A/N: This story takes after Season 4 finale. I intend to write this as my version of Season 5, so not only Root and Shaw but other characters will be involved as well.

I will explain how Finch, Root and Reese escaped, and what the Samaritan, and Greer, wants from Shaw as the story goes. Not sure if I'll include Elias and Dominic, but even if I do write their part, probably they won't have as much story in this fic as they have in the show.

I know that in the show, we had a glimpse of Shaw sitting in a vehicle, but in this story I would start her part with her waking up in Decima's place. I think it might better explain the purpose of the Samaritan and Decima, and why she'd in a vehicle looking fully recovered yet wasn't contacting Team Machine.

The relationship development of Shaw and Root in this story will be a slow, slow burn. Don't say that I haven't warned you.

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Person of Interest, and I don't profit from it. If I did though, Carter would still be alive.

Chapter 1

In a small classroom, a dozen of students quietly watched their professor taking out a stack of print outs from his brief case. Then, the textbook was laid right beside them on the desk. After that, he placed three markers, blue, red and black, one by one next to the textbook.

He straightened himself afterwards, briefly scanning the entire place. After having realized that he had been checking the corners of the walls and the ceiling, he cleared his throat and focused on the students.

"Good afternoon, everyone," he greeted, his voice a little tight. "My name is Harold Vireo. I will be teaching CS509 this semester, which is Artificial Intelligence I."

He paused for a moment and took in all the curiosity and enthusiasm from the students. "Any questions before we start anything?"

After a short while of susurrus of chats among the students, a girl in the front row raised her hand. "Actually, I have a question, professor."

"Yes, Ms.-"

"-Blake," the girl told him. "Jordan Blake."

"Of course, Ms. Blake. What question is it that you have?"

"Just wondering...are we gonna meet a real AI some time this semester, cuz...there's gonna be one, right?"

"Very good question, Ms. Blake," Harold commented. "And the answer is yes, we are going to meet not only one, but several AIs later in this class."

He paused, and the whole class burst into excited murmurs.

"Like...David in the movie?" A tall guy sitting in the back beamed.

"I'm afraid not. The AIs we are going to see won't be anything nearly like him, or any of the AIs you've seen in the shows," Harold answered.

Despite the disappointment written all over the students' face, he continued to explain, "the real AIs out there aren't humanoids. They are computer systems. Some small, others huge. Higher end ones are clusters of high performance computers well maintained by experts. No matter what they do, or how much information they are able to process, they look nothing like humans."

"Why not?" The tall guy pursued. "Is it not possible to make one looking like a human or something?"

"It is entirely possible actually, though not now. We don't have that technology yet."

"We don't?" A student cramming in a chair on the side asked.

"No, we don't, not yet," the professor said, "an AI is a system that makes decisions according to a set of programmed rules and a large amount of known information. To find the optimal decision among all possibles, it has to evaluate every decision and compare them. A large scale of cutting-edge hardware is required for this process. A large server room, an entire floor, or even the whole building is needed. We have no way to fit those into a human size figure. Unless, you want to make the figure as large as a Titan. That might work, I suppose."

Instead of reacting to his semi bad joke, most of the students were stunned by his negative comments. Jordan eventually shrugged and asked, "what kind of AIs are we talking about then?"

"Well, later in this semester we are going to-" Harold was interrupted by his buzzing phone lying on the desk. He merely glanced at it with the corner of his eye and caught a glimpse of the number. He dismissed the call and turned off his phone, his lips clenched and his fingers shaking slightly.

"I thought phones weren't allowed in the classes, school policy," the tall guy teased while crossing his arms in front of his chest, and other students started to chuckle.

"I'm sorry it was just..." Harold trailed off as he looked down at his cell phone, a popular model in the 90s. Now being turned off, it looked like a crappy display model.

Having noticed that he was staring at the small screen of his phone in dead silence in front of all the students for too long, he swallowed hard and straightened himself.

"Let's look at the syllabus, shall we?" He suggested as he handed out the printouts. The students took them, concerned, amused, and curious.

"I'd like to say a few things about my contact information first. Here I list my numbers, email address and my office hours. If you want to see me some time other than my office hours, please make an appointment with me first. I would really appreciate that."

He stopped for a second or two, looking at the sheet of paper in his hand. "I would also prefer email to phone calls."

Some students wrote down what he had just said, while others shrugging and staring at him.

"In this semester I would like you to split into 3-member groups. The programming assignments and other homeworks should be turn in as a group work and your work should be carefully documented. Now let's talk about the programming assignments first. Together they will account for 50% of your final-"

His phone buzzed again. Somehow it managed to turn itself on and received a call.

Harold looked down, his chest heaving. He tried to ignore it and continue explaining the program assignments, however he was too distracted to do so.

Eventually, he shoved his phone into his pocket and started to pack his things.

