A/N: A super extra special thanks to NikkitaIronBlade.94 and FreedomIsNotFree996 for really kicking my butt into gear on this story, this is for you guys ;)

Enjoy!

PS: And just to let you know, I do plan on having the rest of this story be in 3rd person omnciscent, I'm trying to steer away from Ariadne and focus more on Cobb and Eames and their brother/fatherly relationship with Arthur.

Chapter 4: Level One

Ariadne found herself standing in the middle of an intersection, gasping in fright before she realized there were no cars anywhere. She looked around, discovering that she was in a city, much like what she had seen of Chicago. However, as far as she could see, there were no cars on the streets anywhere; there were no people, no birds, nothing. It was like the city had been evacuated.

"Cobb? Eames?" She called out nervously, nothing. She took a light step forward, acting as if the pavement would crumble if she stepped too hard. She reached for her gun, taking it out just to be safe. She continued walking down the middle of the road, past the abandoned shops and business. Ariadne felt like she was in a post-apocalypse movie as she scanned around her, looking for whomever, or whatever was lurking around in the silent city.

As she took another step forward something burst out from the street. She screamed, falling backwards as a ladder spiraled up from the street and into one of the buildings.

'What in the world...?' she wondered, staring at the twisting ladder woven into the exterior of a glass business office. 'Might as well,' she concluded, putting away her gun as she began to scale the ladder, wondering how complex Arthur's mind really was.

She broke through the window into the building and was met with a soft groan. Looking down she saw Eames lying on the floor, his face scrunched up in pain.

"Oh my gosh! Eames, are you alright?" Ariadne cried, kneeling down beside him.

"Just dandy, sweetheart," Came a reply through gritted teeth.

"What happened?"

"Oh nothing; just fell off a Penrose staircase, that's all," Eames groaned. "I should have expected it I suppose, Arthur was always one for the paradoxes." Eames looked up, Ariadne following his glance as she saw the staircase abruptly ending about eight feet about their heads.

"You're sure you're alright?" Ariadne asked again as the forger began to stand up, stretching his back.

"Yes, I'll be fine. Let's just fine Cobb, shall we?" He gave her his classic sarcastic-humorous grin as he when out of the broken window, sliding down the ladder.

Ariadne followed, her curiosity growing as they walked down abandoned street after abandoned street.

"Where is everyone? Where are the projections?" She asked.

"The projections, if you remember darling, are manifestations of Arthur's subconscious. Right now, Demetri is screwing with that subconscious. So either he's already managed to kill every single projection on this level, or he's down deeper and the projections are going down to try and save Arthur's mind. Unfortunately I think it's the second one." Eames looked up at the buildings, sorrow crossing his face.

Ariadne stared out after him, wondering how Eames and Cobb were taking this. Ariadne felt horrible, and she had only known Arthur for a few months. She got the impression that the other guys had known each other for years and years, maybe even went to school together. She thought of her own friends back home, if something ever happened to them... she was hit with an unexpected sense of homesickness as she realized she hadn't been home in a long time. She loved the job, but she had yet to fill the 'break-ties-with-everyone-you-know' part of what almost seemed like a job requirement.

She was broken out of her thoughts by the sound of Eames quickly sliding down the ladder, and Ariadne had to rush down and run to keep up with the man. He ran down the streets, shout Cobb and Arthur's name as loud as he could, clearly not worried about projections or traps. After they had been running for a good three minutes they finally heard the sound of another voice. They ran down a couple more blocks and, to their immense relief, there stood Cobb. He had his back towards them, scanning the streets.

"COBB!" Eames yelled, causing Cobb to snap his head in their direction. Neither Eames nor Ariadne missed the sigh of relief Cobb also gave as they met each other in the abandoned street.

"Have you guys seen anyone?" Cobb asked, panting slightly.

"Nope," Eames panted, his breath coming out in ragged gasps, "Not a single bloody soul in this whole damn level. This is bad... real bad. We need to find someone, otherwise... otherwise we can't move down a level."

"Well why not?" Ariadne asked defiantly.

"Because, darling, you need a subject to go down a level as we told you your very first day... no people, no digging deeper..." Eames finally began to get his breath back as he stood up straight, stretching out his back with a groan, "I really need to get into shape."

"What we need to do is find a place that Arthur knows; someplace in anyway related to him. We may be able to find a straggled projection there and knock them out," Cobb stated carefully, the gears in his head beginning to turn. Eames started to look around, glancing down streets when he did a double-take down one of the alleys.

"What a minute! I know that house! That the home Arthur grew up in as a child!" Eames exclaimed, pointing to a normal-looking white house; well, it would have looked normal if it weren't squished between two skyscrapers.

"Eames, how do you know that's his childhood home?" Cobb asked, partially because he was wary of any traps, but also because he had never heard Arthur even talk about his family.

"I came with Arthur a few months ago for his father's funeral. He said that his father was a real kind man, and I felt bad for the bloke." Eames explained as he opened the gate to the small house, the squeaking of un-oiled hinges seeming even louder as it repeated down the street. The three warily entered the house, looking around every corner for projections or Arthur. The house had definitely seen better days; the yellow wallpaper was coming off of the walls, the furniture was broken, several pictures hanging from the wall were cracked, and the flowers were all long-since dead.

