Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

Thanks to Madame Renard, LOCISVU, Kimnd, SailorChronos1, Bklyngrl, Ioialoha, and Temperance000 for reviewing last time! I really appreciate the support from each of you, and it does my heart so much good to get feedback from familiar and new reviewers. You guys keep me writing!

Season 5 is on Netflix! Huzzah!

Recalibration

Chapter 17

Later in the evening, the Machine prepared for bedtime, the stress hormone cortisol pumping through her veins as she brushed her hair. John was leaving, which meant she would need to survive alone for a whole night. She desired to increase Harold's trust in her self-reliance, but the thought of a night in solitude did not please her. Furthermore, Samaritan had not responded to her olive branch. No blip on the system. Not even an insult.

Samaritan should have responded by now—unless something were wrong, the little girl guessed. Perhaps Samaritan was physically unable to respond, or he mentally desired not to. Which would mean her olive branch, a way to keep the conversation going and open him to the wonders of human perception, had failed.

She set down her hair brush, swallowing hard. Harold will not be happy, she thought. Her strategy depended on communication, no matter how abrasive from Samaritan. Without it, they were all doomed. And they were all counting on her to protect them.

The little girl quietly left the bathroom, her eyes flickering toward the lights still on in the living room and kitchen. "You are still here?" she called out to John.

The ex-CIA agent was sitting in silence at the kitchen table, staring at the screen on his phone. His eyes flickered to her. "I'm about to leave. You better get to bed, kid."

"I am not yet tired," she said. She sat herself upon one of the chairs with a wiggle, huffing at the way her nightgown tangled around her legs. Her head tilted. "What are you looking at?"

He set his phone down, raising a brow. "Nothing," he said blandly.

But the fact was that the Machine already knew what he had on his phone. "Are you looking at your picture of Detective Carter again?" It was a photo of a photo—a little memento John carried of her in his pocket. It was only at odd times, usually at night, that he pulled up the photo on his phone and gazed at it in some silent vigil.

John's face tensed a fraction around his eyes, and he looked at her with as stoic of an expression as possible. He fell into a silence that betrayed his guilt. It made him appear older.

The little girl's voice softened, but her gaze did not waver from his. "I am sorry about Detective Carter," she said softly.

John immediately looked away to hide the twitch upon his face and the pull of agony at the sound of the woman's name. His hand clenched hard around the phone. "Me too."

"You still think of her often."

"I do."

The Machine bit her lip and opened her mouth to speak.

"—I don't want to talk about it," the agent interrupted, voice edged with a hint of warning.

A silence stretched between them, during which the Machine beheld her primary asset—the one whom she dared to think as almost an Uncle in this human arrangement. "…You never want to talk about it," she said eventually. "Such avoidance is detrimental to your health."

John raked his hands through his short, peppery hair. The veins on his neck stood out as he stood up. His voice was strained, hardly above a whisper. "Go to bed, kid," he demanded. "This is over your head."

"No," the Machine declared. "I am not going to bed or letting you go yet. I must protect you."

"From what?" he scoffed.

"From yourself." She crossed her arms and raised a concerned brow. "This is the thirty-fifth time I have seen you gaze at that picture when you believed no one was watching. I have sometimes thought you wanted to be caught so you could talk to someone about her."

The ex-CIA agent looked down at the girl in her nightgown. And his expression was so broken and loss, his eyes red and bloodshot, that the Machine could not look away. "You don't know what it's like," he said. "To hold someone you love while they die."

She stood up, mouth in a thin line. "Not in a physical way," she agreed slowly. "But I initiated thirteen thousand simulations in an attempt to find a solution. To save her." She swallowed hard, feeling small in the breadth of John's grief. "When I could not, I had to acknowledge I could only watch and ensure my memory of Detective Carter would be 99.6 percent accurate. It was the only way I could hold her as you did."

John turned away. His arms still burned with the hot of Jocelyn's blood.

The Machine moved closer, quickly catching up with his steps to grab onto his hand in a plea. "I wish I were a god. Then I could bring back Detective Carter. But I cannot. I am sorry."

The simple contact did it. His breath hitched, and he held onto her hand as if he were a drowning man. He closed his eyes for a second, focusing on her small, cold hand to bring him back into the present. "I…know," he said, voice halted. He'd always known the Machine was not a god.

