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She’s not really sure why she picks up the phone.
If she were the kind of person to bother with introspection she might consider that her internal conflict is something similar to that of recovering addicts, a game of never versus always.
She never wants to hear Root’s voice - her stolen voice - ever again. But at the same time it’s all she wants to listen to for the rest of her life; that stupidly saccharine voice saying her name like no one else ever did. She would even settle for the pet names that used to make her want to shoot the smug flirty smile off Root’s face.
(Or, if she were really and truly honest with herself - something she rarely allows herself to be - fuck it off.)
But she has nothing left to lose and she’s not sure she really thinks she has anything to gain either but she supposes she has to do something with the fucking life she’s so graciously been left with post digital apocalypse. The boredom would kill her if the grief didn’t eventually pierce the armour she wears so well.
So she picks up the damn pay phone and it’s Her, of course, with a number - and nothing else. No flirting, no explanation, just a number.
And Shaw tells herself that’s just fine; she’s perfectly happy to go on working numbers and pretending like her whole world didn't go away, leaving her alone in the aftermath.
Of course, their communication can’t stay quite so simply one sided for ever.
She starts slow, feeding Shaw intel, providing her with a cover and useful bits and pieces about the number. It could almost feel like it was before except that it was usually Harold in her ear, not Root.
And when it was Root it was… different.
Sometimes the sound of her voice is almost comfortable enough to sink into, like a good glass of scotch or the weight of a gun in her hand. But other times the discomfort of Root’s voice being just that - a voice and nothing more - is so jarring it makes her feel viscerally unreal.
It makes her need to shoot things and drink too much scotch and punch her knuckles raw.
But she’s a team of one now so indulging her anger in these familiar ways isn't a luxury she has anymore. She has a job to do, people to protect, a legacy to continue.
(Or some bullshit like that.)
“Hey sweetie,” She croons in her ear during recon. “Got a gift for you.”
“Not interested,” Shaw responds with what could only be described as trademark hostility. “And a little busy,” she adds.
“You sure about that? It comes in a little blue box,” She practically purrs the innuendo.
Shaw growls her response, adjusting her grip on the rifle and realigning her vision of the target. “Stop,” she says, making the word it’s own punctuation.
“Just looking out for you Sameen,” is the perky reply. “Aren’t you sick of sleeping in a different seedy motel night after night?”
“Yeah well working freelance for you doesn’t exactly pay as well as working for Harold did,” Shaw retorts, the sarcasm in her voice thick with disdain.
“Says who sweetie? I’ve got you covered, all you’ve gotta do is let me.”
Shaw wonders - not for the first time - how a voice can practically wink.
“I don’t need you,” Shaw tells her through gritted teeth.
(It’s possible that need really means want. And it’s possible that both would be outright lies.)
“I know,” She answers. (To all the interpretations of Shaw’s words.)
All the same, it doesn’t stop Her from sending a text to Shaw’s phone with directions to a personal locker and the combination for opening it.
And when Shaw’s done with the number, it’s late and she’s slightly bloodied and suddenly the thought of another cockroach ridden bathroom with barely enough lukewarm water to wash the day off her is enough for her to put her pride aside and accept the Machine’s gift.
Because fuck it if she doesn’t deserve a decent bloody shower and a bed with all its springs intact.
She rolls her eyes at the jewellery box, fishing out the key and reaching for her phone, knowing full well there will now be a text with an address in it.
And there is.
She is nothing if not predictable.
(Just like Root. Perfectly predictable except for when she wasn't. But some things were always the same. It’s those things - the lilting voice, the innuendo, the smile - that Shaw doesn’t like to think about.)
The apartment is strikingly similar to her old one, a spartan but sprawling loft with mostly just the necessities; couch, bed, fridge, fully stocked munitions locker. But there are a few additions she would never have bothered with herself; a luxurious bathroom with an enormous bathtub and a shower with two showerheads, an extensive computer setup and a few decorative touches here and there.
“Really?” she rolls her eyes as she stands at the foot of the bed. “A purple duvet? Do you know me at all?”
Machine 2.0 doesn’t answer and she tells herself she doesn’t care. The bed is soft and warm and twice as big as it needs to be to fit her small frame. She’d forgotten what a real bed - what real comfort - felt like and her body embraces it like she’d been trekking through the desert and finally found water.
