John sped out of the warehouse to retrieve something from the car (refusing to say what, despite his partner's ardent protests against spending any more time than necessary inside the building), leaving Shaw behind in the lounge where she carefully set Root on the table. She was still unconscious, and her poorly sutured abdomen had begun to bleed again when she was hoisted up from the interrogation room. Looking around, Shaw's eyes fell on the two Decima agents that were still tied together and just as unconscious as Root; she used her knife to cut long strips from their pants and undershirts, making impromptu bandages.

They were shoddy at best, just barely long enough to be secured together around Root's admittedly narrow waist, but they would do. They would have to.

With the bandages in place and not much else she could do, Shaw resorted to pacing the small room. Every few seconds her eyes darted to the door, expecting John to replace them every time. Just when Shaw was ready to forget about her partner all together and make her own exit he burst through the double doors, out of breath and with a duffle bag in his hand. She eyed him cautiously.

"I'm assuming you don't have a change of clothes in that goody bag."

He looked down at himself - his suit was in tatters, what was left of it blood soaked - but shook his head.

"More like a way to take care of that tunnel before Decima has the chance to use it to sneak up on us."

"Oh", Shaw said with a small grin, "that'll work, too."

Following the blue prints Finch had sent them prior to their assault, the two of them left Root in the relative safety of the lounge to make their way to where the tunnel most likely was. Shaw was reluctant (they had just gotten her back, after all; she hesitated to let Root out of her sight) but John argued that he would need her help. With quite a bit of convincing done on his part, she eventually acquiesced. They found their destination rather easily - seeing as Decima seemingly didn't plan on anyone finding the warehouse, it was even clearly marked. Large bright signs reading "Tunnel Entrance" were scattered about, helpful as ever. They even had arrows.

Reese set the bag down once they arrived at their destination, which upon a little reconnaissance indeed lead down to the tunnel. Shaw peered over his shoulder as he opened it.

It was filled with sticks of dynamite. And a lot of them.

"Reese", she stared, dragging it out just enough to let him know she was both annoyed and impressed, "is there a reason you have a metric fuckton of dynamite in a duffle bag?"

He shrugged.

"Remember that case I was working the other morning?" John gestured towards the bag when his partner nodded. "I may or may not have borrowed this from those guys. I was going to add it to our rainy day fund, but..."

(He was referring, of course, to the small arsenal that the team had accumulated through the years and was currently being housed in Harold's safe house. It included, but was not at all limited to: 14 M9 pistols, 13 AR15s,13 M16 assault rifles, 8 Remington 870 combat shotguns, 8 Bizon Submachine Guns, 7 XM148 grenade launchers, 4 AT4 anti-tank weapons, 3 PF-98 rocket launchers, 3 Kalekalip KNT-308 .308 caliber sniper rifles, 2 of Shaw's coveted H&K USP Compacts, a single military-grade taser (which was confiscated from Root, before she got any bright ideas), not to mention countless boxes of ammunition, grenades, scopes, gun attachments, field first aid kids, Kevlar vests, eye and ear protection, and knives of all shapes and sizes.)

"Seems like a rainy enough day to me."

John just grinned, his swollen nose and fat lip making it so comical that Shaw grinned back.

The two of them worked in tandem, using the blueprints (and several helpful hints from Finch, who appeared to be quite the demolition expert) to strategically set the sticks of dynamite around the heavy doorframe and along the stop of the stairs, to ensure the cave-in they desired. With half the bag set up, John ran the wire. They retreated as far as it would allow, far enough away that the explosion shouldn't affect them (other than being ridiculously loud, of course). John's only warning to Shaw about the impending blast was a quick 'cover your ears' before he detonated the lot. Not that covering them did much; they were still ringing terribly when she was finally able to hear again at all.

It had worked, though - it would take Decima, or anyone, hours if not days to get through all the rubble. And there was no telling how much damage was done to the tunnel itself. When Samaritan and by extension Greer learned what had happened and inevitably sent its agents after them, they wouldn't be able to use the tunnel to their advantage. Satisfied, the pair made their way back to the lounge.

