Amazing Grace (1/2)

[airgiodslv]

Title: Amazing Grace
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Mal/Cobb
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, no disrespect intended. Military definitions courtesy of Wikipedia.
Notes: Thank you first and foremost to cupiscent, who laughed when I told her I was writing this, saying she always knew it was only a matter of time, and who took this apart when it didn’t work and helped me to put it back together again. Thanks to liketheroad for cheerleading from the very start, and to imntsaying and cmonkatiekatie for their amazing beta work.
Summary: “Cobb’s in a coma,” Arthur says. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud; the words feel strange in his mouth. “He’s fallen into limbo. Mal and I can’t wake him up.”



It’s not like Arthur to run out of ideas.

It’s what he’s known for, at least in certain circles. Arthur has a plan, and a backup plan, and a secondary backup plan, and an emergency last-ditch effort plan, and if all of those fail, his improvisational skills are second to none. He likes to keep all of his bases covered.

He wasn’t prepared for this, though, and everything he attempts runs up against the same brick wall, dumping him back out where he began to start all over again. Eventually he has to admit defeat, and he does the only remaining thing he can think of to do. He calls Eames.

Mal watches from the shadows while Arthur pulls up the encrypted file on his laptop, scrolling through pages of contacts all labeled by code name and scrambled using a cipher that only he knows. It only takes a moment to decrypt the relevant entry and extract the necessary information.

Cobb has been sleeping for the better part of two days.

::

It isn’t as hard to reach Eames as Arthur had feared. The last time they’d worked together, Eames had given Arthur a telephone number for somewhere in Britain. That leads him to a neutrally polite receptionist named Patricia who accepts the extension number Eames had provided - Arthur has his doubts now that it’s anything of the kind - and connects him to a computer-generated voicemail box. The message contains another number, ‘for emergencies,’ which in turn leads to another voicemail message, recorded in a Spanish-accented female voice.

Arthur leaves his name and a request for Eames to return his call as soon as possible. Eames will try his office first, undoubtedly, but Arthur has already set his calls to be forwarded to his work cell. The CIA has granted him personal leave for a week, and Arthur hadn’t pushed for more. If they can’t fix this in a week, he doesn’t know that they will.

Eames calls him back barely fifteen minutes later.

“Arthur,” he says pleasantly. “What a wholly unexpected surprise to hear from you. If you think I’m freelancing for your government again after the fiasco in Hong Kong, you must have either selective memory or a hidden masochistic streak.”

“Cobb’s in a coma,” Arthur says. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud; the words feel strange in his mouth. “He’s fallen into limbo. Mal and I can’t wake him up.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. It drags on for long enough that Arthur grits his teeth. He’d prefer not to beg, but he will if he has to.

He’s just steeling himself for it when Eames’ voice returns. “Half-eleven in the evening your time, that’s the best I can do. I’m in Beirut, it’s a full day’s flight. I assume you’re in Los Angeles?”

“Yes,” Arthur confirms. He’s so relieved it makes his legs weak, and he sits down on the sofa that’s been doubling as his bed for the past few days. He hadn’t realized how desperate he was for someone else to help shoulder the burden until Eames had agreed to come. “I can pick you up at the airport.”

“No bother, I know the way. I’ll be there around midnight.”

“I’ll see you then,” Arthur agrees, and ends the call.

Mal is still watching him from the hallway, leaning against the wall. “He will come?” she asks, voice low. Arthur doesn’t know if it’s the falling darkness or the fact that both of them still act sometimes as if a carelessly raised voice will wake Cobb from sleeping. If only it would.

“Yes,” Arthur says. Mal nods her head, satisfied. She turns and slips back down the hall, toward the master bedroom where Cobb lies sleeping.

Arthur flips open his notebook and gets back to work.

::

When Eames arrives at the house, they don’t bother with pleasantries. James and Phillipa are with Miles, hastily sent abroad for a holiday, so the house is dark and empty except for the three of them.

Mal makes strong black coffee and explains, only slightly halting as she recalls it, the story of how they’d ended up here. How she and Cobb had gone too far, too fast, too deep. How Cobb had found a way out, with a riddle and a train, and she had followed, only to find that their minds had tricked them and they were still in limbo, dreaming they were awake. How she’d come up with a plan to bring them both out into reality, on the ledge of a hotel suite, only it hadn’t worked. Cobb hadn’t jumped.

“And you’ve gone back in since then,” Eames says when she’s finished. It’s not a question. “You haven’t been able to reach him.”

Mal shakes her head. Her hair is hanging loose, stringy and greasy. Arthur runs a hand through his own and grimaces. He needs a shower, badly, but they haven’t had the time. Every minute they spend out here could be an eternity for Cobb.

“He doesn’t recognize me,” Mal says. “He has built delusions around himself, he thinks I am a ghost. A phantom. He thinks I haunt his dreams.”

“And Arthur?” Eames asks, eyes flicking to him. Arthur shakes his head as well, hating the heavy weight of admitting defeat.

“I can’t even get close. He’s had time down there to build a bigger maze than anything I’ve ever seen before. A whole world, and he’s hidden in the center of it. His projections always turn on me before I can track him down.”

Eames purses his lips for a moment, before setting his coffee cup down onto the saucer with a clink and sitting back. “And what, precisely, do you want me to do?”

“He thinks he’s in reality,” Arthur answers. “You could blend in, be a part of that. You’re used to conning people into revealing things, getting people to trust you so you can take advantage of them. You might be able to get through to him.”

Eames’ lips and eyebrows both twitch upward. “A charming description of my skills, thank you, Arthur.” He steeples his fingers and looks hard first at Arthur, then at Mal. “So what you are in fact asking me to do is to voluntarily drop into limbo, into unconstructed dream space, in the hopes that I’ll be able to return, preferably with Cobb in tow. Without knowing for a fact if it’s even possible.”

Arthur holds his gaze steadily. “I can offer you twice your standard fee,” he says. “With a few thousand extra for hazard pay if that’s not enough.” He can’t go much higher, not without stretching his resources, but he’ll be able to come up with something. He can find a way.

“Please,” Eames replies, shaking his head. “Try not to be quite so insulting. I did get on a plane, didn’t I? I just want to be sure we are all on the same page about what it is you’re requesting.”

“I’ll go in with you,” Arthur tells him. “I know what to expect. I’m willing to run the same risks.”

“No,” Mal says, causing both of them to turn and look at her. “You have never been able to find him, in his maze,” she says to Arthur. Not unkindly, merely stating a fact. “I will go.”

