A/N: So.. this is the last chapter already. Once again I want to thank my beta for her help ^^ You were awesome. Thank you :Dbr /

Also I want to thank you all for reading this fic. Without readers that care, I'm nothing, so.. Thank you :D I hope you liked it.

Now, I already said that I have an option on a second and third part. I have plotted out the second part already (not written it yet though) but I'm only gonna write it if people are interested. So, after you've read this chapter, if you will tell me if you're up for another part, so I can muster up enough energy, scramble up some time and make myself motivated enough to write another part. That'd be great!

Anyway, enough talk, read! :D

When Shaw's eyes latched onto Root's, she saw so much despair and sorrow that she couldn't stare right at it. It was like staring at the sun. Beautiful, but painful as hell. She didn't like seeing Root like this. And she hated being the cause of it. She wanted to make things better, wipe away the tears that were clinging to her eyes and rather make a smile emerge. Preferably that mischievous smirk Root would get whenever she was up to something. Something bad.

Before she could say another word, she heard footsteps in the hallway. She automatically reached behind her, but found no gun, realizing that she had put it away when she'd taken care of Root. She cursed herself for not putting it back in place after she'd been done, having to face the consequences now she didn't have a weapon. And Root wouldn't be of much help either, with her wound in stitches.

A man that looked awfully familiar walked through the door, calm and without worry. It didn't seem like he was scared, or like he was going to attack them for that matter. It didn't take long for Shaw to realize that it was the same man she had seen in the hallways of the building they had invaded hours before. The one that had gotten away. She was about to open her mouth to say something, when he did:

"Would you like a treatment?"

The whole atmosphere shifted at the words. Root just stood there, frozen, staring into nothing, her eyes devoid of any emotion. And Shaw felt the undeniable urge to answer 'yes' and follow the man. So she did. She glanced back over her shoulder, and saw Root watching Shaw in the reflection of the mirror. And somehow, it felt like a definite goodbye. Shaw had the feeling she was never going to see Root ever again. And when that thought crashed down on her, the urge to run back took over.

Root looked surprised when Shaw approached her, turning her around in one swift motion. Once again their lips touched, more like a punch than anything else. Shaw drew her impossibly close, like she was trying to put into the movement what she couldn't put into words. And if it were the last time they'd ever see one another, Shaw was going to throw out all objections she had against this sort of thing. For Root.

Root had to know that what she felt for her was at least in some way returned. She could never love Root the way she loved her, but what she could do was love as much as someone like her could. Which was what she did. And if they were never going to meet again, it didn't matter if she showed it. It wouldn't matter anymore. Not to Shaw. But it would matter to Root. It would mean everything.

And for a short moment, Root indulged in the kiss, not being able to resist. One moment of weakness. Even though Root knew it wasn't real. Shaw wasn't real. It was just Shaw's body, with a modified version of Shaw imprinted in her brain, but for that moment she allowed herself to relish in the feel of her lips against hers, rough and painful, but so sweet. Bittersweet.

It felt so right that Root missed the physical contact once they'd parted again. "Maybe someday." Shaw mumbled under her breath, her eyes latched onto Root's again. She took a step back to distance herself from the woman, who was staring at her with desperate eyes. Shaw hated it. She wanted to wipe off the desperation of her face, never letting that look invade her face again. But she couldn't. "I have to go." She said, her stomach churning, growling angrily. And she supposed it wasn't hunger this time that caused her stomach to ache.

As soon as Shaw had left the building, Root walked back to the kitchen, crashing down on the seat Shaw had occupied during the time she had been waiting for Root to wake up. She inhaled deeply and let out a shaky breath. After six times it was still as hard as it had been the first time Shaw had left. Or well, not Shaw. An imprint of Shaw.

