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"I am truly sorry, Ms. Groves," Harold said as he rose from his small desk beside the subway car.
Root had heard him say those same words before- each time she and John had returned from another fruitless search, in fact - but there was a finality to his tone this time that stopped her from looking up or even acknowledging his words. She didn't need to look at him to guess the pained expression on his face or the reason behind it. Harold had given up, the limits of his patient hope finally reached.
Harold was a realist and while Root had no doubt that he wanted to believe Sameen was alive somewhere, somehow... the evidence just wasn't bearing out to agree. The team had chased the slimmest of leads for weeks without finding so much as a spark from which to kindle hope and Root knew, as they all did at this point, that they were doing little more than chasing ghosts.
John had given up weeks earlier. The loss of a colleague was a much more common experience for him than for the rest of them. He wasn't the type to harbor hope; he simply mourned and accepted the change. That he was still willing to placate Root enough to follow her lead, though, was appreciated. She understood it was his way of grieving - honoring Sameen's memory by acknowledging that if anyone could have survived that situation, it was she.
Harold was practical in a different way, though. He was used to working with statistical improbabilities and forcing good outcomes despite overwhelming odds. One -in-a-million-chances were real chances to him, so long as the conditions were favorable or at least manipulable. He had not only supported Root's searching, he had encouraged it. 'If Ms. Shaw is alive, then I have no doubt you will find her,' he had said one night after the first promising trail had run cold. Root was sure he had meant every word at the time, but as the weeks turned into months and Root still hadn't found her, Harold's ever analytical brain had begun to reassess the odds. For him, Sameen's chances of survival had dropped to such a small percentage, they were more rational to dismiss than to nourish.
Harold was ready to grieve and move on.
Root could understand his decision even if she couldn't accept it; weak faith had always been Harold's greatest flaw and the one for which she most pitied him. She had hoped he would someday come to understand how it prevented him from seeing the divine or that hope could never truly be gone while a question still remained, but it did not seem as though today would be that day.
She looked up and watched him carefully, allowing the moment to stretch into an uncomfortable silence. While she would not chastise him for his weakness, she would make damn sure he knew she recognized it for what it was. With a practiced smile slowly widening across her face, Root let him know he would receive no support or comfort from her. He was free to give up on Sameen if that was what he wished, but Root was still willing to chase her ghost for as long as she could. It wasn't like Root needed his help anyway and she wasn't really even sure she wanted it, not if he could lose faith in Sameen so easily, that was.
Harold started to fidget under the weight of her gaze. He swallowed shallowly and nodded as if he understood her silent admonition and then, with a sad smile, turned away and reached for Bear's lead.
"It's alright," he said as the dog let out a quiet whine. Reaching down, Harold scratched Bear's ear with a gentle, calming motion and clipped the lead to his collar. "I know you wonder why Ms. Shaw hasn't returned with us and I wish there was some way I could provide you with an answer, but I'm afraid I simply do not have one."
His eyes remained steadfastly on Bear's, but Root could feel the weight of them beginning to press even on her.
"One of the things we've grown most accustomed to since we began this enterprise is gaining a sense of closure after each event," he continued. "We are presented with a number and know something is about to happen. The Machine gifts us with the opportunity to effect the outcome of those events and I fear we may have grown jaded to the notion of just how rare an opportunity that is - not just the chance to bring positive change into the world, but to simply know what happened. Too often lives blink into and out of existence without any obvious effect on the larger world around them or without anyone even seeming to notice they existed at all. They are simply irrelevant to the Big Picture society would paint for us.
'But what binds our little band together - what bound Ms. Shaw to us as well - is our common rejection of that notion. We do not believe that a life - any life - is irrelevant. We choose to notice. We choose to see the value in every individual the world would otherwise ignore. And we pay a very high price for that, I'm afraid, because it means that we alone are there to share that life and bear witness to its unique beauty. We know, perhaps better than anyone, that a single life can matter so very much to so many and I have come to see carrying that knowledge as a terrible privilege. If it wasn't, then the pain of their loss wouldn't be as excruciating or the memories of their life as sweet once gone."
Bear nuzzled his hand and Harold scratched his chin in return. "I miss her too, you know," he added quietly. "Sometimes I believe I would give anything or do anything I could just to see Ms. Shaw walk through our door one more time, but I know that event is... unlikely. As inadequate as it may seem, therefore, all I can hope to do is to share your grief and to provide whatever measure of comfort I can. And perhaps find some measure in return."
