HAMMER.

she makes it sound simple, like they don’t fumble around in the shadows cast by every camera and piece of tech with an electronic pulse in new york, but when it comes down to it - that’s... root. (she picks the worst moments to remind her that there’s more to life than the next number, or the next glitch in the system that propels them further into the subway and further away from the spotlight. she tells shaw she’s got a nice ass when she’s ducking away from a .45. she tells her her arms are like a greek god’s when she’s hauling ass through a ceiling vent and pulling herself up by her fingers. it’s inappropriate, and so goddamn totally root.)

and sometimes, it’s not inappropriate. sometimes, it’s late nights staring out at the manhattan bridge. sometimes, it’s a bottle of wine and a few stitches over dinner. sometimes, she leans into that stupid romantic thread that’s threatening to pull her apart if they keep this up. 

                  and where’s the fun in that?

root is blonde now. one kidney down, and a dozen more scars than the last time they saw each other, but it looks right. when asked why she came back, the machine doesn’t take shape in her mouth, and the numbers go out of the window. 

root despises every single one of these people. they’re the parents of the girls who bullied samantha groves until her only outlet was a sad little dead girl and the oregon trail. (a small part of her still yearns for that simplicity; the quiet of a library, the tip tap of dorky 80s computer games, the single minded pursuit of justice that bled into something… a little more lucrative. that led to sameen.) 

       “i’ve got your back, your front, your left and right sides, darlin’ – i’m doing my best. you’re the one scowling in every direction.” 

it’s a rich life. expensive wine, even pricier whiskey - then they scurry behind the scenes for any whiff of off-shore bank accounts and underhanded deals. (the skeletons in each of the mary-clones’ and their husbands’ closets are practically screaming, and they’re just one big neighbourhood barbecue fight away from details. for shaw, it’s a scrawled number on the back of a business card of a couple high-end escorts and a particular money trail that makes for nice bedtime reading. and for root, it’s more of a let’s-not-ask-about-the-blood-on-my-lou-boutins. as far as she’s concerned, they’re all more than capable of being target or victim.)

“yeah, well. no-one ever said i was any good at undercover.”  masking is hard. pretending to care is goddamn exhausting when all eyes are on her, and a hand slipped in root’s pocket, or fingers entwined at the start of every great suburban morning feels too intimate.

root says the right things and charms the right people and picks up the right duffel bag on their way through the city to the hotel. it’s a flashy place, big bucks sort of place, and root knows there is a ceo currently getting auto-asphyxiated in a suite below their honeymoon penthouse. nice going she whispers under her breath to the machine when they open up the ornate oak doors into one of the most lavish digs root has ever seen. 

(personally, she prefers the little places. the small cubby hole hotels with decent wifi and staff who don’t ask questions or look too hard at anything.) 

        “i have a plan for some of it. most of it. i’ve been looking for you for so long that i’ve had a lot of time to consider my options.” 

it feels nothing like the loft. spacious, but not empty, and the cabinets have fewer flakes of paint making a lightly-dusted ring around the floor. (she wonders about that - if it remains entirely intact and untouched, or if root’s either condensed the place into a couple boxes in the corner of her apartment, or taken over each magazine and gun-store in the entire complex.)

“greer’s mine.”   it comes with no hesitation, no thought. he’d walked her through simulation after simulation with the same resistance is futile, agent shaw that he’d started with. no, he’s going to die. painfully and slowly.

grace and francesca gellar live beyond their means. or at least beyond root and sha.w’s. finch provides them with enough for them to get going, and there’s an old dusty medical license in the back of sha.w’s desk that works just about well enough for the machine to copy. but the real tragedy with suburban lesbians is that despite trying their absolute hardest, bed death is a real phenomenon and there’s a sure-fire truth that one of them is cheating on the other. get in with the one-percenters and take them down from the inside out. new number. new problem.

it goes as well as expected. root is root, inside and out, and though she puts on the southern twang that irritates the mere shell of shaw’s ears, root bleeds through the character and every last thing that could be wrong simply is. 

three dots and a dash. a twist of the hand. two fingers and a thumb crooked away from each other. german, belgian, farsi, french — she’s grown into it, mostly. work takes her half way across the globe and the machine whispers sweet goddamn nothings in her ear. 004-702-9943. next number.

root bleeds from the left ear and leaves three nailbeds exposed and splintered. control did a real number on her.

