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Root didn’t know exactly what to do with herself as they stood near the bench, watching the river rolling under the bridge. It had taken the rest of the night and well into the morning to convince Sameen to accompany her here, to meet up with Harold, John, and Fusco, to let them know that she was back. Even now, she wasn’t sure that it was the right thing to do, but they deserved to know. Still, every time she noticed Shaw reaching up to that point on her neck behind her ear, Root felt like her heart was being squeezed too tightly. She wondered if she might burst.
She wanted to hold Shaw, grab onto her tightly and never let go because she didn’t think she’d be able to breathe if Shaw ever left her again. But she stopped herself just short of doing so every time Shaw’s eyes seemed to lose focus, every time she looked just a little lost. Seven thousand simulations, Shaw had told her. It had changed Sameen, and Root didn’t know where Shaw’s limits were now. She didn’t want to push her too far. She couldn’t bear to lose her again.
So, while Shaw quietly gave the briefest possible explanation of what Samaritan had done to her, Root stood at her side, staying so close that they were almost brushing shoulders, but never taking that last little step into Sameen’s space.
Shaw was still not convinced that this was a good idea. This was exactly what she’d spent these past weeks since her escape trying to avoid. But even in a simulation, she didn’t want to say no to Root. Besides, it wasn’t like this was the first time she’d been here, in this spot, giving this explanations to her friends. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d escaped back to New York, to Root, and had been brought here to meet with everyone else. It had felt real every time and the only thing that changed was the number of simulations Shaw told them she’d endured.
But this time was different.
Root was different. Every other time Shaw had come home, Root had clung to her like glue, always there, always present, as though she knew how much Shaw needed her around. But now, Root was acting almost distant, despite the fact that she was standing at Shaw’s side. There was no reassuring touch to Shaw’s arm or shoulder, no impulse to reach out and hold Shaw’s hand, no casual lean of support keeping Shaw upright.
In all of their reunions, Shaw couldn’t remember Root ever acting quite like this.
Did that mean this was real? That it was actually happening?
Or had Samaritan just stepped up its simulations?
Shaw reached up to rub that scar behind her ear automatically. She didn’t know, she couldn’t know, whether or not this was real. They’d robbed her of her reality and she was still reeling. Even as her well-practiced explanation of her time being held by Samaritan tumbled past her lips, Shaw found herself looking between Harold, John, and Fusco, wondering how long it would be before she snapped and killed them. Her hand itched to reach for her gun and end this before she got close enough to hurt anyone.
Instead, her hand moved down in search of Root’s, lacing their fingers together.
Root’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest at the sudden feeling of Shaw’s hand in hers, relief making her weak in the knees at the confirmation that Shaw would still invite her into her space. Then she noticed how tight Shaw’s grip was, grasping her hand almost painfully, and suddenly understood why Shaw had reached for her. I’m here, sweetie, she thought to Shaw, squeezing Shaw’s hand reassuringly. And I’m never going to let them take you from me again.
Shaw wasn’t sure how long they stayed there. Harold tried to update her on their progress with the Machine but Shaw snarled at him that he shouldn’t tell her anything. So they mostly just stood around in silence, no one having anything they could say, but just existing in each other’s company. Finally, John gave Fusco a small nudge and announced that they should be getting to their precinct.
By this point, Shaw had lost count of how many hours it had been since she’d last slept. She felt dead on her feet, and knew she looked it. As John and Fusco departed, Shaw felt a gentle touch on her shoulder as Root told her she should get some sleep. They didn’t have to go back to the subway, she added before Shaw could object. The Machine had helped Root find a safe house where they could stay for as long as Shaw needed.
Root was thinking hard as Shaw slowly agreed to join her in the safe house. They were both very high on Samaritan’s watchlist. It’d be a challenge for them to make their way through the shadow map to stay out of sight. It would be much easier if they were to split up, and rendezvous at the safe house. But one look at Shaw’s face as she started to explain her plan made her stop mid sentence. Root had never seen Shaw panic, and panic still wasn’t quite the right word for the expression on Shaw’s face as Root mentioned splitting up. But Root knew immediately that she couldn’t leave Shaw alone even for the time it would take to cross the city.
Good, she hadn’t wanted to leave Sameen anyways.
