Shaw goes silent and still for a long time, after that: she twitches and shifts a little occasionally, but not in the way of someone who's truly uncomfortable. Her breathing is steady, like a sleeper's.
"I think there's something wrong with me," she says after a good half-hour has passed. She swallows. "Even more wrong with me than before, I mean. I'm being... changed."
Root's already drifted into dozing, exhausted and relieved; it takes a bit for her brain to kick into gear, process what she heard Shaw say. It's only thanks to her habit of sleeping with hair-trigger alertness that lets her catch it.
"Changed how?" she asks simply, waiting for more information before trying to reassure or address the problem.
Even though she's literally just chosen to voice the thought allowed, Shaw still hesitates. The change is still nothing more than a half-formed suspicion, and she's fully aware of how ridiculous this might sound.
"I'm stronger than I should be." Another swallow. "And anger... feels different. Like it's not my anger, but someone else's inside of me."
Root's been forced to accept a lot of ridiculous things already, and doubting Shaw isn't high on her list of options in any situation. She shifts, waking up a little more, drawing her arm up to trace her fingertips lightly up and down Shaw's arm where it's exposed on her side. She can be physically reassuring even if verbally she remains in threat-assessment mode.
"Are you worried about what you'll do?"
Stronger is something that can be proven empirically. The anger... is that what's bothering Shaw, or that she's changing at all?
And that's the thing: some of this change should be a good thing. Shaw, already in excellent shape even before she got here, has also been noticing a natural increase in her endurance levels and muscle tone, and the type of exercise she's been getting here is a very different sort from the type she'd gotten during soldier work. That's fine. That's great, in fact. But this is different.
She rolls over in Root's arms, expression dead serious as she faces her.
"If there's something inside me, how long until there's nothing left of me at all?"
How long until this unnamed thing makes her hurt people?
It's a legitimate question, and Root isn't going to brush it aside. But she can't form her own opinion yet until she learns more, and she's not the type to blindly agree with Shaw's perspective. Her loyalty is clear-eyed, and she likes to know the possible consequences.
"Slow down," she says, equally serious, mind fully jolting to awakeness now. The fire cracks and pops behind them. "Tell me what it's like. Start from the beginning."
She can't begin to handle the problem if she doesn't understand the full scope of what it is, and she guesses Shaw really isn't looking for empty reassurances here.
"Anger is the emotion I'm best at. But it's always been..."
She pauses, casting around for the most suitable adjective.
"Cold, hard, tight. I feel it, but it's still small and contained. Easy to control." She shifts restlessly in Root's arms, her brow furrowing. "Lately it feels hotter and bigger, like something burning inside me. It feel like if it got strong enough, I might not be able to control it. I might do things based on what the anger wants, not because of what I want."
The concept is familiar enough: she's well aware of how common it is for people to lash out, to let anger get the best of them, to act rashly because of it and then regret it later. But all the same, the idea of experiencing that herself is both strange and disquieting.
Maybe this seems obvious to Shaw, but it's new information for Root about how a person very precious to her works, and she holds it close inside. So she does feel anger, if distantly. More like a piece of information than a driving force, and maybe now she's feeling it that way for the first time, a pressure she can't ignore.
Root thinks this over, delicately and tenderly pushes some stray hair out of Shaw's face, tucks it behind the shell of her ear.
"You said I'm your safe place. That you couldn't hurt me. Is that still true?"
She's not looking for reassurance with this, either; she's going somewhere else.
It's said without hesitation - but since Shaw thinks she knows where she's going, it doesn't come without caveats.
"For now. But, Root-- I don't know if that'll always be true. There were simulations where I pointed a gun at you; where I told you I was going to kill you. I held out for a long, long time. But who's to say they won't get me there eventually?"
Her voice is quiet and controlled, but still tense. The way she mixes up the past and present tenses is the strongest sign of her being worked up.
"Oh, sweetie. I love that you don't want to hurt me."
It's very endearing, honestly. Both of them without speaking on it understand the difference between real harm and kinky fun; even when Shaw shot her in the shoulder early on, Root understood that as a leniency. Shaw's always gone soft on her compared to what she could do. Root, though...
She gently strokes the line of her cheekbone with a single fingertip, gaze piercing and direct and words so sweet it hurts her to speak. This is the most reassuring thing she can think of to say, to answer her real concerns rather than wash them over with platitudes.
"But I can hurt you if I need to. If you point a gun at me, I'm not going to just stand there like a weepy damsel. If I think you're losing control, I'll take care of it. I just need that one moment of hesitation where you're second-guessing whether you'll really take me out."