Root watched Harold for another moment more, waiting for him to turn and face her, but he never did. Instead, he pulled lightly on the lead and walked Bear to the door in silence. Root watched him go and continued watching the empty space for some time after, realizing perhaps for the first time just how difficult this war had become for him.
Her suddenly heavy head fell quietly into her hands and Root shut her eyes against the subway car, against Harold, against the world.
She should have learned better by now than to play emotional games with Harold. Despite his quiet, rational demeanor, he had a capacity for breeding empathy that was simply unparalleled. It was his superpower; how else could he have recruited such emotionally-hobbled individuals and turned them into the last people on Earth who seemed to give a damn?
Sameen would have had some perfect retort to deflect the pain his words caused - a curt but creative series of expletives that would have left Harold blushing and questioning why he even bothered making such speeches. She might have even gotten a kick out of seeing Root shut Harold down in a similar way, but in the end, just thinking about what Sameen would or would not have said only seemed to make his words cut that much more deeply into her heart.
Dragging the rest of her heavy limbs from the cold subway car seat, Root found one of the surplus blankets and made her way to the cot - Sameen's cot - and stretched out along it.
There was no real breeze along the platform, no reason for the ambient temperature to change all that much from moment to moment, but even still Root felt suddenly cold... and alone.
It was a new experience for her - not being alone, per se, but feeling that way. Even as a child when the other kids had begun to recognize that something was wrong with her and keep their distance, Root had not felt lonely. She had far more interesting conversations with herself than she could have had with them anyway and she quickly found that being alone with her thoughts was just fine. Even as she grew older, the instinctive need for family or friends just never materialized. Those kinds of ties seemed to be more problematic than valuable and Root wasn't in the business of collecting problems, only resolving them.
By the time she met Harold, Root was convinced the only one in this world she even wanted to know was the one he so callously referred to as 'the Machine.' She alone offered the promise of friendship the way Root had always imagined it could be.
But then Root had met Sameen and she had been unlike anyone Root had ever known. Different from Root in many respects, yet similar in so many alarming ways, it was clear to Root that like her, Sameen did not fit neatly into any of society's boxes. There was something wrong with her, too, something violent and terrifying and beautiful. She was electric - awe inspiring and dangerous - and had left Root tingling after every encounter.
Root hadn't understood what that meant, at first, only that she needed to find out. Yet the more Root injected herself into Sameen's world, the more Sameen seemed to defy explanation. She was hubris and humility, pain and lust, fear and aching need all wrapped in one. In the end, getting to know Sameen had taken kid gloves and a taser.
And every effort had been worth it. Root had never felt more alive than in those adrenaline-fueled moments with Sameen when it felt it like the whole world wanted them dead and they'd have only a ghost's chance of escape. Individually, they defied the odds; together, they made their own. Death itself couldn't seem to catch them.
Which was why Sameen couldn't be gone. She couldn't have lost to Samaritan; that didn't make sense. Of course she had survived. Somehow.
But then again...
Root curled onto her side and pulled her knees in as tightly as the cot would allow, a childish defensive gesture against the unwelcome thoughts starting to build in her mind. She'd never even allowed herself to consider there was another possibility. She'd walled away fears and stayed focused on the only outcome she was willing to accept - that she was going to find Sameen.
But what if she never did...
Root could feel the doubts building like a physical pressure in her head. She imagined it to be like water pushing its way into a dam's tiny crack - an unstoppable and devastating force threatening to rip her apart.
There had been no reason for Sameen to leave the elevator and go for that control. They would have held out as a team and found a way to escape, like they always did. The Machine was still running scenarios and She would have found them a way; why had Sameen doubted that? Why did she push Root away? Why did she leave her there to be held and hauled away by Lionel?
Why did she kiss her goodbye? Why didn't she give them a chance?
Root's tears flowed as the crack gave way and she found herself surrendering to the torrent, allowing it to wash her away. When it finally subsided - when the tidal wave of grief finally left her wracked and exhausted body to rest on the miserable little cot - Root realized that she was now truly alone with her thoughts.
With a final, sputtering sigh, Root closed her eyes against the tear-induced headache and drifted uneasily into sleep. One final thought, though, whirled in her mind as she floated away - a desperate plea whispered in the dark...
Please, just tell me where she is.