Sorry this chapter's late! The next one goes up on Wednesday, December 16th, and I fully intend to get it up on time.

Thanks for reading, everybody!


Shaw led the way across the city in a hurry, speeding through London traffic towards the address that the Machine had given her.

When they came to a stop, they found themselves looking up at a row house in Chelsea. It was an old building, and Shaw knew that the apartment was an expensive one, but there were no guards visible outside.

This wasn't much of a surprise. If it looked like the place was being protected, the Machine would've been able to spot Greer much quicker. In the entry hall of the building, there was only one man. A man whose gun had not been fully drawn before Lionel had knocked him unconscious.

"Stay here. Watch for anyone headed this way," Shaw said, conveying the Machine's instructions to the detective, who nodded. He propped the man up in the entryway and took up the post that the guard had been in charge of.

Reese and Shaw made their way up the marble staircase silently.

In the first room at the top of the stairs, they found two people guarding a door. A mammoth of a man and a woman with dark brown hair. The woman was slumped in a chair, and Shaw wasn't sure if she was even alive.

Reese shot the man in the knee cap before he'd noticed that Reese and Shaw were upon him, and he dropped with a yelp.

The woman lurched awake and Sameen recognized that it was Martine. She'd dyed her hair, but it was unmistakably her. When she saw that it was Shaw and Reese that had just come up the stairs, she looked startled and began to raise her gun.

But she'd been caught off guard. And that alone was a sign that Samaritan had been more than simply slowed down by whatever it was that Finch had done. The AI wasn't able to see them coming, it seemed.

The tables had been turned. Samaritan was blind, and Sameen had the Machine in her ear. That meant that despite her broken thumb, she had the upper hand.

Martine started to stand.

Shaw crossed the room without hesitation, letting go of her gun so that it hung from the strap over her shoulder, disarming Martine by sheer force of will and slamming her into the wall.

Reese trailed behind Shaw, brushing her aside to zip tie the once-blond's hands and tape her mouth shut. Shaw could see that Martine was surprised that she hadn't been shot yet. She also looked exhausted. It appeared that Greer hadn't given her a chance to rest since the explosions had occurred, and Shaw knew that that couldn't be too far off. The Machine had kept Sameen updated on the people that Martine and her team had killed and injured. Their body count was getting higher every day until the previous morning, when they'd suddenly disappeared off of the Machine's map of the United States and hadn't turned up again. Now, Shaw knew why. Martine had disappeared from the US because she'd been on her way here.

Slowly, it dawned on Martine that Reese and Shaw weren't going to leave her behind. She looked down and saw that her partner was on the floor and gave Shaw a look so full of hatred that Sameen almost felt bad. She wondered if the giant man was Martine's friend. Not just some big lug hired to keep watch for Greer, but someone that Martine cared about.

Reese hauled Martine to her feet and pushed her along in front of them, through the door that she had been guarding.

John Greer was not in his usual suit when they found him inside of the next room. The top button of his shirt was undone, the coat and tie missing altogether.

"I thought you all might turn up sooner or later. Seeing as you've already destroyed Samaritan's servers," Greer said as he shut the book in his lap and removed his reading glasses. "I won't pretend I'm not disappointed that Ms Groves didn't see fit to attend. Now that she's not being brain-washed by Mr. Finch, I'd rather hoped I'd finally be able to persuade her to see the merits of working together."

He set aside the book and glasses, hardly sparing Martine a look.

"But that's not what you came for, is it?" Greer asked, staying seated in his wing-back chair by the fireplace. "So. How can I help you?"

"You know why we're here," Reese growled. He pushed Martine to her knees so that she was facing Greer, her dark eyes looking up at her boss angrily. Greer didn't even glance her direction. He just smiled up at them, and the firelight cast dark shadows where the wrinkles on his face were, making him look more menacing.

