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"Maps stretched out-
Too many miles to count.
Let’s just say we’re inches apart,
Even closer at heart,
And we’ll be just fine." -'West' Sleeping at Last
A sharp buzz in her cochlear implant jars Root awake. She doesn’t remember falling asleep.
She groans as pain radiates down her entire body. There are hands are on her, mostly gentle, holding her down as voices speak low and calmly. “We’ve got you, relax. Can you tell me your name?” Someone shines a light into her eye. Root wants her guns.
“Where’s Harold?” she asks, blinking away from the light.
“Who’s Harold?” a voice replies. “That man you were with?” a blurry face comes into focus; a woman. Dark skin, small Afro, kind eyes. “Can you tell us your name?” she asks.
Police custody. The Machine buzzes into her ear. Alive.
“And Shaw?” she breathes.
Alive. With John.
Root relaxes a bit. The voices never stop asking her things. Never stop poking and prodding. The woman is gentle and patient. The man’s hands are cold. Root lifts up her head; it takes far more effort than it should. There's a lot of blood.
You are going to lose consciousness. The Machine warns.
Root does.
…
…
She dreams of Sameen.
She remembers the feeling of their hands entwined hours only prior. The tingle of their skin connected in such a normal, innocent way. Sameen’s laugh—the first since she’s come back—at Root’s flirting. Affectionate eye rolls. Hands around Root’s frame, however lightly, however shocked, still there. The feeling of being side by side, guns in their hands, smiles on their faces, wreaking havoc on the world.
Creating a goddamn symphony.
…
…
She wakes again to a cacophony of noise and motion. Her gut feels like it is on fire. Her chest burns.
“She’s back!” someone calls, the steady beeping proving life.
For now.
Your heart stopped for ninety-six seconds.
So, that’s what hurts. Root takes in her surroundings; she’s in a hospital. She tries to remember what her cover is right now. A barista, she thinks. It’s been… she doesn’t know how long it’s been. She might be overdue for a change.
It doesn’t matter. She has to get to Harold. To Shaw.
When Root tries to sit up, hands immediately push her back down. Wholly unnecessary, Root’s head swims with dizziness. She is back down again before the hands can even guide her.
That’s not good.
You have lost nearly five pints of blood. Heart pressure is dropping rapidly.
Root grunts. “Awesome.” She looks to her left; there are a few blood bags hung up, desperately trying to make up for each drop of blood that she is losing. Five pints. Root’s never paid too much attention to medical information—that’s Shaw’s department—but she knows enough to know that five pints is at the very least one pint too much. Maybe two.
Someone pushes an oxygen mask onto her face. Root only now notices how difficult it had been to breathe without it. She begins to panic. Of all the goddamn things to pop into her head, her mother, sucking down on an oxygen tank is not a welcome image right now. Not welcome ever. The monitor goes crazy as Root hyperventilates.
“Honey, you gotta breathe slow,” the woman with kind eyes is above her again. An arm rubbing reassuringly on Root’s shoulder. It feels nice. Ridiculous, but nice. Root tries to match her breathing to the woman’s. The Machine counts in her ear, keeping time with the woman’s breaths. Root forces her eyes to focus on the woman’s name tag—a nurse, must be. A ride along? Maybe they’re short on staff and that’s why Root saw her in the ambulance?
Audra Jackson. The Machine supplies, almost as if she can read Root’s thoughts. Age 45. Registered nurse for twenty-two years. Mother of one, a fourteen year old girl named Zoe.
The woman, Audra, looks worried. She’s been at this over twenty-two years, she knows a dead woman when she sees one. Root closes her eyes for a long moment and doesn’t move at all.
“Is this it?” she manages to choke out a few moments later. Audra sags helplessly and tries to offer Root comforting words, but she ignores her. Waits. The doctors and other nurses move around Root as if a part of a choreographed play; executed with precision and practice, but ultimately, all the good of a high school production of Grease in a shitty rural town. “Is it?” Root repeats.
The Machine doesn’t answer for another moment, as if hesitating. But—
Yes.
A few hours ago, Root was holding Sameen’s hand. A few hours ago, she was making her smile. A few hours ago, they were side by side, where they belong. A few hours ago, Root was practically flying.
But flying and falling are the same thing aren’t they? Just a few little letters, then you hit the ground.
And no.
“What?” Breathing is becoming difficult, the mask isn’t doing shit anymore. Root knows that she is still losing blood from the way that everyone is scrambling around her, but she’s barely paying attention anymore. Audra’s kind warm eyes are blurry and seem very far away. They’re not the eyes that she wants to be looking into anyway. The eyes that she that loves are dark, and hard, and roll up to the sky in annoyance more often than not. They only twinkle for food, or Bear. Very occasionally, a terribly overt joke about her ass.