Shaw carried Root out of the warehouse, and a good portion of the way to the hill where her and Reese had stashed their borrowed Mercedes. However the adrenaline finally left her body about half of the way up, the bullet she had earned to her upper arm earlier causing it to lock up, making it nearly impossible to continue. Reluctantly, she let John take over. He traded Root for the duffle bag, and gingerly carried the hacker the rest of the way to the car, where he deposited her in to the back seat; he even tried to make her comfortable, her long legs bent at an awkward angle to keep her on the narrow seat, but it wasn't as if Root could appreciate his efforts. She was still unconscious, wrapped tightly in Shaw's leather jacket and the few make-shift bandages Shaw had salvaged from the clothing of the Decima agents.

She looked, Reese noted with a small grimace, terrible. They would need to hurry.

After draping a thin wool blanket over Root he turned around to make sure Shaw was still behind him, and found her putting the dynamite in the trunk and pulling out the anti-tank weapon she had been so insistent on bringing with them earlier. That same one that, before their assault of the warehouse, he had to pluck carefully from Shaw's small shoulders and convince her to leave behind.

"Shaw?", John asked in a clipped voice, but received nothing but silence from his partner. While she may not have said anything, her eyes burned with a vengeance that he knew too well. He took a step towards her before speaking again. "What are you planning on doing with that?"

"Making sure Decima definitely can't follow us."

She was already loading the weapon as she spoke, and as much as Reese wanted to give Decima a full refund on the havoc they had wrought in their lives in the past 24 hours alone, he didn't see any advantage to giving them a minute more of their time. At least not right that second, with Root in the shape she was in. They had already long overstayed their welcome by taking the time they did to rid Decima of the tunnel. While John thought that it was a necessity, it still took longer than either of them had or he feared Root could afford. The three of them were working off of pure luck at that point, and he was becoming increasingly fearful that it was about to run out.

"You don't think Root has waited long enough for medical attention?", he tried. John thought a logical approach might coerce her, but realized how wrong he was the second he opened his mouth and was on the receiving end of a rather deadly glare. Even by Shaw's standards.

There probably wasn't anything he could say to her to convince her to just let it go. At least for right now. At least until they could regroup. But still, he pressed on.

"Isn't that why we took out the tunnel, Shaw? There's no way they're going to follow us. There aren't even cameras out here, there isn't a single camera for miles. But we need to move now, before they try to get ahold of Martine or Jeremy, can't, and send an army here to investigate."

Still unconvinced, his partner avoided looking at him.

"We can't take down an army, Shaw", John said as he rubbed at his eyes absently. "Not like this."

His partner slowed her movements but didn't stop. John sighed, exasperated at how stubborn she was being though he was hardly surprised.

If he was being honest, in addition to the fact that every second they spent arguing was a second Decima got closer, and the fact that Root was in such poor shape, he was just plain tired. Knowing that Shaw would no doubt never let him live it down if he voiced that, though, he kept his mouth shut. But still, his entire body hurt, and Reese wouldn't hesitate to admit (to anyone but Shaw) that he was more than ready for a hot shower and a cold beer. If he could even keep his eyes open long enough to put the bottle to his lips.

His partner, however, was still checking her weapon as if there wasn't a storm of epic proportions heading their way. As if she hadn't been awake for who knows how many hours, and wasn't in terribly great shape herself.

"Everything we just did for Root won't be worth anything if we never make it back to the city."

"You're probably right", Shaw tossed over one shoulder even as she raised the AT4 to the other and took aim, "but if I'm going to leave Greer and Decima with one thing, it's going to be knowing that we will - that I will - destroy them and every single thing they own."

"They'll think twice about taking something of mine again", she added with finality.

With that, she fired off the first round, hitting the middle of the three SUVs parked outside and sending all of them up in a fiery explosion. When the smoke cleared enough for her to lock on to another target, she quickly reloaded and sent a second projectile into the warehouse itself. Reese could see the faint vestiges of a smirk on her face as already crumbling brick collapsed and a spray of concrete and plywood rained down on the destroyed vehicles.

Some things required a scalpel, Reese recalled with a frown, but Shaw was nothing short of a sledgehammer.

Or perhaps a grenade.

