Disclaimer: As always we'll own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in.

More To Learn

As per usual Eames did his walk through of the main floor and then headed up to bed after making sure that everything was in order. Heading into their bedroom Eames took immediate notice of the fact that Arthur was wearing a T-shirt, which meant that the man was wearing boxers, which normally indicated that the other man was angry with him. Arthur knew he preferred him naked and hated having clothing separating them when they were in bed together. Searching his mind for something he'd done Eames undressed, shooting considering looks at his man who seemed content to stroke Pippin while Merry crawled around the bed.

Naked, Eames slid under the covers and shifted over to lie on his side, looking at the other man questioningly. "So what did I do?"

"Is that a guilty conscience speaking?"

"You're wearing clothes. I must have done something wrong tonight."

Amusement plain on his face Arthur lightly tossed Pippin down to the end of the bed and then shifted so that he was lying on his side as well, moving in closer so that their noses were practically touching. "I told you that if you wanted to discuss my step father we would. I didn't want you to think I was distracting you by snuggling up to you naked."

"Hmmm." Brushing his lips against the other man's Eames appreciated the thought, even as he didn't appreciate the fact that he had to slide a hand under the man's shirt to stroke his lover's back. "I like naked discussions."

"I know you do."

But this was a serious discussion so Eames contented himself with stroking the man's back as he spoke. "I can't go and warn him off myself because you're supposed to be dead. If I kill him that draws unnecessary attention to us, and if you wanted him dead you'd have done it yourself years ago. It pisses me off that he'll get what he wants when he gets the news that you're dead, but he'll lose the company according to you and everyone will know it was his fault. That he couldn't do what you could have. So we leave him alone unless he doesn't buy you being dead. If your step hires someone separately to come after you I'm taking him down. I'll leave him alive, but he won't be physically up to doing anything but vegetate after I'm done with him. Deal?"

Arthur considered and then nodded his head in agreement. "Deal."

"That was easy. Why are you giving in so easily?"

Not taking offence, Arthur brushed his lips against the forger's again. "I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. This is important to you, so I'm trying to put my male pride on the back burner. Don't expect me to make a habit of it." He added, warning in his voice.

"So you not telling me about your past is all about not wounding your poor male pride?" Eames said slowly, his disbelief written all over his skeptical face.

"It's one of the reasons." Arthur returned, reaching out to run his thumb across the forger's bottom lip. "You haven't exactly given me a list of all the people who want you dead either. And don't say I know them all already, because while I do you've never asked me to confirm that. We're secretive people, you and I. Our past professions made that necessary. And I've always been a private person. I don't come running to you ever time my past comes back to haunt me…and neither do you. We're both alpha males."

The point man's words were hard to argue with. He didn't like them, but they were true enough. So Eames decided to go with their various game plans, let the past sleep for the night, and get cozy with him man instead. Sliding an arm under Arthur Eames wrapped his arms around the other man and rolled over so that the point man was lying on top of him. "Would you feel better about spilling your guts if I let you take top position more often?"

"Since when do I need your help to dominate you?" Crossing his arms in front of him the point man grasped his hem and jerked his shirt up and over his head, tossing it to the floor before leaning down to capture the forger's lips with him own.

)

As planned Eames sent off the information Arthur put together to convince Dutch of his target's untimely demise. The point man's step father wasn't mentioned again, and both men hoped that Arthur's past wouldn't be coming back to bite them both anytime soon. And everything was looking good until a little over a week after the packet of information was sent to Dutch.

It was midway through the day when Eames was hailed over his earpiece, one of his men informing him that there was a woman at the front desk asking to see Arthur. When he'd first learned about the trouble possibly coming his lover's way he'd given the order that he was to be notified anytime anyone asked for his man specifically. He'd forgotten to rescind that order, which, his gut was now telling, was a good thing.

Informing the other man that he was on his way Eames made his way through the crowds with a predator's grace and focus.

Spotting the lone woman waiting by the front desk Eames could definitely picture her as a hired assassin. Most straight guys would probably line up to be killed if it meant she was the last thing they saw before they died. She actually sorta resembled the blonde bombshell he'd sometimes used as a distraction in dream jobs. Except for the clothes. His female version had much better taste in clothes, Eames thought after a thorough, head to toe study. What she was wearing was just too…perfect. Everything just so. Way too pressed and planned for his tastes.

