Three months after you took that tumble, your arm has fully healed, but your bones are being slower than you thought they would. You spend most of your time in bed, but you hardly get enough sleep, because the nightmares have been in full force. Once again, you are shaken awake by a very distraught Root; but before you can control the reflex, the heel of your hand collides in full force with the soft spot where her ribcage parts. She stumbles backwards, trying to gain some balance, and collapses in a heap at the foot of the bed, gasping for breath. You crawl over to her but she sticks her arm out, placing her hand on your shoulder. You're not sure if she's trying to keep you away or touch you to acknowledge she knows your there. You figure it's the first one, because she only does the second option when she's writing code and is in full robot mode.
"I'm.. I'm sorry Root I didn't mean to," she shakes her head in response and you stop talking because she's still catching her breath. She takes a couple gulps of air and after a minute or two her diaphragm appears to be mobile again. She slowly removes her hand from your shoulder and walks into the kitchen to get some water. You've accidentally taken a swing or two at her before, but this is by far the hardest you've ever hit her. You wait about a minute for her to come back, but eventually you just give up and follow her out of the room. She's laying on the couch, computer out, but glasses off. Upon seeing you, she gives you a soft smile and closes her computer, coaxing you over with a wave. You limp over to her and sit down as she pulls you in between her legs, just holding you. You're constricted and you hate it, but you did just use her organs as a punching bag so you settle on a grimace instead of pulling away completely. When she drops a few kisses to the top of your head though, you squirm away.
"Sorry Sam, I know you hate that," she sounds so distant and while you do hate when she does that you're more confused than anything else. You hurt her and she's not angry at you, she just pulls you close instead of trying to hurt you back. Root breaks all the rules that you thought you had mastered, her emotions are so much more complex than the three main ones you thought existed. Eventually she takes a deep breath and finally asks you the question you know she's been holding back for months.
"What do you keep dreaming about?" it's so quiet that you barely hear her; she sounds so weak, and it's the only thing that keeps you from rolling your eyes and storming off. You shrug and close your eyes, leaning back against her,
"I dunno. CIA stuff mostly. It's stupid," she sucks in a sharp breath, you never talk about the CIA, and she never asks. Even though she's behind you, you know she's literally biting her lip to stay quiet. She busies herself by lacing her fingers through yours, playing with them while she waits for you to speak.
"My parents are dead," you blurt out. You don't know why you say it, Root is perfectly aware how and when they died. You shake your head, trying to regroup your thoughts.
"After my mom died, I got sent thrown into the foster system, but before I was assigned a foster home they made me do all this testing. At first it was regular school testing, but then this woman kept talking to me and then there were these physical abilities tests after her. It was bizarre. I must have done something weird because instead of getting a normal foster home I basically got sent to the CIA," you chuckle. You leave out most of the details, and honestly you assume Root already knows them.
"I kind of thought it was gonna be like Agent Cody Banks."
"I... I don't know what that is.."
"That's because you're old," she flicks you in the ear and you're relieved to hear her laugh for the first time tonight.
"Remember when you had your stapedectomy? The uppers in one arm and downers in the other?" she nods, and you chew on your lip because you know she's not going to like this.
"They did that to us on the first day, apparently it's to weed out the weak ones," you hear her swallow, and her palms get a bit sweaty.
"Root you're clammy. I don't have to tell you this if you don't want me to," she shakes her head,
"Keep going, it might help with the nightmares," you shrug but continue, omitting most of the meat of the academy because you don't want her to do something weird. Like cry.
"I didn't really mind the academy that much at first. We learned a lot, and got a lot of weapons training, which was my favourite part. But there was also a lot of torture training: sleep deprivation, pins under fingernails, weird hallucinogens, whatever they could come up with really. I was good at that too. But a lot of kids would go missing, I didn't really care, but I had this partner, Cole, who started questioning where they went. They killed him. So I ran," you shrug and turn around to look at Root, who seems to be unable to stop blinking. Maybe she knew less than you thought.
"And then.. You found me," You tilt your head back and look at her upside down.
"Do we have any food?" She rolls her eyes and nods, heading to the kitchen to fry up some midnight eggs and bacon.
