A/N: I want to thank all the people who reviewed the first two parts and hope you all continue to enjoy this story for the last two parts, and also that you continue to review. Your reviews really mean a lot. Thanks so much.

Also, I told people I would update on... Thursday, I think. I apologize for not doing so. Things have been a bit hectic around here. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter!

Fighting

Time does not heal all wounds. Some wounds will stay with us forever, memories that will never fade. We try to forget the bad moments in life that leave us torn, but there is always that nagging feeling, the sense that something will remind us of those times. Some of these wounds are physical, a scar or a mark that will live on, printed on our bodies against our wills. Some of these wounds are emotional. These wounds sometimes last even longer than a mark, and they can be so much more painful.

A week it had been, a full week since the death of one of their own, of Mal. Cobb was trying to explain it to the police, to the shrinks, to the kids. He was struggling, and no one could help him. Not even Arthur. Arthur had known Mal, had been able to see how different she had become. She was still sweet, but there was such a distance in her eyes those last few months, as though she wasn't really seeing Arthur when he spoke to her. Still, Arthur had never thought she would go and kill herself. And he definitely didn't believe Cobb had done it either.

"Sad times, eh, darling?" Eames began, sitting on the counter by Arthur, who was half leaning on the fridge, fingers gripping the handle. He'd meant to open it and find something to eat, but he'd stopped prematurely.

"I've been in worse," Arthur said, tone deliberate.

"Have you now? Personal or mutual, like now?" Eames asked. "I think I might like to hear about that."

"Yeah, but you won't," Arthur said. "I don't find pleasure in discussing the histrionics of my kin."

"I'm sorry. The what?" Eames asked, leaning toward Arthur as though that would improve his understanding of the words. Arthur sighed and opened the fridge.

"It means I don't talk about the past, Eames," Arthur murmured as his eyes glanced through the skimpy reserves. "God we need some more food."

"Hang on. Isn't talking about the past something of a specialty of yours? You're a point man, aren't you?" Eames was close enough on that counter to reach out and drag a finger down Arthur's back. The younger man tried and failed to repress a shiver. He turned on Eames with a glare, batting his hand away.

"Not my own, Eames. Drop it," he snapped. Eames smiled and ran his finger along Arthur's jawbone.

"Anyone ever tell you that you look positively dangerous when you glare like that?" he asked. "Don't mind me. I'm just admiring it."

"I'm not a piece of art," Arthur complained, shutting the refrigerator door and walking away. Eames sighed and hopped off the counter.

"No, but you sure are a piece of work," he grumbled. "Still can't figure you out."

"What was that?" Arthur called over his shoulder. He was cleaning, or more pretending to clean. This is what happened every time. Every time he was alone with Eames he suddenly got defensive, nervous, and electric. He couldn't control it, couldn't stop it, could barely hide it.

"I'm wondering when dear Cobb will come back," Eames said, louder and not repeating himself the way Arthur had requested. Arthur shrugged.

"His wife just died and no one will believe he's innocent. The suits are trying to convince him to leave the country until it's all sorted out, but… I don't know if Cobb'll take it. He loves his kids, you know?" Arthur said, organizing papers on his own desk.

Eames came up behind him then, all rugged appearance and hot breath on Arthur's neck. Arthur froze in what he was doing. His eyes slipped closed, and he just felt the path down his collar that Eames' breath was taking. Eames wasn't touching him or speaking. He was just there, close and intimate and breathing slowly.

"What are you doing, Eames?" Arthur finally managed to speak and was proud when his voice was strong and steady.

"Trying to prove to you that I can see through your bullshit," Eames said, voice soft. His face was so close now. Arthur could feel each breath as soon as it left Eames' mouth. Eames hovered just above Arthur's skin and took a deep breath of the scent, his nose tingling the skin a bit as it dropped a bit too close. "Leave Cobb to this depressing time. We don't all need to stay sad forever."

Arthur broke from his frozen mindset and pushed Eames away. He turned and glared at the forger, which he seemed to do more than smiling. Eames looked a bit stunned at this turn of events, but he didn't say anything.

"That's easy for you to say. You didn't know Mal as well as the rest of us," Arthur said, anger hiding behind his words. "And as for how sad I am right now, how I feel… I'm tired of feeling like your pet. I hope you haven't forgotten that I'm a human being, that I'm smart and sophisticated and beyond playing your game."

"Game? What game?" Eames asked, looking honestly confused. Arthur didn't believe it for a second.

"Don't play coy, Eames. The fingers on my jaw, the way you're breathing down my neck, all of it. I can see through this. You're toying with me like a mark. I don't appreciate it," Arthur said, defiant and head held high. Eames seemed to grow dark, though.

"You have no imagination, do you?" Eames asked, voice low and deep. "Who said anything about a game? You may be a mark, Arthur, but you are definitely not a toy. I could predict a toy's thoughts."

