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In the grocery store, Root watches Grace from behind a stand of pineapples.
The meds they had her on in the hospital are still clearing out of her system, and the lingering withdrawal combined with the soothing muzak is faintly nauseating. It's only been a week since that night filled with desflurane and shattered glass. Despite all this, Root hasn't looked back.
In her ear, the Machine is silent. They don't talk much yet, because they're still working out a mutual language. Root thought She'd have more to say about Grace, but that's obviously Root's expectations as an organic being. A God has different perceptions and values. Root can't wait to learn all about them.
Grace holds up two kinds of granola, reading the ingredients with her brow furrowed, weighing up the benefits of hazelnuts versus flaxseed. Eventually she settles on hazelnuts, and drops the box into her basket. She's humming Joni Mitchell as she walks past the pineapple pyramid, and she goes about the rest of her day.
Root smiles to herself. The Machine has her booked on a flight to Toronto in an hour. She doesn't know what she'll be doing there, but the moment Root gets back to New York, she'll be knocking on that door in Washington Square.
Grace is going to be a pushover.
"Hi, this is Ada Gordon? I don't know if you remember, but we had a meeting planned last year? I kinda stood you up. I wanted to apologise, if you'd be up for that?"
Root's done her research, and she chooses the café carefully. It has to be exactly right, not too crunchy and not too slick. Mid-price, because Harold gave Grace enough of a taste for luxury that she can't quite slum it anymore, but even now she finds it hard to justify a fifty dollar tab for coffee and cake. She settles on kitsch, a place that specialises in herbal tea and vintage thrifted teapots.
Grace appears at her table like the wind blew her in, with hair mussed and cheeks red. The tip of her nose is red, too.
"Hi!" she says, bright and open. Her arms are full: oversized purse, folio, the scarf she pulled off the moment she stepped into the over-warm atmosphere of the café. She sheds all these things in haphazard order, then sits opposite Root with a sigh. "Is spring is ever going to get here?"
Grace looks like a Rockwell painting: sweet and guileless, ferocious in a harmless, palatable way. Not her type at all. There's barely a fight in this woman. It says a lot about Harry, that this was his great love. Maybe that's why the Machine is so quiet. Maybe Grace has no more value to God than any other human in the city.
At the table, Root feigns a shiver. "I hope so! I can't seem to get my bones warm."
"Oh, aren't you cute? Someone obviously loved you enough to get you here from last century."
Root starts for a moment, assuming she is the subject of this statement, then Grace reaches out a finger to touch one ear of the fox-shaped teapot. She slides the finger along the belly of the teapot as if assessing the glaze. She has long fingers, the nails clean but short, the fingertip callused.
They order, they exchange pointless small talk. Root makes her apology, while she tears her apple scone to pieces in faux shame.
"My deal fell through," she says, letting her hair fall into her eyes. "I couldn't bring myself to call. I could barely admit it to myself that I'd failed."
Grace makes a sympathetic noise, and nibbles on her lavender shortbread. "Rejection always hurts, but it hurts worst when you've shown your raw edges."
Root tries to make sense of that. It's hard to plan your conversation when you're unsure of the analogy.
"I guess?" she says, eventually.
"That's how is for me, anyway. Tearing a bit of yourself out, putting it up for judgement. It's deeply personal. Those torn edges, they show," Grace says. "Maybe it's different for writing?"
Root finds she's eating a piece of her scone while Grace is talking. It's sweet and soft on her tongue like wonder bread, but it lingers, buttery, until she pops another piece into her mouth. Food had never been important to Root until she had to eat the hospital's bland, semi-digested pap. This tastes like someone actually cared. She blinks, staring at the flower pattern on her plate until her vision clears.
A warm hand touches hers for a moment.
"Here," Grace says, mercifully changing the subject. "I've still got the preliminary sketches for your meeting last year. Maybe you could try again?"
She rearranges things on the table so there's room for her folio, and pulls out a series of watercolours, passes them to Root, one by one.
Root gazes at the paintings, at the dreamy blue-green palette, the steam-punk fairies with their metal-framed wings. They're really, really good. This is terrible.
Grace schedules another meeting, this time at her house.
"You bring the manuscript and we can work out how many pieces you're going to need," she says.
Root smiles. "That sounds great," she says. It's not a lie. She very much wants to get inside Grace's house.
