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Harold sat straight backed in the pool of harsh light that spilled from the bank of monitors at his desk. He squinted into the brightness, ostensibly reviewing security camera footage, but in truth his gaze frequently slanted sideways towards the oncoming storm of an unconscious Sameen Shaw. The exact manner in which he would weather it eluded him, as doubt had begun to numb his confidence in reasoning with her. The plain necessity and importance of her staying underground was clear but the question lingered if he could burn away the anger in her fast enough to prevent something terrifically self-destructive from happening. Perhaps Bear could help the---
“Is she awake?” A quiet voice chirped into life in his earpiece. It immediately struck Harold as more haggard than it had been even a few hours ago when it had made quiet excuses.
“Not yet, Ms. Groves.” He turned in his chair to face the knocked out woman on the bed. “But I do wish you would reconsider your position. I think she might be better assuaged if you explained the situation in person.”
A rasping chuckle met his plea. “Harold I think we both know that I’d only make things worse. Sameen needs someone to calm her down.” There was a hesitation in her voice that sounded like a hitch before she continued, “Someone she doesn’t hate.”
Harold sat in confounded silence for a moment. He sensed deeper and swifter waters here than perhaps he’d realized. The exact nature of the relationship between the two women continued to be happily hidden from him, and while he’d long known that they shared a bond that was stronger than simply a professional partnership, the tone of Ms. Groves’ voice spoke of an emotionality that surprised him.
“Ms. Groves, while I’m sure that Ms. Shaw will be angry at first, she will see that what you did was in the best interest of everyone.” He attempted to reassure her with as much calm confidence as he could conjure from his own nagging uncertainty.
“I hope so Harold but when Sameen is angry she’s….a force of nature.” The voice in his ear now sounded distant, almost dreamy.
“Yes…I am aware of that.” Harold raised an eyebrow at the collision of their metaphors, though he hoped they set off from very different places. “I—
His response was halted by a low groan from the bed that bloomed hot adrenalin in his chest. With a steadying breath and grimace of effort, he rose from the chair and limped with great trepidation towards Ms. Shaw. The words that he had prepared for her, the comforting and reassuring explanation that would beat back the storm, fumbled in his mind now. The reality of this woman’s forthcoming anger and the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to stop her from storming out of the subway station and causing herself and the greater mission irreparable harm made his previous reassuring breath seem laughably naïve and his confidence ridiculous.
“If anybody can do this it’s you Harry.” The voice in his ear woke back up with its usual uncanny timing, though it remained strained with agitation.
“Yes, thank you Ms. Groves.” He replied through tight lips while he watched the woman on the bed groan once again and now open her eyes.
“Root?” The question came roughly from Ms. Shaw, as if it had fought through the heavy tendrils of the drugged unconscious nothingness that had only moments ago been her everything.
“Ms. Shaw, can you hear me?” Harold asked softly, attempting to lull her back to reality.
Her eyes blinked once more and then bulged, the whites shining their panic through the darkness of the room. She struggled roughly and awkwardly to a sitting position and brought her hand to her neck.
“I—Root.” She growled so low that it garnered a whimper from Bear, who was watching her carefully.
“Everybody, including Mr. Reese, is safe Ms. Shaw.” Harold kept the same quiet, hopefully reassuring tone. It seemed sensible to him that he should start by informing her of Mr. Reese’s safety, even if it was untrue that everybody was safe. The explosion in the penthouse had cost several lives.
“It—Harold.” She focused her gaze upon him, the drug-induced lethargy still made the edges of her focus hazy, but that seemed to be retreating frighteningly quickly given the amount of barbiturates in her system.
“Where is she?” It was less of a question than a staccato burst of syllables, with such venom that it caused Harold to take a half step backward.
“Ms. Groves thought it best if she removed herself from the premises given the situation. She—” He spoke urgently; as he understood that this was the crest of the wave that needed to be broken if he was going to be successful in calming her down. Still, he wasn’t quick enough and she interrupted him.
“She’s hiding?” This time the question was sneered with an increasingly sober indignation.
“I’m not hiding. She’s the one who can’t control herself when she gets like that. If she had any regard for her own safety I wouldn’t have had to drug her.” The voice returned to his ear again, this time it seemed to Harold that the tension which had previously quivered Ms. Groves’ words was now replaced with a sort of frustrated familiarity and haughtiness.
“Ms. Groves was concerned with your well-being, as we all are. Everyone is safe,” he repeated this line again, hoping this time it would have a greater impact. “And we need to focus on the situation at hand.” He placed a slightly sterner tone to his words now, hoping that he could divert her to the very real danger of the present, and away from the past.
