neverwrongagent | Rescued?

Entry tags:

au,
brody,
rp

Rescued?

When the posters went up showing the two members of the Marine sniper team who'd gone missing, Carrie Mathison stood and stared at them. She didn't see two Marines in their uniforms, though, she saw only one of them half dressed on a rooftop looking up at the blanket of stars. She saw a sweet smile from a man who was too far from home and was trying to hold onto his humanity. Every time she passed the posters, even if she didn't turn to look, she was as aware of them as if someone had reached out and grabbed her. Months went by and the sensation never weakened.

Then came word that they'd been found, that two Marines had been found in neighboring camps. Both men were in rough shape: dehydrated, beaten and demoralized. One was worse than the other, but first reports didn't make it clear which it was and Carrie held her breath until she knew that Brody was in better physical shape. Not that she asked or spoke to anyone about knowing him. The moment she said a word, they'd pull her out of it all and that wasn't happening.

The men were kept apart while they were cleaned up. Carrie read both files, but it was Brody's she kept going over and over in her head. She knew every detail of what they'd found out so far. On the outside it probably seemed cruel to interrogate the men so soon, but the sooner they got it done, the better. These men were headed home, at least for a while, and it would be harder to get solid information from them when they were there.

It wasn't until minutes before she walked into the room that Carrie knew for sure which man she was going to debrief. She was ready to bounce out of her skin by the time she walked in, a feeling that vanished immediately when she saw him. "Sergeant Brody? I'm Carrie Mathison. I'm here to ask you some questions."

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Carrie practically clambered back onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck. The gesture was silly, nearly childish, but she didn't care. Their time together was limited enough that she wanted every experience in it. "Much better. You were too far away."

That earned her a lifted eyebrow, but nothing more. He wasn't going to question any reason to not have to sleep alone. He kissed her forehead. "Sorry."

She cuddled as close as she could and tucked her head against his chest. "It's your turn to sleep. You need to rest." His body needed it to heal and his mind did, too. "I won't go until I know you've slept a couple hours."

They had time enough for that before she had to go back to her room.

He nodded as he tightened his arms around her. If she thought she was just going to be able to slip away, she was mistaken. He was going to keep her close enough that he was grounded if she was insisting that he sleep.

She petted his shoulder gently, if a touch awkwardly given her position, encouraging him to fall asleep. So much of what she was asking him to do was making it harder for him to sleep, making him keep focusing on things he had to want to get as far away from as possible.

The thought made her consider just what it would be like when she was far away from him again and she bit back a sigh for fear she'd wake him.

He finally fell asleep, but it still took a little while for his grip on her to loosen some. His body took its time shifting into dream sleep, but once he was there, his mind did not disappoint.

Once she was sure he was asleep, she shifted so she wasn't so much on him as beside him. She kept an arm firmly around his chest as she lay there watching him breathe. Every breath was filed away in her memory as a part of him. As a part of them.

She mixed those moments liberally with the images of him with Walker, of course, because that was how her mind worked.

Once his dreams finally found them, they were not as bad as they had been. They were not about the torture, they were about being alone. He twitched and whimpered, but did not kick out, not like the first few nights.

As his dreams shifted, he rolled toward her, tucking himself in against her, searching for comfort.

She tried caressing him, petting his side and chest, to settle him. When that didn't work, she tried whispering his name. "Nick, I'm here. You can sleep, baby. I'm still here." It didn't feel like much to offer him. "Won't leave you."

While he might not have understood, on a conscious level, what she said, it was enough to settle him. He grunted softly, then burrowed in deeper against her as he calmed and drifted into a more dreamless sleep.

That night was followed by a half dozen more days where Carrie collected every possible detail of the interactions between Brody and Walker, building her case that Walker was part of some kind of plot against American interests. Her ultimate victory came with two major loses--her position in country because she'd pissed off too many people and her immediate contact with Brody when he was sent home. Professionally she knew she would be able to recover, she always did. The way she missed Brody was something else. There was no way to discuss that loss with anyone, not even Saul who she knew had some idea of her attachment. She thought he might have understood that she missed the man she'd spent weeks with, the one she'd been fascinated by before, but there was no way to talk about having built up a sexual relationship with the rescued Marine.

