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[computation]

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for carver (etraya)

[computation]

[ Root gets settled in Etraya, takes some time to reacquaint herself with Shaw and Harry and even the big lug, makes sure she introduces herself to the resident A.I. and ask a series of pertinent questions. Of course she trusts Harry's judgment, but if she's going to be freely talking to whoever contacts her, Root isn't going to turn up the opportunity.

After a few days she moves onto introducing herself to their more extended circle of contacts, and Carver comes up quickly. Shaw brought a friend home, huh? That's so cute. She has to get to know him.

She's actually not thinking that as she goes down into the subway hideout, though. She has no idea he's living here and was just morbidly curious about finding a very familiar vending machine. If it's here, she might as well pick up some things of hers... black nail polish, a taser, you know. Whatever she'd left behind. She definitely wants the bunny slippers.

But she's not an idiot, so she has a gun held comfortably in her hands as she trots down the final stairway. ]

for shaw (singillatim)

[computation]

Root assumes she's dead at first. There's quite a few reasons to draw this conclusion: her clothes are bloody but the wounds under them are closed up, scarring nicely already; the sky is cascading colors across the night, not just an aurora but a whole spectacle of the universe; and she's stuck in a frozen hellscape with the wind whistling past her. She finds Bear just as her fingertips start to fully freeze and the two things together convince her she is not, in fact, dead, or at least not in any way that matters.

She spends the next few days getting to grips with her surroundings, thankful she has Bear to talk to as she keeps up an occasional murmured stream of chatter. Root is a city girl but she grew up in a small town and she knows at least a few things. She has a knife and that lovely tactical shotgun she'd stolen off the police officer ages ago, though she quickly realizes she's going to need to conserve ammo, bad.

There's a tiny cabin nearby that's structurally sound enough to provide protection from the weather, and Root makes that her temporary base of operations as she scrounges around the area for supplies. She gets some better clothing for herself -- looking fairly comical bundled up in all these men's layers, but it keeps her alive, four pairs of socks on to make her feet fit into the work boots she found -- and she used her knife to cut up a the outer shell of a half-destroyed parka. She took the strips and some duct tape and made little booties for Bear. She has to make new ones every couple days, but his poor little paws need protection from the snow and ice.

Her cochlear implant isn't working the whole time. More than once she's intensely grateful to have Bear, who has far more acute hearing than her even when both of her ears are working, and warns her of nearby threats. His presence seems to act as a decent deterrent to the wolves, too, at least for now. As the light show in the sky starts to settle, though, her implant crackles back to life, making her wince in surprise. Some quick math makes Root realize how much she needs to conserve its battery life even more than the ammo, so with some reluctance she turns it off shortly after it becomes active.

Eventually she feels well equipped enough to leave her temporary base, and she suits up herself and Bear -- who's wearing a child's tattered down vest as well as his makeshift booties -- as she heads out, shotgun at the ready. It's slow going through the snow, and she really has no idea where she's going or where there even is to go to, but she can't stay here forever. There's very little food, for one thing.

She can't believe she was grateful to find a can of beans yesterday.

Root muses on her devastatingly low current standards and the theological nature of purgatory as she tromps through the snow drifts, and then Bear starts to bark and she springs into alertness, lifting the gun cautiously.

for carver & shaw (etraya)

[computation]

[ Let's say they're having a post-mission drink together. It's all very civil, sitting down in Carver's boobytrapped version of the subway station, pulled up on scavenged furniture around a scavenged table, bottle of decent but not great whiskey set up with shot glasses. Root is nursing hers rather than shooting -- it's just the glasses they have on hand -- and leaning back with all the leisurely satisfaction of a cat who did what they wanted and ignored all shouts to the contrary.

It was a good mission. They achieved their objectives and they worked well together, and watching Carver and Shaw relax afterwards like they don't have any other post-mission plans makes Root feel like now's the right time. It's not reckless; it's not impulsive.

She's been waiting. ]

So have you two done it yet? [ Maybe they were talking about something else, but now they're not. Root sounds interested, amused; she doesn't assume Shaw shares everything with her, wouldn't expect her to. ] Because I could cut this sexual tension with a knife.