Unfortunately, the storm was neither diverted nor calmed. “Do you know what she did Harold? Did you order her to do it?” Her eyes, which had been so wide moments ago now narrowed to accusatory slits.
“I—No.” He stumbled, answering truthfully but he feared not helpfully.
“Thanks Harold.” He heard reproachfully in his earpiece.
“Root stabbed me.” At that she made a slashing motion towards her neck, as if Harold was unaware of the situation. “When my back was turned. After she lied to me.” She became increasingly animated as she spoke, and it was worrying to witness the woman’s usual remote stoniness crack and see furiously hot frustration and anger pour to the surface.
Before Harold could respond she grabbed at her ear, attempting to activate her own earpiece. He’d foreseen that she would want to communicate, likely very loudly, with Ms. Groves and perhaps other members of the team as well and accordingly had removed it.
“It came out on your way back.” He answered the unasked question. It was a lie, but he hoped she would forgive him it later given the circumstances.
“Yeah, sure. Does yours work? Is she listening right now?” She stood up and advanced on Harold with uncertain and stiff legs as she barraged him with questions.
“Harold you need to calm her down. Make her understand that what I did was for the good of everyone. Just---make her understand, okay?” He heard Ms. Groves’ order, and not for the first time felt that he was in the middle of a battle of wills whose rules were not all known to him. Unfortunately, some measure of frustration with that uncertainty showed on his countenance, and was easily read.
“She is. Hey Root!” She yelled at his ear and he flinched uncomfortably. “Get your ass down here so I can hand it to you!”
Harold reached up and in a moment of either extreme bravery or stupidity, attempted to hold Ms. Shaw back and away from himself. She stopped suddenly and looked down at his hands on her arm in stunned surprise, the notion of him physically restraining her so completely alien.
“I—Ms. Shaw, please listen to me!” His own voice was elevated now, lured upward by hers, and towards a further escalation of the situation. “I understand you’re angry and that is understandable, but what Ms. Groves did she did to protect everyone, not just you but myself, Mr. Reese, Detective Fusco, even Bear.” During his enumeration of the members of the team his voice sloped back down in agitation and returned to its earlier note of pleading urgency.
“I trusted her Harold. I thought---” Her voice was quiet now, ghostly compared to what it had been. For the first time since she’d woken up there was uncertainty in her eyes and a lack of purpose in her actions. She stood still, no longer trying to get at his earpiece or even to fight his hold of her.
Harold hesitated, surprised by his own actions and uncertain of how exactly to proceed. As he had sat in the glare of his computers and side eyed her unconscious form, he’d spun rapidly through various methods to calm Ms. Shaw down and impress the gravity of the situation upon her. However, none of those scenarios had included her demonstrating vulnerability so nakedly. The fact that Ms. Groves’ actions, or indeed any action undertaken by that woman, could produce such a shattering effect hammered home the truth that there existed deep emotional undercurrents between these two women.
His mind desperately offered suggestions to assuage and calm, but as he watched her expression slink back from confusion and hurt to studied indifference, he understood that he needed to do more than that. He’d watched this woman slowly change from a standoffish and cynically pragmatic assassin to someone who defended the innocent, empathized with others, and who had apparently established an even deeper emotional connection with Ms. Groves than he’d realized or perhaps even thought possible. To watch that all begin to unspool before his eyes jolted him into another action that he had not planned and that might only exacerbate the situation.
“Ms. Shaw,” he continued with a calm de-escalating tone. “I know what it is like to betray someone I care about deeply.” He watched her gaze shift downward as he spoke and she moved away from him, retreating into herself. He steeled himself and went on, “I have lied to and mislead the one person I care about most in this world. If Grace—” He choked on her name, his own voice warbling as his throat constricted. Her name was an incantation and from it sprang unbidden a torrent of memories, the joy on her face when she saw The Red Tower, the perfection of the moment when he asked her to marry him, and underlying it all the horror of her expression in that makeshift hospital. He swallowed hard against the rising tide within him, he knew that he could not stop now.
“If Grace ever discovered what I did, what I’ve done, she would never forgive me. The pain that I’ve caused her is—it can’t be forgiven. But what I believe, what I know, is that everything I have done was to keep her safe. And if I have to choose between a world where she is protected and one where she isn’t? Ms. Shaw, there is nothing that I wouldn’t sacrifice of myself to make sure it’s the former. Even if that means not existing to her at all.”
A silence rolled thickly through the subway station. Harold had called her vulnerability with his own, and what was left in this storm now were two tired and broken people, whose most precious connections were also their greatest demons.
“I’m still pissed.” She responded flatly with arms crossed. Her eyes met his in defiance, but her voice was a white flag.