Harold offered them a ride but Root insisted that if they were spotted with him, his own cover would be immediately blown. She did ask if he or John could drop off some of her things to the safe house whenever they have time. He assured her they’d take care of it, and she should focus on helping Sameen.
It took them three hours to make their way to the safe house, a trip that included four taxi rides, six shady alleyways, three subway changes, and at least five people rolling their eyes at the two women holding hands as they hurried down the sidewalk.
The safe room wasn’t that large, but Shaw didn’t recognize it. It was a single room, with a kitchen area taking up one corner, a living space consisting of a TV and a two-person couch, and a king-sized bed taking up the final corner. Root immediately demanded that Shaw get some sleep, leading her towards the bed. Shaw wanted to argue, but damn that bed did look inviting. Okay, she could probably take a quick nap.
She was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
When Shaw awoke, the pounding in the back of her skull had dulled down to a manageable throb. The blankets of the bed were warm around her and for a few moments she debated rolling over and trying to go back to sleep. Then she realized that the TV was on, which meant that Root must be awake. She pushed herself up and looked around. A few feet away from the foot of the bed, Root was curled up on the couch, a blanket around her shoulders, a box of chinese takeout in her hands and-and bunny slippers on her feet.
Shaw’s hand reached up automatically behind her ear, and she frowned. There’s no way Samaritan would have ever thought of this.
Root looked up as she heard Shaw moving. Noticing Shaw’s expression at the sight of her slippers, she smirked. “John stopped by with my things while you were sleeping,” she explained, wiggling her feet a little. “He brought food, too, if you’d like some.” She started shifting her position on the couch, moving to get up and bring Shaw something to eat.
But Shaw just shook her head, already zeroing in on the takeout box resting on the counter, “I can get it.” She crossed the room quickly, grabbing both the box and a pair of chopsticks, and almost automatically moved to the couch, sitting down so close to Root their shoulders were brushing together.
Root froze for a moment at the sudden contact, then allowed herself to lean into Shaw, still scarcely able to believe that she was really here.
Shaw adjusted slightly under the additional weight of Root on her shoulder, but didn’t move to push her away. She wanted Root there, maybe even needed her, because if Root wasn’t here then Shaw wasn’t here and none of this would have ever happened.
“What are you watching?” Shaw asked as she began to attack her food.
Root shrugged, glancing at the TV. “I wasn’t really paying attention. Something with guns and explosions and fast cars, I think.”
Shaw grinned, “Sounds good to me.”
The movie was actually the first in a series that the network was apparently running a marathon of that day. The two spent the next few hours on the couch together, but they weren’t really focusing on the movies. Each woman was mostly focusing on the other sitting beside them. After a while, Shaw’s shoulder began to get sore so she shifted and Root sat up, but Shaw reached for her hand and they just sat like that, hand in hand, watching images of a fictional world that was so much simpler than their own. They shifted a few more times as the hours passed, always making sure that some part of them was touching.
Shaw wasn’t exactly sure when Root fell asleep. Just that she noticed it when Root rolled over suddenly, murmuring something that half-sounded like “Sameen.” Then Root moved a little more, moving onto her side and resting her head on Shaw’s stomach. Shaw smiled a little at the sight of the messy tangle of Root’s hair covering her face, and let herself relax as sleep washed over her again.
It wasn’t until a few nights later that Shaw was ready to talk about the simulations. Root tried to assure her that she didn’t need to relive it but Shaw wanted her to know, wanted her to understand why, even now as they lay in bed together, why she couldn’t be sure if this was real.
So Root listened. She listened to every breakout attempt, every failed journey home, every near-miss where they’d almost made it back to the subway, every teammate Shaw had murdered, and every single time that Shaw had looked Root in the eye, and hadn’t been able to kill her.
They were laying in their bed, but Shaw was on her back, staring at the ceiling as she spoke. She was holding Root’s hand in her own, but she couldn’t look at her while she talked. She’d made that mistake before, once, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to continue if she did it again.
Root listened, never judging, merely hearing what Shaw had to say. She didn’t interrupt, she didn’t prompt Shaw to continue when she paused to gather her thoughts. She lay there, listening to the silence, running her thumb back and forth over Shaw’s hand, letting her know that she was here. Their hands stayed together even after Shaw had finished, and the two of them drifted off to sleep.
Well, Shaw drifted off to sleep.
