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Root has moods.On the surface this doesn't seem like a particularly profound observation, of course you understand the concept. You get angry sometimes. Sometimes you're not angry. Even outside limited personal experience, you read and you watch TV and you listen to music so you considered yourself fairly well acquainted with this bizarre, perpetually shifting filter normal people experience their world through. But it had never seemed like something particularly relevant to you, and when other people's strings got pulled by some roving breeze you couldn't feel, you tended to just ignore it.Initially, in the early stages of what you don't bother denying is now a relationship, you had taken a similarly indifferent approach to Root's oscillating emotional state. She knew who and what you were, she knew what she was getting into, and she had no right to expect special treatment from you when she was in one of her melancholy spells, or for you to step gently around her sensitive nerves.This had eventually resulted in several screaming matches, the shattering of at least half of the breakable dishes in your kitchen, your television sustaining several gunshot wounds, Root storming out of your apartment and subsequently refusing to even acknowledge your existence for several weeks, and you standing in the remains of the disaster that was your first and so far only real relationship, shaking with pure incandescent fury.Since then you've done things a bit differently.You still are completely in the dark about predicting her moods, but you are at least able to recognize them when they crop up and have worked out a few methods for dealing with them. When she's sad, curled up in bed or on the couch, staring listlessly into space, she doesn't want to talk, but she still wants to be talked to. Normally you just sit next to her and tell her random stories about your life. You don't know why she likes them, since all the most exciting things you've done she was there for, but somehow this seems to supply her with whatever she's looking for. Other times she'll decide she wants to discuss quantum mechanics or dark matter, showing echoes of the strange, socially awkward girl she used to be, and when Finch isn't around you somehow have to manage to make conversation, because if you don't she'll just get more and more agitated, thoughts building up in her head that she has nowhere to deposit. When she's angry you kiss her and rub her back and stay appropriately attentive while she vents about society, or her past, or uncooperative code, or whatever else has worked her up. She's a genius and she has a particular knack for understanding people, so she's definitely aware that you're just identifying a few of her tells and then deploying tactics that have worked in the past, but it doesn't seem to bother her. Maybe the fact that you're trying in the first place is what she wants, you really have no idea. In some ways she remains utterly alien to you.At the same time, she can make you feel like an alien to yourself. One night, when she was already asleep, breathing softly, her face just across from yours on her pillow, you'd found yourself just looking at her, bizarrely thinking how cute her nose was. What the fuck is that? When else in your life have you ever contemplated the cuteness of noses? But hers was undeniably just really fucking cute, and since you apparently were going to have this thought floating around in your brain for who knows how long, you'd shoved her awake to tell her. She'd seemed inordinately pleased, much more than you've ever been to be woken up in the middle of a good sleep.Root's not even really your type. You'd always gone for really curvy or muscular women, not slender and delicate, but now whenever you look at other women you just find yourself comparing them to Root, seeing how well they match up. Long fingers and longer legs, iron stretched underneath velvet and unapologetically feminine; your new image of the ideal woman. Then again, she's good with a gun and doesn't blink at zipties in business or in the bedroom, so maybe she really was your type all along in some way.Relationships have never held any appeal to you whatsoever, but now that you find yourself within one you can't imagine being without it. You've always been a creature of habit; enjoying the comfort of a familiar pillow, waking at the same time every morning, sets of stretches and pushups you've done every day regardless of what kind of mayhem is happening around you, restaurants where you've ordered the same thing so many times the servers know it by heart, and you suppose Root has become another familiar comfort. Now that you're used to her, you want to keep her. You expect her warm body to be pressed against yours when you go to sleep and when you wake up, you expect your showers to be interrupted by her stepping in and insisting she shampoo your hair, which is always followed by others things and makes your showers twice as long as they need to be, you expect to see her lanky form stretched out on your couch or rustling around drawers in your kitchen. Even the annoyances have become weirdly important to you; her clothes left wherever she happened to drop them, all of your outlets taken up by a hundred devices she felt the need to plug in, the dishes she puts in the dishwasher the wrong way. You feel weird when these things are missing.It's occurred to you that maybe this is how relationships are for normal people as well, and you've just taken an extremely convoluted route to get to the exact same place as everyone else, but, well, whatever. You and Root are both pretty damn far from normal. You're fairly sure most couples don't consider thwarting assassinations to be an ideal date night or threats of violence to be foreplay, otherwise you might have expressed an interest in the whole idea before now. Of course, 'before now' would have been 'before Root,' and you find it somewhat hard to imagine there's any person other than her that you'd be able to have a functional relationship with. Or semi-functional, or whatever you want to call it. Two people unsuited for anything else but perfectly suited to each other. Even your mom had liked her, a fact you're still unsure how to react to.Everything's not TV-sitcom-perfect, obviously. Root gets angry and frustrated with you, she drives you completely insane at times, voices are raised, you'll both vent to Reese or Finch or Fusco, whoever has the misfortune to be found first, and whichever criminals you're after that week will find you to be even less charitable than usual. But no more of your furniture gets destroyed, rarely are any dishes broken outside of the subsequent makeup sex, and somehow this weird relationship becomes important enough that you're not willing to let it go, and you work things out. Never one to pass up an opportunity for dramatics, Root apologizes to you by filling your apartment with flowers, cooking you a meal, massaging your feet and your shoulders, which you have to admit is generally pretty mollifying. Usually you just put on a tight, short, low-cut dress and raise your eyebrows at her and that pretty much does it, because she's a huge fucking pushover with a sex drive so far in the red you're not sure how she doesn't overheat.Sex is another reason your relationship works, because frankly you're both just really damn good at it. Early on, Root had suggested that she wouldn't be upset if you slept with other people; it had been a nice gesture, you suppose, even if it was obviously untrue. But even beyond not wanting to hurt her, there's just no practical reason. It would be like deciding to eat frozen chicken nuggets if you had a free lifetime supply of steak. You'd told this to Root, who had been extremely miffed about being compared to a slab of meat but had eventually decided she was pleased with your overall conclusion. Sometimes you'll still bring it up just to annoy her, because hey, you never claimed to be a perfect girlfriend.Or wife. You and Root have been fake-married so many times now you've started to lose track, and you feel certain she's managed to make at least one of them legally binding. But you could do worse, as far as wives go. She's smart, violent, and outrageously hot. She has a tendency to wander around your apartment wearing one of your shirts that doesn't come down past her navel and doesn't really manage to cover anything up. But that's the whole point and you've never had reason to complain. At the same time, you've started to wonder whether you're going insane, since you also find her sexy when she's wearing sweats and her huge reading glasses. Maybe neither of you developed past being horny teenagers, you're not sure.But the more you think about the entire situation, the more self-satisfied you become. You've had exactly one real relationship, and it's been a resounding success. Maybe everyone else in the world should just pull their heads out of their asses and learn something from you. Another thing you're sure Root will agree with you on.