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In the empty subway station, the two voices echoed loudly against the tiles, as if fighting back the winter’s cold. Inside Shaw’s makeshift bedroom, the small heater did its best to warm up the darkened room, but Root still hid under a blanket, unconvinced.
“Kill shot,” she warned Shaw, who winced. Sure enough, in the old TV screen, Shaw’s avatar dropped dead seconds later.
“You’re cheating,” Shaw accused her for what seemed like the hundredth time. “There’s no way you’re a better sniper than I am.”
When Finch had complained the previous day that Shaw should find a new hobby, Root had jumped on the occasion. You should game, she had suggested with that smirk she usually reserved to tech talk and sex kinks. It would help get some of the anger out, Root had made her decision, despite Shaw’s lack of approval, and her obvious annoyance.
Shaw hadn’t expected Root to show up the next day with a console and two controllers, grinning like it was Christmas – and maybe it was; Shaw had started to lose the count of days, wearily playing nerd while the others protected numbers, jadedly rearranging the weaponry a dozen times; cleaning out every gun way more than recommended.
“You’ll like it,” Root had purred her promise, and because Shaw had nothing else to do, she had allowed her to set up the console in her tiny ticket booth-turned bedroom.
Root had brought burgers and fries with her, and although Shaw knew very well that Root was trying to pacify her, she still ate wholeheartedly. In the meantime, Root rigged up the console with an old television set she had found who knows where. Shaw noticed the way she flinched every time her weight rested on her left leg, and she guessed Root had gotten hurt again, but Shaw didn’t dare ask how.
Instead, Shaw sipped her whisky, and ignored the constellations of bruises on Root’s arms, just like she pretended to believe Reese’s stories about work being hectic lately.
“Face it Shaw, I’m a multifaceted genius,” Root declared with a smug grin, her glinting eyes still locked on the TV screen, “who just got you again.”
Over the course of the last few hours, Shaw’s frustration had reached new levels. Already the confinement was exacerbating her nerves, but tonight’s constant failings fell down on her like punches she couldn’t block, and the tension nested in her gut seemingly exploded as she dropped her controller on her lap.
“In the back,” she accused in a yell, enraged, but Root didn’t even blink. Already Root’s character was moving towards another tower, and Shaw cursed the map she had picked this time. Stonehaven certainly hadn’t seemed like the worst choice out there, but Shaw regretted it bitterly now. “Are you ever going to fucking leave that place?”
“It’s allowed,” Root repeated once again, which only fueled Shaw’s rage.
She refused to pick up her controller again, even though Root glared at her, halfway between a pout and a frown of disappointment. “I just respawned thirty seconds ago.”
Root smirked. “I know,” she turned her attention to the game again.
“First time you killed me I didn’t even have ammo on me anymore,” Shaw complained again. Her glass of whisky had been empty too long and the burgers were starting to spread this odd, crappy fast food smell on her cot, and beside her Root felt too warm for her to be comfortable.
“It’s the game, Sam,” Root shook her head and paused the deathmatch. “All’s fair in love and war.”
The saying left a bitter taste in Shaw’s mouth. “It’s not okay.”
Shaw still didn’t have her controller in hand when Root found her avatar again, shooting her two times in the chest with her shotgun. Shaw didn’t blink as she watched her character falling on her knees and then flat on her face.
“I left the tower,” Root beamed triumphantly.
It was her seventieth kill that night, and beside Shaw’s zero, it was starting to be more than irritating.
“You hit me in the back like a coward,” Shaw crossed her arms, the anger burning inside her stomach like wildfire. “I wasn’t even playing anymore.”
“I’m not a coward; it’s called having a strategy,” Root replied smugly, grabbing her glass of whisky on the floor beside the bed. She winced and rubbed her hand against an invisible wound. Shaw noticed Root hadn’t had a sip all night, and somehow that only furthered the offense. “If you’re not playing then you should pause the game.”
Shaw sighed loudly, running a hand through her hair. Suddenly the room felt too small, and she wanted to bolt out of here and go somewhere else, anywhere really, but she knew she couldn’t. Instead, Shaw stood up, grabbed the leftovers from their previous dinner – it seemed like so long ago, and her muscles complained against the effort. She threw it all in a waste basket with a grimace; “it’s not strategy to just attack people from behind, Root.”
“Oh come on, it’s just a videogame,” Root argued with a short, awkward chuckle. She shrugged like it meant nothing, but Shaw couldn’t stop herself from continuing her angry rant.
“It’s what you do all the time,” Shaw nearly screamed, her temperature seemingly rising as her cheeks reddened. “You get people to trust you, make them think you have their back, and then you betray them!”
Root nearly choked on her alcohol. “Excuse me?”