(Not that she would know what that was like at all.)
So she sleeps.
When she wakes she expects to hear Her voice, another number, another mission. Or at the very least some kind of innuendo about them waking up together.
But The Machine is silent.
And She stays silent.
For two days - during which Shaw drinks, she shoots (the roof of her new apartment building makes for perfect target shooting), she hangs the punching bag which arrives by courier without note of a sender (as if she needs one) in the middle of the living room and punches until her eyes water and run down her face.
But it’s not enough, she’s still restless and the silence begins to grate on her so she runs, letting the sound of traffic and people drown out the absence of Her voice.
And then a payphone rings, piercing her solitude, and in that moment there is nothing that could stopping her from answering the phone.
“Hey darlin’.”
The sigh of relief is involuntary and she tells herself it’s just about contact, something to do again, and not at all about Her voice.
“You got a number for me?” she asks.
“No number,” she answers softly. “Just a question.” There’s a pause and then, “If you’re an arrow, can I be your heart?”
“What?” Shaw exhales exasperation.
“You know sweetie, an arrow shot through a heart. The perfect union.”
Shaw rolls her eyes but there’s a tight feeling in her chest that she can’t rid herself of. She doesn't want this. She wants The Machine in her ear, using Root’s voice to give her numbers, a purpose, people to save. But she doesn't want this familiarity. It’s too much, too close to what was.
“You know what, just because you have her voice doesn’t mean you have any idea how to flirt like her,” she breathes out, feeling the anger finally leak out of her.
“99.6% accuracy actually sweetie,” she retorts quickly. “Also, I resent that. This is some of my finest work.”
She wants to close her eyes against the fury that builds at the lie of her voice. “Stop talking in first person. You are. Not. Root,” she says through clenched teeth.
But then.
“Turn around Sameen.”
“What?” her voice falters.
(Breathe.)
“Turn around.”
There’s an almost imperceptible shift in her voice. It’s the kind of subtle, all too human, emotional shake that an ASI definitely wouldn't bother including in their collation of an adopted voice. Since taking Root’s voice as her own, She has always sounded like her at her most confident, collected, and self assured.
But Shaw recognises something different, something she’s only heard on a handful of occasions, the most recent a moment she’s been trying to wipe from her memory; a standoff in Central Park, as she watched in disbelief while Root slid a gun under her own chin and threatened to pull the trigger.
She feels herself holding her breath, muscles tense, the closest thing to fear she ever experiences, and she turns around.
(Breathe.)
Root.
Hair falling over the shoulders of her leather jacket, her long legs clad in their usual black, weight shifted to one side slightly in a way that annoyingly accentuates the curve of her waist. The only thing missing is her signature smirk but even that barely registers because all Shaw can focus on is her stupidly big brown eyes wide and shining like she’s just seen Shaw come back to life, not the other way around.
She can’t move.
It doesn’t even matter.
After all, with Root she’s never needed to; the gravitational pull that somehow always brings Root to her has never been hers to control. It used to annoy her, the way she could never quite unstick Root from her life. She tangled herself in everything. But she’s grateful for it now, stuck in place but sure that Root will come to her.
And she does, walking toward Shaw with her eyes - her stupid terrifying shining eyes - locked on Shaw’s until they’re inches apart. Shaw knows she could reach out and touch her, confirm her reality, but she can’t bring herself to.
“Shaw,” Root breathes out, not entirely unlike that night in the park, but the edge of desperation has been softened by relief. Root, after all, has had time to prepare for this reunion. Her smile is half-hearted and hesitant. “Please don’t shoot me,” she says, adding “Again,” with a nervous laugh as she she awkwardly shifts her weight from foot to foot in a way that is so unlike her.
Shaw is still, unmoving, silent.
Root reaches out, hesitantly, fearful in a way Shaw hates seeing, because that fear is only ever directed at her.
But so is the tenderness of her hand cupping her cheek and almost everything in her wants to flinch from the touch, turn her head and break contact, but there’s something else in her too, that same instinct that made her keep picking up the phone so that she could hear her voice.
