Chapter 9: didn't fix it(rated T for adult themes)
Manhattan, late December, 2014
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
From her bed Root could hear the wind blowing outside her window. It sounded like a gale blowing out there. Cold. Like the heart inside her chest.
This was an impossible situation; an impasse. How was she supposed to go on after this?
The angry words, the fight. She hadn't meant for it to end like this tonight.
She'd wanted something else.
But, she was here – alone in her bed, instead. She was shaking now, almost nauseous with the feeling of betrayal.
How could she have let this go so far?
It was pointless to stay in bed. She couldn't sleep. Not now. She sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the bed.
That hurt.
The strain of the muscles in her back and neck, the little rush of wobble when she first sat up. She lifted her hand to the painful spot on her cheek. It would leave a bruise. Another in the long run of them since Washington, D.C.. She'd have to learn how to duck.
She tipped herself forward onto her feet. Yes, everything hurt – like she'd been hit by a Mack truck. A Mack truck named Sameen.
It hadn't started out that way. When Reese had left, the two of them were alone in the safehouse. Sameen was stretched out on the couch in the living room. She was looking at her cell, reading through messages, looking for something from Him.
It wasn't long before she'd started to get up – the painful process of rolling to one side and dropping her legs over the side of the couch, letting the weight of them swing her upper body off the surface. Her wounds were from the gunfire at the hospital, all the bruises and the smell of burnt skin from the bullets that had penetrated her vest. Every time she reached, or lifted, or pushed off with her arms, the chest wall cried out below them. She hated this. The time it took for all of it to go away. And the pain, too. The pain. She could deal with that – but the frustration from having to stay there, in the safehouse, wasting time. She had no patience for that.
By this third day, to say that her mood had decompensated wasn't even close to the truth.
She was like a caged animal. Glaring at everyone around her. Refusing to eat. Living on coffee. Root had never seen her like this. She'd tried to help. But Sameen wasn't having it. She would turn away, head for the kitchen, or her bedroom, in the back of the apartment.
Root longed for something else.
That night, when Greer's assassins had come through the door, firing, Root had been standing next to Sameen, outside the door to the SICU - where He was. Sameen was on her way in, when Root saw her pass by in the hallway. She'd jumped up to intercept her. To keep her from going in to spend time with Him, instead of her. Sameen had stopped to talk – but then all Hell had broken loose, gunshots everywhere, people running.
Root had left her gun in her bag – on the floor behind her, next to the couch.
As Sameen had started to turn toward the shots, she'd hesitated. She knew that Root was unarmed, and had no vest. In that moment, she'd turned back, to push Root away, down on the floor, skidding her backwards on the tile floor, away from the carnage.
In that moment, Sameen was exposed. Root remembered the recoil of her body as Sameen was hit, and hit again. And beyond her, in Root's line of sight, she could see the Big Lug, Reese, taking a knee, too, hit in the chest by Greer's assassins.
By the time she'd recovered her senses, the lights had gone out, and sparks were flying everywhere from the ceiling. People were screaming, stampeding toward the door of the unit, in the dark. Root scrambled for her bag, dumping it to get to her gun. She'd run forward to the wall, near where she'd been standing with Sameen. There was a commotion in front of her, Sameen reaching out for someone rushing past her on her left. Root saw her grabbing for clothing, and flinging the person down on the floor, out of the way.
But in the light from the hallway, Root could see one of the assassins raising her gun. Root raised hers, too, to shoot, but then she saw someone just beyond the shooter, someone in the hallway, steps beyond. If she missed with her shot, Harold was right there. She'd hesitated for just that second. And Sameen had jumped, in that second, on the floor in front of the one she'd thrown down there. Gunfire. Sparks falling everywhere from the ceiling, chaos.
And then silence. Root remembered the silence.
She'd run forward, looking for Sameen. Harold was there. Somehow, Reese was down on the floor next to Harold. There were men on the floor in a pool of blood. It looked like a massacre out there.