Sameen Shaw had been captured by Samaritan's operatives, and been tortured for months. Not counting the fake phone call that turned out to be a trap, she'd never budged. However, she had broken. Eventually. And not in the 'she finally spilled her guts on the information they needed' kind of way. In the 'her brain was so damaged that she couldn't tell her foot from her hand' kind of way. She had lost her mind, her brain irreparably damaged, and the Dollhouse, a corporation that was associated with Samaritan and Decima Technologies, had taken claim of Shaw's still functional body.

And from that day on, Shaw's body had been exploited for an extremely vicious purpose: sex slavery. Or as Adelle DeWitt – director of the Dollhouse Shaw was in – liked to phrase it: "The Dollhouse deals in fantasies." Just thinking about it made Root ill. And hiring Shaw, or Yankee, as she was called in the Dollhouse, was something Root didn't like to do. But after they'd beaten Samaritan, about a year after the Machine was forced into hiding and stuffed into a briefcase, Root wanted to save Shaw. She'd vowed to herself that she would rescue the love of her life, because that was what Shaw would have done for Root. Well, she would have done it either way. Shaw was so much to Root. Root loved her with so much, that she couldn't imagine living in a world that had Shaw in it, but in a way, didn't have Shaw in it. It was a paradox she hated, and she wanted to clear it out. Everything had to go back to normal. As much as her life could be defined as normal.

Before they'd beaten Samaritan, she'd had so many things to do, so many missions, and she couldn't let John and Harold down. Harold would have been able to build the Machine back up alone, but Root had sped up the process and she had brought in her own modifications of what she thought the Machine needed. Granting her the abilities to help them win the war. And because Shaw was gone, John needed someone else to join him on missions, being his backup. And that backup was Root. Ever since Shaw had supposedly died in the stock exchange, John and Root had reached a certain understanding. They'd shared grief, and it had brought them closer together. And Root considered him a friend.

Therefore she wasn't surprised when she heard the front door open and close, revealing a somewhat shabby John Reese. "Is she gone?" He asked, his voice sounding even croakier than usual. He walked up to the table, where a half-empty bag of blood was still dangling on the wire that was attached to the lamp. He raised his eyebrows, but if he were curious, he didn't show more than that. He didn't ask.

"Right before you walked in." Root responded, almost sounding as hoarse as John did. But in Root's case, it was because her voice was full of emotion. She smiled faintly, but it felt artificial. She wasn't sure if she had smiled genuinely ever since the day of the events at the stock exchange. There were moments where she laughed, feeling somewhat real, but the majority of the time she felt empty. As if something very important were missing. Which was exactly the case.

Root sometimes wondered if things would have been different if Shaw had been actually dead. Truly dead. Not like this. She wondered if she would have gotten over it, eventually. Like with Hanna. With Hanna, she hadn't gotten closure for many years. But in her case, she had known Hanna was dead. It had set her on the dark paths she was destined to travel down, always carrying her memory around with her, and what tragic faith she had suffered.

But it was different. Much. Because Hanna Frey had been murdered. It wasn't fair, and Root was wronged in everything that had happened and was related to it. But Root had gotten revenge, and Hanna had been buried properly after Reese and Carter had found her remains. It was a chapter that was finished. But with Shaw it was not. It was an open ending. A story that was left for dead by its author.

At the ending of the war with Samaritan, Root had been the one to catch John Greer. And that was very unfortunate for the man that had chased and haunted Root and her friends. The one that had taken one of them, torturing her to insanity. The very – and only – woman that Root loved. She had lashed out at him, hitting him where she could. She had placed her gun on his forehead, threatening to blow his brains out. And all he had done was laugh.

Because John Greer considered himself just a pawn. A pawn in the game he had lost. But the one that had truly lost, according to him, was Root. He had said it with a smug grin, sneering at Root with that awful look on his face. And he had explained Root exactly why. Because she had believed her 'little girlfriend' was dead, but in fact, she was alive. He had refused to tell her where she was, earning a couple of punches from Root again. Ultimately he had slipped Root a note, with just one word on it, in elegant letters, perfectly matching Greer's style of speaking. 'Dollhouse'.