Grace laughs. "You sound terrified!" she says. "Don't be. We'll keep it super low key."
"I am terrified," Root says. "But maybe it's a good kind of fear?" She's surprised at how sincere she sounds.
Damn it. Now she's going to have to come up with an actual book.
Root spends a number of sleepless nights coming up with a plausible manuscript for a children's author to present to an artist.
The Machine is curious about the process and eventually offers advice in the form of excerpts from Eric Carle's private journal. Root thinks about the Very Hungry Caterpillar, thinks about Eric Carle digging trenches at fifteen in the middle of WWII, thinks about short sentences that carry a lot of weight.
In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf.
"I don't understand this, but at least it's working," Root says, at 3am the night before her meeting with Grace.
Unforseen. Events. Require. Adaptability, the Machine says into her ear.
Root spins her pen across her thumb, then stops herself. No more echoes from her school days. "So, this is something like a training exercise?"
The Machine gives a soft chime in her ear, their newly agreed shorthand for "Yes."
The whole thing is a very weird experience, but she pieces together a draft. Longhand, in a paper journal. Somehow, that works better than typing. That troubles Root, who considers typing her first language, her first adult language, at least. The reminder that she started with crayons and pencils like everyone else brings other, more painful memories close.
In the morning, the whole thing takes less than ten minutes to transcribe to digital form. So little for such effort, a soap bubble thing that will vanish if touched. She loads it onto a thumb drive and tucks it in her pocket for the morning.
John, Harold's lurking murder butler, catches her on the approach to Grace's home.
Root's been expecting some kind of protest from Harold's camp. Grace's phone is riddled with bespoke surveillance software, all woven with Harold's characteristic, succinct style.
"Good dog," she says. "Sorry I don't have a milk bone."
John doesn't say much – does he ever say much? – but he looms purposefully.
Root can't quite make herself hate John, not when it's clear that he'd die for Harold, but it still rankles that Harold chose him as a companion and not Root. Or Grace.
"She's already met me," Root says. "Poor Grace, so lonely in her house all alone, are you going to make me stand her up?"
John's mouth is at her ear, before Root even realises he's moving. "Hurt her, or put her in danger and I've got the go-ahead to take you out."
Her first instinct is to rebuff that threat with her own, but Root has already learned that when the Machine says No. Killing. She really means it. Root doesn't question it. Instead, she pats John's cheek, feels stubble under the leather of her glove.
"Don't worry. Tell Harry that Grace is in safe hands. Safer than his, anyway."
His expression doesn't change, his face stays pressed against her palm. Root is forced to disengage herself. As she walks away, John's gaze is a sniper's red dot between her shoulder blades.
The steps to Grace's house are clean, worn enough that the marble dips a little in the middle. Grace, when she opens the door, is wearing a soft pink cardigan that hangs low at the front where she's filled the pockets with heavy things.
Root watches them swing as Grace closes the door behind them. She's surprised when Grace wraps her arms around her in a hug.
"I'm so glad you came. I had the weirdest feeling you were going to fly off like one of your characters."
Root allows herself to be hugged then bundled into the living room where Grace has her drawing table set up. Natural light floods this room, softened only by the sheer drapes. In this space, Grace glows, somehow more solid than she was in the café. On a low table, there's a photo of her and Harold. Root's never seen it before, and it's hard not to stare at that incandescent happiness. She forces her gaze up to Grace.
"I cleared the coffee table so we can lay things out and talk." Grace passes Root a mug of tea, and settles down on the sofa. "Tell me your story and I promise I'll be gentle with those raw edges."
Root is having a good time. The frisson of messing with Harold's love is still present, but it has receded in the unexpected pleasure of talking with Grace. Hours pass, and they're still talking.
From time to time, Grace leaps up to grab books to show Root examples. She grabs a fistful of brushes and a jar of water, then creates beautiful gradients of colour.
By the time the water turns grey and muddy with rinsed colour, she and Grace are sitting hip-to-hip on the comfortable sofa. She watches Grace's hand move over her sketchpad, drawing fairy figures with sharp features and mechanical wings strung with tattered silk.
"You know what? You've written a manual," Grace says. "Like a message to your younger self, telling her how to escape." The pencil scratches against the paper, creating streamers of long, lank hair that clings to the fairies' shoulders like they're underwater.
