Darling,

Arthur doesn’t run into Eames again after that one time. He goes back to visit James and Phillipa, of course, and a couple times Blythe is there, but it happens that Eames isn’t, and Rory comes to pick Blythe up instead. Arthur is glad as he makes small talk with Rory. And then, on one of these occasions, he suddenly realizes what it is about Rory that looks so familiar, what it is that he kept thinking he saw in her but didn’t know for sure. He doesn’t know what prompts the connection, maybe it’s that he’s found out that she is Eames’ sister, but he sees it and he feels silly for not seeing it before.

Eames has forged her before. Eames has assumed her shape and exaggerated her features a little and given her a little more sass and attitude, but it was essentially her. He’s only done it maybe once, on the Stein job, Arthur recalls, but he’s sure. He’s sure it’s her.

Arthur feels stupid. He feels really, really stupid. The signs were all there, the unexplained visits to Los Angeles, the evasive way of answering Arthur’s questions, the familiarity of it all; Arthur should have seen it earlier, he really should have. He feels stupid and doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He begins to lose his nerve a little bit, taking much longer on research than he should, missing things only to catch them when he checks and rechecks his information. Dom catches him on this, asks him if he’s alright, and Arthur assures him that yes, he’s fine, it’s nothing he can’t deal with. Truthfully, he’s not okay and he’s driving himself insane, wondering how he could possibly have missed this, but Dom looks like he could snap at any moment, so Arthur keeps his mouth shut and locks everything up in the same corners of his mind as he keeps thoughts of his nonexistent family and military school and fears of being a disappointment.

-

Time passes, and Arthur loses track of how long he and Dom have been running. He knows it’s been a long time, though, because he can’t quite remember what it feels like to smile anymore. Smiles are associated with Mal and Mal is associated with the before, with the life Arthur can’t hope to get back, even though they’re trying, they’re trying so hard, but it’s just not enough. Nothing they take on is big enough, no one has connections influential enough to clear Dom’s name, so they just keep working in hopes of landing that one big job that may just be able to buy Dom’s freedom.

Cobol approaches them one day with a job. They’re possibly one of the biggest companies in the world, and Dom and Arthur both know that this might be their best bet. The job is a tricky one, probably one of the hardest they’ve done yet, and they definitely need to get their hands on a top notch Architect (something they haven’t really been able to do yet; no one is quite as inventive and adept with dream space construction as Mal was), but they accept anyways, because Dom’s desperate. He’ll take anything if it’ll get him one step closer to home.

The job is to infiltrate the mind of a man named Saito, the immensely powerful and wealthy owner of Proclus Global, a company that Cobol is attempting to take down. After receiving the job, Dom immediately starts planning how they’re going to do this, and Arthur begins trying to track down a decent Architect willing to take on a job like this.

“Two layers,” Dom says to Arthur. “We need to trick him into letting us into his mind.”

Arthur nods. He knows this tactic well. Trick the subject into thinking you’re there to train their subconscious to defend itself, then steal the ideas while they’re least expecting it. It’s almost always effective, and with a business mogul like Saito, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince him to accept their false offer. The powerful ones are always bound to be a little paranoid.

When they do go under, though, Saito doesn’t give them a definitive answer and Arthur begins to grow nervous. Dom assures him it’s no big deal; he’s already figured out where the secrets are. They go out to the balcony, blending in and getting lost in the crowd of party-going projections. Arthur gazes around with an air of aimlessness, though really, he’s looking for signs of Saito’s subconscious becoming aware to the fact that this is a trick.

And then Arthur freezes, his blood running cold. He can’t move and his heart is pounding in his ears. He’s struggling to breathe and blinks twice as if to clear his vision. It can’t be… can it?

Standing not more than ten feet away from them is Mal, slender, elegant, auburn curls blowing around her face in the ocean breeze just like Arthur remembers. She’s wearing a long black evening gown and looks rather forlorn, lost, searching for something she once knew but has now forgotten.

“What’s she doing here?” Arthur asks Dom, careful to keep all emotion out of his voice.