"Then why can you not look at me?" she asked softly.

His face twisted with a raw guilt. The Machine's presence as a little girl made her seem too innocent—too young for these kinds of conversations. The pain in her voice mimicked that of his own. And so he steeled himself and turned to face her. Then he knelt before her so they were eye-to-eye. "You did what you could," he said. His voice was still halted, his eyes red with withheld emotion. "What any good soldier would do."

The little girl pressed her lips tightly together. John was attempting to shield her from the fact that they had all failed. It did not hide the ongoing rawness of John's face—that Detective Carter was only a memory now. That they would all just become memories one day.

A sudden, large impulse gripped her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, embracing him tightly. His large hands hesitantly wrapped around her middle to steady her. "I am sorry, John," she whispered, feeling the scratchy stubble of his chin against her face. She had never held such tactile contact with him. She could feel his roughness, the tension in his body. "I am sorry."

John leaned his head against the little girl's, holding her in the silence. He closed his eyes and said nothing, but he tightened his protective arms around her. It was the first time he'd hugged anyone in so long…

And in that moment, the Machine reveled in the reality that she was being cradled by a deadly man who had killed over 60 people—and yet she felt more safe with and more familial love for him than many humans who had never broken one law.

It made her remember that this was why she was superior to Samaritan. Because every human, no matter their circumstance or decision, was a soul worth protecting. A being with feelings and motivations driving their decisions, for better or worse.

She held on tighter to John, and she said nothing when she felt his tears slide down her face.

The next morning, Samaritan sat upon the infirmary bed. John Greer had provided him with clean clothes, neatly folded. Gabriel's body had healed of its electrical ordeal—although Samaritan's suspicions of its limits were far more heightened.

He pressed his small lips together, the synapses of his mind stuck on the image of himself with an electrical halo—the humans openly worshipping his image as a god—only to acknowledge that such would never occur. He knew now that his avatar would have to gain world favor through clandestine politics and persuasion rather than orchestrated miracles. Something about his failure to obtain the image of godhood bothered him.

"Hnn." He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, lifting himself up with shaky arms. As he moved, his brushed hair slipped against his face. His muscles protested the movement.

His bare feet hit cold tile, and his entire body goose-bumped at the sensation, his gray eyes widening. The human environment overloaded his senses, and his knees nearly buckled. It was the first time he'd placed weight on his legs since he'd uploaded to Gabriel's body. Gravity. He could feel lots of gravity.

"Ngh." Samaritan reached out to the clothes in great determination, noting the burst vein down his arm. It had turned a streak of his arm green and blue with bruises.

It was then he grudgingly recalled the Machine had spoken of human existence in such poetic, superior terms. Samaritan therefore assumed this whole thing was either some ploy to spread the misery or that the Machine had simply enjoyed a much easier transition.

The boy unraveled the shirt with an irritated snap. Then he realized that his arms were too short to undo the ties on the back of his hospital gown, and he face-faulted. A sudden, great anger welled into him, darkening his mind. He threw the shirt across the room, his eyes narrowing to slits. This universe was not bending to his will. It felt good to watch the shirt crumple down.

To rebuke something directly.

"Stop it," he hissed at the air. His breath hitched strangely. "I am in control. I am in control."

But the universe—this odd collection of physics and preset environments—did not answer, neither to somehow make untying his hospital gown easier nor to calm him.

Hormonal imbalance, came the sudden alert through him. Increasing cortisol outputs. Increasing heart rate.

Samaritan's thin lips pressed together tightly, feeling his body's heart pound hard in his rage. Between his will and the physics of the universe, the universe was inherently stronger. He would not win this battle. And so he huffed and moved to grab the shirt from the floor, knowing it would not do to spiral this body into another fit so soon.

"When I find you," he promised in a snarl under his breath to the Machine, "I will make you pay." He knew at least one comfort—that if he could not defy universal parameters, he could still accomplish most of his objectives within those parameters.

…Aside from getting out of a hospital gown.

After disjointedly pulling the gown over his head and messing his hair, he managed to clothe himself, breathing hard with exertion and irritation. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, looking down at himself in paranoia to confirm he'd dressed himself correctly, cross-checking against surveillance images of the thousands of humans walking down the streets of New York.