Root stayed awake, staring off into the darkness of their room, letting what Shaw had just told her mingle with everything else she knew. Ever since Shaw had returned, Root had done her best to keep her emotions in check. She knew that Sameen was still in an unstable condition, and Root needed to be steady and ready to support her. So she’d pushed down anything that she might be feeling in order to focus on helping Sameen. But now, just for a few moments, she lets it all wash over her. She never expected to care about Sameen, this tiny firecracker who’d somehow managed to punch her way into Root’s heart. At first, she’d thought that Shaw might be a distraction, a fun time-waster at best, but now she knows without a doubt that she will hunt down every single person who had a hand in harming the woman she loved. She’ll find them, and she’ll kill them, and they won’t ever be able to hurt Sameen again.
After she makes this promise to herself, her fury seems to subside, and it’s only then that the tears come, pouring out of her as wave after wave of emotion threaten to drown her where she lay. There are tears of sadness, because of what Shaw’s gone through, tears of frustration because she knows she can’t do anything to “fix” it, tears of futility from her most desperate wish that she could have taken Shaw’s place through Samaritan’s tortures. But mostly, there are tears of relief.
In all the time Root spent searching for Sameen, she’d never allowed herself to think about what would happen after she returned. She’d never allowed herself to doubt that Sameen would return, but that hope itself had been so painful to maintain that Root hadn’t wanted to risk more heartache by building up expectations of what might come after.
But now Shaw was back. She’d returned, and she’d called Root her safe place. Root had always suspected that Shaw cared about her in her own special way, but hearing her say it was something she’d never even dreamed would be possible. And her tears start coming even harder as some part of her feels horrible at how happy it makes her feel to know that Shaw cares, because she knows what terrible things had to happen to Shaw to make Sameen cling so fiercely for Root as her one bit of safety.
Shaw awoke to the sound of Root crying in the bed beside her. Her back was to Root, but she could hear the other woman’s soft sniffles, and feel the bed shake with her repressed sobs. Shaw stayed perfectly still, listening, and felt a tug in her chest that hurt. She hated hearing Root like this. She hated knowing that Root was like this because of her. She hated herself for being talked into coming back at all. More than anything, she hated Samaritan for what it had done to Root through her.
Not knowing what to say, but feeling that she had to say something , Shaw said quietly, “You know, Samaritan never could get you right.”
“Sameen?” Root froze at the sound of Shaw’s words, immediately reaching up to wipe away her tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you-”
Shaw shook her head, rolling to her other side so she and Root were face to face. Looking Root right in the eye, she continued. “At first it was really easy to tell the differences, with everyone. I’d come back and you wouldn’t flirt with me, or Harold wouldn’t try to lecture me, or John would wear casual clothes. But as Samaritan figured out on the differences I was spotting, it got harder. And after a while, I couldn’t tell anyone for sure, except for you.” She took a deep breath, “There were smaller things, like you’d call me Sammy, or you’d wear the wrong thing, or you didn’t walk quite right. But even after Samaritan got down all the little details of your outside, there was something in each simulation that wasn’t quite you .” Shaw continued, telling Root all of the tiniest details that had helped her decide whether or not she was in a simulation.
Slowly, Shaw’s words helped calm Root down. Her breathing slowed, becoming more even, and the tears on her cheeks finally dry. She moves closer to Shaw, flipping over so her back is pressed against Shaw’s chest. Still talking, Shaw wraps her arms around Root, pulling her even closer.
“I’ve been watching you closely since you found me,” Shaw told Root quietly. “And I can’t find a single thing that doesn’t feel completely like you.” She was half asleep now, her words slurring together slightly. “So either this is real, or Samaritan finally has you perfect.”
Root didn’t say anything. She knew no argument on her part could convince Shaw that this was real. But maybe, she thought, maybe nothing was real, not in the way that Shaw was defining it. Everything in the world was, after all, just patterns and shapes, data that could be replicated. Even if Root herself was just part of Samaritan’s simulations, that didn’t mean she wasn’t experiencing these things here and now with Shaw. She opened her mouth to voice these views, then noticed that Sameen’s breathing had slowed in her ear. She must have fallen back asleep already.
Root smiled, enjoying the feeling of Shaw’s arms around her. She could talk to Shaw about it in the morning. We’re all patterns and numbers, she thought to herself dreamily. Just noise in the system.
