Root wasn't surprised that Shaw wasn't in bed when she woke up. She didn't know how long she'd been asleep, but she could guess that it had been for many hours. She sat up in the dim light that was coming from the subway car and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her bare feet hitting the cold ground.

She heard the shower turn on and realized that she must have been woken up by Sameen closing the bathroom door.

Root stood up and ran her hands through her tangled hair, using the light from the subway car to make her way to the fusebox, flipping the switch for the rest of the station and squinting her eyes against the sudden bright light. As soon as the lights came on, Bear came trotting out of the car to greet her, circling her knees with his tongue hanging out of his mouth happily.

They walked back to the subway car together.

On one of the seats, the laptop was open and on. Root paused, looking at the screen from a distance. There was a document open on the screen, simple black text on a white page. Root couldn't be sure, but it looked like the same screen that Shaw had hidden so quickly the first time that Root had walked in when she was using the laptop. Root listened to the shower running, then looked at the dog, sitting beside her, entirely unperturbed.

"This is our little secret," Root told the dog. He stood up, his tail wagging, and she crouched beside the plastic chair, turning the laptop so that she could see the page better.

She looked at the clock on the computer. It was almost 10am. She couldn't believe she'd slept so long. It had to have been at least ten hours, if not longer.

Then she looked at the document and started to read:

"I go to school with Walter," I began again. "He's your boy, ain't he? Ain't he, sir?"

Mr. Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.

"He's in my grade," I said, "and he does right well. He's a good boy," I added, "a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won't you?"

Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in. Mr. Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.

"Entailments are bad," I was advising him, when I slowly awoke to the fact that I was addressing the entire aggregation. The men were all looking at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atticus had stopped poking at Jem: they were standing together beside Dill. Their attention amounted to fascination. Atticus's mouth, even, was half-open, an attitude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it.

Root had figured out what she was reading before she looked at the name of the file.

It was To Kill A Mockingbird.

If the file was indeed what Shaw had been hiding, Sameen was reading the novel. And if the page that was open on the computer screen was any indication, Shaw appeared to be about halfway through the book.

Root recalled referencing the work days earlier, teasing Shaw about her relationship with Finch, like he was her father. Shaw had seemed irritated by the implication, and it had been clear that it wasn't because she found it inaccurate- it was annoying to her because she didn't understand it.

And now it appeared that she was reading the book.

The sudden wave of affection for Shaw took Root by surprise, and she pressed her lips together against a sad smile that wanted to form and bring with it the burn of tears.

She reacted so strongly because this spoke volumes about Shaw. She had not only listened to what Root had said, she was interested in the reference that had been made. Shaw liked learning and understanding things. She didn't like to iadmit/i that she was learning, but when she realized there was a hole in her mental database, she liked to find the information to fill that hole.

She wondered if she should bring up the book again, or if she should wait for Shaw to mention it. She couldn't be sure if this was, in fact, what Sameen had been trying to hide. And if it was, Root wanted to know why she thought she ishould/i hide it. Root pressed a hand to her mouth, pressing against her lips as she tried to imagine a reason for Shaw to conceal the classic novel.

Perhaps it was simply that she was embarrassed. It could have been that she didn't want Root to know that she cared enough about Root's thoughts to read an almost three hundred page book to better understand them. Or that she didn't want it to be obvious that it bothered her that Root knew something that Shaw didn't. But what if this was a cover-up for whatever she was really doing on the computer?

Root opened the browser history and before she had looked at any of the links, changed her mind and shut it again. She didn't want to breach Shaw's privacy more than she already had. As she started to stand up, she changed her mind again and started to crouch down again, touching the track pad. The dog picked up on her anxiety and whined once, stepping towards her with a curious look on his face. She clenched her hands together and stood up, backing away from the computer. If Shaw was really doing something stupid, the Machine would find a way to let Root know. Root had to take her own advice: she had to have trust.

On the table, her cellphone buzzed. She went and picked it up. It was John, confirming that Evans and Tasha were ready to move out of the city whenever Root was.

Root looked over at the bathroom door. The water was still running. She imagined Shaw, water pouring over her perfectly brown skin, and found herself walking towards the closed door.

She wanted to see Sameen.

There was a strange urgency to it, a need to see the woman who had To Kill A Mockingbird open on her computer. Like somehow she would be able to tell by looking at her if the book was really what she was hiding. And whether it was or wasn't, Root knew she would have to leave at some point today, and wanted as much time with Shaw as she could get before she had to go.

Root opened the bathroom door and a warm cloud of steam rolled out. Through the fog, she could see Sameen's back: the broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the curve of her ass.

Root pulled her shirt off over her head. Shaw had her hands in her hair, and when the cold air from outside hit her she turned, alarmed, her hands falling into fists in front of her before she saw Root and dropped her hands entirely, her eyes closing with relief. Root shimmied out of her underwear and put them with her shirt on top of Shaw's workout clothes as far from the shower as possible. Shaw must have been up for a while, Root realized.

When Root looked back at Shaw, she found that Sameen's eyes were on her, large and dark. There was a tiny hint of a smile on Shaw's face as well, and Root smirked at her, stepping towards Shaw.

"I'm almost done, then I'll be out of your way," Shaw said, and despite being completely naked, her hands hanging at her sides, the shower running on the back of her shoulders, Root could see that she still had her guard up. Root slipped her hands onto Shaw's hips, looking down at her playfully.

"I don't want you out of my way," Root teased, tilting her head down to kiss Sameen. Shaw ducked her head away.

"You should still probably be careful with that arm. Besides, thought you had someplace you had to be," Shaw said, looking up at Root from under her lowered eyebrows. Anger burned in Root's stomach, bitter in her mouth, and she struck back, her voice still coy.

"Looks like Atticus still has quite a bit to teach you about manners," Root said, kissing Shaw's jaw since she'd turned her face away before. Shaw immediately jerked her head away to look at Root. This put her directly under the stream of the shower and she had to move so she could see.

Root knew that Shaw was wondering if Root had been on the laptop.

"I forgot you haven't read that book," Root said casually, as if nothing had happened. Shaw still looked suspicious, but when Root moved to kiss her, Shaw met her lips. When their mouths separated for a moment, Shaw hesitated, her eyes still focusing on Root.

"This is it, huh?" Sameen asked. Root ran her hands over Shaw's wet hair, her eyes questioning. "You're leaving after this, aren't you?"

Root chewed on her bottom lip, then nodded.

"They're ready whenever I am," she said, smiling tightly. Shaw's expression darkened into determination and anger.

Root was about to ask what was wrong when Sameen crushed her lips against Root's again with bruising force.