staring down the sun

[12] god's grace lost and the devil is proud

The flame flicks up from his hand, lighting the word tattooed along his left index finger. Veritas...truth. Not something either one of them was particularly good at, she's realized. She wouldn't call it lying...more like refraining, holding the truth in. Sometimes, it means protecting the other person from the truth.

Elena inhales the fire into her cigarette as Connor steadies the lighter in front of her face. They stand behind the church, leaning against the brick wall as they watch Murphy, Dolly, and Duffy take turns shooting at cans and bottles with a .22 rifle in the field beyond the gravel drive.

She doesn't smoke often, as she usually aligns it with drinking or following some extraordinarily stressful situation. Now, it's just something to do with Connor while the other guys kill time.

Connor takes a drag off his cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly as he narrows his eyes toward Elena. "So are ye ever going to tell me how'd ye ended up working with Smecker?"

She smiles and exhales. Since returning from New York, Elena had successfully dodged Connor's (and Murphy's) prying questions in the past few days. "He arrested me in an FBI raid."

Connor's eyes go wide, somehow in both belief and disbelief. Hell, if she's going to tell him the truth, she might as well have some fun, like Bloom always says. She strings him along as she explains how she was undercover with the Russian crime syndicate, piquing his curiosity as he asks, "Russians? Where? When?"

"New York. Not long before your run-in with them on St. Patty's."

Lifting the cigarette to his lips again, Connor lets the information settle in his mind. Elena can't help but notice the faint scar around his wrist, knowing full well how he got that. He pulls his head back a bit. "And Smecker was there?"

Her lips curl up as she describes what happened, how Smecker used her code name to signal that everything would be okay.

Connor raises his eyebrows. "Code name?"

Elena hesitates. "Guess you can know what it is now." The feeling that there's no going back now weighs heavy in her chest again. No matter how much she wanted to fight it, she's a part of this now...she's with the Saints, and there's no going back to the CIA ever again. "My code name is Sparrow. But Smecker said it in Russian."

His smile is bright as he chuckles. "Oh, as in vorobey?"

"Exactly. And the phrase he'd used was, 'A little bird tells me it's—'"

But Connor's laugh interrupts, and he covers his face in embarrassment. Elena looks at him with both worry and annoyance until he clarifies, "Ye know the last time I saw ye in prison, yeah?" He doesn't wait for her to answer; just smiles and shakes his head. "'A little bird' was the code Duffy had written on a postcard to us." Elena is still confused, wondering what Connor is trying to get at. He takes a breath and gestures towards his ears. "When I saw yer sparrow earrings, I panicked. Thought ye were part of our escape plan."

Her cheeks blush as she touches one of the small gold birds on her earlobes. She had no idea, and she feels like such a fool for being so God damn blind in that moment, for not reading Connor's reaction better. "Well, I was, indirectly." She twists her lips, still feeling embarrassed and sad at the same time. "They just kept me in the dark about when and how exactly they would break you out."

The laugh lines around his eyes are still creased from smiling. "And ye had to keep yer cover," he reminds her. "It's okay, lass," he starts as he takes another drag. "I still like yer earrings."

God damn Connor MacManus charm.

He flicks ash off the cigarette, looking down at his feet. "So what happened with the Russians?"