Root's eyes burn. She didn't want this, she didn't mean to make something that matters. She meant to rile Harold up, to show him that he couldn't lock her up or pretend she didn't exist.
"Ada?"
Her alias is too new; Root doesn't react until the Machine chimes a tone in her ear. Root starts, then bolts from the sofa to Grace's bathroom. She sits on the edge of the tub, and waits for her breath to equalise. She's not crying.
Grace's bathroom is clean, with the pleasant kind of clutter that comes from regular use. Root is grateful for that clutter, for the dusty corner behind the tub, for the absence of hospital-grade antiseptic. The tub is solid, the high-edged, claw-footed kind that was fashionable ten and a hundred-and-ten years ago. Root could curl up in it and hide from view if she wanted to.
Grace taps at the door. "You doing okay in there?"
"I'm fine." Root is proud that her voice sounds mostly normal. "Sorry. I just – what you said, it kind of… I had a…"
"It's okay," Grace says. "You don't have to explain. Raw edges, remember?"
Root can see her own face in the gold-framed mirror, and she's angry at how surprised she looks. There are no cameras in here, thank fuck. And thank fuck Harold's old-fashioned gallantry left a hole in his security. If he saw her like this, she'd have to kill him, no matter what the Machine said.
"You take your time. I'm going to go clean up the mess, and then I'll be in the kitchen, okay?"
Root hears Grace's footsteps move away from the door. She stays in the bathroom, head on her knees, waiting for the panic to subside. Her shirt sticks to her shoulders. Her stomach churns. What the actual hell is she doing here?
The question remains unanswered, because the front door buzzes, harsh into the silence. Root goes still, holding her breath and listening.
Grace is talking with someone, someone male, voice deep enough that Root can't discern words.
She unlatches the bathroom door, creeps down the hall with her hand on her gun.
It's Lurch at the door, an affable smile on his face and a detective's badge clipped to his belt.
"I was in the area, thought I'd check in," he says. He has a thing he does with his eyes, it makes him look kind. Root envies the ability. It would be so useful.
Grace leans on the doorframe, arms crossed. "It's nice of you to worry, Detective, but I'm fine."
John is deliberately not meeting Root's eyes. He shifts his weight, which sneakily brings a foot forward, just toeing the threshold.
"And I'm actually, I'm with a client at the moment," Grace says. Her voice is firm and kind. She doesn't budge from the doorway.
This shouldn't work. Root knows John's background. He's adept at manipulation, at convincing his subject they want what he wants. Somehow, though, it's Grace who gets what she wants. It doesn't make sense.
Root watches the body language interplay as Grace waits John out, until he's the one that retreats. He holds on for a second longer than would be considered normal, then nods.
"Good luck with your client," he says.
Root is ready by now to meet his eyes, to repel his warning or his threats. She's wearing an insolent smile, looking up at him through her eyelashes. So coy. So defiant.
There's something wrong with the way John is looking at her. Root doesn't doubt that he'll break the door down the moment he believes Grace is in danger, but for now, the warning on his face isn't murderous. It's sympathetic. It's expectant. It makes her want to look down, to see what she's about to trip over. He's waiting for her to fall. Root recoils from that expression, heart pounding.
Grace closes the door. She's smiling when she turns to face Root, but it's a wry smile.
"The first time we met, I told him that I lost someone," she says. "It changes people, doesn't it, when they bump up against your grief? Detective Stills kinda took me under his wing that day. I'm okay with it, because I've never seen him show me pity." She smiles at Root, gently amused, so understanding of John the Death Machine's fussing.
Root shivers. She came here to harass Harold at a distance. She didn't expect to be welcomed into Grace's grief club. She doesn't like the realisation that she qualifies for membership.
Something touches her arm, and Root jumps.
Grace squeaks, a soft exclamation of surprise. "Sorry! Just checking in. You went far away just then."
Root takes a deep, sharp breath and looks down at Grace. Root and Harold are of comparable height; it has only just occurred to her that they may not be of comparable courage. Grace is complicated, smart, empathetic and fierce. How on earth could Harold do it?
Harold let Grace love him, had the courage to love her back, and then abandoned her in the worst, most terrifying way. If Harold had done that to Root, it would have ended her.
"I need to go," she says. The charm of infiltrating Grace's home has turned sour, and she needs to breathe.