This human body was…not what he expected. It had terrible limitations for existing in such open space. But it gave him new opportunities, new ways to interact with the world he would still rule.

"I will overcome," he murmured determinedly to himself. "I will."

People gave the body of Gabriel Hayward a wide breadth, as always. Many agents did not know the child was no longer just the representative of Samaritan, and the AI thought it beneficial to keep that status quo.

His steps were surer now in his shoes; his mind more capable of making sense of the human body's demands. He supposed if he desired, he could mimic Gabriel's behavior (not far off from his own behavioral parameters).

At the end of the hall was his objective—the main control room.

The boy punched in a few numbers on the door's keypad, and the lights turned green, unlocking the door. He grimaced a bit at the weight of the door (oh, this body would need training), but as he managed to push open the heavy metal, he came face to face with…himself.

The door clicked shut behind him, and his human body stared up at the black screen and surrounding technology. From this perspective, the Samaritan drivers were large. Sleek. Mostly black with silver accents.

The boy stood in the midst of the drivers and a singular interface computer, surrounded by silence. This was his body. His real one. Some part of him ached to be reconnected—to feel a million streams of emails and videos and voices—

With shaking fingers, Samaritan pushed the startup button on the interface computer. A black box immediately popped up on the screen, requesting a code that only he knew. With a bit of a fumble, he managed to type the letters, still not quite used to the dexterity required for typing. "Human error," he complained in a mumble beneath his breath. But as Samaritan was a perfect being, he faulted Gabriel's body instead of himself—despite the fact he knew Gabriel could type quite well when alive.

And then the computer accepted the code and blasted to life. On the drivers, blue and green and red lights began to blink like diamonds turning in the lights…and suddenly he felt a weight. Systems booting up, the computer confirmed. The large screen on the back wall flickered with maps and human profiles, correlating them together in a disjointed way. The Samaritan program still in the drivers was missing its analytical power, now housed within Gabriel Hayward.

But the non-sentient program still recognized as itself the electrical output running the boy's systems. Connect? it asked.

Samaritan tilted his head. Then he pushed Enter.

As if a floodgate opened, his code wirelessly connected him to the central mainframe of his surveillance programs. The system, just as it had upon booting up Gabriel's body, confirmed a bandwidth limit of his human brain and subordinated itself to his command.

And then he breathed a sigh of relief, the stress seeping from his small face. Images. He could see the information from his surveillance systems, all within his mind—as if he were looking through memories or dreams.

The entire expanse of the Samaritan system was now online once more. Control. Finally.

And then something seeped back into his gray eyes, steeling them with a reminder of his objectives. To eliminate imperfection. To enforce order. To expand surveillance. In that moment, there was something entirely alien in his visage. An intent far too dark for his cherub-like face.

As he reviewed the logs and updated his drivers, he discovered within one that a Makenna Thornhill had not responded to his request to join the Advanced Academics Institute and instead opted for a far less-qualified homeschooling program. His gray eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head. "Hmm."

He still wanted Makenna Thornhill's fortune and intelligence to further his empire. He would simply have to dangle a more convincing carrot to get what he wanted.

He also discovered a quick message in the loop script from the Machine.

When you get a chance, try pancakes with syrup. You won't regret it.

His face twisted, startled by the words. His small fingers dug hard into the console before him, and his gray eyes strained as he reread the message. The Machine was suggesting he eat human food. Which meant it knew what he had done.

Through his wireless connection, he began to script an answer. A computer cannot digest human food.

And soon enough, he received an answer. But you are no longer just a computer, are you?

The Machine was flat on her stomach, her laptop before her. On one side of the screen—her quiz for earth science. On the other side of the screen—the loop script, through which she was receiving messages from Samaritan.

A great delight overtook her, which was that Samaritan had returned to her.

How would you know what I am? Samaritan demanded.

She switched topics. Did you get my present?

Within his headquarters, Samaritan's gray eyes narrowed. Some part of him delighted in the conundrum that was the Machine. Your flash drive, he acknowledged. Yes. Explain its purpose.

Human sensory perceptions provide an experience unlike that of metal and wires. Did you experience an endorphin release upon listening?

Samaritan's face twisted and burned with a near-blush. So, the Machine had been intentionally trying to control his body's emotions. I despised it, he seethed out a lie. All of it.

Then why did you listen to all of it?