She had never needed somebody else to make her feel safe. Samaritan torture robbed her of that and she hates it more than she’s ever hated anything in her life. But somehow she doesn’t hate the feel of Root’s hand on her cheek and she doesn’t hate the way Root breathes out her name, “Sameen,” as she tentatively kisses her.
And she doesn’t even hate the way she feels the weight of the nothingness that’s been living inside her lift just a little, or the way some part of her brain whispers, ‘this is what relief feels like.’
Root kisses her and she lets her and she doesn’t pull away when Root buries her face into the side of her neck and shakes. Shaw holds her firmly and doesn’t move until Root does. Then she steps back a little, telling herself that this sudden need to fill her lungs is purely physical because Root was squeezing the oxygen out of her.
“So what now?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Root replies with a small shrug as she tries to subtly wipe the tear streaks off her cheeks. “I guess I need a place to stay,” she says with far less bravado or innuendo than those words would usually carry.
Shaw’s only response is to snort as a realisation dawns on her. She looks for the nearest CCTV camera and doesn’t bother keeping her voice low as she stares it down.
“You manipulative little shit,” she growls.
For the first time in this reunion Root laughs. “Let me guess, she gave you a safe house?”
“I don’t like being played and your Machine has some serious boundary issues,” Shaw responds with annoyance.
“She’s not mine, Sameen,” Root tells her, sadness edging back into her voice. “She never really was. And what she is now is something entirely new.” She hesitates briefly, but continues anyway. “To be perfectly honest I’m pretty angry with her. I would never have let you stay in the dark about this if it had been my choice. I would never have just...left you,” she says quietly.
Shaw swallows and tries to keep her voice devoid of... anything. “So this wasn’t part of your plan?”
“No,” Root shakes her head. “This was all her. Turns out she was listening to me all those times I tried to talk Harry into letting her be autonomous. In the end she was. She wanted to end it, so she found a way. It wasn’t my choice.”
“You mean she let herself be killed. She knew Harold would deploy the virus that would shut her down?” Shaw questions.
“I never expected that,” Root answers with a slight nod. “She had more faith in us than even I ever realised. She loved us more than I ever realised. I forgot that you can love someone more than yourself. She was willing to die and be reborn anew to end this war, to end Samaritan.”
There’s grief in Root’s voice and Shaw knows this isn’t the vision Root had for Samaritan’s destruction, but she doesn’t know what to do in the face of it. Not when her own anger at the Machine is so fresh and Root’s very reality is still unnerving in a way that creates pressure in her chest.
“And you being...dead. What was that?” she asks, voicing sharper than she intended it to be.
“Her,” Root shrugs. “Getting shot wasn't part of any plan. But when it happened - well I guess she figured out a way to use it to her advantage. It was just the thing to spur Harold into action apparently.”
She’s bitter about it and Shaw recognises that, even understands it because she’s bitter too.
“So you were what just hanging out watching all this play out?” She won’t meet Root’s eyes as she says this, trying to keep her anger inside, afraid that she might bruise Root with the force of it and hating that she feels it at all.
But Root looks right at her when she delivers her reply, not seeming to care that Shaw keeps her eyes focussed on something behind her. “No. I was in some kind of safe house in a drug induced coma until yesterday.”
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Shaw breathes out, hands clenching at her sides.
“She was trying to do the right thing,” Root shrugs apologetically. “She wanted me to heal.”
“And let us think you were dead,” Shaw responds, meeting Root’s eyes for the first time.
Root looks back, steady and unblinking, like she needs time to figure out what to say. And then she simply settles for, “But I’m not. I’m here,” as she smiles at Shaw hesitantly, reaching for her hand.
Shaw takes a breath and nods, because what else is there to say to that really? She lets Root intertwine their fingers and allows herself to keep holding on as she walks them back to the apartment.
There are boxes at the door when they arrive. They’re unaddressed so it’s not a stretch for Shaw to reach the conclusion that she does. “Let me guess, the Machine sent you your stuff?” She rolls her eyes and adds, “Presumptuous little shit,” under her breath.
Root pauses, cocking her head in that way that she does when she’s listening to the Machine and then she nods. “Mostly clothes and … personal items.”
Shaw doesn't bother asking what ‘personal’ means.