Her penchant for absolute chaos satisfied (for the time being), Shaw climbed in to the back seat of the Mercedes with Root as John sped away, back towards the safety (and much needed medical equipment) of the subway. She cursed herself for not thinking to bring any of those supplies with her - Root went in to cardiac arrest three times on the drive back, Shaw contorting her body impossibly to administer CPR and restart the hacker's damaged heart. On their arrival to the subway station, Finch met them at the foot of the stairs, wide-eyed and thankfully wise enough to save his lectures for later. Or never, Shaw hoped. He had Lionel with him, who looked rather green when he spotted Root's crumpled body in John's arms.

"Should we perhaps find you all a doctor?", Finch asked with a shaky voice as the pair walked past, a trail of blood (a combination of all three of theirs) behind them.

"I am a doctor", Shaw deadpanned at him before speeding by them both, Reese on her heels and Bear on his.

Harold had decided against arguing, knowing that it would get them nowhere. Instead he retreated to the subway car. At least there he could make himself useful, continuing his research on Samaritan and Decima and leaving his two assets to their task. Fusco, who had been standing idly by and looking ill since Shaw and Reese walked in, finally spoke up.

"Jesus", he muttered as he eyed them seriously. "What happened to you guys?

Shaw spared just under half a second on how the three of them must look to Fusco and Finch. She was covered in blood (half hers and more than likely half Martine's, with a large smear across her front from where she had wiped the blade of her knife clean on her shirt), with her arm hanging uselessly at her side. She could feel the bullet lodged somewhere in her bicep, wiggling its way deeper into her muscle every time she so much as breathed in too deeply. Her eye, which she had almost forgotten had taken that heavy blow from Martine, was swollen so much that at any moment she feared she would stop being able to see out of it. Reese wasn't in much better shape; the graze on his neck had finally stopped bleeding, but the multiple large lacerations he sustained from Shaw could only guess was some sort of knife fight would require stitches, and soon. Non-medically speaking, his suit was more or less shredded. Both of the former agents' noses were contorted rather painfully, clearly broken and in need of being reset. They looked like half of a bar fight gone wrong. And certainly not the winning half.

Root looked the worst out of the trifecta, as one would expect. The blow she had taken to the head at some point, as well as the three gunshot wounds to her abdomen, were already showing the early signs of infection. She was burning up, in and out of consciousness and speaking incoherently while awake. Shaw held the first two fingers of her good hand against the hacker's wrist, and found her pulse rapid and irregular. Root was covered from head to toe in blood, bruises, small cuts, needle marks, and burns, not to mention that almost all of her fingers had been broken and her left foot appeared to be nothing short of crushed.

Shaw stood still for just a moment, ignoring John's protests and Finch's lingering presence (not to mention Fusco's worried eyes), feeling the soft, warm flesh that gave way ever so slightly beneath her fingers. She focused on the pulse beating traitorously against her, like it was rebelling by existing at all.

And it was, in a way.

She stood there reveling in the fact that this was real, that Root was really there, that they really saved her, until she felt her heartbeat slow dangerously. Only then did she jump into action, and slip in to the familiar and comfortable disassociation that was brought on by recalling her years of medical training.

John moved quickly despite his injuries, responding to her commands instantly. He set Root up on the gurney in the back of the subway, in the small room Shaw had designated as their personal triage station after her cover had been blown and Finch tasked her out of fear she might actually go insane with nothing to do.

(That was after Shaw had set up an indoor shooting range in the space, somehow acquiring a dozen mannequins from one of the shops in Chinatown and setting them up at varying distances in the back room.

On more than one occasion Finch had come to the subway in search of some quiet - a break from reading poorly written papers or giving lectures that no one was listening to - only to find it filled with gunfire. It was almost amusing, for a short while; Shaw quickly grew bored of shooting the faceless plaster molds scattered about, and took to dressing them in ridiculous outfits. Root's coveted bear costume had ended up on one, while another wore a baggy suit of indiscernible origin with John's face taped to the head.

She even had one in a pants suit, a blurry surveillance camera photo of Control secured to it.

He put an end to the target practice when he found one of the mannequins wearing his favorite fedora, several high caliber rounds through it. Shaw just grinned through his rant, eventually agreeing to convert the room in to something a little more practical.)