"What is this, chess?" Arthur yelled, showing how ruffled he was by all of this. Eames actually looked shocked at the outburst. "Eames, does nothing that's happened in the last week effect you at all? Are you really that careless?"

"Careless?" Eames asked. "I'd wager you've forgotten what we discussed in our dream sharing last week, but I haven't. If anyone is careless in this relationship, Arthur, it's you. You pushed away the memory of our dreams to avoid the issue, but you say I'm the one not affected? This is a rather lopsided issue in your mind, darling."

"Why do you do that, Eames? Why do you insist on calling me darling these days?" Arthur hissed out as though the question was painful. Eames looked aghast, as though Arthur was baffling him with his stupidity.

"It's a damn term of endearment, Arthur! I don't know what else it could be taken as!" he exclaimed. Arthur shook his head.

"On all the marks we've done together, I've never known you to be particularly endearing, Eames," Arthur bit out. "You usually throw around whatever sounds pretty to you and they believe you. I don't even know which words are actually yours and which you heard in movies anymore."

"You think I'm pretending to like you, then, is that it?" Eames asked. "You think I'd risk the kind of drama something like this means with a teammate if I didn't mean it?"

"I think you know you can always leave and run off to… Mombasa or somewhere if it blew up in your face," Arthur replied.

"Mombasa," Eames repeated, a snarky laugh bubbling in his throat. "Why on Earth would I go to Mombasa?"

"I don't know," Arthur sneered. "The bars, the gambling, the girls."

"Arthur, you seem to think you know me rather well, but it may surprise you to know that I do not always think about drinking and sex," Eames said, pushing his coat back and slipping his hands into his pockets.

"At this point, Eames, I couldn't care less. Once you realize I'm a hopeless cause, you'll be on the next plane out of L.A.," Arthur said solemnly and walked off toward the living room area.

"What happened in London?" Eames called after him. Arthur stopped walking and gave the floor a questioning look.

"What?" he asked.

"You heard me. What happened to you in London?" Eames asked again. Arthur turned around and wore an expression torn between anger and utter confusion.

"How do you know about that?" Arthur asked.

"You mentioned it in the dream last week," Eames answered, shrugging a bit and walking closer.

"No I didn't," Arthur argued. "I don't remember that."

"It was after I kissed you, Arthur," Eames began. Arthur flinched. Eames frowned. "That's why you don't remember it, isn't it? You blocked out everything after I got intimate."

"That didn't happen!" Arthur yelled, backing away.

"Yes it did, Arthur. I was there," Eames said. "And something about London won't let you believe that. Now what happened in London?" He was getting louder, probably trying to break through Arthur's thick skull.

"Nothing happened!" Arthur said. "Nothing happened in London, and nothing happened between us last week. I'm done trying to remember your fantasy."

"It wasn't my fantasy, Arthur. You're the one who dreamt up that one, and might I say, it was rather boring. You need to learn to use your imagination more," Eames scolded gently.

"Excuse me?" Arthur asked. "I do my job perfectly. I deal with facts, Eames, not imagination. If you want imagination, why don't you go flirt with Cobb!"

Arthur pressed his lips together and held his breath. He stayed tense and straight, but his insides were burning. He hadn't meant to yell like that. He hadn't meant to get so angry. He wasn't even sure why he was angry. He just knew he felt like a pawn in Eames' hand, a loaded die that was still being shaken up in his fingers. Eames was trying to get him to play the way he wanted to, but Arthur didn't want to. He didn't want to believe he was so weak willed that he had bent to this man's wishes the moment he walked in the door.

"No. You know what?" Arthur said, finding his words again. "I'm done. I'm done with this. I'm going to visit Cobb, and when I come back, we're not playing this game anymore."

Eames didn't speak automatically. He waited until Arthur had snatched his bag off the couch and was heading for the door to say something.

"If that's the way you want it, love," he said. Arthur barely caught it before he ripped the door open, the creak of the door loud and painful in his ears. He glanced back at Eames, who was lazily shifting through the junk in his jacket pockets, looking as though he hadn't a care in the world.

Some wounds stay with us forever. Even when daily life smothers the memories down until you think they're gone, something always comes around to remind us. That's how London was for Arthur. London hangs around in the background, biding its time until you think it can't hurt you anymore… and then it seeps into the edges of your thoughts until it hits you in the one place that can really make you hurt, your heart.

Arthur was usually so straight and serious, so meticulous and perhaps even mundane. He was potentially boring, but he was good at hiding his pains and anger… usually. Eames was a trigger, a poke at London to wake it up. Eames was something Arthur couldn't handle in a proper mindset. Eames would become a wound of his own, a pinprick in Arthur's pride and heart. Hopefully Eames was not a London.

Because some wounds heal in minutes or days, some wounds heal in months or a year, but some wounds stay forever, for time does not heal all wounds.

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