pulled the throw blanket over her lap. “I know it probably wasn’t clear to the two of you at the time, but it’s the truth. It’s not impossible to quit the CIA. Max and I did. Saul did at one time. But we were never Ops. And even for us, it was a long and tiresome process. And even then, the life that you live, you never feel like you actually quit. For one, just to show you how… fucked up it is… it takes about twenty minutes to have your status restored to active. And it takes weeks… sometimes months to complete the process of resignation. And after that, you’re still a citizen who signed off some of their constitutional rights. When you start working for the agency, when you’re young, it all sounds very exciting. And you don’t give much thought about what it means when you sign a document stating that you can never be protected by the constitution when it comes to ‘life, liberty and pursuit of happiness’. Because it means, that years after you quit, you can be perceived a national security risk, wrapped up on the street, hauled into a van and vanish without a trace. To be stuffed into a dark hole or… just disappear.”

Julia nodded. She knew part of it already, “Was that his name? Dar Adal? His boss?”

“Sneaky sssson-of-a-bitch,” Carrie filtered through her teeth. And she nodded. “Be glad you never met the piece of shit.”

“I did, though,” Julia said, looking up. “He came to see me. Never gave me his name, but I knew who he was.”

“Motherfucker probably tried to get Quinn not to quit, failed, and came to appeal to your sense of duty.”

“I had no sense of duty for him to appeal to,” Julia grunted, her eyes becoming even darker. “And he knew that right from the start. And what he tried to appeal to was much more personal.”

“Yeah well…” Carrie waved her hand. “Po-tay-to po-tah-to… same shit. The guy is a fucking bulldog. And he’d had his teeth in Quinn’s ass for as long as I’d known him. He was never gonna let him go.”

“I was… I think about seven and a half months along then,” Julia continued. “Johnny was away on a mission,” she let out a bitter snort, “we actually thought it was probably his last mission. We were so happy, you have no idea… I mean, we were always happy, but that time…” she wiped tears from both sides of her face. “We were laughing, all the time, he’d make up all kinds of silly jokes… I don’t think we ever stopped smiling in the whole time since we found out Johnny was on the way. He became a father the moment he decided to have a family. He made up stories he’d tell our children… he’d tell them to Johnny, lying in bed, his head on my chest, talking to my belly… And when I’d laugh, because they were mostly ridiculously silly, he’d wait for Johnny to wake up and start kicking, then he’d put his hand to the little lump forming on my belly and say ‘high five, man! We made mommy laugh!’. I know he said we’d have a family as big as we could afford to raise comfortably… but looking at him, seeing how incredibly happy he was, I couldn’t wait to get pregnant again. I would have ten of them just to see him like that all the time. So, the night he left for that last mission, he kissed me, then he kissed Johnny inside me, then he held my belly in between his hands and he said ‘Daddy will be home before you know it. And I will never leave you and mommy again. Ever. You’re the man in the house now. You take care of mommy for me, ok?’,” her face twitched violently and tears sprung through her eyes. Julia turned away, exhaling through pursed lips. Her voice was low and husky when she spoke again. “It wasn’t the last mission. But it was the last time I saw him that happy.”

“What did Dar say to you?” Carrie was holding tears back herself.

“He came by… about two days after Johnny left. It was late at night and he woke me up. I saw a strange man standing at the door and my heart sank so fast and so deep I almost dropped dead right there. I thought something happened to Johnny. And that man came to tell me the father of my child was dead,” she swallowed. “But he actually knew I would think that. And the first thing he said was… ‘John is fine. Don’t worry’ and then he had thought about it for a bit and added ‘Not to say that you shouldn’t be worried’. He asked if he could come in, and I kind of figured it was important, so I let him in. Offered him some tea. He was… acted… very politely, held himself in a very respectful way, even seemed truly kind to me.”

“Probably was… sneaky shit ,” Carrie hissed.

“So, he got straight to business and told me he needed my help. Because he tried talking to Johnny about his decision to leave the group and he was getting nowhere. And he hoped I could help him understand just how bad a move it was. I told him right away that it wasn’t up to him, or the group. That we’ve made that choice together. And it was a done deal. So, he said ‘Young lady, I don’t think you are in any position to fully appreciate the complexity of the situation. Maybe I should lay out some of the things you never considered while making that choice ’. He asked me if I really thought I knew what Johnny was doing when he was away on missions, or where he was going. I said I did. From the get go. And he laughed. There was something about the way he laughed, that made me shrink. Like… there was something so terrifying that he knew about Johnny, that I would never even begin to fathom. He said I was a fool if I thought that. And I was a fool if I believed anyone gets to walk away free after seeing, doing and knowing the things Johnny did. He said… ‘What your man does… it’s known to very few. Some of those things were never documented. Some - are only whispered about’. And he said that the agency resources and protection is the only reason we both haven't had our throats cut in our sleep. And he asked if I was really ready to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and wondering if someone would pick up our son from the kindergarten just to get to his father.”

Carrie sighed and stroked her arm, “I hate to say that… especially about that fucker… But he was right, you know… I was with the agency for over fifteen years. Those things were only whispered about. And he was right, when he said you were naive if you thought you knew what Quinn did. Those ‘bad bits’, that he never spoke about, I think no one spoke about them You’ve got to understand, the things those people do, agency doesn’t take responsibility for. If they fail, if they fail to extract themselves, if something’s gone wrong - they are done. On their own. And in most cases don’t even get a star on the wall. They are just gone. And what he said about looking over your shoulder - I don’t doubt that for one second. You’d probably spend your lives on the run… at the very best.”

Julia looked down at her hands, clasped on her lap, “The thing is… Johnny would know about it, right? He wasn’t stupid. Far from it. And not just that… I figured, all those arguments, Dar Adal probably used them when he spoke to Johnny before he came to me. And if he thought his quitting would put me or our son in danger, or that he wouldn’t be able to protect us, he wouldn’t go for it. He never would. Johnny couldn’t even bear seeing me cry… I burnt my hand once and he went ballistic and almost broke the stove. And (and I’m jumping way ahead here) in the end I was right, because that’s exactly what happened - it was knowing that he would never be able to keep us safe if he stayed, that made him walk away. So, I told that Dar person to just cut the crap… and say it straight - he didn’t want to lose an operative, so he was grasping at straws.”

“Probably true, too. At least in part,” Carrie agreed, but her expression remained unconvinced.

“See… he looked at me… not even smiling… and he said ‘It’s actually funny you should mention it. And I’m glad you did. Let me disillusion you of that notion. Losing an operative is a pain in the ass, I assure you. But it’s nothing a Tylenol won’t fix. Because in reality, what you don’t understand is…’ he made a long meaningful pause and pronounced each following word with great emphasis, ‘those people are quite expendable . And replaceable. They are walking and breathing national security risks from the moment they join in. And after their first mission, if they are even suspected of misconduct, they tend to… be prone to accidents ’. He said he didn’t know how much Johnny told me about him, but that they went way back, and he cared about him a great deal, and did so long before I even knew him. And he said that he wouldn’t go to all this trouble for just anyone. And that even if I didn’t believe him, he loved Johnny and he never wanted to see him or the people he loved hurt. But the way those things went down, it might not be up to him to protect Johnny. So I had to think very hard. Because the situation, the way he saw it, was a lose-lose. Someone was going to get hurt. Or worse.”

