Chapter Four

Caden held tightly to Eames hand as the ascended the stairs his hand clenching back against her fingers. She reached to her door handle, trying to stay quiet. It was 3am. She didn't want to piss off her neighbors any more than she and Eames had in the past month. Neither of them were very quiet in bed.

"Eames, why are you acting so Paranoid?" She whispered sharply ash he whipped around suddenly, looking over his shoulder like something was going to jump out and kill them. "You're freaking me out, and I think that one of us needs to be calm right now."

"Sorry..." He mumbled, taking a breath and wrapping an arm around her waist, pushing himself against her. She just turned to smile at him calmly and he returned the smile. "But hurry up. Pack." She pushed the door open quickly and stood in shock. Her apartment was in... Shambles... Was that even the word? Her clothes were strewn everywhere, her computer was open and half logged in, the password bar filled up with those tiny little dots.

"What the fuck..." She mumbled, staring around. Her medical books where tossed around and there was a stack of them next to the computer, along with various other books, all open to random pages, as though a single word in a book would be her password.

She closed the laptop and found a bag for it, stuffing it quickly inside and going to her closet to find only one dress still hanging up in there. She took it, and tucked that away into her purse.

"Caden, we need to leave."

"I realized." She said, calmly now. What did Eames' apartment look like if hers was this big of a mess? Maybe his was on fire, too. "God," She mumbled, looking over at him. He raised an eyebrow at her, his hand stuck out like an offer to her. "What a catch you are, Mr. Eames." He laughed softly and nodded.

"Glad you think so." She smiled, and set her hand against his.

"Never coming back?"

"Probably not." She sighed quietly and he pulled her to him, kissing her cheek.

"I was starting to like it here." He laughed and held her, and she clung to him. "If only cos you were here every other night."

"When we're there... I'll be with you every night. Is that okay?" She smiled and nodded and he kissed her again. "We've got to go, love." She nodded vaguely. "I'll buy you new stuff when we get there, okay? And we'll have a nice house or apartment or hut or tent or whatever it is that people live in where we're going."

"A nice igloo?" He laughed and nodded, pulling on her hand and tugging her out of the door. She followed him quietly, holding onto his arm.

"Or an igloo." He pulled her out to the street, taking the bag that her laptop was in and slinging it over his shoulder, leading her along down the street, trying to find a cab.

***Four hours later, they sat pressed together in the cramped seats of the plane. Eames was laying slightly crooked, laying against her chest where she held him close, cradling his head. He had passed out an hour into their flight, and hand slumped over against her. He was tired from the long day of stress and running around, and from the bullethole shooting endorphines through him, and from the morphine they had shot him up with when he had gotten to the hospital. He was bandaged and stitched up, and he seemed to not be hurting.

She wanted him to wake up so that he could explain to her what had happened, and what about her this guy had told him. He knew what she did. Did he know that she was supposed to be sabotaging a job that he wasn't even aware he was going to be involved in? Did he know that she had fucked with his dreams over the time that they had been together? What did he know?

"I'm not mad." He mumbled suddenly from her arms. She looked down at him and gave him a calm and pleasant smile, very skilled at faking composure. "About you. And what you do."

"You know what I do?" He nodded vaguely and then frowned in some sort of realization.

"You're a psychologist. And you do hypnotism." She nodded this time. "And you were supposed to do it to me." Again, she nodded. "Did you?"

"No." Eames stared at her in confusion, raising an eyebrow and frowning. He started to sit up and she let go of him, stroking his cheek as he leaned tiredly against the seat.

"Why?"

"I stopped wanting to." Again, he gave her a confused look. "I was hired to. And I didn't know you. So I thought it would be like a regular job, same as always."

"And?"

"And it wasn't." Another confused look. "I liked you. I knew you. It was different."

"What were you supposed to be doing? With my head?" She sighed softly and frowned.

"Getting information." One more raised eyebrow. "About Inception." He frowned at her quietly. "You may not know anything about it, but you've tried it. You've got more experience in it than we do. They think."

"What do you mean? What do you mean 'they think'?"

"I mean me and my family have been doing it for years. Just not the same way they think they can. You go into someone's dream, you say 'stop smoking'. You post 'stop smoking' signs all over their town. On posters, on billboards, on magazines. You tell everyone else in his dream 'stop smoking'. They will tell him. He wakes up. He forgets 80% of his dream in 10 minutes. He forgets that anyone told him to stop smoking. He just realizes that he needs to. And if you keep doing that, periodically, he eventually will."

Eames frowned at her quietly, thinking. She stared back at him quietly before touching his hand.

"And what were you supposed to be putting in my head?" He asked finally she went quiet.

"I was supposed to convince you to go to Cobul and give them information on your upcoming job."

"How do you know what job I'm doing next?"

"Because Cobul found out."

"I don't even know what it is." Caden was quiet, frowning now. He touched her hand back and looped his fingers through hers. She held onto him.

"Can I ask you something?" He nodded lightly and she looked up at him. "Why were you in the train station that day?" She asked him quietly.

"I was supposed to meet someone." She nodded softly and he held tighter to her hand. "But I saw you. And realized that you were that girl I'd been dreaming about. I don't ever dream, Caden."

"So you knew from the beginning?" He shrugged lightly and touched her cheek, pulling her to him to kiss her mouth lightly.

"I knew I was going to make you a part of my life, darling." She smiled and kissed him, biting his lower lip lightly; his beautiful lip. "And here you are. Running away with me to Kenya."

"Romantic Kenya."

"Vacation spot of the stars." He answered, kissing her again and tugging on her chin. She grinned at him now, and he grinned back, sliding an arm around her shoulders and pulling her toward him. They were essentially alone on this plane, save for an older man in the back, asleep with a hat over his face. Caden didn't know that people actually did that. The pilots were nearby, and the single stewardess was half passed out, sitting facing away from them.

"Eames?" Eames smiled down at her, kissing her mouth again. "I love you, too." He raised an eyebrow at her in confusion. He had been making that face a lot so far this trip. "You kept saying it... And I love you, too." He grinned at her quietly and stroked her lip with a finger.

"I love you." Caden grinned and then turned slightly red.

"I said it already..."

"Say it again." Eames said simply, sticking his lips out at her cutely and kissing her.

"I love you, too." She answered, pulling him closer and kissing him back.