"You see, that's your Machine's biggest flaw," Greer said lightheartedly. "It would never tell you to kill anyone, regardless of—"

"Oh, I'm going to kill her," Shaw warned him, cutting him off and pointing her gun at the back of Martine's head, who was breathing hard but unable to speak because of the tape. Shaw's upper lip pulled into a violent sneer at the old man. "And then I'm going to kill you."

"Not if I kill him first," Reese said threateningly, his gun already raising to point directly at the center of Greer's forehead.

"Even if you were to kill me," Greer began. Then skin around his thin lips wrinkled as he smiled. "Even if you defeat Samaritan— at this point, not quite as big an 'if' as I'd like— there will always be someone coming for you. And your Machine."

"D'you ever think about how many people's lives you've ruined?" Shaw asked. Greer continued to smile.

"Do you?" He retorted, jovial. Shaw set her jaw.

"You're right. I never really cared much about being a good person. Until I met Finch," Shaw said. She shook her head, eyes narrowed. "Now I actually avoid killing people. And I regret it when I do."

Greer was still looking at her like she was endlessly amusing.

"Most of the time," she finished her thought before continuing darkly. "But this? I'm not going to regret this."

The Machine interrupted her, giving Shaw a combination through her ear piece, then a single word. "Mirror."

Shaw looked around and caught sight of her reflection.

"Do you think that watching Martine die will cause me some last sadness before it's my turn? Do you want me to hurt as you hurt?" he asked. He was still smiling, his blue eyes cold.

"You don't know me nearly as well as you think you do," Greer said, unconcerned. He looked directly at Sameen. "You of all people should understand how much better it is to be emotionally removed from your coworkers."

Shaw pulled the trigger.

Martine dropped forward at Greer's feet with a muted thud, falling directly onto her face, a bullet hole in the back of her skull.

Slowly, as if it bored him to do so, Greer looked down at her body. Then he looked back up at Sameen, who had taken a threatening step towards him over Martine, her gun now raised like Reese's, pointed just above Greer's eyes. Then she lowered it to aim at the elderly man's chest.

"Your turn," Shaw snarled. Then, to Reese, "Don't shoot him in the head. I want him to suffer."

Reese turned his head slightly to look over at her, and she knew that he wasn't on board.

"I want this piece of crap to feel what he felt." She found that she couldn't say Harold's name. And she didn't need to: Reese understood. She watched in her peripheral vision as Reese's gun lowered to Greer's chest. Pointing with Shaw's at the exact spot where Finch had been shot.

"It seems you aren't the virtuous hero that poor, dead Harold Finch had hoped." As soon as Reese heard the teasing tone with which Greer said Finch's name, he shot him.

Greer's body lurched, and John and Sameen watched as blood began to flow from the wound in his chest.

Then he started to struggle for air, sputtering and coughing. He weakly lifted one hand to his lips, drawing it away to see the blood on his finger tips.

"You're drowning," Shaw told him darkly. "From the inside out."

Greer tried to breath but couldn't.

"John shot you in the lung," Shaw explained. "It's filling up with blood, and you're going to choke and suffocate on it."

Reese lowered his gun, looking down at the old man jerking in his arm chair. Greer's eyes watered as he tried to cough, wheezing and bleeding. Those ice-blue eyes shifted between the pair of them, and when they landed on Reese, Finch's righthand man frowned.

"This is how Harold died," John said quietly. "Well, almost."

He crouched so that he was closer to Greer's face, Martine's head beside the toe of his right shoe.

"Do you know what the difference is?" John asked. Greer coughed, blood spattering his chin, but he couldn't speak. "The difference is that Harold was surrounded by people that cared about him."

Shaw felt her stomach churn as if it were tied into knots. Reese paused.

"But you?" He shook his head, a tight-lipped smile of pity on his face.

"No one cares about you," Reese continued. "And you're dying alone."

Greer continued to struggle for air as Reese stood up.

Shaw forced herself to look away from the struggling man, crossing to the mirror and feeling its edge for a moment before figuring out how to unlatch it and swing it out from the wall, revealing a safe door. She started to spin the dial, and entered the Machine's combination.