In a fair fight it's a real toss up who would come out on top, but Root never intends to fight fair. Shaw's skin is so soft against her fingers, hand cupping her jaw.
"The last time I had a gun out when I was losing control, you pointed your gun at yourself, not me," Shaw points out, grinding her chin down against Root's palm. Which, no, she doesn't actually think that Root would do that in every situation regardless of the context. But on the whole, she still wishes she'd gone for a takedown instead of brazenly offering to go all-in in a double suicide.
Root rolls her eyes. "Don't be petulant. Pointing it at you wouldn't have helped."
She'd made a read of the situation and in the heat of the moment made a decision. It'd worked, so she doesn't regret it. Not that it had been a bluff -- it wasn't -- but Root's not going to repeat it unless it's necessary.
"My point is, if I think you're not acting like yourself, I'll do something."
Shaw runs through a slow inhale-exhale cycle, taking the time to let the words and the sentiments behind them sink in. Root is a realist. Root isn't incompetent. Root gets things done. Root cares about her, and that means not letting her be controlled by some outside force. Would you kill me? she wants to ask, but she suspects that doing so might be cruel.
"Okay," she says instead, finding Root's hand with her own and pressing their fingertips together.
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.
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"I think there's something wrong with me," she says after a good half-hour has passed. She swallows. "Even more wrong with me than before, I mean. I'm being... changed."
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"Changed how?" she asks simply, waiting for more information before trying to reassure or address the problem.
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"I'm stronger than I should be." Another swallow. "And anger... feels different. Like it's not my anger, but someone else's inside of me."
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"Are you worried about what you'll do?"
Stronger is something that can be proven empirically. The anger... is that what's bothering Shaw, or that she's changing at all?
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She rolls over in Root's arms, expression dead serious as she faces her.
"If there's something inside me, how long until there's nothing left of me at all?"
How long until this unnamed thing makes her hurt people?
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"Slow down," she says, equally serious, mind fully jolting to awakeness now. The fire cracks and pops behind them. "Tell me what it's like. Start from the beginning."
She can't begin to handle the problem if she doesn't understand the full scope of what it is, and she guesses Shaw really isn't looking for empty reassurances here.
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She pauses, casting around for the most suitable adjective.
"Cold, hard, tight. I feel it, but it's still small and contained. Easy to control." She shifts restlessly in Root's arms, her brow furrowing. "Lately it feels hotter and bigger, like something burning inside me. It feel like if it got strong enough, I might not be able to control it. I might do things based on what the anger wants, not because of what I want."
The concept is familiar enough: she's well aware of how common it is for people to lash out, to let anger get the best of them, to act rashly because of it and then regret it later. But all the same, the idea of experiencing that herself is both strange and disquieting.
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Root thinks this over, delicately and tenderly pushes some stray hair out of Shaw's face, tucks it behind the shell of her ear.
"You said I'm your safe place. That you couldn't hurt me. Is that still true?"
She's not looking for reassurance with this, either; she's going somewhere else.
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It's said without hesitation - but since Shaw thinks she knows where she's going, it doesn't come without caveats.
"For now. But, Root-- I don't know if that'll always be true. There were simulations where I pointed a gun at you; where I told you I was going to kill you. I held out for a long, long time. But who's to say they won't get me there eventually?"
Her voice is quiet and controlled, but still tense. The way she mixes up the past and present tenses is the strongest sign of her being worked up.
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It's very endearing, honestly. Both of them without speaking on it understand the difference between real harm and kinky fun; even when Shaw shot her in the shoulder early on, Root understood that as a leniency. Shaw's always gone soft on her compared to what she could do. Root, though...
She gently strokes the line of her cheekbone with a single fingertip, gaze piercing and direct and words so sweet it hurts her to speak. This is the most reassuring thing she can think of to say, to answer her real concerns rather than wash them over with platitudes.
"But I can hurt you if I need to. If you point a gun at me, I'm not going to just stand there like a weepy damsel. If I think you're losing control, I'll take care of it. I just need that one moment of hesitation where you're second-guessing whether you'll really take me out."
In a fair fight it's a real toss up who would come out on top, but Root never intends to fight fair. Shaw's skin is so soft against her fingers, hand cupping her jaw.
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She'd made a read of the situation and in the heat of the moment made a decision. It'd worked, so she doesn't regret it. Not that it had been a bluff -- it wasn't -- but Root's not going to repeat it unless it's necessary.
"My point is, if I think you're not acting like yourself, I'll do something."
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"Okay," she says instead, finding Root's hand with her own and pressing their fingertips together.
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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.