Shaw wasn’t sure exactly when she realized it. Maybe she’d known it at once, as soon as she’d heard that voice over the phone, or maybe it took her time to work through her shock and disbelief, before she could truly understand what she was hearing.
The Machine was using Root’s voice. More than that, She was using Root’s personality, her phrases, her mannerisms. Every way you could possibly be someone with just your voice was perfect. The Machine was sounding exactly like Root.
Shaw couldn’t tell the difference.
At first she didn’t like it. She wanted to tell The Machine to stop, to be quiet and never remind her again of what she’s lost. But over time, as The Machine stayed in contact with them through Her final days, Shaw began to understand what this perfect Root persona meant.
Samaritan had tried, over and over and over again to trick Shaw into thinking she was seeing Root, to give Shaw a Root that she could trust and depend on and reveal information to. But it didn’t understand her, it didn’t know Root, and so every attempt hadn’t been quite right.
But the Machine had known Root, She’d watched Root and protected Root and maybe even loved Root, in Her own way. So of course She would be able to act the way Root would act, and say the things Root would say. Of course she could make Root feel real again.
“There was something I think Root had wanted to say to you. You always thought there was something wrong with you. Because you don’t feel things the way other people do. But she always felt that was what made you beautiful. She wanted you to know that if you were a shape, you were a straight line. An arrow.”
Shaw didn’t cry as she said her final goodbyes to The Machine. But maybe a few tears fell as she she got to say a real goodbye to Root.
She may have been an arrow to Root, but Root had been her anchor. She was the one thing in the world that Shaw had been certain of. Without her, Shaw was adrift, cut loose, purposeless and directionless. She hadn’t bothered to expect that killing the man who killed Root would make her feel better, but she did it anyway. It’s not like there was anyone left to stop her.
When the payphone rang, and Shaw heard the voice on the other end, she smiled for the first time in what felt like years. She hung up, making her way towards the coordinates that had been relayed to her. And as she lost herself in the crowd, she felt a strange stirring in her chest and she realized that despite everything, she’d just received a small glimmer of hope.
“On your left, sweetie.”
Shaw ducked down barely a second before a bullet whistled past over her head. She paused for a second before ducking out from behind her cover and shooting her attacker in both kneecaps.
“That’s the last of them in this room, but there are two more on their way downstairs.”
Shaw turned to her number, a middle-aged man who’d found himself on the wrong end of a money-laundering scheme. “We have to move, now,” she snapped, pushing him towards the door that would lead them farther into the maze of offices that occupied this floor of the building.
“Take a right,” said the voice in Shaw’s ear.
Shaw turned right.
“Left, then right again.”
Again, Shaw followed where she was led.
“Straight ahead and third door on your right.”
Shaw kicked the door open, entering with her gun raised, checking her corners before she ushered her number in after her.
“What are we doing in here?” She demanded. “It’s just an empty office.”
A small office, at that. The walls were lined with bookshelves so thick that there was barely enough space for a desk in front of the wall of windows opposite the door.
“What are we doing in here?” Repeated her number, astonished. “You break into my office, shoot five people, drag me through the building and into this room and you’re asking me what we’re doing here?!”
Shaw’s eyes landed on the window cleaning platform just outside the window. She smiled, “I wasn’t talking to you.” She took two quick shots at the window, shattering it instantly. “Come on,” she told her number, leading him onto the platform.
“Y-you’re crazy,” he stuttered, but he did follow her.
“You know, Sameen, you could have just opened the window,” the voice told her almost condescendingly.
“You don’t like my methods, find someone new to rescue these guys,” Shaw shot back with a smirk. She grabbed her number by the shoulder and pushed him towards the window, “Come on, big guy. We’re going down.”
He clambered into the lift and looked at her, eyes wide, “This isn’t going to go all the way down.”
Shaw rolled her eyes, “It’ll takes us far enough down that we should lose the guys with the guns.”
She was almost right. The lift took them down to the fifteenth floor. Shaw shot out another window and pushed her number into yet another office.
“You’re lucky it’s the weekend, Sameen,” said the voice in her ear somewhat chidingly. “Aside from your friends with the firearms, there’s almost no one in the building. Still,” she added as Shaw’s shoes crunched across the broken glass. “Someone’s going to have a bad day cleaning this up.”