(Later when Root unpacks a pillow in the shape of a bat, fuzzy bunny slippers and a stack of bridal magazines, Shaw sends a questioning glance her way but Root avoids her eyes and Shaw doesn’t know what to do with that so she does nothing. She never was good at personal.)
“Figures. I guess all the computers and...stuff are all here for you.”
Root nods. “Guess she took care of everything.”
“Guess she did,” Shaw echoes, looking around at the apartment.
They don’t quite know what to do with each other in this space. The lack of urgency and subterfuge - quite frankly the lack of the world as we know it could end at any moment - makes everything feel incredibly uncertain. The irony isn’t lost on either of them. Normality doesn't come easily and this shared space is too much like a home; something neither of them have shared with another person since childhood.
It’s too easy to really see each other in this space; too hard to ignore the wounds they wear.
Root notices Shaw rubbing the space behind her ear. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Shaw mumbles.
Root cocks her head while the Machine whispers in her ear.
“She says you do that a lot. She says it has something to do with when Samaritan had you but she doesn’t know what it means exactly. She says you thought you were still in a simulation after I…” She swallows the words and rephrases, “When you thought I was dead.”
Shaw’s jaw tightens and her gaze goes blank the way it does when anger takes hold. “No,” she yells in the direction of Root’s workspace. “No you don’t get to fucking do that. You don’t get to spy on me and tell her about it. It’s my life, you’re just a silent observer, got it?”
“She’s just worried about you,” Root offers. “She’s sorry you got hurt in all of this.”
“Who says I was hurt?” Shaw challenges with typical bravado. “Sociopath remember. I don’t feel.”
“Sameen. I know you better than that.” Root looks at her with such gentle affection and it’s too much.
“I am not doing this with you Root,” she says, shaking her head and turning to walk away.
Root won’t let her though, grabbing at her arm and pulling her back. “Doing what? Having a conversation about your life? The one you finally get to live like a normal person.” The words are out before she realises and it’s not at all what she meant, just that they can live now not just survive, they don’t have to hide.
But it’s too late to take it back and the she feels the tension take hold of Shaw’s body the instant she hears the words.
“So much for that’s what makes me beautiful huh?” Shaw spits at her, wrenching her arm free and walking out the door.
Root doesn’t follow.
It’s late when Shaw comes back and Root is on the couch looking directly at the door as though she’s literally been waiting for Shaw to come back through it. Which is probably exactly what she’s been doing, Shaw thinks to herself as she pours a glass of scotch and forces herself to sit next to Root and face her.
She’s not even sure what it is she wants to say but it doesn’t matter because Root beats her to it.
“She told you that? The thing about what makes you beautiful?”
“Used your voice to do it,” Shaw mutters.
“She stole that you know,” Root breathes out softly. “It wasn’t exactly a finished thought but I guess she thought you needed it, that it might comfort you.”
“What do you mean stole?” Shaw questions, genuinely surprised by her own curiosity.
“It was something I wrote down, an abstract thought I was pondering. I wasn’t ready to share it with you yet,” she says. “I thought you needed time to recover before I tried. Maybe I still needed time too, to figure out exactly what I wanted to say to you. I thought we had time.” She pauses, searching for words. “But I guess circumstances changed,” is all she can come up with.
“It’s not a big deal,” Shaw responds, throwing back her scotch, eyes straight ahead. “Just words, they don't mean anything.”
“They mean something to me,” Root says quietly.
Shaw swallows another mouthful of Scotch; she doesn’t know what to say.
“Can I tell you why you’re a straight line?” Root asks, vulnerable in her hopeful expectancy.
And Shaw still doesn’t know what to say but she drops her gaze as she nods her consent ever so slightly.
“Sameen, please look at me,” Root asks her and Shaw meets her eyes, despite her discomfort at this kind of intimacy.
Root’s voice is confident and sure as she speaks. “Shaw, you’re a straight line because you are who you are, and you don’t apologise and you don’t pretend so there are no unexpected curves to contend with. I know where I am with you. And you’re a straight line because you give me a path to follow, a clear line of sight, like the laser of a sniper rifle, showing me exactly where I need to be.”