When the safe was open, Shaw looked inside. There was only a small external hard drive. Unremarkable. She reached in, picked up the little black rectangle, and pulled it out, turning to Reese and Greer.

The old man's eyes were on her, and for the first time, Shaw recognized a flash of panic in him.

"Is that—?" Reese stopped when Shaw nodded. Greer struggled to inhale, but it was much weaker than before. It wouldn't be long now.

"You wanna do the honors?" she asked Reese, holding the little drive out for him to take. He accepted it, dropped it on the floor beside Martine, and stepped heavily with the hard heel of his shoe. It crunched and cracked under the pressure, and when Reese picked up his foot, Shaw could see that the thing had broken apart.

Greer had gone quiet and still. His eyes were glassy, fixed on the mix of plastic and bits of metal that Reese had demolished.


It had been almost six days, and Root was still alone. She wondered the same thing she had been wondering every day: if Shaw would ever come back, even if she did manage to survive.

After Bear had taken her to the old library, Root had returned to the subway and had only left for short walks with the dog. She was always wary when they went outside, but he stayed glued to her side. The only time he wasn't hovering around her knees was when she shut him out of the bathroom to clean herself up, and when she opened the door he was guarding the other side, sniffing at her hands and circling around her like he was checking to make sure that nothing had happened while she had been gone.

She only knew that it had been six days because she had finally used the computer, and was catching up on the news, seeing the destruction reported from all sides. News anchors and analysts repeating the same lines: no motive has been determined as of yet, still unsure as to who the attackers really are, etcetera. Many people had been taken into custody. Others had been killed. Found executed in their homes. Or they simply vanished. Stopped showing up to work, left their possessions behind, and disappeared without a trace. Root knew that most of the latter group had been whisked away to be interrogated by Samaritan. She asked the Machine where they were being taken, but She wouldn't answer. Root hoped that the lack of reply didn't mean that She had been disintegrated by Samaritan.

The last twenty four hours had been remarkably quiet. The journalists were reporting the same facts, repeating their stories from previous days without much to add. But Root didn't trust the quiet.

Bear licked at his food bowl, the metal rattling against the ground. Root looked back at him and saw that it was empty. He'd finished off the bag of food.

They would have to go out and get more.

Root knew that the fresh air could only do her good, but the thought of going out on the streets when Samaritan was up there, probably waiting for her to appear, was scary. It didn't help that when she was out on the sidewalks of New York City, she couldn't help but think that all of the people around were oblivious to the war between gods that was happening all around them. They didn't know that the Machine and Harold had ever been protecting them, much less that they were exceedingly vulnerable without them.

But she didn't have a choice. Bear needed to eat, and that meant that they would have to venture out into the world.

She stood up, knowing it was better to just get it over with. Plus, it would be getting dark soon, and she didn't need the added worry of agents lurking in the shadows.

Once she'd started to move, she admitted to herself that at any rate, staying in the subway station wasn't helping her mood. She wasn't just staying in bed all day anymore, but she still felt fragile. At any moment, tears could spill from her again. Without anyone else around, it was easy to wallow in her grief, letting it consume her.

She closed the news website on which she'd been watching updates.

Bear growled at her feet, vibrations deep in his throat, and she looked down at him, confused. He wasn't looking at her. He was slinking past her, suddenly more soldier than pet, towards the door of the subway car.

Root stood up and looked towards the locker, but didn't have time to go and get a gun.

"You going somewhere?" The deep voice was low and dark.


"I thought I would feel better once Greer was dead."

Shaw looked up at the sound of Reese's deep voice, a quiet rumble that came as a surprise. They had been sitting in silence for the better part of an hour, nursing the bottle of scotch on the table between them. The return from Greer's apartment had been quiet, and none of them had spoken. There wasn't much to say, it seemed.

As they drank, Shaw had slowly slouched forward, elbows on her knees, looking down into the glass between her fingers— her broken hand aching inside of the black cast. She saw that Reese was slumped forward in his chair as well, swirling his nearly empty glass of caramel liquid.