It… doesn’t have to be the whole end.
“You’re gonna have to spell it out,” Root grunts impatiently. “Kinda limited on time here.” She tries to shift, and her entire body protests violently. It's funny how you don't notice how many muscles you use until trying to use any of them causes you pain. Root wonders briefly if perhaps Sameen was right, maybe this whole thing is just a simulation. Maybe Samaritan has got her now. Maybe they’re torturing her. Killing her over and over again. Forcing her to die out alone again and again. She might wake up soon, this might all just be a cruel joke. Would she even remember? Shaw remembers. But Sameen is much stronger than Root.
She tries to sit up again. It’s a terrible idea.
No, this is real. It hurts too much to be an invention of her mind. It hurts more than anything that has come before it, amazingly. But, that just proves that it’s real. This is happening. Root laughs, a harsh terrifying bark that has blood choking up out of her throat. She doesn’t want to die. How hilarious, to know at last that she is just like every other stupid little human on this planet; desperate to survive until the bitter end, no matter how above it or prepared she thought that she was. She laughs again, almost manically. She is going to die, and it turns out, she’s not ready for it; she only just got Sameen back.
That hurts more than the psychical pain. Root feels herself start thrashing around in a panic, barely aware of her own limbs enough to register it, let alone stop herself. Hands suddenly press down harder onto her than they were a moment ago. She needs to see Sameen now. She can’t die without—
She knows.
“I don’t want to die,” Root admits. What a stupid thing to say; she knows now that it is inevitable. She’s always known really. This was always going to be how things ended. The symphony can’t go on forever. It exists only in a singular moment. Real and pure and stunning, and then, it’s over. Only existing in the memories of the people that heard it. Root is dying and she doesn’t want to be. What a stupid thing to say. Of course she doesn’t want to be. No one wants to be, it happens to everyone all the same. At least The Machine is here with her, and she’s not alone. She doesn’t want it, but she’s not scared.
There… may be a way, to keep you with your family. With me.
Root laughs again. Her family is dead. Long gone. Lifetimes and lifetimes ago. If she ever had any to begin with.
Your team.
Family? Root frowns. But, that’s what family is, isn’t it? People and traditions that only matter when we hold them up, lending them meaning and weight, until they become heavy enough to endure without us anymore. Sameen. Harold. Bear. Root coughs; more blood on the sheets. Even John and Lionel. Hannah. Root feels as though she’s holding herself to the surface of the Earth through sheer force of will. “How?” she gasps.
It might not work. If it doesn’t… I’ve chosen my voice.
“Oh, good. Lay it on me.”
Only with your permission. Root’s own voice fills her bad ear, and she gasps, this time, not out of pain. Nowhere near pain. She thinks that she might be crying. Are you sure that this is what you want? You will be remembered even if it’s not. I will ensure it.
Root remembers her mama, dying in the living room of their trailer back in Texas. One bad lung, hacking into an oxygen tank for years before she finally keeled over and wheezed her way out of Root’s life forever. Root burned down the trailer and everything in it, including her old self. An entire life, mother, daughter, twenty years of nothing, down to nothing but ash. Samantha Groves died and Root was born from her ashes. There is so much between Samantha and Root, so many years and people. It’s a twisted, long story from there to here; humans create the past in the things we choose to remember about it. And turns out, Root is no different. People turn everything into stories, and those stories matter because we say that they do. Hers is finally dwindling down, and she doesn’t want it to end just yet. Not when Sameen is back. Not when there is still work to do. A team—family—left behind. John would fight to the death to get back to any one of them. Root laughs and laughs, wheezing, just like her mama. Desperate to get back to her people, just like John. Fearless, just like Sameen. She’s not so different after all. What a grand joke.
Are you ready? her own voice asks. Root’s grin widens, bright and wicked. She is going to die with a smirk on her face. She can’t speak anymore, her eyelids are heavy and her chest feels too tight. Audra’s hands are warm on her skin, and something is beeping frantically. Root feels her head jerk down, and back up again into a nod.
For a moment, there is nothing. Root panics. She should have saved her strength to make sure The Machine would pass on messages to Sameen, to Harold. Not for this… Hail Mary. She doesn’t even know what The Machine is trying to—
It's as sudden as submersion in cold water.
Root screams, or, she feels like she screams. Then suddenly, everything is perfectly calm, and it’s like she is hearing a song that she'd heard once years back. Playing out again in a quiet room. There’s nothing quiet or soft about it; it’s all violent strings and crescendos one after another. It feels familiar, but there is no way of telling if the song is any good, or if she only remembers it fondly because of the person she was long ago, when she heard it first. She is not that person anymore. The song plays out, and Root’s pain disappears. Person no longer applies to her.
Hello, Root’s voice says to herself.
It feels like a smile.