Right, I have some good news and some bad news! The good news is, that after failing at changing fandoms once again, I'm working on a multichip-story for this pairing. The bad news is: … this isn't it… It's a long Oneshot in the same universe as Masks, Trust and Strength. But fear not. The other one will be too XD I just feel I need to give a little more backstories before I dive right in.
Enjoy and excuse me while I Disclaimer: Chris Nolan is the legendary rights owner. I am unworthy.
Recollections
It had been during the Fischer job that Ariadne accidently got a glimpse of the solution behind the puzzle that was Eames' past.
She had caught a glance of a crumbled photo in his wallet when she had looked over his shoulder as he searched for change to give her for her coffee-run. It was a woman in her late twenties, sleek red hair pulled back into a tight bun and wearing what looked like military uniform.
At the time, she had not asked about it, more occupied with trying to keep all of them from getting killed by the skeletons in Cobb's closet. When she had come back to work with Arthur and the Forger after only a few months down-time, she had not managed to learn more about either of them and by then almost forgotten about the woman in the picture.
Eames doubled as their extractor on occasion and sometimes he would correct Arthur on something the Point Man had learnt in his work with Cobb. She knew he was a few years younger than the retired Extractor, but clearly had more experience in the business than the other man.
At some point she lost sight of it, faced with the darker side of their jobs and when instead of her old mentor Arthur, Eames came to help her cope, she no longer cared. At least she had thought so.
It was strangely quiet in the apartment. Ariadne was staring out into the New York skyline, watching Manhattan's buzz despite the late hour.
Behind her, Eames was sprawled on the sofa, reading through a file, mug of tea in hand. Hers still stood untouched on the coffee table.
The disaster in Prague was still fresh on her mind, but they had used the time he had needed to recover to train her both in simple self-defence and in handling guns.
"Are you sure about this job?" She asked finally breaking the silence.
He looked up from the paperwork, though he had clearly been casting glances at her repeatedly, in surprise. "Arthur seems to be sure. If he's happy, that's all we need to know."
She moved from her perch then, picked up her by now only lukewarm tea and sat on the edge of the sofa when he beckoned her closer.
His arms went around her and he rested his chin on her shoulder. "I'll be fine. I've been off the meds for a while now, remember?"
She nodded but refused to be distracted by the kiss he pressed to her neck. "It's still not healed completely though." She put her mug away, and placed her hands over his where they rested loosely around her waist.
She pulled his arms closer around her form. The fact that it would take a long time for him to be entirely back to health like before the Prague job was left unsaid. Really she was not even sure if some of the damage had not been permanent.
"I've had worse." He mumbled into the skin over her pulse-point as he adjusted her to sit in his lap and nuzzled her neck further.
She was sick of this game then and pulled away enough to half-turn and looked him in the face, which was schooled into a mask of surprised innocence. "When?"
He did her the favour of not trying to go back to his tactics of distraction and looked away instead, his grasp on her loosening.
"Never mind." She disentangled herself and walked back to look out through the window, back to watching New York life go by.
They had come to an understanding that he would tell her what he was comfortable with when he was comfortable with it. Yet, there had so far been little and few information. It was not that she did not appreciate how hard it was for the Forger; she could see it in the lines of his face every time he did divulge something.
His arms snaked around her from behind; she had not heard him get up and he pulled her close against him. Ariadne let herself melt against his body, despite herself.
"Be patient with me?" He asked into her hair after kissing the top of her head.
"I'm trying." She let him squeeze her a little but still felt that gnawing feeling of doubt in her stomach.
"I will tell you, you know that, don't you?" His voice spoke again and she nodded, dismissing him.
After a heavy pause, he dropped his arms from around her and she heard him walk away but never stopped to look and watch him leave.
The bodyguards who went looking for the mark before they were gone still caught her off-guard despite her training. Arthur's meticulous planning had failed them because of the one new over-eager bodyguard who had wanted to check on things.
She missed her target at the critical moment and earned herself a gaping slash across her arm for her troubles. She did take him out in the end, her injured pride tried to remind her, but it did not mean much. Not when the gash was wide open and she was sure deep enough for her to see the white of a bone and she threw up all of her breakfast at the sight.
She had only caught a glimpse of Eames' face after she had vomited and remembered wondering idly if he might have been paler than she was at the time. That was before she passed out for what seemed to be only a moment until renewed pain in her arm brought her back.