Getting to work immediately, Shaw grit her teeth through the pain that came with moving her arm and hooked Root up to the multiple monitors she had acquired. Reese helped her start IV lines, and Fusco (who finally stopped looking like they were all about to revisit his lunch at any moment) gathered supplies as Shaw shouted them out to no one in particular.

Though the gunshot wounds were bad, and there was no telling what kind of damage they had done when they tore through Root - there were three entry wounds but only one exit, causing concern for a completely different set of reasons -, not to mention the large blow to her temple, Shaw's number one priority was flushing the other woman's body of all the toxins that had been introduced to it. There would be no point it trying to operate now if her heart couldn't stay beating. She tasked John with setting up saline, in addition to the broad-spectrum antibiotics and 2 units of blood that were already hanging, and he completed his task quickly before looking back up at Shaw with cloudy eyes. Not liking the way he looked - pale and sweating, swaying ever so slightly on his feet - Shaw just scowled at him.

"Don't you dare pass out in this room", she snapped at him as she secured the multiple IV lines with gauze tape, the words coming out much harsher than she had meant to. "Go get yourself some blood. Now."

Reese, knowing better than to argue, dipped out of the room and quickly set himself up with an IV of his own, which he brought back and hung on the rack with all of Root's bags before carefully maneuvering his way around the gurney to hook Shaw up to the other unit in his hand.

How ridiculous it must look, Shaw though, that both of the people fighting to save Root's life are hooked up to IVs with her.

John and Lionel stepped out after everything they could do had been completed (Reese was unable to go far, obviously, so he stood awkwardly just outside holding his arm in the doorway to avoid tangling his IV line), so that Shaw could strip Root down and place her in a hospital gown. She inserted a catheter, attached an EKG machine, pushed just enough painkillers to keep Root comfortable but coherent, then sterilized the operating area, the tools she intended to use, Root, and her own hands.

She also pulled out a large bottle of whiskey from a supply cabinet, already half finished, and took a large swig of it, hoping the alcohol would quell the shaking in her hands.

Satisfied, Shaw called Reese and Fusco back in. Once inside, however, it became clear to the boys that Shaw was at a loss for what to do next. They had no anesthesia, no respirator, barely any of the tools she needed, and Shaw didn't dare try to operate without a single one of those things at this point. If there was any hope of saving Root's life, Shaw would need to put her under, remove the bullets in her abdomen, repair the damage they had done, thoroughly clean the wound at her temple, reset the bones of her foot, as well as take care of half a dozen other serious injuries. Shaw was also not foolhardy enough to believe that flushing Root's system was enough to repair the damage done to her already weakened heart by the repeated torture; though she hoped it wouldn't come to it, Shaw knew that having a pacemaker on standby wouldn't be a terrible idea.

Knowing that there really was no other option, she tasked Finch with locating all of the equipment she would need - which he did, rather quickly, taking the list Shaw had supplied and sending Detective Fusco out to meet Zoe and collect everything. With Root's vitals somewhat stable (or, as stable as they could be; Shaw was just happy that her heart hadn't stopped beating again), Shaw walked out in to the main room if the subway. Reese was sitting in a chair pulled up close to the doorway, looking a little bit better than he had been before. He glanced at Shaw and flashed her a weak smile - his nose was a nasty shade of purple, upper lip bisected by a cut that would probably need a stitch or two in it. But still, he smiled at her, so she tried to return the gesture.

It hurt to do so, and not because of her matching broken nose or shattered frontal bone.

(Though, if she was being honest, that didn't help at all; she made a mental note to hook both of them up with some painkillers when she felt like moving again.)

"How's she doing?", Reese croaked out as she got nearer to him.

In lieu of a response, Shaw slumped down on to the floor between his chair and the door. She leaned her head back against the cool wall and closed her eyes, enjoying the way it felt against the nasty bump she had earned there at some point. Unsure if John could see her (and not caring much if he could or not), she shrugged with a nonchalance she didn't feel. Shaw suddenly wished that she had brought the bottle of whiskey out with her.

"She's alive."

She could feel John shift, felt the IV line dangling above her head dip and touch her.

"Which is a good thing."