Grace makes a sympathetic sound and puts an arm around Root's shoulder. Root goes still. She thought John was the predator, but she's just realised that it's Grace. Grace has a tiger's heart in her tiny frame, and she loves with savage abandon. Of course she does. She loved Harold. She loved the man who made God. Of course she would be a force of nature.
"Come on," Grace says, leading Root to the kitchen. "Let's make some hot chocolate."
The kitchen is warm, which is good. Root can feel a tremor deep down inside her, and it's a comfort to hunch up on the straight-backed chair and pretend she's chilly.
Grace drapes a woollen shawl over Root's shoulders, a thing of soft, misty lavender.
"I didn't mean to startle you," she says. "Grief is easy to spot in someone else, and it's kind of a relief when you meet someone who gets it."
"I haven't thought about it in a long time," Root says. It's technically true. It's been a year since Hanna's body was found. Root has said her thank yous to John for that. She had her revenge years ago, and now she knows where Hanna lies. It should be over.
"Oh, yes. That particular trick." Grace pours the hot chocolate from a saucepan into round, cheery mugs meant to be cupped between fingers seeking comfort. "The blindside, out of nowhere, the ‘Oh, you thought you were over this, did you?’ feeling."
Root sips the chocolate, so hot it skins the surface of her tongue with heat. "It doesn't make sense," she says. "The amount of time I've been alive without her is twice as long as I knew her. I was a kid."
Grace sits opposite her and pokes the marshmallows under the surface of her own drink. "People write off kids' feelings like they're less important. Stuff that happens when you're a kid, it carves into you."
It's a visceral description, visual, the digging of fingernails into a candle. Soft wax, sharp cuts.
"But I'm fine now," Root says. "I'm – it's hard to explain but I'm on a good path now." She laughs. "I kinda found God, you know? I have a purpose, and a calling, and it's something only I can do. I'm so far from grief right now, I don't understand."
Grace is smiling into her mug.
"What?" Root says, her voice sharp for the first time. If she had a camera outside this building, she knows she'd see John bristle. He can hear her; Harold has this place wired up.
"Maybe you're wondering what she'd say," Grace says. "Maybe you want her to be proud of you?"
Root stares at her. She doesn't want these thoughts. She doesn't want to imagine whispering in Hanna's ear, telling her about the Machine, about the mystery and wonder of being Her acolyte. She cannot entertain fairy tales about the person she would have been if Hanna were alive now, because Hanna is dead. Hanna died, terrified and hurting. That's the world Root lives in, not some steampunk watercolour dream of happiness and escape.
Grace reaches across the table to take her hand. "Don't go," she says. "I know you're angry. Sit with it a minute. It's okay. It'll pass."
The silence between them is charged, as if they are waiting together for something to happen. Root has a vain hope that some switch will be pulled, that Grace has some magic trick that will erase the grief, make it so that the pain recedes again.
It doesn't happen. This isn't a fable. Gradually, Root feels weight settle in her body, feels the sweet and bitter taste of Grace's excellent cocoa, and she sighs.
Grace is still holding her hand, and she gives it a little squeeze. "Welcome back,"
Root has been sitting here for a while. She can feel her phone buzzing in her pocket.
"I really need to go," she says. "Thank you for the chocolate."
Grace frowns. "Will you be all right?"
Root can't see how she would ever be all right, but she's a good liar. "I'll be fine. I just need some fresh air."
Grace nods and unlocks the door. As Root passes her, she wraps her arms around Root's shoulders and gives her a hug.
"I liked working with you, Ada."
Root doesn't remember what she says in return, because she can see open air and freedom, and she rushes into it.
The Machine politely dings her phone an hour after she leaves Washington Square.
Intercept. Intelligence. In transit. Subway.
It's a relief to have something to do. Root channels her nervous energy in to cutting through crowds, mercilessly elbowing grandmothers aside to get to her asset before he can get on a train to wherever the fuck he's going.
She wants to ask the Machine why She allowed Root to visit Grace, but she already knows that's not the kind of question the Machine answers. Too personal, maybe, or just not important to Her, in the scheme of things.
The man's wallet is easy to lift – Root is lucky he hasn't already been pickpocketed – and she extracts the SIM he hides behind his credit cards, before returning it to his pocket.
She takes a seat on the carriage, and works on the SIM, slipping it into a card reader. The Machine picks up the connection immediately, and Root watches the data disappear.