“That would be preferable,” Eames says lightly, picking up his coffee cup again as if the tension from a moment ago had never been. “If anything goes wrong, I trust Arthur will be able to handle any necessary kick.”

Arthur doesn’t think Mal understands the message beneath Eames’ words, but Arthur hears it loud and clear. Eames doesn’t want to descend into limbo without a guarantee that someone will remain behind to watch over and pull him out however necessary, even if it means leaving Cobb behind and sacrificing their chance at saving him. Eames doesn’t know if he can be sure that Mal will be able to make that choice.

Truth be told, Arthur doesn’t know either.

“I’ll get you out,” he promises. “Do you need to do anything first?”

The coffee cup lands again with a decisive click. “No,” Eames says, standing and rolling out his shoulders. “Let’s not keep the poor man waiting any longer, shall we?”

Mal goes to the bedroom to prep the IVs that will connect them to Cobb’s subconscious. Eames hangs behind, waiting until they’re alone before he speaks.

“Of the many things I’ve accused you of in the past,” he says, “losing your focus has never been on the list.”

Arthur holds his gaze steadily. “I know what I’m doing,” he says.

Eames smiles faintly. “I never had a moment of doubt,” he replies, and if he’s lying, Arthur doesn’t call him on it.

He wonders if Eames is doing the same thing.

::

Eames wakes up too soon.

It’s not by much; even having calculated the time difference, they’re still skittish about falling in too deep, losing themselves in too much time, and Eames is not one to gamble when it concerns himself. So there are only - Arthur checks to confirm - seventeen seconds left on his clock, but even so. Eames is early.

Eames takes a deep, steadying breath. Arthur recognizes that reaction. He’s experienced it more than a few times himself.

He crouches down by Eames’ side where he sits in the armchair next to the bed and speaks quietly. “Everything all right?”

“Perfectly,” Eames says. He pushes himself upright, runs a hand through his slightly-mussed hair, and looks down at Arthur. “You said Cobb believes he’s awake. What happens if you make it obvious that his reality is not real?”

“Mal’s tried,” Arthur answers. “He either doesn’t see it or the dream changes to keep her away from him. His subconscious is protecting the fantasy.”

“Ah, well that explains why you haven’t been able to get near him,” Eames replies. Mal stirs on the bed; they both glance at her, and Arthur checks his watch. Seventeen seconds are up.

Mal sits up slowly, gaze falling to her husband’s face. Arthur doesn’t know how to read her expression, but it hurts him to see just the same. Her face changes, just a little, every time they wake up and Cobb doesn’t.

“The reason you can’t get close to him,” Eames continues, reclaiming Arthur’s attention, “is because he has his own little carbon copy version of you trotting around the globe at his side. I’ve never seen you look better in a suit, for the record.”

Arthur shakes his head. “I wear suits all the time.”

“In the office, I’m sure. When I see you, it tends to be in less than ideal circumstances, and you’re often considerably less pristine. Less tailored waistcoats, more bloodstains.” Eames pulls the tape from his wrist, sliding the needle out of his arm. “Your doppelganger is an equally good shot, however.”

Mal frowns. “He killed you, in the dream?”

Eames smiles faintly. “I admit I can’t be certain. He aimed a gun at my head at the same time your lovely counterpart came at me with a knife. All I can say is that one of you succeeded.”

“What does that mean for Dom’s reality?” Mal asks, her hand dropping to her side, automatically finding Cobb’s hand. Arthur doesn’t even know if she’s aware that she’s done it. “Are you locked out now, as Arthur is?”

“Doubtful.” Eames considers that for another moment before saying, “I doubt he has any idea his subconscious took me out of play. There’s no reason for him to know anything that might force him to accept that his reality is false.” He glances sidelong at Arthur, amused. “Arthur and I may not get along all that well at times, but even Cobb might be suspicious of him putting a bullet in my brain.”

“He shouldn’t be,” Arthur says, deadpan. Eames smiles wider.

“So how do we reach him?” Mal says, and the momentary respite is over, the weight of their difficulty crashing back in. Arthur can almost feel the knots in his shoulders gaining a tighter grip.

Eames goes still, his expression thoughtful. Mal’s fingers thread through Cobb’s, holding on tighter. Arthur just waits. This is why he’d called Eames in the first place, after all. They need someone with fresh ideas.

“What keeps us convinced that this is reality?” Eames asks finally, which is not the response Arthur had been expecting.

He answers anyway. “Memories, logic. The part of our brain that recognizes when something is not as it should be in the real world.”

“Ah, but it’s a close thing sometimes, isn’t it?” Eames replies, and his expression twitches in something that’s almost a wink. “You have to be perfectly sure it’s a dream before you put that gun to your head, and even then there’s always the chance you could be wrong.”

Arthur knows. He’s experienced the shiver of adrenaline when he realizes that he’s about to die, the fear that it’s real and uncertainty that he’ll wake up even when he knows that he’s dreaming.

“He has something, in there,” Mal says. “His totem, he calls it. It is what convinces him that his world is real.”

“Which is bollocks, isn’t it?” Eames says bluntly. “We can prove to ourselves that we’re in a dream, change the laws of physics and the world around us, but the trouble with reality is that everything behaves exactly as it should. Just because your mind refuses to change something doesn’t mean it can’t be changed.”

Mal looks down at Cobb’s slack face. “You convince yourself that it is real.”

“So how do we convince him?” Arthur asks. He needs answers, not more questions. He needs to find a way out of this.

“Fantasy or not, Cobb’s world does still obey our rules,” Eames answers. “Theoretically, all we have to do to wake him up is to get him to go to sleep.”

“A job,” Mal says.

It’s not any real surprise that Eames has come to the same conclusion Arthur reached two days ago. There’s a reason they work so well together, professionally speaking.

“We’re going to need a team,” Eames says.

Arthur clears his throat, confesses. “I’ve already picked one.”

Eames’ mouth curls up at the corners. “Somehow, I thought you might’ve.”

::

“Saito,” Eames repeats, opening the file Arthur hands him to examine the spread of information. “Is he one of yours?”

Arthur shakes his head. “He’s a civilian. Currently the CEO of his own advertising company. He’s done seminars on dream work and the subconscious, the power of suggestion.”

