Chapter Text
Shaw finds Finch sitting on a bench near the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. The weather is cool, and the fresh morning air feels freezing on Shaw’s skin. But she’s wearing her parka, beanie and gloves to combat the cold temperatures and when she sits down next to Finch, she shivers only a little.
“Miss Shaw,” Finch says with that little head tilt he does in greeting. “Thank you for coming here so early.” It’s not quite an apology, but his awkward little smile might as well be.
“Bear needed to go on a walk anyway,” Shaw says with a shrug and gives Bear a good scratch behind his ears which he willingly accepts. “So, what’s so important that it can’t wait until I come back from my trip?”
“It’s a matter that is tied to a deadline, I’m afraid. Besides, my flight is leaving tomorrow, too.”
Shaw waits for him to continue.
Finch sighs and reaches to the side, retrieving a manila folder. “These documents need your signature and to be sent away today, before your own flight goes—provided you agree.” He looks down at the covered documents.
“Sounds like I won’t agree,” Shaw notes with the hint of amusement in her tone.
Finch’s gaze flickers up from the envelope. “At first, I considered asking Reese, but oddly enough, I find you to be more suitable for this particular matter.”
Of course, he’s considered Reese first. Shaw says nothing to that, feeling nothing in particular about it, other than the need to mentally comment on it. She can’t fault Finch for having the closest bond with Reese out of all of them—he’s recruited Reese from their current team.
Reese being considered first for something that she now gets to do feels like receiving unwanted scraps. Mostly because of the lingering memories of Samaritan’s numerous different simulation scenarios that have very unsuccessfully tried to make Shaw angry at her team.
“With my plans to leave for Italy for an indefinite amount of time—perhaps even permanently—I have one last thing I need to take care of: my guardianship over Genrika Zhirova has to be resolved in an adequate manner.”
Shaw’s heart trips and catches itself by beating faster. She stares at Finch with wide eyes, knowing already where this is going. “Ask Reese.”
“He didn’t bond with her like you did.”
“He’s better with kids.” The moment she says it, she remembers a story Carter once told her of how Reese protected a toddler by almost getting himself and the little kid frozen to death. That's not A+ guardianship material, but then again, she was the one that allowed Gen to be abducted on her watch. The longer she thinks about it, the more obvious becomes the conclusion: no one of their team—with the exception of Fusco, to be fair—should be in the vicinity of any child, ever.
Especially not Root. Shaw thinks of Root's nanny gig a year ago (or was it two?) and shudders.
“I’m not adopting a kid from you,” Shaw says again, crossing her arms. Bear looks up when the leash rattles but remains seated. She made sure to power him out so that he would have an easier time sitting still while she has her talk with Finch. He’s content watching the pigeons walking around on the walkway in the distance.
“Besides, at some point the Machine is gonna send us on missions again,” Shaw reminds him, only a small part at the back of her head whispering some counterpoints—all connected to her, as of now, still poor mental health.
Finch nods slowly. “I am not asking you to permanently look after her. There is no 24/7 presence required, you only have to take over the guardianship and be there for her should the need arise. Think of it as being an emergency contact with a few additional responsibilities until she comes of age.”
“And what if I am in the middle of something? You know what kind of jobs we take?” Shaw asks tersely and almost doesn't notice her slip up. We. Well, it's not like it's a secret that she and Root are a thing.
“You are welcome to make Reese the other emergency contact in her file, in case you are stuck in the middle of a relevant case. I would advise it, he is after all retiring and won’t be involved in any dangerous missions any time soon,” he says, apparently prepared to counter all her points. He's been brooding over this for quite some time, it seems.
Shaw smiles. “See, this is why you should ask him in the first place.” He just confirmed that Reese qualifies for the job as well.
Finch just looks at her through his glasses, before adjusting them. “Did he also receive a medal from her?”
Shaw briefly closes her eyes. A moments passes. “No,” she admits eventually. There’s defeat in that one, small word.
“You personally insisted on seeing her off at her new boarding school,” Finch goes on, almost needling her with the facts. “Besides, it is not an adoption, merely a guardianship. She’s not finished with school yet and will only visit you during breaks. Perhaps the Machine will consider these changes in your timetable while planning your missions.”
