A Closed Circle

Chapter 10

For a Few Friends More

He woke with his head tucked under her chin and his hand clasped over her hip. Her own arms were wrapped around him. Closing over his elbow. He felt better than he had in ages. The tension and stress that had been coiling and near to breaking the night before had loosened and relaxed.

If she smelled less like smoke it would have been a perfect morning. Unfortunately the spicy smell of burned wood clung to her hair and sank into the exposed skin around her face and neck and hands. It reminded him of what was actually going on and thrust him from the gentle haziness of waking up inside her tight embrace into the sharp focus of the job. And the threats that went with it.

"This isn't going to be awkward, is it?" were her first words to him as he woke.

He smiled and tasted her sleep-warmed skin. "Not if we don't want it to be." He let his mouth find its way up her throat and to her lips.

"I smell like something burning," she told him when he broke away, "and you smell like something worse. How about you take the first shower?"

"More efficient together," he wasn't smiling. Not really.

She wasn't smiling either, but humor and pleasure glowed in her eyes and in the softness of her cheeks. "Something tells me it wouldn't be."

"Never know until we try."

It was better not to give her the option. He pulled her off the bed with him and dragged her – and her superficial, chuckling struggles – into the close confines of an alarmingly … um … 'vintage', en suite bath.

Still, she was adamant about showering on her own. Without kicking him out, though. He enjoyed the view, but in the end it only drove him into wanting to be in that shower with her even more. Only made it worse.

She attempted to distract him by asking how things went down with Collin. Seeming genuinely interested in his broken/stilted answers. The smiles she flashed him from under the steady stream of water proved she didn't actually believe her distraction was working.

Or that she even wanted it to.

Which revelation distracted him completely. Changing the few thoughts he had of 'Daniel' – who he still wished he could kill again for touching her – to focus on her. In a moment he was freed of the oppressive, tropical boxers and standing in front of her. Taking her place under the water. Cupping his hands around her shoulders. Without clinching. Without forcing.

"Tell me to get out."

"Why would I do that?" she asked, pushing wet hair over he shoulder. Away from her face. Exposing her breasts.

"I can't think of a single reason," he told her. Then, since her eyes and body radiated eagerness without the slightest hint of reservation, he bent to drink the water rolling down her stomach.

Pushing. Clasping her hip. Reaching up to rub his palm and brush his fingers over the hills and valleys of her skin.

He had marveled at her quiet control the night before. (More like early morning, if he felt the need to be perfectly accurate. And he did.) That noiseless intensity. Better even than his, and he considered himself to be a very controlled person.

He'd heard her yell in anger before. Anger, frustration. Maybe fear. But in bed ('bed' being relative), she was given to gasps and delicate moans.

He came up, pressing his body fulling against hers. Trapping her between tile and him.

"You have a thing for walls, don't you?"

"I wouldn't say that," he answered, somehow managing words. "My arms still hurt. Hard to hold myself up in a bed."

"Then I'd think you'd do better on your back."

"But we'd get the bed wet," he told her, voice growling over one of those words more that the others. "And it's not our bed."

"That didn't seem to be a problem last night."

He smiled at her, "This morning."

"You get my point."

Well that didn't require an answer. He bit her ear and lifted her. His knee for leverage. His torso for stability. His hands to position her hips.

The good thing about showers, was how convenient it made cleaning up.

His shower was quicker than hers. She had more hair, which translated to more work. He might have offered to stay and help, but then probably there would be repetition … and it would spiral into a never-ending loop.

While she was washing conditioner from her hair, he slipped out of the bathroom to find Eames.

Surely the man owned some form of clothing that wouldn't offend his sensibilities. Outside of being simply revolting, distinctive clothing tended to be a liability in their business.

Eames was waiting for him in the main room downstairs. Reading (or pretending to read) a newspaper.

Eames took his time turning his attention away from the paper and towards him. A good two minutes. At least. The cockeyed smirk that stretched across his face played somewhere between sarcasm and what very well might have been genuine enjoyment.

"Why, Arthur," the bastard said, feigning surprise, "I didn't expect you to come down so soon."

"I could have come sooner, but I figured – after last night – I might as well take my time."

The smirk changed into a truly satisfied grin. "This, I do believe, is the first time you've ever taken my advice."

"Even you can have a good idea," Arthur rocked back on his heels and heard the water finally cut off upstairs.

"A cunt to the bitter end, I see."

"Not at all," Arthur maintained a neutral expression. "Quite the opposite."