"Arthur? You here, old boy?" Eames whispered in a hushed tone. No response. The team came to a set of old wooden steps that each member tested their weight on before advancing up. There was a long, very ominous hallway with a few doors on each side, the biggest door lying at the very end. Cobb went to the front of the line as they heard a commotion going on behind it. There were sounds of things breaking, someone yelling in anger, and a very small voice responding. There also seemed to be someone crying in the background. Cobb held up his gun, sliding down the hall as stealthily as a cat; Eames followed close behind. As they approached the enormous wooden door, they could barely make out the dialogue behind it,

"Please, Bruce. Don't do this!"

"Stay out of it, Elaine!"

"He's your son!"

"He's a coward!"

Another crash came and Cobb decided that the context they had gotten was enough as he kicked down the door, revealing an office in shambles. There was a small, mousey woman in the corner, her cheeks stained with tears; a large, robust man in the center of the room, and a small boy that was lying motionless in a heap of papers, amongst bits of splintered wood from an armoire that had shelves broken and doors off its hinges. Cobb shot the man in the head while Eames went to help the lady and Ariadne rushed over to the child, who was bleeding from his head and lip.

"It's alright ma'am, everything's over now," Eames comforted the woman, even though he knew she wasn't real,

"Please, my baby, my Arthur! Where is he?" She asked hysterically.

"Your-your what?" Eames stared at her; confusion, dread, and then slowly anger rushing through his mind.

"Eames! Cobb! Get over here!" Ariadne screamed as she helped the boy stand up. Eames left the woman and Cobb left the dead man to stand over them. "Look!" Ariadne exclaimed,

The little boy, no more than eight or nine, looked up at them with tears in his eyes. His lip was swollen and there were already bruises forming on his face, but his eyes... those brown eyes... Cobb would recognize those eyes anywhere.

"Arthur!" He yelled, his fears being confirmed as the little boy flinched from his loud voice.

"Please don't hurt me daddy, please! I'll be good, I'll be brave just like you want me to, just don't hurt me!" Cobb turned around, tears forming in his eyes. Eames stared at the child for a few moments before his hands clenched into fists.

"That son of a bitch!" He yelled, "Why didn't the bloke ever say-? How could we-? He went to the man's funeral for God's sake!" Eames' anger was building and Cobb tried to calm him down before he did something really stupid.

He put a hand on the fuming man's shoulder, "Eames, Eames! Listen to me! There's nothing we can do, you hear me? Nothing! Just focus, alright? We need to get Arthur back, now! There's nothing we can do!" Cobb stared Eames down, trying to reach the man with his eyes if his words failed. Slowly the wrath that was Eames began to fade as he returned his attention to the small child who was still being embraced by Ariadne.

"Cobb, do you think we could use him to go down a level? I mean, technically he is Arthur..." Ariadne proposed, trying to console little Arthur by running a hand over his head. Cobb stared at the boy, his paternal instincts growing even more than they usually did for the young boy, even if he was just a projection, a memory.

"It should, we'll just have to see," Cobb said softly, looking up at Eames. Eames rolled his eyes; he hated being the person to do this.

"Hey there little fellow, I'm going to give you some candy, alright? But the trick is you can't chew them, okay?" Eames got down on one knee in front of the kid, pulling out two small blue pills. The boy looked at him with a piercing gaze (which was pretty impressive for someone with brown eyes) before nodding his head and taking the pills. He swallowed them easier than Eames would have thought and before long he was asleep in Ariadne's arms.

"How long should he be out for?" She asked,

"Beats me, Yusuf gave them to me," Eames replied bluntly, pulling a PASIV device out of literally nowhere and setting it up in the shambled room.

"Is he going to be alright?"

"Of course, he's a projection, he's not real."

"But, but Arthur? Is he going to be alright?"

Eames sighed, looking Ariadne straight in the eyes, "I don't know, love, I really don't. I've never had to deal with this before. But I hope so; I hope to God he's alright." Eames glanced down at the boy again, Ariadne didn't miss the glisten in his eyes growing.

"Cobb? Where'd you go old chap?" Eames called. Cobb came back into the room, polishing his gun.

"Sorry, I had to take care of the other projection," he murmured. Ariadne looked up at him in horror,

"Dom! That was his mother!" she cried.

"It was a projection, she wasn't real!"

"Right, because you're the expert on that sort of thing." Cobb's eyes flashed.

"Oi!" Eames growled, "I know this is tough on all of us but we really don't need to be fighting now. Cobb was just being thorough because if even one projection is left unguarded while we're under they can call as many projections as they need and we'd be completely defenseless. Now come on, we don't have much time."

Ariadne huffed, sending a scowl at Cobb before hooking herself up to the PASIV device.

After she was under, Eames looked at Cobb with concern, "Hey, you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I shouldn't have told her what I was doing. I just need to give her more time. Let's go get Arthur," Cobb gave the forger a smirk and the two of them hastily connected themselves and sank into the second level.

A/N: The next chapter is where a lot of the hurt/comfort and angst is going to start back up, be ready! You guys are truly the best for putting up with me, I love all of you! Please review and thank you SO SO much for reading! IYD24