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Shaw and her squad have only just gotten back from an incident with a homemade smoke bomb in a high school nearby when the alarm at the station blares again. She grunts in annoyance. Her shift was supposed to end in 10 minutes, but it looks like she's gonna pull a long one again.
"Apartment fire in Greenwich," the chief calls when he walks into the room to gather the squad. At least it's close to her place. If it's just a little kitchen fire, she might still make it home before her favorite sandwich place closes.
Don't get her wrong, she loves her new job. She's always devoted herself to saving people, as a doctor, as a marine, as a government agent, as a... whatever she did with Finch and Reese. Rescuing people out of burning buildings checks off all the same boxes, the excitement, the danger, the knowledge that what she's doing is important. It's perfect for her. But if she's completely honest, she misses her old work. Doing research, going undercover, getting to shoot some bad guys every now and then. Despite the shitty pay and the borderline unethical hours, it was fun.
Plus, she's really looking forward to having a proper sandwich tonight.
They get dressed in their heavy coats, put on their helmets, and as the squad gets ready and fills up the truck, Shaw gets behind the wheel. Once everybody is seated, she turns on the siren, revelling in the noise of it as she brings the truck to life and pulls it out of the station. She can never keep a grin off her face when she gets to drive that thing, swerve the mass of it through the streets of Manhattan with no rules and no apology. She can feel the weight of it under the gas pedal, and every time she steals a corner, the whole thing rocks like a ship in a storm.
The apartment building is only six stories tall, and the fire appears to be on the third. The fire seems to be a little bigger than a simple kitchen fire, smoke coming from at least three broken windows on the corner, but no roaring flames yet. Residents and other spectators are crowding the sidewalks. One of her squad members, Jackson, starts putting them out of their way as soon as he jumps out of the truck, while the rest gets the hose and ladder ready.
"The owner of the apartment where the fire started is supposedly out of town for the weekend. The neighbors all evacuated the building in time." Jackson reports.
"So the the fire started out of nowhere?" Shaw asks.
"He left his cat behind. Might have jumped a gas switch or something."
Shaw looks up at the black smoke steaming from the windows.
"Poor bastard."
Then she squints at the last window that hasn't broken yet. She swears she could have seen something moving.
"There's someone in there," she realizes with wide eyes. Jackson looks up too, but Shaw is already on the move.
Jackson and O'Malley get the hose in position, while Shaw and Luczek go inside with the extinguishers. They jog their way up the staircase. They can barely see anything through the smoke, but the noise guides them to where they need to be.
They get to the door of the apartment on the corner. Luczek breaches the door with his crowbar. The lock breaks with a loud clang, and as soon as Shaw kicks the door open further, flames start coming into the hall.
"Is anybody in here?" she yells over the roar of the flames, creaking of wood giving and clinging of things breaking.
Luczek starts to extinguish the flames closest to them, and Shaw can't hear anything else. She extinguishes the path ahead of her, in the direction where she thinks she saw someone in the window.
"Anybody in here?" she calls again. The water from the hose down below hits through the windows, and the flames hiss in retaliation as it hits them. But over it, Shaw can faintly hear a voice calling back to her from the room down the corridor.
She kicks open the door to what appears to be the bathroom, and there on the floor, wedged between the bathtub and a laundry basket sits a woman, coddling something in her lap.
"Help," she croaks through the smoke.
"I've got you," Shaw says and she hurries over to the woman to help her off the floor. "Let's get you out of here."
As she helps her up, she realizes the thing she's holding is the cat, and she keeps it clutched to her chest as Shaw hoists her free arm over her shoulders and carries her out of the apartment the way she came.
"I've got her, Luczek," she yells into the direction he went, and he calls back an affirmative to let her know she's good to go.
When they get out of the door the cat softly mews, and Shaw is relieved to find it's still alive.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asks the woman, who hangs on her shoulders like a lifevest, even as they start down the stairs.
"Just little lightheaded," she answers. Her voice sounds familiar, but Shaw is soon distracted by the fact that the woman's legs almost give out underneath her on the first landing to think of why.
Shaw straightens herself out and leans the tall but lanky woman against the wall, getting ready to carry her further down the stairs. That's when she gets a good look at her face.
"Root?!"
"You're my hero, Sameen," she groans, with an attempt at a grin before her eyes fall shut and she starts to slip down the wall.
"Unbelievable," Shaw grunts, and she catches her before she crashes down the stairwell. She swoops her up in her arms, realizing with annoyance how glad Root would be to find she carried her outside like a bride, but she doesn't really have another choice.
