A/N: So this is the first Shoot fanfiction I've written. This part will be between 5 and 8 chapters (give or take a few), but I have ideas for a second and third part, so if there's a legitimate amount of people interested in it, I will write them. The summary doesn't betray too much about what this story is about (I suck at them), only WHEN and that there's probably going to be lots of shooting. Well, that's not wrong, but I'm not going to say more about it than that.
Before you start reading this, I want to thank my awesome friend Joana ( TheOtherGayCousin on Tumblr) for being an amazing beta. So if you like this fic, make sure you also give her some credit!
Also, neither of us is native English speaker, but we do our best. And if you see a particular mistake or something that bothers you, feel free to message me. Any feedback is welcome. :)
Anyway, enough talk, I hope you enjoy reading it!
Root dove behind a file cabinet as she checked the magazine of her gun. Only three rounds left.
"I'm almost out of ammo, Shaw." she called out to Shaw, who was busy firing a few rounds with her own gun as bullets whizzed over their heads and barely missed every one of them.
With her free hand, Root reached at her side, feeling a warm liquid dampen the material of her shirt. She drew her hand back, and confirmed her suspicion. Blood. From what she could tell, the bullet had only grazed her side, leaving a superficial flesh wound. She didn't think it would be too serious of an injury, but she didn't bother to even think about stemming it. It would keep bleeding, but Root decided to ignore it, having more important business to take care of instead of sulking over superficial scratches.
"I'm running low, too." Shaw said slightly out of breath. They had been running from security for over twenty minutes. "You got the flash drive?"
Root held it up as a manner of indicating the positive, stuffing it safely in her pocket.
"Does the Machine have an escape route for us?" Shaw questioned while examining her magazine and quickly calculated how many extra bullets she had left.
"If She has, She's not telling." Root responded with something of an amused look on her face as she shrugged and shook her head. The Machine was still not on speaking terms when it came to the way Root handled some of the missions She assigned to her. Or rather the ones she didn't assign to her at all. But it caused her to have to come up with a plan of her own this time. Like old times. And being there with Shaw made her feel at ease, even though there was blood seeping through her shirt and bullets whizzing around their heads. It was just Root, Shaw and the mission. Which was everything she needed. Everything she wanted.
Shaw scanned Root's face. She couldn't help but be slightly amazed by Root's unwillingness to lose her nerve at their current situation – because, let's face it, their odds weren't very satisfactory, and definitely not in their favor. But Shaw wouldn't be Shaw if she weren't always ready for anything, even if she didn't have the tools for it.
"What are you suggesting we do?" Shaw asked before she fired a few rounds around the corner of the cabinet to keep the enemies off for a little while longer, to grant them just a little more time. "I have enough ammo to give cover, but I can't go on like this forever."
Root considered their options. They didn't have many, but the very few they had.. neither of them seemed tempting.
"Root," Shaw said, snapping Root out of her thoughts and spurring her onto action.
"Sameen.." Root said in a sugary manner, earning an eye roll from the woman she had aimed it at. "You still have that flash grenade?" She asked with a smirk. A smirk that told Shaw enough.
Shaw's lips curled into a subtle grin, her hand sliding into the pocket of her coat, finding the explosive device. "Of course I do." She flipped it over in her hand once, as if emphasizing that she was ready to roll and cause some mayhem. It was in a way not different from when they had been in the stock exchange. But then instead of a flash grenade, she had flipped a bar of C4, before Shaw had effectively saved their lives.
Root's stomach churned at the memory. It seemed like ages ago, but remembering what Shaw had done; what had happened. Knowing what Root had lost and what she had done in a frantic attempt to get her back. How she had almost believed that Shaw was gone, but had always kept hope in the back of her head. How she had gone through hell and back, destroying every form of morality she had left; everything that the Machine had taught her; that Harold had taught her. Everything that she had grown to believe in because of these people that worked for the Machine, too.
She thought she could sacrifice it all. If it would give her Shaw back, she had been willing to do just about everything.
Anything.
Finding out that Shaw was in fact still alive had been a relief. Even if she weren't her friend anymore.. Even if she weren't in her life anymore... It was all better than the thought of Shaw being dead; wiped from the face of this planet. The idea that Sameen Shaw wouldn't let out a single breath anymore was too much.
With Shaw here beside her, alive and kicking – quite literally at that – the smell of gunpowder and smoke lingering in her nose, Root almost felt something she hadn't felt ever since the events of the stock exchange had left their story unfinished: alive.
