2.
~ Eames was trapped in dreams. He remembered the terrible detox and DT he went through at Fischer's hospital, after that, his body felt so sick and useless, he thought he would die.
How had he survived so much, come so close to happiness with the only woman he ever loved, to have it all slip away from him?
His dreams were foggy images of the war, the manor house on fire, Ariadne... always there was Ariadne.
His dreams shifted and he felt her presence. Telling him to open his eyes. No, she was gone. She couldn't be here. His great love had fled from him back to her homeland. She didn't want him, wanted nothing to do with him. She had sent him a telegram and told him not to worry.
She didn't love him. He had been fooling himself thinking she might have cared for him at all.
After the funereal, Eames waited and waited for her to come back to the house. He even took a car and drove back to the solitary little graveyard.
It was cold out and he worried about her and the children. Maybe Ariadne did love Fredrick in her own way. But she would love him now, There was nothing to stop them from being together now. He would have the woman he had always wanted. He would be happy, he would be free.
The graveyard was dark and empty, as only the dead lived there.
Ariadne and the children were gone. He had feared she might have been kidnapped by a band of gypsies on the high road. A pretty woman and two small children? He feared the worst and had the constable alerted.
Maura had vanished to. Miles telling him how her room was empty. Eames searched Ariadne's bedroom and found all her things were gone as well.
He telegraphed Cobb. He knew his lover had gone to America. Why, he wasn't sure, but he knew in his bones, that she had left him for America and Cobb would take her in.
Cobb hand sent word back he had no idea where Ariadne was.
Eames became frantic with worry. Maybe she was kidnapped, maybe she was in London or Paris even.
Finally, the night of the fire, Eames received word from Ariadne. A short, hurtful note saying she was alright and in America. Not to worry about her and not to come after her.
Filled with a dark, swirling hatred, Eames had fled to his conservatory and locked himself in. Like the hunchback bell ringer, he cloistered himself there and refused to leave. Even sleeping in the little sitting room.
He brooded and wallowed in his own self pity until the smell of smoke laced into his sleep and woke him.
The conservatory was a blaze and he was trapped. Acting only on instinct, He managed to escape out the back way and took the forgotten walking paths to the village.
After that, is was easy to forget everything. The village was absorbed in the fire of Blue Rivers and no noticed he had slipped away.
He had no idea how the fire started, only it surely began in the conservatory while he was sleeping.
He left the village and walked for days with only the money that was in his pockets. He did work on farms. No one knowing who he was. He read in the papers about Aunt Percy and Miles dying in the fire. That he was wanted for questioning. He grew a beard out, the kind his lover hated, and no one recognized him.
Like Moses in the desert, he wandered and finally found himself in London. In the White Chapel district once more, rented a small room, found work, and at night, he wrote. His word poured out of him like infection from a wound. The thing was painful and cathartic at the same time. His love for Ariadne had morphed into hatred. She had wounded him like she had no heart. He wrote stories of a great witch who tempted a knight, fresh from the crusades, and was unfortunate enough to fall in her web.
Late at night, instead of drinking, or trying to contact his mother, he wrote these stories to entertain himself. During the day, he worked in drudge like jobs with other men. Men who were foul creatures and he watched them. The observations becoming new stories for him with those men as monsters or gargoyles. The witch, always there was the witch to torment him at night.
Then, the pain was gone. His pen had run out of ink and his stories were completed.
He started at the last page, the spell had been broken, the witch was cast out and in her place, was the beautiful young girl that had been possessed by her.
The knight took the maiden home and made her his bride, never telling her how much he really loved the witch that had dwelt inside her.
He carefully wrapped up the thick manuscript in a large piece of thin leather and tucked it into his jacket.
It was only a few days later, he bought the service revolver off a infantry man who needed money.
He wasn't sure why he bought it, but he liked having it around. He like to sleep with it close by and feel the cold metal when he woke up from dreaming of her.
His cold creeping self pity rose up once more and made his heart hurt. He started drinking again. He couldn't seem to stop this time. When he normally spent his evenings writing, he now spent them drinking and fighting.
Prostitutes would offer him their services, but sex seemed to sicken him now. His lover made him unfit to be with other women and his body ached for her now.
He was drinking more and more when a terrible thought entered his head.
'I could kill myself.' he realized. 'Then, I won't have to feel this way any longer.'
He realized then, that he bought the side arm for that purpose. He always knew he was going to use it to take his life.
He wrote a long, boring suicide note to Ariadne, cursing her and blaming her. He burned it and made do with no letter; no apologies.
It was near midnight and the boarding house was still. His room was dark, except for the moonlight. He cradled the gun in his hands and worked up the courage to do the thing.
His cold self hatred burned him and he put the gun to his head, and quickly pulled the trigger.
Perhaps it was instinct that made his head dart away, but he moved and felt the painful burning of the bullet rip across his face and the sound of the gun so close defended him.
He didn't realize there would be so much blood as he sat looking at the warm, sticky redness covering his shirt.
His hand went to his face and he realized then he was still alive, but wounded.
The shock of seeing his own blood, made him pass out. When he woke, he was in Fisher's hospital going through horrible withdrawals and screaming for Ariadne.
Then, his body was too tired to do anything more than sleep. All he wanted to to was sleep. He dreamed of Ariadne. Of swimming naked with her in the pond. Of her glorious nude body surrounded by nature as she undressed shyly and told him not to watch.
Of her nursing Olivia, of her telling him she never wanted to see him again. Of her coming to save him and bathing him. Ariadne in her widow's veil, Ariadne writing with him, Ariadne in those modern slacks, Ariadne on her wedding day to Fredrick. Finally, Ariadne as his lover. Her pale, soft body under his. The way her face looked when he entered her and how he delighted her with his oh so sinful needs.
How they escaped Blue Rivers to be together, like the illicit lovers they were.
Then, fire, fire, misery, walking, cold, loneliness, writing, work, loneliness, writing and work.
His dreams felt so real, he swore he could hear her voice. Her confident voice giving instructions to the servants and even Maura's frightened voice as well.
He almost opened his eyes, but sleep took him back again.
Then, one fine day, he woke up.
His body was done with sleeping and was now rested.
He opened his eyes to find himself in a strange room he had never been in before. This was not blue Rivers. Nor, was it the boarding house or Fischer's Hospital. He had never been here before.
"You're awake." came a voice and he turned to see a woman sitting in a rocking chair.
He didn't recognize her right away. His eyes were still unfocused from sleeping too long. He thought she looked familiar but he couldn't give her a name.
What he did see was his manuscript in her hands. She was reading it.
She carefully re-wrapped the pages in it's piece of leather and tied to together again.
"Where did you get that? That's mine." he growled but lacked the energy to even sit up.
"I know it's yours, Eames. It's very good. The best you've ever done I think." The strange woman told him.
"Stay out of my things." he whispered before falling asleep again.
"Eames, stay awake." she said and he forced himself to open his eyes again.
"Stay awake. Stay with me." she said.
He felt her sit on the edge of his bed and he got a good look at her.
Ariadne, his great love looked back at him. Her doe like eyes full of worry and concern.