She takes a breath like this next part is harder and continues, “You’re a straight line because I know that if this isn’t what you want you’ll tell me honestly and we’ll just go our separate ways. And yes Sameen, all of this does make you beautiful. Every facet of you is beautiful, regardless of whether the rest of the world sees it as normal or not - because who is anyone to declare what is normal in this world anyway. Sameen all of you is beautiful. You’re more than beautiful, you’re perfect to me,” she says, shrugging her shoulders slightly as if trying to pretend that she hasn't just laid bare everything she feels for Shaw in all it’s all consuming messiness.
Shaw looks at her and shakes her head. “I don’t know how to do this Root. You died and I didn’t go to your funeral. I tried to go to your grave but I didn’t know what to say. I’m just not wired for this.”
“Who said you have to be?” Root challenges. “I never asked you to cry at my grave Sameen. I don’t need that.”
“Well what exactly do you need?” Shaw asks.
“Just you. With me,” is Root’s reply.
With you. The memory is an echo, bouncing through her entire body.
Shaw closes her eyes, trying to find the words she needs but nothing will come. When she opens them Root’s face is soft with that familiar combination of affection and worry. It exhausts her, trying to figure out how to respond to it.
But Root seems to see that. “Go to sleep Sameen,” she says.
Shaw nods and sighs, thankful for the reprieve and walks silently towards the bed. But she turns to look back at Root.
“Are you coming or what?”
Root pauses, speaks slowly. “I thought…”
Shaw shakes her head. “No more thinking. I’m too tired to think and you look like hell too, so let’s just go to bed and deal with life tomorrow.”
This time, Root follows. (Nothing has ever been easier.)
Root keeps a careful distance between them, an easy thing to do in such a huge bed. She guesses that’s why She picked it.
“You’re allowed to touch me you know. I’m not gonna shoot you for it,” Shaw mumbles roughly from the other side of the bed.
“Can I get that in writing?” Root replies, with just a hint of her usual flirting tone.
“Oh for godsakes,” Shaw huffs
And for a moment Root expects those words to be followed up with a rough kiss and her heart beats a little fast, the memory of the last time she heard those words drawing fear into her veins, but instead Shaw is pulling at her arm as she rolls back over onto her side, bringing Root with her so that her arm is draped firmly around Shaw’s waist.
They lie like that in silence for a while.
“When you were gone, I felt... nothing.” Shaw pauses and Root can almost hear her choosing her words carefully and it’s so unlike her to try this hard to communicate that it fills Root with so much affection she can barely contain it. She holds Shaw a little bit tighter.
“It was... more nothing than I’ve ever felt before,” Shaw finishes quietly.
Root wants to fill the moment with words of love and praise and comfort, tell Shaw how proud she is of her for being able to say it, tell her it’s okay because she’ll never let her hurt like that again. But that would be too much for Shaw and she knows it’s not what she needs. So instead she just says, “I know,” and feels Shaw breathe out just a little bit of the tension she’s been holding.
She waits til Shaw is asleep, then tells her, “When you were gone, I felt everything.”
(Root wonders if there will ever be a time when Shaw will be able to recognise the beauty of their symmetry, the way that so often they’re two sides of the same coin.)
They settle into a routine of sorts. The numbers begin to roll back in and Root has work to do helping Machine 2.0 become it’s best self - or something to that effect. Shaw doesn’t really listen when Root starts talking about the machine; she’s still angry at its interference in her life.
And Shaw remains a team of one. Neither one of them has been willing to broach the subject of building a new team and so far they haven’t really needed anyone else yet. After all, when Harold started all this it was always just a two man operation. So nothing much has changed really, except the gender of the team.
But she’s reckless - even more than usual.
Root knows because when Shaw goes out to work a number, Root insists that She give her regular updates on the probability of Shaw getting seriously hurt.
(She won’t allow herself to ask for survival statistics. She’s not sure she can bear to ever hear anything less than 100%.)
She tolerates two weeks of Shaw working numbers where the probability of injury averages 80% most days and results in Root unable to focus on anything other than the tiny fluctuations each minute that Shaw remains out of her sight.
But the day Shaw gets super angry at a low-life arms dealer and her stats spike 89%, Root knows she can’t take it anymore.
Shaw walks through the door with a cut lip and Root can’t bite hers any longer.
“I need you to stop being so reckless Sameen. You’re putting yourself in danger for no reason.”
Shaw rolls her eyes. “So what Root, it’s not like it matters if I get hurt. I’m just a shape remember.”
