A/N: *This was inspired by a scene from the movie Magnolia, and a scene from the tv show Monk.
*Also while her issue with her father isn't the main source of all her problems it was somewhat of a catalyst. And for now at this point in her life it's the only issue she can overcome. Her abandonment issues will take a while, but slowly she's learning to overcome it.
*I had this chapter written before I started Retribution. Originally I wanted Cyrus Wells to be Root's father because it would have been a treasure chest of internal conflict to explore in Root. I would have gone with this too, but the only problem was that Cyrus was in his mid to late forties. He'd need to be at least 58-60.
"Fancy meeting you here," the hacker purred. Guiding her companion to a small table. A nice caramel latte and a little peace and quiet at her local coffee shop before her flight back 'home' was on her itinerary.
Although she never considered Bishop, Texas 'home', to her home was anywhere she belonged. Anywhere with her and her Sameen. Meeting her girlfriend's cousin at said coffee shop wasn't on the itinerary, but Root wasn't complaining. Maybe the Machine sensed her internal conflicts, and decided to send aid.
"Look who's back to smiles and chiches. Glad things are starting to right themselves." Oded said. The two friends grabbed a small table at the far end of the shop. Avoiding all the hipsters and windows. Shaw taught her well.
"So...that coffee to put a little pep in your step, or take the edge off? If it's the latter, save your money. They sell booze on the plane." Root pinched her straw, as she took in a small sip.
"Both. I guess."
"What time's you flight?"
"Nine-thirty." The woman murmured into her latte.
"Hey," it took a second before the concerned tone resonated within the hacker. It was enough to get her to re-focus her attention. "What did I tell you when I rescued you in Sri Lanka?," Oded asked.
All the woman could muster was a chuckle. Of course she knew what he was referring to.
"You remember, Root. What did I tell you when I helped you out of that hospital bed, before we ditched the cell?"
Root sighed. "You told me that after everything I'd been through, everything Sameen and I had been through. I don't get to have a sad ending. Samaritan doesn't get that luxury."
"A notion I still stand behind," the man smirked, wiping coffee off his lips with the embroidered napkin.
Cocking her head, and blinking in disbelief. "Our choices define us," the woman lamented.
"True, but I believe that a person is truly measured by how they respond to their choices."
"How are you this wise?" Root smiled?
Leaning over the small table the soldier motions for his companion to do the same.
"Between the two of us...I'm just a student of kung fu and action films, but don't tell anyone," Oded smiled.
Root leaned back smirking. "Hmmm so what movie was that from."
"That my friend, was from an Angel graphic novel."
The Perky psycho couldn't help but chuckle in the midst of shaking her head. "Boy was I the only one who didn't like that show?" Getting up she throws a smile over her shoulder at her friend while dropping her coffee cup in the trash.
"You and Sam, take good care of Bear for me while I'm gone."
Oded nodded in affirmation.
LaGuardia International Airport
Queens, New York
9:00 am
Stepping off the moving walkway, the rollers from a small suitcase echoed throught the unusually bare airport. She'd be lying to herself if she said she wasn't agitated. It's taken her thirty eight years to take this final step.
Thirty Eight years, and only for a few fleeting seconds did she ever wonder what this would be like. There wasn't much time left, maybe a day at best. Part of her was still very hesitant, but the desire for atonement outweighed her reluctance.
As she neared closer and closer to her gate, the woman accepted that like many significant events in her life, she'd be going at it alone.
Or so she thought.
The troubled woman found herself joined by a second rolling suitcase on her way towards the gate.
"I knew you couldn't stay away," she batted her eyelashes.
"Don't get all sentimental. I didn't come to hold your hand. I'm here to make sure you didn't get beaten and dragged off your flight, in case they overbooked," Shaw replied grumpily.
"And you needed a paddle, a harness and your favorite toy, to bust some heads open?" Root stared at her adoringly while The Machine relayed the contents of Shaw's suitcase.
This time Shaw didn't mind as they both eye sexed each other to their gate.