Dom follows Arthur’s gaze and quickly tells him it’s nothing, just go back to the room. Dom says he’ll take care of it and Arthur reminds Dom that they’re here to work, and Dom just turns and walks away. Arthur sighs and sips at the glass of wine in his hand as he heads back to his room, as told.

He waits and stares out the window at the crashing waves below and doesn’t know what he’s looking for until some men dressed in security uniform burst into his room, kicking the door open. And Arthur fights back, really tries, because he needs to stay safe, needs to stay alive; this is his dream after all. If he dies, the whole thing collapses and they fail. They can’t afford that, not when they’re working for people like Cobol.

But Arthur’s attempts are in vain. Despite how quick he is and how good he is with a gun, despite the fact that he manages to take out several guards, he gets caught; there are just too many of them and he’s cornered. He’s caught and brought in, struggling, to the room where he and Dom had been previously dining with Saito, where he now finds Dom and Saito on opposite ends of the room, Mal (or rather, the projection of her) standing by Saito, pointing a gun at Dom.

“Put the gun down,” Mal says, and hearing her speak again, even if it’s just a projection of her, hurts Arthur so much he’s afraid he won’t be able to breathe. When Dom doesn’t move, Mal turns and instead points the gun at Arthur.

“Please,” she beckons, and Arthur feels his throat tighten. If questioned as to why, he’ll never be able to explain why it pains him so much that this false portrayal of Mal is threatening him, because he knows that she’d never do that in real life; she cared about him too much for that.

Dom places his gun down and slides it across the table towards Saito. He holds his hands up to show surrender. Mal doesn’t lower her gun. A look of panic crosses through Dom’s eyes; he can’t let Arthur get killed, he knows he can’t.

Arthur is aware of Dom putting the envelope in his hand down on the table next to the gun; he’s aware of Saito and Dom conversing, of a look of shock pass through Dom’s eyes as Saito reveals that he knows what Dom and Arthur are up to, but Arthur doesn’t quite register any of it. He stares directly at Dom, hoping that he’ll think up a way to get out of this, to get Mal to stop pointing that gun at his head, to get Mal to just go away because she shouldn’t be here, she’s dead. She’s dead.

“There’s no use threatening him in a dream, right, Mal?” Dom tries to reason with her.

“It depends on what you’re threatening. Killing him would just wake him up,” Mal says, distant and detached in a way that she never was, her voice level and lilting with her familiar French accent. “But pain, pain is in the mind.”

Mal shifts her aim slightly and pulls the trigger. Arthur feels a sharp blast in his knee and can’t help crying out in agony. It hurts; it hurts like fuck but it’s nothing he can’t deal with. He’s been through worse; he has. It’s just a dream, he tells himself, it’s not real. It’s just a dream, and nothing here can really hurt him. It’s just a dream.

“And judging by the decorum we’re in your mind, aren’t we, Arthur?” Mal asks, and now she just sounds taunting, sneering, cold like Arthur never remembered her being and hearing her like this is now twice as painful because she’s speaking to him, who she never, not once, was ever so malicious towards.

She shifts her aim again, pointing it at Arthur’s other knee, and then Dom’s moving so quickly, Arthur barely has time to react before Dom’s diving across the table and putting a merciful bullet between his eyes.

Arthur awakes smoothly enough, his eyes merely fluttering open calmly, but inside he’s reeling. He saw Mal, but Mal is dead. Mal is dead but she threatened to kill Arthur. Not only that, but she threatened to torture him until he was screaming, begging to just die already. Mal is dead but Dom must be keeping her alive in his mind somewhere. Arthur is dead in that dream, and it must be collapsing. Saito will have realized it’s all a trick and they’re going to be chased by not one but two powerful companies with nearly limitless resources.

Arthur just hopes that the dream stays intact long enough for Dom to get the information they need and then he springs up to check the PASIV. There’s still time left on the clock and Saito’s already beginning to stir and there’s no way to keep him under for longer, so he shouts at their Architect, Nash, anxious to wake Cobb before Saito regains consciousness.

“Give him the kick!” Arthur yells at the top of his lungs, masking whatever panic he’s feeling with anger. And it works. It always does. He’s good at this, this business of hiding his emotions. He’s been doing it for longer than he can count.