AN: Much love to you amazing readers. I appreciate every single one of you blargh Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :D
Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros.
The Absolute Basic
Chapter Nine
Eames stuffed everything back into his suitcase. He scanned the hotel room one more time before opening the door and leaving for the elevators.
He had managed to learn practically everything about Trollope, his ex-wife (a lovely lady called Abby Friedman) and the best friend, Daniel Tuck. The research part was always the simplest. The hard part was yet to come.
Hailing a taxi once he got outside, Eames climbed into the back seat and told the driver to go to O'Hare International Airport. He relaxed into the seat, feeling something close to fondness for the place. A small part of him always became attached to wherever he had to work, and lately he found it wearing him down. Maybe it was all part of getting into character. Trollope surely must have feelings for the amazing city of Chicago, and Eames was starting to feel a little blue now that he was leaving for London.
Sentimental git, he cursed himself. You'll be back before you know it.
Checking through his flight information and numerous files of notes, Eames found something unexpected hidden in one of his bag pockets. He took out the forgotten item and glanced at it. It was another fake passport, this one of Canadian nationality. He chuckled to himself; when had he used this piece of equipment? He flicked through it until he found the photo page, and his little smile was suddenly gone.
Clara's face was staring right back at him.
And he understood. He had forged this for her use.
He groaned and wanted to put it away, but he found that he couldn't help taking in her features. With great self-control he forced himself to read the fake name. Joan Cinder.
Had there been a time when he had asked her to use this? Perhaps for her own safety? He couldn't quite remember. It seemed vague. One thing he was certain of, though; she would never have approved.
Eames shoved it back into his bag and thought no more of it.
"When will Eames get back to London?" Clara asked Arthur the next morning.
"Around one o'clock in the afternoon." By the looks of it Arthur had already been in the warehouse for a good hour or so. He glanced up as she sat down next to him. "I've asked him to come straight over here so we can start discussing what we're gonna do."
She sat on her edge of the table beside him. "About that...I was thinking, actually...should I call Dom about this?"
Arthur immediately stiffened, and his brown eyes were dead-serious as they stared her down. "That's not such a good idea, Clara," he said, and leaned in closer. "Are you worried about the job? Because you can do this, I promise you."
Clara smiled. "You don't know that."
Arthur wagged a finger at her. "You've been teaching people how to train their subconscious. You must know ways around that type of security."
Clara ran her hand over her forehead, sighing. "I dunno. Maybe. I...I've never thought about it like that."
Arthur smiled wanly, returning to his work. "Of course youwouldn't."
Lines creased into existence between her eyebrows. "And what is that supposed to mean, exactly?"
Arthur didn't bother glancing up from his laptop. "It's a compliment."
"Elaborate."
"You're too..." Arthur paused for the appropriate word. "Too nice."
Clara smirked. "And too safe."
Arthur tilted his head to one side. "That too. Too safe." And that was when he met her gaze again. "Is that why you left?"
Why were they continuing to pester her on this one, small, irrelevant detail? She shifted in her chair, producing a notebook from her bag and flipping to the last page of her notes. "Perhaps." She placed her hands on the paper: crisp, smooth, clean. "You can stop asking me about it now."
"I need to know, Clara. You need to settle whatever that's happened between you and-"
"Can't you drop it?" Clara bit back.
"Why? Because I couldn't possibly have any idea about what you're going through?"
Clara was on the verge of saying 'yes', but saw in his eyes that she was wrong. She looked away, ashamed. "I'll deal with it myself, Arthur. I'm tired of you chasing me round and round about it."
Arthur blinked. "Do you hate him?"
"No! I-" Clara could hear herself becoming flustered. She sounded pathetic. "Arthur-"
"Okay, well tell him that. You're making him think that this is what it's about."
Clara felt her heart miss a beat. "Have you guys been talking?"
"No, but let me ask you this, Clara," Arthur went on, and she could hear that he was really becoming irritated by her. By Eames. By both of them. "Have you actually bothered to talk to him about it?"
"No-"
"You have to, Clara. I haven't asked him but I can just tell he's blaming himself for losing you." His penetrating eyes narrowed, and it was like he was trying to seek out the truth in her. "And it's not his fault you left, is it? At least not completely."
Clara shook her head, stunned by his revelations.
"So what happened?"
Clara couldn't say. The words were stuck in her befuddled heart. Thud, thud, thud. Guilt powered that selfish, beating muscle.
Arthur sighed. "Maybe you're right."
Clara stared at him in confusion.
"I said, maybe you're right. Maybe you can't do this job after all." His tone was stony.
"What?"
"You're just as broken a leader as Cobb was."
Clara's eyes flashed. "Arthur!"
"Then why can't you talk to Eames?"
"It's complicated." She shook her head to herself and ran her hands over her head. "It is, I swear."
"Just tell me."
She mentally hit herself and pushed herself away from the table. "I'm scared. That's it, that's all you need to know, all right? I'm scared to talk about it. I haven't spoken to anyone in years about Eames and I don't need you rushing me to bring it up with him."
This seemed to surprise Arthur. "What's to be scared of? Him?"
Clara didn't answer.
Ariadne arrived about half an hour after that little episode. Clara tried to ignore the fast pace of her heart, racing inside her ribcage like a dog desperate to escape the house. She sighed, listening to her own harsh, shaking breaths. Occasionally she shot peeks at Arthur, who was working with Ariadne today. He looked both at ease with the girl and yet troubled. Clara felt another heavy thump of regret and stared back down at her research.
