"Eames?" she asks frantically—as soon as she's lucid and dealing with the pain enough to fall back down into reality.
(she could honestly use the morphine but she needs to hear this as herself and she doesn't trust the drugs to spare her memory)
"Off the grid, for now," Arthur leans forward, elbows on his knees, and the line between his eyebrows deepens. "He took out the one who attacked you."
Ariadne swallows. "Is he safe? Does he know—?" Arthur nods and she releases a breath she hadn't known she was holding (she swallows again to choke back tears of relief that well up and clog her throat and make her face throb with heat). "Who was he? The gunman?"
"Russian. Some kind of bodyguard, we think. He had no ID other than a card with his photo and employer."
"And the Mark?" Arthur hesitates for a second, and Ariadne picks at a loose thread on the hospital blanket. Dread settles in her gut.
(they can't afford to botch another job and failure sits heavy on her shoulders)
"Saito is taking care of it."
"Saito?" she hisses and instantly regrets it; her stitches protest and send flares of pain lancing through her at the pressure in her lungs.
A wry, mirthless smile angles across his lips. "He said he's returning the favor." He rubs her cold hand between both of his own. "Besides, you're valuable. To far more than just me."
(useful, she'll give them, but not much farther than that—at least, not anymore, but she hates the obsidian-glass edges in his eyes and would rather have him smile than ponder all the ways she's fallen short)
"Hey," she says, and runs her fingers over the back of his right shoulder. They come to rest on the ridges of old scar tissue there. "We match now."