"Ready to roll?" Shaw asked somewhat smugly. She grabbed her gun in her right hand and the flash grenade in her left, training her eyes on Root as she kept track of every move she made. But Root was far away, Shaw's words sinking in, her mind wandering to that familiar, everything deciding day. The stock exchange. Her lips curled up a bit, and a chuckle almost escaped her mouth, the memory feeling all too real in that moment. A memory that hadn't crossed her mind ever since she'd experienced it live. But it explained exactly why it had become her motto lately, apparently adopted from Sameen Shaw. And it was exactly that moment that it dawned on her how much of an influence Shaw had on her. What kind of imprint she had left on her. How profoundly she was rooted in her being. "Root?" Shaw insisted, derailing Root's train of thoughts.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply in and out. "That way." The tall brunette retorted, gesturing in the opposite direction. In the direction they had just come from and from where their assailants were shooting at them.
"You're serious?" Shaw questioned, raising her eyebrow in suspicion. Her eyes were roaming over Root's figure, carefully assessing if the woman was joking or not. But everything in Root's posture pointed at the woman being dead serious.
"The door behind us leads to one long hallway, which gives us barely to no cover." Root explained, remembering the schematics of the building. "If we go back-"
"We can zigzag. Got it." Shaw finished the plan in a nutshell, knowing what Root was up to. She could feel the adrenaline starting to flow again, giving her the boost she needed to get them out of the room. She pulled out the pin and threw the flash grenade at their opponents as they both covered their ears and closed their eyes.
As soon as the grenade had done its job, Shaw took her aim and started firing at the part of their enemy that was still standing, while gesturing at Root to make a move for the other side of the room. With the cover provided by Shaw's shooting as an advantage, Root started running, as fast as she could with her side increasingly hurting and the blood loss taking its toll. The adrenaline coursing through her veins was winning it from both. She kept sprinting, with Shaw hot on her heels, literally running for their lives. Just like old times.
Left. Right. Right. Left. Right. She lost track of the route they had taken, her mind cloudy and her lungs burning in her chest. She must have slowed her pace at some point, because Shaw had caught up with her, grabbing her jacket from behind and pulling her into what looked like a server room. Her hand covered Root's mouth and she pushed her flush against the wall, quieting the taller woman as they listened to the footsteps that approached rapidly.
They held their breath, even though Root's lungs were in desperate need of oxygen. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually the footsteps died out in the distance, the people that were chasing them apparently falling for their little scheme. When Root finally allowed herself to breathe again, she realized just how close they were standing, Shaw's hand still covering Root's lips.
The room in which they were hiding out wasn't small, but it was packed with servers, making the space left to move warm in an unpleasant way and very narrow, which didn't grant them exactly that much proximity. They were standing so close that Root could feel Shaw's breaths across her face; that she could feel her heartbeat.
Heartbeat.
Sameen was alive.
Before she could dwell on thoughts again, Shaw took a step back from Root, letting her hand fall back to her side, and taking a thorough look at her body, inspecting for wounds and other anomalies. "You're bleeding." She said grumpily, but Root saw a hint of worry on Shaw's face, as if she were pretending not to care, but the tense muscles were giving away that it did more to her than she let Root take notice.
"I've had worse." Root flirted automatically, taking a step towards Shaw again as she smiled weakly. "It's just a scratch." She tried to pull up her lips a little higher, reassuring Shaw that it was indeed merely a superficial wound that didn't need treatment. But what was supposed to be a smile, was closer to a grimace. Even Shaw could tell.
"Root." Shaw said with an exasperated sigh, not taking back any steps again and keeping the close distance as she glared pointedly at Root, getting her to look back at her, trying to detect whichever emotion she wasn't displaying. Then she rolled her eyes and began looking for supplies she could use to treat the wound. Ultimately, she concluded that anything in the room was probably covered with bacteria and other nasty organisms – due to the heat and what she estimated to be more than scarce cleaning sessions – so she started ripping at the sleeve of her own shirt, trusting the cloth would be less bad and infective than the other materials within her reach.
She ripped the part she had acquired in two, using one half to clean up the wound as much as she could, and more importantly, stem the bleeding. "I love it when you play doctor." Root piped up, though it sounded strained this time because of the pain. She wasn't bothered by it. If only, normally this sort of thing would arouse her, leaving her wanting Shaw even more.
