Root/Shaw

Pairing
Pairing:	Root/Sameen Shaw
Alternative name(s):	Shoot, Raw
Gender category:	F/F or femslash
Fandom:	Person of Interest
Canonical?:	yes
Prevalence:	popular
Archives:
Other:	Fanart of Shoot by dragynsart, for ClexaCon2018
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Root/Shaw is a femslash pairing of Root and Sameen Shaw in the Person of Interest fandom. It is canon and a popular femslash pairing, but it is also an example of the Bury Your Gays trope, where one of the pairing dies.

Canon

Seasons 2 and 3

Root and Sameen Shaw meet for the first time in Shaw's introductory episode in Season 2, when Root disguises herself as a CIA analyst in order to get information regarding the Machine out of then-ISA agent Shaw. Once Shaw realizes the ruse, Root tases her, ties her up, and threatens her with torture by way of a hot iron unless Shaw gives her the information - although Root leaves when other ISA agents show up. Shaw later tells Finch in his library, that she intends to hunt Root down for revenge. By the end of the season during a time when Root takes Harold Finch captive to search for the location of the Machine, Shaw delivers on her promise to shoot Root, albeit only in the shoulder.

Early in Season 3 when Root escapes a psychiatric facility, she appears in Shaw's apartment to tase and drug her again, and enlist her help with a mission for the machine. Shaw agrees to help with the mission and appears to trust Root with regard to the mission’s success, although she’s clearly still wary of Root. Their time together includes ten hours alone in a CIA safe house… When the mission is complete, Shaw punches Root in the head and delivers her to Finch, who keeps her captive in a Faraday cage in the library. Other flirtatious interactions amid adventurous, violent S3 missions include:

• Shaw enlisting Root’s help when the team is surrounded, and when Root takes out several men at once while wielding two guns simultaneously, remarking, "Okay, that was kinda hot."
• After a mission, Shaw (without prompting) inspecting Root's chest and head wounds and offering medical advice, Root flirting back, and Shaw rolling her eyes.
• Root enlisting Shaw's help with a relevant number in Alaska by driving up on a motorcycle and telling Shaw that they're going to steal a jet. Shaw tells Reese that "it does sound kinda fun," and joins Root on the motorcycle with a smirk. The two are next seen in a bar in Miami, having taken out several relevant threats, drinking cocktails and talking about work.

Season 4

In episode 5, when Root believes her mission will get her killed, she asks Finch, “If the worst comes to pass, if you could give Shaw a message?” and Finch replies, “I think she already knows.” In various other episodes, they reference their time in the CIA safe house, Root sedates and handcuffs Shaw to protect her, and Shaw obliquely mentions Root is someone she cares about. Episode 11 is a pivotal episode for the Root/Shaw relationship, as it is the episode in which the relationship becomes unequivocally canon. The episode depicts different simulations run by the Machine regarding possible outcomes of Root, Finch, Reese, and Fusco in danger at the New York Stock Exchange, while Shaw is stuck on a subway car with a suicide bomber. One of the simulations shows Root knowing she is about to die and calling Shaw for one last conversation:

Shaw: I am not having this conversation right now.

Root: There's no time like the present, Sameen. Why are you so afraid to talk about your feelings?

Shaw: Feelings? I'm a sociopath, I don't have feelings.

Root: And I'm a reformed killer for hire. We're perfect for each other. You're gonna figure that out someday.

Shaw: Root... If you and I were the last two people on the face of this planet-

Root: An increasingly plausible scenario, given Samaritan's plans.

Shaw: Fine. Maybe someday, when Samaritan wipes everyone out... we can talk about it.

Root: You're saying maybe someday?

Shaw: Yeah, sure Root, maybe someday. Is that good enough for you?

Root: Yeah, Sameen. That's good enough for me.

After the Machine has chosen a course of action, there is a non-simulated scene when Root and Shaw are giving each other covering fire and discuss their relationship again.

Root: We're so good at this together. You're gonna realize that someday.

Shaw: Root, no offense. You're hot, you're good with a gun. Those are two qualities I greatly admire. But you and me together would be like a four alarm fire in an oil refinery. Root: Sounds cozy.