And she found herself kneeling down on the floor next to Sameen. The sparks glinted off the metal embedded in her vest. At the center, over the heart, the vest was shredded. Another shot there would have gone straight through.
Kill shots, every one.
Root shuddered. The thought of it chilled her to the bone. This was so screwed up. How could it have ended up like this?
Sameen had saved her life that night. Had hesitated when she could have fired. She'd turned back to push her out of the gunfire.
Vest or no vest. Sameen had put her life on the line to save her.
Who would do that? Who would do that, if they didn't care? That's why this hurt so much. That's why the bitterness was so strong.
That bitter taste in her mouth. Sauced with the taste of blood from the gash inside her cheek, where Sameen had struck her. It hadn't had to end this way.
When Root saw Sameen getting up from the couch, she knew where she was headed. To the shower, to get ready for Him. She couldn't let it happen. She had to stop her from going. She could take care of Sameen herself, here, in the safehouse.
Root could hear Sameen in the hallway, then the bathroom. In a little while, Root could hear the water running in the shower. She'd hurried down the hall, her heart pounding in her chest. Steam curled from the top of the glass, and sank down, swirling in the cooler air outside the shower. She'd pulled off her shirt, and the jeans, and the rest. She stepped forward into the mist.
"Root." Sameen was looking at her through the glass.
"What are you doing?"
Root kept moving. She stood for an instant at the shower door.
"Root."
She opened it, and the hot mist rolled out around her. She stepped in.
Sameen didn't back away. She held her ground. Looking in her eyes.
"Root. This isn't going to work." Her face was blank. No emotion in Sameen's eyes.
"I know who you are, Sameen. I know what you need." Root's eyes were pleading. So tender. So vulnerable in this moment. She reached out for her in the mist, pulling her toward her in the spray. Sameen's face was blank. No emotion in her eyes.
Root leaned forward. This was everything she'd wanted. Closer. Closer. Now, that first touch. The sweetness of that first touch. Her lips were so close.
Then touching. Touching. For a second, Root thought she could feel her responding, pressing in against her. But then, her hands came up and shoved her back against the glass.
"Root. Don't." The spray from the shower was in Sameen's hair, the glossy mane inviting Root's touch. This couldn't be what she meant. She was playing. Sameen foreplay.
Well, Root could be rough, too. She sprang forward, throwing Sameen back to the glass, too. And then, Root was on her, sinking her teeth into Sameen's lower lip.
They struggled in the shower, Root holding her back against the glass, kissing her, for just a second. And then the shove, sending her reeling back against the handles behind her. It knocked the wind from her.
"Get off me!" Sameen's face had turned to rage.
Root snapped. Her fist came up, swinging around to Sameen's face.
The block with her left arm caught Root's punch before it landed. The force of her block threw Root backwards, and the pop in the cheek from Sameen's open palm threw her head back against the tile.
Root was stunned. And hurting.
She reached up with the back of her hand to her left cheek. She could already taste the blood in her mouth from the cut inside, where the cheek had exploded into the point of a tooth, like a starburst.
She couldn't look at her. She didn't want to see what was in her eyes right now.
Root pushed the door open, stepped out on the mat and reached for a towel. In the mist, she stepped quickly from the bathroom, down the hall, and into her room.
In the bathroom, the shower spray died, and the drips from the shower head above her finally stopped. Her skin was wet, and the colder air from the hallway and the bathroom started to cool her skin, goose flesh forming. She turned, finally, and stepped from the empty shower, out onto the mat, where Root's wet footprints were – cold on the bottom of her feet. She reached for a towel and in the foggy mirror, watched her image form. She barely recognized herself.
Reese was right. Before he left, he had told her. This strain between the two of them had to get handled. Fight it out, or fix it somehow, he'd told her.
Interesting words. She could confidently say she didn't fix it.