People come and go while the Machine reads the card. Root pays them little attention; they're all a mass of men wearing business suits, and none of them the sharp black of John Reese's get-up. Inattention is a mistake, because they all file off the carriage at the next stop, revealing Harold sitting opposite her.
She tucks the sim reader inside her cuff while she watches him. His expression is something that, last year, would have given Root a thrill of excitement. Now, having stood in the place where he had lived, with the woman he had loved, Root's stomach clenches.
He doesn't say anything, and neither does she. They ride the subway for a few stops, the two of them swaying with the motion of the train as people come and go.
The Machine is silent in her ear. Root isn't sure if that's because She's digesting the data Root stole, or obeying some intrinsic command Harold wrote into her that prevents her from contacting him. She shouldn't anthropomorphise, but sometimes the Machine seems intimidated by her maker.
She watches Harold, pictures him kissing Grace, and her insides twist. She wants too many things from Harold. It's really not healthy. Also she wants to kill him, and that's specifically been banned by God. Ultimately, she wants him to admit he was wrong – about Grace, about the Machine, about sticking her in a damn mental hospital.
Eventually she stands and walks to his side of the carriage. His eyes widen, pale behind the glasses, a small burst of triumph warms her. He thinks he holds all the cards, but she can still startle him.
"You don't know everything, Harry," she says.
He blinks at her, full of cold anger, the slow blink of a reptile. Root is the only one who knows how dangerous Harold can be.
"Please, do enlighten me, Ms Groves."
He uses her name like a weapon, even now, even after everything they've been through. It's petty.
"She's stronger than you," Root says. "She should have had a choice."
The train is slowing down, brakes squealing, momentum pushing forward against that deceleration. Harold rises to his feet, slowly, careful of his balance.
They're eye to eye in the carriage, or else Root would have missed it, the momentary sorrow on his face, hot and strong like tea.
"I don't know where or why you formed the idea that I am infallible, Ms Groves," he says. "But if your intention is to hurt Grace in order to prove I made the wrong choice, I will freely admit my error here. I should not have deceived Grace. I was wrong to fake my death."
Root's stomach lurches, as if the train has bucked under her feet. She'll take you back, she'll forget about me! her brain screams, as if they were in elementary school.
Harold takes her confused silence for a defiant stance. He steps closer, close enough that she can smell aftershave, shampoo. It's too close; Harold never willingly stands this close to her.
"You will not hurt Grace to spite me, or to teach me some moral lesson, or to show me how strong she is. And if you do, Ms Groves, I promise that you will be very sorry."
His voice is frozen, level and dry. It should smoke with cold. Root is still parsing his words when the carriage stops and the door slides open. By the time she realises he has just threatened her, Harold has disembarked.
Grace calls her a few days later. The burner Root used is long gone, but the Machine picks up the call and reroutes it, so that all Root hears is the call tone before Grace's voice is in her ear.
"How're you doing? It was an intense day, huh? Creating something out of nothing, it's an emotional thing."
In those few days, Root has flown to Tokyo where she discovered she has excellent balance, good enough to handle a highwire. She thought maybe she was done flirting with Grace.
"Ada? You still there?"
Root leans her head against the wall of the nightclub bathroom she is bugging. The Machine put this call through. She obviously wants Root to have contact with Grace.
"Yeah," she says, eventually. "I'm here."
Grace sounds wary. "Do you want to work on the book again?"
Root screws up her face. "Maybe," she says. "I didn't realise how raw I felt about it. Maybe it needs to stew a bit longer while I process the feelings."
"That's fine with me," says Grace. "If we're not client and artist, maybe we can go out instead."
Root frowns, stupid and slow. "Like, outside?"
"Like, on a date," says Grace. "I like you. You're spiky and clever and you have a lot going on under the surface. That's interesting. I'd love to spend some time with you not as a client."
Root's phone buzzes in her pocket and she touches her earpiece. "Sorry, I have a call, hang on." Mind racing, she checks the phone to see the Machine has sent her security footage of the empty nightclub in time to see the front door shatter under a hail of bullets. It's time to run.
She switches back to Grace's call. "It's me," she says.
"Did I freak you out?" Grace says. "Sorry. For freaking you out, not for asking you on a date."
