A/N:Another long(er) chapter to make up for the long update time. I do a lot of magical science abracadabra hand-waving here but *shrugs* it's an AU, yes? I hope it doesn't sound too farfetched or heavy-handed.

In any case, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on the latest!

Chapter 11

Arthur was sitting at the dining room table when Ana found him.

She'd woken up only a few minutes before, disoriented and hungry, and had decided to wander through the empty halls in search of company and food.

Eames' safe house had turned out to be a rather large home in Kensington, which meant nothing to Ana as far as she knew about London. Sitting up in the unfamiliar bed, her heart still pounding from a dimly remembered dream, she had to mentally flip through her memories in order to regain her sense of time and place.

She remembered:

…packing…

…Arthur's silence and increasing tension…

…the private airfield and the small plane…

…the tinted windows of the car that drove them through the streets of London…

–being so tired that Eames hadn't bothered with the tour he'd promised her on the flight; once they arrived, he pulled her into one of his guest rooms and she'd crawled into the soft, roomy bed without protest. She guessed that she'd been asleep for a little over three hours, peeking out at the darkening sky through the sliver between the heavy curtains that shielded her from the rest of the world.

The room she'd been given was furnished tastefully but the décor was distinctly masculine, all dark wood and white walls, with pops of bright colors from the framed art. A large wardrobe stood diagonally against one corner and she'd spotted a familiar suitcase propped up against the door.

She found a set of clothing on the writing desk across from the bed – loose pants, a warm, heavy sweater, and almost absurdly luxurious slippers. Ana had run her hands over the soft fabric of the sweater and played with the white mink fur of the slippers before changing. It seemed Eames' earlier excavation of her belongings had worked in her favor after all, though she wondered when and how he'd been able to get her new things between the hotel room and flight to London.

The air was still and cold when Ana slipped out from her room and she felt as if she had to move quietly, like she was in a church. She wasn't sure if it was due to being in someone else's home, but she hadn't wanted to call out for anyone and disturb the not entirely uncomfortable silence. Either way, the house wasn't quite what she expected from Eames and yet it suited him perfectly.

Big and bold on the surface but thoughtful, with a hundred little details hidden away from plain sight.

And after a few minutes of exploring, she had come across Arthur on the first floor.

Ana stopped just outside the dining room and studied him.

Whatever he found back in Paris, whatever it was he discovered on his laptop had made him anxious and agitated through the rest of the day and during their trip. He used the in-flight phone and spoken in tense, hushed tones to Dom, the extractor she'd been told about the day before. Though she couldn't make out every word – Arthur had stayed far enough away from her to make eavesdropping a near impossibility – she'd heard enough to know he was planning on emailing something to him to for perusal.

But that was earlier.

Now, Arthur stared down at small red object on the table in front of him, elbows propped up on the edge, with a strange expression on his face. The lines around his eyes and mouth seemed smoothed away but his eyes were old and tired. His collar hung open and Ana watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists, his forearms flexing with the movement.

He reached towards the object and then pulled back and Ana realized that he'd likely been repeating the action for some time.

"Hey," she said softly, breaking the silence. Arthur looked up but remained silent, watching her with his dark eyes.

Ana walked inside, taking in the paintings on the walls. It seemed Eames was an art connoisseur who favored surrealism and she decided that she'd study the pieces throughout the house more closely at her leisure. Like her bedroom, the furniture in the room was dark and refined and oddly comforting. It gave her the sense of being safe and Ana couldn't help but feel reassured.

Arthur straightened as she sat at the table beside him. Now that she was closer, she could see the object was a die. Before she could look closely at its surface though, he'd closed his hand over it and put in his shirt pocket.

"What was that?" she asked.

Arthur looked away, his shoulders tensing slightly.

"Nevermind," she said after a short silence. "You don't have–"

"My totem," he said. "It's a weighted die."

And why would you need it now? she wondered. Before she could push though, Arthur cleared his throat and looked back at her.

"You sleep okay?" he asked and Ana recognized the subject change for what it was.

"Fine, I guess," she said. She would let Arthur have his secret. "I think I dreamed. I mean, I don't remember what about but when I woke up, I felt…"

Lost.

Ana paused. Arthur was watching her intently and she looked down, trying to find the right words. "I felt like waking up was falling asleep. I felt like… Like I didn't want to wake up."

Arthur closed his eyes and leaned back, looking more exhausted than she'd seen him before. She knew that her words troubled him and she was sorry for it.

"But it was just stress."

Arthur opened his eyes. The light above them, an orb chandelier, cast Arthur's face into shadow but instead of sharpening his angles, they made him look soft and vulnerable.