"Professor Vireo?" Jordan murmured, confused.

Harold avoided eye contact with her, but he stopped packing for a moment. Picking up the syllabus, he said, "I want you to read the chapter of Turing Test, and then play the imitation game in groups. One of the member in the group shall play as an AI, and think as one too. Record the game, analyse it, and tell me the difference between a human mind and an AI. Turn in your answer next time."

He took a last glance at the students, and more than half of them raised their hands.

"In what format?" "Should we write an essay?" "Do we need to record the process or just document it on paper?"

Harold paused. "Do whatever way you like. I have to go."

The first thing Shaw noticed was a constant, clear beeping sound. It must be a timed bomb. She told herself while swallowing hard to ease the stingy discomfort in her parched throat.

She wanted to open her eyes, but those lids seemed to be heavier than lead. She wanted to get up, but every inch of her body was either not responding or sore.

The beeping sound continued, and she held on to that, along with all other sounds she could hear. The ceiling fan turning. The A/C running. Someone talking afar. Her own heartbeat in her ears. Herself breathing.

It took her some effort to finally open her eyes. The shadow of the fan flickering on the ceiling. greeting her. A small door on the far side of the room was closed. A countertop with a sink and some cabinets was on the opposite side of the door. On top of the counter, there was several folded towels stacking, a plastic cup with a lid and a straw. There was also a tray with a few covered bowls; among them there was a small carton. She assumed that it was milk since there was a blue cow printed on the white background.

Food. That very thought made her mouth watering like crazy. Hunger clawed out from inside her, through her throat and making her groan. She rolled on her side, and propped herself on one of her elbows first. Using it as a leverage, she moved her entire body into a sitting position.

It was then she noticed the iv needles taped to her wrists and the back of her left hand. She checked the bag of the drugs and realized that none of them were for treating any critical conditions. She yanked ivs off her, leaving them on the floor.

The iv monitor alarm started to scream, and she rolled her eyes while silenced it with a fist banging on the button. She grabbed the iv stand, squeezing it hard to support herself before tottering towards the food tray.

She reached for the milk carton, but a dull pain from under her chest stopped her. She cursed, pressing her hand on it. Pain normally wouldn't bother her much, but she was now too weak to ignore it completely. Turning her torso, she pressed the side of her hip against the edge of the counter. It made her feel a little better.

Grabbing the carton, she clumsily pulled it open and gulped it, downing it so fast that she almost choked on the drink.

She breathed heavily, wiping her mouth with the shoulder hem of what she was wearing right now, which was a loose, light green patient gown.

She grabbed the packaged bun, and returned to the bed. She sat down and quietly chewed it, while her memories came to her.

She remembered being gun down by that annoying blonde Decima agent, Martine. She remembered the force of the gunshot pushing her back. She remembered the gunshots raining down. What had happened next?

She tried, but only recalled a short conversation between her and Greer while she had still been in and out for whatever drugs they had given her. She had no recollections of the content of the conversation, though.

A gentle knock on the door spooked her. She quickly pulled the iv monitor off and held it tight as a weapon, before she walked behind the door in stealth.

"No need to prepare to attack me, Sameen," Greer's voice came to her from outside the door. "I'm just here to talk."

"What do you want from me?" Shaw huffed.

"I don't want anything from you, my dear," Greer told her. "I'm here to talk about what you want."

"You really want to know what I want? I want to snap your neck and bomb the shit out of the Samaritan. Then, after that, I want to go home with the blood of Martine on my hands, proudly."

"I'm afraid that it won't happen," Greer said. "We lost her to Samantha Groves."

The deepest corner of Shaw's heart clenched at the name. "Wow, just as I thought you'd never be able to deliver good news. What do you want, Greer?"

"Like I said, I'm just here to talk."

Shaw sighed, and opened the door for him. She returned to the bed, sitting vigilantly.

"Please, Sameen," Greer said, a series of low chuckles humming in his throat. "You don't have to be afraid of me."

"Who says I'm afraid?" Shaw countered, eyeing the man who stood in the corner. "Are you here to remind me that I'm now a prisoner of the Samaritan and that if I don't cooperate I'll be in serious trouble?"

"I'm here to do none of those," Greer replied with a calm voice. "I'm here to simply make you an offer."

"And what would that be?" Shaw asked as she ate the rest of the food from the tray.

"Join us," Greer said.

Shaw scoffed. "Oh you must be outta ya mind, old man. Join you? Either you are crazy, or I am."

Greer didn't responded to her words. He simply sat there and looked at her. It creeped Shaw out, that the look in Greer's eyes was genuinely concern, as if she was someone important to him. And that reminded her the way he had addressed her. He would address the others by their last name, but he had called her by her first, Sameen, instead of Shaw, Ms. Shaw or agent Shaw.