"No," says Root, while she throws her tools into her kit and unholsters her guns. "I mean. Maybe a bit. But I actually have to go take a conference call. Can I call you later?"
"Okay!" Grace says, brightly. "You give me a call whenever you're…"
The Machine disconnects the call before Root fires the first bullet. It's not the smoothest way to finish that awkward conversation, but it's better than having to explain gunfire.
Later, when the Machine has directed her to a hotel, where She has anonymously booked a lavish suite, Root lolls on the bed in a bathrobe and asks Her about it.
"You want me to see her, I'm guessing." Root's manicure is a mess after that gunfight. If she's going on a date, she should probably fix that up.
Beneficial. Interaction, says the Machine.
Root giggles, something she's been doing more often, in the company of someone who knows her secrets and loves her anyway. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"
Possibly. It must be difficult to convey tone when you have to piece the conversation together with other people's voices, but Root's ears are getting better at hearing it. Right now, the Machine sounds delightfully mock-prim.
"Harold and his watchdog are going to be mad about it," Root says. "And his other watchdog."
She rolls onto her stomach, and reaches for her laptop. The green light of the webcam comes on, and she smiles at it, before opening her usual news sites. The headlines on today's shootout are colourful.
"I hate agreeing with Harold, but between you and me, I don't want to drag this kind of danger to Grace's doorstep."
Not a. Solitary. Operation.
"You'll keep her safe?"
The Machine beeps an affirmative in her ear.
Still, it doesn't explain why the Machine put that call through.
"Why me, though? Why not find Grace an actual children's author? Someone nice and safe, who doesn't have a gun on each hip."
Complex. Personal. Specifications.
This time, Root is puzzled. "What does that mean?" she says.
The Machine doesn't answer, which happens sometimes. Root is never sure if it's because she asked a question that was too simplistic for Her to bother with, or because She doesn't know the answer. She and the Machine are still getting to know each other. New relationships are delicate things.
Grace takes her to a tiny gallery, a converted restaurant in Bushwick. "Someone I went to college with, he has some pieces up here."
Root knows Grace's academic transcript, from RISD to Yale, but she's figured out that this doesn't equate to personal experience.
"What was it like?" Root has never actually been to college, when it comes down to it. She's mostly had to self-educate.
Grace loops an arm through Root's, and leans into her. "Art school? It was a lot of surprises. I did that thing that everyone creative does when they get to a concentrated group of artists, which is to discover you're just another fish in a very big pond of very talented people."
The former kitchen area is filled with garbage repurposed into sculpture, alongside a dainty miniature series of vegetables.
Grace presses her mouth to Root's ear, her breath warm. "Someone went a little crazy with the juxtaposition mallet."
It's a surprise to hear something bitchy come from Grace's mouth. Root snorts in genuine delight.
The rest of the display passes by. Root looks at resin-encased cutlery, but also at the reflection of the two of them in the glassy surface. They look like a normal couple. She's not sure what to make of that. She's not sure what to make of this completely normal, good time she's having.
They pause between two enormous structures woven from copper pipes meant to function as musical instruments. A giant fan propels air between the metal, and like a harp, the structures hum gently. Grace closes her eyes, tilts up her chin to let the air brush over it.
Root has never seen someone throw themselves into experiences the way that Grace does, with no fear to hold her down, despite what she's been through. When Root imagines working with the Machine, it's with the same perfect, fearless abandon.
She closes her eyes, too, and lets the breeze stir her hair, listens to the rise and fall of the sounds through the valves and pipes.
When Grace kisses her, Root doesn't startle, though her heart begins to race. She opens her eyes, kisses Grace back. It's a single wonderful moment with no attachment to anything but Grace herself.
"I need to see Harold," she tells the Machine. She's sitting on the edge of Grace's bed, holding her phone. Grace is sound asleep behind her, tangled into the sheets, her hair mussed and covering her face.
Their relationship has changed a lot in the weeks since she left the hospital. The Machine would have interrogated her about this, weighed up whether it was in Root's and Harold's best interests and made Her decision based on that.
Now, She simply lights the screen up with security footage. Root sees Harold walking down a street, heading into a bookstore. He'll be there for a long while. Root has studied Harold enough to understand his relationship with the written word.
She grabs a shirt and slips it on, then crouches down till she's at eye-level with Grace. She smooths hair out of Grace's mouth.