It wasn’t a fair point, Shaw knew that, but something inside her had broken and it was impossible to stop the flow of words from bleeding out of her. “You betrayed me, Root,” her voice sounding calmer than it felt inside. It vibrated in her throat and left her feeling exhausted. “Tased me, more than once. Stabbed a needle in my neck.”
Unconsciously, Shaw ran fingers against the spot where the syringe had sunk into her weeks ago. It had healed since then, of course, and Shaw had agreed with Finch, Reese, and Root that it had been the right course of action. That she had been irrational and dangerous, and that Root had done all she could.
“You wouldn’t have come willingly,” Root explained, and Shaw didn’t know if she was talking about the tasing or the drugs, but it didn’t matter. It was the same excuse, and tonight it sounded wrong, or false, or not exactly the point Shaw was trying to make, and she just had enough of those four walls around her.
Shaw clenched her jaw instead of saying words she might regret, and her heartbeats resonated loudly in her chest, her pulse erratic and deafening.
“Oh, you can’t be still mad about that?” Root stood from the bed, worrying at her lower lip. Usually the gesture triggered one of two things in Shaw’s body; a bolt of arousal, or a pinch of annoyance. This time, it surged inside her like an avalanche.
“I can be mad at whatever the hell I want, Root,” she barked out the name like it didn’t belong in her mouth, ignoring the many times before, where in the middle of the night she had whispered it like a promise.
A promise she wouldn’t do exactly what she was doing now.
Root shrugged, but her pretended indifference wasn’t convincing. “You agreed with me that you weren’t listening to reason,” she stated, her voice wavering. “I did it to protect you.”
Whether there were tears in Root’s eyes or just exhaustion from the past few days, Shaw didn’t know.
“I don’t care why,” she replied angrily, opening her bedroom door. A draft of cold air rushed in and Shaw welcomed the shivers that ran down her skin. “Everyone’s got reasons.”
Root shook her head. “You said we were okay.”
Shaw shook her head. “I think you should go.”
It barely made a sound when Root walked passed her, and Shaw was almost startled when Bear swooped in, jumping on her cot and nuzzling the blanket Root had been hiding under all evening. When he whined Shaw rolled her eyes.
“Don’t start.”
[...]
It had been two weeks since the last time Root had come around the subway station, and yet Shaw recognised her perfume immediately, hovering around Finch’s desk like a ghost. She followed the light noises she heard down the corridor and found Root searching through the armory, digging in drawers and cursing like a sailor.
“Anything you need?” Shaw asked, leaning against the doorframe.
Root shrugged, but Shaw could see the way her muscles tensed up, like she was uncertain of what to do or say. Like Shaw was making her nervous.
“Another number, or another puzzle from the Machine?” Shaw asked again, but something in her tone surprised her, made her wonder what her question meant exactly. It was in the way she spitted out the Machine, bitterly, like she was angry with it. But Shaw couldn’t fathom why she would ever be mad at a glorified computer system.
“The latter,” Root turned around and sighed loudly. “What do you want, Shaw?”
It was a fair question. Shaw could hear Bear’s paws on the tiles behind her and she rolled her eyes in annoyance.
“Look,” she started, but she couldn’t find the words.
“I’m looking,” Root crossed her arms, impatient.
Shaw swallowed hard. “Could you just listen, for a minute? I’m trying... something.”
Root frowned, but didn’t reply anything as Shaw gathered the words. It seemed like her thoughts were fogged and hard to catch, like she didn’t exactly know where she was headed. She remembered that dark night, after Carter’s death, running after Reese to save him from himself. She had driven with the lights turned off then, blind and yet oddly confident in where she was headed to. Root’s voice warm in her ears.
“The other night, I said things I shouldn’t have,” Shaw averted her eyes, and the words blocked in her throat. “It’s not you, I don’t trust.”
Root heard what Shaw wasn’t saying, loud and clear. It’s the Machine. It lingered between them, suffocating.
Running a hand through her hair, Root let out a breath. “Yeah, okay.”
The tension between them seemed to relax slightly then, and Shaw took it for allowance to step further. She walked into the armoury and opened a small drawer in the corner, almost hidden from sight. She pulled out a Beretta Nano from it, clean and sparkling like it was brand new. “I guess you need to conceal,” Shaw cleared her throat, and offered it to Root. “Here.”
Root flinched as she grabbed the handgun, her fingers brushing against Shaw’s palm. “Thank you,” she whispered with reverence, as if she had been in a church or a library.
Even though she cleared her throat, Root didn’t add anything. The silence lingered between them for a moment until Root flinched, making her way towards the exit. One hand gently petted Bear’s head as she walked past him.
“Hey Root,” Shaw stopped her in her tracks. “I’ve been practicing.”
Root frowned, and Shaw shifted on her feet almost nervously, except she didn’t do nervous, she reminded herself, so it might’ve just been the restlessness.
“Call of Duty,” she explained with a nod. “I’ll kill you.”
Root grinned. “You can try.”