expiationnet | text; un: firecracker

Amnes-- oh. I wouldn't call us friends.

[ Root huffs. ]

Friends return phone calls. I haven't heard anything.

Okay, not to stick up for the second weird AI to kidnapped me and stick me in a simulation--

[Sorry, Root; she's always going to kind of die on this hill.]

But friends return phone calls when they're able to. And it sounds like it's going through some stuff right now.

[ Root likes the local A.I. and cares about it/her to a certain extent, but it's far from being the Machine. It is a little humorous in its own right to hear Shaw defending an A.I. at all, though. ]

I'm not talking about the current version, I'm talking about the backup. We have two different copies, and neither of them are talking.

[ She stands up again, distracted with this line of thought, and brushes road dust off her hands. ]

I should probably check in on Quentin, actually. He downloaded one into his brain.

I-- what?

[Shaw stands too, but out of habit, hangs back with a hand still on Bear's head - she's accustomed to Root rushing off on tasks that she isn't necessarily invited to herself.]

Is Quentin a cyborg?

No, he's a telepath -- a really powerful one, like, turn you into a dribbling idiot powerful. Apparently he's stored copies of A.I. in his brain before. Or something like that.

[ Root's had to get used to some pretty wild stuff in her time here, and she reports this with a sense of edged amusement, knowing how it sounds. ]

I like him. [ This is a questionable recommendation coming from Root, maybe, but she hadn't made it lightly. Quentin is sassy, whip-smart, mildly terrifying, and aligns with her feelings on A.I. What more could she want? ]

You and Bear can come if you want.

Edited 2024-12-12 23:30 (UTC)

He'd better not turn my dog into a dribbling idiot.

[But that's not a no, obviously. Giving Bear - her dog - one last pat, she reaches down and curls the leash around the fingers of one hand, then reaches over and brushes Root's wrist with the fingers of the other.]

You really like showing me off to people, huh.

He talks a tough game, but he's a good guy.

[ Root feels pretty confident about that one; she's not worried about him lashing out. Quentin is way too thoughtful and considered beneath the sarcasm to be a concern.

Then she gets fully distracted with Shaw's hand on her wrist, and she uses her free hand to coyly tuck some hair behind an ear. ]

You think now that I've got you, I'm going to waste a single second?

Well, when you put it like that.

[Shaw mutters, finally bridging the gap and grabbing onto Root's hand. Handholding has never been a form of physical contact that she's considered herself to be any good at - but sometimes, she still thinks about that aborted moment on the safehouse couch, mere hours before Root's death. Looking down at their linked fingers, she adds:]

And, uh-- yeah, back at you.

[Smooth.]

[ Even if they weren't here, in a simulation with uncertainty rife around them, Root would feel like this. Like she needs to make every second count, because around the corner is tragedy or death or loss, or all three.

Root's always been aware that they don't have a lot of time.

She clasps her hand tightly with a sideways smile and starts leading the three of them down the street. ]

You're worth showing off, Sameen. I never thought I'd be with someone like this. [ Not like this, where they know they'll always return to one another. ]

[As they head down the street, Shaw weighs the pros and cons of asking what feels like the obvious follow-up question. Neither of them talk about their pasts much in any context, and while she's curious, she doesn't feel the need to know. But Root can always demure if she wants to, so--]

Have you ever dated anyone before?

[ Root's more than capable of deflecting, diverting or denying any question she doesn't want to answer, but she doesn't mind Shaw asking this. She's an open book to her at this point. ]

As myself, you mean? Not like this. No one I'd snap someone's neck for.

[ That was to protect Harold, too, but she doesn't think Shaw would mind that being an added motive. And she thinks the example will get her point across without making things too mushy. ]

I figured no one like this.

[Shaw says, wryly; this is strange and unique enough so as to be entirely unreplicatable.]

Have you ever had more than, I dunno, five dates with a single person? Dates that weren't for a con? Ever lived with anyone before?

[She's guessing no for the second, and maybe not even for the first.]

