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So this was the perfect opportunity to put her skills to a good use. And not just her medical skills. Also her criminal ones. The ones that would render her able to steal bags of blood and an IV, maybe even antibiotics if she could get a good score.
Yet, before she could do any of those things, she had to get out of the building, which appeared to be one of the hardest things she'd done in a couple of months. Not as hard as the events as the stock exchange, which had proven to be a much bigger disaster, but this time Root was slowly bleeding to death, so it would suffice as a close second. And if Root died, it would promptly bump those events to the second place.
Hence, Shaw didn't see any other choice than to save the woman. She had no idea where the exit was, and since Root was basically unconscious, she had to devise a solution on her own. She looked around, seeing that the halls were still empty. Something that was already obvious because of the lack of gunfire, but something she was taught to do. Recon was Shaw's best friend in missions, and she would rely on it for the rest of her life.
She just hoped that 'rest' would involve a longer time than.. well, that moment.
Just when she was about to retrieve her gun, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She took it out, reading that a blocked number had messaged her. It was a cryptic message. As cryptic as Root's messages from the Machine could be. It was just a sequence of directions, which Shaw concluded to be the escape route. She memorized them as fast as she could, and tucked her phone away. She grabbed her gun from behind her waistband and placed it on the floor.
She knelt down next to Root, pulling her up. In a few swift moves, she had managed to heave the limp body on her back. With the height difference between Root and Shaw, it was somewhat awkward and uncomfortable, but this way, Shaw had at least one free hand to hold her gun, and the other to keep Root in place.
Shaw would never ever praise someone for bad habits when it came to nourishment, but in that moment it was a blessing that Root was such a lightweight due to her lack of eating a proper meal on a regular basis. It was a gift to her back and legs, and partially made up for the height difference. Shaw was strong, but the weight of a grown woman added up to her own took its toll.
She started following the directions the Machine had sent her, albeit not going as rapidly as she'd like. She didn't dare to move too bumpily, concerned that the many movements would cause Root to bleed out faster, but she moved with enough speed not to let her bleed out before being able to treat her wound either. Meanwhile, she hoped the action they'd seen that day had been the last of it, and no other guards would join the party, messing up Shaw's plan to save Root.
Aside of one stray guard, no other assailants dared to take a shot at them. Or rather, it just lacked any security the closer she got to the entrance door. The whole situation reeked of suspicious activities, something that Shaw had felt more than once that day. If it hadn't been for Root on her back, the chills would have crept up. But neither did she have time, nor the possibility to contemplate what it meant. As long as no one was murdering either one of them, Shaw was inclined to be fine with the whole ordeal.
Nevertheless, Shaw was glad she felt the wind touch her face, sucking in fresh air. But she didn't take a break from her mission. She had no time to waste. They might have been out of the building, they weren't out of the woods yet. At least, Root wasn't, and that was Shaw's priority in that moment: getting Root safe and sound, her wound treated and a proper amount of blood streaming through her veins.
Her eyes scanned the perimeter, Shaw thinking of her next step in her plan to succeed in saving Root, since she had now officially run out of directions from the Machine. Right on cue, the Machine sent her another message: 'Left'. So she twisted around to the left, spotting an unwitting man get out of his car with three bags of groceries, clumsily balancing them in front of him, being blind for any strangers that were out to get his car.
Shaw, understanding the message, took advantage of the careless man, and half-jogged to the car. She opened the backdoor, lowering Root onto the backseat. She only made sure the woman's legs wouldn't squash between the door and the car, and got behind the wheel on the moment her victim took notice of the car thieves. "Hey!" He shouted, confused and angry.
Shaw couldn't blame him though, but she needed his car. It was a life-and-death situation that called for desperate measures, and even if Shaw tried, she couldn't feel bad about it. Not when Root's life was at stake.
So she hit the gas, waiting for more instructions. But this time, there were no text messages. The car's navigation started giving directions though, and Shaw could only assume that was meant for them. She was positively certain that the navigation had been turned off when she'd entered the car, and the route happened to lead to a small clinic somewhere a few blocks away from their location.
It turned out to be a non-profit clinic for homeless people and stealing from the homeless was a low blow even for Shaw. But the Machine had sent them there, so she didn't have much choice but to go inside, leaving Root behind in the car. She rushed inside, scanning the room for any doctors. When she'd found the person in charge, she explained to her it was an emergency: her friend was bleeding out in the car, and she needed a few units of blood, an IV kit, antibiotics, gauze and a suture kit to help her. In exchange, she would pay royally, enough to cover her new supplies, and even more for saving her time and energy.