The Machine probably predicted this would happen and has planned their missions accordingly, long before Finch even thought of taking care of this issue.
She keeps these thoughts to herself. Instead, she very briefly considers breaking the news to Root. “Fine, whatever,” she relents with a deep, dramatic sigh that makes Bear look up at her again. “I’ll sign the damn papers.” She holds her free hand out, and Finch pulls the paperwork out and hands her a pen. It’s a few forms and he has thankfully marked the spots she needs to sign with post-its neatly stuck to the paper. Shaw puts her short signature down on them and hands them back. “What’s with the deadline though, if Gen’s still at that boarding school?” Shaw asks, watching Finch get up from the bench.
“One day after your return from your South Africa trip, Gen’s winter break starts and she’ll need a place to stay, seeing as I will be across the globe by then.”
“Did you even tell her about this?” Shaw asks before Finch can start to walk away.
He doesn’t fully turn around. “I don’t need to ask the Machine to know that she will be happy to see you again, Miss Shaw.” And with that, he walks away, leaving her on that bench.
Shaw stares after his retreating from, limping away from her and her sudden realization that she’s just agreed to basically give a minor a sort of foster home from time to time, with Root at her side, no less.
They don’t even have a new place to live, because now that Root no longer needs to stay put in Zoe’s apartment, they have packed their things and brought them to the library HQ for now. It’s not ideal, considering how Root must hate that place, especially that one room which has had been her sort-of-prison for a while. She’s been busy changing the interior of the mission control room, where Finch had kept his monitors, white board, and other useful things to plan and monitor their missions. She half expects to go back and find Root with a sledgehammer in hands, eager to pull some walls down and extend the usable space.
She might be even more motivated to hire an actual construction team, once she learns of what Shaw has just agreed to take over.
“I’m an idiot,” she tells Bear.
Bear, who looks at her lovingly with his dark, trusting eyes. He huffs at her, ready to go, his tail wagging under the bench. She can feel it hit her boot from time to time.
“Fine, let’s go.”
*
When Shaw returns to the library she is pleasantly surprised to find out that Reese is already there, standing near the stairs she’s just climbed with his phone in his hand. He looks a less sleep deprived, and the deep lines around his eyes have smoothed out a little. It seems that his newly started retirement phase of life is doing him some good. He no longer sports a suit, but looks rather comfortable in his casual combo of plain dark shirt and a pair of dark blue denims. If she weren't so jealous of his well rested appearance, she would've thrown in a joke about how he looks like a dad on his way to a school football game.
Shaw is curious to see if he manages to stick to his plans of staying out of trouble. He’s been working with Finch and the Machine for the longest period of time out of all of them—there’s no quick transition into normal, civilian life.
Well, as much as owning a bar near the old library building slash the Machine's HQ can count as normal. He’s going to be around, that's for sure.
Reese greets Bear with a few pats and soothing words, and then looks back up at her. “Morning, Shaw,” he says, a small grin dancing on his lips when he spots a bag from Root’s favorite bakery in her hands. All he does is quirk his eyebrow at her when their gazes meet and it’s enough to annoy her.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I could practically hear it already.”
“Well, it is kind of sw—”
She makes sure to walk past him and accidentally slam her elbow in his side, which he accepts with an amused chuckle, going back to whatever he’s been doing on his phone. She leaves him there, walking into the office that Root is now in the midst of updating and re-arranging to her needs. Mostly, it involves making sure that a couch will also fit into the room one day, on which she can lounge like a person who never learned how to properly sit on a couch.
No sledgehammers in sight. Yet.
“Oh, you brought me my croissants!” Root says happily from the small ladder she’s on while wearing her bunny slippers, almost daring an accident to happen to her.
Shaw, who spent the better part of the past few weeks making sure that Root’s body got back to full health again after her gunshot wounds, is glaring at her. “What are you doing?” She points with her thumb at her footwear.