Carrie cursed. Then some more. But she said nothing coherent. The look on her face went from sceptical to just sad. And the way she nodded just gave it all away.

“I think my blood literally turned into ice when he said those things,” Julia continued. “And then it boiled. I grabbed my gun, stood up and pointed it dead at his head. And I yelled ‘Get out. Get the fuck out of our home and out of our lives. You come near one of us again, you dare to threaten him again, and I will pull the trigger. I swear on my son’s life I will’. I was so angry, I was all shaking, but my grip on my gun was rather stable. And I really meant it. I think he knew it, too. But what he did next, shook me up even more: he put down his tea cup, stood up and walked straight to me. His forehead was almost touching my barrel, and there was no fear in his eyes. He said ‘Julia, I’m giving you a way out. The only way out you’ll ever get. I can protect you and your child. And I will. If you think about everything I’ve said and you do the right thing. For both your sakes. Let him go. Because you’ll lose him anyway. You don’t see it yet. But you better’. And then he reached for his pocket and took out a card with a single phone number on it. He put it on my night stand and walked back to me. He said what I didn’t know was, that this mission that Johnny was on right now, it was supposed to be his last. But not in a way we thought it would be. And that he made a deal. A very hard and shaky deal. With very high stakes. And he promised that he would set Johnny straight. So, unless the mission goes wrong, Johnny would be back. And I should think very hard before I let him go on his next one,” Julia took a bottle of vodka and emptied what was left at the bottom of it into her mouth. “I told him to get the fuck out. And I didn’t lower my weapon until he did. But before he left, he told me again that I was making a mistake that would cost me dearly. And that there was only so much he could do for the both of us now. Oh, and right before he gallantly closed the door behind him,  he turned around and said ‘Now, if I were you, to avoid unnecessary complications, I would probably leave our meeting out of the pillow talk’.”

Carrie scoffed feeling the anger rising inside her, “I’m guessing you did. Seeing how the piece of crap’s still breathing. Quinn would have ended him on the spot if he knew.”

It took some time for Julia to respond. And when she did, her face was pale and blank, “I never got a chance to. A week later, on my way home, I was attacked. I turned into an alley, right next to our building, and someone jumped me from behind. I was armed. But I never had a chance to draw. I remembered his face, I still do. In fact, I was called to try and identify my attacker about half a year later… which is another story… Anyway, before I could even realise what happened, he hit me across the face so hard, I flew across the alley and smashed against the wall. The blow was so hard, the pain so bad, that I just slid to the ground. And the last thing I remember thinking, as he stood above me, ready to hit me again, was… that I’d never know what our son looked like, that we were both going to die there, and that the man I loved would never survive it,” she considered it for a minute, and then added, “and I think, in a way, he never did.”

Neither Julia nor Max noticed it, but this was when Carrie stopped talking. Her eyes grew very dark, almost black. A thought that came to her and was gone in a flash was unlike anything before. Carrie didn’t worry - the thought was too ‘her’ to not be back. It was an idea - a concept. It made her feel the familiar warmth spreading across everything around it. Maybe Max was wrong. Maybe… she didn’t need to be sad after all. Being sad was other’s way of coping. Carrie needed to work. She needed to think. And to do something.

Julia told the rest of her story. The rest of Johnny’s story. Even before she went on, Carrie knew she was only partially right. Because Johnny did survive. He lived on, hidden from the world, carried around in the heart of a man, who was left with nothing but duty to live for. He had a different name, a different way about him. But it was Johnny who kept him tethered to what was right and true. It was Johnny, glimpses of him, that made her fall in love with him. It was Johnny, weak and wounded, who carried that man on his shoulders back to who he really was, time after time, in a life that became nothing but a series of ‘bad bits’. It was Johnny, who made that man never fail anyone, as it was Johnny who made him push through being failed by everyone.

Julia woke up in ICU two days after she blacked out in the alley. She had a severe concussion, base of skull fracture, several fractured ribs, ruptured spleen that had to be removed, and a ruptured membrane around her right lung, which was why she needed a chest tube. She wasn’t in pain - not physical pain, anyway. When the hard plastic of the tube slid along the inside of her throat and she drew her first breath off the ventilator, she didn’t cough - she spoke. Her voice sounded strange, strangled and strained, but she managed to get out a single word “Johnny” and she first looked around for signs of big Johnny, then she reached with her hand to her belly and let out a sigh of relief when she found it still big and swollen, and then, as if answering his mother’s call, right under where her palm had stopped, little Johnny kicked very lightly, as if saying ‘Heya, mommy, high five - we made it’. She was told that it was touch and go with the pregnancy for a while. She had a small placenta abruption, and was in labor when she was first brought in. They managed to stop it. And the abruption was healing nicely. But she would need to stay off her feet for another week or so. ‘You were both fighters,’ the nurse said to her with a wink and a cheerful smile, ‘and you both made it’.

Julia asked if anyone came to visit her. She was told the police was there, a man waiting to take her statement. She recognised her sergeant the moment he walked through the main entrance, barely visible from her unit. His eyes were red, his uniform, usually ironed nad aced to be an example to every police officer in the country, all messed up and wrinkled. She knew that look - one of their own was hurt, and, above that, Stevenson loved her like a daughter. He sat on the chair next to her bed and took out a notepad. She knew he would like nothing more, than to hold her hand right now. But she also knew, the only thing he needed to do was go out there and find the man who did this to her. He held himself together, taking her statement, asking questions, telling her what little evidence was gathered by the crime scene unit from her clothes and her body. When he was finished, she could see blinking lights reflecting in the glistening of tears in his eyes. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Then he said he’d be back and he’d keep her in the loop no matter what they find. He promised, without her having to ask, to keep an eye on their home and catch Johnny the moment he came back and bring him here.

Stevenson was back the next morning. He looked even worse. He told her they worked through the night and managed to trail her assailant all the way to Baltimore. But then, right after he hung up a call to his old pal whose jurisdiction it fell under, and was about to drive there, a man walked into his office and closed the door. He slapped his desk with a federal warrant to cease and desist, due to its being a matter of national security. He was told the FBI would take over and keep him in the loop. Both him and Julia had to chuckle at that - right .

He said he was sorry. He was angry and frustrated. Julia took his hand into hers. She shook her head and smiled, ‘Never say you’re sorry, sir. I know you did everything you could. It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault’. He felt bad asking, she could see he did, but he had to ‘Should I be worried about your special forces beau taking matters into his own hands?’. She lied - no. She promised him she’d take care of it, fully knowing she wouldn’t be able to. Johnny was a beautiful gentle soul… for her . But that soul dwelled inside a highly skilled killer. And for every bit of love he had for her and their son, there was a bit of pain he would inflict on anyone causing them harm. Then she said she was feeling a little tired and needed to sleep. He left. And she cried. A nurse asked her if she needed something for pain. Julia said they didn’t have anything for that kind of pain. Then she closed her eyes.