The cat has jumped free from Root's limp arms and bolts down the stairs ahead of them.
Shay holds open the door for her when she gets all the way down.
"She was conscious when I got to her," Shaw begins to explain while she carries her to the back of the truck. The people on the sidewalk gasp. "Just dizzy from the smoke. I think she'll wake up soon enough, but if you could just check out her lungs." She lays her down on the gurney Shay has prepared.
"I always do, Gray."
She is momentarily put off by the use of her new name, still not quite used to it, but she's too busy to ponder on it. "I know. It's just that she had a heart murmur before. Can't be too careful."
"How do you know?"
Shaw swallows hard. "Uh... she told me. Right before she passed out." Shay gives her a weird look, but Shaw purses her lips and shrugs like she doesn't get it either.
The fire isn't out yet, but Shaw can't bring herself to go back inside. It can't be long now, and she's certain there's no one else in there that needs rescuing now. She can't get herself to leave Root behind, even after Shay has assured her she's got it.
Root regains consciousness soon after Luczek appears behind the corner window and gives them the sign that the fire is out. Shaw takes off her helmet and unzips her coat, and then she hears a groan coming from the gurney.
Shay is just around the corner, getting some more supplies to patch Root up, and Shaw uses the moment of privacy to see what this is all about.
"I take it this was one of your little side missions?"
"Maybe I just wanted to see you again." Her voice is a mess, but her face says the opposite of business like always. She even attempts a wink as she tries to sit up, but she's still a little wonky and Shaw has to grab her by the arm so she doesn't slide right onto the asphalt of the street below her.
"This isn't funny, Root," Shaw hisses, squeezing her arm with a little more vigor than necessary. Root winces in pain, but then she grins through her teeth. Lunatic. "You could have died. All these people could have died. Are you fucking insane?"
Root's face turns serious quickly, and she leans forward to lower what's left of her voice. "That apartment belonged to a Decima agent who has spent the last year sniffing out paper trails leading to anyone affiliated with the machine outside of the government. He was getting very close to discovering the servers you and I installed in New Jersey six months ago. All the evidence he had gathered that would inevitably have gotten us killed was inside that apartment."
Shaw sighs, unable to hold back a smile. "And now it's gone."
"Up in smoke."
Shay comes back, happy to see her patient up and chatting. Root gratefully accepts the water and the strepsils, and after Shay has cleared her from any further complications, she is free to go talk to the cops that have arrived at the scene.
Shaw watches her make up some kind of vivid story, judging by her hand gestures involving the cat, as she dumps her helmet and coat in the truck. She tells Jackson that she'll walk home from here. She waits for Root to get done, and then she sneaks up behind her.
"I'm fine, Sameen," Root says without looking around.
"No you're not. Good reason or not, you are still batshit crazy for setting a place on fire with yourself in it."
"I knew you'd come to my rescue." She sways into Shaw's side as they walk along.
"Could've been somebody else. Could have been nobody at all. We were informed there were no more residents left in the building. You're lucky as hell that I just happened to see you in the window."
Root is quiet for a moment. She sounds a lot more serious when she goes on. "I got locked in. I don't know how, I guess he left a trap in case someone would come for his research. I was supposed to leave after I ignited the fire. She didn't know I wouldn't be able to."
"You've gotta stop gambling with your life like that," Shaw sighs. "Next time I might not be around to save your ass."
"You wouldn't miss a chance on anything involving my ass," she taunts, accompanied with a lopsided grin.
Shaw rolls her eyes so hard that it hurts her sockets, but before she has a chance to scold Root for her horrid sense of humor, something slips by her leg, and she jumps back with a start. She looks down at the skinny Siamese cat, which looks back at her with its big blue eyes before it rubs its head against Root's ankle.
"Oh, baby," Root says, and she leans down to pick it up. "Did you follow us all the way out here?"
"That thing is not coming across my doorstep," Shaw clarifies when they continue their way, the cat curled up in Root's arms.
"Is this you saying that I am?"
Shaw rolls her eyes again. This woman is gonna give her an aneurysm one day.
"I'm saying you owe me a thank you."
"Hmm, I can think of a way to show my gratitude." She reaches out a hand to Shaw's suspenders, hooks two fingers behind it just below her breast, and gives it a gentle tug. It snaps back into place and Shaw has to hold back a smirk.
"Thanks, but a sandwich will suffice," Shaw says, right as they pass her favorite place, just in time before it closes.