Shaw glared at her, but it lacked the intensity it usually had. There was something soft about it, as if Shaw were concerned about Root somehow. Her actions had been reckless, and everything pointed at the fact that good preparation had been missing from the start on. Root had known the schematics, but she didn't have a plan. It was as if everything they'd done that day was improvisation, but the kind that didn't involve the Machine whispering in her ear what she needed to do in order to survive.
Something was wrong, Shaw could tell, but she couldn't quite put her finger on the sore spot. It frustrated her to no end, because she didn't know how to handle this kind of situation. She wasn't good at feelings. She didn't understand them. She could tell when people were upset or sad or mad, but she didn't know how to talk about it. Or even more so, what to say that wouldn't immediately cause Root to shut down on her.
When the bleeding had stopped – mostly – Shaw searched for things she could use to produce an emergency bandage. She was pleased to find that apparently the IT department of this company was a big fan of keeping bundles of wires together with duct tape instead of the more logical use of zip ties. She figured that it would do the trick, not having other options anyway. She took the other – still remotely clean – piece of cloth and covered Root's wound with it, keeping it in place with her left hand. With her other hand she tried to tear the tape, that was partly stuck to itself, but it was obvious she needed two hands to get it untangled.
Root's hand covered Shaw's, keeping the torn clothing in place, giving the tinier woman the chance to fiddle with the piece of material and acquire the right amount of tape. When their fingers brushed together, Root felt that familiar spark within her. Electricity. That rush of adrenaline and admiration she'd felt so many times before and she found that she missed it.
She wanted nothing more than to just lean in and kiss. Kiss till she forgot about her own existence. Breathe in the smell of gunpowder and sweat and forget all about the last months. How they had worn Root down, to the point where she didn't recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. To the point where she'd thrown so much away…given so much up just for the sake of finding and saving one of the only people in the whole world she cared for. The woman that made everything she had fought for worth it. The woman that had saved her.
But the things she had done...They had stripped away parts of herself, and left her awfully naked in the cold, the wind cutting her skin. She was surrounded by nothing but that icy feel and darkness. It wasn't like before. Like when Root hadn't known about the existence of Sameen Shaw. Because then Root hadn't cared about the world. Everything was just bad code. Now, Root had changed. Changed in ways she could have never foreseen. Loved like she never would have imagined.
Things were different now. Even from when Root hadn't known about Shaw's survival. She had kept that hope in the back of her head.. Even though she had stopped looking for her. There was still that hope. And that made it easier to do the things she had to do. The things she had done. Causing mayhem..Torture.. Murder. Falling back into her old pattern.
But in that moment, when Shaw was beside her, that constant feeling of loss had replaced itself with something new. Something.. much more painful. She could not quite fathom into words what it exactly was that she felt, but it left a clenching feeling in her chest, making it hard for her to breathe.
Breathe.
She had to remind herself to breathe. She had to take control of the situation, because if she lost her calm, all would've been lost. And all of the sudden, she realized that they had no time. They were in a server room in the building they had just penetrated to steal a flash drive. It dawned on her that they had to get out of there. And in that moment the closet felt too small. She needed more space. Needed to breathe.
Shaw had noticed the anxiety in Root's eyes. In her body. All of her limbs and muscles suddenly tense with that flight instinct. Shaw decided that it was best if she finished what she started as quickly as possible, so they could get the hell out of that closet. Out of the situation. They were still not out of the woods yet, and it seemed like the worst possible timing to have a heart-to-heart. Not that Shaw was up for anything like that anyway.
When Shaw was done, and after she had checked up about three times if the home-made emergency dressings would hold long enough to get them out of the building, Root said affectionately: "Thanks sweetie," while her lips curled into that amused smile that was so typically hers. Again, it lacked a certain conviction that had been there before the stock exchange, and it frustrated Shaw somehow.
Exasperation flared up within her again. Shaw wasn't sure if it were because Root was clearly keeping up appearances, or if it were because Shaw didn't know why. She used to know how to read her face; having control over the situation. But it was as if all the expressions she had filed away in her memories had changed, and didn't mean anything they had meant before.
Even to Shaw it looked something alien. Something that didn't belong, but she couldn't put a finger on the sore spot. She couldn't grasp what was going on in Root's head; why she was acting the way she did. Why her muscles seemed to be tense instead of relaxed, like they usually were. But the answer didn't lie in her muscles, and didn't lie in the wrinkles of her face. And the only way for Shaw to understand what was going on with Root was to blatantly ask.