Yes, I've changed the title. It's got to be better than the rock stupid thing I came up with when this first got published.
This is just some AU crap about Shaw, Root, and the Machine. It's set somewhere just before the pivotal elevator scene and completely deviates from canon at that point, hence the AU. At this stage I have two endings written, but I don't know which one is going to end up in the finished product. There's already so many good Shoot fics up here and absolutely none about the poor Machine, so I'm leaning more toward the Machine right now. Plus, I might be just a little bit in love with Her myself. We'll see how the fic actually plays out and who wins Root's heart. Just don't go into it thinking you're guaranteed a Shoot endgame, though there will definitely be a fuckton of Shoot content (and it may eventually earn itself an M rating).
Nothing is ever certain, my friends.
~JW
Shaw's alleyway, 2am
Sameen Shaw enjoyed looking at Root.
Sometimes the hacker would be deep in thought, concentrating, working through a problem the Machine or Harold had given her. Her brow would furrow and she would bite her lower lip, head cocked to the side. Her fingers would dance over the keyboard as if it were an extension of herself, and she'd write and rewrite line after line in a magnificent language that was far beyond Shaw's ability to comprehend. It was easy for the others to forget sometimes how brilliant Root was because of her eternally jovial manner and psychopathic tendencies with a pair of pistols, but Shaw never forgot, not for a moment. That particular look was etched into her mind, emblazoned in her memory. It was her favorite look.
Well, almost her favorite look.
Her favorite expression happened at other times, times when things were either looking well… or more often, looking grim. Yes, that expression presented itself mostly when things were looking grim. Shaw was convinced that Root had taken on the role of unofficial cheerleader for Team Machine. When things were at their darkest, the young woman seemed to be at her lightest. Her smirk lit up the room and her light and airy commentary never failed to elicit a grin, or an eyeroll, from the rest of the team. That this cheerful commentary almost always included unabashed flirting with her was a bonus, but one that she'd never admit to enjoying. No, she couldn't do that. She couldn't give any encouragement. There was nothing inside her to give, and nothing she wanted in return. Shaw would couch her response in perhaps the same general tone of playful danger, but the response was always the same. The response was always no.
Sometimes the no was easy and quick, followed by something clever that implied maybe no wasn't really a firm no, but more of a suggestion. Like that first on-the-spot-let's-get-this-in-the-open no followed up by an all-nighter watching Root doing what she did best: rewriting the digital world. The task was something that really, only two people on the team could have done and Shaw felt like Harold knew that when he assigned it to her. He had no business giving it to Shaw, but he was an insightful man and in his own way, he was letting her know with that almost imperceptible nod that she'd made the right choice and he was behind her all the way, giving her the excuse she needed to spend time with Root without having to admit that was the purpose. Giving her something Root would see through. Giving her a way to keep her no, but take away some of the sting that the word itself brought. Good man, he was.
Then there were the other noes. Those noes didn't have any clever follow-up. Those noes came out when Shaw was most agitated, most unbalanced, and most ill at ease with the direction things were heading. Those noes would come out on that sharp tongue, in anger, in rage, and though she immediately regretted them, she let them hang in the air like warm breath on a winter's day. It would dissipate in much the same way, for just as the small bit of heat was no match for the lady of ice, neither was Root any match for the ice in Shaw.
And that was when she would have that other look…. The look that said in a tired voice that she was still here and still fighting, that she was still 100% devoted to whatever it was they were doing… but Shaw was nonetheless running out of time. Root wouldn't wait forever. That was the look that scared Shaw the most, if what she felt could legitimately be called fear. Having never felt the emotions others explained to her, she had nothing to compare it to. But it was deep, it was there, somewhere in the dark, and it told her in no uncertain terms that it wasn't going away anytime soon. It spoke to her of what could be, dangerous and delightful, all the things that once upon a time the volume was too low to hear.
That was the look that said the next time she said no might be the last time she had the opportunity to do so.
The woman named Samantha Groves was beautiful. Of that there was no doubt. She was beautiful by any standard and Shaw had recognized this long ago. Of course, the former ISA operative was also beautiful, but she was certain that there was a distinct difference. Shaw's beauty was the dangerous kind, the kind that invited you to walk the line with her but never step over, lest she find one of 25 ways to kill you with her bare hands. That was Shaw's kind of beauty. Root's was… different. Lithe and sophisticated. Dangerous as well, but it wasn't the same kind of danger. Her beauty spoke to 25 different ways of piercing your heart. Branding it… perhaps with an iron. Stealing it altogether, if you weren't careful.
Shaw was careful. Careful, enough, anyway. She appreciated the quiet beauty, but recognized the danger and steeled herself against it. Yes, she was very careful. Careful to always put 'no' first.