All Shaw could do was grunt, not trusting her voice. She didn't know how to explain to him what she was feeling. As relieved that she was that Root was with them, that she was safe from Martine and her torture and Jeremy fucking Lambert and whatever else Decima had planned for her, she couldn't shake the sinking feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach ever since they brought her back. Whatever it was, it made her guts twist and the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It was not a feeling she was familiar with. It was not something she had ever felt before with such ferocity.

Somewhere deep inside of her, so far down that she could barely acknowledge it let alone admit it out loud, Shaw thought it might be fear.

"Does she know?", John asked quietly.

She was pulled from her thoughts, and considered playing dumb, but was too exhausted to try. Shaw shrugged again, and dropped her head in to her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. The weight and movement hurt her arm, but she relished in the pain; it was grounding. It was a distraction. It made all of this more real, and whatever she was feeling for Root less so. For the time being, at least.

"You should tell her", he added once he realized that her half of the conversation was over.

John decided on leaving out that he knew how she must feel - it wasn't all that long ago that he was holding Carter's lifeless body and regretting every chance he missed to tell her how he felt. It might not have changed anything in the end, but it would have had to have been better than walking around with all of that still so heavy on his heart.

He wouldn't wish that on anyone. Least of all Shaw.

Frustrated, Shaw silently scrambled to her feet, leaving a still distracted John to sit by the doorway and listen to the monitors beat semirhythmically in the other room. She retrieved a handful of painkillers from the triage room, as well as some small forceps, instant ice bags, and several suture kits, before making her way back to her partner.

"Why don't you make yourself useful?", she grunted as she tossed the supplies in his lap. Reese looked at them blankly as Shaw retrieved a chair, which she pulled up next to his; she turned it around, though, making sure that she could see Root. It just made everything much more convenient that it offered up the side she had been shot on.

"You know I'm not a doctor, right? That's kind if your gig."

"I just need you to get this bullet out of my arm." When John still looked hesitant, she rolled her eyes. "I can't fix your lip or anything else wrong with you or Root if I can't move my arm, Reese."

Though clearly still reluctant, John sighed and motioned for her to scoot closer. She did so, rolling up the sleeve of her shirt so that he could get better access to the bullet hole about 3 inches above her elbow. Reese knew just how painful being shot there could be, and wondered how Shaw had managed to move as much as she did and as well as she did.

John remembered Carter's lifeless body and all the havoc he had caused in the wake of her death, regardless of how much pain he had been in, and had his answer.

He positioned the forceps in one hand while steadying Shaw's arm with the other. John hesitated before beginning, however, his very small amount of medical experience combined with the fact that he was painfully aware that Shaw hadn't so much as taken a Tylenol since they arrived at the subway making him a little nervous.

"Do you maybe want to... bite down on something?"

"Don't be a pussy", she said casually, but immediately regretted it once he got started.

All the finesse John had with a weapon was completely gone when you put forceps in his hand instead. It felt to Shaw as if he was actually doing more damage than actually doing anything even remotely repairative. After what felt like a lifetime (but was in reality no more than 5 minutes), he finally extracted the bullet from where it had settled near her humerus. He placed it in her upturned palm, where she examined it momentarily before dropping it to the ground as if it had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience to her. Shaw moved her arm at various angles and in to several positions, still terribly sore but satisfied that the damage was actually quite minor. Reese then made quick work of the stitches; now those, Shaw noted, he had clearly done before. They weren't perfect, of course, but not everyone had gone to medical school. At least the scar wouldn't be too unsightly.

(Not that that bothered her overtly much.)

"Now", Shaw said after admiring his handiwork for a moment, "you're going to reset my nose."

"Shaw, I don't think I-"

"Shut up", she interrupted, popping a few of the painkillers she had grabbed into her mouth. She shook a few into John's hand too. "If you do it, I'll reset yours for you, and you might come out of this without looking much uglier than you already are. If you don't do it, my nose is going to heal badly. And if my nose heals badly, I'm going to shoot you. Because I have a very nice nose."

John just looked at her helplessly - any medical experience he had picked up during his time with the army was limited at best. At worst, it could actually end up being detrimental. He could do decent sutures and wasn't half bad at basic damage control, but anything beyond that was better left to the professionals. Shaw couldn't reset her own nose, however, just as she couldn't remove the bullet from her own arm. He knew he didn't have much of a choice but to try to follow her directions and do the best he could.