They’re in a storage unit out on the docks, just big enough for a team of five to work in comfortably. Mal had offered the house as their home base, but Eames had declined politely, and privately, Arthur is glad of it. He wants to stay close to Cobb too, but the atmosphere isn’t conducive to clear-headed thinking. Everything, from the pictures on the walls to the brand of beer in the refrigerator, is a constant reminder of what’s at stake, and who it is they’re trying so hard to save.

Arthur can’t function like that. He needs the detachment of four blank walls and a pristine whiteboard where everything has been reduced to numerical values and abbreviations. In a few short hours, they’ll have a full team, and he needs to be thinking about them. Not about Cobb, sleeping his life away alone in his wife’s bed.

“Interesting choice,” Eames allows, setting the glossy surveillance photo of Saito back into the file folder. “You’re thinking of him for the extractor?”

Again, Arthur shakes his head. “Something else. The mark, if we need one, or extra security. A position close to Cobb, where he’ll be in the right place to say all the right things.”

“Pity he has you, or I’d suggest we make him the point man. Cobb won’t believe there’s anyone better out there, unfortunately; I doubt we could convince him to replace you.” Eames glances up at him, looking amused. “We could always shoot you, but he doesn’t need any additional trauma.” He pushes the file away and holds out his hand for the next. “Who do you have in mind for the extractor, then?”

Arthur passes him the file wordlessly. This had been the one difficult decision he’d had to make. Cobb is a CIA extractor at the top of his game; there are very few rivals he doesn’t keep meticulous notes on, which had limited Arthur’s choices to someone Cobb knew, an unknown, or a foreign government agent working for a country with whom they’d never had to be concerned.

He’d selected an up-and-coming CIA agent Cobb wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work with or even take note of, as she works in a very different field. Which is to say, not in the field.

“A psychologist,” Eames says thoughtfully. “Specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder. She looks younger than she is, doesn’t she?” He holds up the official ID picture from the CIA file, studying the wide eyes and slight frame. “Cobb’s parenting instincts will have a field day.”

“She’s a doctoral candidate in dream psychology,” Arthur tells him. “If anyone can figure out what’s going on in there, it will be her.”

“Anyone besides you and Mal, you mean,” Eames says, and when Arthur meets his eyes, his gaze is sharp. Too knowing.

Arthur doesn’t say anything.

Eames visibly relents, his tone lightening. “She’s not an extractor,” he points out, shuffling through the contents of the file for the second time. It’s slimmer than the file on Saito: Arthur has access to all of her information, of course, but he won’t risk printing out confidential information on another intelligence agent, even if she isn’t likely to end up in a position where that could be dangerous.

“She’s not,” Arthur agrees. “But what we need is someone who can extract Cobb from his own subconscious. That’s not a typical job for anyone in our line of work.”

Eames ‘hmm’s and spends another moment studying the picture before closing the file and setting it aside on top of the other without further comment. Arthur feels himself relax slightly. It wouldn’t have changed his decision any if Eames had disapproved of his choices, but it’s still reassuring to know that he doesn’t.

“How long before they arrive?” Eames asks, standing up and stretching. Arthur is reminded that he recently got off a twenty-eight hour flight from Lebanon; until now, Eames hasn’t shown any sign of weariness, but the jet lag is clearly setting in. Arthur knows very well how that goes.

“Six hours,” Arthur answers. “They’re both in the country and on their way.”

“Hmm,” Eames says again, looking over at him sidelong. “And how long is that for Cobb?”

“It’s difficult to calculate.” Arthur clears his mind, tallying figures. “The deepest anyone has ever been is two levels down, but that doesn’t mean one day we won’t reach more. Limbo either exists somewhere below that, or it obeys the will of the person trapped there, which could mean that since Cobb thinks he’s in reality, the time difference is closer to what we think of as level one.”

He looks at Eames, who gives him a small, self-deprecating smile and says, “You were always better at the mathematics.”

Arthur favors him with a look which he hopes will convey a reminder that he’s seen Eames clean out high-end casino clientele by counting cards, and he knows better. “The short answer is that I don’t know,” he finishes. “We’re just guessing, based on what Mal has seen when she goes into his dream. It’s only been a few months in there since she first couldn’t wake him, so we ought to have some time.”

“Brilliant,” Eames says, sounding satisfied. “Then, as we’re in a bit of a holding pattern until the rest of the team shows up, I advise we take a few hours and get some rest.”

Arthur starts to protest automatically, but Eames shakes his head.

“If Cobb can spare a few hours,” he says quietly, “so can we.”

Arthur doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he doesn’t. Eames is right, he knows. Arthur hasn’t been at his sharpest, and the more tired he gets, the more mistakes he takes the risk of making. It’s still hard to convince himself that every minute isn’t critical.

Eames doesn’t let him dwell on it for long. “Do you still keep a place around here?” he asks.

Arthur begins to nod; stops and shakes his head. “I’ve been staying with Mal. On the sofa.” It’s been easier for both of them, allowing their discussions to go on late into the night, all of their plans spread across one work space. And neither of them have wanted to be far from Cobb.

“Even better.” Eames holds out a hand. “I’ll stay at your place. Cheaper than a hotel, and with all the comforts of home. If there isn’t a state-of-the-art French press in the kitchen I’ll never mock your predictability again.”

“You don’t like coffee,” Arthur reminds him, because he can’t very well argue about the coffee maker. He digs his keys out of his pocket and tosses them into Eames’ hand before the jingle registers. “Wait…my car key.”

“If you think I’m letting you drive, you’re quite mistaken,” Eames informs him lightly. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Arthur can’t remember. “Mal and I dreamed, yesterday before you arrived,” he says instead. “We tried to reach Cobb again.”

“Not the same thing,” Eames replies. “I’ll drive you back on my way to your place. Need me to pick anything up while I’m there?”

“No,” Arthur says, because he can’t think of anything right now. He can hardly think at all. Now that he’s acknowledged the need to rest, fatigue has hit him like a truck. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Eames says easily, and leads the way to the car.

::

Arthur sleeps for long enough to complete one REM cycle before he wakes up and returns to the storage unit. He doesn’t have time for two full cycles, and one is enough to keep him going. He’s caught naps here and there; he’s dreamed in limbo. His body has been through worse.

Mal will bring the others when they arrive. Arthur has his own work to do, arranging the empty room into a usable work space. He drags in chairs, tables, power cords with surge protectors. The all-important whiteboard with a full set of dry erase markers. Pencils and sketchpads, modeling materials for whoever ends up acting as architect. A wireless router. A mirror for Eames, if he needs to practice mannerisms for a forgery, and because Arthur’s seen him use it to think, to get lost in his own head outside of dreams. A desk for himself, with the sturdiest chair in the room behind it because he breaks them if he’s not paying enough attention, placed at an angle that lets him see the door and is also completely out of sight of Eames’ mirror.