She didn’t know if the man, who came to the police station with a federal warrant, was Dar Adal. She didn’t know if the attack was something orchestrated to show her what her life would be like from now on. Or was it meant for Johnny, to see just how far it could go, and how little he could do to protect his loved ones. She didn’t know if the man, who attacked her was a sent by Dar Adal as an attempt to save a life of a person he claimed to care for. The only thing she did know was that none of it really mattered. And maybe that was the point. She couldn’t help but wonder if her life was spared on purpose. Because the man who came to see her the other night really did love Johnny. And would never go further than a warning - would never kill the people who were his whole world. She cried because she knew, either way, it was over. And she cried now , because she knew that later she would need to be stronger. Much stronger. Because Johnny would realise what he needs to do to protect them. And he would need her to hold him through it. For one last time.

He came back that same night. Julia woke up at the sound of angry voices and commotions. She saw Johnny held by four security officers, trying to fight his way through. The look on his face, as he saw her, sent a chill through her heart. She tried to sit up. She kept screaming for them to just ‘please let him go. Please…’ but her voice was still hoarse from the intubation. And only her monitor alarms were able to scream for her. She begged the nurse who came to silence them to tell those people to let him go. She said it would end badly if they didn’t. Very badly. She could see it in his eyes - a killer about to break through. And she couldn’t have him snap and break their necks right now. And then another man entered the unit, a tall old man in police uniform, which was still wrinkled and messy. A man, who probably spent his time staking out their place until Johnny was back. He flashed his ID. And told the security to back off that very moment. Then he handed the charge nurse and one of the security guards two copies of a document. And he said ‘He stays. Police matter’. Then he looked at Julia and brought his hand to his temple, giving her a short salute, one officer to another, the least he could do - for their own.

Johnny didn’t walk to her, he didn’t run - he leaped. Then he stopped. At the door to her unit - he stilled completely. His back ramrod straight, his arms fallen at the sides of his body, his backpack slid to the floor with a heavy thump. Then his rifle bag did. There were no words to describe his face. Or, maybe, there were too many words. His jaws clenched hard. So hard his lips turned blue. Maybe they drew all the blue from his eyes. Because his eyes turned very dark, his pupils blown so large with a violent surge of adrenalin that there was no blue around them anymore. He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe for awhile either. And Julia knew, looking at him, that if whatever was locked behind those locked jaws were to be unleashed unto the world right now, the world would never stand a chance. He didn’t look at her, not yet. His eyes were the only thing that moved. They took in every bruise on her body, every drain coming out of her, every monitor cable she was connected to, every IV line. And every time another piece of her pain made its way into the black hole of his soul, she could see a muscle around his jaws wobble, then twitch, and then she could see him take a labored breath, and his nostrils would flair as the air gushed with a volatile force in and out of him.

When his eyes reached hers they became blue again. And his jaws relaxed. Then his lips moved… No sound came out. But she could read her name on his lips, even when they trembled so hard. It was then, that she knew she could reach him. She always knew when it was time. She let her head tilt to the side and smiled. She didn’t need to push through the pain to make that smile the brightest and the happiest for him - it was always there. ‘Quinn, you look like shit.’ And she saw him smile back, barely and just for a brief moment, but for real. And maybe it was then when he first figured out which one of her moods went with the name Quinn - it was when she needed to be strong, and she couldn’t let herself to be broken by the intimacy of Johnny . Or Peter . ‘C’mere and kiss me, you badass motherfucker’, she said then, tapping on the edge of her bed. That name always made him smile. And he did. Still not moving. She could see his knees shake a bit before he took the first step. He steadied himself and walked over. But he just sat on her bed. Julia reached for his hand and she could see it shaking, as he was fighting with his brain to let the signal from his motor cortex to his muscles come through.

Johnny never took her hand. Suddenly, his whole body went limp. And he folded forward, not being able to keep himself up any longer. And he broke in two, coming to cover her with himself, too late to protect her, too late to save her, too late to keep her. His head was on her chest, his face turned towards her belly, his left arm around his unborn child, his right stretched up to hold the love of his life. Julia said nothing. Neither of them did. She put a hand on top of his head and stroked his hair. In silence. She didn’t remember how much time had passed. And then the little Johnny woke up. He moved slightly at first, still sleepy, and then there was a soft push that touched his father’s face ‘Dad! That you? You’re back!’. And that’s when she heard the most horrifying sound coming out of the man she loved - a long wail of such agony and sorrow, that it made her gasp. And then he cried out loud.

They all cried then. The three of them. Carrie, Max and Julia. After that none of them spoke for a long time. But there was still one thing left to say. About Johnny. And about Quinn. And how they ended up together.

About half a year after John Jr was born, Julia got a call from Baltimore PD. It was Stevenson’s old friend. He said they needed her to come down and identify a potential suspect in her assault. She was surprised, as she was told the case was closed to never be reopened again. But she took little Johnny and walked to her car. Stevenson was there. He said he was going to drive her. Because where she was going was no place for a child.

She stood in the coroner’s office and looked down at the body on the metal table. It was the man who attacked her. His kneecaps were shot through, but there was no other visible cause of death, no stabbing wounds, no other bullet holes. There were signs of horrible torture on his hands, feet and face. And he was covered in bruises. He was beaten to death in the end. By someone’s bare hands. That’s what the coroner told her.

Julia asked if she could be alone for a bit. And she stood there, looking at the beat body on the table. All she could see was Johnny. Beautiful, gentle, sweet Johnny. Who was no more. That was what was left of him - a tortured and beat body. A man he killed, with his bare hands. Not in the line of duty. A murder. That was all that was left - rage, skill, training, mission. She didn’t want to think about him like that. But she owed him. So she looked. And she found it in her heart to love that other part of him, too. And to thank him.

Then she went out the door and told the officer in charge of the investigation that it wasn’t him. It wasn’t the man who attacked her. She said she was sure. And she walked away, taking Johnny’s secret with her. To never lead back to him.

____________________________________

Max was dozing off when he heard the door to the basement screech. He opened his eyes to see Carrie making her way in. His heart sank low. Not again.

But he was wrong. She looked at him, saw him awake and smiled. Then she came closer, leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

“I’m ok,” she whispered. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Are you?” he sat up in bed, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm. “You didn’t say much after Julia finished.”

“It was just too sad,” Carrie lied. Not because it wasn’t sad. But because that wasn’t the reason she went quiet.

“Yeah,” Max nodded. Then looked at her again. “You ok?”

Carrie shook her head. There was no point in lying to Max, “No. But I think I will be.”

“He never really changed, you know,” he said after a while.

“Yeah, I know,” she agreed and sat on the edge of his bed. “I keep thinking… that time he told me to let him go. And he said he never had a heart. I think it was one of the ‘bad bits’. He would’ve found his way back. He always did. He just didn’t have enough time.”

Max sighed and the tears filled his eyes again, “He was a great man.”

“He was,” Carrie breathed, a bare whisper. “And he deserved better.”

