Cht 10

Returning Home (Part 2)

Present day:

"What kind of a smart ass calls himself Vespa any ways?" Muses Fusco, without the humour, trying to engage with Goose, who sits motionless beside him, unflinching.

After a moment's silence he replies, "yeah, he was always a goof like that" and gets out the car.

With a hand on his shoulder, "come on", Fusco urges now standing beside Goose, both staring at the house in front of them. They walk up the steps to the front door, and after a deep breath, Goose knocks heavily on the front door.

An old man answers it with kindness upon spotting, "Ricky!" he greets in surprise and confusion as he looks round for his own son, "where's George? Is he goofing around again?" As he continues to smile expectantly, waiting for another of their crazy stories.

Leaning on the doorway watching Root sleep, Shaw is disturbed from her trance by a figure standing behind her. As his presence doesn't move, Shaw turns round to find him also looking at Root, pausing deep in thought before snapping his attention back to Shaw. It had been a rough 24 hours.

He tilts his head indicating for Shaw to follow him. Shaw looks back at Root before reluctantly following Reese through the office as agents around them continue to clear up.

As Daizo is tapping away on his laptop, he transfers two hundred million dollars to the Tamaki Kids Cancer Foundation. Satisfied the transfer is complete, he closes his laptop and throws it in the back seat before getting out the car and looking across the street. T he same street where he stood when the police officer had put that hand on his shoulder. A consolatory smile creeps over his face, turning his grandparents home into a place of shelter for others in need, this was the best way to honour both his friend and ancestors.

A figure wanders close, and stands beside him, waking him from his thoughts. With that casual tilt of the head, Root looks on, amused as she also looks to the kids playing on the front garden.

They watch as a small boy is being taught how to ride a bicycle by his older sister. As the older sister runs along beside him as he peddles, holding onto the handlebar to keep him upright. Suddenly something blocks Daizo's view... Staring at it, 'a sweet wrapper' , and takes it from Root's outstretched hand. Realising it was a Chichi dango, Daizo spins round and looks up at Root. Root only looks back in amusement and shrugs, 'what?'

Daizo is snapped out of his reminiscence as the bed in front of him shakes a little. Daizo quickly stands up straight, still lingering at the doorway of the medical room. As Root slowly comes too, Daizo ventures a little further in and pours a glass of water, waiting.

After readjusting to the light, Root realises Daizo is standing in front of her, and she smiles warmly to acknowledge him. This in turn prompts Daizo to walk to the side of the bed and hand her the glass of water, calling, "Onee san", truly happy to be able to see his big sister again as he continues to grin at her.

They end up in the training room, and Shaw's gut was already telling her to brace for impact as Reese picks up two sets of boxing gloves from the box and then steps onto the mats, stopping in the middle of them. Seeing this, the other recruits and agents already on the mats slowly stop and clear a path for him. Hesitating, Shaw approaches Reese, and a pair of gloves are thrown at her.

Catching them she glares back, 'don't do this' in her own harden expression, as the others in the room start to inch closer towards the impending battle, curious.

Reese finishes putting on his gloves, waiting for Shaw to follow. The instant Shaw finishes tying on the second glove Reese was already swinging at her, left hook.

Always alert, Shaw manages to parry it away in time to also block Reese's right punch as she moves to shield her head.

Reese smirks and takes a step back, challenging her and urging her forward. The tension and chattering volume around the room increasing with every passing second. Seeing Shaw not moving from her spot, Reese moves forward towards her instead and throws two more punches, which Shaw again, blocks, "what's the matter Shaw?! Lost something?" Reese gibes ...

Unusually Reese is able to get a rise from Shaw, but this time his words didn't, and Reese knew as he moves forward again throwing punches in all directions. After a round, he stops, and lets out a puff of air in laughter, taunting her. "Where are you, Shaw!?" He continues to challenge her.

The corners of Shaw's mouth starts to twitch and she moves quickly to the side and punches hard into Reese's defenceless side, connecting and hitting him with full force. Reese doubles over slightly wincing in pain as the stitches on his wound from the shooting last night is split open.

"Right here" she sneers back, clearly now annoyed at this, whatever it was. She had somewhere more important to be. Reese smiles a wicked smile to the ground as he stands up again, pain subsiding. They go at each other again exchanging rounds after round, neither of them actually fully letting go of their anger, yet.

As this was taking place, a couple of the recruits took it upon themselves to go inform Dr Campbell, however as Iris reaches the training room, she can only watch helplessly on as her cries for Reese to stop remain unheeded.

"Come on John, you can do better than that!" Shaw teases as they break momentarily to catch their breaths .

Snorting with rising anger, Reese moves in and they exchange again ….

Emotions are messy in this line of work. Too much of it could get you killed. Too little of it causes others pain. With all that had taken place, the deaths, survivor's guilt, the moving on, this new operation, training the recruits, running numbers... And now putting Iris in danger too, at that moment, it was too much for Reese to bear. Emotions are complex at the best of times. Even more so when there are two individuals incapable of dealing with them.

