A/N: So the world is now backwards and to stop myself going crazy I'm writing a lot of Shoot. So... Yay? I was listening to the song "Flares" by the Script and suddenly had this vision of two scenes of grief juxtaposed, which is what this turned out to be. Enjoy...?
Where Two Lines Meet
by AmethystB
Is this a simulation?
She doesn't know who (why) she asks. Root always believed in that higher power, that GOD. What if there is no god?
Shaw's reality crashed months ago, along with the stock market. Had she been playing all this time? Her own life in shares, Root's, everybody's.
Fuck, does it matter now?
She keys in the code to the safe house, notes ironically the word safe, and listens to the silence.
Elias is dead.
John spoke without words last night, said Root was dead.
Nobody occupies this house.
Shaw ghosts through, fingertips hovering over countertops, tables, backs of couches. Tracing memories of the night just past. Where they'd been.
The bedroom lies dormant. Sheets still unmade. Neither of them conceded to make it perfect again.
She can't go in. Breezes by, collects a stray gun, palms the magazine firmly in.
They have to find Finch. He's AWOL. This could go very badly. But Reese told her the funeral is today. They're burying Jane Doe.
She sits on the unmade bed. Breathes evenly.
Jane Doe.
She'd hate that. Anonymous. Death by stray bullet. Unknown assailant.
Her name was Root, dammit.
Shaw imagines herself a normal person, grieving. Crying. Weeping. Screaming.
Out of them all she wants to scream. She wants to bury her pain in everything. Fucking pierce eardrums.
She almost tries.
She's screaming.
Harold and Lionel hold her back. She'd tear apart the bars if she could.
She can't see her eyes. If she could just see her eyes maybe they'd be okay.
Martine lowers the gun, she sees that much. To Sameen's head.
The elevator doors shut before the shot rings out.
Root transcends all that is human then. No rationale, nothing sane. Pure animal.
She screams louder, pitches higher. Words flying out, incoherent.
They reach the top level of the building, workers frantically speeding past to fix the crash.
No one seems to notice the manic woman pleading to go back down.
"We have to go back!"
Root wraps her arm around Finch's neck, turns him around. Lionel twists her free arm behind her, pressure building like fire. Reese, weakened, recognises the danger, moves in to help his partner.
A leg snaps out, catches Reese where the bullet wound is.
Pure adrenaline races through her now, and no one will stop her. She has to go back.
"She's still there; she needs us."
Lionel's hold slips, she's free.
Root races to the elevator, pushes buttons.
Reese circles an arm around her neck, presses hard against Root's carotid, and within seconds she's out, fingernails bloodied.
It had to happen like this.
When Root wakes it's in the subway, handcuffed to the makeshift bed. She almost breaks her hand trying to shake free, but Harold feeds her a sedative through her neck.
Days later the pain is still raw but she's rational; she'll listen to reason.
But they have to do things her way if they want Shaw back.
They crash into each other, falling to the ground. Unsure, they rise gingerly. What happens from here?
fin...