"About earlier, when we got back from the school," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so…"

"Harsh?" she finished for him. Arthur nodded. "Don't worry. I wasn't crying into my handkerchief after our chat."

Arthur's mouth twitched up.

"Right. Good to know," he said. His face grew serious again. "But really, what you said… It's not that I want to disregard who you are or were–"

"I said it was okay," she started but he held up his hand. She closed her mouth and gestured for him to continue.

"It's not okay. I didn't mean to make you feel like I... That I didn't care about who you were. I just don't know what the right thing to do is anymore," he said. He let out a small laugh but it lacked sincerity. "Do you know what that's like for a control freak like me?"

"I can imagine," Ana said. She leaned towards and smiled slightly, wanting to reassure him in some way. "But apology accepted, even if it isn't necessary."

"It's not enough," Arthur said. He tilted his head down and the shadows under his eyes became darker.

Ana didn't know how to respond. They sat in silence for a moment and she looked down at her hands, running her fingers across the line of stitches on one palm.

"You know, we used to call you and your brother the Tremont twins."

Ana looked up with a start.

"Matthew and Miranda Tremont," Arthur said, staring at her. "But everyone called you Annie. Ana, by the time we were in junior high. Matt was older than you by less than an hour but you were always going to be his little sister."

"Arthur," she said his name in a soft breath. She wanted to hear more, wanted to shake him and tell him to keep talking, but at the same time she wanted him to take his time so that she could savor each word. "Please."

Tell me everything.

"I lived across the street from you. I was seven and you were riding your bike with your brother the day we moved in. I was standing on the front porch when I saw you. You looked over at me and waved and smiled. That was my first memory of you. "

Ana considered this for a moment and then asked, "What color was my bike?"

Arthur blinked in surprise and then laughed, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. "It was pink. A pink Schwinn. You were definitely a girly girl. You almost always wore dresses but even when Matt and I were off climbing trees and digging in the mud, you never stood on the sidelines. You just got dirty along with us. Your mom… God, she'd get so mad at Matt."

"So the three of us were close?"

Arthur nodded, grinning. His dimples deepened, his shoulders lowered, and the stiffness in his posture seemed to melt away. "You and I were friends first though. I mean, you reached out to me first. Even as a kid you were curious and I was the new kid, the mystery. Matt had his own friends but he was always around. The Tremont twins were the dynamic duo, never too far apart from each other."

"The Tremont twins," Ana repeated. She smiled back at Arthur. "What was he like? My brother."

"Matt was the social butterfly," Arthur said. "He was outgoing and friendly. By the time we were in high school, he was really into soccer and track. But you know, he was one of the nicest people… Just a genuinely good guy. Soft hearted. Everyone liked him. You really couldn't say a bad word against him."

Ana felt something inside of her settle and warm.

So when he died, he had people who would miss him.

Good.

"You were quieter." Arthur's smile faded slightly but his eyes remained bright. "But no less well-liked. I think everyone thought you were shy but you just liked watching them. You knew what to say to people, like you knew what they needed to hear. What made them tick. They thought you just had a knack, a gift but it was because you studied everyone without them even noticing."

Arthur chuckled. "You were valedictorian."

"Was I?" Ana said, amused. "I must have been a nerd."

"Nah," Arthur said. "Trust me, we spent the same amount of time hitting the books and your grades were miles above mine. That just came easy to you too, I guess. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't keep up with you but I tried."

Arthur leaned forward again, resting his elbows back on the edge of the table. Ana was struck by how different he seemed at that moment. Relaxed and loose, there was something inviting about Arthur then – from his surprisingly sweet smile to his unguarded, casual speech.

"So who were you? Aside from my friend, the boy who lived across the street."

Arthur looked thoughtful.

"I was just a guy," he said. "Did well in school but didn't really make waves. You let me be quiet. I appreciated that."

Ana moved closer to him, intrigued. "And that was important to you?

Arthur shrugged. "We could spend hours together not doing anything important really but I never felt like you were waiting for me to do or say anything. I could just be. I think you got that. You never said anything outright but I think you understood that."

"And we stayed friends this whole time," Ana mused. "That's amazing. But what about my parents? Where are they? Do you think we should let them know where I am or do we need to wait?"

"We lost touch for a bit after high school. Things happened and we went our separate ways," he said, almost curtly. He rubbed his forehead with two fingers and let out a long breath, as if he were in pain. "Ana, about your parents–"

"Do they live in Washington too? Or Virginia maybe?" Ana asked. "It has to be the east coast, your accent…"

Ana trailed off as Arthur stared at her, all traces of his smile gone. The skin around his eyes seemed to tighten again and she felt a creeping dread wash over her as his silence grew longer.