At the end of the episode, Shaw moves to sacrifice herself to reach an override button to allow the rest of the team to escape in an elevator. Root tries to prevent Shaw from leaving, but Shaw shrugs out of Root's grip. She turns around, looks at Root and shakes her head, then pulls Root in for a kiss before shoving her backward, leaving the elevator and locking the door behind her. Shaw reaches the override button and gets shot twice in the abdomen; Root looks on in horror, screaming and crying as the doors close and the last thing she sees is Martine aiming a gun at Shaw's head. For the rest of season 4, Root looks for Shaw, begs the Machine for an answer on whether she’s alive or not, and refuses to give up. Root does eventually get confirmation that Shaw is alive but captive, in episode 21.

Season 5

In the opening episodes of Season 5, Root mentions Shaw often, anxious to find her. Meanwhile, Shaw is Samaritan’s prisoner and every scene with her is revealed to be part of a simulation intended to trick Shaw into telling Samaritan where the team and The Machine are located - something that she has failed to do at least 6,741 times. In episode 7, Root gives the Machine an ultimatum: "I refuse to do one more mission until I know what I'm doing is gonna lead me to Sameen." Near the end of the episode she manages (with The Machine's help) to get a message to Shaw that is a reference to their last conversation, and in the next episode Shaw finally escapes from Samaritan.

In episode 10 (the 100th episode overall), Root is killed when she moves in front of a sniper bullet meant for Finch, but in honor of their connection, the Machine takes on Root's voice for the rest of the show. In episode 13 (the finale), the Machine-as-Root gives Shaw a final message, "You always thought there was something wrong with you because you don't feel things the way other people do, but she always felt that was what made you beautiful. She wanted you to know if you were a shape, you were a straight line, an arrow." This visibly affects Shaw who usually reveals no emotion on her face.

Fandom

Shaw was not introduced as a recurring character until the end of Season 2 and neither character became a regular until the start of Season 3, so the fandom became very active around fall 2013, with a lot of encouragement from both the cast and the crew.

Both Amy Acker (Root) and Sarah Shahi (Shaw), as well as several of the writers, expressed an interest in the ship. Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi noted that a lot of the Root/Shaw chemistry is explicitly scripted and that she and Amy "can tell what's happening" during an interview at SDCC Comic Con 2014. At another con, Amy Acker said that "Well, they [the writers and creators] don’t seem to shy away from the innuendoes. You know, at the beginning, when it started, I always felt that Root liked Shaw and admires her and thinks that she’s totally cool and badass and just thinks that she’s awesome and...then her way of sort of controlling Shaw is to flirt with her because she knows that Shaw hates it. But then I don’t know, it seems that at some point she actually started really maybe liking her more than...now it’s like she’s pretending that she’s joking but she’s not really.".

In 2015, Root/Shaw won the Zimbio March Madness TV couples poll, after a final four which included Clarke/Lexa from The 100, Swan Queen from Once Upon a Time, and Caskett from Castle, with 60 other TV couples included in the poll, both canon and non-canon.

Fans outside the United States, particularly in China and Japan, may have contributed to that Zimbio poll win, and they create a lot of fanart for the pairing.

Root/Shaw entered the Top 100 AO3 Ship Stats: Femslash List, as of 2015 at #14. The pairing reached as high as #8 the next year (2016), and as of 2023 Root/Shaw is still on the list in #29.

Common Tropes & Fanon

• Root annoys Shaw with terrible puns, and Shaw is a grump about it
• Shaw is a grump about anything
• Shaw is a secret nerd
• Shaw only cares about the mission
• The Machine ships Root/Shaw
• Root and Shaw are into BDSM: this is as near to canon as it can be without a scene on the show, both by comments from Amy Acker (Root) and implications by the characters

