A/N I do not own Inception or any of its characters. Constructive criticism welcome. The response thus far has been pretty encouraging I must say, thank you all for the story alerts and favourites.

'It's weak but steady,' said Yusuf

But Arthur was not listening.

'Cobb.' Arthur said in a constricted voice.

Ariadne turned away from Yusuf to see what had caught Arthur's attention, as did the rest. He had hiked up her skirt till knee length. All round both her shins, it was a myriad of brown, yellow, green and purple; numerous bruises at various stages of healing. It sickened her just to look at them, at the motley of colours and sheer number of them. On her left knee, there was a straight vertical line of four bruises. But just next to the line of bruises, there was a huge bruise. It was a sickly grey colour on the outer portion, and pink in the middle, with purple spots within the bruised area.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Ariadne could not help thinking it looked like how she imagined a dinosaur egg to look like. But not on a person. Definitely not on a person. It sickened her even more to look at it.

Looking around, she saw the shocked looks on the team members' faces. But on Arthur she saw an unmistakable anger.

Anger that blazed through his eyes and radiated from his very core outwards. There was a wild fire in his eyes, though his facial expression was one of impassivity.

The cold fury and the hot flames of outrage melded together to form an Arthur that did not seem human. It seemed to consume him utterly and fully, to create someone that was not Arthur. It created someone whose rage and fury knew no bounds, whose hate at that moment seemed to intensify by a million times. He seemed to have absorbed all the anger in the world, and have it burst out of his eyes in an amazing and utterly frightening magnitude. Such intensity of raw emotion, of anger, and hate seemed to dwarf all the times he had not shown any emotions. It made everyone else seem colourless.

Ariadne had thought she knew what it was like to be really frightened. But she now knew she had not. She flinched and backed away.

'Arthur.'

Cobb put his hand on Arthur's shoulder.

'It's not your fault.'

Arthur remained silent, fury still blazing through his eyes as he mutely stared at the bruises.

'It's most probably exhaustion Arthur,' continued Cobb.

'Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it is. Especially if all the rumours were true,' drawled Eames

'Here honey, take this.' Eames seemed to have suddenly conjured up a wet cloth, handing it to Arthur.

Arthur took it wordlessly, and gently wiped her forehead and face. At the coldness of the water, her eyes fluttered open slowly.

She tried to get up but Arthur pushed her down, his eyes still flashing but with less intensity than before, and a hint of gentleness.

'Athena don't get up. Please. You aren't steady enough for it yet,' he murmured.

She obeyed, lying back down and closing her eyes with a small sigh.

'Another person whose parents had an obsession with Greek gods?' wondered Ariadne to herself.

'Stop thinking about such unrelated stuff you idiot. It's just nerves. Just nerves. Someone just fainted, and here you are thinking about dinosaur eggs and Greek gods,' Ariadne chided herself.

After a short while the girl called Athena spoke again, her eyes still closed.

'You know what I'm here for Arthur, and what will happen if I don't get what I'm supposed to.'

Arthur nodded with an impassive face, but eyes still blazing.

'They hurt you Tena. They hurt you. You can't expect me to let you walk away, back to them and let them hurt you more.'

Her eyes flew open with a questioning look, and she glanced down at her legs, realizing that her skirt had been hiked up to her knees exposing her bruises.

'I don't think you actually thought about that when you left Arthur. You must have had very little qualms when it came to me. You knew the inevitable; you knew the consequences, not to you but to us. Some of those guys were our friends Arthur. Do you know how many heads in security rolled just because you ran? I'm lucky to still be alive at all, lucky that I was more indispensable than the rest. But it was never the same again Arthur.'

Arthur looked away.

'Left? Ran? Security?' all these terms swam in Ariadne's head, screaming to be explained. She looked around at the others hoping for some explanation or inspiration but they gave none. Yusuf suddenly thought his fingernails were very interesting, and Eames was examining the floor. Cobb's eyes were flitting between Arthur and the girl called Athena.

'I made a bargain Arthur,' she said after a pause

Arthur's head snapped back as he turned to look at her with a fearful look in his eyes.

'What bargain?' his voice rang out sharply.

She held his gaze and remained silent.

What bargain Athena? What bargain?' said Arthur in rising octaves, shaking her shoulders.

'Arthur…' said Cobb in a warning tone. Arthur composed himself, rearranging his features into his poker face that everyone knew so well and asked again in his calm voice.

'What bargain did you make?'

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