Shaw crossed the office to the door. “If anyone had been here to see us, you would have triggered a fire alarm or something by now,” Shaw shot back, peering out the door of the office and checking that the hallway was clear. She nodded to her number and led him out into an almost identical hallway to the one they’d vacated.
The voice gave a little huff, but didn’t argue with Shaw’s point. “The stairs are down the hall to your left.”
“Stairs are this way,” Shaw relayed to her number, nodding towards her left.
“I knew that,” the guy mumbled. “I do work here.”
Shaw raised her eyebrows, “And look at how well that’s worked out for you.”
He scowled. “Look, lady-”
“Don’t call me lady,” Shaw snapped at him as they entered the stairwell.
“ Look ,” he started again testily. “I appreciate the save, I really do. But I don’t really feel a whole lot safer following around some mysterious lady- person ,” he corrected before Shaw could glare at him. “Who wanders around shooting windows and talking to herself.”
Shaw froze, clenching her jaw, and asked. “Was it this bad for you?”
“Worse,” replied the voice immediately. “Lots of my numbers thought I was flirting with them. I had to... clarify the point to them.”
Shaw smirked at the thought before turning to her current number. “I may sound crazy,” she told him. “But would you really rather I just leave you alone to deal with those guys?”
Almost on cue, a door higher up in the stairwell burst open and three men ran in. “They’re on the stairs!” One shouted. Shaw guessed there were more of them around with comms. So now everyone would know where they were.
Great.
The number looked at Shaw, eyes wide with terror. “Please don’t leave me.”
Shaw smirked, “That’s what I thought.” She pushed his shoulder again, “We need to move.” They raced down the stairs, the sound of footsteps echoing off the walls. One of them men took a shot at them, but he missed and the bullet took a chunk out of the wall Shaw had been standing in front of just a few seconds before.
“Don’t go to the main floor,” the voice told Shaw. “They have an ambush waiting in the lobby. Keep going down, there’s a maintenance door in the basement that will lead you to the subway tunnels.”
“Basement,” Shaw snapped, grabbing her number’s jacket as he made to open the door to the main floor. “They’re waiting for us here.”
“They have someone helping them!” Shouted one of the men, as Shaw’s words bounced off the walls up to them. “How are we on those cameras?”
Shaw furrowed her brow but continued down the stairs. “Is the basement clear?” She asked as they approached door marked B1.
“For now,” the voice replied.
Shaw didn’t bother to check her corners before pushing herself and her number through the door. “Where to?”
There was no response.
Shaw checked that she was still getting reception. She was. “Where are we going?” She asked again.
“The door you’re looking for is past the boiler room, but before the cleaning closet.” Shaw started moving as the voice continued. “Take two rights and a left and you should find it. If you hit the stairs to the parking garage, you’ve gone too far. But, Shaw, I’ve lost video.”
Shaw froze. “What?”
“They just took out the cameras. It was a physical link so the system can’t reboot without manual repair. I’m blind.”
Shaw took a deep breath. “Two rights and a left?”
“That’s right.” The voice confirmed. “And Shaw, please hurry.”
“I’ll work on it.” Shaw muttered. These guys were smarter than she’d given them credit for.
They were at the end of the first hallway when the door from the stairs burst open. Shaw had just enough time to push her number around the corner before a shot rang out and suddenly a searing pain exploded in Shaw’s arm. She let out an involuntary grunt of pain.
“Sameen!” The voice in Shaw’s ear cracked with worry.
“I’m fine,” she snarled. “It just grazed my arm. Keep moving,” she added to her number.
“B-but you’re bleeding,” he stuttered.
It was barely a scratch. The blood trickling down her arm would slow in a few minutes, and she could fabricate a makeshift bandage as soon as they lost the people shooting at them. Shaw had been very lucky. “Yeah and we’re both going to be bleeding a whole lot more if we don’t get out of here so let’s move .”
Suddenly an alarm started blaring from somewhere in the building above them, the sound making their pursuers hesitate. Shaw grabbed her number and started sprinting down the hallway, following the directions they’d been given. “You pulled the fire alarm?”
“I would have done it sooner, but their system had impressive security around the alarm triggers,” the voice replied, sounding more than a little smug. “I still can’t see inside but I can’t imagine your friends will want to stick around to explain to the fire brigade their impressive artillery and the complete lack of fire in the building. It should buy you enough time to get Mr. Terry to safety.”