He catches himself setting up a single reclining lawn chair in the far corner of the room so that Cobb can test their progress, and has to sit down, hard. Just for a second, it feels like he’s too late, like all of this is in vain and reality has already been irrevocably altered.

Then Eames arrives with a familiar stranger in tow, and Arthur pulls himself together.

“I brought coffee,” Eames says, displaying the cardboard tray in his hand. His tone is light enough that Arthur wonders what he saw when he came in.

“You’re a godsend,” Arthur replies, following Eames’ conversational lead as he approaches, meeting Eames and his guest halfway across the room.

“So I’ve been told,” Eames says breezily. “Arthur, this is Saito-san. Saito-san, may I present Arthur.”

Arthur bows just low enough to show proper respect. Saito mirrors him, smiling enough when they straighten to reassure Arthur that he won’t have to be quite so correct in the future. “It is a pleasure,” Saito greets him. “I thank you for the invitation.”

“I thank you for accepting,” Arthur replies. His gaze sweeps the storage unit, finding it not quite so bare as before, before returning to Saito. “May I show you around?”

Saito inclines his head in agreement, so Arthur walks him through the setup, explaining what they do and the traditional way in which they’re accustomed to working. Saito takes it all in with little comment, only interrupting when he has a question or an observation. Eames leaves Arthur’s coffee on his desk with an unerring talent for divining the lay of the land and follows them around, providing his own commentary.

They’ll have to do this all over again once the other new team member arrives, but Arthur finds he doesn’t mind the waste of time. It allows him and Saito to get a sense of each other, to tentatively feel one another out.

Cautiously, he can say that he’s even more confident now in his choice to bring Saito in on this. The man radiates a certain deep calm, one that soothes and sets at ease everyone in his presence without giving the slightest hint of an impression that he can be taken for granted. He’s a force to be reckoned with, even if the demonstrations of that force are far more likely to be quiet and oblique than overt.

If Arthur can’t be in there at Cobb’s side, this is the man he wants in his place.

Mal is the next to show, and with her their psychologist-cum-extractor, Rhiannon Lake. She looks, if possible, even younger in person, with her hair up in a ponytail and glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

“Miss Lake,” Arthur greets her, holding out his hand. “Thank you for coming.”

Rhiannon gives him a once-over long enough to tell him that she finds him attractive, but she doesn’t follow up on it, for which Arthur is grateful. He doesn’t have the energy to focus on anything besides the job right now.

“I’m glad to help,” she replies, shaking his hand firmly without lingering. “I hope I’ll be able to contribute.”

“You are willing to try,” Mal says, squeezing Rhiannon’s arm gently. “That is enough for our thanks.”

“I have some ideas,” Rhiannon says, “but I’d like to hear what you’ve come up with, first. We didn’t have much time to talk on the phone.”

“Of course,” Arthur answers. He gestures to the half-circle of chairs surrounding the blank whiteboard. “Let me show you around and introduce you to everyone. Then, if everyone is ready, we can get started.”

::

Eames delivers the first full team briefing, which works for Arthur, as it leaves him free to take notes and organize their ideas as they go. He’s always functioned better as the second-in-command.

Eames appropriates the whiteboard, leaving the first splashes of black across its pristine surface as he begins. “Arthur’s idea, which I think is sound, is to use key words and phrases to get Cobb’s attention, as it were. Approach his subconscious directly, since we’ll all be surrounded by it, and pass along a message. The challenge will be in deciding which message has the best chance of success.”

Mal turns toward them from where she’s been staring at the far wall. “You don’t think I have tried?” she says. “If I cannot reach my own husband, you think a stranger will succeed?”

“No, I don’t,” Eames agrees. “Which is why we’re bypassing any attempt to convince him he’s in a dream. Instead we drop him into another dream, clearly manufactured, which with any luck will trick his brain into waking itself up.”

“How do we make sure he doesn’t simply return to his current state?” Rhiannon asks, looking up from the file brief Arthur has compiled.

“Well, that’s the tricky bit,” Eames admits. “He’ll be very comfortable there, which will make it difficult for us to convince him he needs to continue on. What we’re hoping is that the verbal and visual cues we plant will serve as something of an anti-reality totem, which will propel him further out of limbo if he loses momentum.”

“Mal will handle the visual cues,” Arthur contributes. “There are bound to be fragments of his memories already in there with him, so we can use those after he thinks he’s woken up, to convince him he’s still dreaming.”

“And Saito, along with Mal, will provide the verbal cues,” Eames finishes.

Saito nods once. “You are familiar,” he says, “with the concept of a mantra.”

“Of course.” Rhiannon is the one to answer, a slight frown marring her youthful features. “The idea of using sounds to focus and purify the mind.”

“In essence, yes,” Saito agrees, inclining his head. “Something which is repeated that has great meaning. The key is in repetition. The more familiar the mind becomes with an idea, the more comfortable it is.”

“Spoken like a man in advertising,” Eames puts in.

Saito acknowledges the jab gracefully. “By extension, we can use the liturgical collect. A ritual response which also takes on great meaning in the correct context.”

“The Lord be with you,” Rhiannon murmurs.

Arthur thinks it, but Eames is the one to echo, “And also with you.”

A slight smile touches Saito’s face. “Even so. It is not the words which have power, but the memories and emotions that come with them.”

“Just like in dreams,” Rhiannon says. “The visual stimuli are always secondary to the emotional response they provoke.”

Saito nods again; a teacher praising a favored student. “With the repetition of the words comes the power. The right phrase can provoke a strong memory and change a decision in a matter of moments. If we reinforce the phrases themselves, Mister Cobb will create the meaning for himself.”

“He’ll still sense that it’s coming from an outside source,” Arthur says, testing the truth of the words. “It’s hard to implant a call and response that strong.”

“Not so hard as you might imagine,” Saito says. He’s smiling again. “For instance, sometimes you feel like a nut…”

“…sometimes you don’t.” Arthur says it with Eames and Rhiannon this time, all of them in the same breath. “Very impressive,” Arthur allows. “And you think this is how we reach Cobb?”

“Not only how we reach him, but more importantly, how we break the illusion that his world is in fact reality,” Eames agrees.

“His totem,” Mal says, and Eames nods.