“I’ve replaced our old router with something newer, something that supports a higher WiFi speed,” she says, shrugging—it no longer makes her wince, at least. She gingerly climbs down the few steps of the ladder, and turns to face Shaw properly. “It should fix the atrocious downloading speed. ”
“Uh-huh.” Shaw rolls her eyes, puts the pastry down on the desk and hears Reese enter the room behind her. She takes Bear’s leash off and allows him to wander off, almost immediately looking for his own pair of bunny slippers.
She folds the leash and places it on the table as well, not sure where else to put it. Then, because Root is busy inspecting the baked goods she’s brought her, Shaw turns to face Reese, leaning with folded arms against the door frame. “Reese, why are you even here?” she asks, eyeing him. “Shouldn’t you be busy with your retirement plan?”
He gives her a long look. “Very funny. Root asked me to help her with some of the heavier stuff,” he explains, gesturing with his hand at the shifted desk and some of the heavy shelves that are completely gone from the room to create some more space. Probably for that famous couch Root keeps raving about.
“Speaking of funny, I need to talk to you,” Shaw says to Root, immediately catching her attention. One of the croissants that Shaw’s bought her has found its way into Root’s hands. For a moment she considers waiting until Reese leaves—which is his way of respecting their boundaries, as if he’s not doing it while wearing a shit eating grin on his face, one eyebrow wiggle away from perfecting his wordless teasing that annoys Shaw so much.
“Funny?” Root repeats and doesn’t take the planned bite. She tilts her head a little and she looks confused, probably wondering what qualifies as 'funny' in Shaw's book.
Shaw takes a deep breath. “Finch asked me if I wanted to take over guardianship over Gen and I said yes,” she explains, not sure what she’s expecting to happen next. She can tell that Reese is surprised. If she were to turn around, she’d spot a perplexed look on his face.
But she doesn’t turn around because instead she’s waiting for what Root will do next. It’s not that she is worried that Root is going to react . . . poorly to her words; it’s more along the lines of not being sure how Root will react to the news involving a kid she only knows from the story revolving around the medal Shaw is keeping with her other personal things.
If Shaw has to guess, Root is either going to try and act serious about it, which would be almost out of character for Root, or she’s going to use it to make some silly comment for her own amusement and Shaw’s mild annoyance—their usual dance with serious things, if Shaw’s being honest. A pattern she’s so used to that she doesn’t want to see it broken.
And the woman in front of her does not disappoint. “Well, Shaw, I’d usually like to be taken out to dinner at least three times before adopting a child together, but I guess I can make an exception for you.”
Shaw’s shoulders sag at once, and she pretends it’s because of annoyance, not the actual relief she feels. “You’re an asshole.” She rolls her eyes again, but she can't help that small smile that tugs at her lips.
“The Machine says that Gen will be very happy once she hears about it,” Root goes on, as if she’s not heard Shaw insulting her. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Tell the Machine to stick her nose out of this one.”
“She doesn’t mean to interfere, Shaw. She’s just curious.”
“The godlike calculator in your ear can be curious somewhere else. I don’t want Gen to get involved in . . . any of this,” Shaw stresses, remembering clearly how a ten-year-old Gen had been involved in some Russian mob mess that would’ve almost gotten her killed if it weren’t for the Machine and Shaw’s own intervention. Maybe that’s why Finch thinks Shaw is a good option for Gen’s guardianship now that he’s leaving the country: he can be sure that Shaw won’t let the kid get into their Machine mess if she can help it.
And she plans on doing just that. Even if it means asking Root to curve her behavior to a more normal level that doesn’t involve talking to herself, even if she’s actually talking to the Machine.
Gen won’t know that, though.
Root apparently doesn’t entirely agree with that assumption. “Well, considering Zoe took care of her the few times Professor Whistler couldn’t house her during Samaritan’s reign, I don’t think she’s completely clueless either,” Root says in a much softer tone. “After all, Zoe wasn’t clueless at that point, so who’s to say what that smart girl picked up from a few visits?”
Shaw can only stare at her for a moment before she narrows her eyes. “How come this is the first time I’m hearing that Gen has been staying with Zoe?” she asks, almost accusingly, as if Root personally has prevented her from knowing about this.
But what most likely had taken place was that Finch had made certain Shaw wouldn’t break character and do something stupid like visit Gen while she was staying at Zoe’s.