Oh.

So it's like that.

"How long ago?" Ana asked quietly.

Arthur reached out, his palm facing up and she stared at it for a moment before placing her hand in his. His skin was warm and surprisingly soft, though she could feel the raised skin of old scars on his fingers.

"It was right after college. You had just graduated and I… God, I wish I'd been there for you but I was out of the country and got the call too late. I never told you how much I regretted not being there."

"You're telling me now. That counts," Ana said, but her voice sounded strained and weak. She bowed her head, unsure of what she was feeling. The numbness was coming back and with it came a sort of mental fog.

She didn't feel sad, not really, especially when she didn't have any memories to connect with her parents. Grief was something distant and abstract; how could she truly mourn people she couldn't even remember? But like the death of her brother, it felt like a great blow had knocked her down to her knees.

"How?" She forced herself to raise her chin and look back into Arthur's face.

"Your mother was sick. She had been for a while, a little over two years by then I think," Arthur said. "It was a form of leukemia but there were complications related to the chemotherapy that really… Your dad died of a heart attack about a week and a half after. I'm sorry."

There was a sheen to his eyes that hadn't been there earlier. "I'm so, so sorry you have to go through this again."

They must have loved each other.

I have to believe that.

"They were both scientists," Arthur said, when Ana didn't respond. "Your dad was a pathologist and your mother was a psychiatrist. She used to bake these amazing sugar cookies every Christmas and she'd pack extra in your lunch so we could share. Your dad had a small garden in your backyard and he'd let us spend afternoons in there, reading in the shade. He never cared that we trampled over his flower beds. Ana, they both loved you very much."

She stared at the grain of the wood that the table was made from. The surface was so shiny, she could almost see her reflection there.

"Do I have anyone else?" she asked.

"You're not alone," Arthur said softly.

She had wanted to know the truth, to know everything, but now that she was faced with the reality of her life, her earlier victory felt hollow.

What if Arthur's right and I'm better off not knowing? What if this is a chance for something new?

A life that isn't riddled with holes, the empty spaces where people I loved once filled.

"You're not alone," Arthur repeated.

Peter said I wanted revenge because I thought Eames and Arthur had taken Matt from me. But maybe it was because I had no one else left afterwards.

Ana found it telling that Arthur was so open in telling her about her childhood, about himself and his place in her world then and yet seemed so against talking about the recent past.

Perhaps she'd become something that wasn't worth remembering, a twisted version of someone he once knew.

"I'm glad we were friends, Arthur," she said finally.

"I tried to be, yeah," Arthur said. His voice sounded rough. "But I'm afraid I've made some mistakes along the way."

"Well," Ana said, forcing herself not to sink deeper into her thoughts, "who hasn't? Thank you for telling me. I needed to know. I needed to hear that."

The sound of a door opening some distance away made Ana jump and Arthur squeezed her hand gently before pulling away.

"That's Eames," Arthur said, getting to his feet. "He went to re-stock the groceries so we wouldn't go hungry. Come on, let's head to the kitchen and see what we can make for dinner."

Though she had initially woken up hungry, Ana felt as if there was lead in her stomach weighing her down. She stood up slowly and Arthur watched her, wary but worried.

"I'll follow you in a bit," she said, turning towards one of the paintings. "I need moment alone, if that's okay?"

"Of course." Arthur made as if to walk past her but then he stopped and put his hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him, surprised.

"After high school, I went to West Point," he said, his eyes lowered. "Just like my dad and his dad and his dad before him. I didn't tell you until the summer before because I knew you'd be disappointed. You just didn't understand why tradition had to get in our way but my dad had his heart set on... Well. You and Matt were off to the University of Maryland and you thought we'd all be together, like always."

"We were kids," Ana said, confused. "But I understand. You did what you had to do. If I made you feel bad about any of it..."

"Yeah, that's the thing," Arthur said. He raised his eyes with some effort until he was looking back at her. "You didn't say a word to me about how much I must have hurt you. Not one word. You told me you were proud of me. You helped me pack. Hugged me the day I left and never even asked why I lied to your face for almost a year about where I was going. You just gave me a pass, even though you had every right to expect better."

Arthur's expression became stern and cold again but Ana could see the self-loathing in his eyes.

He's been waiting to say this, even though he hates admitting it.

"I'm sorry about that too," he said. "I want you to know that. I'm sorry because you deserved better. And you deserve better than what you have now but it's not fair because that was just one of a lifetime's worth of apologies I have for you."

Ana nodded. She found that she had difficulty swallowing the odd lump that had formed in her throat.