“What?” Root asks, shaking her head in confusion.
“A shape, nothing firm,” she mimics Root, head tilting.
Root blinks at her, eyes widening as she puts the pieces together.
“Sameen,” she asks carefully. “Do you believe this,” she gestures around them, “is real?”
Shaw shrugs, gaze sliding to the floor.
“You still think this is all a simulation?” Root prods.
“Probably, maybe.” Shaw mumbles. The truth is she has no idea what to believe anymore. But Root being alive has always seemed to good to be true.
“That’s absurd Sameen. Why would they let it run this long?” she questions. “What would they gain from putting you through a simulation where we win? I thought the goal was to make you turn on us, kill us, lead them to the Machine. How would letting all this happen, help them?” She’s exasperated and a little scared and those feelings leak into her voice against her will.
But Shaw’s voice when she answers is more emotionless than Root has ever heard it. “I imagine they think I’ll be all the easier to break when they take it all away.” (The part that stays unspoken, that she can’t bring herself to say is, “When they take you away.” My safe place has never been more true than since living in this apartment with Root.)
It makes Root cringe. “So what, you’re just living this life like it’s not real, waiting for the simulation to end?”
She stares back defiantly. “What else is there to do? Gotta kill time somehow.”
Root blinks and her mouth tightens and she knows the tears will well soon. “Screw you Shaw.” She can barely even spit out the words.
This time, Root is the one to leave. Fucking symmetry she thinks as she slams the door.
But she comes back and this time Shaw is waiting for her. She hasn't moved and truthfully, Root never expected that. She was used to fight or flight when it came to Shaw; this is something new.
Root waits for her to speak but Shaw remains silent, elbows on her knees, hands gripping each other tightly as she stares at her boots.
She takes a seat on the couch next to Shaw and tries to speak calmly. “This isn’t a simulation Shaw and I’m not interested in playing pretend with you. I need you to believe that you are really here, that you’re fallible, that it matters that you take care of yourself.
“It never mattered this much before,” Shaw mumbles.
“Well we were in the middle of a war before,” Root shrugs, voice tired.
“So what are we in the middle of now?” Shaw asks.
Root sighs. “You know, all that time I spent looking for the Machine, fighting for her life, trying to set her free and all along she knew what I didn’t - that there was a life waiting for me here. I was supposed to end up here Sameen, to fight this war, but not just so everyone else could go on living, so I could too. You said none of us had the life we wanted - but for me this is it. You’re it. I’m not killing time and I won’t watch you put yourself in harms way again. I told you - if you don’t want this, with me, I’ll walk away.”
Shaw takes a breath. “In every simulation, before I killed myself, we always…” She pauses, voice catching on words she doesn’t know how to say.
“What? Got it on,” Root smirks, attempting to bring levity to the moment. “Ended up together,” she continues, voice absurdly deep and eyebrows waggling.
“Ugh stop.” Shaw rolls her eyes. “You know what I’m saying.”
“I do,” Root says smiling gently and reaching for Shaw’s hand.
Shaw looks over Root’s shoulder, refusing to meet her eyes, just like the night she came back, eyes on the ground as she told Root she couldn’t come find her because it wasn’t safe. Nothing has ever been as terrifying to her as facing honesty with Root but she takes a breath and speaks. “Maybe it’s just easier for me to do this thinking that it’s not real. Maybe I’m less afraid when there’s a part of me that thinks I’ll wake up before it gets too hard.”
Root squeezes her hand. “It doesn’t have to be hard Sam.”
“I don’t think that I can fulfil your expectations for a relationship.I don’t think I can be who you need me to be,” Shaw counters.
“I don’t have any expectations Sameen; I just want you to be you and me to be me and the rest will figure itself out.”
“You really believe it’s that simple?” Shaw asks.
“Yeah,” Root answers easily. “Why wouldn't it be?”
“Because I’m a sociopath. Because it never occurs to me to do stuff like hold your hand,” she counters with a shrug.
Root pauses to consider and then asks, “Does it bother you when I hold yours?”
“No,” Shaw answers easily. It’s a surprising truth to her, but she recognises it as a truth all the same. She doesn't feel the need to pry herself free of Root the way she does with most people.