And Shaw can’t entirely claim even to herself that she wouldn’t have.
“I’ll come back later,” Reese says from behind them, his discomfort with the shift of the situation palpable. “And don’t forget the farewell get together at my bar.”
Root simply hums, still looking at Shaw. “We won’t,” she says back, before Reese fully leaves and his retreating steps grow further away until the heavy entrance door falls shut behind him. There is a moment of silence, only interrupted by the noises Bear makes while chewing on the ears of his bunny slipper that needs a round in the washing machine at some point.
Then, Root sits down on the office chair and keeps her eyes trained on Shaw, much to her growing discomfort. “Samaritan did not consider watching Zoe Morgan all too closely, as we have learned. Sure, it intervened with her business but not because of her personally, rather she was collateral damage in all of this.”
“No wonder Finch kept the talk about Gen so brief,” Shaw says, fishing a croissant of her own out of the bag and leaning against the sturdy desk. After taking a bite, she goes on, “I still think it’s best to minimize our apparent profession of doing the bidding of an ASI.”
“You make it sound so dirty,” Root says with a failed wink.
Shaw kicks her office chair, making it roll away from her a little.
Root chuckles and starts eating her own croissant. But because their talk isn’t over, the pause doesn’t last long. “I will behave around Gen,” she promises between bites, as if she can read Shaw’s mind. “No traumatizing the kid, I promise.”
Shaw is aware that not meeting Root’s earnest gaze is admitting that she’s ill-equipped to handle Root’s genuine feelings for her, but on the other hand, there’s nothing in Root’s dark eyes she’s not seen before. So, she stares at her half-eaten croissant and wonders if the flutter in her stomach is from still being hungry, or Root essentially promising to stick around for Gen’s arrival. Why else would she promise not to be her weird unchecked self around the kid?
Shaw doesn’t take another bite. “I still don’t know where we’ll be staying, after we . . .” she says and trails off, not sure how to finish. Their trip to St. Johannesburg is the only certain thing after Samaritan’s death. Everything after that trip is up in the air—well, not everything as Root has just made clear.
“The Machine will figure something out. I actually think She knows where to put us, She just refuses to tell me for some reason,” Root admits, licking her fingers to get the few croissant crumbs sticking to them.
Shaw stares before looking away again. “What a dick.”
“Hey, I’m sure there’s a good reason,” Root says, ever the believer.
Shaw shrugs. “Fine by me, as long as it’s not anywhere near, you know,” she says with a vague hand gesture, suppressing a shudder. Just thinking of the subway station makes her feel ill, even now after Samaritan has been taken down. Any hope for going back to business as usual had died just hours after learning of its final demise. Shaw pushes these thoughts away.
Root is quick to hide her deep worry when Shaw’s gaze lands on hers and nods. “She knows,” she almost whispers.
“Good.” The Machine being annoyingly coy about that new place is not something that Shaw particularly likes, but she trusts Root to know that it’s all the Machine’s grand plan of granting them some well-deserved downtime.
Shaw can see why Finch doesn’t want to see the Machine floating in space.
“If you hate whatever the Machine picks, we can go looking for something else,” Root offers, smiling at her.
“Deal,” Shaw simply says, pretending to be very busy with Bear’s bunny slipper, which he has repeatedly dropped on her boot to let her know he wants her to throw it. She will not admit how she’s still hung up on the “we” from Root’s statement.
Root’s knowing smile tells her that she’s failed to hide it very well.
*
“Nice place,” Fusco says while looking around the dive that Reese bought just yesterday and plans to turn into a semi-serious business.
“Thanks,” Reese says and lifts his uncapped Coke bottle. “Gotta put a lot of work into it, but I’m in no rush.” He smiles at the gathered group.
With the funds from Finch’s vast fortune back in their control, it’s taken just a few phone calls and Zoe pulling some strings to get the paperwork finalized so quickly. Shaw suspects that Reese feels like sending Finch off with a farewell meeting in his new project is the only correct way to see his friend off.
Can’t blame the guy for being considerate, she thinks. His other project will take longer, but apparently he hasn’t changed his ambition to become a self-defense instructor focusing on former or current domestic abuse victims, if possible.