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

• Wait a sec… Don’t I Die in Plan M? by Kc749, 5k. (April 2014). Set post "Root Path", Root needs Shaw's help for a mission, and in the midst of it a discussion occurs about what the solutions might be to their current issue with Decima and Samaritan. Oh and a kiss, you know, for the greater good and all.
• Flowerpots and Trellises by Tamoline, 22k. (May 2014) It starts in the cage, when Root is looking for any answers as to why she's here, any answers at *all*. Anything, really. It doesn't end there.
• Natural Selection by kesdax, 55k. (May 2014) This is a significant post S3 fic, and the beginning of a 518k five-part series. Parts 4 and 5 of the series include Genrika Zhirova, a 10-year-old interested in strategy and surveillance that Shaw (grudgingly) connects with in S3e5 "Razgovor".
• Definitely, Maybe by Grimorie, 2k. (June 2014). It starts with a phone call from Root.
• Muzzle to Muzzle by Willowcabins, 9k. (July 2014) Root opens her mouth, and Shaw almost expects clouds of poisonous smoke to curl between elegant lips. There is no smoke; only words (perhaps they are worse). “You found me,” Root comments pleasantly. She is combing her hair in front of her vanity, unperturbed by the gun Shaw has pointing at her back. She is still looking at the mirror, eyes flickering between her own reflection and Shaw’s, as if she is uncertain on whom to concentrate more.
• Existentialism is a Bitch by winged_mammal, 4k. (Sept 2016) “You’re talking to the disembodied voice of an artificial superintelligence that’s been taken over by your dead girlfriend, Sameen. It’s a little late to protest the genre of your biography, don’t you think?”

Fanart

• Plus An Iron by qukee, Dec 2013. Greyscale art focusing on their faces, each surrounded by the Machine’s colored box.
• Untitled by shadowkira, Aug 2014. Greyscale drawing of Root placing a jacket around a disgruntled Shaw’s shoulders.
• PersonofInterest shoot by fugi-jis Oct 2014. Comic-style page of drawings.
• when ur gf smol by The-DarkBunny, Sept 2015. Drawing of Root giving a forehead kiss to a grumpy Shaw.
• Murdergirlfriends Root & Shaw by Lena, ~2016. Drawing of Root standing with a handgun, while Shaw crouches with an automatic weapon.
• Comics of Interest by maarika. Comics of Interest is a collection of Root x Shaw fan comics. Some of them are parodies, some are based on fanfics, all are short one-shots.

Fanvids

• for all of the pain by Nialies
• warning sign by Nialies
• Take Me to Church by LithiumDoll
• one way or another by Nialies

Fannish Links and Resources

• Root/Shaw tagged works on AO3
  • By 2014 it was no longer a Yuletide fandom, but there were other fic exchanges featuring this pairing, such as Kiss Kiss to You Too created by mlamachine with 19 writers signing up during Round 1.
• Root/Shaw tagged works on FFN
• root x shaw tag at Tumblr
• Root/Shaw search at Deviantart

Examples of Notable Quotes

Root: ...Something I want to find. (raises hot iron close to Shaw's face) So you're gonna tell me the name of his contact.

Shaw: One of the things they left out of my file: I kind of enjoy this sort of thing.

Root: I'm so glad you said that. I do too. (Root's phone rings) Oh, and just when we were starting to really connect. - Season 2, episode 16, Relevance. Their first scene together.

Root: (drops power bar down to Shaw) I heard you skipped breakfast. And you and your australopithecine coworker can just take the day off. I've been doing just fine without a safety net.

Shaw: Look, the only reason you're not stuck in a cage right now is me. Don't make me look bad.

Root: I couldn't make you look bad if I tried.

Shaw: (rolls eyes, eats)

-Season 3, episode 17, Root Path. Shaw keeps an eye on Root's activities.

Root: Looks like someone crawled in under the fence. Admit it, you were worried about me.

Shaw: I'm worried about the mission.

-Season 3, episode 23, Deus Ex Machina. Shaw prevents a Decima guard from killing Root.

Root: (tracing a hand across Shaw’s back) I already wanted to tear Samaritan apart, turn it into an Atari. That's too nice. Scarred my beautiful girl. Maybe a Casio.

Shaw: All the scars are from before when I worked relevant numbers with the ISA. Samaritan's torture was more psychological.

Root: And you never broke.

Shaw: When I was training the with ISA, they taught us if we were ever tortured to take our mind somewhere else, someplace safe.

Root: Where did you go?

Shaw: Nowhere. The training was bull. There was no safe place. No escape.

Root: Hey... stay here with me.

Shaw: (chuckles) I couldn't stand you when we first met. You wouldn't stop bugging me. (kisses Root)

-Season 5, episode 4, 6,741. Shaw and Root's conversation in bed during the simulation.