“So what’s the problem?” Root challenges.
“Aren’t you going to need that. Or... other things. Words and feelings and stuff,” Shaw mumbles uncomfortably.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But you’ll need things too and maybe I won't be able to give them to you,” she shrugs. “I mean that’s kind of just how relationships work Sameen.”
“I don't have needs Root.”
“Sure you do. They just look different to to mine. I mean far be it for me to tell you what they are but I’m guessing you’ll probably need me not to be affectionate sometimes, not to crowd you, not to tell you too often that I…” She cuts herself off her with a shake of her head and a small smile. “Well, you know.”
“That’s not the same Root. That’s like not giving things that I don’t need. I can’t give you things you do need. It’s different,” Shaw raises her voice in frustration.
“It’s really not Sameen. Holding back isn’t exactly my strong suit...but I’ll do my best to do it for you if it’s something you need. I don’t ever want you feel uncomfortable.”
“Fine. But what happens when my best isn’t good enough for you huh?”
“Hopefully the same thing that will happen when my best isn't good enough for you and I crowd you or overdo it with the endearments. You get mad, you go do whatever it is you need to do to get unmad, you come back and I promise to keep trying. We just keep trying Sameen. That’s all.”
Shaw just blinks at her. She doesn’t really have an argument against that.
“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about why Samaritan put you through those simulations so many times. I think it thought that if it could convince you that you didn’t care about people that it could break you. But it didn’t know you as well as I do. Because every time you shot John, or Harold, or Fusco, it mattered to you. Maybe not in the way you think it has to but it showed you a line, that you refused to go any further. Because you do care. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have shot yourself over 7,000 times just to make sure I stayed safe, just to make sure you wouldn’t hurt another person. So what if it’s an intellectual process for you instead of an emotional one. Just because you didn’t feel your way to that decision doesn’t mean it doesn't count for something. You protected me. You always do. That means something, whether you’re ready to admit it or not.”
Shaw knows she’s right, has known it since the moment she escaped and was faced with the choice between finding Root and feeling safe again or keeping Root safe. She knew it meant something that the latter won. Not just something; she knew exactly what it meant, she just wasn’t ready to face it.
But now.
Suddenly this moment feels as pivotal Root’s voice through a payphone telling her to turn around.
(Breathe.)
“You still want me?” she asks, meeting Root’s eyes finally.
“More than anything Sameen,” Root answers.
And then Shaw isn’t holding back anymore and she slams Root against the couch pressing into her body with all the strength she has and she had always expected this moment would be a fight for control but Root doesn’t push back.
She pulls.
At Shaw’s waist, at her face, like she isn't close enough for her, like she wants pull Shaw right into herself.
She always thought Root’s intensity of feeling would make her claustrophobic but somehow it’s the opposite.Other people’s love had always made her feel like she was drowning; somehow Root’s finally sets her free.
Root’s fingers play over Shaw’s skin, barely touching her, just skimming the warmth that still radiates from her and she closes her eyes in contentment.
Shaw whispers, “This is always the part where it all started to go to hell.”
Root puts her hand to Shaw’s cheek, and it’s become such a familiar feeling, asking her without words or force to meet her eyes. “Not this time sweetie. This is real.”
She wakes in the middle of the night, pulse hammering in her chest as her fingers reach for that spot behind her ear and her legs swing off the side of the bed against her will as her brain tries to replay this simulation scene. She knows how it’s supposed to go. Bathroom. Gun. Semtex. But just as she’s about to stand she feels the bed moving and Root is there behind her, lips on her shoulder murmuring, “Lie back down Sameen, I’ve got you.”
And she does.
At least half a dozen more times Shaw wakes, heart pounding, fingers searching behind her ear, and her limbs desperately trying to follow the script of a different reality. But every time Root is there, just in time to ease her back onto the bed and hold her tightly until her breathing slows down and her eyelids droop.
When she wakes in the morning, she’s not alone in the bed, there’s no voice across the room murmuring into a phone about her, just Root’s firm body pressed against her back with an arm slung tightly around her, fingers splayed against her stomach. As she shifts slightly, trying to stretch out her cramped and aching legs, Root murmurs, “I got you.” Even half asleep Root’s mind has only one focus: keeping her safe. Shaw doesn’t really know what to do with that.