It was a bit of a blur, but she was pretty sure it had been him who had grabbed her injured arm and effectively held the flaps of flesh together. The thought made her gag again when she remembered as she lay in the hotel-bed, all stitched and bandaged and only a dull throbbing left.
Apparently some rather vital blood vessel had been damaged but all she remembered was the squirting of liquid and being pulled close to a warm chest.
He had not left her side and this task until they had reached safety, but he rarely spoke and never to her, only snapped at the Point Man to hurry up, jaw set tightly. She remembered that in her half-conscious state this had alarmed her more than the pain or the copious amount of blood she was leaving on the leather interior of the car.
It was Arthur who had upon arriving at the hotel reassured her that she would be all right after a critical look at her injury.
Eames had stood by at a distance, watching only for a moment with an odd faraway look she had never seen. Then abruptly, without speaking a word, he had turned, eyes blank as he had returned her gaze, hands and shirt splattered with her blood and walked out into the sitting area closing the doors behind him. It was just like that, that he had closed himself off again and it hit her a lot harder than she wanted to admit. The sound of running water in the toilet only registered as background noise.
She decided what had hurt the most had been the fact that it had been Arthur who had stitched the wound and bandaged it, all business as usual.
The tears misting her already blurry vision had nothing to do with the needle threading in and out of her skin. It was just the admittedly perhaps childish wish to have him comfort her, the way he usually did; the way she was used to after months of sharing her life with the Forger; after he had even started to share his with her; or so she had thought.
The niggling doubts were back, had he decided she was not worth the trouble? Was this mistake all it took for him to show his true colours and disappear? And if so, why had he started to open up to her, or had that been for show? Was he really that good an actor to fake the things she had read in his eyes? She gulped down a sob, because the answer unfortunately was yes and the only reason she had believed it all, had been because she trusted him. What if she had been wrong?
Arthur had said nothing, dutifully tightening her bandage and left the room after leaving her painkillers without once meeting her eyes. He knew; that was all she could think; he knew and did not want any part in their problems. She could not blame him.
Her gaze fell to the windows and noted the red tinge to the sky. She had been here for far too long wallowing in her hurt. One way or another she had to confront this because this had only been the tipping of the scales and it had been eating away at her and the bond she so hoped still existed between them.
However, sitting up was more of a task than she had thought when she swung her legs to the floor and was hit by a the kind of head rush that made you fall straight back onto your back.
It was really pure stubbornness that got her into a standing position and clutching her bandaged arm close to her chest, she started for the door, dizziness still disorientating.
She was sure she was not meant to feel this lightheaded, but decided that she had lost a lot of blood and was entitled to it. She pushed open the double doors to the sitting area of the suite.
When she saw Eames sitting with hunched shoulders on the sofa, his back to her, she could not help but feel relieved and immediately chided herself for it. Of course he had not left her. She was an idiot for considering it.
She only caught a glimpse of the fact that he was looking down at a small photograph before he looked over his shoulder, alarmed by the sound of the door.
At that point she was leaning heavily against the doorframe, having decided that standing was even more difficult than sitting up and deeply regretting her move. The photograph the Forger was slipping back into his pocket as he returned her blurry gaze brought back the vague memory of seeing it before to her hazy mind but the way the room was spinning was of more concern to her just then.
She must have passed out then, because the next thing she knew was Eames putting the covers back over her where she lay once again in the bed.
The lines in his face were tense and he avoided looking into her eyes. When he turned to try to leave again, she grabbed him by the sleeve.
"Where are you going?"She asked, alarmed
"You need some sleep."
"No." She tugged on the fabric of his shirt again, a plea to make him turn around to face her. "That isn't what I need right now."
His eyes were tired when they met hers after another few seconds of reluctance. "Ariadne." His voice was hoarse and a gentle warning that she would ignore.
She shook her head. "I can't do this anymore. I can't pretend anymore."
He sat down heavily on the bed, and her hand still grasping his left sleeve slid into his larger one, interlacing their fingers to keep him there.
He looked at their linked hands, then her and she knew how much she was pushing then. "Something happened today and it's eating at you. Please let me in." She half-begged, half-coaxed.
After a moment of hesitation he lifted her hand to his lips and let out a heavy breath. "It's not something that should worry you so much." He tried to deviate but her gaze signaled clearly that she would have none of it.
She did not speak though, because if he were to start talking, she did not want to interrupt it. Her thumb lightly stroked over the back of his hand, tracing one calloused knuckle.
