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“You know, Root,” Shaw said as she sped past yet another sluggish car that had been hogging the pass lane. “This isn’t exactly what I was expecting when you said we had another relevant number.”
Root chuckled from the passenger seat, still looking out the window, “I should have known that after stealing a jet, just driving would seem mundane to you.”
“There’s definitely less shooting and punching,” Shaw admitted, smirking a bit. “And alcohol.”
“We’ll get plenty of that later,” Root assured her, and Shaw could hear the smirk in her words. “The violence at least,” she amended after a moment. “The Machine’s not positive we’ll have time for that last part.”
Shaw huffed, “Well you tell the Machine that we’d at least better get a better ride for the drive back. This sedan’s having issues pushing eighty.”
Root pulled her eyes away from the window to look at the speedometer, and raised her eyebrows at Shaw. “You know the speed limit here is seventy,” she chided sweetly. “And studies show that drivers that excessive speed are more likely to be involved in car crashes.”
Shaw glanced away from the road to look over at Root, “And what does the Machine say our odds of crashing are?”
Root smirked, cocking her head to one side as she listened to the computer in her ear. After a moment she admitted, “She says with you at the wheel, our odds are completely negligible.”
Shaw sat up a little straighter, smiling.
They continued in silence for nearly an hour. This was the part of driving that Shaw forgot she loved. The monotony of it seemed to erase time. As long as she was in this car, everything else just ceased to exist. There were no numbers, no Decima, no government agents out to kill them all, there was just Shaw and the road. It was the only time in her life that she could just... be.
Every ten minutes or so, Root shifted in her seat. At first, Shaw tried not to mind, but when Root leaned toward the dashboard controls, Shaw’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Root smirked and pulled her hand back as Shaw let her go. “I can’t stand the silence,” she admitted, crinkling her nose a little. “I thought I’d turn on a little music, just something to listen to.”
“No,” Shaw told her shortly. “I don’t do music in the car.”
Root raised her eyebrows, but didn’t protest. She just readjusted her position in her seat again, putting her feet up on the dashboard and crossing her arms over her chest. She sat quietly for a few more minutes, before she cocked her head slightly and said, “But wouldn’t that make the coupling vulnerable?”
Shaw turned from the road to look at Root like she was crazy, but she noticed the far-off look in Root’s eyes as a smile curled her lips and she continued, “I’ve never thought of implementing that algorithm that way.”
Another pause.
“But then how would you get access-?” Root chuckled. “Of course you have access. So then-”
“Root,” Shaw snarled, gripping the wheel tightly. “What are you doing?”
Root stretched, moving her feet back down to the floor. “We’re just discussing a theoretical program we’ve been tinkering with for the past few weeks.”
“We?” Shaw repeated. “You mean you and the Machine?”
Root smiled, “We can talk about things other than life-threatening situations.”
“Well can you talk about it more quietly?” Shaw demanded.
“I’ve got to do something , Shaw,” Root told her pleasantly. “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, you know. Same concept applies to minds.”
Shaw huffed.
Root shifted in her seat again, “And then once you’ve got the access-”
“Fine! You can turn on the music!” Shaw snapped.
Root shifted forward with the knowledge of a battle won, “Well, if you insist, Shaw.” And she reached again for the radio controls.
“But,” Shaw interjected, just her words powerful enough to stop Root’s hand. “I get to choose what we listen to.”
Root bit her lip as she smiled, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She flipped the radio to the first station she found.
Shaw drove on as the acoustic guitar line danced in their ears and Jason Mraz sang along. But after a little bit, another voice joined in, much softer.
“ And nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention. I reckon, it's again my turn to win some or learn some. ”
Shaw glanced over at Root. The brunette had her chin perched on her hand again, eyes focused out the window, watching the scenery speed by as the words sang past her lips almost without her noticing.
“ Well, open up your mind and see like me, open up your plans and damn you're free. Look into your heart and you'll find love, love, love, love. ”
Shaw reached down and switched the station.
Root jumped slightly, looking at Shaw but Shaw kept her eyes glued to the road as Daft Punk’s Get lucky thudded through their speakers.
For the rest of the ride, Shaw let the radio play, but she always changed the station whenever Root would start singing along. Eventually Root took the hint and stopped. Instead she pulled out her phone to, Shaw assumed, continue her conversation with the Machine via text.
A few hours later, they arrived in Miami, where Root directed her to a bar. “Well Shaw,” Root said with a smile, taking out her guns. “I guess you’re about to get your alcohol.”
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Shaw wakes with a start, cold sweat drenching her brow, her heart pounding in her chest as she stares into the darkness around her. Her breathing slows as her eyes adjust to the dark, and she recognizes the shadows of her own apartment around her. She leans back against her pillows and closes her eyes, waiting for the trembling in her hands to dissipate.
