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John has been looking for Patrick Brady for the past six hours.

The call had come in then, Carolyn Brady begging for an ambulance, sobbing through a raw and ragged throat. John hadn't needed to see her to know Patrick Brady had nearly choked his wife to death tonight, and while she's still alive now, he knows it's time to move. For months now, he's been trying to do this the right way, he's been trying to get Carolyn to leave, to press charges, to ask for a protection order, but she's been resisting the entire way through. John understands. He knows it isn't easy for a woman to leave a situation like the one she's in, especially with a child in the picture, but he's been trying not to draw too much attention to himself.

He's been trying to do things the right way.

That ended the second he heard that call. John trusts the first responders to help Carolyn and her daughter, and he goes out on the hunt, pausing only long enough to collect the weapons he needs and to text both Karen and Root on his secure cell phone. He wants them to know where he is, what he's doing.

Three years ago, he wouldn't have been the sort to check in, but Darrow has changed a lot of things for John Reese.

He's been tracking Brady this entire time and he only now has a trail. He's kept in touch with both Karen and Root, knowing he might need either of them at a moment's notice, knowing they can do things he can't. Kara would have called him an idiot for relying on others, she would have called it a weakness, but John knows better now.

And as he carefully and quietly approaches the loading dock where he'd finally seen Brady disappear into just five minutes earlier, he pauses and takes in his surroundings. Waiting for one or both of the women he knows best.

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John opens his coat to display the stun grenade he's carrying, then gives Root a small smile. At this point, he doesn't care about the rest of the people who are in the warehouse with Brady. He's here for one reason only.

"Making plans was really always more Finch's area of expertise," he answers.

His only plan is to make Patrick Brady regret he's ever laid his hands on his wife. And to make sure he never does it again.

"Then I guess we improvise," Root replies. It's not her preferred method of going about things, and she hasn't had to in a very long time now, thanks to the Machine, but she can adapt. If there's anything Root is exceptionally good at doing, it's adapting.

"Need me to clear out the warehouse?"

Of course a grenade will do the trick, but she has an option in mind that's slightly less messy.

"What did you have in mind?" he asks.

John doesn't think he needs to explain to Root why he's here and what he wants. The rest of the men involved are background noise and nothing more. His job as a directive in Darrow means he should care and maybe he will in time, but tonight there's a single point of focus for John, a place to put all his anger, all the fury he still carries for Peter Arndt and what he'd done to Jessica.

Finch would have told him not to do this. Carter would have tried to talk him out of it. He doesn't think Root will do the same.

Root has been in Darrow going on half a year; by now, she's had her hands in just about every unsecured system she's had the time and inclination to touch. And fortunately for her and John, that includes the security system of this particular building.

"Lets see if Rambaldis melt," she says, taking a phone out of her pocket and rapidly activating a subroutine she already has handy that she knows will trick the building's sprinklers into thinking a fire has broken out.

It only takes a second or two before the building starts clearing out, the Rambaldis in one direction, and Brady in the other, hoping to sneak away.

John smiles, just a tiny expression, and his gaze slides over to Root before he takes off after Brady. She's free to follow or go after the Rambaldis, but John has one very specific purpose here; to make absolutely sure Patrick Brady never hurts his wife again.

What he doesn't expect is that Brady has a gun and as John goes after him he sees a flash of light off metal and he dodges to one side at the last second and presses himself against the building.

"Gun!" he calls to Root. Without the Machine to help them, he's not taking anything for granted.

For a fraction of a second, Root considers going after the Rambaldis. But for the moment, whatever crimes they're involved in are largely irrelevant. Besides, they might serve a purpose later, even Root doesn't know what that might be yet.

She rushes after John, checking the clip on both of the guns she's brought with her. She doesn't doubt that he can take care of himself, but there's still a chance he could use the backup.