"It's my old partner." He eventually began, letting their hands drop back to his lap, his other one coming up to trace her fingers wrapped around his. "I was a recruit when the SAS took me to join a project for the MI6."
He paused, swallowing an apparent lump in his throat. "We trained together and ended up being sent into the field together. A two-man team; I was the extractor and Forger and she was the Point as well as Chemist and Architect. She wasn't as good as you, mind." He did not look at her, but a wry grin stole its way over his face at the memory for a split second.
"Forging is a rewarding talent, otherwise I would never have been trained considering the amount of talent that girl was packing. She loved to point that out too because she had heard that the only reason I was even in the program was because I had impersonated my superior officer during a training session."
His hand loosened around hers, almost slipping from her fingers but she quickly tightened her grip, to keep him grounded or simply hold onto him, she no longer knew.
"She…" Clearing his throat he turned to look away from her. "She died."
Ariadne sat back up, ignoring the burn in her arm and placed it gingerly around his tense shoulders.
"Bled out." He added after a while and she felt the stitches in her arm throb. "I never saw it, but the photos were quite explicit."
Hanging his head, he started to fiddle with their hands and she let him, allowing her fingers to relax as he flexed and twisted his nervously. "It was my fault."
He did not speak for a long time after that and Ariadne simply rested her head against his shoulder. It hurt to see what this was doing to him, but she could not go on if he might simply turn away from her for no reason she would understand.
"We'd gotten cocky, because though we weren't very experienced, they gave us the big jobs." The Forger finally grit out, and scrubbed his free hand over his face. "We should have figured out that they were just using us for cannon-fodder, but back then we just thought we were that good."
"Our identities weren't as well protected as we thought because somehow they found out where she lived."
Ariadne nodded but did not move, having broken their little rule of waiting for information enough for the day.
"They had tried to make it look like suicide and that's what it was officially, but I knew they were covering up the fact that she had been exposed." He turned to look at her and closing his eyes rested his forehead against hers. "They tried to keep me in line but I wasn't as stupid as they thought I was and so I provoked them enough to get myself chucked out."
"You don't trust them not to come after you, do you?" She half-whispered, her eyes closed as well.
He shook his head. "No. They still might. Didn't count on someone who got through education on an army-scholarship to still remember where he came from though, so they're probably finding it too much trouble to be worthwhile."
"Where do you come from?" The question slipped out and she drew away, eyes wide when her brain caught up with her mouth.
Eames seemed to read the apology in her eyes before she could voice it though and just smiled as if he knew she could not help herself and then bent down for a chaste kiss to her lips.
"Another time."
She lay awake, contemplating the lamp overhead though she could barely make it out in the dark. Her arm was pulsing and the painkillers did very little to make her feel better. She shifted again, carefully so that she would not wake Eames who had an arm securely wrapped around her waist, body wrapped around her protectively in sleep.
"Can't sleep?" He asked drowsily all of a sudden and though she could not be sure, she wondered how long he had been awake enough to notice her unrest.
"Just thinking." She muttered and met his eyes but then quickly looked away again.
"That picture in your wallet… that was your partner, right?" She asked eventually.
She turned to give him a hard stare, trying to read him the way he usually read her.
He sighed but held her gaze steadily. "Yes."
She wanted to ask more, but knew for now this would have to do. Turning back to look at the ceiling, she tried to ignore the way he looked at her expectantly.
After a short hesitation, she could not help but voice another thought. "Did you love her?"
"I thought I did at the time." He shifted to follow her gaze to the lamp above. "I was young and stupid."
"My age you mean?" She smirked at him.
A wry grin spread over his features. "Yes, I was your age." He turned back onto his side and reached over to play with strands of her hair fanned over the pillow.
"Not everyone can be as smart as you at twenty-four." The Forger continued, dragging his fingers through a tangle.
She boxed him in the side and he laughed, pulled her closer to turn onto his back with her on top. Ariadne fought him at first and then let her chin fall onto his chest with a grin. When she saw him stare at the ceiling mirroring her previous position, she grew sombre again.
"That was why you were so freaked today." She breathed, uninjured hand tracing up to his jaw-line.
He nodded but said nothing and she did not know what to say, so she simply hugged herself closer trying to synchronize her breaths with his as they lay there.
Like? No, yes? Too fluffy? Too angsty? Too… I don't know, I'm just fishing for reviews XP