She hadn't understood. She initially even thought it was a joke. It was just Greer's last way of messing with Root's head, before he had pulled the trigger of Root's gun like many of his employers had done once before.

But reality was far worse. His true harm was hiding in what the note meant. Dollhouse. It had taken her days to find out what it meant, her hacking skills coming in handy. At first, she had believed it was a hoax, it couldn't be true. But then again, after having seen an artificial super intelligence sacrificing Herself for human beings, she left no stones unturned. So she dug and dug and found the information she needed: names of men and women that were prisoners, being exploited by the Dollhouse. Being used for vicious acts of sex slavery.

And when she had scrolled past the name of the woman that she held so dear, her heart had frozen, and her blood had turned into ice. Because it had meant so many things. Sameen Shaw was alive. But she was also dead: her brain supposedly damaged beyond repair.

And knowing was the worst kind of torture Root had ever endured. Nothing weighted as much as this kind of feeling, the utter powerlessness that came with knowing that a person was alive, but had been stripped from their identity and lost every control and will she had once had. Everything that she had loved about the woman was gone. Everything she still loved about her.

She could go on engagements, as the employers of the Dollhouse liked to call it, with Yankee, having an imprint of Sameen Shaw, or at least, as close to the person that was Sameen Shaw. Because it was crafted by a genius named Topher Brink, composed of whichever Root had described about her, what they could extract from Shaw's brain scans before she joined, and pieces of personalities Topher used to create his other imprints.

But fact was, that it would always be just that. Shaw's body with the imprint of Shaw in her head. An illusion. It would never be real.

So from the moment Root had discovered the truth about Sameen Shaw, what had become of her, she had vowed to herself that she would save the woman. She would do whatever it took, and it didn't matter if she'd endanger herself in the process. She had been ready to die for the woman for a long time, and that hadn't changed a bit. And in a way she couldn't even die anymore. The day she had lost Shaw was the day she had died. Whichever part was left of her soul had died with Shaw; had died with the Machine.

However, she had gotten back the Machine. They had rebuilt Her again. Stronger than ever. And that gave Root hope. They had won the war from Samaritan, against all odds. Pandora's box had unleashed hell on Root and the rest of team Machine, on the world, leaving one last thing left in it; hope. Which she had never stopped having, even when everyone had believed that Shaw was dead. She had always chased her ghost, even though she had no confirmation that she was alive, just little clues that left a trail that she had desperately followed, but she was always too far behind to catch up.

But this time, she was going to take back everything she had lost. Because if there were one thing she had learned from saving the Machine, it was that nothing was truly lost. She just had to find a way to make Shaw better again, to put back the pieces that once were part of Shaw. Like a puzzle. Much like with the Machine. And they had succeeded in that mission.

And this time, she would too.

"I'm going to save her, John." Root said determinedly, the lines in her face sharply creasing in conviction. She was going to save her love, at all costs. "She needs us."

"You can count on me." John said seriously, before a goofy smile spread over his face. One that he always made whenever he was planning to do some mischief. And they were going to cause a lot of mayhem on their warpath to get their coworker free. Their friend.

And hell, the Dollhouse was going to regret taking in Sameen Shaw.

A/N: I want to apologize to all of you that have never ever watched an episode of Dollhouse and had no interest in reading a Dollhouse fic, and therefore utterly hate the conclusion of this fic. I'm sorry you invested all this time in something that ended like this.

To all of you that do like Dollhouse, I hope you liked it, and the next part is gonna be a Dollhouse fic, so I hope you'll stay (if I decide to write it.. which I think is a fair chance) with me with the next part. :)

To all of you who don't watch Dollhouse and still kind of liked this fic; I'm gonna write the next part in such a way that you could read it too. I just introduce things like they did it in the show as well.

And also, I wanted to add that I'm not going to follow the original story lines of Dollhouse itself. It's going to be my own story surrounding the Dollhouse.