Definitely never lived with someone -- I hardly ever stay in one place. And calling them dates would be stretching it, but I've had longer-term things before.

[ She's not against casual sex with someone she likes on an ongoing basis, it's just not what she'd wanted with Shaw. And hey, if she's going to bring this up, she's going to get the question lobbied right back at her with intense interest. ]

You?

I told you about Arthit - study abroad guy from college. He was the last; the one who made me decide, Okay, it's not a fluke, I'm really not cut out for relationships. And the fact that I wasn't even a little bit bothered by the idea of never being in a relationship again seemed like more proof of that, so--

[She shrugs.]

There were two people before him - a few months for each. College is when I started getting asked out, and if they were hot and not bad to be around, I'd think, Sure, why not, we can be dating. It was naive of me.

[Just like thinking she could have been a doctor had been. Her father's death had been her first real indicator that there was something different about her that other people didn't respond well to, but figuring out the shape of that difference had still taken time, and there had been many pitfalls and missteps along the way.]

[ Root is still quietly thrilled that she can just ask Shaw a question and she'll get an answer rather than a snarky deflection. She'd expected to die fighting their war, and she had. She really hadn't expected to have this chance afterwards, whatever form it's taking.

Thinking again of how little time they might really have, she offers in return, ] I figured out much sooner that I was never going to be what someone else was looking for. So I never really tried the way you did.

I didn't even finish college.

[ Her mother died, and that was the last hold tying her to anything like a normal life. Root didn't need an education; she needed to escape. And even this much, without adding that personal detail, Root realizes is more than Shaw's ever learned about her, either. Root had read her file in detail but the reverse had never occurred. She'd made sure she doesn't have a file to read. ]

I'm not sure if you could call what I did 'trying'.

[Her partners had all come to see it that way, eventually. And by certain metrics, she hadn't: she'd passed over a good deal of things that most people consider baseline requirements for a relationship.

But measured by her own standards, in her own way, she'd tried so incredibly hard.]

I'm guessing you never regretted that? You don't seem like the late-in-life degree type.

I don't know, [ she says seriously, unconsciously echoing Shaw's thoughts, ] I think you did try. I know how much you try for me.

[ She's not saying that looking for affirmation, she's just acknowledging it, making sure Shaw knows she's noticed and it means something to her. It's hard for her to imagine Shaw not trying at some point to be the person society wanted her to be. That was all over her history from Root's view.

None of us has the life we want, huh?

Root wants to try in return, wants to touch at least a little on some of her background, wants to give. She doesn't want to make the conversation too serious as they take a romantic stroll with their dog through the lightly drifting snow, but she can give something. ]

It's hard to say I regret anything. I don't think I could have done anything differently. [ Root's voice is measured, even, her walking pace steady. ] I lost my faith in people early on. I learned the system doesn't work, that no one is looking out for you, that people will revert to their own interests.

I lost someone, and no one cared. So I wasn't going to care, either.

Edited (fixed my quote) 2024-12-16 20:41 (UTC)

That sucks.

[Her word choice might sound flippant, but her tone is completely solemn; she gives Root's hand an encouraging little squeeze.]

You lost your family? Your parents?

[The system doesn't work makes her think either the justice system or foster care; if Root was a kid, she's betting on the latter.]

[ She's knocked out of her morose memories a little bit with the hand squeeze and squeezes back, flashes Shaw a sad sidelong smile. ]

A friend. I reported it and everything. [ a beat ] I just did things myself after that.

[ Root thinks that explains her history well enough without getting into a whole sob story about it. ]

[Which means her parents were already gone by that point, or they sucked. Shaw won't ask which: if Root wants to share all the gritty details, then she will.]

For as long as I'm here, whatever the hell "here" is--

[Another squeeze.]

Even without the Machine, even if it's just me and not the rest of the team - you don't have to do things by yourself now.

I really... didn't ever think I'd hear anyone say that.