"I wasn't joking, Sameen. And as an intelligent operative, you should have already known that it is not just the best choice, but the only choice that you have," Greer continued.

"Ummm...I'm pretty sure I have a second one, which is to bomb this place and then escape," Shaw taunted.

"Except to where?" Greer asked. "Where would you go, or, more importantly, where can you go?"

"Really? You are playing you are alone anyway card on me? That's a new low, even for you."

"I am not playing any tricks, or interrogation skills on you. I am simply stating the fact," Greer argued. "I'm sure you may have a few acquaintances. You may even want to call them friends. However, that ship has sunk already. There is no Team Machine anymore. How can you go back to a ship that is lying on the very bottom of the ocean?"

Shaw's blood ran cold. She swallowed hard, trying to stay as calm as she could, so Greer wouldn't use that against her later. However, she knew that he must have noticed the flinch of her body, the quiver of the corner of her lips, or her hands fisting her gown.

Her first instinct was to shove the man to the wall and put something sharp to his throat until he spat out every piece of truth. Though, she remained at where she was, and managed to sneer. "You really think you can fool me with that?"

"Ah, you must forgive me, dear," Greer replied. "I almost forgot that you've been unconscious for days. You may relax. My agents haven't found their bodies yet. Presumably, they are still alive, somewhere. However, without the Machine, they are nothing relevant to the Samaritan's plan."

"Why don't we talk about this plan then?"

"I assure you, when you agree to join us, you will know every details of it," Greer told her.

Shaw rolled her eyes. She tossed the last bit of cracker crumbs into her mouth, before she said, "do I have a news channel to watch so I know what has happened while I was out?"

Her hands were shaking a little, and she shoved them between her knees. She raised to stare at the man, hiding her concerns behind her nonchalant eyes.

"Here's what happened," Greer said, brushing the back of his hand against the corner of his coat. "The Machine was cornered by the Samaritan. Finch tried to encrypt the code of the Machine and save it into a briefcase. We successfully intercepted the briefcase. Team Machine escaped, possibly acquired some new identities and now in hide."

He paused for a second or two, observing Shaw carefully. A smile formed on the corner of his mouth, when he saw the brunette letting out a breath of relief.

"Enough for the dead AI. The government department you used to work for, which was handling the relevant numbers, has been shut down and replaced by a new one solely working under the Samaritan. Control managed to escape. We are still looking for her. Once we catch her and get all the secrets out from her, she would no longer be relevant."

Shaw rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Greer stepped forward a little, and Shaw straightened her back in a guarding stance. However, the man just gave her a smile, and said, "while you take your rest, please, think carefully and consider my offer, will you?"

With that, he left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving a pondering Shaw alone.

Harold arrived at a small office in the corner of the staff section. He rushed in and shut the door immediately, almost knocking off the name tag of "Harold Vireo".

He stood there breathlessly, holding the briefcase tightly to his chest. The phone started to buzz again.

Barely having caught his breath, he put the phone on the desk and stared at the screen that was lit and then went back to dark. He took a deep breath, moving his finger back and forth between the "answer" and "hang up" button.

Before he had made a decision, the door opened. A woman walked in, with a dog. The moment the dog saw Harold, he let out a happy whine and jumped to him.

"Next time I call you, try answer it, okay?" The woman teased.

"The reason we went different ways and agreed to never meet again, was to maintain our cover and stay alive, Ms. Groves," Harold said, not looking at her. "You shouldn't have come here. And you certainly shouldn't have gone to get Bear from the dog sitter lady."

"Oh, please," Root huffed, rolling her eyes. "The dog sitter barely lets him out of her house, and you know how much Bear likes to go to the park."

"If you come here for the same purpose that you came to me a week ago in North Dakota, I'm afraid that I can't help you. You should leave," Harold told her, grabbing things on the desk before putting them into his briefcase.

"Oh, Harry, don't be so cruel," Root sat down on his chair and looked at him, her head tilting to one side slightly.

"I can't help you, Ms. Groves, even if I want to," Harold said to her after a sigh. "We have lost the battle. It's done. The Machine is no longer operable. Even it I want to help you, I can't."

"Harold, you know that she's still out there," Root said, her voice is a little shaking on the word "she". "We can't just…."

"Actually, I don't know that. All we know is that we haven't found her body, but we haven't seen her in person either. Yes, you've seen a brunette being led out from the building where the Samaritan is located. Yes, you've received a phone call from someone and this person's voice sounded dangerously close to Ms. Shaw's. But, was that truly her, or Greer manipulating you and letting you believe that it was her?"

"She must still be alive. She's too valuable to die," Root said. She paused for a brief moment, looking away from the man in front of her. She swallowed back the weak whimper that was about to creep out, and added, "maybe she doesn't mean much to you, Harry, but she does to me."

