A.N: Third installment, "Part 2: Tonight's the Night"! I've decided that this part will be more dream sequence than anything else (because in an Inception fic you have to mention dreaming) and used the song as inspiration for this type of scene. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception. I also don't own Ludo or their music.

my broken bride, you never breathed again

3. the airbag held you till the engine slept

"Hello, Arthur."

The point man opened his eyes, certain that he had only just closed them a moment ago. That he had been told to sit in a chair, perhaps the one that had belonged to the mayor, and wait for some food, wait for that toothbrush, and wait for something that passed for a bath during the End of Days.

When Arthur recognized that voice, he fought his base instinct; the very first desire that slammed through him, grating against his broken heart and frayed nerves. He wanted to remember what being safe felt like. He wanted to remember what it was like to have someone at his back, always watching his six. Someone who didn't like to be more than a handbreadth away from him, someone who found silly excuses to touch him. Arthur swallowed hard and turned to where he had heard the voice, struggling with himself.

"Hello, Eames."

If he were dreaming, then this image, this projection was as perfect a representation of Eames as he was going to get. Right now, at least. For now, they were together, standing on a perfect stretch of sand. They were at the beach.

The projection stood, eerily silent but just as watchful as Eames would be. He was perfect in his likeness, even down to his small imperfections that had become so dear to Arthur over the years. He was even wearing the same thing he had worn on their last trip to the shore! The sight of him was like balm on an open wound, something that both stung him and soothed him all at once.

"Are you going to pull a Cobb on me, darling? Are you going to say that you can't trust me?"

Arthur couldn't stop himself from flinching. It wasn't a lack of trust that stopped Arthur from engaging with his projection of Eames. It was his need to keep the goal in mind, to not dwell on a projection of Eames when what he needed was the living and breathing man to be at his side in the waking world! He needed to keep the two separate in his mind; it was obvious that he had failed so far, as the projection watched him and waited for an answer.

"No," Arthur said as he thought, it's my subconscious, this Eames is really another shape for my desires and secrets. "I could always trust you. But you're not real. The man I'm going to save is god-knows how many years in the past, waking up on a morning in May."

The projection cocked his head to the side and smiled a slow, achingly familiar smile.

"But darling, how do you know that you aren't dreaming all of that up?"

The point man sighed. He should have expected this.

He looked down his body, at his torn clothing. Before he had left his time period he had chosen to wear something that Eames would like- that as much as he had liked Arthur dressed up in one of his suits, he always preferred it when Arthur would dress down and wear t-shirts and jeans. He was wearing the remnants of a shirt Eames had liked, of the jeans that Arthur had liked to wear on lazy Sundays. But Arthur could feel it, the bone deep ache that said he was still fifteen years older than this youthful Eames, trapped at the age Arthur last saw him at. He didn't have wrinkles. He didn't have grey hair. Arthur was certain that he hadn't dreamed the fifteen year absence and all of its predictable changes.

"If my time travel misadventures were nothing but a dream, why do I still look like hell? Why do I look fifteen years older than you?"

The projection shrugged. "I didn't say that you were out of the dream just yet. Maybe you slipped another level down. Maybe you're waiting for the kick to bring you back to me."

Arthur frowned and ignored him, choosing to walk through the dreamscape. Sand, sand, sand! The shore wasn't too far away, and from his spot he could see the way the waves glinted in the bright summer sun.

The projection followed him swiftly.

"Remember when we'd come here? Every summer you liked to take me to the southern shore so we could get some sun and collect the fossils we found in the sand!"

Arthur also remembered how he'd hold the other man's hand when they did that. The urge was strong, but he forced himself to ignore it.

"We can do that now, if you like?" The projection offered, cheerful and pleased to be in his company.

"This isn't really the southern shore of our beach, it isn't summer, and I just want to go home. I just want to save your life!"

"I feel fine," the projection was saying, patting himself down as he walked, ruffling the front of his partially buttoned shirt, wearing his old beach shorts and walking barefoot through the sand. "No broken ribs, no cracked sternum! My lungs are wonderful!"

But it didn't matter if they felt fine in a dream. These reassurances wouldn't change the fact that Arthur knew what happened.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Arthur said. "Don't you think I'd wake up from this if I could? Don't you think I would have tried that already if it was so simple?"

Arthur didn't have to say that he had several visitors, constant visitors after Eames's death. Ariadne had come to provide support and keep an eye. Yusuf had spent more time to grieve over his lost friend but he had also watched Arthur carefully. And then, there was Cobb. Cobb, who shouldn't have been so quick to decide that Arthur would try and follow Eames, or that he'd try to escape from the grief in PASIV assisted dreaming.

But Cobb had offered many cautionary tales of his time after Mal had killed herself, of the aftermath and its effect on his mind, and how it obviously effected his dreaming.

She kept trying to tell me that this wasn't real. It was like I was going to be haunted by my incepting her. I tried building a place to keep her safe in my mind, but it didn't work. I locked her in my memories and that's where I'd go when I used the PASIV most nights. Because in my dreams we were still together.

Arthur had to shake it off; his thoughts of Cobb's obsession with his dead wife and his guilt over having incepted her wouldn't help him fight off his own insistent projection, his shade.

"I nearly lost my mind when I lost you," Arthur was saying, staying as far from Eames as he felt possible. "I buried myself in my work- I built you that time machine!"

The projection laughed. "Of course, you did. And I'm sure you tried to come up with a neat name for it."