“Better than the ‘best death a soldier could ever hope for’?” Max allowed himself a dark joke, hoping she was in a place to appreciate it.

She did. “Better than the life of protecting people and never being given the only thing he ever wanted. He deserved better than the ungrateful people who used and manipulated him. Better than me. He deserved Jules.”

“Don’t say that,” Max touched his hand to hers.

“It’s the truth,” Carrie scoffed softly.

“He loved you.”

“Much good that did him.”

“Don’t be like Dar,” Max said suddenly, and, when Carrie gave him a confused look, he clarified. “Don’t try to tell Quinn what he needed in his life, and what was right for him. It was his choice to love you. What he wanted. Not up to you to judge it. Or fight it. Whether you deserved it or not, is not your place to argue. It’s in the eyes of the beholder. He thought you did. And, for the record, I think you did, too. If there is one thing I will always remember about what Jules said tonight, it’s that Quinn had more courage in love than he had in taking the fight to the enemy. I think it was his life’s one true mission. And you know how he was… once set his mind on something, he would see it through. He did deserve Jules. But I think… in the end… for once… maybe it shouldn’t be about what he deserved. Or maybe… let me put it another way… what he deserved , above all , after a lifetime of fighting other people’s wars, was to be given what he wanted . And needed . He wanted you . And now he’s got you.”

Carrie opened her mouth to argue, but then changed her mind. She leaned in and kissed Max again, “Thank you,” she said finally. “Now go to sleep.”

“What were you doing here anyway?” he asked, lowering his head back on the pillow.

“Need to take care of something. Long overdue.”

“Need a hand?”

Carrie thought about it. Yeah. She needed a hand. So she nodded. Then she stood up and walked to the closet in the corner. She opened the doors and grabbed the knots of three black plastic bags. She dragged them out. Max helped. Without a word they walked to the other room. And they sat on the sofa, tearing the black plastic apart. And they took out a bunch of clothes. They folded them neatly, first laying them out on the table. Then they put them away inside the empty drawers.

They didn’t know what to do about the book, though. With all the memories inside - two great loves of one great man. Then Max had it. He put it on the table. Not straight. Kind of at an angle. Like if someone just left it there to be picked up and read later.

______________________________________

The guest room was dark and quiet. Julia and Johnny were fast asleep - her arms around her little speck of light, his head pressed against her chest. Carrie stood there, a silent intruder, watching them sleep, peaceful and happy. And she wondered if there was still something hovering over them, around them - a figure of a loving man, a loving father, still keeping them safe.

“I’ll take over,” she whispered into the darkness. “They will never be alone again. You can go now. You can rest.”

And then, whether it was a hallucination or just something her inflamed mind needed and drew in the dark through the blur of her teary eyes, she saw a man sitting on the bed, folded over, his arms around the people he loved, his head resting on Julia’s shoulder. He was wearing a dirty shirt, his hair was all messed up and greasy, his backpack and his rifle bag were at his feet. She saw him kissing both their heads and whispering something to them that was none of anyone else’s business. Then he stood up and  turned to Carrie. By the time he reached her, he was older, wiser, sadder. But he was still smiling. He took her into his arms and held her for a long time. Then she felt his breath on her ear. And she heard his voice.

“Thank you, Carrie,” he said. And then he dissolved into the past, becoming just an empty space between her arms.

She closed her eyes. And she let her mind wander into the land of dreams again. She walked past all the dreams she had for herself, then the ones she had for Franny. And she finally reached an empty drawer. This will be called “J+J+JJ” she said to herself. And she drew the first picture for that dream drawer.

It was a late afternoon. The sky, peeking in from the small window, was just beginning to bathe in the soft tints of yellowish. The sun was about to kiss the horizon goodbye and float to bring another day beyond the distant shores of the world. It would be so incredibly beautiful to watch that sunset from above. But that was a different dream. A different picture. Today was just about the simple. And the quiet. There was a lazy boy armchair next to the window. A man lay there. He had dark spiky hair and steely blue eyes. His arms were iron strong, but also lover’s gentle. His left arm was wormed around a slim figure of a pregnant woman, peacefully lying on top of him, safe close to his heart, his left hand was holding a book. His right hand rested on his girl’s heavily pregnant belly. She was reading a different book. Neither of them spoke in that dream. Neither of them was one for words.

Carrie’s eyes squeezed shut. She felt the anger rise from inside her - larger than life, stronger than love. She saw herself catching that anger and wrapping it around that image. She knew she would need it. Later. Probably much later. But one day. Because someone had to pay. For once. Someone had to pay for at least one injustice. For Johnny. And for Julia. She felt a shard of that anger getting loose and hitting her right in the chest… right where her own heart had been. It split her in two. One part, knowing that she needed to get better: for Franny, for Max, for herself. She needed to be sad. And she needed to give into her guilt and regret. Another - knowing that that thought, that idea, was way too appealing to ever go away. It could take years, she knew, until it matured enough to be ready. But she also knew that it wasn’t in her nature to let it go.

She had to say it. For it to be real. For it to become her true north. She carefully closed the door to the guest room and walked down the stairs. The backdoor opened with some effort - the snow was almost ankle deep already. She didn’t bother to take her coat. She was burning inside and she needed the cold. The sky was clear now. The snowing stopped. The stars were high and distant.

Carrie looked up. There was only one person who could know. No one else. But he… he had to. He had the right to know - she was going to take care of him and everything he ever loved. Like he took care of her. The right way. His way. And then she took a deep breath and she whispered to him the very essence of the thought that crept into the back of her mind earlier that night, and was now there to stay. And

“I’ll get them. I’ll get them all.”

Chapter Text

December 24th, 2017, 20:24 CET

Switzerland

Lily walked into the living room with a large bowl of eggnog and stopped dead. She stood tall, and menacing over two people on her couch: one - tiny clumsy toddler with two thin pigtails of curly black hair, curious brown eyes and a face that was way too freckled for her age, the other - tall dark haired man with piercing blue eyes and a smile that was way too cheeky sometimes, especially lately. But boy! did she love him for it. Surprisingly so, they both looked at her with the same expression of mixed amusement and fear.

“How many times has it been?” she asked, doing her damndest to keep the stern expression.

Peter lifted his eyebrows, then the book he was holding (and reading out loud for the past three hours), as if asking ‘What, this ?’. She gave him a look which could only mean ‘Don’t you fuck with me, young man’.

He looked at Sam (his partner in crime, apparently), “How many times has it been?” he asked, as if she didn’t hear her grandmother’s question.

“Six, I think six,” Samantha fired.

“We think six,” he repeated back to Lily and ducked when a couch cushion flew his way. Weirdly enough, it hit him in the head anyway. Lily had a surprisingly good aim, he thought. In his head he knew that hitting the target in this manner could only mean anticipating their possible evasive trajectory. And then he promised himself to ‘stop being a fucking operative for one fucking evening, for fuck’s sake’.

“Ok, you ,” Lily pointed at Sam, “go get your mother and your sister. And get dressed. Your aunt is expecting you at nine the latest,” then she turned to Quinn. “ You , grow up and get your face out of the eggnog, for f… Christ’s sake.”