Obviously sensing his gaze the woman turned and looked in his direction, studying him back for a moment before turning to say something to his man at the desk. Then she was walking towards him with a take charge stride that said to the forger that this was a woman who got things done and bulldozed over everyone that got in her way.

When she came to a stop in front of him the blonde held out her hand, her grip soft but firm. "It's Mr. Eames, isn't it?" The woman asked with a politely curious look on her face, though Eames sensed he was being measured and carefully evaluated.

"It is. And you are?"

"I'm Felicia Ledger." A small smile teased the blonde's pink lips when he didn't react to her words. "And that name means nothing to you, am I right?"

Eames did not like the look of that smile one little bit. "Should I know you?"

There was a gleam in the woman's blue eyes as she moved her shoulders in a faint shrug. "I thought you would. But then again, perhaps I'm wrong about you and your relationship with the man I came here to see. I asked for him specifically but the man at the desk called you instead of Artie. Are you his bodyguard as well as partner?"

"Artie?"

She laughed at his tone and expression. "Arthur. He and I were hated rivals when we were younger, and I called him that and a number of other hated nicknames to annoy him. Since I was a girl he had to let me get away with it you see. Had I been born a man I would imagine he would have punched me out for it long ago."

So she was someone from Arthur's past. Someone who was being very upfront about the fact that she didn't like his point man one little bit. Unfortunately his idiot of a lover hadn't mentioned this woman to him before so Eames had no idea just how much of a problem the woman was going to be and why she had come, or why Arthur was important enough to have come all this way to see.

Or how she'd found Arthur in the first place when no one else had been able to.

"So just why were you and Arthur hated rivals?" Eames asked casually as possibilities ran through his busy mind, more information needed. "What were you fighting over?"

"A man." Was her simple, direct response. "But you obviously don't know a thing about him either, since my last name would have tipped you off as to who I was if Arthur had told you about Michael."

Oh yeah, he definitely wasn't going to like this woman. But Eames couldn't help it, the bait she'd thrown out was just too tempting for him not to bite. He knew even less about Arthur's love life before him then he had the point man's family. "So you won the man in the end?"

"Only in a roundabout way." And now a hint of brittleness came into the woman's cultured voice. "Arthur never really considered me his rival because he knew that Michael loved him. The man always was a romantic, and back then at least he believed that love really did trump everything else, even in our world. But I didn't steal Michael from your man, my husband simply chose money over Arthur when my father in law made it clear that Michael would be cut off financially if he didn't leave Arthur and marry me. Stupid really, since anyone who knew Arthur knew that he could easily support himself and Michael once he'd recovered from being kicked out of HIS family for choosing love over money…but Michael wasn't smart enough to realize that until it was too late. So he married me. We have two children…and I think he showers more love and affection on the ugly dog Arthur gave him for his birthday the year they split up."

"Ouch." And the ouch was as much for himself and Arthur as it was for the woman. The idea of Arthur loving another man hurt him like hell, to a degree that had Eames calling on most of his self control to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. But he'd spent too much time in the military and underworld to not know how to compartmentalize his pain until it was safe to deal with and analyze.

He was not looking forward to later.

Being thrown over for money had to have hurt Arthur like hell too, Eames thought as he continued to study the woman before him. The woman who had gotten what she wanted only to discover that she'd gotten the raw end of the deal in the end.

And though it was small, stupid and petty of him….Eames couldn't help but be pissed that Arthur had gotten this Michael guy the dog Arthur had said HE couldn't have.

Both heard the sound of familiar footsteps then, the two turning their heads to watch Arthur coming towards them looking both together and completely remote. Like no emotion had ever entered those eyes or been felt in his heart.

The man looked cold and unconquerable.

Pulling herself together first Felicia wiggled her fingers in the point man's direction. "Hello, Artie. Long time, no see."

"The pleasure, no doubt, will as always be yours, Felicia. What are you doing here and how did you find me?"

"I came here to talk to you and your Mr. Eames. I assume you have an office where we can talk?"

"Follow me."

)

The three rode up the elevator to Arthur's office in silence, Eames standing at his man's side in a united front. He didn't think that the woman had come to hurt Arthur or see that he was forced back into the family he hated. She'd want Arthur as far away from her beloved Michael as possible, Eames thought darkly, fighting back the urge to put his hands on the point man to make his claim known. They couldn't know how much she knew about him and his relationship with Arthur, though he got the sense that she was aware that they were lovers.

