Chapter Text
She heard gunfire nearby and headed towards it. If anyone else was in her place he would run to the opposite direction but Shaw isn’t ‘anyone else’, she’s a fearless assassin who survived through relentless torture that lasted over three months and now is yearning for a good shootout and some knees to fracture.
This was the first number she was assigned to since her return and concurrently Samaritan’s and although she seemed ready to work –more efficient and deadly than ever before-, everyone knew she was holding something back; something that made her leave the subway earlier than she used to, something hidden in the dark champers of her mind, something that kept her away from the others and more importantly from Root.
Every attempt from the woman to approach her was sloughed off; sometimes it was because she was tired, other times she had things to take care of, but most of the times she’d just scorn Root’s need for some privacy and –to be precise- for their usual indoor leisure activities.
Root would come over with a smile on her face and an innuendo ready to slip out but the door was always locked from the inside and Shaw, whether she was in there or not, wouldn’t open up.
The first three day had passed like that until Root quitted. The rest of the week she would just visit Harold in the subway to check up on the irrelevant side and –apropos- Shaw, who avoided her in every possible way.
So, it’s been a week. A week of isolation and impassivity. Shaw had truly changed and it would be offensively wrong to say that it was only her appearance different.
Indeed, her eyes were sunken, her features even sharper and somehow she seemed smaller in size but these changes were pretty insignificant by comparison with the internal scars that she managed to hide in a sufficiently good way.
Shaw found Root taking cover behind a counter while three men were creating an abstraction of bullet holes in the wall behind her. Only for a split second Root spotted someone moving towards the back door and before realizing who that was she heard Shaw’s voice, more like a whisper, through her earpiece.
“You take the tall one at my signal, I’ll deal with the others”
Root found herself smiling at the voice she had so much missed and although Shaw had returned a week ago, Root missed her now more than ever. She had her back, recovering alone from wounds no one could see or understand, and yet she wasn’t able to approach her; Shaw had made sure of that.
Root heard two gunshots and instantly stood up to shoot the last one. She was wrong though, two guys were still standing before her and only one of them had dropped on the ground holding his knee. They made a move to shoot her but she was faster. Not faster than both of them though. She felt a bullet penetrating her shoulder and at the same time two guns fired, hers and Shaw’s, kneecapping the two remaining men almost simultaneously.
The sharp pain in her shoulder brought tears in her eyes and while she saw Shaw approaching, her facial expressions were indistinct. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and returned her stare back to Shaw who came to a halt way too far from her, a puzzling look on her face.
“What the hell happened?”
Shaw didn’t reply, hands in her pockets and her stare fixated on Root’s shoulder inspecting it from a distance as if it was too dangerous to come closer.
When she finally ascertained that it was just a superficial wound her eyes met Root’s as she spoke, “Sorry, I guess I missed” Lies and sincerity mixed in one sentence that Root failed to comprehend.
“You missed?!” Root’s fury was something more than obvious, “Since when do you miss?”
Never. Shaw never misses. At least never before her capture.
Shaw rolled her eyes and replied “It happens to the best of us”, an apathetic look on her face.
Root made a move to approach her but she instantly regretted it. Something was off. Normally Shaw would have run to treat that wound and she definitely wouldn’t miss the target in the first place.
Something was done to her. She couldn’t exactly name it, but it was there and although it took them a whole week to detect it, now she could see it clearly. Shaw had lost something; something they had taken from her and no one –not even Root- could retrieve.
Faith.
They stood there for a couple of moments staring at each other at a distance until Shaw broke the silence, “I should go”, and turned to leave, stare glued to the exit as if the floor beneath her was falling apart and yet deep down she knew exactly what –or who- was falling apart in this room.
“What about my shoulder?” The voice behind her made her stop, Root sounded tired and frustrated but Shaw didn’t turn around. She kept facing the exit door and after a while -when the decision was made- she walked away, her paces rapid and decisive, leaving Root behind bleeding and confused.
*
As soon as Root entered the subway her eyes wandered around looking for a specific little firecracker that was nowhere to be found and the absence felt like a punch in her still open wound.
“Miss Groves, thank you for coming, I could really use your assistance”, Harold’s eyes were glued to the screens as he spoke.
“What’s the situation Harold?” Root had a quick look at the subway car and with a disappointment that was not at all unnoticeable she approached Finch.
“The Machine has given us a second number and John is already occupied with the first one. I was wondering if you could cover it.”
Root narrowed her eyes; it wasn’t only John in the irrelevant team, “What about Shaw or Fusco?”
Harold, for the first time since she got there, turned aside from the computer and looked at her tentatively, as if she was unaware of something she should have known. “Detective Fusco has work to do at the precinct and Ms. Shaw…” he hesitated for a moment before continuing “is not here.”
A wave of panic rocked Root so violently that she fought with herself to remain calm.
“What do you mean? Where is she?”
“I wouldn’t know. She requested some time off right after the number you worked together”
Root averted her eyes and nodded. She didn’t say anything, there wasn’t a word she could say that wouldn’t give away her internal meltdown, the fear and agony that wouldn’t leave her since that day at the stock exchange.
All of a sudden Harold seemed like he wasn’t sitting comfortably in his chair and changed his position along with the subject, “So, about the number?”
Root looked like she hadn’t heard a word; eyes looking at him but not exactly watching him, until she responded indifferently, “Anything for you Harry”. A forced smile appeared on her lips and instantly vanished as she turned to leave.
Darkness overwhelmed her mind and a load that had never truly lifted off of her was now pulling her down until the abyss was her only sky and Tartarus the one and only heaven.
She was ready to push the back of the vending machine when Harold’s voice immobilized her.
“Miss Groves…”
Root didn’t move, her eyes never meeting Harold’s, too much pain mirrored in there for a mortal to witness.
“I’m sure she is fine, she just needs some time to…” for the first time his wide vocabulary didn’t have a sufficient word to provide and he settled for a less suitable one “rebound.”
But Root wasn’t there anymore, even if her body was now exiting the subway; she wasn’t truly there.