Shaw gets up at the insistent ring of the phone. In a world post-Machine, in a world post-Root, it's only the phone and Bear that make things bearable. She has a new fake ID every few weeks, has a new home whenever she needs one, but everything feels flat and dull, like it did after her father died.
Her father understood. He never asked more from her than she could provide.
And then he was gone, and she was expected to react and feel and the school keep calling CPS and Shaw felt bad about that sometimes, how hard it must have been for her mother. Sometimes Shaw thinks about letting her know she's still alive, but Shaw's mother is honest and she would lose her pension and might even be in danger if she tells the government that Shaw is alive, so Shaw settles for taking a flight home and watching from a rooftop. She remembers that laugh, one she rarely drew from her. She watches her mother hold her brother's kids, watches the way she holds him a little long when he leaves, as though half of it is for her child that isn't there. The child that is watching from the high-resolution lens a few hundred metres away. Shaw snaps the pictures, since they're already in focus. She always thought they'd be happier without her, but Shaw can see the lines of sorrow on her mother's face that her father and she put there.
She has missions, and shooting people in the knee was John's thing, but they always enjoyed it so she carries on the tradition, and for a moment it's like he lives on in her. Shaw tries a few shots left handed, double handed, but even with The Machine in her ear she can't do the impossible. She could measure up to John, she could outpace him, but She was always in a class of her own.
The world fades into colour, now and then, when she drops in at Gen's school for a science fair. The little nerd has been put ahead a few years and she looks comically small next to her classmates. She's always ready to be alone, never really expects Shaw to turn up to her invitations, but Shaw always does. She knows one day she won't because she'll be injured or dead, but she knows The Machine will take care of Gen, probably better than Shaw ever could. The best part is that Bear is still registered as a service dog, and Shaw is obviously a retired veteran, so Bear trots in patiently at her side and Gen smiles so broadly when she sees them that Shaw can almost pretend that half of that smile is for her. Bear is well behaved, and the kids leave him alone until Shaw slips off his vest, at which point every kid in the school enters a contest of being the person who distributed the most pats. Gen always, always, wins, but that's because Shaw cheats and takes her to the oval, where Gen chatters happily, running back and forth with Bear between sentences. The poor kid is so used to constant disappointment that even cold, heartless Shaw turning up a few times a year makes her a role-model. But she keeps coming back, and at some point she realises it's not just for Gen's sake, for her well-being or whatever, or for the clout of her having someone show up to her school events, and it's not just to wear Bear out, snoring the whole way home contentedly.
There's nothing of Shaw in Gen, and that's why she comes back. This is something Shaw hasn't tainted, this is something good Shaw does, has done, will do. It's the legacy of that time in her life, that one time in her life where she felt like she belonged. Gen knows not to expect too much from adults, and because of that, Shaw always exceeds her expectations.
Those days aren't dull, Bear bounding with joy across a snowy field, tween laughter trailing behind him. Shaw sitting on a park bench, getting a lecture on the best way to tap burners, Gen's face pressed against one calf and Bear's chin on her shoes.
But the rest of it - snowy days in NYC with no motorbike tearing up asphalt to impress her and whisk her away to Do Crimes, the voice with no inflection tuning in and out of her life, the new teams, which Shaw declined to join, running interference when she takes a risk or a bullet.
But right now her phone is ringing and she reaches for it clumsily, still half asleep, and knocks it onto the floor, hearing a smash. She groans, and then hears a phone ringing nearby; there's a booth on the corner, there always is, wherever she lives.
She tugs on gloves and a beanie and a coat, and Bear springs to attention, tail wagging at the idea of a walk. Shaw snips on his lead, feels the coins on her pocket. Feels the glue in her slowly-waking brain.
The phone isn't ringing any more when she gets there. Shaw lifts the receiver, pulls out a coin and starts dialling the call-back number from the poster on the booth. No dial tone. Shaw looks down in the flickering street light glow and sees where the phone cord has been cut. Vandals. She hangs up, and Bear whines.
'Hey sweetie. You miss me?' The Machine says in Shaw's ear, and Shaw wonders why she fell asleep with her earpiece in, why The Machine bothered with the phones. But then there's a warm arm wrapped around her, and Shaw braces herself out of habit, not waiting to be tazed or drugged. She hauls her company around into the phone booth, presses her against the useless phone (it's definitely a her, Shaw notes briefly, rearranging her grip).
Somehow, out of all possible things to happen, the thing that has happened, is happening, is that Root is pressed against a broken telephone while the coin Shaw inserted falls into the return slot. Shaw lets go of Root, who retrieves the coin and hands it to Shaw. Shaw turns away, lets Bear do his business and cleans it up before heading back to her apartment. Root hesitates, and Shaw looks back, inclines her head, and Root's face breaks into a smile that would rival Gen's as she takes the invitation, such as it is, and follows Shaw home. Root's expression isn't one Shaw has to analyse and divide and share with anyone else; she knows this one is all hers.
Notes:
The song I found a decade ago in Being Erica, before Anna Silk was on Lost Girl and was a gay-for-pay one-off and it fitted the phone booth.
But also the Arkells 'Leather Jacket', vibes (who the fuck uses a payphone?).
Shaw's halved