Ca-Choink the loud metal handle clicked as a heavy wood furnished door swings open. Slowly two shadows pass over the Heritage-Johnson Hospice Room 05 plaque on the heavy wooden door, underneath it a tag reading 'Boyd Polk'. The sound of their footsteps on the cold tile floor filled the dark bleak room, drowned out by the beeping of several machines: Morphine drip, heart monitor, and most importantly the dialysis machine.
Root stands at the foot of the hospital bed. Gazing for the first time in her life, at a man she never knew, the man who brought her into this world, and among other things caused her so much pain in life. Sameen Shaw casually strolled to a more isolated end of the large bleak hospice room. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, before slowly leaning back against the cold concrete wall. She kept to herself and tried her best to not make her presence known. It wasn't their moment, it was Root's.
The brave woman stood with a cold demeanor gazing at the unconscious man in the bed. Taking in his features, learning where she got some of her own, she noticed a minor resemblance, only minor. Most of her looks came from her mother.
Samantha Groves takes in a deep breath. Her stoic cold expression unchanging.
"Hey there, Boyd", she instantly transitioned into her chipper affect. "You're looking a little under the weather there." Root fakes a sad smirk
Taking a few steps forward, the perky woman gribs the cold side rail of the hospital bed, leaning and craning her upper body over the terminally ill man. "Forgive me, we've never met. We have..." she shakes her head and chuckles "Sorry, we had a mutual friend. April Groves. You used to run around with her waaaay back in the day."
Root leans back resting her elbows on the side rail of the bed before positioning her head between her hands, all while maintaining the smug demeanor. "I don't blame you. Mom, was quite the catch back then."
Root giggles, reaching over to flick his nose a couple of times with her index finger. Before returning back to her previous position. "Mmmm, I know you can hear me Boyd", she put a little extra sting on his name. "You heard it right. 'Mom'. Does it take you back about thirty eight years ago? Back to a conversation you both had outside a bar where she may have let it slip that she was pregnant..." Roots tone transcends from chipper to full out snarl. Sameen glanced up at her, hearing every word the woman said. "with...your...daughter?" Pure venom seeping out at that statement.
Lunging upright back into a standing position Root glances behind her, observing all of the monitors, all their little buttons, and functions. She cocks her head to the side, the bright white overhead light emphasizes her perky little nose. "You know...I was five the first time I asked about you." She grunts "had to wait until the wee hours of the morning. About 2:30, before Mom's shift ended at the diner." Root shifts her head back into the normal position, her knuckles turn white as she grips the side rail with vigor. "really rough day at kindergarten that day. Parent's day. Had to watch everyone else parade their parents in front of the class like show and tell. Mom got stuck working a double. Won't believe how I had to get home."
"No reason a little girl should have to stay up until 2 in the morning, but hey, I wanted to know...", she grits her teeth, "where...was...daddy?"
"Second time I asked she finally told me the truth. I'd just met Hanna when I was ten and a half, watched her parents pick her up from school that day. Mom and a dad, loaded her up into their pickup and took off. So I had to know. Now there's only so many ways you can be so subtle about telling your daughter that her father's a meth head, but hey you gotta hand it to April. She gave it the old college try."
The woman gives the dying man a contemptful glance. "Look's like it finally caught up to ya didn't it Boyd."
Root relinquishes her grip on the rail. Heaving a sigh, she walks across the room. The echoing click of her high heels filled the otherwise silent room. Grabbing a chair she drags it across the room, not caring that it scrapes the floor. The bitter woman shoves it few feet away from the monitors. Proceeding to sit down on the side of Boyd Polk, her father's bed. Slouching down she folds one leg over the other. Looking at her fingernails, then filing them.
"She waited. Boy she really waited for your call. I know because I was there, in the hospital room as she held on. Hoping that maybe, god forbid you'd come take care of your daughter. So that SOMEONE would look after her daughter." Calmly Root stashes the file away in her jacket, before lunging upward, furiously grabbing at the rails, leaning right over the man's torso, finally fiving into her rage. "Eight hours, Eight goddamn hours I waited at the Hospital as they tried to contact my next of kin. I HAD NO ONE."
