Why is she like this.

Shaw was lying on Root's extremely comfy bed and in the middle of a lazy day-dream. She had managed to weasel her way into Root's house - under the pretext of getting some help with her laptop. It had barely been 30 minutes since she stepped foot into the house and she was already lulled by the hacker's sweet voice.

"It wasn't you - was it?" Root smiled, turning back to get a glance at Shaw and getting back to typing away immediately. Shaw was reluctant to admit that she hadn't heard a word Root had said, she was already lost in her little day dream.

Shaw, for one , could not understand the turmoil she was going through. A few days of impromptu bumping into Root here and there had wasted a lot of time, and eventually led to this. This was her last ditch attempt to get the mission over with -seeing that her deadline to deliver the hacker was 9pm this evening. What Shaw couldn't comprehend was why she couldn't deal with this hacker as callously as she had imagined herself to. Shaw could have easily gone on with her plan without spending the whole morning on Root's bed - but she couldn't. What was this feeling - guilt? - that she was drawing this poor puppy into something so out-of-this-world? Shaw couldn't place it. All she knew was that she felt just a tiny bit better, spending the morning at Root's and hoping that this would help ease her conscience - no matter how tiny it was.

Root - on the other hand, wasn't helping Shaw's guilt much. Dressed in a pair of cotton pajamas with Garfield and Odie cartoons all over and fluffy, it was all just sinking Shaw's resolve.

Stop it Shaw, you know you're going to do it.

Shaw knew very well that she was going to go on with her plan, irrespective of what she 'felt', but she did know she would have a hard time getting over the fact that she dragged an innocent woman unnecessarily into a huge mess.

Lying on her bed and trying to mentally argue with herself, Shaw's thoughts took another turn as well. Seeing Root so happy and cheery in the most boring of towns, hearing her cheery voice ramble on in this rather endearing way - sort of made Shaw long for something she didn't realize she desired.

Perhaps mediocrity isn't as bad as I thought it was.

It was in the middle of all these jumbling thoughts that Shaw finally caught the last of Root's question.

"What?" Shaw asked, sitting up and snapping out of her daydream, shaking it off.

"That guy who assaulted me the other day? He was found shot dead?I was just curious if you had anything to do with that." Root reiterated, still typing away at Shaw's laptop. Shaw was immediately on guard. She hadn't killed that guy, she hadn't even know the guy was dead, but the fact that Root was asking her that question immediately made her jump to the conclusion that Root had discovered who Shaw really was.

Shaw sat still for a minute, her face concentrated on the back of Root's head. For those 60 seconds, Shaw had no idea what she could do if her cover was blown, and was kicking herself for not thinking of this contingency.

Root, turned around once again to see Shaw so still and silent, like an animal ready to pounce.

"It was just a joke." Root offered with a chuckle, and at that Shaw felt such relief. Of course Root hadn't figured out who she was. The woman was too bloody naive and innocent and adorable. Ugh.

Shaw offered a soft smile at that, and Root's phone - or was that a pager? - started to buzz. Root immediately got up at that, picking it up and apologizing to Shaw.

"I'm so sorry Sameen, it's mom - have to go check on her now."

Root's mother - was an in a coma and in the last stages of dying a painful death. Root had rambled on about how she tried to explain to her mother that death would be much better and infinitely less painful than staying alive on a number of machines, but her mother hadn't agreed and so was now just barely breathing and living on constant life support.

"She didn't want to die in a hospital, so I had them move all the equipment here." Root had explained when she had shown Shaw around the house.

Shaw nodded at that, and the minute Root was out of the room, immediately started snooping on Root's computer for any intel, but she had no luck. There were pages and pages of code, but Shaw couldn't make head or tail of it. She tried her best of find anything, but it was all in vain.

Music started to play from somewhere downstairs, something grunge - and Shaw could hear Root's footsteps coming back - but she still couldn't stop searching Root's computer. Sure enough, Root did enter a few seconds later, but wasn't at all shocked at seeing Shaw peruse through her computer files.

"Wanna see something cool?" Root grinned, walking over to Shaw and leaning over Shaw, typing away at the computer.

Shaw was doing everything to not focus on the fact that Root was so close to her, and the guilt she was feeling, so she tried to listen to the music that was playing downstairs.

Like the coldest winter chill, Heaven besides you - Hell within

Like the coldest winter will, Heaven besides you - Hell within

And you think you have it still, Heaven inside you.

The lyrics did hit quite close to home for Shaw, so she had to snap out of that too, sadly.

"Nice music isn't it? Mother always liked grunge, and rock. I like to play it - I think she can hear it." Root rambled, swiftly typing away at the computer.

"THERE!" She exclaimed, running some sort of simulator - which to Shaw's surprise - started to play something that looked like an animated dog.

OH dear God, why am I doing this to this sweet woman.

Root, when on to show everything the dog could do (which looked like everything), and even got Sameen to agree to let her install the damn program on her own computer. Shaw felt that agreeing to everything the hacker was suggesting would help her go on with her plan.

Time's running out Shaw.

It was 4:36 in the evening, and Shaw knew she couldn't delay any further. Root had stepped out once again to check on her mom, and Shaw knew that she had delayed too much - and now she was going to have to kidnap this woman in front of her invalid mother.

I am bad person.

Shaw silently crept downstairs and into the huge make-shift bedroom where Root's mother was in her vegetative state, all the monitors and machinery making a loud racket and covering any sound Shaw made. Shaw had expected Root to be there too, but she wasn't. This gave Shaw some time to pull out the injection she had in her pocket and ready herself to shove into Root's neck. The injection had some sort of drug which would make Root extremely suggestive and compliant, and most importantly - make her forget the whole episode that would follow. Another advantage of the drug would be that it would slow down her heart rate rapidly - thus making sure Root would not be in a frenzy whilst she was being whisked away to hack the servers.

Shaw hardly breathed, deciding to wait for Root to make her appearance instead of going after her.

I'm so sorry Mrs. Greenfield.

Shaw suddenly noticed something in the metallic reflection off one of the medical machines surrounding Root's mother. She was already armed with her injection - and was ready to attack Root with it - when she caught Root's image in the reflection. She couldn't see much of Root's face, just her mouth and her neck, but the sinister smile she saw was enough to send a shiver down her spine.

All of a sudden - nothing made sense to Shaw. She was about to try and piece all she knew together - but it was too late.

What happened next was all a blur.