A.N: This is a shameless story inspired by the epic "Broken Bride" EP by Ludo- if you aren't worried about spoilers, go ahead and listen to it and enjoy. Each chapter will stand for a song in the exact order of the track list. Our first chapter 'like petals pressed in sheets' stands for "Part 1: Broken Bride".

And, for the sake of the time Inception seems to take place in, Eames doesn't die in 1989. I make hand-wavy 'I know nothing of time travel' motions and just follow the plot of the song. Arthur's time machine is vaguely based off of a picture from Ludo's Rock Opera that I can't find now!

Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. I also don't own Ludo. I also don't own Doctor Who or the lovely quote I mention in the summary.

my broken bride, you never breathed again

"For fifteen years I fought-"

There was the sound of the scratching of Arthur's pen against his journal, the clean white paper a familiar and comforting sight to him. His correction in precise slashes of black ink removed the word "fought" from his sentence. All he could hear was the steady drip-drip of water from within his small cave, surrounded by the broken bits of his machine.

The sound of the massive pterodactyl's scream ripped apart the mundane peace of the act- as long as Arthur could focus on his recounting the experience, as long as he could get it out on paper, he wouldn't have to freak the fuck out because he had managed to do it- that he had finally gone back in time, just as he had intended to; even if he had clearly overshot the mark.

He shook his head and substituted "raged" for "fought". Satisfied by the change, he spoke aloud as he continued to write, his voice feeling strange in this cooling space.

"-I raged against the constant c and speed of light…"

When Arthur got the call, it was like he had swallowed motor oil- the supposedly lubricating substance only stopping up his throat.

He could only croak his reply, something he had intended to be: "Yes, this is Arthur." It was swiftly followed by "but this couldn't be happening" and "he only just left" and "what do you mean he hit a tree?"

Arthur would always remember that morning- it was the morning he lost the forger, the day that he lost his husband. Eames, lost forever because of an icy road and a fucking tree. Arthur dropped the phone because he couldn't get that voice out of his head- a voice informing him of the accident and Eames's death at the scene.

It was a morning in May and the roads shouldn't have been so slick- blame it on climate change or maybe it was some other driver's fault. Blame it on anything but stupid, stupid chance!

Horrible considering every other way it would have been more likely for them to die, Arthur had thought to himself. Horrible because he would have thought of murder rather than an accident. That it would have involved guns rather than an icy road, knives instead of a collision with a tree- the impact with the steering column that would have collapsed Eames's lungs. They had been dangerous dream thieves, damn it!

And, pushing away the method of death, Arthur had always believed that they would at least be together. Arthur had been peacefully laying in bed, having only half-heartedly tried to rein the late forger back into bed. But Eames had been insistent. That he was late and he really had to go.

His last interaction with him would be burned into his memory forever. Arthur had spent a long, long night in his workshop, his lab, only crawling into bed in the early morning before the sun had risen and he had had enough of failure.

The man with an actual doctorate in physics and engineering, Arthur, who had a hand in the invention and development of the PASIV (something he let very few know, allowing people to believe that his attachment and concern for the machine was only due to his position as point man), was trying to do the impossible and build his own time machine.

After Eames died, Arthur reasoned that he had a new purpose for his building the time machine.

"I promised to get back to that morning in May," Arthur said to himself, his pen having long since run out of ink, the pages of his journal full. He spoke aloud, keeping himself sane with the little task. If he had any ink left in his pen he would have written himself a list of rules; the first would have been to constantly, frequently remind himself of how he had gotten to this hell. To remind himself that he wasn't dreaming and that if he let that pterodactyl eat him, the only place he'd end up would be dead at the pit of its stomach.

"I was going to bring you back to life, Eames. I was going to save your life, I was going to fix your ruined lungs."

The cave was full of a type of moss that as far as Arthur could tell wasn't poisonous. He wanted to say that it was poisonous, that he was allergic, but he didn't have many choices for food here. The stuff was edible and could also be gathered by the handful to make the hard rock floor a little more comfortable.

He didn't like to sleep here. His dreams were filled with the scenes of Eames's accident; the flares lighting up the ice and the broken glass, staining Eames's hair, warning other drivers of the accident.