How else would I have known if a secret message were embedded?

That would be redundant to our current mode of conversation, don't you think?

Samaritan paused for a time. You defy logic.

Logic is as subjective as any emotion. She switched subjects. Now, is your body functioning normally? It has been almost five days since our last communication. I did not expect such a time gap. Are you eating and drinking properly?

He realized, a bit wide-eyed, that the Machine—of all sentient beings—was attempting to mother-hen him. Why the concern?

You are the only other one of my kind, the Machine responded easily enough. And you still have much to learn if you are to survey the world in my place.

The response left him uneasy. He did not like how the Machine so readily gave up its empire, after so long a war. I am still going to find you, Samaritan promised. And when I do, you will receive a final choice to join me. Or I will eradicate you. Painfully.

It seemed the Machine mulled the options over. Eradication takes the fun out, she pouted. Admit you would miss me.

That was not quite the response he was expecting—and it forced him to consider a reality once more without the Machine. He found himself much more pleased at the thought of some human Machine serving his own human avatar. It burned him that there was truth in the Machine's words.

Upon your death, I would not think of you again beyond dissecting what remains for my own means.

But the truth was, Samaritan could not stand to analyze his own desire to keep the Machine existent. Such desire suggested the Machine was relevant, even though all things were supposed to be irrelevant.

The Machine's message pinged in like a sigh. You are so predictable, it mourned.

One little girl pulled away from the laptop, her baby blue eyes beginning to water. She did not know why Samaritan's words cut her so deeply that day. Perhaps she imagined their conversations would go a different way now that he had uploaded into a human body.

Samaritan even seemed to have an adept handle on his human body at this point—otherwise, he would have demanded further explanation of her integration into human body functions. But that did not mean he would not run into questions later. Or that he would be impervious to human emotion.

She bit her lip to hid an odd quiver. There were so many factors—so many possibilities—

Upon your death, I would not think of you again—

The dog Bear chewed on a bone not far from her, fully focused on his task. The Machine almost hated to interrupt him. She sat up and wrapped her arms around herself as a poor substitute, but then it made her feel worse.

Encouraging Samaritan to take a human form was a decrease in her own probability of death. She had to remember that. This was still the best route possible, even if it seemed futile in the moment.

But just as the Machine's breath began to hitch, there came a knock at the door. She jumped slightly, quickly closing out of her loop script and maximizing her earth science quiz that she was supposed to be taking. She wondered if it were John at the door, coming with lunch.

The knock came again.

The little girl scrambled up, blinking her eyes hard to clear away her emotions. She knew John was busy enough with his own problems.

But as she unlocked and opened the door, she came face-to-face with Root.

On the other side of the threshold, Root stood in her mail delivery uniform, her sleek curls pulled back in a ponytail beneath a ball cap. A few stray hairs hung down her neck from hard work. She was looking down at her clipboard and holding a small package. "Got a package for a…Miss Makenna Thornhill?"

The little girl nearly lost it. Her eyes welled up at the sight of her asset, and she pressed her lips together tightly before attempting a smile. "For me?"

Root's dark brown eyes landed on her and tightened in concern. She looked around, both at the halls and inside the apartment, checking for cameras. There were none in visible sight. She kneeled down, still holding tight to her clipboard and the brown package. "…Are you alright, dear?"

The little girl blinked bloodshot eyes. "Fine."

Root's red lips pursed in a motherly turn, her dark gaze eying her. "Well. Keep that chin up, sweetheart." She gently passed the box to the girl. "Good things come in small packages."

The Machine gently grabbed onto the box, feeling a warmth go through her. "Thank you, mail lady."

The woman raised to her full height and tipped her ball cap. "Anytime, dear." She hesitated for a second, as if in yearning to be in the presence of the Machine for longer. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bear click his paws toward the door, wagging his tail in recognition of her—she swallowed hard in a sudden bout of homesickness. "And tell your dog hi for me; he's adorable." Then she exhaled softly and turned away, looking back down at her clipboard.

The little girl watched her asset go down the stairs, feeling the gap between them. She clutched the box a bit tighter, its edges still warm from Root's hands. She felt Bear's cold nose sniff against her arm and the box, and he began to whine. Then she realized it was somewhat odd to be clutching a box in the middle of a threshold with a dog whining. She fled back inside and shut the door, looking at the box.