“The problem with convincing one’s self of a dream state is that if the subconscious believes it to be reality, all of the usual rules will apply. Particularly when the subject is also the dreamer and therefore in full control of the physics.” Eames’ mouth twitches. “Weebles may wobble, but they won’t fall down.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow. “How long have you been planning that one?” he asks. Eames just grins at him.

“So he goes into a dream state, wakes up, we use the verbal cues to signal him and he wakes up again, dropping out of limbo,” Rhiannon concludes.

“It’s not going to be simple as all that, but that’s the gist,” Eames confirms. “For this to work, we’ll need the job he thinks he’s taking on to be exceedingly complex. The more layers there are, the more time Saito and Miss Lake will have to communicate the message.”

“A dream within a dream,” Mal murmurs.

“A dream within a dream inside limbo,” Arthur reminds them. “Is that even going to work?”

“Theoretically,” Eames allows. “In our favor, we’ll have Miss Lake and Saito guiding Cobb exactly where we want him, as well as control of numerous other friends and family members.”

“How?” Rhiannon glances around, frowning. “Are there more team members?”

“Not exactly,” Arthur replies. “Eames has a somewhat…unique skill set.”

“It’s a side effect of altering subconscious perception,” Eames explains. “In essence, I can become anyone in a dream by changing how I perceive myself. The subject accepts what my mind projects visually. It’s relatively simple on a very basic level; changing clothes or accessories is something anyone with training in shared dreaming can learn to do. On the grander scale, of course, it is considerably more challenging.”

This is the watered-down version; Arthur has heard it much more in-depth on several occasions, but the specifics aren’t necessary to this job, only the possibilities that forging creates.

“So you can create people from his past? Memories?” Rhiannon asks.

“To a degree, yes, so long as I am familiar with the targets,” Eames replies, with a hint of cautious reservation.

There are more limits on what he can accomplish, of course, based on emotional stability and individual memory. Eames’ forgeries are near-flawless, but that doesn’t matter if the subject remembers someone differently from their genuine physical appearance, or if they have a strong enough emotional reaction that they go into a panic and toss everyone out of the dream. Arthur doesn’t mention that, just waits to see what Rhiannon comes up with.

“Would the call and response be stronger if we created entire memories?” Rhiannon asks, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “If we can manifest a person from his past, why not an entire conversation? Something that carries emotional weight?”

“It won’t work,” Arthur says bluntly. He shakes his head as he speaks; it’s a good enough idea, but they’ll never be able to carry it off. “Individual memory is highly subjective. If you ask five different people to tell you what they saw and heard at a specific time and place, they’ll give you five different answers. We hold onto pieces of events, and then we fill in the gaps for ourselves. It’s why suspects can be incorrectly identified, and why different retellings of events never match up. There are always discrepancies, and those are created within our minds.”

Rhiannon doesn’t seem put off by his dismissal; instead, she appears more thoughtful. “This is a horrible suggestion,” she says slowly, “but what if we used fragments of memory to slowly drive him towards insanity? If we pushed him over the edge, could we achieve a sort of mental reboot when he wakes up?”

“I’m afraid that’s more in your realm of expertise than mine,” Eames answers, and Arthur doesn’t miss the way his eyes had flicked, the same way Arthur’s had, to Mal before returning to Rhiannon. “But remember that he doesn’t merely have one world to hide in down there. Limbo is a vast, endless space filled with whatever we choose. Normally, dreams collapse when the dreamer becomes intensely emotional. With Cobb, we have no idea what might happen.”

“The important thing is that you and Saito stay with him,” Arthur adds. “Whatever roles you take on, you’ll have to be involved on every level of the dream, all the way to the end. Without you, he can choose not to confront whatever’s in his own subconscious that’s keeping him down there, and without Saito, he might not respond to the kicks.”

“So I’m the extractor for our team, but on Cobb’s team, I’ll be something else,” Rhiannon extrapolates.

Eames nods. “Precisely. For expediency’s sake, I would suggest an architect. The world of dream work is very small; it would be unusual for you to present yourself as an established criminal without trustworthy references. Architects, on the other hand, are drawn from outside, from universities and corporations, so they can be unknowns.”

“She’s spent three years studying dream psychology and working in other people’s dreamscapes,” Arthur points out skeptically. “She’ll be the best damn new architect anyone has ever seen, even if she makes mistakes on purpose to disguise her skill level. The training is instinctive, she won’t be able to help herself.”

“She can pick it up exceptionally fast,” Eames replies, shrugging. “With a glowing recommendation from a well-known source.”

Mal looks at him at the same time Arthur does. “You think he will go to my father,” she says.

Eames shrugs again. “There is a set precedent. And it’s what I would do, if I were him, given enough pressure from outside forces. Which we can provide, once we create the job.”

“And do we know what that will be?” Rhiannon asks. “An illegal extraction, like the kind he’s working in his mind?”

Arthur is about to answer when Mal speaks over him. “No.”

Arthur waits, but no one else asks the question, so he has to. He trusts Mal with his life, but they can’t have any secrets from each other, not now. “What, then?”

Mal turns her head to look at him. Her hair is piled up on her head, messy curls escaping, and she hasn’t bothered with makeup. She may not have showered in days. She’s still beautiful.

“Inception,” she says.

“Why?” Eames asks, but Arthur has a different question.

“It’s never been done successfully,” he says. “What makes you think he’ll take a job that’s doomed to failure?”

“He will find a way to do it,” she says, almost distant, and for a moment the hairs stand up on the back of Arthur’s neck. Then she turns to Eames and says, “It is the one thing he cannot refuse to do.”

Arthur wants to argue, wants to demand to know more, all of the secrets he can see hidden behind her eyes. He wants to ask if she’s known things all along that would help, if they’ve been throwing themselves at a brick wall for days because she’s been holding back.

Mal looks at him, and he stays silent.

“So we put him in need of a new architect,” Eames says carefully, as if picking his way over the conversational broken glass Arthur and Mal have littered between them. “And then Rhiannon…”

“No,” Rhiannon interrupts suddenly, and they all turn to look at her. There’s a half-smile on her face when she elaborates, “It’s all in the power of suggestion, right? I’ll be Ariadne. Leading Theseus from the labyrinth.”

“Ariadne, then,” Eames says after a pause. “Let’s all start getting used to that.”