Regardless, sooner or later someone else was bound to notice that the woman named Samantha Groves was beautiful, and would approach her with intent. Sooner or later, there would be another woman who spoke the word that was on the tip of Shaw's biting tongue, the word that hid just behind the emphatic 'no'. What if that opposing word was spoken on the same night one of those 'noes' had gushed forth fleetingly, irresponsibly, as if there would always be another opportunity to say yes instead? What if the woman named Samantha Groves, for an instant, forgot about the woman named Root, who belonged with Shaw, and gave in to someone else, someone who made her feel wanted? Someone who didn't see the real her, couldn't possibly see the real her, but was warm and inviting and offered more than just the promise of maybe someday, but probably another 'no' today?
Shaw dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and gritted her teeth against the thoughts that circled her head. Root was so like one of those viruses she wrote, invasive and elegant, subtle and powerful. She entered in a back door that no one was guarding and before there was time to build defenses against the threat, it was already too late. The system was compromised.
Yes, that was a good word for how she felt right now. She was… compromised. Day Zero had finally come for Sameen Shaw.
The former operative leaned back against the cold concrete of the building she'd taken refuge near, rolling her eyes toward the sky and toward uncertainty. Root wasn't around to scold her for taking chances aboveground today; the Machine had her off running some errand or another. Shaw was on her own, and strangely, felt rather alone. John and Fusco were at their makeshift home base in the abandoned subway spending time with Harold, but she had slipped away. Even there she felt alone, something gripping at her chest and almost… giving her a warning?
A warning.
I've officially lost my mind.
She looked out from the darkness to the dim lighting across the street. Cameras blinked innocently, watching for lawbreakers, but Shaw knew they were also watching for Root. Watching Root. Watching for her safety, watching for what she'd do next, just… watching.
She wasn't jealous, exactly, another emotion she couldn't truly identify, but she knew that when thoughts of the Machine watching Root invaded her mind, something knotted in her stomach. That was another one of Root's looks… that quiet smile and deep rapture whenever the Machine spoke to her. This other female presence in Root's life. This… possibly more important female presence. This wildcard, this unknown, this… hard to compete with presence.
Shaw wondered if the Machine's self-identity as female was 'Her' own doing, or Root's. If it was Root's, then she could understand. Root clearly responded more positively to women, and it followed that she would assign any such inanimate object that which made her most comfortable. But…
What if it had been the Machine after all? What if this impossibly complicated and mysterious AI had chosen to be female not just for herself, but for Root? To attract Root? To be attractive to Root? To… have that kind of intimacy that Root would only share with women? The kind of intimacy she wasn't currently sharing with another person. How could Shaw compete with a machine that saw so much, so deeply into Root?
There was that feeling again, that one that resembled what she understood to be fear. Not ten minutes prior she'd allowed herself a small victory even as she contemplated Root's potential liaisons with others; they'd never really know her. They'd know the woman named Samantha Groves, or the woman named Whatever-Alias-The-Machine-Cooked-Up-Today, but they would never know Root. They would never know the woman named Root, who belonged with Shaw. No one else could possibly know Root.
No one else but the Machine, of course.
And then she pulled her vision from the blinking cameras back to the night sky. The Machine. The Machine knew Root, knew Root intimately. Shaw wondered, not for the first time, just how intimately. She wondered if the Machine had a name, a special name that only she and Root shared. She wondered what the two talked about when they were alone, alone and in the dark, deep in the night when Root would crave connection the most. Did she use the patchwork of voices Harold had once described to her, or was there a different voice, a voice that was reserved just for Root? The AI was self-aware. Was it also… Could it love? Could it feel something resembling love? Could it… love Root? Did it? Did 'She' love Root? More importantly, did Root love Her, love Her in the way she would love a human woman?
Shaw shook her head slowly and jammed her hands in her pockets. There was no point in this direction of thought. She had that answer already, and it made something bubble up inside of her, something uncontrollable. She wouldn't name that as a 'feeling', either, but 'that' there was a lot of it and it made her really, really, want to shoot something.
Really want to shoot something.
Of course Root was in love with the Machine. It wasn't even really a question. Shaw joked about it being her 'other half' fairly often and Root just smiled that sickeningly sweet yet psychotic smile that made her feel like the rest of the world had just melted away, but the young hacker never argued. Or rejected the idea. Or said anything at all that would reassure the operative that some things, some things were still within reach, within Shaw's reach and Shaw's reach only.
