Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. Reviews are not only accepted and encouraged but really positive ego buffers.
To anyone still reading this story and still reviewing, please please pretty f-ing please tell me what you think might be missing. I feel this is dying down.

The cold light emitted on the warm surface of her skin. The pistol balanced his good and evil deeds. The cold metal was pressed hard against her skin. He felt himself pull the trigger. This was the pain, the agony, the guilt, the incessant melancholia that came with killing the person you love more than anything. She looked at him with wide, innocent eyes and at the same time he caressed her soft hair, he pulled the trigger again. This time, the bullet shoots into her chest and right through her heart. He catches her before she falls simply because that is all he can find the energy to do. He holds her, her blood seeping through her clothes onto his and kisses her as if she were still there. Then he drops the gun and looks for the one responsible.

This was what he felt every single day of his life.

He warned himself not to get involved because he knew he was going to. He told himself not to fall in love because he already was. And he told himself not to hurt them because he had already let them die. Now, his hands shake. His heart is uneasy, skipping over some beats while doubling up on others. His breathing is unsteady, every time he inhales, he shakes violently and every time he exhales, he feels as if he has to catch his breath. His vision is blurring, not because he's been afflicted with blindness, even though he has in the psychological sense, but because he can no longer hold in the flood gate of tears. Since the funeral, he thought he couldn't cry. But the truth was that he convinced himself that he was done with it. When in reality the feeling of being overwhelmed was to such a high degree that he checked himself out.

It was as if this entire time, he was on vacation from his body. A vacation of self torment. A vacation of dwelling on mountains of losses. A vacation of Hell. On this vacation, his vessel was allowed to walk freely and do as it pleased. Luckily, it was alone and wasn't at all jolted awake by the harsh realities. Eames ruined all of that. He not only pulled him from his safe haven of despair and self pity, but he awakened him to the truth. He opened his eyes again. He forced the soul back into the vessel. And now the vessel was weak. Weakened by the truth, weakened by anguish, weakened by everything.

Arthur looked up at Eames, as if he were looking at him for the first time since the last time. And he hated him.
"Why are you here?"

Eames, ever the mind reader, treaded carefully towards Arthur before taking a seat on the floor, leaning up against the bed. "Cobb was calling me. He told me things about you and I thought that I should find you. And help you."

"Are you here to convince me to stand back?" Arthur wanted to say more. He wanted to scream at the older man for walking into the middle of his self destruction. He wanted to tell him to get out of his life. But, for the moment, all he could do was lie there and try to appease his feral curiosity.

"No, I'm not." Eames stared at Arthur a moment longer before continuing in a downtrodden voice. "I really did go through all of this to find you and help you in your quest to shed blood. I wanted to make sure we got the bastards. I wanted to make sure you didn't kill yourself doing it."

There were so many things he could point out at this moment, but he settled on one. "You weren't even at the funeral. You don't care about them. You're as good as the LAPD. I wonder why she even called you a friend."

Eames shrugged. "I always wondered why she called a complete arse like you a lover. A friend. A husband."

"I'm dealing with my debt to her. I wasn't any of those things and I understand that but I was there and I tried to help. And she…she really thought of you like you were her best friend in the entire world, like you were her brother. And you couldn't even go to the damn funeral."

"I tried," Eames retorted sharply. "I really did want to come-"

"You could have!"

"But I figured," Eames continues as if Arthur hadn't interrupted him. "If they were after you, they were after me and I couldn't just leave my family defenseless."

Eames doesn't mean for the last part to come out but it does: "Not like you did."

That stung. It stung like alcohol. It stung so badly that it almost felt good. "You can leave then. You can go back to your wife and your son. You don't have to worry about me; I'm fine."

"I know how happy she made you," Eames is at risk here and he knows it but he doesn't want to tread softly any longer. "I knew it whenever you looked at her. You saw a future for the first time and for the first time in a long time, it was bright. Arthur, you can try to pretend it doesn't affect any more but here's the thing: I just saw exactly how bad an affect it has had and I knew you when she was here."

Arthur just stares. He's done warning him. He's actually here. And he wants to hear this.

"I saw you when she was here; we all did. You have never been happier, more exuberant. And you never will be."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that if you're sure you want to continue this, fine. But just know that nothing and I mean nothing will change."

"I'm not suspecting that there will be any change, I never was. But I am suspecting that no one here," Arthur throws his hand up for a second to suggest that 'here' was another place. "Gets out alive."

Arthur stands to his feet, unbuttoning his cuffs.

"You do know that, right?" Eames asks warily. To Arthur's nod, he asks why.

"Because I want to know, if not for me, why did someone decide to kill them. If they wanted me dead, they'd still be tailing me. If they wanted me dead, they would not have left pictures in my car. If they wanted me dead, they wouldn't have timed it all so aesthetically perfectly that I would have been suspected by the cops. She was a target. And I have to make her problems mine. I have to break some deserving teeth."

"What are you doing?"

"The problem is that I've been sitting inside, in the shadows, trying to find reasons when what I really need to do is get dirty. I'm going in."

"Going in where?"

"Rothko."