::

They break for the night sometime after midnight. Arthur had wanted to push on, but he’d been overwhelmed by Eames and Rhiannon - Ariadne - arguing that they all needed to be fresh and as sharp as possible to do this job, and a sedative wasn’t the same as true sleep. They’d finally won him over with the argument that all of them could, at the very least, do with some time to themselves to think through new ideas.

Mal is on the sofa when he returns to the house, sitting in the dark.

“Mal?” he asks warily, circling the sofa so that he can see her face, pale in the shadows.

She has something in her hand, turning it over in her fingers, but he can’t see what it is. “Do you know why the job had to be inception, Arthur?” she asks, not looking up at him.

“No,” he answers. He sits down carefully on the stuffed armchair cattycorner from the sofa, the one that all of them hate but it was a wedding gift from Miles, so Cobb and Mal won’t get rid of it. Arthur doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that right now. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think he wants to know whatever it is Mal’s about to tell him.

“Do you know it’s possible to break into your own mind?” she asks him, as if it’s a riddle. “You can open the safe and see what’s inside. What others will see. You can’t steal from yourself, but you can see.”

She looks up at him then, and her eyes are bright but dry, the skin beneath them swollen and thin.

“He put something in my mind,” Mal tells him. “When we were together, in limbo. I didn’t know. I didn’t find it until after, when I woke up alone and he was still asleep. When I went back in and looked for him, and found it there instead.”

Arthur’s lips part, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t know what to say.

“He thinks he killed me,” she says, void of inflection. “He could not trust me, and he couldn’t see that it would be all right.”

Arthur licks his lips. They feel too dry for even one word. “What…?”

“He told me my world wasn’t real,” Mal answers, shaking her head. “And he told himself that it was. But you don’t understand. You don’t know why he had to do it.”

Arthur’s throat is tight. His voice is too loud and too quiet all at once. “Why, Mal?”

Her gaze has wandered; she brings it back to him, and Arthur almost wishes she hadn’t. The look in her eyes is so bleak that she doesn’t look like the woman he knows at all.

“He asked me to marry him,” she says, “but I asked him first. I put a picture in his mind, a picture of the two of us, grown old together. I thought it would be romantic. That he would understand, that we would marry and have children and live out that dream.”

“Mal,” Arthur says.

She continues on without acknowledging him. “But it didn’t work. No one knows you better than a lover. I hid it so well that he never realized it wasn’t his idea; that it had come from me. I thought he knew. But he didn’t understand. And he found a way for us to grow old together. A place no one else could reach or tear us apart.”

Limbo. Arthur doesn’t know whether he breathes the word or just thinks it, but neither of them needs to say it out loud.

“Do you understand?” Mal says. “He planted his thought in my mind. But I did it to him first.”

Arthur sits, stone still, for a long time. Then he moves over to the sofa, and Mal folds against him when he touches her, rests against his chest without saying a word.

He holds her for the rest of the night. She doesn’t cry.

::

“With Cobb as the extractor,” Eames says, writing out their team members on the whiteboard, “we now have a point man, a forger, and an architect.”

“Wait, who’s the point man?” Ariadne asks, glancing around.

“Arthur,” Eames answers. “Or rather, Cobb’s projection of Arthur, which we can’t displace without upsetting his dream world. Don’t make the mistake of treating him the same way as the real Arthur,” he warns her, tapping the dry erase marker against the board. “He’s a part of Cobb’s subconscious, nothing more.”

“And where will Saito be?” Ariadne asks.

“That’s the question,” Arthur agrees. “Our best idea so far has been putting him in as the mark. He’ll have less freedom, but almost constant contact with Cobb once the job starts.”

“That will be too late,” Saito replies, apologetic but firm. “For the verbal cues to take hold, they will need to start on the first level. In his reality.”

“Who else would be on a criminal extraction team?” Ariadne inquires, leaning forward to run down the list on the board. Arthur blinks. It’s not that he ever forgets, precisely, that Cobb thinks he’s living as an exile pulling illegal jobs. It’s just not often at the forefront of his mind. He needs to be more careful and stay on target.

“I was thinking,” Saito says, in that particular tone of his which is both humble and resolved, “of being his employer.”

“It’s unnecessary,” Eames points out. “It’s a role Arthur or I can play from safe anonymity, through phone calls or correspondence. And there would be no way to get you from there into the dreams.”

“I would come with the rest of the team,” Saito says.

“Not possible,” Eames says, shaking his head, making it in a second before Arthur’s own objection. “There are a handful of people in the world who do this work, as you well know, and Cobb would never take an untrained dreamer along on a job. No one would. It’s absolutely unheard of, and bloody dangerous besides.”

“There could be special circumstances,” Saito demurs. “I would have plenty of time to learn while the others prepare for the job. And,” he adds, with a thin little smile, “it would not be a question.”

The way he says it, Arthur can believe it. If they put Saito in a position to make demands, and make the stakes high enough, Cobb might go for it. “We could do it,” he says slowly. “You know Cobb loves bending the rules.”

“He always has,” Mal says, with a sad smile on her face. Seeing that, Arthur wonders how long it will be before they both start using the past tense, talking about Cobb as if he doesn’t exist anymore.

Eames expels a breath loud enough for Arthur to hear the frustration in it, but he just shakes his head. “We’ll have to give him some bloody good bait,” he says instead of objecting further. “If we can’t hook the fish, there’s no point to any of this.”

“He will not walk away from this,” Mal says, and her voice is clear, louder than Arthur has heard her speak since before Cobb fell asleep that last time. “I know how to convince him.”

“How?” Ariadne asks. Arthur stays silent. He can feel Eames watching him, but doesn’t make eye contact.

“Because the reward will be our children,” Mal answers. Her voice is strained on the last word, and Arthur doesn’t know how he couldn’t have thought that she would be missing them, alone in that bedroom with her husband who can do nothing but sleep.

Eames wisely doesn’t say anything, just lightens his tone and moves on. “That makes a full team, then,” he says. “We can rely on the mark to be a product of Cobb’s imagination, since his role is a passive one. After the first level, Cobb’s projection of me ought to take over, which will leave me free to be wherever and whomever I need to be.”

“Who’s really designing the dreams?” Ariadne asks. “Is that part of my job?”

Eames shakes his head. “Arthur would be the wisest choice. He’s the only one who’s worked with both Cobb and I extensively enough to be able to design dreams that look as though they’ve been created from our subconscious minds as well as his own. And he’s been trained for it, which means there won’t be quite as much of a time crunch when it gets down to it.”

