A/N: Be forewarned- this is an angsty flashback. Ana may not seem sympathetic in this one but I'm hoping you fine readers will at least understand why she did what she did. I don't think Eames really gets where she's coming from which is why he seems so genuinely confused here- at least in my imagination.

Anyway, happy reading?

After Stockholm

Four weeks after the Stockholm job, Eames stood in front of the door leading to Ana's home and knocked.

He knew she was home. An hour ago, he had watched her walk back into the townhouse after a long run. She had been carrying grocery bags and Ana didn't eat out if the kitchen was fully stocked.

She wasn't much for cooking though, too lazy and impatient to care about measurements and temperature settings, and he could only imagine what were in the bags she'd had to carry with both hands.

Frozen dinners. Canned soup. Eggs and milk and bread. Perhaps even a stray vegetable or two.

And of course–

Enough biscuits to feed a schoolyard full of children.

Ana couldn't help herself. It was one of the many little quirks that Eames had come to learn about her, like her affinity for dresses or the way she could identify and remember different smells as if she were a human bloodhound. He had started keeping a packet of chocolate with him when they traveled together. Even now, even after more than a month apart, he had a bar of Cadbury tucked away in his suit jacket.

He lowered his hand and waited.

Four weeks, he thought nervously. It's been a month.

Enough time, hopefully, for Ana to have calmed down a little but not enough time to stop missing his face or the sound of his voice.

She left Stockholm angry, without a word as to where she was going, and Eames hadn't gone after her right away. He'd had to do some clean up in Stockholm and then stay low for a little while longer. It had taken almost two weeks before he could make his way to the states safely and track her down.

He watched her for days and he couldn't deny the growing sense of panic, seeing her live her life without him. She visited her brother, friends, went to the gym, to work. Eames had seen her walk beside Klein, eat with him during lunch, and he knew he was witnessing the formation of a bond.

She hadn't liked Klein before and Eames had suspected she'd been a little afraid of him but now…

Ana was trying.

That threat, knowing that she was moving on, was what spurred Eames to finally make his move and go to see her.

He raised his hand to knock again, glancing quickly to the sides to make sure that street was still relatively empty, but the door opened before he could make contact.

Eames blinked, a little surprised, and he couldn't help the smile that formed.

It faded though, as he stared at Ana's face before him.

Oh, love.

The day before, he'd seen her laughing with a colleague in a bar after work. Her cheeks had been flushed a healthy pink and she looked impossibly carefree.

However, without any distance between them he saw how pallid and drawn she really was. He saw the shadows underneath her eyes and the way her skin seemed dry and stretched over her fine features. Up close, Ana was subdued and the usual energy that always seemed to surround her was missing.

Not sleeping well.

Somnacin withdrawal.

Most probably having nightmares.

For a long time, they stared at each other and Eames started to grow uncertain about the outcome. He'd been sure, so sure, that she'd still be angry at him and that he'd have to talk quickly, grovel if he had to, to convince her to give him another chance but now, looking into her cool, pale eyes…

"You've been following me," Ana said. She looked him up and down. He could almost hear her thoughts racing. "You've been in the city for some time now, haven't you?"

Eames nodded silently. Ana wouldn't have bothered to acknowledge that she hadn't been aware of his presence before; he was very, very good at blending in and not being seen until he wanted to be. He knew how to hide even from her though he didn't doubt that she'd likely had her suspicions.

"You've been staying close by." The corners of her mouth tilted down. "So why now? Why are you here now?"

"I was hoping we could talk," he said honestly. "I didn't get a chance to explain–"

"I know what you did, Eames. There's nothing for you to explain," she cut him off abruptly. She pressed her lips together and her frown grew deeper, making the lines around her mouth more pronounced.

Ana looked so resigned. She could be so stubborn – he knew that, but he also knew that she was easily hurt. That her heart could be so easily bruised because she trusted and loved with everything she had.

Even though she could read a person, could tell their life story in a glance or a crooked trouser cuff, Ana had faith in people. She was always willing to give someone a chance to prove her wrong; even if all she could see were the marks on their souls, even after years under Arthur's influence, she was hopeful.

