Marriage Counselling for Cocoa Puffs

Shaw was caught between a rock and a hard place on this call. Here, she had the quite attractive doctor asking her on a ‘private session’ and on the other hand she had Root yelling in her ear.

Root was half trying to wind up the hacking and half yelling and threatening Shaw.  

“Sameen, if you even think of – “  But Shaw had made up her mind, after all she did deserve some fun.

“I would love that.” Shaw smiled as friendly as she could, quite sure she could hear Root’s jaw hit the table.

“That’s great! Tonight at about 7:30?” the doctor grinned sweetly.

“I’ll be there.” Sameen affirmed, hoping that Root was thinking of escaping without getting caught, instead of killing the doctor here.

As the doctor left her, Shaw tried to spot Root but couldn’t, but her voice came on the earpiece – which was a relief.

“I’m throwing you off a bridge for that.” came Root’s menacing threat, Shaw could taste the anger in it.

“Maybe after my doctor’s appointment.” Shaw jibed back, slinking out of the building.

“I can’t BELIEVE you agreed to THAT.” Root stamped into the underground railway station, Shaw right behind her. She had to make sure Root didn’t go back and kill the poor doctor – and she had given up trying to explain herself, besides – when did Root ever listen to reason.

“SHE’S A DOCTOR – THAT’S UNETHICAL!” Root vented, not letting this go.

“Really Root? You want to talk about ethics?” Shaw replied, trying to lighten the mood, but Root wasn’t having any of that. Root was quite annoyed that Sameen had agreed to this.

“What is going on, Ms. Groves?” Harold inquired, limping towards the two women as they were arguing.

“Sameen here has a ‘private-session’ with our number because she flirted with her.”  Root complained, quite pained by Shaw’s agreement to this.

“She flirted with you – she’s got to be our perp, why don’t we kill her already?!” Root reasoned, taking out her guns and loading them.

“That’s not how this works Ms.Groves – so far she hasn’t done anything harmful to anybody, she can’t be the perpetrator.” Harold explained hurriedly, alarmed seeing Root was ready to kill her. “We haven’t gone through the material you collected from Dr.Sheetz’ computer, we can’t come to any conclusions yet.”

“There’s nothing on the computer Harry, but the amount of security must mean she’s hiding something.” Root whined, desperately wanting to kill the doctor.  She had, in the last moments during Shaw’s little conversation with the doctor, managed to break through all the security systems, but what surprised her was that the doctor had absolutely nothing worth hiding on the computer.

Harold, however wasn’t allowing Root’s idea to march right over to the doctor’s and kill her.

“It’s not like we've got much intel on the doctor – I figured a private session would help the mission.” Shaw offered, but at that Root lost it. She immediately grabbed Shaw by her coat and held her close to her face.

“That’s our thing.” Root bit through her teeth. Shaw had to admit that in that moment, she was slightly worried that Root was going to kill her for saying that. Shaw maintained her face as impassive as ever, and after a second Root flung her onto the bench.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with Ms. Shaw on this one, perhaps she can find something later.” Harold finished, limping back to his computer. Root was frustrated with everything that had been decided and marched out of the railway station. As she passed Shaw, who still hadn’t moved from where she had flung her on the bench, Root shook her gun in Shaw’s face.

Shaw winced at that, being on the warpath with Root normally ended with someone getting shot.

Root bumped into Reese as she was leaving. Reese was surprised at seeing Root slightly unnerved, and gave Shaw an inquiring look. Shaw rolled her eyes at that, and got up to look for some food.

“What’s with those two?” Reese questioned, making his way to Finch’s desk.

“Marriage counselling.” Harold replied, turning in his usual awkward fashion. Reese shrugged at that.

“It’s good that they’re working on their issues.”

Shaw was punctual to her evening session with Dr. Sheetz. She hadn’t dressed up of course – she didn’t want to come off too eager. She wasn’t at all surprised when she saw Root right outside the building, lurking in the shadows.

“If she lays a finger on you – I’m going to kill her.” Root finally stated. Shaw grunted at that and made her way to the office. The doctor welcomed her into her office once again – and Shaw settled back on the couch – half expectantly. The doctor, however – walked back to her seat and took her notebook from the morning and a few more papers.

“Well Sameen, tell me – why did you marry Augusta?” the doctor began, not a hint of playfulness in her tone. Shaw was immediately surprised.

“Wait – I thought this was a private session.”

“Well yes  - that’s why your wife isn’t here.” The doctor smiled. 

“So when you said private session – you meant private session.” Shaw inquired, knowing was sounding as dumb as a brick.

“Well, what else could I have meant?” the doctor joked, still smiling her soft smile.

“Wow, how rude.” came Root’s voice on Shaw’s earpiece and with that Shaw pretty much knew this was her punishment for agreeing to this. She was sure Root had already all the camera feeds, and was enjoying this.

Shaw, however had no choice but to smile at that joke and talk to Root through her smiling teeth.

“What did you do.”

“Me? I just helped the doctor with a few notes about you and your mental health.” Root replied innocently and immeasurably happily. To torture Shaw was to do something Shaw enjoyed too but to see Sameen squirm to answer questions about herself was such a rare treat.

“So, Sameen – I just wanted to begin with why you married Augusta.” the doctor repeated, all ready to take notes.

“Yeah, Sameen – why did you marry me.” Root questioned as well. Sameen, on the other hand – felt like she was being led to the stake to be burnt.

And I thought this morning was difficult.