It was too warm and looked good to comply. Before she could throw another object at him, he found refuge near the bowl (seriously, who would throw anything at anyone near a perfectly good bowl of eggnog on Christmas eve… strategy, it was always about good strategy and estimating your opponent’s willingness to ruin hours of her own work). Then he quickly grabbed a glass cup and filled it to the top. He was back on the couch, smug and full of himself, knowing very well anything thrown at him at that point would make him spill the content of his cup all over the the place. Ha-ha.

Lily propped her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. Game on,  motherfucker .

When Sam, promptly obeying her grandmother (frankly, who wouldn’t) ran upstairs, she took the book from Quinn’s hand and smacked him with it on the head.

“You know you’ll be back on compound tomorrow and I’ll be the one stuck reading the damn thing to her every night for six times ???”

“Yeah right,” he snorted, “Like if you say ‘one’s enough’ she wouldn’t listen.”

“S’not the point!”

“The point is it’s Christmas, Lil, give the kid a break,” he savored every sip of the thick off-white liquid. “Fuck, Lily, this is incredible.”

She sat next to him on the couch and poured one for herself, “Eh… could use more nutmeg.”

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, “Incredible.”

Lily patted his arm, “And you’re not even drunk yet. Just sweet. Been sayin’ that for ages now. Even when your ass used to be all grumpy and jerky,” then she winked. “A kiss-ass … but a sweet one.”

He smiled, a real big smile this time, then motioned with his eyes to the book, “And this is the least I can do,” then clarified. “Thanks for having me over, Lil,” he wasn’t planning on coming. And it took quite a coordinated combined effort to make him cave. He hadn’t had Christmas - any Christmas - in many years. And he didn't have a Christmas like this since he was fourteen years old.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, kiddo,” she smiled back and decided to take a break from cooking for a couple of minutes. Christmas was special. People talked on Christmas. Not like she didn’t know more about him than he would care to venture, but it was the ‘outside of the job’ bits that she was a sucker for. “So… fan of Christmas, huh?”

He nodded, deep in thought, his eyes turning very sad, then very happy, then just dreamy, “Used to be. Big time.”

Lily knew that feeling. Of ‘used to be’. It was always meant as in ‘before the job took it away’, “How long?” she asked, knowing she didn’t need to clarify.

“Ten years? More or less?”

“That’s… harsh.”

Quinn couldn’t argue with that if he wanted to. He just looked straight ahead.

“Been that long since you seen your family?” it came out so fast that she couldn’t stop in time to realise what dangerous territory she was on.

And he was quicker than she’d hoped, “What family?” his eyes burrowed into hers.

But it wasn’t the first time Lily had to get out of potentially cover blowing situations, “Pffff… I dunno. A family. Like anyone would have, you know… Is not like you ever told me shit about yourself. But I figured you must have had a family or something of sorts at some point. I mean you're what… Forty? More or less?”

He didn’t buy it. Not for one second, “You’re so full of it. Fucking loss for the intelligence community.”

“So… no family talk.”

“No family talk.”

“Fine, you stubborn ass. Care to set the table?”

“Sure,” he smiled, grateful, as always, for Lily’s easy nature when it came to not prying when the prying was rejected. He motioned his head to the eggnog bowl and then to his empty cup. “May I?”

“Hey, you didn’t ask the first time around. Why break a good tradition,” she laughed and made her way back into the kitchen. “C’mon, I’ll need you to get the china from the top.”

He was holding a large pile of delicate white plates and about to head to the dinner table, when he stopped and looked at Lily.

“Lil?”

“Mmm honey?” she turned her head with a wooden tasting spoon in her hand.

“Whatever you know… whatever you think you know...” you can’t tell. Please. That was what he wanted so say. But didn’t.

She walked over to him, blew on a spoon and brought it to his lips, “Try this… too hot? And don’t say perfect or incredible if you don’t like it!”

Peter took a sip from the thickening gravy. The truth was he loved spicy food. And it was delicious beyond belief.

“What words can I use?” he inquired cautiously.

She laughed, “So, good?”

“Fucking perfect.”

She stuffed a cube of chocolate into his mouth next and then took his chin and made him look into her eyes, “Got my answer?”

He smiled, relieved, and yet even more curious, “Yes,” and yet it just left him with more questions.

He was setting the dinner table and thinking about Lily. He had been wondering about her for some time now. He couldn’t shake a feeling that she was more than a receptionist. And he was more to her than another patient. He knew she invited patients over for dinners and holidays all the time, so it wasn’t just the fact that he was in her home on Christmas eve. It was something… different. She really cared. And, above that, she knew things about him. Many things, he suspected. And today was the first time he stated it openly (well, as openly as anything can be stated between two people who are not really at liberty to be open). He suspected she was someone’s contact, at first. Maybe Saul’s. But then he figured she was more than that. She was too perceptive, too good at seeing through people, and too good at getting out of straight questions. Maybe she wasn’t as much of a loss to the intelligence community as he used to say. But then, if she wasn’t, he would never know. Just like she would never know who he was and what he did. There was something about it that made him feel good. Maybe even safe. And, also, a little closer to home.

In fact it made him feel so good, that, without realising what he was doing, he started humming.

“What are you singing?” a high pitched voice asked.

He turned around and looked down to see Sam and her sister Dana, all dressed in their heavy coats, scarfs and long ear hats. Identical. Just like they were.

Quinn dug his way back into what he was singing and realized it was ‘Silent night’. Woah. That was a new one. Ten years ‘new one’.

“Carols,” he answered, actually enjoying the realisation.

It was Christmas. Real home Christmas. Long way from home and far away from people he longed to be with, but Christmas nevertheless. What, once upon a time, his favourite time of year.

“I don’t know that one,” Sam shook her head. And then Dana did the same. He was surprised at how easily he could tell them apart by now.

He narrowed his eyes and crouched down, fixing Dana’s scarf and closing her coat tighter, “Which one do you know?”

“Mmmmmmmm ‘Twelve days of Christmas’?” Sam suggested.

“No way you know it by heart,” Peter was skeptical.

“Way! Way-way!” Dana protested at the top of her lungs.

“Fine..’cause I don’t. Every time I sing the damn thing I forget something. So you’ll have to lead.”

“Who are we singing for?” Sam’s eyes opened wide. “Mom said people who come to other people’s houses to sing carols are lumatics, ” some words are just too hard to pronounce when you’re three years old.

“Well, I’m a lumatic , apparently. And you’re not the first girl to tell me that, too,” he laughed. “But hey, we can sing for grandma .”

“Grandma will say we’re crazy mothercrackers .”

He hoped to God Lily actually mispronounced it on purpose, “I don’t care. You? You?”

They both shook their heads quite enthusiastically and started jumping.

“C’mere,” he extended his arms and scooped them both up. His left arm hurt like crazy. The muscle was still way too thin. But he figured - small price to pay for one Christmas carol. “There we go, a bunch of crazy mothercrackers ,” and he walked to the kitchen.

