AN: Hi all, this is my first Shoot fic. I can't believe it took me so long to catch onto this amazing programme. Anyway, it's currently only two chapters long but there is more if you want it, just let me know. It's also, currently, only rated M for language but that will change if you want the story to continue. Give it a read guy's and let me know what you think. Feedback is always welcome. Oh, and this is unbetad so please excuse any minor mistakes. Hope you enjoy :-)

Disclaimer: POI, it's story and it's characters, do not belong to me. I'm merely borrowing them for a short while. If they did belong to me, I'd be rich, and Root and Shaw would definitely get their own spin-off!

1. The sound of silence

If we're just information, just noise in the system, we might as well be a symphony.

That was the last thing I remember her saying to me. Oh, I know she said other things. Irrelevant things. Instructions, directions - inessential things like the chance of rain, or how many hours of daylight we had left - things that the Machine required her to relate to us for the good of our astronomical odds…

But that was the last thing I remember her saying to me.

You know, the definition of a symphony is something characterised by a harmonious combination of elements? She would have enjoyed that. She would have smiled that smile that said she was so much more than a reformed killer for hire. That smile that proved she cared far deeper than any other analogue interface ever could. She'd have smiled that smile, and she'd have agreed.

Finch would have been the conductor, the one responsible for keeping us together. Reese would have been the drums, the constant steady beat that suddenly exploded at the most vital point. I would have been the flute or harp, something so sickeningly soft and romantic that I'd take offence and roll my eyes in quite indignation. She of course, would have been the first violin. The one who took her cues from a higher power and led the rest of us in perfect synch.

Yeah, she would have liked that analogy, and she would have been right too. We we're a symphony, once. But we aren't anymore.

Reese is dead. Finch and I haven't spoken in close to six months. And she…well she's just gone… All that's left of our symphony is the sheet music. The one thing that brought us all together in the first place. The Machine.

It still talks to me sometimes. It gives me the odd number to stop me from going insane, either that, or to stop my personality disorder from encouraging me to go on an unnecessary killing spree.

For a while after that day, every time I answered the phone and heard its voice I felt my heart leap into my throat and my breath catch. I allowed myself to hope. For the tiniest of seconds, I willed myself to believe that somehow, against all odds, it was her. But the timbre of the voice was always slightly off, the inappropriate flirtations, missing, and I quickly realised that it would never be her voice again.

The feeling that always came after that – a feeling that my stupid, incapable, brain always tried to bury deep – was so painful it was suffocating. That agonising, heart-breaking, moment when I remembered that it wasn't all just a horrible nightmare, that they really were, all gone… It was too much for someone so used to not feeling, it burned too long, and so once again, self-preservation taught me how to switch those feelings off.

People automatically assume that having an axis two personality disorder means that I don't have emotions - maybe I used to think that too - but someone once told me that it simply meant I was a radio with the volume turned way down. It turns out that they were right. I do have feelings. I care, I hate, I grieve and I love. The trouble is, I've only ever met one person with the ability to turn that volume up and she's no longer here.

So yes, I've become more reckless. My numbers nearly always end in someone's death, and my one night stands are purely physical. They're all just faces. The assholes I kill and the drunks I fuck, they're just nameless, shapeless, shadows. They're nothing. No-one. Insignificant.

Because when the symphony's finally over, all that you're left with is silence.

Do I miss them? Every minute of every day. Do I envisage all the different ways I could have saved them? Every second of every night. They were a splash of colour on an otherwise drab painting. They made me human. She made me human. And boy, was she persistent in her pursuit.

From the moment, I met her – or more accurately, met one of her many aliases – to that very last firefight by the side of our car, she was my constant. Granted, she was a smug, arrogant, infuriating, constant, but she was always so much more than someone I fought with and occasionally fucked. She was an enemy, a friend, a colleague, a lover. She was…she is...the only person I could never kill. I once told her that together we'd be a four-alarm fire in an oil refinery, and maybe that's exactly what we were. Hot, violent, lethal and bright, but too volatile to burn for long.

Her continued absence makes this all the more real. That lone sniper, the water that doused that fire. I still look for her sometimes. On the motorbike that tears past me in the street. In the sound of a bullet shot from somewhere unknown. In the imagined staccato of Morse code through white noise. And sometimes – on a good day – she finds me. In the teasing laugh of a stranger at a bar or in the unexpected ringing of a telephone, but she never stays for long.

I often wonder if she knew about this all along. There was always a sense of urgency in the way she was with me. We went from strangers, to torture, to seduction in one brisk meeting and it only picked up pace from there. More than once she insinuated that she was only a tiny part of a much larger plan. Did she know at the start that she wouldn't live to see the end?

Does it even matter?

Because if she did know, then she certainly tried to make the most of our time together. Despite her irritating arrogance and endless innuendo's, she would always miraculously appear at exactly the right moment. When I was in danger, when I needed back-up, when I needed a reality check or just when I needed to burn off some tension. She was always there, the loyal sentry by my side. Of course, I'm not naïve enough to think it was all of her doing. I'm well aware of the hold the Machine had over her – probably more aware than anyone – but on those rare occasions when she wasn't in contact with it, she still somehow found her way back to me.

I guess that makes the real question whether or not I would have been different if I'd have known our time was limited. Would I have pushed her away less and let her in more? Would I have told her all the things that I knew she desperately wanted to hear? Things that in retrospect, I probably wanted to say.

She was my constant, the only person I could never kill, but who was I to her?

Goodbye isn't a word that holds much meaning to me. At least not since the day that I whispered it to my father's grave. But I'm now more aware than ever that I didn't say goodbye to her on that day. Would it have made a difference if I had? Would it have made her think of me and swerve the other way? Should I have said more from the start?

The truth is, I could live that day – and the day we lost Reese – a million times over and still never get them right. I could have stopped Finch from walking in the opposite direction, but I didn't. I could have thanked them for saving my life all those years ago. I could have told John that I admired him, Harold that I respected him…I could have told her that she got closer than anyone has ever been, but I never did.

The truth is, that the machine makes decisions based on simulations but in life we only get that one chance.

The truth is, that everything is over and the worst has happened, and all I can see in the bottom of Pandora's box, is regret.

When the music stops and the world falls away, the future you fought for seems meaningless.

The truth is, that I would sacrifice that future in an instant for the chance to hear our symphony, just one, last time.