Without another word, Arthur pulled his hand back and walked out of the room. When she could no longer hear his footsteps, Ana turned back to the paintings on the wall, lost in her thoughts.

###

"So that's it then?" Eames said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Ana went off her rocker. Fantastic."

Arthur didn't bother responding. Despite his glib tone, he knew Eames was worried. As he watched, Eames rubbed his mouth with the tips of his fingers and began to pace. They were in his office on the ground floor; while he called it a safe house, Arthur knew the truth.

He brought us here for a reason.

The location is merely a lucky coincidence.

This was Eames' base of operations. Though he had plenty of other homes around the world, London was where he felt the most secure. The neighborhood was busy enough that Eames could easily come and go without notice, but affluent enough that those in the business wouldn't consider it to be his type of venue. He was very protective of its location and Arthur knew he was only there because Ana felt safer with Arthur.

He would have left me in Paris to deal with Gideon if he could.

Eames, who studied people for a living, couldn't have missed the way Ana looked to Arthur first each time they made a move. When she entered a room she sought him out, perhaps without even knowing what she was doing, and relaxed once he was found. There would be no leaving Arthur behind as long as that was the case.

It was knowledge that Arthur was willing to leverage as much as he could.

"How long do you think she'd been planning this?" Eames asked.

Arthur looked down at his laptop and at the printed pages beside it. He'd cracked into Ana's personal folder and found the cache of private notes he knew she'd have. It had almost been too easy… Until Arthur realized that she had expected him to find her notes – that she'd left them there on purpose.

He wasn't done reading them all since there were literally hundreds of files in the folder but what he had gone through made him physically ill. He'd sent the majority of them to Dom, who was reaching out to his own contacts in an effort to figure exactly how she'd been able to do what she had.

It should have been impossible.

"A couple of weeks after she left the hospital," Arthur said. "She dated each entry."

"How thoughtful," Eames said drily. He let out a breath. "So she's had almost a full year to prepare. Let's make sure I understand exactly the situation as it is."

He gestured above him, where Ana was currently sitting in his library on the second floor. Arthur could hear the occasional creak as she moved from one bookcase to another. After dinner, Eames had shown her his collection of books and she'd been enthralled the moment she'd seen the contents of his shelves.

"Somehow, someone who's only been dreaming for a fraction of the time we have figured out a way to contain parts of her memory so that her waking self couldn't access them. There's a part of her, a part of her consciousness, that uses those contained memories… To what? Relive her past on repeat? Pretend her brother's death never happened?"

"Not exactly," Arthur said. "She relives her life but she also recreates it. Based on her notes, she can alter things, add or remove elements as she wants. And with each new cycle, she planned to tweak it a little, make different decisions so that the course of her imagined life is changed."

"Hold on," Eames said, stopping abruptly. "What do you mean with each new cycle? How deep is she in exactly?"

"Full disclosure, didn't you say that was best, Eames?" Arthur said blandly. He was not at all ashamed at the pleasure he found from seeing the other man in distress. "You wanted her to know everything about dreamshare so you told her about limbo; it was in her notes. In fact, it was your description of limbo that gave her the idea in the first place."

Eames paled and shook his head, his arms falling to his side. He was no longer trying to mask his emotions and Arthur felt a sick sort of triumph at the expression on his face. "What do you mean? All I told her about limbo was–"

Arthur walked over to the desk where his laptop sat and tapped a few keys, bringing up the last file he read. He scrolled up and found the section.

"'Eames told me if I go deep enough, if the sedation is strong enough and I die in the dream, I can go into the deepest part of the subconscious mind,'" Arthur recited the words from Ana's notes. "'He said that limbo was an expanse of infinite thought and limitless possibilities. Time moves so slowly that I can live a hundred, a thousand lifetimes, before I truly die. Eames said people have gotten stuck in limbo, forgetting reality altogether. He made it sound like a nightmare and the idea of never waking up once scared me. Now, my reality being what it is, it sounds like paradise.'"

He nodded at the papers.

"Go ahead. Read her words if you don't believe me," Arthur said. "I printed out the parts I thought you'd be most interested in."

"You supercilious bastard," Eames said in a low tone. He was angry but there was fear in his eyes.

"I bet you thought you were doing her a favor. Well congratulations, Eames. In a way, you did," Arthur said. "She met with psychotherapists who specialized in dreams and memory, including Janus – Avery's old advisor. The mind can keep track of more than one thing at a time, everyone knows that, but Ana went one step further. She took her memories, or as much as she could, and centered them on one main projection. And then she dropped down so deep that her conscious self could only retrieve surface impressions."