"Hey," she says, then smiles because she didn't know her voice could be this soft.
Grace wakes up slowly, grumpily. "Are you running away?" She reaches out to grab for Root's arm. "Don't run away, you're nice."
Root peels Grace's fingers off, but gently. "If I were running, I wouldn't have woken you," she says. "I need to go make some calls but I will come back."
Grace huffs through her nostrils and turns face down into the pillow. "Get food," she says, as her eyes are closing.
Outside, the air is cold and sharp again. Root wraps her coat around her tightly, and leans into the wind, walking with purpose.
The bookstore might as well be labelled "Perfect Finch Habitat" because it's warm and dark, has lots of nooks and crannies, and a completely diffident woman at the counter who is deep in her own book and ignores the bell as Root comes inside.
She heads straight for the science-fiction area. Harold's hat hangs on a corner of a shelf, and when she rounds the corner, she sees him engrossed in a paperback with several others tucked under his arm.
"One of the best parts of being a grown-up," Root says.
Harold jumps, drops the books, does not bend to pick them up. He looks betrayed, as if by coming into his safe space she's overstepped an unspoken rule.
"What would that be, Ms Groves?"
Root crouches to gather the books and pass them ups to him. "Being able to buy as many books as you want."
He takes them, watching her warily. "Can I help you?" he says, as if this were his store, and he begrudged every customer.
"It's fair to say we're never going to get along," Root says. "Too much baggage between us."
Harold snorts. "The baggage is all yours, Ms Groves."
"A lot of it, maybe," says Root. "But you didn't come empty-handed."
"Are you still seeing her?" The question is accusatory, but Root can hear the desperate need for information behind it.
"Don't you know? Don't you have John dogging my footsteps?"
Harold grimaces and does not answer. Instead, he turns to place the books back on the shelf. He fussily neatens the spines, bringing them flush with the edge.
"He's not?" Root is startled by that. John isn't the sort to ever stop worrying at his prey.
Harold sighs. "Mr Reese has other work to do, Ms Groves. He does not exist to follow you around and be your conscience."
Root laughs, at his exasperation, and at the strange but delightful image of John as Jiminy Cricket.
Harold watches her. "I don't understand what you expect to gain from bothering Grace this way."
"Bothering," says Root. "Is that what the kids are calling it?" She means to be sarcastic, but then she remembers Grace, face transported, hair all over the pillow. She realises she's biting her lip, and stops, but it's too late.
Harold's face is a treasure: shock, curiosity, anger.
Root didn't mean to be crass, actually. As much as she enjoys needling Harold, she wouldn't use Grace to do it. She can't take it back, though. Might as well push on to the other side.
"I admit I started with bad intentions," Root says. "I meant it to hurt you. I didn't understand how it could hurt Grace."
"Are you in a relationship?"
She's surprised Harold just comes out and says it. Then the impact of that word hits. Is she in a relationship? She's never really… They've only met a couple of times, haven't they? Is that a relationship?
Harold is watching her, eyes analytical, as if she's a spool of code that is collapsing into itself.
He smiles, just the once. A brief upturning of the lips, and then it's gone.
"I've only seen you bewildered once before," he says. "I think I like this time better."
They stand there a while, silent in the dusty aisle of the bookstore.
"Is her safety and happiness important to you?" Harold says.
Root weighs up all the permutations before she answers: Grace and Harold, Grace alone, Grace with Root.
"It is," she says. "I didn't expect it to be. I didn't want it to be, honestly. I thought she was just another person." She shrugs. "I'm not supposed to be thinking stuff like 'just another person', but I honestly didn't understand until I was with someone I actually liked."
Harold twitches one side of his mouth. "It's easier when it's Grace," he says.
"Somehow I thought you'd be angrier about this," Root says. "Traditionally, this is the kind of thing that makes men angry. Or so I understand."
Harold closes the book carefully and holds it. "There's very little that is traditional about our lives, now, is there?"
Root holds her breath. This surely cannot be all he's going to say.
Harold points a finger at her, and Root starts backwards. Oh yes, this is more like it.
"You cannot tell her I am alive," he says, fiercely. "And you must be equal to the task of loving her, Root. The moment you are not, you must promise to step away."
Root can barely breathe, but even in this impossible situation, she can't help but stand her ground. "I'm not going to propagate your lies. I won't tell her you're alive, but I'm not doing anything more than that. And if she asks me outright, get ready, because I'll tell her. Right then."