It’s why he bought the entire darn building that the bar is in. So the classes can take place in the apartment right above it that he will have to renovate extensively in the coming months.
Shaw has only a vague idea of what happened to John’s almost fiancée and what pushed him almost to the brink before Finch found him and recruited him, but she knows that this is his way of dealing with the guilt that apparently still lives as a ghost in his head.
“If you need a good construction crew, I know a guy,” Fusco goes on, nodding at the sorry state of the place. It is clear that no one has been taking care of it for a few years, evident by the few broken windows that have wooden planks nailed over them, and the lack of working lights. A few gas lanterns are strewn around the room to prevent them sitting in complete darkness, because the few windows that aren’t covered are so dusty and dirty that it seems to dim the daylight streaming through.
Shaw and Root are sitting on one of the less dusty looking tables, their knees bumping together from time to time, while Finch has picked an actual chair to sit down on. Zoe, who surprised them earlier by suddenly climbing out of a cab, is gracefully sitting on a bar stool right at the counter while she sips on her canned wine cooler. Only Fusco and Reese are standing around, holding their respective bottles of drinks.
Well, and Bear of course, busy chewing on a broken-off wooden chair leg he’s managed to find lying around.
“I will come visit once it is done,” Finch promises, offering one of his rare wide smiles. For once, this meeting is purely for leisure purposes, and saying goodbye to Finch is not a sad affair—they all can tell that he is very content with his decision to leave this life behind and finally try to live a little. Besides, it’s not even a goodbye forever, which he just made clear with his promise.
“Do you have a name for it?” Zoe ask, quirking a brow at Reese.
Reese hesitates. “I’m thinking of naming it ‘Carter’s’, or something like that,” he admits, looking off into the distance.
It seems that Reese carries more than one ghost with him, after all. Shaw takes a sip from her beer and wishes, not for the first time, that Joss Carter was still with them. Her absence feels larger at a gathering like this, when they have some downtime. “It’s not the worst idea,” Shaw says with a half-smile that she knows won’t reach her eyes. Talking about Carter will never not be hard.
“Or she’d make fun of you for it,” Zoe says with a light chuckle, her eyes filled with whatever it is that makes Shaw’s chest feel heavy.
“For a moment there I was worried you’ll name it ‘Grenade’ or something equally dumb,” Fusco admits with a quiet laugh, shaking his head.
“’Big Lug’s Corner’,” Root throws into the round, earning a hearty chuckle from Fusco.
Reese’ smile is fond, even if Fusco and Root are just getting started on coming up with dumb names.
For once, Shaw’s brain doesn’t even dare to question whether this is real or not, she’s much too content for that. She takes another sip from her beer and laughs when Fusco suggests naming Reese’s self-defense course “Knee Capper Camp”.
*
The blaring of the alarm clock wakes her. Shaw’s confused at first, before she remembers that she and Root fell asleep at the library HQ, testing the IKEA couch that can be pulled out into a bed. It’s supposed to go into the main office room that Root has been so busy re-arranging the past few days, but so far it’s still standing in one of the rooms in disuse. Bear is sleeping at the foot of the bed, his paws moving a little in his sleep while he dreams.
Shaw stretches her arm out, fully expecting a warm body there, but finds an empty, lukewarm space instead.
Root hasn’t been out of bed for too long.
Shaw gets up, stretches and just now realizes that she hasn’t even turned off the alarm, and yet the blaring sounds have stopped. That damn Machine. She follows the faint light coming from the office room and pads with her bare feet quietly over the wooden floor, which needs to be polished again at some point. It’s still dark outside when she walks past some of the bigger windows and finally enters a room where Root is sitting in an armchair with a cup of coffee. Another one is waiting on the table, Shaw’s name artfully drawn onto the cup.
“The barista keeps asking about you,” Root says with a hidden smile. She turns her head to watch Shaw’s subdued reaction to that statement.
“With that silly beard?”
“I think the cool kids wear it like that these days.”
Shaw doesn’t deign that with an answer. Instead, she takes the coffee, sits down on the wide armrest of the armchair and has Root’s head leaning against her side the moment she settles in. “Why are you already awake? Our flight doesn’t go for another few hours.”