Arthur writes a note to himself to that effect. Designing three different dream levels will be a challenge, but Eames is right in that Arthur knows Cobb’s designs almost as well as his own, and he can make a passable imitation of Eames’. Mal could probably do it as well, but her skills have never been based in architecture, and she’ll be busy enough working with Saito and Ariadne on how to breach Cobb’s defenses and bring him back to them.

“Will Arthur and I go into the dream with you?” Mal asks. Arthur’s head snaps up from his Moleskine. He can’t believe Mal, or Eames, or anyone, would consider it a possibility for him to remain uninvolved.

Eames very obviously doesn’t look at him, in spite of Arthur’s eyes boring into the side of his head. “Inadvisable,” he answers Mal. “The two of you are already present as projections, and you in particular would pose a danger if discovered.” He smiles at her, somehow managing to make the declination charming. “I’ve seen you and Cobb work together. We could put you on the other side of a plaza full of people and he’d still go straight to you.”

Arthur still hasn’t recovered enough to make an argument, but Ariadne is ahead of him. “Is it wise to go in without Arthur? You just said he’ll be the architect, and therefore the one with the most intimate knowledge of the layouts.”

“It will be ten times more difficult for a number of reasons, yes, but not impossible,” Eames replies. “We can make do. You’ll need to know the dream layouts as well as he does, to re-create them for Cobb.”

“I’m going in,” Arthur says, cutting off any further discussion. “If anything goes wrong or needs to change, I’m the best bet for getting you out safely. And I can draw fire to buy you time.”

“Both good points,” Eames says, but Arthur knows him well enough by now to know that that wasn’t agreement or surrender. Eames in turn seems to know that Arthur recognizes what he’s up to, because he says, “Let’s take a break for dinner and clear our heads, shall we?” before Arthur can push any farther.

Eames moves slightly away from the rest of the group to put on his coat, and he takes his time about it, so he must already know Arthur isn’t going to let this go. “Eames,” he says, and when Eames turns around, he doesn’t even bother with a pretense that he thinks Arthur is cornering him for anything else.

“There’s no way to get you close enough to Cobb to do any good,” Eames tells him flat-out. “You’ve tried before and you haven’t been able to. There’s no reason to think it will be any different this time. You would be more of a risk than an asset, and if it were anyone else on any other job, you would be saying the exact same thing.”

But it isn’t anyone else, Arthur thinks, and even knowing it’s a losing argument he can’t help trying. “I could go in as another member of the team. Forge a disguise.”

“You’re abysmal at forgery,” Eames tells him, not unkindly. “You couldn’t even hold a mustache when we worked the Kaufmann job.”

“I’m not used to having one,” Arthur defends.

“You’re not used to wearing someone else’s face and body, either, and it’s not as easy as you might imagine.” Eames shifts his weight against the doorframe, crosses his arms. “It takes sixty percent of my concentration on the best of days, which is to say when I’m not attempting to fool a trained extractor who also knows me rather well, and for you it would be more like ninety-five. You don’t have that to spare.”

“I could practice,” Arthur tries, but he’s already given up. Eames is right and they both know it.

“No,” Eames says, calmly enough but without room for argument. “You stay out of sight.”

Arthur’s shoulders draw tight. “I’m not going to spend the entire mission hiding while you take all the risks,” he says, teeth clenched. He’s almost surprised the words have room to escape.

“What’s the definition of a point man, Arthur?” Eames asks.

To assume the first and most exposed position in a combat military formation, Arthur’s brain supplies, instantly and without mercy. The lead soldier advancing through hostile or unsecured territory.

He doesn’t need to say it out loud. Eames claps him on the shoulder as he moves past. “You’re already doing enough,” he says, low-voiced. “Save some work for the rest of us.”

Arthur turns away and crosses to his desk, sitting down and pushing papers around without seeing any of them. He knows Eames is right. It doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

Ariadne approaches him after the others have gone out. He thinks at first she’s inviting him out to dinner, and then possibly that she’s come to give him a hard time for clearly having no intention of leaving the storage unit yet with the rest of them.

He’s wrong on both guesses.

“I’m trying to decide whether or not to fight for you on this,” Ariadne says without preamble. “Are you going to be all right in there, if you go in with us?” There’s nothing coloring her tone that he can tell, only honest inquiry.

“I’m the one you’re worried about?” he asks in turn, instead of answering. He tries to make it a joke, a deflection to put her off of this line of questioning, but Ariadne doesn’t smile.

“Mal’s not going into the dream. You might be. We’re going to be heading straight into limbo, where subconscious manifestations are the worst.” Ariadne leans forward slightly with one hand propped up on his desk, not giving him an out. “So are you going to be all right in there?”

Arthur twists the cap onto his ballpoint pen with a click and gives Ariadne his full and serious attention. “I have my subconscious on a very tight rein,” he assures her.

She does smile at that, a wry twist of her lips. “I’m sure you think you do,” she says neutrally.

“Please don’t analyze me,” Arthur requests.

Ariadne grins. “Can’t help it,” she says. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll pretend I didn’t.”

“I would appreciate that.” He looks down at his desk and the research they still have to do, the details to iron out, and then looks back up at her. He can’t remember lunch now, but he assumes it was a long while ago. “Would you care for some dinner?”

Her smile grows into something real. “I would be charmed,” she replies.

He stands up and leaves the file folders on his desk, taking only his Moleskine. All of the important points are in there, and he doubts they’ll discuss anything in detail that he won’t be able to remember. “In that case,” he says, gesturing for her to go ahead, “let me show you L.A.”

::

Eames returns to the storage unit at some point after everyone else but Arthur has gone home, dull with exhaustion. Arthur has been drawing mazes, level after level using every trick he knows and hopefully a few that Cobb doesn’t, but it’s not what’s holding his attention. He can’t stop going through the plan, flagging the problems and assigning risk values to everything that has a chance of going wrong.

There are a lot of things that could go wrong.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Eames says, coming over to look at Arthur’s latest design for the third level. It’s meant to be his own dream, which ought to make it easier than the others, but instead he’s drawing dead end after dead end. He’s getting nowhere and he knows it, but he can’t make himself stop.

“Because I have an enormous amount of work to do?” Arthur replies, dry. He ignores Eames’ fingers on his sketchbook, flipping back through endless pages of previous failures.

“Well, that,” Eames agrees. “And I still have your car keys.”

“Oh. Right.” Arthur blinks a few times, feeling as if he’s underwater when he looks up from his work. There are black and white lines scrolling out behind his eyelids. “I’ll just stay here tonight.”

