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“… don’t cry, my love.” His hands tremble. They aren’t nimble anymore. They haven’t been in a long time. But he still is strong enough to lift them, and if his daughter meets them halfway, well, he pretends not to notice. “I’ll get to join your father again.” He coughs a laugh. “He’ll need his handler.”
If Charlize’s laughter sounds a bit watery, a bit forced… he soon forgets.
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Waking up from limbo is surprisingly uneventful.
Arthur had always imagined that it would feel like dipping his head into cold water on a hot day. Sudden, shocking. A short sensation of disorientation, and then – everything is clear. Thoughts muddled from heat make sense, the wit sharpens and the body feels young again.
Well, his body certainly is younger. But the rest… Then again, Eames has always bemoaned his lack of imagination.
The rest...
He allows himself a second to orientate himself in the mark’s office, and then lets routine take over. One: Check the number of persons in the room. One, the mark. No bodyguards, no secretaries, no one who could have witnessed anything. The door: still locked, the desk jamming it still in place. Two: Check the state of the persons in the room. The mark is still under, which means the modified version of the Somnacin at least got that right. He himself is unharmed, his muscles a bit stiff, but they will pose no problems. His mind, well, we will come to that later. Currently working to his advantage. He needs to get away. Which would be Number Three. Disappear. No traces.
___
Arthur waits.
He wonders when exactly insanity will catch up with him. He is not delusional enough to think he can outrun it.
He wonders if he is trying at all.
___
The thing about laying low is that there is not much to do. It only takes him twenty minutes to cover any surfaces that might catch his reflection.
He flinches the first time he sees himself, his face mirrored in the shop window of a grocer. Then he regains control over himself.
He considers working out. Pushing his body to its limits. He tells himself that it’s because he wants to remember how graceful he used to be. How strong. He tries to convince himself that it has nothing to do with wanting to feel his bones crack and his muscles ache again.
Two days after, his phone rings.
Arthur is busy. He lets it reach his voice mail. He will listen to it later.
The thing about limbo is, in its essence, it is a dream. Strange and self-induced, but still a dream. And dreams, you forget them.
Arthur is busy trying to remember. He tries to remember the day he met Eames. His Eames. He tries to remember how Eames looked at him, on the first day on set. How he had kissed his knuckles and how he had chuckled, pure self-satisfaction, when Arthur had blushed and had been at total loss how to deal with this mad Englishman.
He tries to recreate the exact tone of Eames voice, when he purred ‘Daaarrling’ into his ear, low, rumbling, and entirely aware of the effect he had on Arthur.
The way Eames managed to break him out of his panic spirals.
The sound Eames made when Arthur kissed his throat.
The house Eames had created for both of them.
Eames.
Eames.
Eames.
___
“Arthur, this is Ariadne. Listen, we’re having a get-together, a farewell, if you have it. Come, or don’t. I know you weren't close. But consider it, yeah?”
There’s a text with a time and a place. It had arrived two minutes after Ariadne left the voice mail.
Arthur deletes both.
___
He remembers Ariadne as well. Meeting her, watching her grow into her role as designer and as a human. There had been Gon. For a while. Gon, who was pronounced Jon. Arthur briefly wonders what that says about his mind.
But she had been a great godmother. Charlize had been lucky.
What Charlize never knew was that Ariadne had wished for a boy. “For the memories. The old memories’ sake”. He had never gotten an answer when he asked which memories.
____
Mal had been alive.
Maybe he should call Cobb.
___
He stares at the sorry excuse for a calendar he has found in a drawer. A red dot marks the date.
He debates.
The first empty bottle of whiskey is joined by another one.
___
There is one picture of Eames on Arthur’s phone. It’s blurry, and the expression is all wrong. It is dismissive and Arthur deletes it after a week.
His Eames had never looked at Arthur that way.
___
Arthur wonders if he is insane already.
He decides that if he is, he is sorely disappointed.
He also decides that maybe he should seek company. He hates the thought.
He finishes the third bottle.
___
When he attends the farewell, he is surprised by the lack of attention he gets. He has to remember that he is not the chief mourner. Not this time.
He orders whisky. Someone murmurs that Eames was a good guy.
Arthur scoffs.
He orders whisky.
____
Arthur is busy. Because limbo has the properties of a dream and dreams are easily forgotten.
Arthur tries to remember how Eames looked like when he proposed. He remembers the ocean; he remembers being torn between amusement and adoration at Eames’ words.
He doesn't remember what those words are.
Did Eames have brown eyes, or blue ones?
___
His phone stays quiet.
___
One day, Arthur smashes his plate, an accident. He watches it spring into thousands of shards and desperately needs more.
Afterwards, he is surrounded by broken glass and ceramics and he is bleeding from more wounds than he cares to count.
He quietly bandages them in the bathroom, the mirror covered with a blue towel.
Maybe he should replace it with the black one.
___
There’s a job offer.
Arthur doesn’t accept. He is busy.
When did that one wrinkle of Eames forehead appear?
___
Arthur considers what to do with the information he got off the mark.
The information is this: The mark does not know who Eames is. The mark does not know who had hired the assassin either.
Arthur considers whether his stint in Limbo had been unnecessary.
He comes to the conclusion that is the price for a life with Eames is insanity, he will gladly pay it.
And he wonders whether he is insane already, or if this is just his own special hell, for failing the only man he had ever really loved.
___
His phone stays quiet.
___
Arthur starts to forget more quickly. He forgets the day they visited Charlize in the orphanage, and Eames face when he held her in his arms for the first time.
He forgets Eames tired sigh, when he was rolling out of bed, to comfort their toddler, who had been plagued by nightmares recently.
He forgets the day they pass their company to Scott, because they have enough money and they want more time for themselves.
___
He washes out another bottle of whisky. He has stopped buying the cheap stuff.
___
Arthur is busy trying to remember.
Sometimes he dreams again. Sometimes, he sees a familiar face in a dream and he wakes up before he can get a closer look.
He regrets deleting the picture.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Arthur sips his coffee, tries to remember Eames’ face, the fond, slightly amused smile Arthur loved so much. He tries to remember the curve of Eames’ mouth, the exact colour of his eyes. He conjures up a blurry face in his mind, void of details and not quite right. But it’s Eames’ face, and Arthur remembers. He remembers for a split second.
And then his phone rings.