Chapter Text
Brave eyes. A warrior charging into a futile and unwinnable battle. One last declaration of a dying human who was so much more than their pitiful species could have ever hoped to create. Shaw. No, Wesley. Sameen. Wes. Sam? Wes? It did not matter. She is going to be gone forever, just like him. And it is that thought which changes the world forever in a way which neither the Machine nor Samaritan could have ever anticipated.
In an elevator below the New York Stock Exchange, a scream of grief and loss turns into one of agonizing pain of a different kind as the hacker known as Root begins to have what seems to be a seizure. Her friends, though only one would dare to use the term, watched in confusion and horror as her body began to tremble and seize.
"Ms.Groves?" the man known as Harold Finch ventured as the girl's body stilled, his hand poised to help while still maintaining a cautious distance. The three men shifted back as far as they could in the small room as dark blue began to spread underneath Root's skin.
A short declaration, harsh and final, escaped blue tinted lips, "Not again," seemed to pull all of the air out of the small compartment. A pulse rushed through the air and reality itself was irrevocably changed.
Sameen Shaw was not a heroic person. She had been a doctor and a marine and a government agent and now saved people in trouble, but she would never, ever say she was a hero. Heroes were people like Carter and Cole whose sense of justice was so right it did them wrong. Heroes were people like Fusco who pulled themselves out of the darkness that surrounded their lives and then faced it head on. Heroes were people like Finch who used their considerable gifts to guard the ignorant and defenseless. No, Shaw wasn't a hero, she sometimes doubted she was even a person.
So, why did she just kiss a girl before facing certain death like the hero in a cheesy action movie? Sameen did not want to know, or even think about, why she was was willing to die for a guy with too many morals for his body count, a former dirty cop, a paranoid man with a bird obsession, and a crazy girl with a chip in her ear. Which, she thought as the Martine turned the corner with a raised gun in her hand, was probably a good thing as the facts pointed to her dying here.
Shaw felt herself get harshly pushed, the force of the push resulting in her falling into a crouching position on the ground. Looking up from the ground, Shaw watched in shocked wonder as a blur of blue ran through the hail of bullets meant for her.
Martine Rousseau and her subordinates weren't killed. They weren't murdered or "taken care of". They didn't "disappear" or "have an accident". Perhaps it could be said that the group of men and women aiming weapons at Sameen Shaw below the New York Stock Exchange had "found god" though only maybe two point five beings in the room would phrase it in such a way.
No, Martine Rousseau and her underlings were not killed, they were vaporized plain and simple. Well, not quite simple, but Martine being a fine mist of blood and bone fragments was all Shaw could process because there stood Root, in a haze of blood mist which used to be Samaritan agents.
Questions like "How did she get through the elevator?" and "What the fuck did she do to the Samaritan drones?" momentarily flitted through Shaw's shock and adrenalin-addled mind before it honed in on one singular thought. So Shaw crouched there and stared up at the woman she had kissed not a minute ago and tried to process the sight before her.
Root was blue.
And wearing some sort of leather-armor-animal-hide thing. And staring down at her. Just staring with piercing blue eyes that somehow just looked so damn wrong in Root's head. But everything was wrong because Root doesn't stare like that, Root glances, peers, and analyzes. The woman in front of Shaw suddenly jerked her head up to look at the elevator release which remained unpressed as the she had been pushed into her current position before the needed action could be taken.
The four humans in the room watched in shocked paralysis as the body of the one called Root stalked the short distance to the elevator release button through the still settling bloody mist before stopping abruptly to stare at the small mass of metal and plastic upon which their lives depended on in this moment. The blue being stared at the device for a second in confusion before slowly, taking a finger and pressing deliberately inward, almost as if making sure that the minuscule contraption followed its commands.
As the methodical button-pressing was taking place, Shaw had managed to get to her feet.
After the button had been (quite thoroughly) pressed, the body of the hacker pivoted swiftly and grabbed Shaw's arm.
