Harold, John and Gen rotated through Root's room for the next hour or so. Gen seemed almost cocky, bragging about her confidence that Root would be OK. John said little, holding Root's hand as he smiled down on her lost in thought. Who'd have believed we'd end up here, three stone cold assassins and a nerd, as close to family as you can get?

When John hugged Root and left the room, Harold came in. He approached Root's bed almost shyly, unable to look her in the eyes. Root watched curiously as he cleared his throat.

"Ms. Groves…. Root….

".. Um…I can't put into words how happy I am that you're still with us….I've never really told you… how much… you've come to mean to me…

"Your passion for the Machine, the team….. and now your 'family'…. uh….. well…. has brought me closer to you than I ever thought possible…"

Faltering, he struggled, then looked into her eyes.

"I feel like you are the daughter I never had. I'm just so relieved…."

Finch's voice trailed off and he took Root's hand, overcome with emotion. Root, moved by the words she never dreamed she'd hear smiled up at Finch, eyes shining.

"Harold, you've always been like a father to me. I feel like so much of the struggles we've gone through are just me trying to get your approval. Knowing you care and accept me for who I've become is more than I could have ever expected.

"Now, let's talk about how we find and install a conscience for Her."

"I've started… I'd be happy to go over my ideas after you get some rest and we discuss this with the doctors."

Root stuck her tongue out at Finch, but her eyes sparkled.

"Fine." A slight smile threatened to appear. They were interrupted by Shaw's reappearance.

"I just got a text from Elizabeth. She's less than fifteen minutes away- I'm going to let Dr. Tillman know and head down to meet them." She smiled at the two of them, then walked briskly to Root's bed, bent down and kissed her forehead.

"Be back in a few."

….

Both Shaw and Dr. Tillman waited at the main entrance of the hospital. Shaw noticed the doctor appeared nervous. She tilted her head, curious, then as it clicked, reached out and took the doctor's hand.

"Relax doc, she'll love you. You two are going to be fine."

Dr. Tillman's eyes widened and a flush crept up her cheek.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to those of us who know you well. Just take it easy, be yourself and remember, Elizabeth's mom is going to be a patient first- then…. well then who knows?"

"I didn't know you also studied psychology Ms. Shaw. That's pretty insightful."

"I may have had the feelings thing turned down all these years, but I've always been fairly good at observation. In my old line of work it came in handy….."

Shaw's voice trailed off and she raised her hand to her temple, wincing. Of course the doctor noticed.

"Are you alright?"

"Just a headache, I probably didn't get near enough caffeine today."

The doctor looked over at Shaw thinking, I'm pretty good at observation as well, Ms. Shaw and that seemed a bit stronger than a caffeine headache.

Her reverie was interrupted by Shaw's pointing toward the drive.

"They're here."

And all thoughts of Shaw's headache vanished, and wouldn't return for a few days.

….

Elizabeth parked near the circular drive where patients were dropped off and popped out of the Excursion. She hurried around to the passenger's side, opened the door and helped an attractive late 40's woman out of the passenger seat.

Shannon Ruben was pale and had lost considerable weight during her long recovery from the accident that almost killed her, but her beauty was still obvious. She was a few inches taller than her daughter (wasn't everybody?) but the resemblance was obvious. Less obvious to anyone meeting her for the first time were her eyes; dulled by the results of the near fatal accident, but when she was healthy sparkled with such life and beauty that men (and women) could get lost in them.

Dr. Tillman and Shaw approached the pair, Shaw beaming and Dr. Tillman still nervous. Elizabeth looked toward the pair and smiled.

"Megan, Shaw, long time no see."

She left her mother briefly to hug both women, Shaw first then the doctor. She lingered in Dr. Tillman's embrace for just a brief moment and the two shared a look that Shaw noticed immediately. Unknown to them at the time, Elizabeth's mom noticed it too.

"Megan, Shaw, this is my mom, Shannon. Mom these are two of the people I told you about, Sameen Shaw and Dr. Megan Tillman."

Shannon smiled at the pair and stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you. Elizabeth says nice things about both of you."

Elizabeth looked at her friends. "How's Root?"

Shaw rolled her eyes. "Awake and already being a pain in the ass…. oops, sorry Ms. Ruben."

"I've heard worse- as a matter of fact, today, on the drive down." She glanced over at her daughter. Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

"Some people need to learn how to drive. Let's go in, I want to see Root."

The group headed into the hospital.

….

There were so many people in Root's room Dr. Tillman finally had to shoe everyone but Elizabeth and her mom out. After a few minutes, Elizabeth excused them and as she was leaving Root called her back.

"I like your mom, but she hasn't fully recovered has she?"

Elizabeth's smile faltered.

"No, and I don't know what to do to help."

"Can you ask Dr. Tillman to come back in for a minute?"

Root stared pensively at the window wishing she weren't cooped up in a hospital but glad she was still around. When Dr. Tillman re-entered the room, Root stared at her.

"I like Shannon, but she's still not fully recovered from her accident. She seems physically fine but still in a fog. Can I make a suggestion?"

"Sure, Root… go ahead."

"I know I'm not a doctor, but while I was in here I studied the file on me and also studied John's. It seems that we both were suffering more from our brain injuries than the physical damage done to us. It seems Shannon is in the same boat.