This time Eames let out his laughter just as she came down the stairs. Towel wrapped around her hair and wonder dancing across her features.

"Don't tell me … you two are actually getting along?"

"With this paradigm of fecklessness?"

"With this," Eames mimicked while standing and making his way to the kitchen, "paradigm of stoicism."

She laughed and followed him to get food.

After eating, the three of them drove by her flat. It was in less than perfect shape. To understate, drastically, the situation. She compressed her lips when she saw. But in less time than he thought (or maybe feared), she sighed and turned to them.

"I have to show up. It will be obvious that someone was staying there. My name's not on the deed, not my real name, but I'm sure the fire didn't completely erase my presence. And it shouldn't take the fire department long to determine how it started. That alone will raise suspicions."

"Bombs in the alarms," Arthur agreed.

Eames didn't look away from the blackened building. "You used your own passport to visit?"

"Yes. I was coming for work, so it seemed best."

"There's an idea you should get over. I'm surprised Saito has let you get away with it."

She shrugged. "It's no secret that I represent a portion of his business interests. That he invested in my first building, and continues to work with me on retainer." She followed Eames' eyes to her temporary home before quickly turning away. "Odder if I stayed in one place. And not good if I were caught here during work without any proof that I arrived."

"Good reasoning," he said, backing her up to Eames.

Who snorted, "Well of course you would agree, Arthur."

She blinked as if surprised. "Arthur's your real name?"

"Yeah. I started straight. So did Cobb. We were … are … known by our real names. It would be harder to get work if we used pseudonyms. Though," Arthur felt it necessary to add, "few people knew Cobb's first name, and I never use my legal surname."

"Not even in the beginning?"

"When I was with the military, of course," an old woman was walking down the way-too-cold-to-walk street and gawking at the destruction. Some people liked to do that sort of thing. "I was legal back then, but when I left that side of the business, I left certain things behind."

"Like your last name."

"And family. Friends. Only at first," he told her when her eyes began to cloud with gloom. "Almost no one is still looking for me. And I'm much better at navigating the safe routes home. I make a stop there once every year or two."

"Last time you went?"

"Two January's ago. Good to fly just after the holidays. Still lots of people going home and that sort of thing. TSA officials are exhausted, and, with the holidays over, not on high alert. Unless an actual threat has been made."

Someone – a civilian – exited the building. Not wanting anyone to recognize her, Eames drove away. She wasn't incorrect in her need to contact the authorities. While they drove to the airport, they considered various stories and explications.

Her hand prints would be on the window seal and emergency stairs. So would his. And they would be checked. With the fire caused by a bomb, police would be obligated to conduct a full investigation. So they needed to come up with an adequate reason for her running and not sticking around for help. Not calling for help in the first place.

First idea? Didn't know what else to do. Scared. Freaked out.

Second idea? Fear based on a simple truth: she had been contacted. A threat had been made against her life, the lives of others she was obligated to, and her business.

More than likely the authorities would assume there was some sort of organized crime connection, and the investigation would eventually go cold.

Idea two might be giving away more information than they were comfortable with, but at the same time it was something that made a lot of sense. It explained her reaction completely. But … it would mean the authorities would want her on hand to answer questions and follow her movements more closely.

No option they came up with was perfect, and only door number two fit well enough to be truly acceptable. So they went to pick up Yusuf before they arranged for a drive by of the London police. They'd drop her off and leave. Arthur needed to quietly disappear from notice. There would obviously be traces of him in the place – he had a gun in one of his bags – but there was only so much he could do, and getting taken in by the cops wasn't part of that so much.

The airport was crowded. At least the lot was. None of them went inside. Some of it was so they wouldn't be tagged as a unit. Most of it was to avoid further contact with the authorities. Again, especially for him. And Eames. Eames still had to be cautious.

So they waited for Yusuf and his daughter in the lot. Waiting for a call to Eames' drop phone. Inwardly, Arthur had come to a very clear conclusion that Eames should have done the pickup alone while he took her to the police station, but what was done was done. They had all wanted to see the remains of the flat. They all wanted to be on hand for Yusuf's arrival.

Waiting for everything to be ready. For them to be together and to get the job done. To clean up the hell-storm that surrounded them. Because with the fire and his getting snatched …

Things were getting serious.

Author's Note: Freaking short chapter. Last few weeks of the term were a crazy lot of work, grading took forever. Now that I'm done with two weeks off I thought I could catch up, but I spent the whole week starring at a blank Open Office Writer page. Ugh. I'm disgusted with myself.

Sorry about this.