Shaw didn't reply. She knew what he meant, but she had already known that she wouldn't feel better. Revenge was necessary in her mind, but it didn't change the loss. She had experienced the same thing when Cole had been killed.

She had felt normal with Cole. Like the pair of them were the perfect yin and yang. Balancing strengths and weaknesses. Then suddenly he was gone, leaving Shaw enraged. And killing Wilson had not helped.

Shaw reached for the bottle and poured herself another drink.

No, what had helped, in the end, was going after Root. Working with Reese to help him find Finch. And Harold Finch had helped by offering her a job that she eventually accepted. All of it— life with Harold, John, Joss, Lionel, and Root (yes, even Root, who had tricked her)— had not just given her an answer to Cole's suspicions that there was something bigger going on than the ISA's hunt for terrorists. She had finally begun to feel normal again. They were more than just coworkers. As much as she hated all of the teasing that Harold was a dad to herself and John, it wasn't that far off-mark. They were a family in their own way.

Shaw's heart ached. The feeling was unwelcome and unfamiliar.

She emptied her glass again in a large gulp, her insides churning. Feeling Reese's eyes on her, she glanced his direction. He took a deep breath and sighed, resigned to the fact that she had nothing to say.

"This time tomorrow we'll be home," he said as he looked away again at the smooth grey wall of their safe-house— little more than an above-ground bunker where they could hide away.

"Where's that?" Shaw asked, bitter and sarcastic. He looked back over at her and she had to avert her eyes because he seemed to know exactly how she felt.

She wondered if Root had stayed in New York in the subway station, or if she would be long gone once the rest of their team returned.

The thought of Root disappearing made the ache in Shaw worse. What she longed for, more than the scotch that she was currently pouring into her glass, more than ten clones of Greer to empty a full arsenal of weaponry into, was Root.

She almost thought that folding herself into Root would bring her some peace.

But that was idiotic, of course.

She downed half of her glass, pressing her eyes shut, and welcomed the bristling static of inebriation. Her head swam with the sensation that the room was drifting slightly, rocking away from her.

Maybe it wasn't completely idiotic. Maybe John was right. Maybe if Root was still in Harold's hideout when she got back, that would be 'home'. Whatever that meant.

Maybe all that 'home' was, really, was the place you wanted to curl up at the end of the day. If that was all it took, then Root more than qualified. With this vaguely frightening thought, Shaw took a steadying breath and opened her eyes, finishing her scotch.

Thinking back to leaving Root in the subway station, she felt the need to pour herself another glass, but refrained. They'd already had too much, the large bottle far too close to empty, and she felt over-heated.

She didn't really understand how she could be so fucking furious with Root, so angry that she wanted to avoid ever seeing her again, and still anxiously worrying about Root's safety, hoping that she would be able to make it back to New York and Harold's subway station.


The flight back to New York was long, made to feel longer by the fact that Shaw had a mild hangover upon waking. They had entered the fifth day since they'd left Root behind in the station.

Fusco had shut them out, leaning back in his seat with his mouth hanging open, sleeping soundly for most of the flight. Reese, on the other hand, had consumed four miniature bottles of vodka from the beverage cart since boarding the plane, and she was pretty sure he'd finished the bottle the previous night before he laid down on the floor on the other side of the conference table.

Lionel had steered clear of them after they killed Greer. Shaw was pretty sure he didn't want to be around the alcohol that they'd stopped to buy. It would have been too tempting to join in the misery.

Shaw watched as John struggled to keep the thin veil of alcohol pulled snug around him. Just as she wondered if she should stop him, he threw out the little plastic bottles he'd finished and leaned his forehead against the plane's wall.

Now that she was sober and they were flying back west, the sun too bright and warm as it shone through the windows, Sameen felt extremely unsure about whether she'd be heading to the subway or off to god knew where. Maybe she'd head up to Boston for a while. Or Chicago, although the bitter winters were unappealing.