Yes, if there was anyone else on this planet that would see beyond the woman named Samantha Groves into the woman named Root, who belonged with Shaw, it was the Machine. The fucking Machine. The fucking Machine, who for all Shaw knew was fucking Root right now, in whatever way they managed it. Root, scratching into her own skin at the Machine's prompting, running hands along her own body and whispering intimate words into a microphone. Root, removing her own clothing and exposing herself to the invasive eye of a camera on a fucking laptop, taking direction from her goddess and offering all of herself, body and soul. Giving it over to a Machine that couldn't even properly appreciate it, couldn't possibly appreciate it. Root, writhing in pleasure under a largely imaginary mate, her own hands taking the place of lover. The woman named Root, who belonged with Shaw, shouting a name that wasn't hers, into a space she wasn't in, on a night they hadn't even spoken. That urge to shoot something returned in full force as she thought of another one of Root's looks, one that she would probably never see. The look of fear, fight or flight, with a lustful Shaw's hand tight round her neck, that look that morphed into desire as the fighter crushed them together and made clear her intentions.
Pain exploded along her arm as her fist connected with the wall behind her. It was absolutely adolescent, she knew, but if she went off and did what she really wanted to do, she'd have to sit through several stern lectures from Harold and maybe even one from Reese. She hit the wall again and again, until both of her hands came away bloody, and then she turned back around and slid down it until she connected with the ground, staring at the crimson flowing down her arms. Imagining Root. Imagining Root's smirk and probable reaction to her little display. Imagining Root's expected flirtatious comment, the way her eyes would dart to the sight of the injury, the way she would lightly wet her lips, the arousal it would bring her. The ideas it would give her.
Oh, the pain and pleasure they would explore together; things that Shaw felt sure even the Machine couldn't understand. The push and pull, cat and mouse thing that they did, all of it bubbling just beneath the surface, ready to erupt into a fiery storm of nails and teeth and whatever hard surface and restraints happened to be nearby.
Well, at least that was a 'feeling' she could identify. Physical ache, starting somewhere in her abdomen and rushing along her veins straight to her fingertips, overwhelming even the acute pain in her knuckles, told her that she'd followed this particular train of thought quite far enough. Liquid heat would follow, prepping her for a lover that wouldn't come. Not tonight, not any night, not anymore.
As easy as it would be to slip into a bar and go home with someone, she'd wake up thoroughly unsatisfied and still ache for Root. She'd wake up and immediately bolt, and wonder if Root's sleepy eyes were opening to the voice of her goddess, her lover. She'd wake up and barely be able to look at her own reflection in the glass of the buildings around her, clenched fists ready to punch out the next computer that was unfortunate enough to exist in her space.
She'd sneak out again that night and end up back in the alleyway, looking at the sky, wondering what in the actual fuck she was supposed to be doing. Nothing would change. The thoughts would continue to come. She'd continue to want Root, but not tell Root, and Root would wait for perhaps a while longer… but would eventually give up on the lost cause. Eventually, she would. Eventually, everyone did.
If only Shaw were different. If only she could reach it, whatever it was that had been turned off or rewired inside her. In many ways, she was like the Machine. Thoughts flickered by and she saw what the correct response was, but programming inside her prevented her from giving that response. She was unable to break free of the shackles around her own humanity, unable to embrace anything resembling a true emotion. And perhaps, she thought after a moment, perhaps that's what Root saw in her. Perhaps Root wasn't interested in her human qualities at all. Perhaps her inability to connect was the only reason Root pursued her.
Perhaps she and the Machine weren't all that different after all, in Root's eyes. Perhaps the hacker was only interested in her because of the ways she was like the Machine… and not in the ways she could be different.
Perhaps the woman named Root, who belonged with Shaw, wasn't really as interested in her as she thought, and for some reason, that idea brought the unidentified rumbling back to the surface. She wasn't a machine. She was still flesh and blood; blood that was flowing freely down her arm was proof of that. She could still experience pain. Most pain she appreciated. Most pain she enjoyed.
But this pain… this unidentified… unidentifiable… longing, this she didn't enjoy one bit. Shaw clenched her fists a couple times, wrapping her thoughts around the swelling of the flesh and the fresh flow of blood as the clots broke free. This pain she could understand. This pain she could embrace. This pain she could categorize and stick into a neat little compartment to either be drawn upon when she needed strength or pushed against when she needed focus.
The pain she experienced when she thought Root might not really want her after all, that Root's one and only love actually was the Machine?
That pain she couldn't handle. That pain couldn't be directed into something useful.
Shaw pushed herself to her feet once more and jammed her bloody hands into her pockets. The hour was late and by now someone would have noted her absence. She needed to get back. She needed to get back to the safehouse underground and wait, wait until Root returned. Wait until the next flirtation. Wait until the next no.
The question was, how many more noes would Root accept? And… how many more noes was Shaw strong enough, blasé enough, to give?
That was a question she didn't have an answer for. The throbbing of her bloody hands remained silent. The blinking lights remained silent. She was, effectively, on her own.
And she had no idea what to do next.