“ On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me… ” when the first verse (more like happy and cheerful slightly off-tune noise) slashed through the air, Lily snorted before she turned around. It was a sight for sore eyes. And a sound to make your ears sore for months. She smiled from ear to ear and shook her head.

“You batshit crazy mothercracker, ” and she crossed her arms on her chest, enjoying the view, that was, she knew, as rare as a smile like that on Quinn’s face. She grabbed her phone from the small kitchen table and quickly switched to video. She just had to send that one. She just had to.

The door opened without knocking and two people walked in. They stumped their feet on the doormat to shake the snow off their shoes. They were both laughing. Matt took Lauren’s coat and placed it in the little closet along with his own. Then they heard and turned their heads towards the kitchen to see what could only be described as… well, Lily described it, alright.

Lauren shook her head. She knew she promised to not be his ‘ballbuster shrink’ tonight, when he finally agreed to come to Lily’s with them. But BOY! was this going to come up on their next session. Na-ah, she’s NOT glossing over this one. Too much fun.

Matt frowned. He had his own concerns about what he saw. For fuck’s sakes, how many times can you go over the same thing with someone??? He closed the distance between the front door and the kitchen with four determined strides (and very stable, too, for someone who had been walking on two prosthetic feet for the past ten years). Quinn saw the look in his eyes and rolled his own. Knowing what was coming (another lecture of overdoing it and putting too much weight on his left arm), he shook his head and half turned to Matt, without  breaking from the verse. Matt reached for Dana, firmly pressed against his patient’s left side, and unceremoniously took her away. His face flashed with an ‘I’ll break your left arm myself one day, I swear’, as he watched Quinn’s hand drop along the side of his body. He knew he would never drop the girl, but he also knew he would lose most function for hours now, if not days. Stubborn dumbass . Matt had been punched for his attitude - sometimes quite badly (never anything he couldn't’ take, though) - with Quinn’s right fist, and most recently, with his left as well. He never minded being a punching bag for his patients. As long as they stood straight and kept pushing. So, it didn’t come as much surprise, when Quinn slowly raised his damaged hand, barely to his waist, but clenched it well enough to hit Matt in the gut.

Lily called them ‘fucking jarheads’ everytime they got into it, so, spotting her scorning gaze on them, they both stood tall and straight, and Matt joined in. Then Lauren did, cuddling from the other side and sliding her arm around Quinn’s damaged elbow. She was the only one who could carry a tune, anyway.

Lily watched them through the camera lense of her smartphone. And, from time to time, through her own teary eyes. She had a family of her own. She fought hard for a chance to break free from the agency to have it. And yet, probably for the first time, the meaning of ‘spreading the joy’ really hit her - being with people who made it their life’s work to carry others on their shoulders, and seeing them standing by the man they both literally dragged from the shadows of death. She watched Quinn’s left arm give up and drop completely. And she watched Lauren slide her fingers along it and take his motionless hand into her own. She used to wonder if they had a ‘thing’ going on between them. But she didn’t anymore. He was the reason she didn’t give up and withdrew yet another resignation letter. She was the reason he was able to smile today.

The dinner was loud, tasty and full of laughter. It smelled of cinnamon, nutmeg, apples, silliness and care. The outside world was white and quiet, temperature dropping as low as almost minus twenty celsius. Inside it was warm, cozy and borderline fuzzy. And, really inside, where Quinn once claimed there was nothing, it was at the advanced stages of defrosting. He wondered if this was what people meant when they’d say ‘my heart’s melting’. Because, against all odds, his was .

They drank whatever Lily would put in front of them, ate whatever she brought to the table, and there was no traditional order to any of it. When you were this comfortable with someone, it really didn’t matter if you asked to have more turkey stuffing after dessert. Or sip your tea alongside your whiskey. Or have four empty espresso cups next to your plate just because it was your favourite in the world and the people around you were willing to shower you with anything you wanted. Lily made a tuna casserole with cheese and crust. She said she always had to make something with tuna, because when she was young she used to eat a lot of it. And the need never went away. When she said that, Quinn caught her eyes on him. And he narrowed his own in response. Somehow he could relate to that, digging into the soft and creamy texture on his plate - a familiar smell, but with a touch of a new feeling, new form. It meant so much to him. And he couldn’t really tell why. And when he got to the crumbling buttery crust and felt it dissolve in his mouth, for a moment there, he imagined himself chewing through the can  - through all the cans he ever held - and coming out the other side, just to see a road leading away from that life. It was just a glimpse, it came and was gone as fast as was the food in front of him, but it was just as good. And, despite being stuffed to the point of barely breathing, he reached for more.

“You’ve got to teach me how you make this,” he pointed his fork to the half eaten second serving on his plate, not even bothering to swallow before stuffing another bite into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Lily snorted and reached across the table to put more on his plate. “I can see you making a casserole while stuffed in some hole in the ground, honey.”

He swallowed and shook his head, “I’ll manage. For this , I’ll manage.”

After three hours the four of them felt like it would take a crane to lift them off their chairs and drag them away from the table. So, they just stayed and kept drinking. And eating.

Quinn didn’t say much at first. There were many reasons for that. But the most important was that he loved to listen. And not just because he was curious or attentive, but also because it was an something he was taught to do by Lauren and his speech therapist to re-train his mind. He still had ‘hazing’ episodes, when he would hear people talking like from afar. They were becoming further and further apart, and listening to people talk, concentrating on their stories, helped him focus his thoughts and break through the mist. He was getting his sharpness back, his ability to catch the smallest of details and build a concept. And he was repeating words in his head, stashing them in for later, so it’s not as hard to find the right word when he needed it. His stuttering was almost non-existent anymore. It still came back when he was stressed. Which mostly happened now during his sessions with Lauren. When he became angry, he would stutter hard, looking for words, his mind becoming a minefield of wrong choices, wandering round and round, diggin in the same place and finding only the first syllable, then turning someplace else, for a different word with the closest meaning. And it made him even more enraged. But when he spoke up today his speech was fluent and coherent, all the words were right where he needed them, and his surroundings were as clear as anything ever - no hazing, no smudging, no danger hiding around the corner - no Berlin.

After awhile his left arm came back to life as well. And the first thing he did with it was slapping the back of Matt’s head. Matt gave him a thumb-up, a chuckle and no comment.

When they all decided it was his time to make a toast, he cursed at first, then said a firm ‘no’, then cursed some more, and then saw that he had nothing in him to overrule those people. There were many things he wanted to say. And they all seemed both right and wrong. But then he thought of something and decided to go with it. He took his wine glass with his left hand and lifted it.

“I’ve never had this,” he said. Somehow he hoped they would know that he meant. After all, strange as it was, those were the only people in his life who probably would. And that was it. Almost. He thought about it some more and they waited patiently. “But I want to. Again. One day. And everyday since.”

They clicked their glasses to his, laughing and cheering, nodding and smiling. The conversation went briefly into wishing he’d be back some day, join the staff, live on the premises, so they would all have the rest of the holidays spent just like this one. No one spoke of how slim were the chances of any of them ever seeing him again once he’d be gone. None of their patients were back, ever. Some of them were long dead. He, probably, would be, too. But not today.