It was this thought, this other little personality quirk of hers, that made Eames hopeful as well.

Because it meant he still had a chance.

"Please, Ana," he said quietly. He held out his hands, palms up, in a gesture of surrender. "You don't know what I have to say. You can tell where I've been and probably what I had for lunch today but not even you can read my mind. Just… Please let me in?"

Ana's stared at him. He felt a small thrill of victory when she finally stepped back and opened the door wider.

I'll make things right, he thought as he walked past her.

Everything will be alright now.

###

"Have a seat anywhere," Ana said, locking the door behind her.

Eames walked in and looked around curiously. He pushed down an odd twist in his chest. In the six months that they'd been together, sleeping in the same bed, sharing the same air, she hadn't invited him to her home. It had never come up and though Ana had known that Eames disliked the states in general, it would have been nice to have her ask him over.

Her living room was large and the walls were white and bare but the furniture looked comfortable and old. Everything seemed toned down and plain. If it were a painting, it would have been depicted with large, broad strokes and no attention to detail. There were pictures in dark frames propped up amidst the books in her bookcases but that was about the only decoration he could see. A flat screen television was mounted on one wall, across from a large brown couch with a dark blue afghan thrown over it. An armchair stood diagonally from the couch and on her low coffee table was a pile of papers and books, a mug of something with steaming hot liquid inside.

It made sense, Eames thought. Ana was constantly bombarded by particulars and minutiae, sounds and smells and sights. Her home had to be a sanctuary, a safe haven from the madness of the world.

Here, sheltered by the stark walls, Ana could rest.

She made her way towards the couch and began to straighten the papers on the table. "I wasn't expecting anyone. It's a little messy in here."

"Perfectly alright," he said with a vague gesture. He sat down on the couch and nodded at her. "And it isn't messy at all. You have a lovely home."

Ana looked up at him with a bemused expression and shrugged. To his dismay, she chose to sit on the armchair away from him.

She sat with her back straight and feet on the floor and stared at him for a moment, sizing him up. Eames felt like a bug under a magnifying glass. Like prey under the watchful eye of a predator. Her face was nearly expressionless as she tore him apart with her gaze.

He noted that Ana didn't bother to offer him a drink.

"So talk," Ana said and Eames was taken aback by her tone. "It's what you came here for, isn't it? To explain."

"I should have told you. I shouldn't have tried to hide what I was doing," Eames said. He leaned forward and looked into her eyes steadily, despite the fact that he could feel his heartbeat in his throat. "I know how it must have looked."

"It wasn't a matter of how things looked," she said. "You sold us out."

"Not us." Eames said it firmly, trying to will her to understand. "It's not what you think. Whatever you think you've sussed out, there's more to it. I would have never–"

"Two million dollars for me, Ravi and Merrill. Tell me that Elizabeth Lidstrom didn't give you a payout of two million dollars to hand over the team."

"I didn't sell us out. Ravi and Merrill were on the line, yes, but not–"

"Over six hundred thousand dollars per life. Is that how much we were worth to you? How much a life is worth to you?"

Her voice was cold and her eyes seemed to grow paler as she regarded him. Eames pushed down the increasing panic that threatened to bring him to his knees at her feet and stood his ground. She had to understand.

There was no other option. None at all.

Please, please understand that.

"Lidstrom would have gone after us all," Eames said carefully. "She was psychotic, you must have suspected. But smart too; she knew that Ravi was the one who set up the job. She knew that it would be easier to go through me than have everyone killed."

"Of course it was easier. She knew you could be bought." Ana smiled slightly but it was a brittle, bitter thing. "Because you've done it before and Elizabeth heard about it. Arthur told me about what happened in Prague."

A multitude of expressions flitted across Ana's face and Eames imagined that he saw grief and confusion there, mingled with the loathing. And then it was gone. Her face was a perfect blank slate again.

This wasn't the way he'd wanted the conversation to go. He knew she'd be mad but he'd expected more heat. He thought she'd cry or maybe scream at him. Some something of her rage at his actions. But this… This was like coming up against a wall of ice.