She did the only thing she could do, she threw herself into her work. Walker hadn't broken, exactly, but he'd given them enough to start chipping away at domestic networks. Ever chance she had to find out how Brody was integrating back in the world, she backed away from it. He was home now, not alone, and she'd done her part. Or so she told herself when she woke up from a dream about him.

In the end, she did what she always did when things got out of hand for her--stupid things. She found herself following him at random times. Just to see how he was, of course. Nothing more.

Integration back home had been difficult. Jess was trying to be strong. Brody was trying to hide what had happened to him from his kids. There was an awful lot of half-truth going on around him and he was buried in it.

He'd been followed from the moment he set foot on US soil. He knew they still didn't trust him, that his association with Walker was a double-edged sword. So when Carrie started following him, it didn't raise any flags. She was good, so he didn't spot her, not for a long time.

When he finally did see her, he thought he was dreaming. She was in the sandbox, not here. She wasn't supposed to be here. Except in his dreams.

She didn't thin he'd seen her at first because she had convinced herself they'd never talk again. It helped that he didn't believe it either. Then she realized she'd taken a few steps toward him. The draw was just as strong as it always had been.

In some ways he looked better--better color, he'd put on some weight. In others he looked about the same--too watchful, too outside everything else around him. Smiling sheepishly, she approached him. "Hey. Long time no see."

Even after she'd spoken, confirming that she was real, he didn't know what to say. He licked his lips, then looked around before looking at her again.

"When did you get back?"

She winced a little, shrugging. "Not long after you. About...four days?" She exhaled slowly. "Been working, following up on everything. You know, all that spy stuff." Her hands clenched and released as she fought the urge to reach for him. "Bosses figured I need a change of scenery."

Her nervousness was making him jumpy and he looked around again. "How's that going? The spy stuff?"

"I can't really--" She shook her head. "Well. It's going pretty well." And that was ore than she should have said, but she couldn't leave him with nothing. She'd always been as up front as she could with him. "Probably wrap a few things up in a couple weeks."

By a few things she meant at least one cell.

He nodded. "That's good." He looked around again, then back at her. "Could we... I'm not comfortable out here. Buy you a drink?"

"Fuck. Yeah, absolutely." She looked around for a second, then spotted a pub a half block away. "But it's on me."

She started walking, then paused for a second to be sure he was following her. Once she was sure he was coming, she hustled over to the bar. She assumed that his discomfort was more a generalized thing about being seen with someone he knew should be invisible. She found them seats in a booth with no windows behind them and a decent view of all the exits. "You look good."

He surveyed the bar carefully before finally turning his attention to her. "Thanks. So do you." Which was to say that she looked just like she had in his dreams, except that she wasn't naked.

That was probably not something to bring up.

She shook her head. To her mind she looked scattered and distracted, which she was. At that moment, she was distracted by imagining him naked. If asked, it was because she was curious how he was healing. She knew a little about how things were going with him, no matter how much she avoided the files, so she didn't ask about his family directly. "Have you decided what you're going to do next?"

He sighed, then flagged down a waitress. He really needed a drink. He needed a drink a little more frequently these days, something that was not going over well at home.

Only once the drinks had been ordered did he answer her. "I have no idea. The Corp wants me to re-up. It's not a very popular idea."

She ordered a round as well, frowning deeply. "I can see why that wouldn't go over too well." He was a poster boy, though, so she knew why the Marines wanted him back. The fact that no one else but her and Walker really understood what had happened over there was beside the point. "How do you feel about it?"

She hated the idea of him going back when she wasn't there.

No one asked him how he felt about it, so her question caught him off guard. He really didn't know how to answer it. He knew what was best, financially, for his family. He thought he knew what was best, emotionally, for his family. But he'd not taken any time to think about what was best for him.

He was saved from having to answer by the arrival of drinks. There were some advantages to a mostly empty bar, and quick service was one of them. He took a long drink before finally speaking.

"I don't know how I feel about it. I don't think I can do it, really. But I don't know that I'm ready to just quit, either."

Just watching him in those few minutes, she didn't think he could do it, either. He'd been much less jumpy with her before. If he'd been like that, her answer might have been different on that point. "If you don't go back, what would you do?"

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