Catching Reese off guard in his own thoughts, Shaw drops to the ground and roundhouse kicks his legs from under him. Sick of this shxt, Shaw jumps on him and relieves the last of the anger she was holding back and strikes Reese with lightening quick short punches to the head as Reese uses his arms to shield the attack, trying to ignore the pain of the blood pouring out from his wound as the stitches have now clearly opened out.

Iris watches on in horror, and the mood of the room has grown from excited energy to nervous tension as others stand helpless, afraid to stop the increasingly violent fight. Even Bear was now whining pacing in the corner, having wandered over from his bed after seeing his two adults come into the room.

Shaw stops punching as she catches a glimpse of Root standing in front of her in the distance in the corner of her eye. Root's arm around Daizo's neck, while Daizo was supporting her waist, having clearly helped Root stumble to the training room.

Seeing Shaw pause and watching something in front of her, Reese takes the opportunity and throws an upper cut.

Shaw manages to move out of Reese's direct line of punch, however he still manages to catch her on the chin, sending Shaw crashing back onto the mat.

As Reese gets up to follow up on his attack he's stopped by Root's cry, "John!"

Reese half standing, half crouching, sits back down onto the mat upon hearing his first name, and that familiar voice. Shaw was still lying flat on her back from the upper cut. Both now unmoving and catching their breaths.

Iris continues to watch on from the side, glad the fighting had stopped, but also sad realising she could not stop it herself. She wondered, in disappointment, whether she would ever become that anchor for Reese. Like those knowing nods and looks he and Shaw shared. Or the soft spot Reese has for Root, that with just a call of his name can bring him back to his senses. Iris couldn't help but feel a little jealous.

"Shaw", Root urges with her soft tone, "time to go".

With that, Shaw takes off her gloves as she stands, and throws them to the ground. She takes a moment to brush herself off, stretching her body and extending especially the right side of her neck and jaw, checking for damage levels. 'Nothing broken', she confirms to herself as she glances at Reese one more time as she walks past him, and takes Root from Daizo.

Iris is now wandering over to Reese herself and kneels down in front of him in concern. The crowd in the room now also slowly dispersing, the show was over.

Iris helps Reese up, and takes him to the medical room to stitch his would back up.' Clearly' , she assessed, 'Neither of them have a healthy emotional outlet, she would have to change that.'

The Shooter stands watching from a short distance as the agents unload their SUVs of the computer equipment they had stolen from Team Machine's office, and into their own warehouse. The crates of weapons they stole from the smugglers at the warehouse weeks ago also now sitting in their own warehouse. Thinking back, it was satisfying taking things from The Machine and it's teams.

Inside, operations are being overseen by the now free tall confident woman, watching as The Machine equipment is being rebuilt inside the faraday cage.

Just in time, as the lights and machines flicker back on as the power cut issue is restored.

Next time Root comes round she realises that she's in Shaw's arms being carried up some stairs. They stop outside 6D, and despite now being fully awake, she watches as Shaw delicately balances her with one arm and a leg while trying to wrestle open the door. She couldn't help herself as she breathes Sameen in, her muscles, her grunting sounds as she tries to work out a problem, and her scent. Root smiles.

As Shaw closes the apartment door and about to spin back round to the sofa where she left Root, she near bumps into the woman who is now so close she is nearly on top of her. Before Shaw can react from the surprise, she feels pain shoot from her jaw to her head as Root has stretched out her arm and is pressing down on the bruise now forming on her jaw.

Root frustrates, "stop, whatever it is you're doing", but is only met with more confusion by Shaw as she looks at Root blankly, before looking away momentarily to wince and stretch out her throbbing jaw, again.

Seeing the confusion, Root stops pressing on the jaw, sighs, and changes tactic. Softly encouraging, "Sweetie, you haven't left my side since..." ' I came out of my coma'. In a whisper of regret and sadness looking away from Shaw's gaze, "I'm sorry I left". It hurt Root to see Shaw react with such anger with Reese, alerting Root of Shaw's still manifesting pain.

Realising what Root meant, and in a panic to stop Root from blaming herself, and since words continue to fail her, Shaw uncharacteristically places a hand over Root's mouth to stop her from talking further.

Root takes the hand, kisses it and moves it away from her face, still holding it, "I'm right here."

Shaw looks away realising the impact of Root's words. She had nothing to be sorry about. They both didn't need to be, there were just a lot of residual, feelings, from all that has taken place, and neither Shaw nor Reese knew how to handle all these... Feelings...

After a long silence, recovering, Shaw looks back at Root who is now gazing at her with those eyes, both of Root's hands now placed on top of each of Shaw's shoulders.

"Sameen", Root calls playfully, "where are we?"

Both Root and Shaw now look around, still unmoving from their spot, to assess the apartment they're now standing in.

Unsure Shaw shrugs, both with widening smiles creeping across their face...