The day before the job was set to take place in Stockholm, Ana left. Eames had returned to their hotel room and found her things gone with only a note left with the staff for him–

I know.

Ravi and Merrill had gone too and Eames was left behind to deal with Lidstrom and her fury.

"What I did in Prague has no bearing on any of this. Arthur wasn't involved in that at all," Eames said shortly. Of course he'd known that Arthur had tried to warn her off him and he knew that, regardless of their fractured relationship, Arthur's word was still golden in Ana's eyes.

He'd hoped that the importance she placed on Arthur, or rather the ghost of him that lingered in her mind would come to fade. After six months, Eames was sure, so sure that at the least he'd gained some ground.

Ana had told him that she was considering a move, a change. He didn't push too hard. Ana couldn't be pushed to make any decisions; it wasn't in her nature to react well to coercion. But she could be led to an idea, much as she could identify and follow clues. Ana was all about facts and logic. Eames knew that he had to let her believe that she had come to the only conclusion possible: namely, that he was essential. Moreso than Arthur or anyone else aside from her brother.

But six months wasn't enough time and now… Now he was on the verge of losing it all. Of losing her.

You need to understand.

"Listen to me, Ana, please," Eames said in a low voice. "What I did was necessary. Once Ravi brought us in, Lidstrom would have come after any team he pulled together. I found that out too late so I did what needed to be done to save us and make some money. There's no harm in that. Every job runs risks and Ravi and Merrill have been around long enough to take care of themselves."

Ana looked at him incredulously. She drew in a long, deep breath before letting it out slowly. "That's your explanation, Eames? That's it? Us against them and hey, if you make some profit on the side, all the better."

"It's the truth. I just–"

"In Stockholm, you'd started to limp slightly," she said. Her voice was faraway, faint, and her gaze seemed to turn inward. "Not much. I don't think anyone else would have seen but your knees hurt when you're stressed. Muscles contract around blood vessels, restricting the flow and resulting in poor circulation. A tense muscle also uses more energy. You got tired more quickly. Did you notice that? People who are tense often take shallow breaths because the breathing mechanisms are restricted."

Ana blinked, seemingly coming back to herself and then something in her face changed.

Eames drew in a sharp breath.

He knew that look. He'd seen it leveled at other people time and time again and he doubted that Ana even knew what it meant. She only looked at people in that way when she was disgusted at them, when there was no hope, no faith left. Murderers and liars, be they clients or subjects or team members – she'd stare them down with the same flinty gaze.

Judge, jury and executioner – all in one expression.

Ana was looking at him as if she didn't know him at all.

"Love, I–" Eames began but Ana cut him off again.

"When you went to trail her, you actually met with Elizabeth, didn't you? Her favorite scarf was a gift from her husband and there were fibers on the back of your coat from it. You may have noticed, she was a little dramatic. She has this tic of throwing the ends over her shoulder because she thinks it makes her look glamorous but it just got caught on everything. And your shoes… Her favorite café uses imported white chert for their entrance. It's difficult to scrape off completely since the powder is so coarse. But you weren't aware of that, were you?

"You made a copy of the key to the office we were going to use for the job. Elizabeth's men would have attacked us while we were under, when we were at our most vulnerable. You left wax on the key when you took an imprint. It's hard to clean it up completely but gets everywhere."

She tilted her head back, baring the smooth, pale column of her neck. Eames had traced over the skin there before; he'd once marveled at how soft it was, at how vulnerable she'd let herself be with him.

"I was going to send you home before the job took place," Eames said. "You were never going to get hurt."

She ignored him and stared up at the ceiling.

"Arthur looks into everyone before a job. Especially the team he works with," she said. "I know I wasn't immune to his background checks, not because he didn't trust me but he wanted to be sure I didn't have anyone looking too hard into my absences back here. When you asked me take on research for our jobs, I did what Arthur would have done because he's the best.

"So I know about the Swiss account, Eames. I know that Elizabeth paid you half up front to give her the names of our team. And I know that the other half was due to drop the day of the job, once we were all under."

