A/N: For badwolfkaily who wanted this pairing and a hurt Root "or something". I took me a while to see how she got hurt, and this is the result. Enjoy!
They told you that they wouldn't hurt her. That as long as you obeyed, she'd be safe, even though you were far from that state. You realised some time ago, when they showed you a surveillance photo of her in Pleasantville, Nowhere, the picture clearly taken from the scope of a rifle, that you had to stop trying to escape.
Because at that moment you knew.
That she'd be the one who found you.
So you stopped and you waited and you pretended, that art that comes to you as a second nature, your face a stoic mask, unperturbed.
They pushed you, prodded you, picked at you, turning their meetings with you into a sort of game to see when you'd break. But you never did. And that's when the surveillance photos started coming. Their way of telling you that she was constantly being watched, that they could end her at a moment's notice. Sometimes you thought the photos looked faked, but you didn't question their legitimacy. You didn't want to risk being wrong. You felt it again, that force gripping your throat, twisting your heart, the same strangeness that took hold of you months ago at the basement of the building where you last saw her.
So you started giving them crumbs, bits and pieces so they'd leave you (her) alone.
He didn't come and play with you anymore. The silence and the not knowing what was going on hurt worse than any cut, any poison. At least when they played with you they taunted you, gave you information, albeit unwillingly.
This void where you didn't even know if you were still alive (did you even care if you were?), it was Hell.
Your muscles burned from your resistance to become weak. It was all you could do in the tiny space you were confined to. You knew you'd need to be in top shape for when she finally came for you. So you pushed yourself up off the floor once, twice, a hundred times, your blood pumping, chest heaving, sweat dripping, and didn't even register your door opening. Must be meal time, but which one, you didn't know. The lack of a window in your room prevented you from knowing if it was day or night. You didn't even bother checking who had come to deliver your food. Didn't care, really.
But then your brain, trained to unconsciously take notice of things you were otherwise busy to pay attention to, picked up on the smallest of sounds.
The sound of a relieved laugh. The one you'd been waiting for.
But you didn't move, didn't dare look up and find that there was no one there, opening your door and coming to your rescue. You stilled, resting your chest, your forehead, on the cool floor, trying to control your erratic breathing. All of this in the span of a heartbeat.
And then, your name, a whisper of joy in her lips and your mind spinning and if this was a drug induced dream, then please, don't let them wake you up.
The next thing you heard, though, made you jump up, heart beating wildly, as you recognised its cracking boom. She ducked and hid inside your cell, and you walked up behind her and felt the heat coming off her, telling you she was real. And she smelled just as you remembered from your last time together.
There wasn't time to ask questions as you took the spare gun she told you she was carrying on her belt, and you both froze as skin made contact with skin, and the sounds of gunfire started to create a symphony you missed without knowing you did.
You only asked one thing, the one thing to quell the agony in your desperate mind.
When you whispered her name, she turned around, her grin even bigger than her face, too close to yours, and gave you the confirmation you needed. She hadn't come alone, thank God. The man you'd come to think of as more than an ally, more than a brother in arms, rushed in at that moment, gun releasing its final round. He looked at you and the ghost of a smile played over his lips, and you nodded because what else could you do as your heart swelled with something akin to relief, a feeling so powerful you'd never felt anything quite like it before.
Then it was time to run, because the devil was at your heels and damn it if you were gonna let him hurt them. You rounded corners, shot at people's chests, these people that were past the point of deserving any other treatment from you. Everything flashed before your eyes, and the only thing you registered was the dark hair billowing in front of you. Like a cat to a laser beam, you followed her because you were right. She had come for you and that was all that mattered.
A door opened and a head you knew peaked in. The other detective. You didn't think he'd be coming too, for all his talk of not liking you. But here he was. Your heart grew a little more.
The detective beckoned you all forward, hurried you along, and then a hand.
Searing your skin. Pulling you to her side. You held on to it as you shot another round.
The air flowing through the door hit your hot skin and made your hair stand on end but it was fine. You didn't care.
You were gonna be free.
At least a dozen agents lay dead on the floor, with more aiming at you from hidden locations. You wondered how many she'd killed before she found you. All of them, you hoped.
Release was waiting on the other side of the open door. You walked purposefully towards it, but suddenly you couldn't move. Something was pulling you down. You fell on top of her and for the first time since she'd grabbed your hand, you noticed the stickiness in between your fingers.
She gasped for air and your eyes landed on the bullet hole on her shoulder. Another one on her thigh. She winced, but you were glad. Extatic. She'd be fine, you'd see to that. But you had to take care of things here first.
So you asked your friend to carry her outside and to the car that would take you away, but not before prying one of her guns from her bloodied fingers.
You heard her shout your name and your mind instinctively travelled back to the day when you thought you'd lost her.
Except this time it was different. This time you wouldn't surrender.
Your bullets found their hosts with an almost ease to it that made you wonder if you were maybe moving at a different speed than the rest of the world. Certainly felt like it.
You had to go, but you hoped beyond hope that that preppy British boy would make an appearance. You would like nothing more than to delete his smirk from the phase of the earth.
It would seem that today was your lucky day, as he did not disappoint.
He froze where he stood, disbelieving that everything he was seeing could be true. They'd told him you would not break free, that you would be his toy to do with as he saw fit.
He was still looking at you as you fired your last shot. A bullet grazed your ear and urged you to leave, but you saw it. The fear in his eyes as he fell. It put a small smile on your face.
She was waiting, they all were. The car was already moving as you jumped on it. Your anxiety was already evaporating as you held her head on your lap. As she looked up at you through those bright eyes.
We found you, she said, smiling through her pain. Hi sweetie.
You hadn't seen the sun in who knew long, and it hadn't made a bit of difference. But this, this bright warmth, you cried as you realised how badly you had missed it.