When they finally moved to the living room and splashed all over the couch and the armchairs, Lily fetched the last of the courses - a hot chocolate fudge cake with a side serving of homemade vanilla ice-cream, whipped cream and strawberries. Then there were four cups of hot chocolate, sprinkled with little marshmallows and cinnamon. It was all accompanied by soft jazz, old Christmas songs, quiet instrumentals and, mostly, cozy comfortable silence. And love. So much love and acceptance that Quinn felt himself break from inside out to make room for every bit of it. He let it  bring up memories that he was afraid of touching for over ten years. And he let it bring a scent of happiness into what he thought was gone forever. He thought about how lost he used to feel, even surrounded by the people he thought he knew, people he was willing to die for, and he thought about how found he was now, suddenly, so far away from everything and everyone he cared about, and yet feeling it all closer than ever. There was Christmas in his life again. And there was hope. For more. He closed his eyes and imagined his life, his world, as a dark sea again. He wasn’t swimming this time, he wasn’t cold. There was his light on the headlands: yet it was not ahead of him, but behind. He was rowing the boat he was in, surrounded by a glowing light coming from the place he once wanted to go to. But now he knew it became something different - not the destination, but the origin. It was showing him the way to something else, something new, something he wanted to find. And he would find. One day. And every day since.

Then, just like many years ago, he was brave again. Not battle brave, but a different kind of courage - one he only saw glimpses of ever since. He peeled himself from the couch and asked Lily if she had any Sinatra tracks. And he requested a song. The one song he avoided listening to in ten years.

He walked to Lauren’s armchair and extended his hand, “Yo, ballbuster, get off your fucking ass.”

She eyed him from bottom to top, the whole tall determination of him, and shook her head, “Fuck off, Quinn. I can barely stand.”

“I’ll keep you up,” he promised, never moving, still waiting.

“I said… fuck off,” she laughed, fully knowing he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.

“You’re wasting the song. And I will play it again if I have to. Get up.”

She did. Quinn took her hand and led her to the middle of the room.

“Lead with your left,” Matt scoffed and muffled a snort.

Quinn had a response to that. He slowly raised his left arm and extended his left middle finger. How’s that for a range of motion? Matt waved him off.

“As long as you can do that , dude.”

Quinn took Lauren’s right hand with his left and placed his right just above her waist. Lily restarted the song and it rang through the room, and through his memories with the sweetness he could never resist. But just like all the other things he allowed himself to go back to today, it didn’t seem to hurt as much as he always thought it would. It didn’t bring back something he lost, but came to show him something he wanted to find. And the woman he was dancing with wasn’t the girl he loved with every fiber of his being once - she was the one who brought him to a place where he knew he was still able to.

Lauren felt a little dizzy. But she could feel his arm holding her steady. She looked up. He was smiling. His eyes were moist, a translucent pool of tears reflecting the flickering lights on the Christmas tree. She didn’t think she ever saw his face this up close. There was a life written on it, a story she already knew, and some she would probably never know. There was a longing in his eyes she had never seen before. And gratitude. And sadness. And joy. And stubbornness to never let any of it go again. She smiled back and thought of something - a realisation she couldn’t shake since the first time she read his letter to the mother of his son. J+J+JJ. There was a moment between them now she knew could never happen again. And it really mattered, somehow. To him. There were many real things to his cover stories, but yet none of them seemed as real right now as the name he chose to hide behind.

“Hello, John,” she said softly, her eyes searching his face for a flicker of reaction.

“You promised ,” he frowned and, knowing just how dizzy she was, spinned her away under their joint hands and then back into his arms. Punishment with a safety net.

Yes, she promised not to be his therapist tonight if he came to Lily’s and to never use anything he said or did in their sessions. It was the only condition he had. The only way he would agree.

“And you promised you would make up a cover identity,” she stood her ground, and then added, “ John .”

He sighed and shook his head, “I fucking hate you sometimes, you know that?”

“Eh…” she shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” she lightly squeezed his hand, “Lauren Lewis, nice to finally meet you.”

“Sure,” he nodded. “Peter Quinn.”

“Who used to be…”

He huffed in frustration, then pursed his lips, then looked up, then down again. What the fuck , “John Sullivan.”

“Ah… there we go,” she grinned, feeling very accomplished. “It’s a beautiful name.”

“He was a good man,” he said, suddenly, something inside of him giving in.

“Shut the fuck up and dance… John,” she smacked him on the shoulder.

_____________________________

Matt was the only one in any condition to walk home. He was also the only one actually living nearby. He bought a house in the village about two years beforehand, realising, he would probably never leave this place anyway, and it was time to move off the premises. Neither Lauren nor Quinn were in any state to drive back to the campus, and Lily, who was, surprisingly, still as steady as ever, knew her limits. They hugged Matt goodnight and watched him walk home before going back inside. It was way past midnight, way into the little hours of the night. But none of them were ready to call a night.

Lily made more coffee. Then more hot chocolate. She made up two guest rooms on the second floor, but no one went upstairs. She brought down three soft fleece blankets and threw them around. They cuddled on the sofa, drinking, eating, laughing… or just saying nothing at times.

It was during one of those comfortable silence interludes, when Lily reached for Quinn’s head touched a wrinkled hand to his chin, turning his face towards her. Deep inside his sad blue eyes she saw a reflection of something both cherished and frightening - a life he didn’t know she shared with him: a life of battles, stakeouts, cover identities, headshots, heart shots, just shots, lost friends, lost bits and pieces of one’s soul, lost innocence, lost beliefs, lost self. She so wished she could take his heart and hold it together with her old battered hands, and she wished she could tell him that it was all going to be alright in the end. That it was possible for it all to be alright. Possible for a person to learn how to make a tuna casserole and not IEDs, bake fabulous fudge cakes and not pour potassium chlorate powder into a pipe, have a good eye for carving a turkey and not take off a head of a terrorist from two miles distance with unpredictable wind conditions. She wished she could tell him to tell Saul Berenson to go fuck himself. He owed them nothing anymore. He gave his life to the agency, to his country. Both figuratively and literally. His watch was over. It was supposed to be.

But right there and then she saw that she could never change his mind. She knew the feeling all too well - you had to be reliable for the people who needed you, or you would live the rest of your life wondering if someone lost their life because you weren’t there. There really wasn’t much she could do for him. Or say to him. Except, maybe…

“I love you, kiddo. You know that, right?”

Something trembled inside Quinn’s chest. It sounded like a broken guitar string. Like something snapped and tore. There was a pain that followed - deep slashing pain cutting through him. It sent tears through his throat into his eyes and refused to take them back. He took her hand and brought it to the side of his face. Lily could feel the moisture in the corner of his eye. He pressed his lips to the inside of her palm. Words never came easy for him, let alone now. He didn’t believe in saying much. Especially not those words. Not because he couldn't feel it or bring himself to say it. But because he believed in showing it. Maybe he was wrong. And not just about this. The words mattered, too. Those words mattered the most . He thought how in the last five years he tried to  break through to the woman he loved by repeatedly showing her how he felt. But never saying it. Not like this. Not like he should have had.