“Ms. Shaw, I understand your anger but I am asking you to recognize the situation. Your cover has been blown. Samaritan’s operatives can now identify you and soon Samaritan will be able to as well. Until we can find a way to change that you must remain off their radar.” The words came much more comfortably to him now. Status reports, however dire, were still preferable to talking about Grace.
“So you want me to stay down here like a rat in a cage while everyone else fights Samaritan?” She questioned, her voice piqued.
“No, I’m asking you to be much more cautious. Everyone’s protection relies on you now. There is good you can do from down here, believe it or not, and we still have the shadow map.” He sought again to reassure her, though he understood it was difficult for someone with her background and skills to view inaction and isolation as helping the cause or protecting members of the team.
“Just—just answer me this Harold. Why do I only get one identity? I mean, Root can do whatever the hell she wants apparently, but I’m just burned?” At the mention of the other woman, Harold heard his earpiece click back to life.
“I tried to tell her before that She has a plan for everyone. Just because we can’t see all of it doesn’t mean it’s not there. She wants to protect all of us.” He listened to Ms. Groves’ explanation, such as it was, and was unsurprised that Ms. Shaw had found it unsatisfactory.
“Ms. Groves---Root----has a unique relationship with The Machine. I don’t fully understand it myself. I don’t know why it speaks to her or why she’s so eager to accept its messages. But I do know that it sets her apart from the rest of us and that the rules never seem to apply to her in the same way as everyone else.” He confided, hoping that his explanation though answerless, would at least find a resonating sympathy.
“Yeah that’s for damn sure.” Ms. Shaw sighed, her eyes slipping from his and to the floor once again. “It’s only a matter of time you know, before they kill her. I know she thinks she’s too smart for that but she’s not. And now there’s one less person to watch her back.”
“I believe that Ms. Groves fully understands the gravity of the situation, especially now.” He underscored those last words meaningfully. “And I promise that we will do whatever we can to reestablish an identity for you.” He moved towards her now slowly and she raised her eyes to his as he spoke as earnestly as he could. “You are not alone Ms. Shaw. If we are to win this battle against Samaritan it will take every single one of us to do so.”
Finally empty of both questions and recriminations she didn’t respond to his words. Instead, she shuffled backwards and sat wearily on the bed, shoulders heavy and head down. Her hair hung loosely in front of her face and obscured his view of her expression, but he sensed the lingering tension and uncertainty within.
He wanted to say something that would do more, that would properly focus her back on the mission at hand and fully erase her sense of anger and betrayal. He’d successfully weathered the oncoming storm but now he was in the ruins it had begotten. An awkward and painful silence once again stood between them.
He was grateful when his earpiece buzzed. “Harry, check your phone.”
With one eye on Ms. Shaw he peered down at his phone and squinted in confusion at it.
“Ms. Groves, I really don’t think---” He said softly, in a foolish attempt at confidentiality from the woman who was sitting mere feet away from him.
“What does she want now?” As always, the merest mention of Ms. Groves was enough to draw Ms. Shaw’s attention.
“I believe—” He began hesitantly, feeling slightly ridiculous. “---She wishes you to make a selection.”
He shuffled forward and handed her the phone, preparing himself for a revival of indignation. Instead, for the first time since Ms. Shaw had woken up, she seemed something other than angry and lost. Indeed, he thought he saw a bemused tick at the corner of her lips.
“Tell her this doesn’t mean I forgive her.” She said pointedly.
“I wouldn’t imagine—” He started but was interrupted.
“But Keens. The Prime Porterhouse for Two.” She handed the phone back, and he was heartened to see her not return to her previous posture but instead sit back straightened and eyes fixed past him.
“I’ll be there in an hour.” Ms. Groves’ voice returned, transforming back to its usual playful lilt.
“Well. Perhaps I was wrong. I think a meal and a long talk might be a good idea for you two.” He said gently and turned to walk back to his desk.
“I’m not sharing it with her.” He heard over his shoulder, and turned back to her in curiosity.
“C'mere big guy.” With speed that surprised even Harold, Bear was suddenly at Ms. Shaw’s side, with his head in between her hands and tail wagging. He watched her smile as Bear leapt up, put his paws on her thighs and attempted to nuzzle his big frame into hers.
Harold grinned warmly as he sat down at his desk and he breathed a silent sigh of relief. The battle against Samaritan was as bleak as it had ever been, and their world was more dangerous and deadly than ever, but at least there were still good people willing to fight. It was that truth that sustained the hope within him that they could succeed despite the odds, that somehow and someway the goodness and strength of his friends would persevere and that in the end they would be victorious against Samaritan.