“Had a nightmare,” she mumbles and takes a sip from her coffee.
Shaw hums.
The slow trot of dog paws approaches and a sleepy looking Bear reaches them, blinking. He lies down by Root’s empty bunny slippers, since she’s sitting on her legs, and gets comfortable. He sighs deeply and falls asleep shortly after.
“Did I die again?”
“No, it was a memory. From the day the stock market crashed,” she says with a faint sounding voice, and clears her throat. She leans back against the couch to look directly at Shaw. “Don’t worry, my Eeyore mode will fade in a bit,” she continues, going for a joking tone.
Shaw feels her lips twitch while looking at her. “You remember it,” she says, with a sort of fond wonder in her voice that she doesn’t fight. She could claim that it’s the early hour and lack of caffeine in her system, but that would be a lie and they both know it.
Root has to look away. “Of course I do,” she says and that’s that.
*
“Aren’t you looking dapper for someone who’s just been tasked with driving us to the airport?” Root says when, hours later, Reese climbs out of a BMW to pick them up. He’s wearing a tuxedo and a fucking black silk bow tie.
Shaw is busy hauling their bags to the open trunk, but she watches Reese’s growing awkwardness after Root’s comment.
“Well,” he starts, fiddling with the sleeve of his suit jacket. “I have to pretend to be Zoe’s date at this stupid gala later, and considering how long it will take me to get back from JFK, I already got dressed.”
“Yeah,” Shaw drawls once she’s done putting their bags away,” because pretending to be Zoe’s date is so hard and terrible for you.”
Root makes an amused noise and tries not very hard to hide her growing grin. Her reaction is enough to keep Shaw’s attention, despite a dark SUV driving by that would normally make Shaw rub her hands together and take a quick look around.
Reese gives her a dirty look. “Just get into the car.”
Once they’re all seated, Reese smoothly pulls out of the no-parking zone and lowers the volume of the radio. The newscast is not saying anything new, other than that the EU still considers to impose some sanctions on the US for violating their privacy law with Samaritan. An expert that has called in is now laying out the possible repercussions for the US economy and the stock market, should the EU move ahead with their plans.
“The US economy has been in shambles before, Samaritan just kept it all up and running because of the looming election next year,” Root suddenly says, evidently not too busy playing Tetris on her phone to listen to the radio.
Reese increases the volume a little without saying anything.
Shaw looks at Root. “You think they will look into Walker’s win in 2012?”
“Zoe is working almost day and night to get that pushed through,” Root mumbles, making a face when she makes a mistake in her game. “To the public, Northern Lights has been deactivated, but it was active during the election of 2012, and to them, Samaritan will be just a re-branded surveillance program they knew about already. Doesn’t matter that the wrong ASI was online in 2012 for the election results to be fake.”
Reese hums from his seat and changes lanes with the calm of someone who is not easily annoyed by dense traffic. “But if the Machine didn’t fake the results and Samaritan wasn’t online then, how’s Zoe going to prove anything?”
“O ye of little faith,” Root says in her best Texan drawl, looking up from her phone, despite the game still going. For some reason the blocks are being turned and fit into the correct spots anyway and Shaw looks away with a headshake. It’s comical that an ASI of the Machine’s magnitude even has time for something like that. “We’re living in a digital world, Reese. And with the shoddy and outdated voting machines, how hard do you think it will be to place some false evidence?”
“So the Machine is accusing itself,” Reese says, trying to follow Root’s train of thought, “by framing itself as Samaritan?”
“Don’t think about it,” Shaw suggests, staring out the window again.
“No wonder Finch doesn’t want the Machine in space,” Reese mutters and Root remains silent, fully focused on beating her, and apparently the Machine’s, high score (and isn’t that just cheating?) and no longer paying attention to what Reese is saying.
Shaw can’t say she’s feeling sorry for the almost-ex president, but she does feel slightly uneasy at the thought of rewriting the past like that. The implications of it makes the skin behind her ear crawl and she decides to put her musings to rest.
The Machine isn’t Samaritan, after all.