I missed him. Cobb had always known what to do in a tricky situation. He looked at every possibility on how to fix it, and when he chose his option, always followed through. No matter what the consequence. His absence was like an empty space, and his words of encouragement and wisdom that were respected more than anyone else's on the team, was gone too.

Which is why I needed him now. If we had walked into the warehouse together, like we had done before, he would not have let us stand there, our mouths agape. The warehouse was completely and totally trashed. Someone, or some people, broke in and knocked over every book and shelf, every desk and chair; Ariadne's models were strewn across the floor in a grey mess, glass was scattered in jagged points around the windows. I heard Ariadne's surprised intake of breath, and Eames' jaw lock.

"Who the fuck did this?" Eames shouted angrily. I stepped over the mess and dirt. My phone began to vibrate. The fourteen words on the LCD screen were enough to chill my bones and stop my breathing. Hope you liked our little present. You know what we want. Argos & E.

"Those stupid bastards." I whispered. A black rage was licking my throat like a bonfire, the urge to scream like a kid was even stronger. Those Russian shitheads. Ariadne grabbed my phone and read the message. Her face turned even paler than her usual porcelain complexity.

"Its those guys, isn't it? The guys who sent me that note." Her voice cracked a bit on note. I nodded. Eames groaned.

"That's just fuckin' super! The last thing we need now is those two dumbasses chasing us for little miss over there." He kicked at the rubbish. Ariadne sat on the only standing chair whilst I called the cleaning company. Her eyes looked huge in her oval face. She was the smallest twenty two year old woman he had ever been friends with. Not that he had, or even needed friends. They were friends though, right? Well sort of... New thought, new thought.

They were acquaintances.

A wave of tension rolled of Eames' shoulders and back. His mouth was set into a hard, angry line. I paced through the jumble of demolished rubbish. Luckily, I had brought my laptop with me, containing every move we would make on the DelCaptio extraction. We would have to move to wherever Antonia was staying. Honestly, it had come as quite a surprise that he had only been to Ireland to visit his kids. I didn't even know he had kids. Just shows you how much we know about our fucking mark. Now we would have to move because those stupid Russian pricks knew where we were located.

The cleaners arrived in record time, and said they'd have the whole lot cleared in two days. Thank god that was solved at least. But a new worry soon sprouted in its absence; they had probably already been in Ariadne's apartment. I walked over and sat down beside her. She looked drained from, what I could only guess was our sleuthing the other day.

"Ariadne, would you mind staying with either me or Eames for the time being? Until they leave." I spoke softly; her eyes never left that brick I'd seen her stare at hundreds of times. She only nodded. I patted her arm and left her to herself. She was young and innocent; there was no reason for her to be hurt.

"I'm going for a drive." I announced to the remaining two of our used-to-be five man team. Eames grunted and Ariadne nodded with sad eyes. The air was cool and crisp; the afternoon sun was just beginning to fade. I let the buttery air fill my lungs, and I felt an urge to go for a nice run. So I drove to my scarcely decorated apartment and threw on some shorts and a vest top. I was right; a run was exactly what I needed. It made me feel like I was just any old guy enjoying the remaining sun. Two hours later, I was back in a waistcoat and tie, driving back to the warehouse. My limbs felt unbelievably good; I'd sat in an airplane too many, and the exercise had unwound the tense muscles.

"Jesus, what sort of drive was that?" Eames demanded as I walked through the door.

"I needed a run." I answered simply, ignoring his eye roll. Ariadne smiled when I walked by her newly fixed desk. She was trying to organise the clutter that had already formed.

"Is it ok if I stay at your apartment?" when she spoke, her gaze flickered minutely but constantly, like she was still in her own little word.

"No problem." I half smiled and squeezed her shoulder. Thank lord I thought to get that spare bed. She returned to whatever the hell she was doing, and I helped the cleaning woman reassemble my desk.

By the time we left, the sky was an inky black. I helped Ariadne gather her belongings from her cosy apartment. Like I'd predicted, a note with a telephone number lay open on her desk, which I felt like spitting on. Poor Ariadne was a tad flustered at the thought of a complete stranger in her room. I couldn't blame her.

She walked into my dull home that was as impeccably tidy as a new building, even though I'd had the place for almost three years. She was asleep before her head had hit the pillow. Her mouth puckered ever so softly as she slept. I wasn't peeping at her of course, just checking to see if she was alright.

My brain felt like scrambled eggs as I climbed into my own bed. I, too, was asleep faster than my usual self. I normally read a book or pondered over something, but I was too tired to think.

The weight of the stress of the job and Cobb's absence piled behind my eyelids, until all I could do was close them and welcome the natural way of resting, not the artificial liquid we put into our veins to create a different world.