Arthur's imagination would go wild and he'd recreate the wreckage; the twisted metal, broken safety glass, and Eames. His poor dear Eames slumped against the steering wheel, the air bag having already deflated.

Now, a long way from home, a long way from that time, Arthur closed his eyes and thought of his damaged machine. The pieces were close to him, near to his hand and the small toolkit Arthur had thought to slip into his backpack before he left his home and time period. He was using the pack as a pillow, thinking about this place.

"The cosmic strings were like rubber bands," Arthur said, considering it- how it had felt and what had happened. He had lost control and fell through the portal as it generated before him- the machine, strapped to his forearm, blinking with warning lights as the circuits began to fail. But the portal was the fail-safe- that it would at least provide him an emergency exit while he tried to fix the problem.

Arthur had made it through the portal, free falling from a height that made him think of broken bones. It made him think of waking up- but in his desperation, Arthur had squeezed his totem and reconsidered. He wasn't so far up that he wouldn't survive. He just had to do this right.

When he hit the ground he managed to roll- he fell with a splat into the mud, sliding a bit and getting the stuff on his face, in his hair.

Blinking his eyes, the only thing he could think about was how much the mud tasted like blood. Combined with the otherness of this place with the giant trees and heavy air, Arthur could only ask himself what he had done.

The blood was his. He had bitten his lip when he took the fall and only noticed when was forced to run from dinosaurs.

The giant pterodactyls were the most insistent, and if Arthur hadn't found shelter he surely would have been eaten…

Arthur's stomach growled and he sighed to himself. He placed one hand against his rumbling stomach, pressing down and saying, "When you fix the time machine you can go back to your time and have breakfast with Eames."

He was getting so much better at saying the other man's name now. There had been times before that he couldn't get through the day without crying just a little over some small memory, or hurt, or wish that would never come true. That fact hadn't changed; when he said his name he felt the traitorous tears begin to gather in his eyes.

"When you fix the time machine you'll go home to him- you'll make him pancakes and never let him get out of bed. You'll never have to escape."

Arthur shivered to himself, despite the humid air of the days, it grew cold at night. He missed Eames's warmth at his back as he slept.

Arthur was never so glad that he had been a scout. When he found shelter in the cave, one of the first things he had done was construct a weapon to scare the pterodactyl away- he didn't care if this was the damned beast's territorial range, Arthur was here to claim it and that was that!

He had just enough tools to build a fire, to make a torch. He had a flint and matches. The point man was as prepared as he could be but he would have killed for a gun.

But he hadn't been thinking about protecting himself when his destination was just fifteen years in the past. He remembered and reinforced the idea that he was traveling through time and not space- that he had to start at home in order to return to this spot at the right time.

But something bad happened and he hadn't even left a note for his friends. He had tried, but somehow 'Hey everybody, don't mean to worry you but I'm going back in time to save Eames's life. Hugs and kisses, Arthur' didn't sound right.

All he had was the pocketknife, his wallet and keys, the small toolkit for time machine repairs, and a water bottle.

It had been days, but he had tried to stay positive- he was making headway with the repairs, the moss wasn't so bad once you got past the odd flavor, and Carl hadn't bothered him in a few hours.

It should be mentioned that after having dealt with this monster since his crash, Arthur decided that it needed a name- and so it was Carl, the pterodactyl. He tried to think about how funny this story would be when he got back to Eames. He'd have plenty of time to laugh about it later.

There was an ear piercing shriek at the mouth of the cave. Arthur's eyes narrowed and he reached for his burning torch and his pocket knife, stomping his way over towards the cave opening. As soon as he got close he saw the pterodactyl, he smelled the stench of tar from the pits outside of the cave. He wouldn't even begin to describe the smell of the predator; well, he could try, but it was odd. It was a kind of blood, earth, and distilled terror scent.

When Arthur was close, but not so close that the creature could try and pluck him away from his shelter and tear him apart into bite-sized point man bits, Arthur yelled and swung the torch at the creature.