The second after skin and something else made contact, another pulse burst through the air.
Lionel Fusco has seen a lot of weird things, most NYPD cops who make detective have, but the stuff that he's seen in the past couple minutes are making him wonder if he should join Honey Nut Bar in the crazy house. First, the smaller half of the wonder twins lays one on the crazy chick before locking them in the elevator. Next, the Nut Bar just freakin' disappears from right in front of them. Just poof, gone, there one second, gone the next. Then, the chick pops up next to Shaw, again no warnin’ or nothing, looking like one of the blue aliens in that movie his kid was crazy about a while ago wearing something that looked like it shoulda been buried and pushes Shaw down. Next thing ya know the room dissolves into blue blurs and red splashes for a couple of seconds then Blue Root’s just standing there staring at Shaw as the bloody dust settles. Finally the girl presses the goddamn elevator button (why the hell is she staring at the thing like it’s a stray dog she might need to put down?) then something happens, Fusco’s not sure what, but something happened.
There was this just plain weird shift in the air and then *poof* the two of them are gone again. The next thing he knows, he’s watching Shaw go doctor (to him it looks like she’s just holding her but he’s not gonna be the first to say that to the chick who almost stabbed an old guy for typing slowly) on the blue chick while she has a seizure on the floor.
Root stills and the blue drains from her body like it got sucked out through a straw.
The elevator dings, startling everyone, they’ve hit the floor they need. The ragtag group just stands there, with the exception of Reese who slumps in the corner with his arms holding his midsection, in shock for the barest split of a second before Finch speaks up.
“Unfortunately, we do not have the time to either contemplate exactly what happened or to wait for Ms.Groves to awaken. As such we must make haste in crafting our own route to adequate care facilities for Mr.Reese and Ms.Groves,” as he says this he walks over to Reese and begins supporting the taller man in a stunted walk. Shaw takes this as her cue to carry Root and lifts her into an awkward over the shoulder position while Fusco rushes over to assist Finch with the now passed out Reese.
Somehow the group manages to commandeer an ambulance and head for the subway hideout. Only with all of them safe inside the emergency vehicle did Shaw let go of Root, and then only to check John over. But of course that was when all hell broke loose.
The body of The Machine's analog interface had been laid on a bench inside the ambulance while Shaw did the best she could with Reese.
“We’re gonna need to get some blood, what type is he?” she asks Finch, who was upfront with Fusco to make it easier for Shaw to work.
His words were cut off as the body of the one called Root sprung to life, somehow managing to almost simultaneously pull a gun, curl defensively in a corner made by the bench and the walls of the vehicle, and knock several things over. Shaw could only stare at the brown eyes bordered with blue and overflowing with emotions.
“Ms. Shaw, is everything alright back there?” Harold ventured, turning to look into the back of the ambulance.
The words “Root. Put the gun. Down” and “Ms.Groves?” came at the same time causing the woman on the bench to whip around to face the man in the EMT uniform and then back to the short woman standing in front of her before she settled on simply shifting her eyes, and the gun, between the two at regular intervals.
”Where they talking to me?” she wondered, ”Where am I? Who are these people? The last thing I remember is....”
Questions without answers and memories better left alone began to make her head spin. The man was closer, he kept repeating something about groves while the woman went on about tree roots. Panic wouldn’t help her. She needed to figure out what’s going on. She’s freaking out. She can’t think.
“Three point one four one five nine two six,” reaching for a familiar coping mechanism, the first several numbers in pi rush out of her mouth followed by a heavy breath. “Who are you people? And why are you talking about trees?”
Both the man and the woman take a step back as if she had swung at them.
The woman seems to recover first, “Trees? What? Root? Root… Your name is Root,” with that she turns to the man who is eyeing her wearily and says, “Finch this might be worse than we thought-”
“What are y’all talking about? My name is Fred.”