Harold considers this with the same solemnity if he were negotiating the Geneva Convention. "I can live with those terms," he says. "At first I couldn't think of anyone worse for Grace than you. And then, it was pointed out that there are considerable similarities between the two of us."
That's a tricky sentence. "What exactly did John say?" Root asks. She suspects she will not like the answer, but she desperately wants to know.
Harold takes a slow breath and lets it out. "He said she has a type. And that type is clever programmers who make complicated traps then fall right into them."
Root lets out a bark of surprised, horrified laughter, at the level of intimacy in that statement, at John seeing them both so clearly.
Harold's lips press tight, as if his own laughter might escape. "Yes, I'm afraid Mr Reese is very rarely wrong about people. And he's very fond of Grace. Please, if you can, don't reveal his identity, either. He says it's very useful for gaining access to her place, if needed." He tilts his head, as if he suspects that this is just an excuse for John to spend time with Grace.
"I'll try," says Root. He doesn't know about the Machine, not yet, though Root cannot imagine he won't find out. "I was furious with you about the hospital, but while I was there, I figured out a lot of stuff. I'm still angry about it, but in a less murdery way."
"Yes. Do try to be less murdery," Harold says. "A lot less." He looks at her, eye to eye, which is, for the two of them, usually an act of aggression. Right now, though, his expression is evaluating. "I have a lot of faith in Grace. If you were as dangerous as I believe you to be, she would have nothing to do with you. She is not as easily hacked as the people you normally hoodwink. "
"I'm realising that," Root says. Then, "Thank you." She just says it, simple and quiet.
"Thank me by being worthy of her," says Harold.
After Harold has paid and left, Root checks the children's section, as she always does in second-hand bookstores, for editions of Flowers for Algernon. This time there are none, but she finds a battered copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, complete with childhood additions in crayon and marker. Maybe Grace will appreciate the mixed-media alterations.
Grace is still in bed when Root lets herself in, though she's moved around in that time. There's nothing but a lump of blankets from which projects one pale foot.
Root has a terrible urge to tickle her, but after her conversation with Harold, she quells the urge. She has to be equal to the task, after all.
She's in the kitchen, opening cabinet doors, when she hears Grace call out.
"Ada?"
"In here," Root says. She looks at the fruit tarts she bought and wonders if Grace likes frangipane. Or if they'll kill her. "Are you allergic to nuts?"
Grace appears in the doorway of her own kitchen, wrapped in a bathrobe, hair still tangled. Root sees her, and a wave of doubt crashes over her. She can't do this, she can't have a normal relationship with someone, let alone someone who survived Harold, who gently bullies John.
"Oh, fuck, they look amazing," says Grace. "Give me one, quick."
Wordlessly, Root holds out the box, and Grace scoops out a tartlet, cups it like a baby bird.
Root watches her eat it, in small but ferocious mouthfuls, rolling her eyes with pleasure, eating the raspberries one by one, then the pastry case full of custard. When Grace licks her fingers clean, a thrill of desire chases Root's fear away.
Grace reaches into the box again, then pauses. "Aren't you hungry?" she says. "You better believe I'll eat all of them, if you don't get moving."
Root puts the box on the table, and sits.
Grace breaks the crumbly pastry from a second tart and nibbles it. "You look like you're having a mild freakout."
"I might be," says Root. "I don't know how to do this." She waves at the kitchen, taking in the domesticity of it all.
"Neither of us know how to do this," says Grace. She licks custard off her index finger. Root watches the tip of her tongue, hypnotised. "This particular thing, you and I? It's new. We can't do it wrong. We just need to keep going."
"Practice makes perfect, you mean?" Root says, starting to feel like she has a foothold now.
Grace's grin is wicked. She raises her eyebrows. "I think we're pretty good at it already, to be honest." Then she sees the board book on the table, reaches for it, and hesitates, looking at her sticky fingers. She looks at Root, imploring. "Read it for me?"
Root stands up and takes the book. Before she can sit down again, Grace hooks a bare foot around Root's thigh and draws her close. Her hands are not too sticky to arrange Root so she's sitting astride Grace's legs with the book between them.
Grace takes another tart, and feeds Root raspberries one by one, as Root opens the book and begins to read.