Shaw nodded as they approached the door that would lead them to the subway tunnels. “Then I can track these guys down and kick their asses?”
“You know I love to watch you work, sweetie.”
A few hours later, Shaw had dealt with the money-launderers and delivered Mr. Terry back to his apartment. He was safe now, if still suffering from the aftereffects of shock. But Shaw had never been good with dealing with that, so she’d just grabbed him a beer from his own fridge and told him to be more careful next time. It wasn’t how Harold or John would have handled it, but neither of them were around to complain to her about it anymore.
She exited Terry’s apartment complex and merged into the steady flow of people on the sidewalk. She stretched her arm a little but as she walked, trying to gauge the pain of it. It hadn’t given her much trouble when she attacked the launderers’ but she knew that she wouldn’t have advised anyone else to exert themselves as much as she had after being grazed by a bullet.
“You’re going to be sore tomorrow,” said the voice in her ear, as if reading her thoughts.
Shaw glanced up at the nearest security camera and flashed it a little smirk, “Is that a threat or a promise?”
“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” came the playful reply.
Shaw adjusted her hat and maybe started walking a little more quickly. She did stop to pick up some food, because few things worked up her appetite like beating up bad guys. It was almost sundown by the time she made it back to the luxurious apartment building with a high quality security system where she lived.
She swiped her key card in the elevator and it took her up to the penthouse apartment. Shaw honestly didn’t know where they were getting the money to pay for this place. She had a feeling it was coming from some fund Harold pretended not to pay too much attention to, but she could never be sure with The Machine.
As she opened the door to her apartment, the familiar beeps of medical machinery greeted her ears, followed quickly by a flirtatious call of, “Hey Sweetie.”
Shaw rolled her eyes but didn’t bother to hide her smirk as she kicked off her shoes and walked over to Root’s bed. As usual, Bear was curled up on the foot of the bed, his tail thumping slightly against the blankets as Shaw approached. She stopped for a second to scratch behind his ears as she handed Root her serving of the takeout that she’d picked up. Then she spent a few minutes checking over the machines that were monitoring Root’s vitals. As usual, they were fine, but that didn’t stop Shaw from checking them compulsively every few hours whenever she was home.
Root never once commented on how often Shaw checked in on her. She knew that this was Shaw’s way of expressing her worry. Her way of saying she couldn’t bear to lose Root twice.
After the bullet that had nearly killed Root, The Machine had conscripted some anonymous help in faking her death and whisking her off to a private high-security hospital, where Root had stayed on the brink of death for a few days. By the time she’d regained consciousness, Harold had been halfway across the country, and even then it wasn’t likely that Root would survive.
She’d spent the last few days of the AI war drifting in and out of awareness, every moment of lucidity spent furious at The Machine for Her silence. Root had known that She could hear her, and she’d known that everyone else must think her dead. That Sameen had thought her dead.
After her second escape attempt, the nurses had handcuffed her to her hospital bed.
One day Root had been fiddling with an old PDA that she’d managed to charm off of one of the nicer nurses. She’d been attempting to see if she could use it to hack the hospital surveillance system, or at least access an external wifi network, when suddenly the screen had gone black and a few white words had scrawled quickly across it.
I’m sorry. I’ve tried my best.
I love you.
Root heard about the missile strike in New York a few hours later.
She spent the next few days in agonizing silence, wondering if the world was about to end or if they’d somehow done enough to save it.
Then, unexpectedly, she’d had a visitor. The first and only visitor she received at the hospital.
Root would never forget the look on Sameen Shaw’s face as she walked into Root’s small hospital room, peering down at the pale woman handcuffed to the bed. Root hadn’t been able to stop her tears of relief from knowing that Shaw was still alive. She’d survived.
Immediately, Shaw had been all business, tracking down some authority in the hospital staff and demanding Root be transferred home at once. Root was pretty sure that if it hadn’t been for The Machine quietly hacking into the system and changing Root’s patient records to list Shaw as Root’s wife, the staff would have kicked the compact Persian sociopath out of their doors as soon as she’d told Root how to get out of her handcuffs.
As it was, as soon as the staff realized Shaw’s relationship with Root, they immediately became more helpful and even offered to assist in transferring her to the makeshift hospital room that The Machine had had set up in their new penthouse apartment.