Root began hyperventilating as she continued to unleash her fury. "I used what little money I had, hailed a cab, went back to the trailer we lived in, gathered a few essentials and I burned the goddamn thing down Boyd, I burned it to the fucking ground."
Sameen glances over at Root, this is becoming hard for her to hear. Root's been a ticking time bomb the past month and she's about to blow.
"Yeah Boyd, I wanted you to hear that. I want you to know that I spent the next twenty years of my life as a ruthless killer for hire, forcing myself to commit numerous attrocities, and I want you to know that because I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU FUCKING BASTARD, AND I REALLY HOPE IT FUCKING HURTS!"
Emotion started to overload the angry woman. Root looks upward, breathing heavily. "No...I will not cry for you. You don't fucking deserve it you fucking bastard!" She braces herself, still looking upward, her fists shaking, breathing heavily. "I FUCK- I FUCKI-", she can't hold it anymore. The woman starts bawling her eyes out, sniveling and sobbing harder than she has in her life. "I fucking hate you!" She wails "You fucking bastard, whhhhhyyyyy didn't you want me?!"
Sameen dashed out of the room in that instant. Before her mind could even process it, somehow her legs started moving. Closing the door behind her. Sameen rolls her eyes upward. Leaning against the door, the Persian woman found herself breathing rapidly. Shaw closed her eyes, trying to regain her composure. She couldn't stand to see Root hurt so much. She eyes a water fountain across the hall. Relying on that short walk to calm down, Sameen finally lowers her head down and takes a drink. She's caught off guard when she sees a little boy standing before her, as she turns around to head back. The kid couldn't have been any older than ten.
"Why were you in that room, do you know that man?" The kid asked politely.
"Not particularly, kid."
"Why were you and that other woman in there, who is she?"
Shaw heaves a patient sigh, trying her best not to be annoyed. "She's my girlfriend", Shaw looks down at the floor before she continues "she wanted to say goodbye to her father."
"Ohhh ok." The kid runs back down the hall where he's greeted by a small group of older people. From what Shaw gathers they sent him down to gather information, they must be family. Technically Root's family. Sameen observes the gathering, finally taking notice to the shameful, disapproving glances being thrown her way by the adults. They're probably going to hassle them in a few minutes.
Root really doesn't need this shit right now. Shaw mulled, before taking a deep breath. Walking back into the hospice room, she found Root sobbing her eyes out, struggling to get the words out in between her anger and sniffles.
"God d-damn you asshole d-d-don't you fucking go away. I fucking hate you." Root bawled.
Root shook, gasping for air between sobs. The pain wouldn't let up, her whole body shook, she failed time and time again trying to catch her breath. Fighting off the unrelenting feeling that she was going to puke.
Close to five minutes passed before Root finally calmed down enough. Squeezing the dying man's hand she decides to do something drastic, no vengeful.
Her eyes lock on the morphine drip. Off in the corner Sameen stood awestruck, feeling the rage consuming her girlfriend.
"Oh man, You know I saved the world. I finally met some great people, even fell in love," she says calmly. "Died saving the world, died twice on an operating table. Alone, isolated, couldn't even tell the love of my life or my friends goodbye. I finally change, do the right thing, and they bury me in a cheap grave. No name, just a number in Potter's field."
Root's eyes never move away from the screen, as she continues in a calm cold tone. "But you, Boyd. You get to be put in a marked grave. You get to be remembered by people. I save the world and history writes me off, just like...you wrote me off. So I want you to know Boyd...", Root tightens her grip around his hand, and pounds on one final key on the screen, shutting off his morphine drip as a sadistic smile creeps up her face, "that this is Samantha Groves, your daughter turning off this drip, because she fucking hates you and you deserve to suffer, you bastard."
Root turns around watching the terminally ill man stir and quiver, taking delight in his pain and suffering. Then it happened. Root feels a very brief squeeze on her hand, from her father.