"So one part of her could function in the real world," Eames said. "And the rest of her–"

"Could live in a fantasy world of her making," Arthur finished for him. "She took the job with us because she needed to use the PASIV but also because she wanted us to bear witness to what she had done. And to set a trap."

Eames looked at him sharply. "Explain."

Arthur smiled, feeling the need to be cruel. He wanted Eames to hurt just as much as he was hurting. "She knew that Gideon would follow her. When Ana left Washington she left a clear path for him to find. They have a code, a phrase that only the both of them know, all she needs to do to call him off is to use the phrase. If she doesn't, then it's a signal that she's in trouble."

"And you know this because she included it in her notes."

Arthur nodded.

"Then she wanted us to know that there was a way out for us." Eames rubbed his mouth again, his brow wrinkling. "And the only way to do that is to reconcile her dreaming self with her conscious mind. After we do that, she can connect with Gideon."

Arthur shook his head slowly. "Or we could simply extract it from her. We don't have to force integration."

"We can't leave her in this state, Arthur," Eames said angrily. "She can't go back to her old life without her bloody memories! She'd be as helpless as a–"

"Who said anything about her old life?" Arthur's voice was quiet, even though his heart was racing. "That's not the only option we have."

They had finally come to the crux of the matter.

For a moment, Eames's face was blank but Arthur knew he was deep in thought.

And then his eyes narrowed.

"Analiese Keller," Arthur said. "Ana left you papers for a new identity. A new life. You made a choice once, Eames. She wants you to make another one."

She wants us to suffer.

If we try to retrieve her memories, then we could end up doing more damage than good.

Eames' voice was rough as he spoke next. "You can't seriously think that I could–"

If we leave her like this, then we're responsible for her.

"Not me." Arthur stared hard at Eames. "Ana. She expects you to choose again. And I think it's pretty clear what she wants you to do this time."

Either way, we're left with the guilt and weight of our memories.

"She wants us to go into her mind," Arthur went on. "She wants us to figure out Gideon's code. But beyond that, I think she wants us to know what we've driven her to do. Her notes were… Eames, you don't understand how angry she was. I'm not done going through everything but there's a chance that if we do try to reconcile both aspects of her mind, memory and consciousness, present and past, she could wake up irreparably broken.

"It's as if she's two different people now, with distinct personalities. The conscious one is dominant; the one in limbo lives far beneath the surface. You try and force them together, she might wake up with two or even three or four different separate personalities. She's been down there for more than twenty-four hours. Think about how many lives she might have lived already, how many versions of Ana have existed. She may not even realize she's dreaming anymore, too far gone to remember what limbo even is."

Arthur sighed heavily. He was exhausted. He'd been awake for almost two days and he was beginning to feel light-headed. "And even if Gideon wasn't after us, we're still operating on a timeline. She said we had less than a week before Avery finds out what's happened. We need to go under far before then."

"And what? We go into her dreams, extract the code phrase, and then just… Just leave her as she is?" Eames asked incredulously. "You won't even try to help her?"

"Ana was my friend first, you piece of shit," Arthur snapped. The pounding in his head began to grow stronger but he forced himself to keep his voice down. "Don't you dare fucking imply that I'm just doing this to save my own ass or that I don't want to help her. She is my only priority right now so quit trying to act like this isn't exactly what you wanted."

Eames' face darkened and he straightened to his full height, taking on an aggressive stance. "And what do you mean by that?"

"Christ, we've gone through this. This whole time, you've wanted to tell her everything," Arthur said. "Now she literally can't remember so it works out even better for you. Go ahead, beg her for forgiveness. Hell, I've already done it. She'll give it to you, after all, the past year will sound like only a bad bedtime story now, right?"

Eames took a step forward but Arthur refused to rise to the threat implied by his curled fists. He turned around, almost goading him into an attack. He closed his laptop, tucked it under his arm, and then pulled his phone out from his pocket.

"I'm calling Dom to check in and then I'm going to bed," Arthur said, moving towards the door. "Feel free to fuck off until I wake up."

"You said she wanted me to make a choice."

Arthur stopped with his hand on the knob. "Yeah?"

"So what about you?"

Arthur looked over his shoulder at the question.

Eames' tone was both mocking and bitter. "Out of the two us it was clear who she hated the most. I may have… Done what I did… But you were the reason Lewis came after her and her brother in the first place. Lewis found her because of you. Ana blamed you."

Arthur laughed, but it sounded almost like a sob. "You're an asshole, you know that? Always need to get the last word in."

"What was your punishment, Arthur? What level of hell did she place you?"

He turned back around and opened the door.

"Her notes, Eames. They were all addressed to me."

###

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