The high buzzing was back again so it was difficult to make out any actual words, but she wasn't so far gone she didn't recognize the voice-Roots voice both real and snatches from her many simulation-based incarnations-buzzing as irritating and grounding as ever in her ears as she walks farther along the rooftop.

Already she can see Root's balance shape teetering along the ledge with that dizzying death drop should her wavering steps falter as she attempts muffled barging with her God as Shaw reaches out to drag her back towards safety.

Not for the first time did Shaw regret her repeated watching of the security feed of the very scene now replaying in her own subconscious. Yes, Hanna and the Machine had meant well in showing it to her as proof she wasn't still trapped in a new strand of Samaritan looped torment but it was becoming the opposite of helpful now.

Then the familiar jingling of Bears collar sounds from behind her with her dog giving a few coaxing whimpers and half-sounded barks and Shaw finds herself standing a few separated steps from the bullet-ridden car left seemingly abandoned in its hastily swerved position along the roadway.

She'd been having the same exact dream for the last week as they waited out Root's recovery.

Then just as she was about to find that oh-so annoyingly familiar body sitting pale and lifeless behind the wheel the scene around her blurs like a glitch in a tv feed and a new voice, one from Root's 'nerd squad' replaces the humming blending of Root's own.

"You really have a death wish, don't you?"

"She needs to wake up."

Shaw does inwardly grin at the nervous wavering of Fusco's voice before the light jingle of Bear's collar drowns out the rest of the not-so-quiet batter between the cop and Root's back from the dead best friend.

"Will you guys hush the hell up? It's been a long time since I've painted a girl's nails and I don't want to mess up." Daizo's voice cuts in. Now Shaw understands the burning breath of fresh nail polish clogging her nose triggering her latest waking from her more dozed rest.

"You'll only keep messing up anyways." The waking Persian scoffs her voice thick with the need of more sleep, but Shaw pushes the idea out of her mind as she rubs a fisted hand against her eyes. The flavor of Root's preferred nail polish the anchor she needs to prove to her rousing mind what she'd just witnessed was only her own nightmarish rendering of something that wasn't real.

On impulse, Shaw's other hand closes a little tighter around Root's warm yet unmoving one. She glowers sleepily at them her fingers absently making tiny circles against the inside of Root's wrist until Hanna falters long enough to drop her probing gaze and Dizo to cough up the small nail brush into her waiting free hand.

"Big sis still positive today's the…." She wonders aloud.

"Yes." Hanna finishes "She'll wake up today."

Shaw's gaze flicks up to catch Hannah's stiff outline against the brightening haze of a new day.

"You decide what your gonna tell her once Coco Puffs realizes who you are?" Fusco asks for her as Shaw finishes cleaning up Dizo's not-so-neat attempt to apply a fresh layer of black to Root's nails. The shockingly easy friendship grew between the two since Fusco was clued into the fact Root was still among the living.

"If she does." Hannah scoffs but Shaw and Fusco notice the resentful glare Hannah gives her own reflection in the monitor she was standing at. Even now Shaw can spot the thin scars of reconstructive surgery across the striking plains of Hannah's face.

"You're going to tell her." Shaw growls in answer. "You tell her, or I will." She threatens "She deserves to know you're alive. You owe her that much."

"Yeah, and how do you think she'll take the fact that I was working with her sworn enemy." Hannah asked, "That I was helping Samaritan keep you, hostage, in those simulations?"

"We all have pasts." Shaw reasoned, keeping her gaze lowered as she blew a soft breath on a freshly painted nail. That is until the soft pinging of the floor elevator has her hand flashing out to reach for the compact slipped into the railing of Root's bed.

"Hell no." Shaw snarls her already hardened gaze turning downright murderous as she watches the pulled-up hallway security feed for who it was stepping so stiffly from the thing.

"Friend of yours." Hannah asked curious as she too gives a quick glance towards the small screen.

"How the hell can you work for a thing like Samaritan and not know that She's the one who made Nutella here a one-ear terror." Fusco summarized flicking off the safety of his own smoothly drawn weapon at the first heavy step down the hallway.

"Easy sweetie. She's just a messenger."

Shaw's jaw ticked with thinly held-back anger at the purred but slightly robotic voice coming from the cell phone always kept on the table beside Root's bed.

"Well, you know what happens to those." Sameen growled hefting her gun into a snugger grip as she stalked towards the door.

"Don't you trust me?"

On instinct, Shaw gives an answering "I do trust you, Root." Before cutting herself off with a hard shake of her head. Just like the slip she'd made when interrogating Jeffry on the short trip on the subway but unlike then it's the sickeningly familiar footfalls draw closer that give the distraction. "Stop using her voice." Shaw barked in a low breath.

"You know you like it."

"We don't have all afternoon." Even Hannah's teeth snap together at the board-sounding tone now coming from the hallway. "Come out, come out."

With one last unneeded hand-signaled command towards Bear seeing as the dog was already crouching defensively over Root hackles raised and teeth bared in a ghostly snarl Shaw swung the door open.