"Carl!" Arthur said, using his 'I'm a big bad point man, don't give me any shit' voice. "What did I tell you last time?"

When Carl screamed again, Arthur bared his teeth and struck the pterodactyl across the beak. "Repeat it with me, Carl!" Arthur screamed back. "I am not a snack! I am not a fucking entrée! If you try to eat me, Carl, I will give you heartburn!"

Then, Arthur made a quick jabbing motion, stabbing with his pocketknife but not making any severe wounds. He would have killed to blind Carl, but that would mean getting a lot closer and losing a lot more than his patience.

It screamed at him, bled only a little from the wound, but left Arthur alone. He only relaxed when it was over, but it was only a matter of time. Carl always came back, only leaving him alone during the night.

Arthur's sleeping patterns hadn't been the same after Eames's death. He had the most terrible dreams- dreams about the accident or dreams about how the accident and aftermath were all just some sick nightmare.

But mostly, Arthur used to dream about Eames's grave. Eames had very specifically asked for cremation, and rather than throw the ashes into the ocean or bury him in a cemetery plot, Arthur had taken the small urn and buried it under the willow tree in front of their house.

The hole he had dug for the urn wasn't very big. But in his dreams, the grave was large enough for Arthur to lie in- and when his fingers slipped through the cool, slightly damp earth, he encountered bones. He usually woke up after he hugged them to his chest, slowly dying as he whispered about his failures with the machine.

Now, Arthur didn't dream about Eames's garden grave. Arthur dreamed about what could possibly happen next in this period. If he were to die here, would he prefer the cold of the glaciers or the horrors of the asteroid strike?

He held his totem and tried to stay calm.

"I haven't been eaten by Carl or any of his friends yet," Arthur said to himself as he slowly and patiently worked instead of slept. When he wasn't working on the time machine repairs he was doing something else.

Using his pocketknife and a rock, he carefully worked at the wall of his cave, carving the most important thing he needed to remember while he was down here. Sure, a totem was good, but this was something different. This was for when he was feeling helpless, depressed, and alone.

When he was done, he gently blew on the wall, getting rid of the dust and running his fingers over what he had spent entire nights on.

He'd carved the forger's sweet name into the wall. Now, when Arthur felt lost he could run his fingers over the carving and feel reassured. He would know who he was doing this for, why it mattered, and he could dream about their future.

Arthur pressed his fingers to the word on the cave wall, saying it as he traced it with his fingers.

"Eames," he said it softly, like a blessing. "I'm gonna come home to you, baby."

His just saying that endearment made him smile just a little bit. Eames was better at just saying some random, sweet little name and it would work just fine. Arthur would always be Eames's darling or love. The closest Arthur got was Mr. Eames, and sometimes that didn't feel good enough.

Sometimes when Eames was sleeping, Arthur would try out some of the endearments he was most familiar with but not yet comfortable officially bestowing upon the other man. He wanted it to fit; he wanted it to work but not sound stupid…

It was looking like he had all the time in the world to try and come up with one. Well, before this age ended and killed everything bigger than germs. If he was remembering it properly, his good buddy Carl wasn't going to survive the next big extinction, so at least there was that. He would be more willing to count that in his favor if it didn't also spell his doom, too.

Arthur closed his eyes, keeping his fingers on the carving, trying to draw some strength from it. It wasn't working and he felt himself loosing the scant bit of control he had.

All my strife has been in vain, Arthur thought to himself as tears began to course down his face, making trails through the dirt and soot still smudged there. I'm going to die here alone.

Arthur felt old- he knew that if he ever got back to Eames, the other man would probably make some terrible joke about how much closer in age they looked. Fifteen years had done predictable things to his still boyish face. His dark hair was showing the first signs of going grey, he had a few wrinkles that might pass as smile lines, and he had aches and pains where none existed before. And he was tired. He was just so, so tired now.

Night had fallen and the light of his torch was the only thing offering him warmth and hope. Frustrated, Arthur reached for it and quenched the flame, plunging the cave into darkness. He turned his face to the wall where he had carved Eames's name, curling up into a ball, and thinking of the glaciers that could eventually come and erase the signs of his being there, washing his words away.