"I also studied the procedure you used on me and watched and familiarized myself with the holistic methods Dr. Ingram used on John. I know there were no, repeat no possible negative side effects or repercussions from either procedure.

"Why not try them both on Shannon to see if anything positive can come out of them. You could try one at a time then both together. They can't hurt her and we've seen the positive results they can have. There's no down side."

Dr. Tillman was silent for a good two minutes. She nodded her head slightly, smiled at Root and replied.

"That's not a crazy idea. I don't know if it would help, but I do know it won't hurt. I'll be conducting tests on her over the next couple of days and will bring both Dr. West and Dr. Ingram in to consult on her."

She looked at Root fondly.

"Thanks."

Root smiled and nodded.

"Hope everything works out."

Dr. Tillman left the room with a slight flush creeping up her neck.

As she reentered the waiting area where Reese, Finch, Gen and Shaw stood talking with the new arrivals, she looked at Shaw and nodded toward Root's room. Shaw shook her head and indicated Finch and Gen.

"The two of them want to discuss strategy with Root before they start in on the Machine's brain surgery."

Dr. Tillman went over and spoke quietly to Gen and Harold. As they disappeared into Root's room, Shaw looked at the remaining four. Elizabeth and the doctor were stealing surreptitious looks at each other while Shannon pretended not to notice.

Oh that's interesting, these two have no idea how obvious they are.

When she looked at Reese it stopped her dead in her tracks. She had seen his flirtatious banter with Zoe, remembered his feelings for Joss which were cut short by her murder and seen him with Iris as they tiptoed around a relationship. She'd never seen him look like a lovesick teenager. But that's how he was staring at Shannon.

Recovering from her surprise, she walked over to Reese and said very quietly,

"John, your mouth's hanging open. Be careful, you might start drooling."

Reese snapped his mouth shut and shook his head. He looked down at Shaw with a small amount of red creeping up his neck.

"Not a word, Shaw."

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. You don't even know her."

"Yeah I know, and I don't know what just happened." He motioned Shaw to move away from the three ladies. "I'm a little embarrassed but when I met her, something inside went, 'whoosh'. This is so weird- I don't do relationships, at least not since Carter died.

"But what happened a few minutes ago was totally out of left field. I think I should get back to my room and get my head back on straight."

"I'll see you in the morning John."

Shaw walked over to the door of Root's room and knocked lightly. Peeking inside, she saw Harold engrossed in his laptop while Gen sat by Root's side holding her hand. Root was on the verge of sleep and Shaw approached the bed, leaned down and kissed Root's forehead.

"I think Gen and I will head home Root. You look like you could fall asleep at any second. It's been a long day for all of us and we'll be back first thing in the morning. Love you.

"Goodnight Sameen."

Root's voice, obviously tired, still got to her. She turned and left without a word. Gen followed.

….

The next morning, Dr. Tillman had Root's suite altered to allow for more visitors. The group knew not to tire her out, but seemed to find comfort in gathering together. As they were quietly talking amongst themselves, they were interrupted by the appearance of Dr. West, the neurologist who had assisted in both Root's and John's care.

Dr. Tillman took Elizabeth and Shannon out of the room to meet the Dr. West.

"Dr. West, Shannon was involved in a serious car accident months ago. Her physical recovery is almost complete, but neurologically she seems to have lost some of the edge she once had. I explained to Elizabeth that you are the best in your field and that if anyone could assist her mom in a complete recovery, it was you."

Dr. West smiled and took Shannon's hand.

"I'd like to meet with you and go over some of your history- then we can schedule tests for you. I think we should start later this afternoon if that suits you."

Shannon smiled faintly.

"I know there's something not quite right. It's like I'm in a fog much of the time. I miss my old self- at least the part I remember. I can't wait to get started."

"Excellent, how about 3:00?"

Shannon nodded and Elizabeth smiled at her.

"She'll be there."

Dr. West excused himself, he had some other patients at different facilities. Shannon, Elizabeth and Dr. Tillman returned to Root's suite. They discovered chaos. Shaw was standing over Root, leaning down and holding Root's arms against the mattress. Finch and Reese were standing off to the side eyes wide.

"I will zip-tie you to this bed, do you hear me?"

"Whoa guys, what's going on?"

The two looked at Dr. Tillman and Shaw released Root's arms and spun around.

"So we're talking about her treatment and her helping Gen and Finch when we got a number. Root looks at me and tries to get out of bed and says, 'we've got to get moving.' I swear doc, this woman will drive me completely around the bend if she doesn't figure out that she's not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

"I meant what I said, I will zip-tie her to this bed if she doesn't cooperate!"

Root looked at Shaw, concern showing as her brief anger faded.

"Sam, you can't go out chasing numbers alone… you can't."

Shaw rolled her eyes and shook her head. Exasperated, she looked Root in the eye.

"Number one, I no longer go out alone. As you should remember, I have Her in my head whenever needed. Number two, you would be more hinderance than help in your condition- even if we allowed it which we won't.

"Number three, I would take John before you even though he's not ready to go out in the field yet because he's in way better shape than you right now…."

"And number four…" a voice came from across the room. Shaw and Root both turned and looked at Elizabeth, who continued.

"I'm here and ready to go. I'm not you, Root but I've got both of your backs- always."

Shaw smiled and Root relaxed back into her bed, defeated but somewhat relieved.