"I have always considered her a dear friend," Harold argued, "but following an illusion painted carefully by the Samaritan will not get us anywhere, I'm afraid. They could have removed her body from where she was shot, leading us to believe that she's still alive so we'd willingly walk into the trap."

"Or, she really is alive and she needs us," Root said. "We have to rebuild the Machine. We have to find her."

Harold clenched his lips. He clenched them so hard that they became pale. "Don't you remember that the Machine specifically told you to stop looking for her?"

"It was a choice out of logic and reason, not a choice out of her heart," Root argued, forgetting that one of her nails was digging into her palm. "She wants Sameen back just as much as I do."

"Well, good luck with that, Ms. Groves, since she is no longer here."

"She's no longer here because you refused to rebuild her," Root raised her voice, with a hint of anger. "You can't keep her in that tiny briefcase forever, Harold."

"Yes, I can," Harold replied, his voice coated in despair.

"Why wouldn't you rebuild her, Harry?" Root questioned, and the man went quiet without even daring to look at her.

Harold let out a deep sigh, which sounded like a dying animal's last breath. "The Machine has sacrificed itself to save us. I am not letting it die for any of us again."

His voice was too bitter, and it seized Root's heart. A long, heavy silence consumed both of them; each drowned in their train of thoughts.

"What's the difference, Harold? What's the difference between being dead and rotting in the briefcase?" Root whispered, her voice so light that Harold could barely hear her.

The man's lips moved, but not a single sound came out from them. After a long pause, he murmured, "you do realize that if we do this, we probably will end up all dead, right?"

"If we don't, we do nothing, and then we rot," Root replied. She waited for Harold's answer, a nod, a yes or even a smile indicating that he was in, but she got none.

"Goodbye, Harry," she sighed and headed to the door. The dog watched her intently, until she was about to walk out the door. He growled, torn between following her and staying with Harold.

Root turned to Bear, only to find that Harold raised to look into her eyes.

"So what do you propose, Root?" The man asked with a surprisingly firm voice.

Lying in bed, Shaw stared at the turning ceiling fan blankly as she pondered every word Greer had said to her.

The Machine was down? It was a shocking news to her, since she had never considered that the Machine would one day be down. She thought that Finch, or Root, would have figured out something to save it.

Root. The name made her heart race painfully. At least, she would consider that feelings a pain, after years of training herself to pay attention to that intense clench. It wouldn't upset her or made her any less capable, though, for it wouldn't seize her as to most people. To her, it was just muscle tightening, twitching, and adrenaline spike. It wasn't real.

She wondered why Greer would have told her that they could still be alive. Maybe a way to tell her that she still had something to lose. Or maybe just to destroy her confidence by painting the whole situation so casually, as if their death wouldn't concern him, or the Samaritan, at all.

However, they were probably still alive, and that made her feel a bit relieved. She hoped that they weren't trying to locate her by putting themselves in danger.

She didn't allow herself to put more thoughts on how the Team Machine would defeat the Samaritan without the Machine. Her priority right now, was to figure out the "plan" Greer had talked about, and then to get out of here alive.

She had studied everything inside, and checked outside the room. No doubt she was in a hospital, however she didn't think that it would open to the public since two group of Decima agents were guarding the exits.

Had she had a weapon, or a careful plan, she could have taken them out. The real question was, why would Greer have left her like this? No cuffs, no restraints, not even a single guard outside her door. He should have known what she was capable of, yet he let her unguarded. A generous gesture? Or it was part of his bigger plan?

Before she had reached a conclusion, she heard someone walking towards her door. A moment later, she heard a light knock.

"If you are delivering food, I'd like to have a medium rare t-bone!" She yelled.

The people outside her door had a short chat, their voices so low that she couldn't hear what they were saying. Then, she heard a female voice saying "I'll talk to her alone, John".

That voice made her hold her breath, because there was such a familiarity in it. She knew she had heard it before, a lot. That finding chilled her spine. Cold sweat coated her back in seconds. No, no, it can't be. She told herself, but the lingering sound haunted her.

She shook her head, and the door opened. A woman stepped in. She's tall, a brunette, wearing a suit that perfectly tailored for her, with a colorful scarf around her neck. She smiled at Shaw, and said, "Sameen..."

Shaw's eyes shot open, and so did her mouth. For a short moment, she seriously asked herself if this was nothing but a dream. She stared at the women in front of her, who couldn't and shouldn't be here. She looked at her face, trying to find any evidence that would suggest that this woman wasn't whom she thought she was.

Shaw examined her smile, the way her lips curling up, the sparkles in her beautiful dark eyes, the way her curls falling on her shoulder, the light, almost invisible scar right under her chin. She looked at every detail, every micro expression, everything, until she gave up.

With her heart pounded hard against her chest, and her hands squeezing the sheets, she eventually became able to speak again.

"Mama-mom…?" She murmured, correcting herself after blurting out the word she had used to call the other woman when she was very young.