So, after getting a few requests, I decided to continue this. There will be 12 chapters total, all relatively short, posted one each day.
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He turns away, and later, she'll realize he did it deliberately. A display of trust. Or something.
Uncharacteristically, though, it takes her a moment to respond. She still feels like she's been punched in the stomach.
But somehow, she knows. He's back. Against all odds, he's back.
"Snart! You asshole." She knows there's more pain in the words than she intended to show, but she's still feeling too raw.
He freezes. And when he speaks, the words are nearly inaudible.
"What was that?" She hisses the words as anger roars up to go with the pain.
"I said, have you ever seen Thawne pull someone's heart out through his…or her…chest?" His back is still to her, but his tone is thick with distaste and, perhaps, something even more intense.
"I...no."
"I have. A few times now. I didn't want to see it happen to you. Or Mick." He makes a noise that might be a sigh. "Or any of the team, really. So I had to...pretend for a while."
There's pain in his voice, too, and it hurts her heart to hear it. But the last few months, seeing him working with the man who'd had her killed and the man who'd killed her sister, fighting Mick, fighting her...
Well, she has some trust issues.
"How?"
He looks back over his shoulder. "Sara, we really need to..."
"Damn it, you jerk! How?"
He's still for another moment. Then: "I really don't know."
"Not good enough."
"Sara, we have to leave!" He spins and now he's back in front of her, blue eyes boring into her own, desperation in them. He moves his hands as if to put them on her shoulders, but she steps back. And she knows she didn't imagine the flicker of hurt in his eyes as she did so.
But he takes a deep breath. "The only reason I'm here, you're here, that they're letting this happen, is that I've played the game since I started remembering. OK? I had a nine-month gap in my memory when Thawne recruited me. It was a job. And then...things changed."
"Amnesia? Seriously?"
He frowns at her. "I'll tell you what little more there is when I can. But we have to get out of here before Darhk returns."
She stares at him. "Did you remember us before you froze Ray's leg?"
A long pause. "Yes. It was that or kill him, or both of us would be dead. I think Merlyn was getting an inkling. That got him to back off." At the look in her eyes, his mouth tightens. "I did what I had to do. I always have."
"What if it'd been me?"
It makes him pause. "I don't know. I tried to run interference, a little, between you and Darhk. If I had to freeze your arm, your hand, something I know Gideon could fix..." He shakes his head. "I don't know."
"'Ran interference?'" And now she has a new reason to be angry. "Snart. He killed my sister."
"Yes. And he'd like to kill you." The pain is back in his eyes. "Forgive me if I really didn't want that to happen."
"I don't need you to protect me!"
He flinches, actually flinches, at her tone. "I know. And once I've told you everything I know about him, you can go for it. But you need that information. OK? Now, can we go?"
She's furious and she's hurt and she's...she's...
She'd mourned him. And then he'd returned, and she'd had to mourn the Leonard Snart she thought she'd known all over again. Now...now she doesn't know what to think, how to feel.
Karma, she thinks with a touch of gallows humor, is a bitch.
"Yes," she tells him coolly, "let's go."
He gives her one more long look, then turns away. Utterly exposing his back to her again. Trusting she won't stab him in it.
She wishes she could feel the same about him.