A shot rings out, loud in the night air, and John glances back briefly to make sure Root hasn't been hit. Brady is shooting wildly now that he's begun and John doesn't know how much ammo he has, doesn't know if there's a chance of him actually really hurting someone, if not one of them, then some innocent passerby.

He shoots back, one perfect shot, and Brady goes down clutching his knee. John doesn't see the man's gun, though, and so when he approaches, he does so slowly.

When Brady lifts the gun again, it isn't John he's pointing at. It's Root. John reacts without thought, lifting his weapon, firing once more, as perfect a shot as his first, though this time Patrick Brady goes very still. Then the blood begins to pool from under him, the stain spreading dark and red across his shirt.

Root's been shot at before. She's lost count of the number of times she's found herself in a firefight, even before the Machine. But Brady is firing wildly, and Root doesn't have the Machine's voice in her ear anymore.

It's a crutch she hasn't realized she'd been depending on until now.

Root ducks behind a few crates there on the loading dock, and as glaring as The Machine's absence is here, there's a part of her that's missed this. Disappearing into various identities in Darrow has its purpose, but for the most part, the work is dull, even if Root is good at it.

She grins to herself as she checks around the corner, ready to cover John's back, when one last shot ends the gunfire. When Root stands, both of her guns are drawn, but she slowly lowers them when she sees the scene in front of her. Brady still, the gun dropped from his limp hand, his face going slack.

"...John?" Root says, approaching slowly, not sure what else to say.

"He would have hit you."

There's no way for John to know that for certain, but he had felt the risk was high enough to take action, and he doesn't regret it. Patrick Brady isn't a man who deserved to live even before he started shooting at people, but now that John knows he'd had access to a gun, he feels even more certain that this was the only way. If he had gone home tonight with that weapon in his pocket, chances are high Brady would have finally killed his wife.

Now he can't. He can't hurt anyone.

John steps forward and kicks the gun away from Brady's hand just in case, but the man isn't moving. He'll have to do something about this.

Root knows she can take care of herself. She's been shot before, but considering the number of firefights she's been in, the number of bullets she'd ended up having to take has been pretty low. But there's no time to argue about that now, not with Brady lying there, not knowing that there's a good chance the Rambaldis are going to come looking for him any second now.

She looks back, over her shoulder, and there's no one coming now, but Root knows that won't be the case for very long.

"We have to go," she says, "We have to go now."

John nods and then moves. As they go, he does a mental inventory of the night, trying to determine what, if anything, either of them touched. It had never been a concern for him before, but now that he's John Riley, seemingly forever, he knows he needs to do the right thing to protect his identity.

Root had taken care of getting everyone out. John hasn't touched anything with his hands besides his own weapon, which he holsters now. They're clean.

"Police will think the Rambaldis did it," he says. "Which might end up in trouble for us, but the kind we can handle."

"There aren't many cameras," Root says, as they rush away, "But I'll take care of the ones that might have seen anything."

When it comes to either of them being identified, Root isn't particularly worried. She didn't touch anything but her own weapons, and she'll be more impressed than worried if someone manages to track the hack on the sprinklers any further than the loop she's put in place to prevent anyone from finding the source.

She holsters her own guns, pulling her coat closed.

For a moment, there's a criticism on her tongue, but she thinks better of it. She's not sure can argue that Brady didn't deserve to die, even though she knows that The Machine would think differently, where She in Darrow. Root can't help but take Her beliefs into account right now.

John nods in thanks, but says nothing else for a time, waiting until they're further away from the scene of the crime as it were. He feels no guilt over Brady's death, but also knows Root well enough now to suspect she might have something to say about it.

The Machine had never given him or Harold clear directions on how to deal with their numbers. It was just a matter of preventing a violent crime, and while John understands it had gotten complicated toward the end, his own thoughts on a certain type of man will never change.

But that isn't the only reason he'd taken the shot.

"I know you can take care of yourself," he says after they've made it a few blocks away. "But without the Machine in your ear feeding you information, mistakes can still be made. If it's you or someone else, I'm going to shoot that person."

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