“I love you too, Lil,” he whispered, his own voice sounding strange and strained, and yet a weight lifting off his chest the moment he did.

Lauren, sitting to his left, her back to the arm of the couch propped against a huge cushon, her legs tucked underneath her, freed one and kicked him in the hip.

“Lauren - one, CIA - zero,” she pronounced, with a very unprofessional snort and a smug expression on her face.

Quinn muffled a laugh through his nose and, embarrassed, slid deeper into the couch, extending his legs on the coffee table.

“It’s not a zero , believe me,” he grumbled back, “but you do have one over it, you fucking ballbuster.”

“I’ll take it,” she waved her hand in dismissal. “... John.”

“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” he closed his eyes. “And it’s just the beginning.”

“Count on it… John.”

He turned his head to her and did something he least expected - he stuck his tongue out and blew raspberries at her. Yeah, he was getting more and more mature with every passing week of his therapy.

“Hey! You’re spitting… Ewww,” she kicked him harder and wiped her face, laughing.

“Johnny - one, Lauren - zero,” he smirked.

She gasped, “Oh, so it was Johnny … Mmmmm, interesting. And cute. For a badass.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he begged.

She thought about it. Then decided to go for it. It wasn’t every day that she had her patients drunk, overpowered and under the same blanket.

“Tell you what… I will. For one story . One real life story. John’s or Peter’s, I don’t care. But no cover stories, no secrets. One story. For Christmas.”

“Oh goody,” Lily rubbed her palms in anticipation and got up. “I’ll even make some mulled wine for the occasion.”

“No fucking way,” he shot Lauren a warning glance and then looked up at Lily. “Don’t bother.”

She leaned close and gave him a ringing kiss, “Oh, dear boy, you just don’t know how fucked you are, do you? Be right back.”

“You really want a story that ends with ‘and then I shot him between the eyes’? ‘Cause those are the only Christmas stories I got.”

“No,” Lauren threw a pillow at him. “We want a story which begins with ‘and then I kissed her, right there, and the world fell away’.”

He reached for the book shelf above his head and threw a ‘Gone with the Wind’ at her, “There, read it. It’s somewhere in the second part.”

“Quiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn…. Peeeeeeeeeeteeeeeeerrrrrrr… Joooooooooooohnyyyyyyyy… pleeeeeeaaaaaaaase,” she folded her hands in a plea. “I promise… i swear… I’ll never mention it at a session.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before,” he narrowed his eyes.

“Pleeeeaaaassseeeeeee…”

“Will you fucking stop ???” he was laughing so hard he started to snort.

“Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaassssssseeeeeeeeee…”

“Lil, you got a gun?” he yelled to the kitchen.

She did. Two actually, an assortment of silencers, two long rifles, one shotgun and… probably an old grenade somewhere. Ah… two bricks of c4. Was it two? She had to check.

“Just chocolate,” she yelled back, watching the wine simmering around cinnamon sticks and grinning.

There were always stories, she knew. In between shooting targets and blowing enemy installations. There were stories that took your breath away. Because they were rare. And they took more courage than fighting the enemy. And they were forbidden. Or were never meant to be. Stories about taking a leap of fate in the middle of a lifelong battle and giving your heart away. And being brave enough to follow through. For as long as you could hold on to that one thing that connects you to the world. She herself had two of those. One - which left her angry and lonely, vengeful and broken. Another - the reflection of the first one, the time when she already knew the price of walking away, of giving up. The one she fought for. And won. Not a single person in her life knew that Steven’s real name was Qasim Al-Qadeer. He used to be her asset in Iraq. And she saved them both by faking her own death and his, and taking them across the world from the fires of the Middle East to Italy, then to Spain, then to Germany, and, finally, here. It wasn’t until his death, almost thirty years later, that she came back from the cold and reconnected with her old life.

There were usually two stories. The first one breaking you to pieces, but remaining a faint candle light deep inside of you. Waiting to flare up. And the second one - the one where you were older, wiser, and more skilled to actually find a way to make it work. She remembered his letter. She knew exactly what he meant. She loved Saul to this day. But it was Qasim she fought for.

She was about to pour the wine into the most beautiful delicate tall porcelain mugs, when she felt Quinn’s hands on her arms and his chin resting on her shoulder.

“She’s annoying me,” he complained in a voice that made her laugh out loud.

She raised a hand and patted his cheek, “I’ll protect you, honey.”

“Let me take those,” he arranged the mugs on the little tray and picked it up. Then nodded to the one with two cinnamon sticks. “That one’s mine.”

“Sure it is, kiddo,” she nudged him towards the living room and picked up some gingerbread cookies.

Quinn ended up telling the story. Once he started, he knew he couldn’t stop. He had all the words right there, and he never paused to look for the correct one, not once. They asked what she was like -  the girl who had his heart from the first time he looked at her, drunk to the point of having a tunnel vision, raising his eyes to the police officer who came to take off his cuffs, and seeing the holding cell all blurry and a mix of grey colors, but at the same time seeing her face, her eyes, her smile so clearly right in the middle, that he dreamt about it after he blacked out. And the next day, when he woke up at home in the late afternoon. And the next day, when he walked to his car, knowing where he was about to drive to, knowing he was going to get her or die trying. He didn’t have to think about what she was like. He said she was pure good, pure light, pure happiness. And loving her was the only thing he never regretted. And, even knowing how it ended, even now, he would do it all over again. Because it was worth living for, not just dying for.

He told them bits and pieces, good bits and bad bits. It was all true. Not a cover story. It was the light of his life, the strength of everyday ever since, and the source for all his hopes, however faint. He skipped over a lot of the last parts. Not just because they were hard to relive, but because they were only his and hers to remember.

They say the universe is infinite. And, because it is, if you go far enough, you’ll eventually end up meeting the same person, identical to you. But that Christmas, the universe didn’t even have to be that big. Because on this planet, on this bluish speck of cosmic dust, the same story was told at the same time. In a lot of the same words, too. And, although it had the same taste to it, it had different meanings, to different people. To one, it brought a realisation of lost chances, injustice and thoughts of vengeance. To another - a true glimmer of hope, of knowing that being alive meant having time to fix things, fight for them, live for them. And what Carrie never knew, when she whispered the words into the darkness, promising to keep his loved ones safe, was that pretty much at the same time, half way across the globe, the man she loved promised himself he would come back from this mission, and he would find her, and he would be brave enough to tell her he loved her, and this time he wouldn’t let go.

None of them spoke when he finished. It just kind of faded away. He grew quiet. And then he dozed off right there, on the sofa. There were images in his mind, then in his dreams, swirling and dancing around. And, without trying to catch one, he knew they were all his, and they were all him . The last thing he remembered thinking was, that maybe Johnny was not a good name for a cover story after all. It was too dear, too real, too strong. He thought, maybe, Jules was right, when she said she needed a ‘Johnny’ in her life. Because maybe he did, too.