"The Machine kept telling me the odds were too long on finding you," Root murmurs against her ear, "but I kept trying anyway."

She doesn't mean that as an article of blind faith, that either of them should face any odds and they'll come out the other side. Root was well aware of the dangers, of the unlikelihood that she'd succeed, just as she understands Shaw had a tiny chance to ever see her again and had to find ways to keep going, knowing that. But pursuing Shaw, loving her, has always been about holding on to the smallest possibility, clinging with her fingertips to any bare purchase she could find.

Maybe they won't have long here, either, but she'll take every moment she can.