Maybe Arthur's cold, analytical reasoning was right. Maybe she needed to shove away the fear and just talk to him - Eames. A few minutes would be enough, surely. Just in order to clear things up and to get Arthur off of her case for a while.
But could she really just tell him like that? After hiding for four years? She hadn't been lying when she had been talking to Arthur; it was complicated. There were so many things just thrown in there, turning her into a distant mess.
"You're just as broken a leader as Cobb was."
Clara had to try, though. It was only right, especially if it was true, what Arthur had said, that Eames blamed himself. Her heart lurched at the thought. There had been a time when Clara would never have believed in such a ridiculous notion, that Eames was capable of feeling self-disgust or remorse. How...how simple of her.
She would try. She'd wait, after he came back from the airport. Maybe pull him aside, or ask for a quick word. It was laughable, how she was so worked up by a few minutes' worth of speaking to the man.
"This will never work, Eames. I can't trust you!"
His manner was rigid. "I never asked for trust."
"Then what the hell is this?!" She saw his lips on her neck, his hands groping blindly in the heat of things; she pushed the images away.
And, as though he read her mind: "It's what adults do, Clara. I told you, grow up-"
The palm of her hand hitting his cheek felt good.
They all waited for him to return. Lunchtime came and went.
"Two o'clock," Arthur muttered in the cavernous warehouse, and they all continued working.
They went through a lot of plans, and even went under into Arthur's dream, to see some of the structures he had designed. Clara approved of them immediately, and hoped through this way he could forgive her for her stubbornness.
The timer on the PASIV device brought them all back to (is it?) reality. Clara picked at her necklace and returned to her paperwork.
Two-thirty. Two-forty. Clara eyes kept twitching back to her watch. She was such a nervous wreck, it was almost disgusting. It was Eames, just another Forger, just another human being. She twirled her pen between her fingers, deep in thought and yet not thinking at all.
The second time was swifter, and she showed even less resistance. He was hungry for skin, and she didn't know it then, but she was ravenous for something even more than that. Something grimy that was close to trust but not quite as simple. But he didn't want anything else, and she probably - probably - knew that. Yet she let him have her again anyway, because a part of her craved him too. Craved him in that blind but exhilarating way that she was disgusted by.
So she told herself not to overthink it. This was just what it was. No ties, no feelings, no nothing. She felt hot and vital to him when his hands were on her. The back of a car park, unglamorous, quick, wrong.
He told her she was beautiful afterwards. She just smiled and faced away, buttoning up her shirt.
She didn't object until the fourth time. And only weeks afterwards would she have the courage to slap him.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Three o'clock.
"How long does it take to get here from Heathrow?" asked Arthur out of the blue.
"Not that long," Ariadne supplied, and taking a guess: "Forty minutes?"
They settled down again and started typing, drawing, writing, planning, (three-thirty) talking, worrying...
"Maybe he went back to his apartment?" Ariadne said. It was four o'clock now. The November sky was an unsaturated violet.
Arthur took out his phone. "I'll give him a call."
They sat with baited breath, Clara sitting backwards in her chair, silently begging for Eames to pick up, even though there had to be a billion plausible reasons for his lateness; his flight could have easily been delayed, or maybe he had fallen asleep in his apartment, or maybe he was showing Yusuf around London...
After ten (or thirty) seconds, Arthur shook his head and cut the call off. "Not picking up," he muttered. He saw Clara watching him and gave her what looked like an attempt at a comforting smile. "Flight's probably delayed."
So they went back to work.
Darkness fell. Lights in the distance were flickering on, a bright contrast to the black canvas of the city. It was even starting to get colder; they could all hear the wind whistling outside, and the rush of the river beside them. Arthur tried the number again, but he was unsuccessful.
Clara was numb with anxiety. She could see her expression mirrored in the others, but she thought that hers must have been the strongest. Reluctantly, she shut down her laptop, already missing the glow of its screen, and made her way to the others. They were also packing up for the day. She checked her watch again in the shadows. Ten past six.
"Arthur, what's going on?" she muttered.
Arthur shook his head. "No idea. I checked Heathrow arrivals. His plane landed on time today." He scratched his wrist. "Maybe he missed his flight."
They both knew it wasn't as simple as that.
Arthur couldn't sleep that night. His mind was still buzzing from his conversation with Clara.
She was not a friend. She was something more, yet something less. Both important and insignificant. It wasn't as plain or obvious as friendship. His job (soul) often led to complex relationships, and this right here was one he had been pondering over for ages.
Friendship.
He turned onto his side on his hotel bed, sighing and listening to his own gentle breathing and the irregular whine of a car engine outside. He tried not to think, just to feel. To feel the softness of the pillow against his tired cheek, to feel his blood flowing throughout his body, to feel relaxed.
Only he wasn't.
Arthur could not relax. He sat up and leaned against the headboard of the bed, gazing tiredly into the dim shadows of the room. He wanted this job done, but there were so many twists and turns here and there, popping up in the most unexpected, disconcerting ways that made him want to look out for everyone. His mind went through each and every one of them, and as he pictured their faces one after the other, he felt a foreign embrace take over him.
There was Ariadne: her fresh smile, her eager willingness, her adorable-
There was Eames and Yusuf, and even Dom: their gaping, disturbing absence.
There was Clara: her deteriorating vigilance, her distorted mind, a maze of thoughts.
There was Arthur: wondering how he felt about these people.
And never before had he thought about people like this, ever.