The woman smiled at her before she left, wishing her luck with her friend's life, understanding that Shaw didn't have any time to explain more details. But the young doctor didn't seem to be bothered by it at all, probably used to listening to vague stories of how people had gotten their injuries. So Shaw dashed away, her hands full of the necessary equipment to heal Root. Her hopes were growing, knowing that the Machine had her back and was doing a great job at it. Shaw appreciated it when her partners were reliable like that.
Reaching her car, Shaw wondered if she should start stitching up Root's wounds right there on the sidewalk, but when she opened the door, she felt her phone buzz again. An address flashed across the screen, and she saw the same address light up the screen of the navigation system. So she hopped in the car and drove as fast as the traffic allowed her, arriving at a safe house in record time.
She jumped out of the car, opening Root's backdoor. She bent down to pull Root on her back once again, carrying her to the safe house. Next to the door, there was a notepad, waiting for a code to be punched in. A password the Machine sent her to her phone. She barged through the door, not thinking of any potential residents that might be present.
But the house was devoid of any human being, and so Shaw stumbled to the kitchen, laying down Root on the cleared out kitchen table. She could only hope it had been cleaned by whomever had been occupying the room before her, not having the time to do an extensive clean-up herself. She rushed back to the car, getting the rest of the things she had acquired minutes prior.
Once she had returned to the kitchen, making sure the front door was closed and locked, she started placing the supplies on the counter, displaying them in the order she needed them. When she opened the IV kit, she noticed the clinic doctor had put something extra in it: morphine. She hadn't asked for it, but the woman had probably thought it was convenient to sedate her patient when she started stitching them up. Or maybe it was just to make Root comfortable, she didn't know. She didn't care. Root was out cold, so she probably wouldn't even need it until she woke up either way.
Before Shaw started an IV-line, she checked Root's pulse again, sighing in relief when she found it, weak but still present. She turned her medical mode on as she got to work, making an attempt at saving Root's life. She installed an IV, and attached one of the units of blood to it, provisionally fastening it to the lamp with some wire she'd found in the counter drawers. It was amateurish, but it would do for the moment, and Shaw was long glad she had found a solution so relatively easily.
As much as you could call the help of an artificial intelligence easy.
To avoid the 'mopping a floor while the tap's still open' effect, she began nursing Root's wound. Because it had starting bleeding again, her shirt and the duct tape and the piece of cloth had become one sticky mess. Shaw had to peel them off, layer for layer, to find the wound, bigger than it was before, the skin ripped at the edges. It didn't look good in Shaw's opinion, but she thought she could handle it.
She reached for the package that contained the gauzes and was grateful to find a small bottle of disinfection fluid. The bottle had a label that read 'Betadine', which she had worked with before. She was glad the woman had been so thoughtful about collecting supplies. Shaw had given a list of minimal necessities, figuring a way to use make-shift disinfection fluid – read: vodka or other alcohol-containing products – but this was way more hygienic, and would lower the chances of sepsis and other infections Shaw was wary of causing.
Shaw patted the wound with gauze and some Betadine, cleansing it as much as possible without causing any more damage. Usually she would numb the area around the wound with narcotics of some kind, but since Root was unconscious either way, she decided to save up the bit of morphine she had for when the woman regained consciousness. Shaw supposed she'd be in pain, and would need it more in that moment than in this one.
After checking for other dirt or filth in the wound twice, she took the suture kit. She had done this a thousand times in medical school: stitching up people. She had done it so often that it was second nature, and she thought she was even able to do it eyes closed. But Shaw wanted to do things perfectly, especially in this case. Root was her patient this time, and she wanted to make sure that there'd be minimal scarring and discomfort, despite the fact that she liked grating on the woman's nerves, getting back at her for being annoying herself.
So Sameen Shaw took her time with every suture, carefully making the moves her muscles were so familiar with. When she was finished, she was satisfied with the result. The stitches were all about the same distance from each other, and about the same width. If she were to measure them with a ruler, she'd find them to be almost perfect. She was quite glad with her neat work as she inspected the influence of the stitches on Root's skin. From what she could see and feel herself, she didn't think they would pull too much, but she could be wrong. Not that Shaw was wrong about these things quite often, but with Root she couldn't afford to deliver anything but the best. Not because she didn't want the woman to not suffer, but so that she could be on missions again as soon as possible.