Looking back upward, Root desperatley attempts once again to not cry. No matter how much she tries to fight it, the tormented hacker and former assassin acknowledges the brief hand squeeze as a sign, maybe even an apology. She was flooded with thoughts of her entire ordeal, in the past month. The things she had come to realize.
"And this..." She forces out giving into the tears "is Root, the woman she became, after losing herself and spending most of her life trying to be something she wasn't...turning it back on and f-f-forgiving you."
Root taps the switch, powering the machine back on. She looks at Sameen, giving her the signal that it's time to leave.
Sameen rushed in front of her. "Let me go first Root." Expecting a shitstorm outside the room. Shaw wants to face it first, spare Root the pain. "We're going to have company."
Sameen flings the wodden door open, true to form ahead of them is a small gathering of people. The same exact group she spotted down the hall, the same group that sent a child to do their spy work. That was a dead giveaway that they weren't dealing with easygoing country folk.
"Do we know you two?" The older woman of the group asked. She couldn't have been older than sixty. Her graying hair and southern drawl, followed by the slightly judgmental tone of her question was a dead giveaway as to the type of person she was.
Sameen clenched her jaw, ready to strike with her words. Before Sameen could utter the first letter of the first syllable a hand lightly touched her shoulder. Her cousin stepped forward, the normal one of the three, he was going to smooth this whole thing over. "Sorry for the confusion, I know this must be awkward" he stated so naturally, "My name is Sam Groves. This is my...best friend Sameen."
A younger woman around the age of Root and Sameen, rudely cuts her off. Shaw, inferred in an instant that the younger woman must be Root's cousin, the older her paternal aunt. "No, she told my son, she was your girlfriend."
Root practically melted at the G-word, but unfortunatley this wasn't the time to gush. No, she could do that later. Sameen rolls her eyes at the relevaltion, and Root's adoring smirk towards her.
"We are...together, anyway. I'll be up front with you ma'am, I'm Boyd Polk's estranged daughter. Close to forty years ago he concieved a child with April Groves, she was a local around Bishop."
"Yeah, I knew who'she was." The woman older woman cut her off, in her shrill southern voice.
"All we came here for was so that Sam could have a little closure, say her goodbyes." Sameen remarked.
"You gotta hell of a lotta nerve showin' up here while Boyd's on's deathbed," The woman ostracized.
"We're just leaving." Root grabbed Shaw's hand. Preparing to walk away.
"Boy...he would've hated having a dyke for a daughter," the younger woman confessed behind the duo's back. Not realizing they both heard the dig.
Shaw dug her feet into the ground instantly. Her girlfriend quickly took notice of the fire in her eyes. "Seriously...that's your main hang up? Who she shares a bed with?" Shaw spun around.
Root followed a furious Shaw, as she marched back up to the Polk family.
The three stood in horror as Sameen Shaw looked truly menacing up close.
"How about..." Shaw bit. "Instead of condemnation you give her what she truly deserves."
"And what would that be?," the older woman, Boyd's sister challenged.
"You...owe...her...awe."
Not realizing the people they were dealing with, the Polk women shot the short Persian woman an incredulous glare.
"SHE is always going to be the formidable Samantha Groves. A true force to be reckoned with," Shaw snarled. Pointing to her girlfriend. "SHE has saved the world twice, with our private security firm. Not only that but she saves countless sorry asses like you on a daily basis. And Hell, she's even made a few people's lives worth saving."
Despite the tears, Root couldn't help but smile. The implication was not lost on her.
But Shaw, she was far from done. Continuing her verbal evisceration she points at her girlfriend once again. "SHE is beautiful and perfect just the way she is. So the next time you feel like tackling a force of nature, just remember your place as the scourge of society. Because that's all you'll ever be!"
Both women soaked up the looks of horror on the Polk family, reveling in it. Until Sameen grabbed Root's arm. "C'mon Root." The Persian woman marched down the hallway with Root in tow.
Oh Yeah, Shaw was definitely getting laid tonight.
*Stay tuned for Pt. 2. Root and Shaw have one more stop to make!
*Drop a comment. Tell me your thoughts and feelings. Criticism only encourages me to try harder.