It takes every lick of self-control she has not to immediately empty the weapons clip into the smug-faced woman waiting for her midway down the hall as soon as she has her in her sights.

"Hello, Agent Shaw."

Again, Shaw's fingers twitch over the trigger. It would be so quick. So easy. Not at all what she deserved of course but Shaw was wasting time she could be sitting at Root's bedside glaring until her annoying hacker woke the hell up so Shaw could force some sense into her. Maybe tie her up and carefully edge her long enough for Root to get the message they were a team. That she was Shaw's to keep safe. That Root being stupid and telling Shaw to be anywhere but with her watching her back and keeping her from getting stupidly shot wasn't going to fly anymore. Even when it had been Shaw who'd sent her away that last time.

She needed Root to wake up because Shaw needed to tell her flat out or at least as much as she was able that this had been too close a call for Shaw to ever consider letting Root out of her sight maybe ever again.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

A board-seeming upturn of Control's lips has Shaw's fingers once again itching to put just a little more pressure on the trigger caressing the inside of her finger. "Mostly to see if the rumors were true." Her former boss shrugged "Even confined to an NSA black site you and yours cause quite the buzz."

Shaw swings the weapon in her hands higher as a new plan forms in her mind. Again, it was too nice for the likes of her.

"Also, because your handler seems to think it funny for my being the one to deliver these." Control holds up the briefcase handcuffed to her wrist as if that should mean something. "and don't worry your overlord made it impossible for my team to crack this lock so whatever is in here is more than secure."

Five, six steps to close the distance between them. A quick swing of her gun arm, an even quicker pull of the trigger as she'd make deadly sure the following burst of gunfire sounded directly into Control's ear.

The same side she'd taken from Root.

Symmetrical.

"And you are?" her old boss asks before Shaw could act on the idea forming in her mind.

The question nearly has Shaw wheeling around at the shadow moving at her back until she cooled her raging temper enough to catch Fusco's familiar breathing. Yet it's Hanna that moves past her into the separating space as the door to Root's room clicked closed behind her.

"Have we met?"

Shaw almost snickers at the honest confusion of the question being put to someone not even she had known was alive until she also picked up on the small slipping of Hannah's hand into her coat pocket as she walked with deliberately slow steps towards Control.

"Have you an interest in botany?" The question throws even Shaw in the softness of it.

"Foxglove for instance." Hannah goes on looking with a cool kind of revelry as she tugged one of the flowers free from the carefully woven chain braided into her hair.

Shaw catches the sudden widening of her former boss's eyes at the comment. Control even backing away a few steps for every one Hanna takes towards her. "so beautiful to some that many forget this teasing vixen is also incredibly deadly when left unchecked." Hanna goes on but then the Persian's lips curled up in an agreeing smile when she notices what Control was truly nervous of in the syringe smoothly pulled from Hannah's jacket pocket.

Stormy green eyes glance to catch Shaw's with an understanding fire when the flower cutting was so tenderly replaced this time tucked behind Hanna's ear. "Remind you of anyone?" her tone was far more playful than should be warranted given the topic of the moment but Shaw doesn't miss the way Hanna's eyes linger on the closed door of Root's room.

The diluted purple coloring of the jostling liquid inside the threatened needle catches Shaw's gaze in the low lighting of the hallway when the hand holding the thing lifts a little higher. Reminding her of one of Root's lava lamps as Hanna holds the thing aloft.

"Are you really going to threaten…."

Hanna's purr of a laugh calls back to a few Shaw heard from Root a time or three during that not-so-unpleasant stretch of time they'd been stuck waiting in that safehouse with ten hours and nothing but each other and an unassuming hood with a few zip ties for entertainment. "Oh, this isn't to threaten you with, darlin'" Root's childhood friend clarifies the heavy Texas drawl layers her words before her hand lashes out faster than even Shaw can catch as she jabs the needle into Control's skin. "You've been dead the moment you chose to lay a finger on Sam."

Shaw was already turning her back before her former boss had even crumpled to the ground Hanna easily caught up with her with a cheerful "So what are you gonna say to Sammy once she wakes up?" asking as they fall into an easy step back along the hallway. Hanna preictally skipping along beside her.

Shaw rolls her eyes as she hefted the no so needed weapon onto one shoulder "God you're almost as bad as she is."

"Call me a romantic." Hanna waves off not at all put off by the glaring sight of Shaw or her very large, very heavy-hitting weapon "but one of us has to be until Sammy's back in action to pick up the slack."

Shaw's annoyed correction of "Her name is Root" dies half-formed in her lips when the door she'd been so hellbent on defending swung open.

Bear's warning growls were now replaced with happy whines as the dog flopped belly up and tongue lulling in contentment across the blanket-covered lap of the one still running slow fingers through his fur.

But then that head of dark wavy hair turns curious towards the opening door her Bear free hand raising the stowed away gun in attempted threat despite not having nearly the strength to tug the thing free from the bedside as Shaw stops dead in her tracks at the threshold.

"Root?"

A wide tempting smile slit those chapped lips as those groggy eyes stare into hers. "Shaw."