It would be a real cruelty to ask Root if she could kill Shaw, because she genuinely doesn't know. She thinks the answer is no, though. Root feels her own kind of moral absolute, and if she doesn't apply it to everyone, there's a few individuals it feels cuttingly, piercingly obvious for: Shaw can't die, Harold can't die, the Machine can't die. The circumstances don't matter.

She presses her fingertips against hers, the overall effect sure and strong but each individual finger weak in its isolation.

"You're the most important thing here to me," Root whispers. "You don't know what it's like to be overcome with rage, how to handle it. I'll handle it for you. Trust me."

Any gap, any weakness, Root will fill in. That's what she's been doing for Harold and for the Machine all this time Shaw was gone, and it's a profound relief, sweet and harsh, to find a new direction to put that certainty and commitment amid the bewildering disorientation of this place. What Shaw needs, she can be.