[ Not anyone, not even Shaw. Not apart from the Machine. Maybe someday was enough to hope for, the kind of realistic sentiment that was more than she expected in this dismal, dreary, disappointing world. But she's here and Shaw is saying she isn't alone and there's emotion welling up. Root lets it sit in her chest rather than suppress it. She's not tied up in anything, doesn't need to be ready to move at a moment's notice, she's... dead and over. She went out the best way she knew how.

And now she gets to have the only kind of rewarding afterlife she could ever believe in: a simulation with Sameen here with her. ]

We've really come a long way, haven't we? [ she muses, swinging their arms lightly. ] It doesn't surprise me I could've been a Samaritan agent, not really. But I know I'm happier this way.

I've always known how easily I could have been. I just didn't talk about it much - no reason to.

[Every time she'd even so much as hinted that she thought Samaritan had a point, no matter how small, it had horrified Harold enough that she never pressed the issue: she had, after all, firmly chosen her side and her people, and nothing was going to change that. And it hadn't, in the end: even after eleven months, and seven thousand simulations.]

The thing that bothers me most is that Decima knew it, too. If John or Harold had been the one to leave that elevator, Martine would've left them dead on the ground. Samaritan wouldn't have wanted to try to turn them; it would've known it would have been a waste of time. But it thought it could turn me.

No reason to, [ Root agrees, similarly practical. She isn't the type to spend time dwelling in her regrets or might-have-beens. It's not really optimism but rather a sheer cold pragmatism that doesn't let her spend energy on pointless distractions.

If Shaw's thinking that, though, it's not a pointless distraction at all. Root scoffs immediately, getting annoyed at Shaw's self-doubt. ]

Is this like when you thought the intel came from Guantanamo? Look a little deeper. Come on, Sameen, they picked that because it freaks you out. If they got John or Harold they would've done whatever worked on them, not wasted a resource by killing them.

You're the most straightforward, loyal person I know. And they knew that. You didn't even turn on the ISA when they got your partner killed.

[ It was evident in Shaw's history and it made for an obvious manipulation tactic as far as Root's concerned. ]

That was loyalty to a cause and an organization, not loyalty to a person.

[She gets what Root's saying, and the logic makes sense; it's not that she disagrees. But there's some more nuance here.]

I understood the ISA's methods in a way that I still don't understand Harold's, even though I trust now that his methods are better than theirs. The reason I didn't turn on the ISA is that I thought they were right. The reason I didn't turn on you guys is that you guys are my team, and I'm loyal to you, even though I don't always completely understand your ideals. It's the same reason I didn't turn on Cole when I didn't understand his.

[She feels a bitter twist in her stomach, thinking about that. She doesn't at all regret trying to protect Cole by keeping his reservations and intentions secret from their higher-ups; she never has, not even when the ISA still had her full loyalty. But she also doesn't really regret choosing to undo the work he'd died for, after he could no longer be affected by the decisions she made. It's not necessarily the same choice she'd make now - but back then, it had been her best option, and she stands by it.

Cole wouldn't have, though. She knew him well, and she knows that he would have seen it as a betrayal.]

Decima thought they could... turn back the clock, I guess. Break my loyalty to people and make me loyal to a cause again. There was a reason all their efforts were based around annoying philosophical arguments instead of, I dunno, trying to get Greer or Martine to bond with me.

[ Root thinks this over with due consideration, taking Shaw's words seriously, fitting in some pieces to her mental puzzle of Shaw with her usual attentive fascination.

Then she says, ] I still don't buy it. What they want isn't loyalty to a cause or a person, it's loyalty to a god. Unquestioning and unreasoning. [ That had been Root once, but not anymore; not since Shaw was taken. ]

I have that in me, and maybe you did at one time. But the point is, we both changed. I know I could've been an agent for Samaritan -- easily, [ she emphasizes, ] but now? It could never happen. I couldn't work for Samaritan any more than you could shoot me in any one of thousands of simulations. They're absolutes, inviolable lines. And where your lines are tells you who you are.

They weren't trying to break your loyalty, they were just trying to break you.

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