Their first night in their new home, Shaw had fallen asleep in her chair next to Root’s bed, never once letting go of Root’s hand.
Root, for her part, had spent the night listening to a quiet voice speaking in her cochlear implant. The Machine had waited until Shaw fell asleep to contact Root, but when She finally did speak up, Her apology was quick and immediate.
She hadn’t wanted Root to get hurt, and She hadn’t wanted to force Root onto the sidelines. But after Root had been shot, She’d realized that She could try to guarantee that at least one of her agents would survive this war. The Machine had stayed silent not to alienate Root, but to keep her safe from Samaritan’s agents that might suspect they’d been tricked.
The Machine told Root about how She’d taken on Root’s persona to honor her, and that there was no other human She would have wanted to be. Root wasn’t exactly sure when her tears had started falling silently as The Machine told her about the aftermath of their war, about John’s sacrifice. She held on tightly to Shaw’s hand as she tried not to imagine how it all might have ended differently if only she’d been able to be there to help them.
“So,” she’d asked quietly, when The Machine finally fell silent. “What now?”
She had a plan for them. She always did. “Now,” The Machine responded. “We get back to work.”
They’d received their first number the next morning, routed directly to Root’s implant. Root still needed several weeks of bedrest and physical therapy before she could go anywhere or shoot anyone, so Shaw was the one who packed her guns and set out alone to save people.
Well, she wasn’t completely alone. Bear had accompanied her on several missions, and he’d been especially helpful when Shaw had needed to protect a number from a stalker at the dog park. Fusco was still ready to help whenever she needed him, and he’d usually complain about how his new partner was somehow a worse and better cop than John had ever been. And of course, Shaw had Root.
Root had never stopped being The Machine’s analogue interface, and even though she was confined to her bed for the foreseeable future (The Machine and Shaw differed on how long Root really needed to stay in bed to recover), she was determined to help. She spent most of her days with a computer on her lap, and a phone to her ear, relaying information directly from The Machine to Shaw, and doing her own research to help out however she could.
But today, she hadn’t been much help at all.
“I’m sorry, Shaw,” Root said quietly as Shaw sat down in her chair next to Root, her first aid kit in hand as she finally dealt with her injury.
Shaw paused in the middle of dabbing arm with disinfectant. “Sorry for what?”
“The Machine was directing her video feeds right to my computer, and I still didn’t see them going for the cameras. If I’d noticed, She and I could have stopped them and then you...” her words trailed off as she looked at the dried blood on.
Shaw frowned, “Root, this isn’t some grave injury. I barely got hit. Besides,” she added, noticing that Root was about to argue. “Do you really think The Machine would have stayed quiet if She’d noticed they were going for the cameras? If she didn’t notice it, you can’t be expected to either.”
Root couldn’t think of an argument for this. To be honest, she’d already come to the same conclusion herself. But that still didn’t stop the twisting knot of fear that coiled in her stomach as Shaw continued applying her bandage. “I couldn’t see anything,” she said quietly. “I thought I might lose you again.”
Shaw sighed and packed up her kit before reaching over and taking Root’s hand firmly in hers. “Hey,” she said, looking Root right in the eye and squeezing her hand tightly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or however long we manage to keep ourselves alive doing this ridiculous job. And I know it’s tough for you to be stuck here for the next three weeks-”
Two weeks, The Machine corrected automatically to Root’s implant.
“But they can shoot me full of as many holes as they want and I will never stop fighting to come back to you. You are my safe place, Root, and I need you. You keep me grounded.”
Root smiled, comforted by Shaw’s words, and leaned over to give Shaw a quick kiss.
Shaw indulged her for a few seconds before firmly pushing her back down. “You’re going to tear your stitches if you keep doing that,” she scolded Root. “And then I’ll have to redo them.”
Root raised her eyebrows, “I do love it when you play doctor, Sameen.”
Shaw rolled her eyes, grabbed the TV remote, and gave Root a gentle push to her shoulder. “Move over, nerd.”
Root immediately obliged, shifting over to one side of the bed and giving Shaw enough space to lie next to her. Bear adjusted himself at their feet, resting his head on Shaw’s shins. They stayed like this for hours, watching a marathon of action movies that neither of them could remember the name to, until they fell asleep, Shaw’s head resting against Root’s arm, Root’s hand still held tight in hers.