She huffed an almost laugh and Eames saw that her hands were curled into fists on the arm rests.

"And I know you planned to get rid of me. I tracked down the tickets. One out to London the night before the job and the other immediately after the job. I wonder – did it have anything to do with the Emetine-derivative you had sent to your drop box that Monday? Drug me up, get me sick enough so I'd be out of the way and then follow behind once the dust had cleared? What would you have told me? That it was an accident? That the subject found out somehow and came after us? How would you have explained your escape?"

"You weren't going to get hurt," Eames said again. His voice sounded weak to his ears and he forced himself to speak up. "None of it would have touched you or your brother. You would have gone back to London ahead of everything and I was going to clean up after–"

"Stop talking," Ana cut him off and Eames shut his mouth with an audible snap. "I've heard enough."

Ana stood up suddenly and pushed the sleeves of her sweater up, showing him her forearms.

"I still have the scars."

And now Eames saw the rage in her eyes, as cold and merciless as an Arctic storm. This, Eames realized with a growing horror, was a fury reserved only for people who had betrayed her.

This... This was personal.

"From St. Petersburg. I was sold out, Eames, you know this. You know this. Me and Arthur were sold out and that's what you were going to do to Ravi and Merrill. Ravi has a son – he's only five and my God, Eames, did you even know? Would you even care that you would have left him fatherless?

"And Merrill, you would have taken him away from his wife because of what? Us against them. That's all you have to say, it was us or them. It's bullshit and it's heartless and you were going to do it. Did you honestly think it would have mattered to me that I was safe when they weren't?"

Eames didn't flinch though something inside of him screamed against her quiet dissection of him. He looked up at her, pained, and said in soft voice, "Do you honestly think that they mattered at all to me, if you were safe and they weren't?"

Ana blinked – seemingly surprised by his confession, and her arms dropped to her sides, a woman deflated.

She swayed on her feet and Eames didn't have to think; he got up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest and pressing his face against the crook of her neck. She smelled of soap and shampoo, of things so familiar and so missed that he let out a shaky breath against her skin.

I was so afraid I wouldn't get to do this again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her ear. "Forgive me, love, please. Forgive me this."

He felt her breathe and then he realized with dawning horror that she wasn't holding him back. She stood straight and still in his embrace, stiff and immovable.

"Please," he said again. He let his desperation, his fear, seep into his voice hoping that it would help. "Please."

"My father tried to teach me chess when I was a child," she said in an odd, flat voice. "I was horrible at it. Arthur picked it up much faster than I did. I could have been better but all I could do was watch my dad's face, his expressions, his hands, and wonder what he was thinking about at that moment. I'd see the smudges on his shirt and the scratches on his watch and… I couldn't concentrate on the board."

Eames slid his hand up and down her back, trying to make her yield to him but she remained frozen.

"He would tell me, 'Annie, protect your king. You always protect your king.' What he really meant was that I needed to protect myself. I was his little girl and he was so worried about me. He didn't want me to get hurt, ever. I thought he meant I needed to learn how to fight, to take up the offensive but people can hurt you in different ways. And I know now that it's the people I trust most, the people I love most, that can hurt me in the worst ways."

"I won't do it again," Eames said, his mind spinning with thoughts. His chest seemed to constrict and tighten and he knew he was losing but fighting against it. "I swear on my life, on yours, that I will never do anything like this again. Just don't go. Don't make me go. I swear it."

"I trusted you," Ana said. He felt her draw back and he made a noise and tightened his grip. "I didn't want to believe even though I knew what I saw was real. It's why it took me so long to act, why I stayed in Stockholm for so long. I wanted to keep trusting you. I want so badly to keep you."

"You can," Eames said fiercely. He took a step back and grabbed her shoulders, looking down into her face. "We can work through this. I did a horrible thing, I've done many horrible things, Ana but if you love me, if you love me even half as much as–"

"Do you remember Kefalonia?" she asked suddenly. "I do. I've thought about it a lot actually."

She looked over his shoulder like she no longer saw him before her. He dug his fingers into her shoulders, not enough to cause pain but to try and snap her back into the present. To come back to him.