With her hand hurting, she wanted to take a pain pill, but she'd already taken one when they boarded, and she didn't want to cloud her judgement before they got back stateside. That was the big reason that she had considered stopping Reese from getting full-blown drunk: it wasn't unreasonable to think that there might be some work to be done when they landed, and the last thing that they needed was for the pair of them to be drugged and drunk entering a firefight.

By the time that they landed, he'd sobered up. They went with Fusco to make sure that his apartment was clear before he went to see his son at his ex-wife's, and once he had closed the door, Sameen and John turned and walked together along the sidewalk. She could feel his eyes on her.

The Machine spoke into her ear.

"We're supposed to make sure your apartment is clear," Shaw told him. He nodded and led the way.

At his place, there was hardly any evidence that anyone even lived there, much less any evidence that anyone had broken in.

"I could use a drink," he said, running a hand over his hair. There was more silver in it than Shaw remembered, and she couldn't tell if the comment was a joke or not. He smiled weakly and she decided that it had been.

As she was getting ready to leave, there was a knock on the door and she spun towards it, raising a gun as Reese looked out the peephole. He motioned for her to lower her weapon, then opened the door. There was an older woman outside holding a vase of flowers.

"Hello, my name is Edith. I live next door?" the woman said as if it were a question. She spoke slowly and Shaw put her gun down behind the arm of the couch. "I'm so sorry to bother you; are you John?"

John nodded, smiling sullenly. There was the faintest hint of a southern accent in her sloth-like words.

"These were delivered while you were gone. I've been keeping an ear out for you to come back so I could make sure that you got them," she held out the vase for him to take it from her hands. Reese was perplexed by the news that the flowers were his, but accepted them. "I couldn't help but notice the card— my heart goes out to you."

"Thank you," he said, his voice a raspy whisper.

"You know, if there's anything you need, I would be so happy to help." The older woman was trying to get invited inside. Shaw wondered if she lived alone. There was no sign of a wedding ring on her hand, and she seemed eager to interact with other people.

"I'll be sure to let you know," Reese told her. Despite the look on her face like she was getting ready to say something else, John closed the door.

"Alright, buh bye," she said right as the latch caught.

Once the old woman had left, he peeked into the flower arrangement for a card. He found it and pulled the little notecard from the plastic fork sticking out of the arrangement.

"Who are they from?" Shaw asked. Reese shrugged and shook his head.

"Doesn't say," he told her, holding the little business card-sized paper out between his middle and pointer finger for her to take.

All that it said was 'With Deepest Sympathy' in an elaborate, cursive typeface. She flipped it over, but the opposite side only had one word, elegantly written by hand: 'John'.

He put the vase on the coffee table and sat down, sinking into the sofa.

"Zoe?" Shaw asked.

"I guess," John said, shrugging. Shaw dropped the card beside the vase and looked down at him.

"You gonna go to the subway station?" Reese asked. Shaw pursed her lips. She hadn't decided yet.

She didn't know what to do with herself. Part of her wanted to leave New York City altogether. To disappear into the billions of people that lived on the planet and become just another irrelevant person. She didn't know if she'd be able to stand seeing Root again. Not after what she'd done. Or, possibly worse, if she'd be able to take it if she went back to the subway and Root was gone. It was easier to leave than to face either one of those possibilities.

She'd need a purpose, of course. Without something that she could work towards, she would never be content. Maybe she'd find another job with some smash-and-grab thieves. Or better yet, maybe she'd look for Tomas. He would be glad to have her, and he would be so easy to get on with. Plus, there would always be a new challenge for them to face. Something bigger and more expensive to steal.

"Guess we should make sure no one found that place," he continued, watching her carefully from the corner of his eye. Shaw still didn't reply. She didn't know how to tell him that she was thinking about running off.

"Don't leave," he said softly. She looked directly at him, annoyed and surprised that he'd guessed what she was thinking.

"You can't tell me what to do," she said. Her words were dark. He winced, shaking his head.

"I know. But… I'd miss you," he said. "She'd miss you."