Once they arrived at the office Arthur motioned for Felicia to take a seat while he walked around his desk to take his seat, Eames moving to stand on the man's left side, prepared to defend his lover if necessary.

"Your taste in men has seriously changed, Artie."

Arthur's face revealed nothing as he answered her. "For the better. Yours didn't."

"Ohh, so cold. You've changed…for the better perhaps." The blonde acknowledged with a slight nod. "And I might as well begin by stating the obvious. I'm not here to turn you over to your grandfather or any of the goons he's no doubt hired to try and find you. I wasn't going to come at all but my…pride and curiosity got the best of me I suppose."

"How did you know where to find me in the first place?"

Now Felicia's lips curved into a real smile. "As you know the only thing I have resembling a profession is my charity work. I was visiting a retirement home a few days ago, one of my foundations is providing them with a new recreation center. There was a mural of photographs hanging up on one of the bulletin boards, pictures taken recently at a trip to Los Vegas. I almost didn't recognize you. I couldn't be sure what I saw in the picture was real though. I just had to come see with my own eyes."

This was one of the few times it wasn't good to be right, Arthur thought as he folded his hands in front of him. He'd always known that the one way he could be found was if someone took an image of him that fell into the wrong hands. Plastic surgery had never been an option in his mind because he refused to change his face, erase those genetic markers his father had left him for the sake of a little more insurance against detection. He'd long ago decided that he'd rather be found.

"Why would your pride demand you come?" Eames asked while Arthur contemplated her possible angles. He too had known that Arthur's refusal to change his name or his appearance in any big way could be the other man's undoing, but understood why his lover had held onto them.

Felicia crossed her legs in front of her. "Because as small and pathetic as Michael is he's gotten by all this time by telling himself that Arthur has to be more miserable than he is. And I thought that he'd be right to think so given that your man has more emotionally depth than Michael and I put together. Then I saw the picture of the two of you and knew that that wasn't the case. I won't tell Michael he's wrong, it's enough for me to see you two together and know that you're completely over him and happy here. You always were the best of the three of us, Artie. Though once we're out of this room I'll deny I said that until my dying breath."

"You were worried I'd come back and take him from you?" Arthur asked, genuinely curious. One thing Felicia Browning Ledger had always had in spades was self confidence. Even though she'd known that Michael was gay she'd always been sure she'd get him eventually. Privately he'd always thought that part of the reason she'd never given up was because she'd had too much pride to admit that she couldn't beat him when it came to the man she'd grown up being told she'd someday marry.

The sound Felicia made was too weary to truly be called a laugh. "No. I know you too well to think that, Artie. Even if you didn't have Mr. Eames here…your pride has always been as oversized as mine. You wouldn't take him back if he came crawling."

"Yet you're still calling me Artie."

"I'm a vindictive bitch who hates to lose." She said as she got to her feet, meeting Arthur's gaze squarely. "And I lost to you. I lost."

"We both lost." Arthur corrected as he got to his feet as well. "And we both won…in different ways."

Reaching down the blonde opened her designer purse and withdrew a single photograph. Turning it right side up she placed it on the desk between them, the photo showing Arthur in Eames's arms, the two looking into each other's eyes like they were the only two people in the world.

"I thought you'd like a copy."

Arthur didn't ask how she'd gotten ahold of the picture, Felicia was very good at talking people into doing what she wanted.

"Don't worry about anyone wondering why I'm here in Vegas; I'm booked in at another spa on the other side of the strip with some girlfriends of mine. They're all paying enormous sums of money on temporary beauty fixes at the moment. I've paid off one of the masseuses; if asked he'll state that I never left the grounds. Your grandfather has sent a couple of men in the past to talk to Michael about you, so I know he's still looking for you. Why he hasn't found you given that you kept most of your name is beyond me though."

"If not for that picture you would never have found me either."

"Normally I'd take that as a challenge, but it's a little late for that."

Arthur studied her closely for a minute and then nodded in some silent understanding between the two. "I appreciate you not mentioning where I am to anyone."

"It wouldn't benefit me." Was her blunt response. "Your mother and step father are the same, if you care."

"Not overly."

"If you tell yourself that enough times maybe you'll believe it, Artie. Now show me out so that you and your handsome hunk over there can have your little fight over the trouble I've caused coming here."