Arthur had tried, but he didn't want to talk about that.

"I've been busy naming other things- like, when I get back to my time and stop your accident, I'm going to tell you an awesome story about a pterodactyl named Carl."

"You could tell me now and save some time."

Now, he just couldn't take it!

Arthur spun and faced this Eames, this fake Eames, this Eames that was the best he could come up with when he was at his lowest, so close to failure he could taste it!

"Just stop it! I want to save all these things, all the conversations, all the joking, all the inconsolable crying for when I get back to you for real! I want to go home! I want to go home to you, but this isn't fair to either of us!"

And, true to Arthur's memory of him, the projection of Eames edged closer and took him into his arms, as if Arthur wouldn't punch him in the throat and then run into the waves to get away.

And because no one could see him, no one was watching the brave traveler be confronted with the image of one so dear and so very lost, Arthur didn't fight for his freedom.

He allowed himself to be embraced; he let himself be snuggled against the still warm folds of Eames's shirt. He promised himself he wouldn't cry, but with the emotional upheavals he had been treated to- from his having crashed before the birth of Christ to his having landed in a future where the world would most assuredly burn- Arthur counted himself lucky that he was only a little misty eyed. He could cry later. He could cry much, much later.

"You don't understand," Arthur was whispering, just loud enough to be heard over the crashing waves. "I don't want to be with you here. I want to rescue you so that maybe someday you'll find me on this beach beside you again, in the waking world during summer."

The projection of Eames sighed and carefully petted Arthur's hair. "I know. I know because you know. It's hard being a shade, love. I'm only what you can't bring yourself to forget."

Arthur hummed and clung to him; tighter, in need of what small amount of comfort he could get from this. He knew it was a dream, he knew it was a dream, but would it be so bad for him to just relax for a moment?

"What do I do?" Arthur was asking. "What do I do?"

"You'll do exactly what has to be done, love. You'll do it with terrifying competence. You'll fix everything. And you'll bring me back." Arthur could almost hear the smile in his voice. "But you'll have to wake up first."

Arthur pulled away from Eames for a second, not so lost in the moment that he'd let that line slip his mind.

But before he could say anything he felt a hand on his shoulder and something hot spill down his shirt front. He forced himself further from Eames, not wanting him to get burnt, when he experienced a sensation similar to falling backwards.

Then he woke up.

He had leaned back in the chair. Arthur blinked his eyes open, registering the burning feeling against his chest, brushing away a pair of hands that were trying to blot the stains from his chest.

Now, more awake than ever, Arthur could see that it was George doing the blotting. George had been doing the blotting with a dirty rag because George had spilled soup on Arthur while the man slept. Well, at least Arthur was hoping that it was soup that George was holding away from the still prone point man, as if he were certain he'd accidentally spill some more.

Arthur reached for the worn cup that was more than half-full of the steaming something-or-other that smelled a lot like soup. Arthur was swallowing it down too quickly, but it was the first meal he'd had in what felt like centuries. He was happy it wasn't moss.

When he was finished swallowing down the hot soup he passed the cup back to the startled young man and asked, "How did we do on the toothbrush and bath situation?"

George nodded quickly and placed the empty cup on the mayor's old desk. He stuck a hand in one pocket and pulled a rolled up, almost empty tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush that seemed to be pretty new. He offered them to Arthur as if they were sacred, special things.

"My ma found the toothbrush still in the package. That's the last toothpaste we've got."

Arthur nodded gratefully, taking them and thinking of how wonderful it was going to be to brush his teeth.

"The bath?"

George shook his head. "We don't have enough water to fill a tub, but we can get you a small bucket and a clean cloth."

Arthur was trying very hard not to grab the empty cup and attempt to lick the inside for stray droplets of soup. To take his mind off of it he thought about his last attempt at bathing.

"The last time I bathed was before I left the cave. There was a storm and it rained for like ten or fifteen minutes- the water was warm, almost like a shower, and I stood under it for as long as I could. Carl didn't even try to bother me until the end. But, by that point I was ready to leave that time for good."

"Carl?" George asked, curious.

"Big, big fucking pterodactyl. Liked to try and kill me and make me into tasty point man bits."

"Oh," George said slowly. "That sounds terrible."

Arthur cleared his throat and waved the toothbrush and toothpaste at George.

"Can I get that bucket as soon as possible? I'd like to brush my teeth before I foul the water with mud, blood, and who-knows-what."

George did as he was asked.

He brought the bucket filled with water, the clean cloth, a small cake of soap, and, interestingly enough, a razor.

When Arthur made a comment, George shrugged. "My ma said you might like a shave."

After that, George had left to give him privacy, instructing him to leave his clothes outside the door so they could be seen to and replaced.

Arthur rubbed one hand against his bristly chin and cheeks, frowning to himself over how roguish and unkempt he must look. His second thought was that Eames would have loved to see him like this. His third thought was that he sort of already had.

But he had to stop thinking of the projection of Eames like that. He was a shade, a product of Arthur's stressed and lonely mind. He was just what he need at the moment, so he dreamed the man up.

It was that simple.

But it didn't change how he felt about his dream; even his projection's insistence that this might be a dream. Arthur frowned at that. It couldn't be, he still had his totem and was reassured that this was reality. It was terrifying and fantastic but it was still reality.

He had to put the thought out of his mind. He pressed one hand to his time machine and carefully unstrapped it from his arm. He left it on the desk, safe from the bucket of water, so he could try and make himself look a little more presentable.