It takes your body five and a half months to fully heal. Or at least that's what Root says, because even though you felt better after four, she still made you stay at home and rest. You wake up feeling rested, because whatever, Root was right, talking about the CIA drama did actually do wonders for your whole nightmare situation. It's just past six am, so you sneak out of bed and throw on running clothes because you're taking Bear for a real run, no more of this three mile limit nonsense. Just as you're opening the front door, two power bars stuffed in your mouth (it's possible you need more protein than the average olympian), Root pads into the kitchen to brew her first pot of coffee. She squints at you, no doubt trying to see who you are without glasses on, and smirks,
"Bear taking you out for a walk?" you roll your eyes and close the door behind you. You're absolutely positive that Root is standing in the kitchen, chuckling to herself, because she's the only person in the entire world that thinks she's funny.
You run as far and as fast as you can, but your body is so weak now, for you at least. You'd done some exercise, but Root limited you pretty severely, and every time you did anything she would wince in fear of your pain. You hobble back to your apartment once you drop Bear off at the library, and upon entering you hear Root arguing with Finch over the phone. It's the same argument they were having when you had gotten to the library to pick Bear up almost two hours ago, and you keep hearing the word Samaritan and apocalypse being used in the same sentence. She doesn't even acknowledge you when you walk in, and even when you push her out of the way of the sink to get a glass of water, all she does is squeeze your shoulder for a second before disappearing off to the bedroom to get her coat.
"I'm going to the library," is all she says to you before slamming the door behind her. You may or may not pout slightly before running a hot shower and settling down with a stack of new textbooks that Root got you yesterday.
Root returns a couple hours later, clearly having calmed down, and joins you on the couch. You're thoroughly annotating the page as she starts running her fingers through your hair.
"I want to be a doctor," you look up and study her face.
"Well you can always play doctor with me," she smirks at you but you shake your head.
"Root I want to go to school," she inhales slowly and gnaws on her lip. You laugh to yourself because you're pretty sure this is the first time you've ever asked for anything and she hasn't immediately said yes. She sighs quietly and squeezes your shoulder,
"I'll talk to Harry about it. You'd have to stay in New York though. If he says yes," a tiny grin etches it's way across your face, she didn't say no after all.
You often find yourself jealous of Roots missions, because she gets to constantly switch identities. Tonight she emerges from the bedroom clad in a long blue evening gown, and you assume she's probably pretending to be someone's wife or mistress. She walks over to the textbook fort you seem to have made, and turns around, indicating for you to zip her dress.
"I'll be back around midnight if everything goes smoothly. Please eat Sameen," you roll your eyes because you're an adult and you know how to feed yourself. She turns around and sneaky kisses your forehead and you shove her away even though she smells really good tonight and you're not creepy for noticing because she was the one who got all close to you in the first place. She leaves and you keep reading on the couch, because when Root is gone you like to sleep close to the door in case there's a burglar or demon or whatever. Plus the bed is really giant and it's too much space for one person.
Before you realize you've fallen asleep, you're being woken by Root, who is drunk on champagne. She's squatting next to your head, and you're honestly amazed she can bend her knees enough to get that low because her legs are super long and you kind of figured she was only ever able to be tall. You turn to face her and she giggles and kisses the tip of your nose, which you scrunch up and then immediately turn away from her. She kisses you again just behind your ear and whispers in it,
"I love you Sameen Shaw," and you're kind of shocked because, duh, of course she does, but this is the first time she's ever actually said it. She stands up and walks to the bedroom, looking all noodley in her drunkenness.
"I know," you say, and she looks back and gives you a stupid two eyed wink. She reemerges from the room wearing sweatpants with her hair tied up and she comes over and scoops you off the couch; she's weak and you're made of solid muscle, but there's still barely 100 pounds of you so somehow she manages to get you into the bed. Before you can comment though, she's laying next to you, giggling and whispering to the machine. You're laughing at her because she's so ridiculous, but there's a dark twisty feeling bubbling up inside. You wish you could love as simply as she does. She turns on her side and reaches over to thread her fingers through yours, she's looking at you like you're at some stupid slumber party, and you just want to go to sleep by your brain won't turn off.
"Goodnight Samwich," she laughs and is asleep before you can even roll your eyes.