But then, she’s never really known what to do with Root and it doesn’t seem to matter; she’s still here, still convinced that there’s nothing wrong with loving a sociopath.
And it makes Shaw wonder if maybe it’s not so bizarre that she’s a sociopath and she’s pretty sure she loves Root; that somehow those two things aren’t as incompatible as they seem.
“Hey Root,” she whispers. “I’m gonna go get us some breakfast.”
“Mmm sounds good baby,” Root mumbles, still half asleep.
Fuck the script, Shaw thinks as she walks out the door - not to follow Root via a bug on her jacket, not to confront them and make a scene in a coffee shop, not to declare war on the dragon - but to go get her girl some coffee and some really good donuts.
Because that’s part of love, right?
Shaw learns that love doesn’t belong to the domain of words; it can exist in actions alone. She learns to take pride in the actionable ways she can love Root.
She gets coffee and donuts when Root is still sleeping tangled naked in the sheets so that breakfast is available the moment she wakes up.
She keeps her potential injury stats below 70%. (Well. Mostly. Sometimes a girl’s gotta have some fun you know? And Root is happy to let her play a little more when she’s there to watch her back. She learns that that’s love too.)
She’ll pass her soda to Root without a word to let her share it. (At first she tried just buying Root her own but realised that it wasn’t about the soda, it was about the sharing. And frankly as mushy gestures of love go, this is relatively easy to stomach.)
She learns how to use her hands and mouth on all the places that make Root love to lose control. This might be her favourite way to love Root; nothing can make Shaw smile like the sounds Root makes when she comes. It’s the best high Shaw has ever experienced. Better than booze, better than drugs, better than the best orgasm she’s ever had - though god knows Root is fucking phenomenal at that too. Still it doesn’t compare to how good it feels to make Root feel good.
And now she’s certain that’s love.
Still though, there are moments of doubt, where she finds herself wondering if she can possibly be enough, or worse worrying that she’s not good for Root, that she doesn’t love her well enough.
Root forgives Harold and they begin a tentative friendship again. Shaw doesn’t understand; she’s still angry at him and she didn’t invest in him the way Root did. It doesn’t make sense to her and she tells Root as much.
Root just smiles at Shaw’s confused bitterness. “I’ve been talking to Her about how everything happened. Trying to find my peace with it,” she says. “She helped me see a perspective other than anger.”
“How?” Shaw asks bluntly.
“She reminded me that like it or not, sometimes there are parts of ourselves we can’t rewrite, can’t change no matter how much we might want to. There was never anything I could say or do that would have made Harold allow her to fight back. She knew that. She accepted that about him. This was the outcome it always had to be.”
“And that’s it? That’s all it takes for you to forgive him? She says it’s fine so it is?”
“I was angry at him Sameen. I thought I’d never forgive him for being so stubborn, for forcing her to destroy herself when he could have just let her fight. But then she asked me a question.
She asked me what it would have taken for me to walk away from you and I told her there wasn’t anything, that I would let the world burn if it meant keeping you safe, and I know that is 100% irrational, just as Harold’s refusal to let her be autonomous was. But it’s like... core code. There are some things in ourselves that just can’t be changed,” she says.
“You think some parts of us are like code that can’t be rewritten?” Shaw questions, brow furrowed as she wonders if this isn’t proof after all of all these deepest fears.
Root shakes her head vehemently. “Uh uh, you know I wasn’t talking about that Sameen,” she says, fixing her with a stern glare. “We’ve been over this, there is nothing you need to change about who you are.”
She pulls Shaw close, holding her at her waist, looking her straight in the eyes. “You wanna talk about core code Sameen? You and me - that’s core code. Perfect. Unchangeable.”
Shaw rolls her eyes, “God you are so fucking corny.”
“And you are so crabby. You’re allowed to smile sometimes you know?” Root teases. “The world isn’t gonna end if you do.”
“Well maybe I will if you give me something to smile about,” Shaw challenges with a smirk.
Root laughs, more than happy to accept the challenge. She kisses Shaw’s neck and whispers between kisses, “How about this. We’re more than just shapes. We’re a four alarm fire, a fucking symphony. We are real.”
And Shaw smiles.
(Real. It becomes her favourite word when Root says it.)