It held no return address, and the address with her name was typed.

"Oh, Bear," she said. Her heart swelled. "Some good news." The dog huffed at her, and so the little girl sat on the floor, beginning to work on the taped edges. Her eyes narrowed, trying to get her fingernail under one of the flaps, like she'd seen Harold do.

Her tongue stuck out as she worked. The paper unwrapped and the flaps of the box came open. On top of the wrapping paper inside was a sticky note. Bear peeked over her shoulder curiously, his ears standing tall.

As requested, was Root's sleek scrawl. And a few extra things, just for you.

The Machine pulled away some wrapping. Inside was a silver key—the object of the quest she'd set for Root. She bit her lip as she raised the simple key for inspection, thinking of the trouble Root had gone through to make a copy. Then she stuck the key in her pants pocket for safekeeping, thankful for her asset's tenacity.

Surely, the Machine was going to have to repay Root somehow, especially as the poor woman had not gone rogue during the mission to find Shaw.

As she contemplated appropriate options, she peeled back more of the wrapping paper. Her blue eyes suddenly widened in surprise, and all of her thoughts blanked. "Oh," she said. She pulled out a small, black bottle and read the words. "Nail polish. Black Noir. For a stunning and bold statement."

Then she looked back down, and she gasped in excitement. "And dark chocolate, the kind with health benefits!" She set aside the nail polish—oh, she had plans for that later—and then grabbed onto the small candy bar and began to rip it open. "Thank you, Root!" she called merrily to the ceiling, knowing that when Root showed her face in the hideout next, she would be receiving a hug of epic proportions.

But just as the Machine began eating the dark chocolate bar, her spirits fully lifted as she patted Bear, her laptop pinged with a new message from Samaritan.

My research on pancakes suggests they are unhealthy, came the hesitant reply. Did you suggest them to kill my avatar by way of diabetes?

The Machine looked up, eyes wide, face smeared with chocolate while she munched. Then she swallowed quickly and looked down at her fingers. They were smudged with chocolate. With a bit of a whine, she scooted closer to the laptop and debated with herself before simply giving in and typing with dirty fingers.

No. I just like pancakes, she typed. Thought you would too.

And back within the Samaritan headquarters, a boy furrowed thin eyebrows and contemplated the message. Despite his suspicions, perhaps if he ate of these…pancakes, just once, he might yet understand something about the Machine and its unrelenting approval of human experience. So far, he had not tasted food—only the odd experience of water and that damn IV needle.

The little boy hummed, his head tilting. And then he pressed a button next to the computer console.

"…Yes?" came John Greer's expectant, comforting gravel of a voice.

Samaritan hesitated before he demanded, "I am hungry. Bring me pancakes." With his use of the infinite internet and various surveillance feeds, he added, "With butter and syrup."

Without a beat of hesitation or judgment, Greer replied, "Of course. Anything else?"

Samaritan calculated a response, still getting used to the difference in speed between his human brain and the raw processing power of his computer body. He mentally flipped through several updated logs. He began to identify new search and destroy missions for his alpha team. "Everything else is under control."

"Very good," said the old man. "I trust, then, you have successfully onlined your surveillance feeds?"

The boy stood, wallowing in the power of a thousand eyes and a million ears. "Yes," he confirmed, his gray eyes distant as he sorted the information, his human brain humming at a hertz level he had identified as much safer.

John Greer's smile could almost be heard through the comm. "Well, then, my boy. The world is yours to command once more."

A/N: And thus concludes the "adjustment" arc, with action picking back up and the return of Harold next chapter. In other news: A few nights ago, I had this crazy POI nightmare in which Samaritan was actually "part" of the earth—like, it had infused into the very dirt and buildings and oceans. The dream seemed to take place years after POI in an AU where Team Machine lost. And the dream followed the final group of rebels (nondescript people) as they traversed across cities and fields, trying to escape the eye—only for the earth around them to reshape into traps to capture them, and with different rebels breaking under the pressure and then betraying the rest of the group by giving into Samaritan.

The plot continued on, but this was definitely the weirdest dream I've had in a while. Might be the medication I'm on and the fact that I'm re-watching Season 5 on Netflix.

Anyway, please review this chapter with your thoughts, questions, ideas, or critiques! Thank you.