Root had often wondered over the years, after her tattoo had appeared on the morning of her Mother's death, if there was something wrong with her. As far as she could surmise, the way she felt things was somewhat twisted. She felt emotions just like any other person, they were there but they weren't the same as every one else. It wasn't so much that they were muted, or not there at all, it was more that she found it difficult to care at all about most people.
She had known from a very young age, after all how could she not have known, that she lacked emotional empathy. She didn't much care how other people felt, not ordinary people, because they just simply didn't matter to her. The exceptions to this, to some extent, were her mother and Hanna. Root and Samantha alike had always known what love felt like, because she had felt it.
The only people she had ever loved had been buried by the time she was sixteen. One had killed herself in a drunken stupor, too far gone to see the good in the world. The other had been taken, snatched one summer night never to be found. Both had been forgotten by the world more quickly than should have been possible. Only Root remembered. She remembered because they were the two people she would never be able to let go, her only two links to her claim of humanity.
On the morning of her mother's death, after Root had found her in the bath tub with a smashed bottle at her side and murky water, a tattoo that she had never been expecting to come had appeared. As she had stared down at the Mother's prone form, a burning pain had coursed through her left shoulder. So hot that her vision had whitened at the edges. Not that she had minded the pain. The tattoo had been blurred and less vibrant that most other people's, the ink not as stark a contrast to her skin as it would have been to others, but it had been there. It had marked her as human, in some way or shape or form.
Whenever she had found herself thinking about the words etched across her shoulder, they had continually struck her as odd. She didn't want to meet the person they were destined to spoken by, the first words they would ever share. She would have fathered that they were an every day pleasantry, words that a stranger on the street could say to her, because then they would never need to mean more to her. No more than words a hundred people could speak to her over the course of a life time.
Of course, that would have left her always wondering. After all, wondering was just something she couldn't help doing. It struck her that remaining unattached was easier and far simpler. She was a better version of herself when she simply had nothing to care about. When she had no one to look after but herself. She was smart, and taking care of her own interests was her prerogative. If that changed, then life would get more complicated.
It bothered her that she would never be able to predict when the words would come, because how many people uttered the words 'Were you followed?' as their opening line to a perfect stranger? Root, in her own personal opinion, would count herself as a borderline genius, but even someone as smart as her couldn't possibly even try to predict something so unfathomable.
Sameen Shaw, before they had met, had been nothing more than a fascinating subject. Root had spent hours upon hours reading through her file, absorbing every aspect of it. She had come to the conclusion that Shaw was the epitome of good code, given her disorder and her apparent lack of a reported tattoo. But that had been the extent of it, mere admiration and perhaps a dash of something like attraction. Merely to the idea of such a person of course.
So when Root finds herself in a prime situation, poised with a lead to find the Machine and set her free, it is the most unexpected of times. She's not even herself at the time, in fact she's pretending to be Veronica, a rather vanilla government worker. She supposes that she should of expected such words, even anticipated them, but she hadn't. Not even in the slightest. The possibility hadn't even crossed her mind. She supposes that she must have been too wrapped up in the moment, in the excitement, in the thrill of it all.
Before she had known what was happening, Sameen Shaw had waltzed through the door. The words had escaped her lips and Root had almost allowed her mask to slip in surprise. She had frozen for a moment, had almost completely forgotten the meek exterior she had adopted as a part of her facade. But she had recovered herself, she was nothing if not a professional, and had resolved to put it to the back of her mind until later.
Later, it turned out, was every moment since she had left the building. She had found herself focussing on Shaw's exquisite reaction to pain, on the hatred and fury growing in her eyes at being bested. On the muscles beneath skin, taut and coiled, as if she was ready to pounce. The way she had spoken through gritted teeth, infuriated but not afraid of what was to come. The absolute epitome of what a human should be. Root had found herself wanting to know more, needing to know more.
And that tattoo on her shoulder blade had become slightly less blurred, and slightly less dull upon her skin.