“Why do you ask that.” Sameen finally managed, deciding to go with the old trick of answering a question with a question.

“Spoilsport.” Root commented. She had been looking forward to that answer.

“Well you seem to harbor a lot of resentment towards her, so I was curious as to why you married her in the first place. “

“You do love to hate me, don’t you sweetie?”

“It could be because our whole relationship has been a sort of battle for dominance ever since we met.” Shaw managed, doing her best to keep up the conversation without mentioning the fact that the she and her ‘wife’ were actually working for an all-seeing ASI.

“She mentioned this morning how she pretended to be someone else the first time we met, and I got back at her for doing that to me.” Shaw grunted - remembering that she did shoot Root after all.

“And could this be because you hate that she hurt your pride?”

 “No – I just wanted to show her that I could just as easily catch her blindsided as she did me.” Shaw replied, somehow finding a sort of pattern to getting through this.

“And this battle – has persisted all through your relationship?”

“What relationship.” Shaw gritted through her teeth.  Root chuckled at that.

“I guess you could say that.” Shaw replied to the doctor, groaning that hardly 5 minutes had passed in this ordeal.

“Are you looking for anything that can implicate our doctor.” Shaw groaned as softly as she could, sinking into the sofa and resting her head on her side.

“I’m working on it – but so far – nothing bad.”

“I must mention that I did look you up in patient records – and I have found rather surprising data about you.” the doctor began – and Root immediately huffed at that.

“What a lousy liar. I sent her those files.”

“I just was curious to know how someone with Axis II personality disorder married someone like your wife.”

Shaw was busy mentally filtering the answer to that question in her head, when she thought she saw a shadow move across the hall.

“Did you see that?” Shaw asked Root in a low voice, sure that she had feeds to outside the office too.

“There’s nothing there – now stop dodging and answer the question.”  Root wasn’t noticing that the feeds other than the one directly to the office were being looped.

“Luck I guess.” Shaw finally answered- not finding any other answer.

“You could try and do better than that.”

“And what – say what an awesome wife you are?” Shaw muttered, glad that the doctor was slightly far and that she could talk to Root without coming off deranged.

“Something like that.” Root grinned, her eyes shining.

“So, if I’m correct about you – and I think I am – “ the doctor offered, “I see that you want things to be better with your wife. So why don’t we try a little exercise - why don’t you try listing out all the things you love about your wife.”

“I almost feel bad for wanting to kill her before this.”

“Can’t you throw me off a bridge now?” Shaw begged.

“But Sameen, this was for the mission.”  Root pouted in reply.

Shaw knew she couldn’t go on forever dodging the doctor’s questions, she had to say something that would make all this reasonable.

“She’s selfless.”  She began,  remembering that Root was willing to get herself killed while fixing the servers in Samaritan.

“Awwww.” Shaw was frowning as she knew she had to say a few more things to make it through this question.

“When she’s not there – I do miss her.” Shaw tried, going with the conventional reasons.

“Did you mean like you miss an intestinal parasite?”

Shaw racked her brains for something, anything about Root she could actually tell the doctor.

“She cannot wink for her life – I swear once she thought she did, and she just blinked really fast – it was the funniest thing ever.”

“Hey! I can wink!”

“The dog can wink better than you.”

“What?” the doctor heard that, and Shaw had to gather herself again, when she noticed someone right outside the door.

“Root, there is someone out there, I can see him.” Immediately getting up and crouching towards the doctor, getting out her gun. The doctor went pale seeing the gun, and was speechless.

Root could see it too, and see that the feeds were rigged to loop, immediately started typing away – to get back to the live feeds.

“Sameen, there is a man outside, with a fully loaded machine gun. I don’t understand why he’s there or who he is.” Root hurriedly started, already on her way to the doctor’s office. She wasn’t that far off anyway.

Shaw, was busy pulling the doctor away to a safe side of the room,  all the while checking that the intruder wouldn’t start firing randomly.

“Ok Doc, there’s an armed man outside, anything you want to tell me about that?” Shaw whispered, giving the doctor no time to adjust to her shift from uncomfortable patient to kickass agent.

“It could be Dave. Why do you have a gun?”

“Why does this Dave have a gun?”

“Probably because she flirted with Dave’s wife.” Root chimed in, racking her guns and marching into the building.

“I don’t know – he’s a stalker – he’s stalked me and my sister all my life – and he killed her. He’s a hacker too – so I’ve had to keep all my files secure all the time.” The doctor explained, now scared beyond her wits.

“That explains who our perp is.” Shaw reasoned out, making her way to the door and spotting the tall, bulky guy instantly. In usual Shaw fashion – she attacked the guy – tackling him to the ground before he could fire the gun, and landing a few punches and kicks to him in the process.

Shaw was in the middle of strangling the life out of the guy when she heard a gun shot – and Dave finally stopped struggling.

“I don’t know why you just don’t shoot people.” Root grinned, walking up to the office, still holding out her gun. Shaw shrugged at that, as indifferent as ever.

“Hi doctor.” Root smiled sweetly to the doctor, “Next time – I’d suggest you work on her daddy issues.”

Shaw immediately scowled at that, and Root slowly walked over to the terrified doctor, who still hadn’t moved from her chair.

“Wait – so you two aren’t a couple?”

“Not really.” Shaw grunted.

“Oh and doctor.” Root began, smiling as angelic as ever, before firing a round at the doctor’s arm.

“That’s for flirting with her.”