"Leave me alone." The shadows slithered into the room as the door opened slowly.

"Leave me alone." He smiled from the doorway, his off-white hair glowing in the little light there was.

"I don't think we can do that just yet, Sameen."

"Leave me the fu-" His grin morphed into a revolting smirk and she froze, knowing something was about to go horribly wrong. Her hand twitched, wishing to be closer to the gun that was only a foot away.

A phone rang, vibrating sharply on her night stand.

Go figure the Machine still spied on her after all of these years.

But, the Machine was just doing its job:

Protecting an Irrelevant by any means possible.

And, in this case, protection meant bringing Shaw back to reality.

"You're dead." She finally said to the hallucination. "You scumbags are all dead. We killed you years ago."

He laughed at this, letting the indifferent cackle flood only her ears as she turned to the one thing that kept her sane.

"Go back to sleep, I've got this."

"Another one, sweetie?" She'd long accepted the terms of endearment as part of the package

"Yeah. Just another one. I'm fine, I can get the door." The blankets protested this and were soon moved aside.

"Come back to bed. I'll get the door this time."

"Fine."

Root smoothly rose from their bed as though she'd been awake the whole time - and not just the last minute.

Sameen stiffened as she watched Root approach Greer. He merely waved at Shaw, daring her to snatch the gun and shoot. She didn't shoot.

She only sighed.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a life altering moment.

This was routine.

Nevertheless, while the couple was used to Sameen's waking nightmares, that didn't make it feel any less real.

It's true that the door was never really opened, that the lights stayed shut the entire time, and that nobody ever crept into their room.

Didn't make any less or terrifying.

But, what also felt real - and incredibly satisfying - was watching Root pull the door back and slam it in his face.

Root would then turn back to Sameen, her reassuring glow breaking through the shadows as she took immense pleasure in seeing her lover relax ever so slightly. Then the woman would go back to bed to hold Sameen until they both eventually drifted back into sleep.

Even though it wasn't the perfect solution, they weren't perfect people.

Besides, she'd take this over solution Sameen sending a bullet through the house and scaring half the neighbors to death.

...

A/N: I couldn't let it be just the Machine and imply Root was no longer around. Not after the last ficlet.