“i’m so glad you asked. she’s got us one better. honeymoon suite at the park ave, and a change of clothes already to go for you in the bathroom. the steak is on me - and maybe later, if you play your cards, you can be too.” 

root throws a wink her way and slides out of the booth, gun safely tucked in her waistband and a hand extended out. she wiggles her fingers in a childish way that used to make sameen roll her eyes and smirk when she thought root couldn’t see. she doesn’t think that’s going to happen right now, but it’d be nice to see a sliver of the woman she loves. 

         “come on, baby, let’s blow this joint.” 

root hits out with something entirely inappropriate, and it feels... normal. flirting immediately after suggesting to shoot herself in the head. that’s so fucking normal for them that it almost makes her spiral. (she shrugs her jacket over one shoulder, and glares at the waitress as they pass.)

               “did you ask or did she assume?”    honeymoon suite. it’s kind of something shaw wouldn’t have even thought of unless root had been squawking in her ear about the two of them being right for each other. (they aren’t, for what it’s worth. gasoline and a lit match. always two inches away from exploding.)

the suite is big. quiet. clean. the jacket’s shrugged onto the side of the bed and shaw drops onto the edge of it. (her eyes are heavy. the pulse in the back of her head’s beginning to sting along the hem of her hairline, and there’s one deep breath that pierces the silence.)

what’d you do when we first met. 

     what a whirlwind of a question; a whirlwind of a day. root sends a long, wistful look shaw’s way, lost for a moment in the dreamy world of yesteryear, of a hotel room and a safehouse and the cat and mouse months of chasing one another. the meticulous planning it took to get finch to just pay attention for once. 

whatever is going on in sameen’s head requires careful treading - she has to nail this answer or it will likely be the last time she ever sees her. 

        “oh, sweetie. sundown. ottawa. left-right, left-right.” root dares to reach out for sameen’s hand. taps her fingertips with one of roots own:   “one two three.” 

she was expecting something more straight forward. i threatened to burn you with an iron and you told me you were into that. but it’s an answer all the same, and something that she didn’t realise she was truly waiting for. veronica sinclair feels like a few lifetimes ago, and the unmistakeable sting of a taser taps through her with each knock of root’s finger.

“you say the sweetest things.”    it drags a memory to the forefront of her mind, and shaw shakes off the touch to finish what’s left of the fries. (the reality is that she has nowhere to go. days of scurrying in and out of the shadows in a hoodie and a baseball cap, and staring through the streetlights until it’s bright enough to hide in plain sight have left her with little choice. stay alive, pick the right shadows, start again. it leaves her with the shattered remains of what’s lost over the past year, and the goddamn memory that root was right.)

okay. game plan. if this is real, then it’s not going to come round again until samaritan’s on their heels. she reaches back to the jacket framing her chair and pulls it forward.

as much as root always loves the raw animalistic way sameen rips into food - meat or not - the mere thought of the texture of it, the sinew and fat and grease, makes her stomach roil; she gags a little and has to look away to stop the swell of nausea. 

       “it has taken a little while for me to figure this out - what’s going on with you. and realistically, it’s embarrassing, so apologies for me taking my sweet time catching up.” root steals another fry, one as far from the blood juice, and picks it apart with her fingertips.  “you think i’m not real. that i’m a hallucination – and baby, let me tell you. i get it.” 

(it’s been months of the same; of her smug, too-perfect face in the corner of the room and the corner of her eye and sometimes quite plainly right in front of her. the machine talked in sameen’s voice until she got sick from hearing it too much.) 

         “and if this is true - if i am a simulation or a hallucination, or whatever you’re imagining - then it won’t matter if i blow my brains out. and now i’m all for making a point… but i’d rather not pulp fiction myself right here and now.” 