“Not an option,” Eames says apologetically. “I need you functional tomorrow, I’m afraid. Besides, I want you to take a trip with me.”

Arthur looks briefly at the fruitless pencil drawings, the notes that have ceased making sense. “All right,” he says, almost surprised with himself for not putting up more of a fuss. Eames just claps him on the back with an approving noise and heads for the door.

It’s not that Arthur isn’t paying attention to where they’re going, precisely, but he doesn’t recognize the part of town they’re in, and his concentration is focused elsewhere, still sorting through loops and cul-de-sacs. When they pull into a parking lot, he looks up and reads the faded sign announcing their destination as a martial arts studio. Then he raises an eyebrow at Eames.

“I need a sparring partner,” Eames says blandly, getting out of the car. “And Mal is far too vicious for me.”

Arthur snorts. “I don’t have anything to wear,” he points out, reluctantly following Eames and climbing out only because Eames is ignoring him and has just shut the other car door.

Eames shuts the trunk and tosses a duffel bag in his direction. It smacks into his chest and Arthur catches it automatically, unzipping the main pouch to find a bundle of workout clothing, with a pair of his own track pants on the top.

“There are advantages to living in your apartment,” Eames tells him cheerfully. “Although you shouldn’t keep your spare firearm in your underwear drawer; it might cause people to have all sorts of inappropriate thoughts.”

Arthur rifles through the bag. The track pants are his; the pale pink Hello Kitty t-shirt most definitely is not. “I take it you couldn’t find the shirt drawer?” he drawls, holding up the garment in question.

“Your clothing storage system could use some refining,” Eames replies easily. “Come on. You could use a little loosening up.”

Arthur stills. “I’m not using you as a punching bag, Eames,” he says seriously.

Eames raises an eyebrow. “Who said I would let you?” he counters, and heads through the gravel lot to the studio door.

Arthur drags his heels, stalling, but Eames is still at the door when he arrives. When Arthur sees why, he groans. “Please don’t tell me we’re breaking in.”

“It’s not as if we’re stealing anything,” Eames reasons. “Ah.” The lockpicks are withdrawn and secreted neatly away, and Eames pushes the door open to usher Arthur inside.

Arthur finds the lights, then thinks better of that and leaves the lobby area dark, closing the door to the studio itself before he flips the switch. “I try to avoid members of my teams going to jail for stupid reasons,” he says, dropping the duffel bag in the corner.

He strips down and changes into the workout clothes, pulling on the ghastly t-shirt because it’s the only suitable thing in the bag - of course it is - and Arthur hadn’t been dressed for this when he’d left the Cobbs’ house this morning.

When he turns around, Eames is stretching and smirking at him. “It looks good on you,” he says.

“You’re going to feel so stupid when I put you on your ass while wearing this,” Arthur informs him, raising his arms over his head and sinking into his own series of stretches.

He thinks about dragging it out, but Eames is far too clever to let him get away with that, and now that they’re here, walking through a few simple katas doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Arthur hasn’t sparred in weeks, and his muscles are knotted up from the tension of the past few days. It can’t hurt to let himself work out a little of his frustration, as long as he makes sure he doesn’t direct it at Eames.

“Come on then,” Eames says finally, walking to the center of the mats. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Arthur takes a deep breath, centers himself, and steps into a standard combative drill, the movements flowing with the ease of muscle memory even though it’s been years since he was in basic training. Eames blocks him effortlessly, also using standard countermoves, until at the very end he twists instead of retreating and Arthur finds himself being flipped onto the mat.

“Oh come now,” Eames challenges. “Use a little imagination.”

Arthur rolls back and flips up onto his feet, studying Eames’ balance and center of gravity. Then he starts another standard combative, and halfway through he takes advantage of the opening provided by Eames’ arm raised to block his punch, and lands a solid kick in the center of Eames’ stomach.

It’s not nearly enough to take Eames down or even do more than set him back a step, but Eames grins at him. “Better,” he says, and this time he comes at Arthur first.

They’re well-matched, enough that it takes all of Arthur’s concentration to stay on his feet. Eames has a weight and mass advantage, but Arthur relies more heavily on the martial arts that utilize speed and flexibility over solid muscle, so once he stops trying to stick to drills, they’re on even footing.

He’d forgotten the sense of absolute calm that comes with sparring like this, the way his mind quiets until nothing exists beyond the two of them and the mats. The last few times he’d fought, it had been in the agency gym with one of the trainers, and this isn’t nearly the same thing. Eames isn’t merely allowing Arthur to run through his practice moves and giving him a good workout. He’s fighting back.

After the first ten minutes or so they stop being careful with each other. Eames comes on aggressively enough that Arthur has to put his full weight into everything he does, and before long neither of them are pulling any punches. They’re not fighting full out as if this were a combat situation, but they are hitting with enough force to put each other down hard when they connect.

Arthur’s lost track of time when a beep from the corner signals Eames’ alarm going off, alerting him to the fact that it’s been an hour and a half since they started. Eames takes three steps back, out of Arthur’s immediate striking range, and holds up his hands. “Enough,” he says, and Arthur nods, letting his body relax and uncoil. His muscles have the kind of well-used feeling that means he’s going to be sore in a good way tomorrow.

“Thank you,” he says as they slip out the door into the night, and Eames stops, looking surprised and amused.

“You’re welcome,” he answers. And then, magnanimously, “You can keep the shirt.”

Arthur punches him one more time for that, but gently, because his hand hurts and he’s quite certain he’s put bruises on every part of Eames there is to bruise. He knows because he feels the same way.

Eames drops him off at the Cobbs’ house before driving back to Arthur’s apartment alone, and Arthur lets himself in through the front door into still silence. The door to the master bedroom is closed; Arthur thinks Mal is probably still awake, but he won’t disturb her.

Mal’s eyes are constantly rimmed with red now, but Arthur hasn’t seen her cry. Not since that first day.

He turns the shower on hot and leaves his sweaty clothes in a heap on the bathroom floor. The adrenaline from the fight still has him wound up, so he jerks off under the spray while the shower beats a tattoo on the back of his neck and the tiles like the precision firing of a machine gun. He’s perfectly silent so that he won’t risk Mal hearing him, save for the sound of his hand slapping over wet skin, and a grunt and gasp at the end when he comes.

He has every intention of going back to work as soon as he dries off, but he sits down on the sofa and closes his eyes for just a second, and before he knows it he’s fast asleep.

::

Part Two