Just a thought on how a post-4.05 meeting between Root and Shaw might go. See end for some explanatory notes. Enjoy!
"What are you doing here?"
Root turned her head lazily to look at Shaw's shadowed outline in the door, thinking about how to answer. For the second time that month, the Machine had directed Root not to a vacant, off-the-grid apartment, but to the team's new underground headquarters. Not having a permanent address was a side effect of her ever-changing cover story, and a lonely one at that. She suspected that the Machine was trying to comfort her by directing her to use the familiar place whenever possible.
"I was going to sleep, but now that you're here…" Root teased half-heartedly. She knew that Shaw had noticed her negative mood earlier, and she didn't want her to see any more. She sat up from her place on the train seats to better see Shaw leaning in the doorway.
Shaw rolled her eyes. "Don't let me stop you," she drawled as she straddled Harold's chair and leaned her arms on its back. Root blinked rapidly as Shaw turned on the overhead lights.
Root grinned. "Gonna watch me sleep, Shaw?" Shaw merely raised an eyebrow and continued to stare at the hacker. Root sighed. "Did you want to say something, or-?" She trailed off, widening her eyes in an expression of inquiry. Shaw huffed.
"I could ask you the same thing." Shaw's eyes were piercing holes in Root's resolve not to reveal anything. Root thought back to what she had said to Harold earlier in the day, and quickly rejected the idea that Shaw had somehow heard her. She was nowhere near us. Right?
"I'm not really in the mood for games, Shaw," Root sighed, leaning her head against the wall and staring out of the window into the dark station. "I'm tired." As she resisted looking back at Shaw, stopped herself from trying, as she had for months, to discern some subtle hint of what Shaw was thinking, she thought about how tired she really was. Each new persona seemed harder and harder to take on, each new job a more and more crushing weight. Increasingly, she wanted to be around someone who knew who she was. That desire had also reminded her that there was no one who really knew her, although Harold's use of the word 'friend' had given her a small amount of hope.
It's so strange. When I first found out about the Machine, I thought Harold and She would be the ones to understand me. I thought they would make me feel at home. She does comfort me, but She's also my God, not my friend. And instead of Harold, the only one who's consistently understood me has been…
"Shaw?" They had both sat in silence for several moments, but Root stirred abruptly as she reached the end of her train of thought. Her voice was softer now, and contained no trace of her usual flirtatiousness. "What are you doing here, really?"
Shaw was still for a moment, staring at Root. "I thought you might need medical attention," she said finally.
"But how did you—" Root started before stopping to listen momentarily. "You bugged me?" The Machine chirped a noise that meant 'not exactly' even as Shaw answered.
"I bugged Finch," Shaw corrected. "I tracked you."
Although her heart was beating faster and she didn't know exactly what to do with what Shaw had told her, Root opted for safer ground. "I'm touched, Shaw," she murmured with a smirk. She tried desperately not to wonder if that meant that Shaw had heard her after all.
Shaw abruptly spun around in the office chair to play with the papers on Harold's desk. Root could only see part of her face, and that rarely revealed anything, but she had also found that watching the operative's hands usually showed a little more of her thoughts than her features. Tonight her hands were in constant, relentless motion, plucking at post-its and de-capping pens as she spoke.
"I've been there, you know. Switching identities like clothes. Alone. It's not easy." Apparently unsatisfied with the distractive powers of Harold's pens, Shaw removed her combat knife from her belt and fiddled with it.
"No," Root whispered, her head sinking. "It's not."
"And the Machine's not talking to you much, is She?" Shaw stopped for a moment, turning her head marginally toward Root, although her gaze stayed down.
"No," Root repeated. For a moment they both stared at their hands. Slowly, Shaw turned back to Root.
"You don't have to do this alone."
Root looked up to meet Shaw's eyes as she repeated her earlier words to Harold. "She says if I don't, we all die."
Shaw shook her head. "That can't be true all the time. And when it's not," she continued, "you need to call us, Root. There's no dead in team."
Root wrinkled her nose to stop tears from falling and attempted some distracting humor. "Do you really think that the cute sayings you use on the big lug are going to work on me?" she quipped shakily.
Shaw shrugged, still expressionless. "Worth a try."
Root returned her gaze to her hands. "Thank you," she whispered, so quietly that she wasn't sure Shaw heard.
After several silent yet oddly comforting minutes, Shaw rose from the desk chair, turning off the lights as she went. With only the dim platform lighting to see by, Root watched her navigate to the other end of the car and pull down a blanket from the luggage shelf. Shaw returned and Root reached out to take what Shaw offered. She paused for a moment, and Root studied her shadowed face, looking for some indication of what she wanted. She turned to go, but stopped after a step. With her back still turned, Root could hear her speaking in a low voice.
"I heard you, earlier. And I wanted to say…. Harold was right. I already knew." Root couldn't breathe waiting for her to say more, anything to finally let her know what Shaw was thinking. When Shaw finally continued, Root's chest seemed like it was going to explode before she could finish speaking.
"And if I had been in your place today, I would have asked him to tell you something." Shaw's voice was almost neutral, but after months of study, Root thought she could detect a hint of nervousness coupled with… tenderness?
Root released the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Shaw turned to glance at Root, and although neither of them could see the other's eyes very clearly, something passed between them that negated the necessity for more words. Everything gets so lost in words, anyway.
Root let a small, authentic smile spread across her face, and Shaw's eyes softened in return. The moment over, Shaw walked to the set of seats on the other side of the door and laid down, spreading her coat over her shoulders.
"Don't you need a blanket?" Root asked.
Root could see some movement and assumed that Shaw was shaking her head. "There's only one. I have my jacket."
Root waited until she could see that the other woman was still before spreading the blanket over herself and rolling over. It wasn't long before she fell asleep.
When Shaw awoke, she was considerably warmer than she had been when she fell asleep. A little disoriented, she sat up quickly, pushing the blanket spread over her onto the floor. Shaw saw the paper drifting toward the floor and snatched it before it followed the blanket. She smiled at the short message.
"You already knew, but I wasn't sure. Thank you. For everything."
To clarify: Shaw bugged Harold and that's how she heard his conversation with Root. She has trackers on the entire team, including Root, which is how she knew she was in the subway station. I didn't really see the two of them having a huge heart-to-heart, especially given the heaviness of their situation of late, so I thought that Shaw making a "coded" confession about how she feels and then keeping Root company overnight was the kind of small step toward a relationship that these two would take. Hope you liked it! Comments are, as always, welcome!