Root's fingers tapped out a light drum tattoo of hope on her laptop keyboard. Her gaze fixed on the black and white numbers and letters streaming from nothingness onto the screen, reflecting off her eyes in an endless loop that connected her mind to the machine that had always seemed like a natural extension of her body. The keys soothed the calluses she had built up in endless weeks of chasing whispers of Shaw with a gun in each hand. Now, time and space disappeared; there was only a long string of code that went on forever.

She heard Bear whine and turned her head, blinking to add moisture to eyes that had remained dry too long. She extended a hand that seemed permanently bent for typing and stroked the fur behind his ears lightly. He placed a paw on her leg and looked up at her with an expression of concern, though objectively speaking, he was mentally incapable of such an emotion. She had had a dog, once, when she was a child; he escaped out the open backdoor one hot summer evening and never came back. She had never looked for him, either. Bear was different, though. As much as Harold and John took care of him too, he had really been Sameen's.

Root sighed absently, and her gaze drifted back to Harold's paper-crowded desk. She had simply disregarded the mess upon arriving and placed her computer atop the piles. Now it sat unevenly, balanced lopsidedly between a stack of bank records from an old number and the fruits of Harold's latest attempt to teach the baby bores the "Ethics of High-Frequency Decision-Making."

There was one more thing on the cluttered desk, the focal point she had chosen for her fool's errand. A tarnished medal. Sameen's medal.

It had Russian writing, which ruled out any Marine honor she might have received. Root knew from Shaw's service record, illegally accessed and downloaded long ago, that she had received American medals too, but those were not the ones Shaw kept under her pillow while she slept.

A fairly quick search had revealed that the medal was the Order of Lenin, but beyond that, there was no tracing it. It had no discerning marks from any other medal of its kind, no reason to be considered anything special among its siblings, save for its last owner and the importance she had attached to it.

She was still staring at the bit of metal adorning the desk when she heard footsteps behind her. She did not bother to look; John's measured tread was easily distinguishable from Harold's limping shuffle.

"We got a number?" The rasp of John's voice had grown more familiar in the last weeks than she had ever expected. Months ago, she would have expressed a desire that, other things equal, John might be the sacrificial lamb in the war on Samaritan. She had really had no special crusade against him; it was simply that he was the least intriguing and amusing of the ragtag team. Now, she tried to avoid all lines of thinking that involved the sacrifice of others or her own preferences regarding death.

"No," Root answered shortly. "Nothing new." She could feel John standing behind her left shoulder. He bent to pet Bear, but she felt his eyes tracking over her shoulder onto the desk. They both stared at the medal, once again sharing a focus.

"What's that?"

Root waited. She was not certain that she wanted to share more of her quest with John. It was useless, in any case, a completely futile pursuit borne of weakness. It could not bring her peace even if she did see it to the end.

The decision was partially made for her when John reached around her to pluck the medal from the desk. He held it up to the light and squinted. Root craned her head back a little to watch him.

"Order of Lenin?"

"Yes," Root affirmed.

"Where'd you get it?"

There it was. Root acquiesced with a small, hopeless sigh. "Sameen's apartment," she admitted in a murmur.

John handed the medal back, and she took it without looking at him. She studied the bronze face carefully, as though it were not singed into the foremost part of her mind. Finally, when John did not move, she asked her question.

"Do you know where she got it?"

The answer came in the low growl that Root had once mocked mercilessly, but that she had grown to trust during recent events.

"We met a lot of Russians doing this job, and she probably knew a lot before too." He seemed to be considering his words carefully, but Root had caught the low electric buzz of someone who knew something. She nearly leapt up, demanded answers, anything that could sweep her up and away from this feeling in her chest, the crushing one that had begun when she had fallen backwards into the elevator car and not left her since. Instead, she spun the chair around slowly and looked at John.

"But she kept this. Like it was special." Root omitted where exactly she had found the medal. Shaw would not have been happy with Root sharing her personal affairs. Admittedly, she also would have threatened Root with death for daring to enter her apartment and take her things in the first place.

John hesitated. "There was one number. Russian kid. Kid wanted to be a spy, and HR caught her recording a drug deal. Shaw was with her the whole time they were after her." The shadow of something that was nearly a smile ghosted across his lips, and he looked into space as if studying a pleasant memory. "She said she hated the kid. But then," he continued, looking down at Root, "she always said she hated you too."

Now it was Root's turn to look away. She stared down for a minute before reaching out to open a new search window in her browser. Clearing her throat, she demanded softly, "What was her name?"

Well, that's chapter two! I didn't feel as confident about this one, so please leave comments with thoughts/suggestions. There will be at least one more chapter after this, and like I said, this will become part of "The Long Game" when I get that far. Thanks for reading!