Just to have something on her hands, she cleaned up the mess she had made, scrubbing off the blood from the table Root was still lying on. She considered moving Root to the bedroom, having a softer surface to lie on. One that didn't almost definitely destroy her muscles, but she didn't dare moving her from her place. The wound had ceased to bleed, and she'd like to keep it that way.
Shaw wasn't particularly fond of cleaning up, especially not when it involved scrubbing off blood of an oak wood table, but she didn't know if the Machine 'owned' the house in some kind of sense, or if they had borrowed it for the time being, so she needed to make sure there weren't any traces of Root and Shaw left whenever they were able to leave again. And leaving DNA in the form of blood spatter would certainly fall under that category.
When she was done rummaging around, leaving her with nothing but the possibility of cleaning her gun, she walked up to the fridge for a beer. Unfortunately, it was as empty as her stomach, and she wondered if she should get out to grab Root and her some food and drinks for when Root woke up. But she didn't dare leaving the woman alone, not when her condition was still unstable.
Reluctantly, Shaw grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with water as she thought to herself that Root sure as hell made her go through great lengths to make certain she would be okay. She had spent an outrageously long time without the promise of a decent amount of cold beer waiting for her. Which was a punishment, considering she had just carried another human being through a building. On her back. She scoffed, shaking her head disapprovingly as her eyes landed on the still unconscious woman. The thought of not having beer was almost as bad as the whole evacuation from the building they'd broken into that day.
An involuntary smile played around her lips as she walked up closer to the other woman, her eyes never leaving her motionless body. If she didn't have any beer to keep her company, she might as well keep an eye on her pale partner in crime. So she settled for a place next to the table, being able to interfere when Root's health deemed it necessary.
Still standing, she leaned over, her fingers pressed against Root's pulse point to check for her heartbeat, making sure she hadn't died in the meantime. The bag of blood was almost empty and she estimated she were to change them somewhere in the next few minutes. She flopped down on the chair and found herself hungry, her stomach grumbling painfully - seriously, Root should be grateful and show it by treating Shaw with lots of beer and steak. They had been out on their mission for hours, and so Shaw hadn't eaten anything in hours, which was something she didn't do often. She was used to having a well-filled stomach, never going out on a mission with an empty stomach.
She downed the glass of water, hoping it would still the hunger for a bit. But she had no such luck. So she leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms, staring at a point behind Root. She was going over the events of that day, filing away the strange ones for later discussion, for when Root woke up. She changed the empty units of blood for new ones, and kept guarding the woman while checking her heart rate regularly. There was progression, and Shaw was delighted.
Her eyes were about to flutter closed when the woman before her stirred. Immediately alert, Shaw snapped up, standing within a second and ignoring the dizziness that came with the sudden movement. Her fingers shot to her neck again. She didn't even need to apply pressure to feel that Root's heartbeat was almost back to normal. Shaw exhaled in relief, her hand resting on the other woman's neck as she slowly regained consciousness, groaning in pain.
Root's hand reached for her with gauze covered wound, her automatic response was to rip it off, but Shaw stopped her. "Root, no." She breathed, being surprised by how hoarse her own voice sounded. "I've stitched it up. I have some morphine. You need some?"
Root nodded slowly, her face clenched in pain as she made the movement. So Shaw reached for the syringe with morphine, and injected some in the IV; enough to numb the pain Root was in. She opened her eyes, and Shaw could tell it was hard on her to keep them that way. "Just go back to sleep, Root." Shaw said softly. So after Root's eyes fluttered closed for another time, she didn't open them again.
To ensure that the woman hadn't just died under her watch, she checked her heart rate again. She had done that so often that day, that she almost thought she had memorized it. A heart rate. It sounded ridiculous, and of course it was. One could not remember a heart rate. It wasn't something definite, not something that was set in stone. The heart was unpredictable. Much like Root herself.
But she knew Root. She had her memorized. The way she always faintly smelled of gunpowder, or the way her lips curled up in amusement when she had struck a nerve. The way her voice sounded as she called her 'Sameen'. The determination on her face when she was on a mission, carrying two guns and targeting opponents. Root in God Mode. Root torturing people, including her.
Little things. Just little things. She could sum up dozens of them. She was good at observing people, and one of the people at the receiving end of her scrutiny was Root. And she was special at that too, special to Shaw. But she would never admit that aloud.