"We can go back there if you want." Eames felt feverish, lightheaded. "I'll buy the whole bloody island if you want me to. Anywhere you want to go, we'll go now."

"I remember," Ana said distantly, as if she hadn't heard him, "the way the sun felt on my legs when I stretched them out. You touched me then. You traced the scars on my legs and then kissed me. I wanted you to meet my brother. I wanted my brother to meet the man that made me feel less alone. And then we took the Stockholm job."

Slowly, slowly Ana looked back at Eames and he could see her face harden.

She put her hand on his chest. "Ravi and Merrill didn't matter to you because you only saw them as tools. As a means to an end. Boyd saw me and Arthur the same way. I know what it's like to have a price on my life."

"You don't think Arthur would have done the same thing?" Eames said. "You don't think he's done what I have? He's not the paragon of morality, Ana, and neither are you. I did what I had to do and Arthur would have done the same."

"He would not," Ana said and there was a tone of finality in her voice. "And he never has. I know because I checked. Background research, Eames – I'm nothing if not thorough. Arthur has never, ever sold out anyone on his teams."

She lowered her hand and looked away.

"I used to think it was so exciting. Dreaming, dreamshare, running around the world like we did. I was naïve to think that I wouldn't get caught up in it. I thought that it was the life I was always meant to have, the life I really wanted, but all I was doing was lying to myself. None of it was real."

Her words cut deep and Eames shook his head. "I'm real."

"I'll decide for myself what's real or not. Remember?"

"So what now?" he asked. She shook off his hands and drew back again but this time he let her, feeling utterly powerless to do anything else. He watched as she turned her back on him and walked towards the armchair. "You'll just leave me like this? Just because of one thing, just one thing, I did?"

She stopped and turned to face him with her brow wrinkled and her mouth pulled down.

"You don't understand, do you?" she said, tilting her head to the side. "What you did in Stockholm was reprehensible but it just made me realize… I need to go back to my life, my real life, to rebuild what I had before. Maybe even make it better. The past three years were a waking dream. Some of it was good, some bad. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't do the things I did, or made choices that affected other people's lives. But it's over now.

"I have to wake up, Eames. To face what I've done before I turn into someone my brother doesn't know anymore. I'd like to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not be afraid of what I see. I want the nightmares to go away. It's time for me to wake up."

All the air was sucked out of the room and Eames struggled to breathe. He put his hand over his chest and shuddered. She was telling him… she was saying…

It's over.

"My sister-in-law is pregnant again," Ana said. Something in her face seemed to lighten with the revelation. "Twins this time. Just like me and Matty. I want a life like that. I want to create something good this time, with someone who's never even heard of shared dreaming. With someone who would never think to lie to me, or see life as currency. I'm thinking of leaving fieldwork soon. Maybe go back to school or teach full time, who knows?"

"And what of me?"

Ana closed her eyes briefly. "You're one of the best, Eames. In a few days, you'll take another job and I'll be a distant memory. Just someone you knew once."

Eames opened his mouth and closed it. He reached into his pocket, hoping against hope that…

I'm awake.

He ran his hand over his mouth and looked at the door. "London," he forced himself to say the words. "Your things are… Our home..."

"Your home, it was always your home," Ana said gently, sounding almost kind. Somehow Eames thought it was worse than hearing her yell at him. "And my things, sell them or throw them out, it doesn't matter. They're just things."

"They're yours," Eames said sharply. "I can't."

"Then keep them. But it would be better if you just threw them out," she said. She paused, swallowing before she gestured to the door. "You should go now."

Jerkily, as if he were being led by invisible strings, he walked to the front door. Each step felt heavy and hard and his knees hurt, creaking and cracking like they were made of wood. He unlocked the door and put his hand on the doorknob, turning it as something in his head turned and twisted and sliced.

"Eames?"

He looked over his shoulder at Ana. She stood in the middle of the room. There was no hope in her face for him but he couldn't look away. It was the last he'd see of her, after all.

"Don't come back. Be safe, please," she said softly. "Protect your king."

"I will," Eames said.

He opened the door and walked out.

###

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