"The Machine told me to team up with you." Root says casually as she takes a spoon of oatmeal. I choke on my breakfast and I look at her in disbelief as she looks at me and smiles nervously. "I mean, if it's okay with you. I would totally understand if you say no. I can handle this by myself, it's just a drug deal."
Realisation hits me. "Why, if it's just a drug deal, would the machine tell you to team up with me? She had sent you to worse missions by your own." I stare at her, waiting for her answer, and her facial expression changes. I want to see how far she can go without saying to me that she is the one who wants me to go with her.
"I guess it can get messy." She answers looking at her bowl on the table. I huff with a small smile playing on my lips, delighted with how Root keeps struggling.
"Well, bad news: I'm not going anywhere." I state before continuing eating my breakfast. I can see Root's body slump in disappointment. I'm pretty sure she has noticed how I've been lately. After my "incident" with the last number, I've been training non-stop, feeling like everything I'd done to recover has helped me very little. I'm pushing myself harder - after all it's proven that doing exercise acts on the nervous system, stabilising certain proteins, and increases the amount of endorphin, which is capable to make you feel happy and relax. Anyway, I also know that Root wants to cheer me up with some gunfire action, like she used to do before. But I'm not going to risk her life by grabbing a gun and going on a mission. As much as I liked to smell the gun powder, now it just makes me nauseous and I'd rather prefer to stay at home and train.
"Okay..." She murmurs to herself as she stands with her bowl in one hand and her empty mug in the other, and she places them in the sink. "I better get going then, drug dealers don't like to wait for costumers." She smiles brightly and she puts on her leather jacket. Then, she passes right next to me, brushing my arm as she does. "Don't go all hard on yourself, Sameen."
I hear the door shutting behind me and I feel my stomach twist, not like when Root flirts with me or touches me. It's twisting in a bad way, some bad feeling settling in the back of my mind. I take a deep breath and I decide to ignore it, finishing my breakfast. After all, She is with her, She has her back. Right?
I keep myself busy, following my exercise routine, and after 3 hours without a break, I go to get a warm shower, steam filling the bathroom. And my mind pulls out again that bad feeling I had when Root left. It's like something inside me is yelling in my ear "GO AND FIND HER", but I keep ignoring it. I tell myself that it's another "Samaritan's symptom", that I'm overthinking. Root has been thousand of times out there, by herself. When she hadn't got the Machine to guide her, she had everything covered, a plan A, a plan B. Now that She is back online, she has backup - even if it's just a machine. I take a deep breath, I get out of the shower and I sit on her side of the bed, staring at nothing and soaking the sheets. Should I call Reese, just in case? No. She would be fine. She is fine. I stand up and I grab some clothes, put them on and I go to the kitchen, because I know Root isn't going to have anything during the mission and she will be hungry. And since she is awful at cooking, I guess I could make something and make her eat properly.
Wait. "Since when am I domestic?" I murmur to myself, feeling weird and looking at the pan on my hand.
As I finish cooking, I glance at the clock on the wall, realising that it's almost 8pm and Root is still out there. I sigh and I lock my gaze on the clock until suddenly I get my jacket on and I run towards the subway. Colliding with people as I rush through the streets, I feel a lump in my throat that I can't swallow and it's making me choke. Something is wrong, terribly wrong.
The first month at home, after several incidents with John, Finch and Root, I wouldn't get out of bed. Not even for food. Sometimes Root would leave some fast food next to my nightstand, but I wouldn't eat it. But after expending 2 weeks without getting out of bed, Root stared down at me with those big eyes full of compassion, and, for the first time in weeks, she talked to me. She said that instinct is our souls talking to us. It's not magic, not witchcraft, not deciding without thinking. She said that a well known sociologist explained that this psychologic dimension is part of our adaptive conscience. Everything that we have learned, seen, sensed, lived, even suffered, gets into our mind and stays there. So, when we have to make a decision and we are under pressure, when we have to act quickly, all that printed information guides us. It's that information that tells us who is trustable, which road is better. She said that normally, we should make decisions with reason, with logic. But sometimes we should hear that little voice in the back of our minds, telling us what to do. In that moment, I didn't understand why she was telling me that, but after a while I got the message: my reactions, my incidents, they aren't my fault, they aren't an issue, they are part of that adaptive conscience and sometimes they are worthy enough to listen to. Like that time when I decided to follow a random guy because somehow I knew he was a perpetrator and I found out he was a serial killer. Like when I avoid some streets on my way home, because I have the feeling that some Samaritan's assets might be around. Like now. So I reach the subway, I jump the stairs and when I get in, I see the three of them. John and Finch standing in front of Root, who is bleeding, beaten up and staring at the floor. And my stomach twists.
A/N: I wonder what happened to Root... by the way, I read a comment where the user was apologising for their English. Don't worry, friend, I feel you. I'm Spanish, so the story might have some mistakes!
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