4.

~ Cobb gave Arthur a doubtful look.

"So, you want to gain custody of Olivia and Harold from the woman you abandoned and then divorced?" he asked skeptically.

The death of his beloved Mal had made the creases on his forehead deeper and he looked as if he hadn't been sleeping well.

"Yes. Ariadne intends on returning to England to be with Mr. Eames. I don't want my daughter or the boy exposed to his drunkenness." Arthur said. The businessman full of his own self righteousness as he sat across form his lawyer and friend.

"Arthur," Cobb sighed. "by the letter of the law, you won't win. You left your wife, you were in a metal health facility, jail and you abandoned your family and divorced her by mail. She has since remarried, and become a widow again. No judge will grant you custody just because you don't like the man she want's to be with."

Cobb shook his head as Arthur started to argue.

"Let her be with Eames. You had your chance to go back to her." Cobb reasoned.

"Eames is a drunk who is in a charity hospital after a suicide attempt!" Arthur exclaimed.

"You were a drunk who was in jail after a bar brawl. What makes you any more qualified to be with her?" Cobb pointed out. "Also, she's carrying his child. She admitted that to you herself."

"Cobb." Arthur fumed.

"You want to keep Ariadne here. You like having her as your wife, I get that, but you shouldn't have divorced her. I begged you not to, you have only yourself to blame." Cobb said.

"You're not going to help me?" Arthur asked.

"I don't think I can be your lawyer any longer." Cobb said sadly.

"You're not just my lawyer." Arthur told him. "We've always been my friend."

"And you've never listened to me as a friend. The only advice you ever took was to marry Ariadne."

"Cobb, I can't win custody of my daughter without your help." Arthur said.

"You won't win in any case. If your ex-wife wishes to go back to England, you can't stop her." Cobb told him.

~ "Arthur, I don't need this." Ariadne said as she looked over the thick envelope he gave her.

They were waiting to be boarded on the ship to England. Harold and Olivia were holding hands as they looked skeptically at the large ship.

No doubt they remembered the odyssey of their first voyage.

Ariadne was surprised to find Arthur was willing to drive her to the docks to see her off. Handing her a thick envelope full of money.

"It's for you and the children's expenses. I doubt Mr. Eames will provide for you in London. I don't want you living in squarer." Arthur said.

"Arthur, I have money from Fredrick's estate." Ariadne said. Trying to be kind about her rejection of his money.

"Take it." Arthur insisted.

"Arthur." she sighed.

"Please, I would feel better knowing you and the children were provided for, just take it." he said growing irritated.

The ship gave off a loud whistle as the first class passengers started to board.

"You didn't have to pay for our tickets." Ariadne told him as Maura took the children up the walk and Ariadne stayed behind with Arthur.

"It's a round trip ticket for the four of you. You can come home at anytime." he told as they avoided looking at one another.

"Thank you." she whispered.

"Ariadne." he said and swallowed hard. "You don't have to go back to him. We both know he will break your heart. Stay with me."

"Arthur, he needs my help right now." she told him as her convenient husband refused to look at her.

She examined his handsome profile for the last time. His scowl detracting from how pleasing his face could be when he was happy.

"I'm sorry, Arthur." she said at last as she went to follow Maura and the children.

She felt his strong hand take hers and she turned to meet his eyes.

"Please, stay. I don't care if Eames is the father. Don't take Olivia away from me. Don't leave me alone." he whispered.

Her body itched to rush into his arms. Wanted the ease and comfort Arthur had always provided. With Eames, who knows what kind of a life she was taking herself and their children into. But she had to go. Had to save him from himself. He had hurt himself because of her and she needed to put it right once more.

"I can't." she told him.

"You love him?" Arthur accused. "You love him more than me?" he asked fitfully.

"I love him." she said at last.

~ The voyage back to England was much smoother than the their trip to New York. Arthur had, as always, provided well for them in a first class cabin that meant they traveled in extreme comfort.

"Missus, It's not my place to say this." Maura said as she helped Ariadne fix her long hair in a fashionable style for dinner. "But I thought we were leaving England to get away from Mr. Eames and his influences."

"You're right, Maura. But he needs my help just now." Ariadne sighed.

"Harold is none to pleased to be leaving your mister." Maura told her. "The boy and Lord Bradford got on real well as far as I could see. Like father and son already."

Ariadne smiled softly.

"Harold says he wants to be a businessman like Lord Bradford so he can have a pretty wife one day." Maura told her and both women laughed.

"Maura, life hasn't exactly turned out the way I had hoped." Ariadne admitted sadly. "In a perfect world, Arthur would have come home after the sinking of the Empress and we would have gone to America together. But we never know what changes life will bring us."

"Will you be telling Mr. Eames about the baby? Or about Lord Arthur still being alive?" Maura asked.

Ariadne shook her head. Maura, one of her oldest and closest friends since her hasty marriage to Arthur, knew things about her, but kept them secret. She no doubt knew all about her and Eames long before anyone else.

"I'll have to see what kind of condition he's in." she told her maid. "He might not think a baby is especially good news. Mr. Eames and Lord Bradford were decidedly different."

~ London had changed since the start of the war. It had become much more modern. Cars were everywhere now and they drove recklessly down the historic streets and bridges and scared the horses who had to share a road with them.

White Chapel had even undergone a face lift. So many of the old, rat infested flats were torn down and new building were going up.

The streets were starting to look cleaner and there was less of the hopelessness about the area now.

"So good to see you, Mrs. Bradford." Mr. Fischer said and met Ariadne at the door of his hospital.

"It's Mrs. Hays now." she corrected him as she noticed Fisher had gotten thinner.

"Oh, yes. My apologies." Fischer said and gave her a bow.

"How is Eames?" she asked as she paid her cab driver and followed Fisher into his hospital.

She noticed the over crowding in the hospital was worse now. Men were sitting in the halls and looking ill and filthy. Many of them were very young.

"The war." Fischer said as she followed him to the same ward Eames stayed in last time. "It's sent us men back with addiction to morphine, and with something the doctors call shell shock."

"I think Eames had that." Ariadne told him.

"It gets worse when he drinks." Fischer told her. "We've been trying to detox him, but after he shot himself-"

"Oh, God!" Ariadne exclaimed.

"He'll be fine." Fischer told her. "Bullet grazed his head and gave him a flesh wound. He claims it was an accident, but I've seen many men make a suicide attempt since the war started. They all look like our Mr. Eames."

"He'll have to go to court?" she asked.

"They will take into account he's a war hero. But it will be better if he has family to go home to and care for him." he said.

"His mother? Why won't she come?" Ariadne asked bitterly.

"Apparently she tired to help him, and he refused. Now, she seems to have disowned him." Fischer told her. "I was lead to believe there is a financial concern as well."

"I'm sure." Ariadne grumbled as they reached the end of the ward and she caught her breath at the sight of Eames.