"I don't give a shit about her," Shaw said quickly. It was a lie, and they both knew it. "She handcuffed me, John."

"You don't usually have trouble escaping cuffs," Reese teased. "Or so you've bragged."

"Well I'm not usually naked," she snapped. His eyebrows raised and she realized just a moment too late that she had said too much. She watched his eyes find the black cast on her wrist and had to look away from his confused expression. He was trying to work out what had happened.

"She handcuffed me, tried to drug me, and then she ran off," Shaw said, gesturing widely with her good hand. "She knew that you guys were all going straight into the belly of the beast, and she sidelined me. And then— the Machine asked me to help."

"She was trying to protect you," John said. He was so calm. So level-headed, like it was the most understandable thing in the world that Root had chosen to do what she did.

"She's lucky I showed up when I did. I may have let Harold get shot but you all would be dead if it weren't for me."

"You didn't let Harold get shot. I was supposed to be protecting him. Always," John told her. She realized that he was serious. He too blamed himself for Harold's death. They looked at one another steadily.

"What about going to your old place?" John suggested. Shaw remembered how he'd said the place looked the last time he'd been there. Completely wrecked. She hadn't been back to the old spartan apartment since before she and Martine had tried to shoot one another at the makeup counter. He seemed to realize his mistake.

"Or you can stay here," John said. "If you want."

Shaw shook her head. She was trying to figure out what exactly she wanted him to tell Root to explain why Shaw wasn't there if the taller woman was still in the station. But her thoughts were interrupted when he spoke again.

"Even if you don't need her," he said, frowning. "She needs you."

Her lip curled in annoyance. That wasn't fair.

"She was willing to risk everything to keep you safe," he continued. He was right about that, but that didn't mean that Shaw was obligated to go back to see her. Or that Root needed her. "You know how much Harold meant to her. You should make sure she's alright."

Shaw's throat tightened. She wanted to yell at him. What if Root isn't alright? What if someone came while we were gone, and Root got snatched and kidnapped.

Or worse… what if Root was— Sameen couldn't stand the thought of it. Couldn't even face that word.

Reese seemed to understand her silence. He stood up from the sofa.

"Come on," he said tiredly. Shaw's brow furrowed, confused.

"We at least need to make sure that we take care of Harold's things," he continued, reloading his gun and waiting for Shaw to react.

She finally nodded, and he gave her a tight smile.

They made their way to the subway station in silence. The closer that they got, the more convinced Shaw was that she would never be able to get over her anger at Root— if the woman was even still there. And if Root wasn't… well, then there was no reason for Shaw to stay anyway.

She trailed behind John as they walked down the steps to the entrance of the station. She heard Bear growl as they approached the metro car.

Inside of the old subway carriage, Shaw caught a glimpse of long brown hair falling in loose waves around shoulders.

"You going somewhere?" John asked. His voice was deep. A rumble. Shaw knew he didn't love the position he was being put in.

The woman in the subway turned in surprise, her profile coming into view. Smooth skin and a long, narrow nose.

Root.

As soon as Shaw saw that face, she forgot for a moment about how angry she was. Any thought she'd had of leaving vanished, and Sameen's heart caught in her throat. Relief flooded her. Root was still there.

She didn't look good, though. Her skin was ghostly pale, with circles under her eyes so pronounced it looked as if she'd been bruised.

Bear leapt up at Sameen. She'd somehow not even noticed that he was there.

Once she'd absorbed the fact that Root was still there and very much alive, Shaw's anger crept up on her again. Not as fully-formed as it had been before, but still lurking there, percolating under the surface. And now that she saw that Root hadn't been killed, it felt alright for Shaw to be mad.

She could leave if she wanted to, now that she'd seen that Root was okay. And she had every right to.

As Root approached them, taking quick, nervous steps, Shaw found it hard to look her in the eye. It was easier to keep her at arm's length. It was easier to keep her eyes on the ground and keep a firm grip on her fury than it was to look into those tear-filled brown eyes.