“— what’d we do when we first met?”     she passed the first test. root is too carnally avoidant of any kind of meat for her to sink her teeth into the steak, but fries, or any kind of milkshake, seem to be fair game when it comes to root’s computer-hacker diet and it’s been sleepless nights and happy stake-outs that remind her that root can barely keep herself alive if it wasn’t for hard candy and pb&j.

they’ve played this game time and time again. zipties and a hood. ten hours to kill. three minutes and veronica sinclair tapping on the tub. a hot iron and rohypnol. god, they have fun, don’t they?

samaritan creates a backstory for them each time in the hopes that it’ll hit some stroke of realisation. but samaritan can’t know what goes on when the cameras are turned away - by its design, reaching into shaw’s brain and plucking out the locked-away memories is nothing more than an attempt to defy its own god.

“you’re hungry because you’ve been kept in stasis for months. You’re hungry because you’ve been running street to street and burning insane levels of calories. you’re hungry because you aren’t sleeping and you’re bleeding.”

       root nudges her with a foot under the table. 

“i’ve got a plan if you care to hear it. and don’t worry, baby, she’s got it all covered. honeymoon suite at the plaza and a hot date with room service.” 

“i got your favourite.”    steak. bloody. root hasn’t touched anything living for as long as she’s known her, but samaritan picks up on the cues that shaw’s spelled out within each simulation. it’s a test more than anything. she’s pretty sure root’d vomit before chowing down.

               “you not gonna let me eat a goddamn steak without reminding me? - ‘cause that’s heartless. even for you guys. i’m wasting away out here.”    a hand touches over the collar of her jacket and she tugs, tightly, pulls it across her body and reaches back for the fork again. (the arm’s a dead thing attached with pretty amateur stitching - guess that’s why you get people to stay still before trying to fuse them with titanium. it’s heavy, and it hasn’t quite figured its way around a steak knife yet.)

“that’s flattering to hear - honey, i didn’t know you were paying so much attention.” 

that’s a lie and pretty thin one; root knows shaw watches her. from time to time. root feels a pair of eyes on her, on the small of her back, on the gun in her waistband, on the soft sway of her shoulders and hair as she flips it on purpose to look over at sameen from across the subway base. the machine tells her to be careful. people are starting to pay attention. yes. better wrap this up. remove the weapon. root swipes the gun from the diner booth table, secures it under her leg. 

       “i want you to be more careful. i want you to pull back and be discrete and stop letting people see you sameen. otherwise, you’re not going to stay free for very long. you need a shower. and some sleep. and i need to look at that louis vuitton level arm of yours.” 

root talks, but shaw watches. nine months and the glare of a white light staring back at her later, and the flicker of the streetlights are enough to keep her guard up. (the gun slides out of her grip before she can snap a hand down to reach for it, but it doesn’t matter. there’s a subway cart and a few too many drivers on the street for it to be a normal new york evening. the air’s fresh, but pollution rings in her nose and — god, even she’ll admit, the detail this time is pretty well thought-out.)

“and i wanna eat my food and let them know they’ve failed before they even got close this time. i’m so goddamn hungry.”     she can’t remember the last decent meal she’d got. three blocks before a gutshot and a couple hours before waking up attached to a drip, probably.

“no, sameen. even if i wanted to - which i don’t and you’ve never been able to make me do something i didn’t want to, pretty though you are - she won’t be pleased if i do. we’ve been looking for you for a long time. and now i’ve got you, i’m not letting you go.” 

      root steals a fry at her own peril. 

“and besides, you’re getting sloppy. drawing attention.” 

she resists the urge to snap back for the fry - this is root. root, who’s never paid for so much as a sandwich, and shaw’s grown used to ordering double to account for it. (two sets of fries, because while root will preen and pick at the potato, shaw’s more than thankful for an extra few loose ones in the bottom of the bag.)

       “let’s cut to the chase then. what is it you want? - ‘cause i’m not going back.”

back, like it hangs a thread between them of acknowledgement. the subway’s far enough away that the machine’s safe. for now. and another simulation hangs in the thread of the loaded gun in her pocket and twenty minutes before she falls to the concrete outside the diner. (her stomach growls for long enough to sit her down and force a slab of steak down her throat, but she’ll wake with the same haze and the same adulterated grip on reality that’s become the norm.)