At that thought, Reese gulped. Whether or not her agreed with Shaw's statement about her apparently nice nose, he certainly didn't want to be the reason it came out of this looking any different.

"Okay", he acquiesced. Not that Shaw was really going to give him much of a choice. "Just tell me what to do."

When Finch, Lionel, and Zoe rushed in to the subway an hour later - their tactfully acquired medical supplies in tow - they found the two agents leaning against the doorway to Root's room holding ice packs to their faces. Shaw actually had one in each hand; one held gingerly against her nose and the other pressed against her eye to slow the swelling. After a few botched attempts, Reese managed to reset Shaw's nose to her satisfaction. In return she reset his, as well as sutured up the worst of the lacerations he had received. With fresh bags of blood hanging for each of them, some mild painkillers in their systems, and the worst of their injuries tended to, the pair looked infinitely better than the last time Finch and Fusco had seen them.

Zoe, however, who had not seen either of them since the previous day when she dropped them off after Shaw had burnt down that house in suburbia, just gawked at the sight of them.

"Oh my god", she gasped as she rushed towards John, slumped in his chair by the doorway, "John, are you okay?"

His cheeks and ears turned a deep red, but he allowed Zoe's fussing. It was only when he looked over and caught Shaw's eyebrow raised in amusement that he gently took her hands in his. They had a silent conversation, something passing between them that left John still red, and Zoe much calmer. Shaw looked away - as did Finch and Fusco - while it happened, feeling for some reason as if she was intruding on a private moment.

"So did you get everything we needed, Fusco?", John finally said to break up the awkwardness that had descended on the group. He still held one of Zoe's hands, absently running his thumb across her knuckles while her free hand rested gently on the back of his neck.

(Shaw wondered, momentarily, if that was how she and Root would be if she was ever brave enough to tell her how she felt, let alone intelligent enough to find a way to put it in to words. Or lucky enough to have Root reciprocate it.

Looking at how comfortable the couple next to her was - John leaning back ever so slightly into Zoe's touch, Zoe standing so close to him that her side was pressed against his - she tried to picture her and Root being the same way. It was difficult, if not impossible. And not because she didn't crave that physical closeness with Root - because she did, in that form and every form - but because the two of them... they were different. So different from John and Zoe and how they act together. So different from everyone, really.

She could see them fighting over breakfast, see herself having to remind Root to eat and Root remind her to slow down, could see Root burning her pancakes and herself feeling guilty for blowing up about it. She could envision the way they would take up space together, not as affectionate outwardly as the two next to her but still affectionate in their own way. Shaw could imagine the way Root would look sprawled across the couch in her apartment, typing away on her laptop as Shaw sat on the floor with her back against the cushions cleaning her guns on the coffee table. She could imagine the way Root would pause every so often from whatever it was she was doing to simply touch Shaw's shoulder or watch her work for a few minutes, how Shaw herself would force a scowl out of habit in contrary to the warmth it would spread in her chest.

Shaw could practically feel Root's soft curls between her fingers, could hear the lilt of her voice as she made innuendos and comments every time Shaw dared to touch her outside the safety of her bed. Of their bed.

At that thought, Shaw decided to snap her attention back to the conversation at hand. If anything was counterproductive at this point, it was in any way, shape, or form imagining Root in her bed.)

"We got it all", Fusco said, providing just the distraction Shaw needed. "If you guys can't fix Cocoa Puffs with all this crap, I don't know how anyone'll be able to do it."

Standing up slowly as to not make herself dizzy, Shaw brushed the dirt off her ass. The others looked at her expectantly, knowing that what happened next – the surgery, the recovery, the aftermath, the revenge – all hinged on Shaw. And Shaw knew it too. Looking back at them, the fear and anxiety in their eyes mirrored in her own, she made a decision.

If she could pull this off, if she could save Root's life, then there was something out there that wanted her to tell her exactly how she felt. Whether that was the God her mother worshiped, or the mechanical one that Root did, who was Sameen Shaw to go against its will?

If Root lives, she gets all of me.

And if she doesn't, Shaw thought, I will drag Samaritan's destruction out until it doesn't hurt anymore.

"Let's do this."