She’s used to nightmares waking her every night. She can’t remember the last time she’d gotten a decent night’s sleep. It had probably been sometime after she’d nearly died at the stock exchange, and before Samaritan had been shut down for good.
Shaw was a soldier. She was used to restless sleep. But two months of less than four hours a night was pushing even her limits.
Finch had commented on it last week, when she snapped at him while saving a number. He’d suggested she go home and try to sleep. John had suggested she talk to someone, he’d even suggested Iris, said she was confidential.
Shaw had told them both to shove it up their asses.
She lets the dark wash over her now, as she finally faces the fact that she won’t be finding sleep again tonight. She groans and looks at the clock on her nightstand. It’s nearly four. That means she’s got at least three hours to kill before she could can call Finch to ask if they’ve got a new number. He’s told her more times than she can remember that she doesn’t have to call him to ask. He’ll contact her when the Machine gives them a job. But Shaw can’t help it. She needs these numbers.
Well, she thinks to herself as she pushes back the blankets covering her, if she’s going to be awake, she might as well be drinking.
She crosses her bedroom, but her foot catches on something as she steps into the main room, sending pain shooting up her leg. A stream of curses springs from her lips as she punches the nearest wall and flicks on the lights.
Of course it’s Root’s stuff. Her gadgets and tinkering supplies have been strewn about the apartment floor for the past two months. Shaw knows she should move it, but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet. With her limited tech knowledge, Shaw would guess that she just crushed a hard drive under her foot. She can barely bring herself to kick it aside as she continues towards her fridge and pulls out a bottle of whiskey.
Taking a couple swigs, she sits herself down on her couch, digging in between the couch cushions to find the tv remote. Her hand wraps around something small and rectangular and she grabs it, pulling it from the couch before realizing it’s not the remote.
She’s holding Root’s phone.
Before she can stop herself, she pushes the power button. The screen lights up to reveal several text notifications. After a quick moment, Shaw realizes that they’re all from her.
Your shit’s all over my apartment. When the hell did you move all of this in here?
Bear missed you today.
Was the Machine always this quiet or did you nerds change something since you rebooted Her?
Gen asked about you. I didn’t know how to explain.
She grits her teeth and swipes at the screen, determined to erase the messages. It takes her three guesses to figure out Root’s password. She doesn’t know if she’s touched or furious that it’s her name.
Instead of opening to the messages app, though, Shaw finds herself looking at Root’s music.
Taking another large drought of whiskey, Shaw starts flipping through it. There’s one playlist of classical music titled Thinking , another playlist of dubstep under the name Bad Code , several subscriptions to podcasts that look incredibly nerdy to Shaw. She pauses at the last playlist in Root’s library. It doesn’t have any words in the title, just two emojis; a car, and a heart.
Shaw selects it, and quickly spots that is the only playlist on Root’s phone that has songs with lyrics. She scrolls through them, searching for anything else linking them together. It’s not until her eyes fall on I’m Yours and she remembers Root sitting with her in that car, quietly singing along, that she realizes all of these songs are the ones from that car ride.
Root had not only remembered them, she’d compiled them. She’d put all of the stupid songs that Shaw had let them listen to into a playlist that, if the statistics shown on this screen are accurate, Root had listened to almost constantly while Shaw had been missing.
And then the pain comes, like it always does, stabbing her in the stomach like a knife and twisting. A cold burns through her veins, until she can’t sit still.
“Dammit Root!” She shouts, jumping to her feet and throwing the phone against the nearest wall. It shatters into pieces, completely broken and Shaw knows she should care but she doesn’t. She can’t.
She clutches the bottle tight in her hand but she can’t even bring herself to drink. Instead she just leans back against the wall as numbness sweeps over her, and memories she wishes she doesn’t have come flooding back.
Decima agents letting her be ‘rescued’ once they turned her into a pre-programmed killing machine.
Four weeks in the subway as Finch, John, and Root helped her pull her mind back together.
Finally being able to go home.
Root playfully apologizing for ‘stealing’ her apartment while she was away.
Long nights spent exploring every inch of Root’s body.
Root breaking into her apartment late at night to announce she had a way to defeat Samaritan.
Three nights of breaking and entering, four near-death experiences, two explosions, and one deadly bullet, the final order of a dying computer, finding it’s mark.
Too much blood accompanying a glowing smile and the final whisper of “Hey Sweetie.”
Two months of wishing she could save her.
Shaw’s knees go weak and she slides down against the wall. “Why Root?” She asks, her voice almost cracking. “Why did you have to leave me alone?”
There’s no response. There never is. There never will be.
Shaw just sits there numbly. “Please,” she says quietly. “I can’t take the silence.”