"Arthur's learned this lesson before."

Arthur is working for Saito at Fischer-Morrow. Robert notices.

Eames was alone almost seven months out of the year. Child Protective Services were called twice (once by Arthur’s dad), but Rene always managed to be home whenever inspectors would arrive. Eventually Eames got old enough to take care of himself—even if that meant running with a low profile gang at school. Arthur never officially saw Eames with guns or drugs, but he’d known something was happening; Eames went MIA for weeks, and when he’d finally surface there would be dark circles under his eyes.

“You’re better than this,” Arthur had said one night after Eames had come over for dinner. They had been sitting side by side at the table, and Arthur could smell alcohol on him.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eames had hissed back.

“I do know. You don’t think anyone believes in you, but you’re wrong.” He’d paused and swallowed hard as he’d glared down at his plate. “I’ve always believed in you.”

Eames had stayed quiet for the rest of dinner, then promptly disappeared afterward, and Arthur had gone to his room and tried not to punch a hole in the wall. It was the first time he’d let himself admit that he might possibly be a little in love with his next door neighbor.

After the Fischer job, Arthur’s nerves are shot. The mere thought of making a mistake again causes his palms to sweat, and he has nightmares of being trapped in anti-gravity, desperate to make the kick in time but unable to make himself work fast enough. He stops sleeping in his bed and starts spending his nights on his leather couch in the living room, Cybele draped over his legs as he falls asleep to whatever late night movie he finds through channel surfing. Cobb would tell him the urge to sleep near the front door is a subconscious need to have a way out. Arthur thinks he just dreams less away from a proper bed.

He gets a call late one night, about a month after the team parted ways at LAX. *Moulin Rouge* is playing on mute in the background, and Arthur’s body is curled around Cybele, the two of them drifting in and out of conscious.

Arthur answers on the third ring without looking at the caller ID. “Yeah?”

“So you *are* sleeping.”

He sighs and rubs the back of his hand over his eyes. “What else would I be doing?”

“I don’t know, counting your sock drawer, maybe. Knitting. Reading *Moby Dick* for the seventeenth time.” Eames sounds as exhausted as Arthur, but the familiar teasing lilt is still present in his voice.

“I’ve never read *Moby Dick*.”

“Quite right, I forgot about your infatuation with Jane Austen.”

Eames isn’t in the room with him, so Arthur lets himself smile. “It’s three in the morning, does this call have a point to it at all?”

“Maybe I just missed the sound of your voice.”

“Maybe you forgot what timezone you’re in.”

His words die off into Eames' mouth as Eames slides over him, hand splayed over Arthur's waist, warm and possessive. "I...I was just thinking," he whispers.

"That's dangerous," Arthur breathes.

"Fuck off, I--" Eames swallows, bumps his nose against Arthur's cheek. His heart pounds a bit faster, because it's still hard to lay himself open. After so many years of never believing in something, it's hard to truly trust in it, even when "it" is wrapped in his arms.

He closes his eyes, and says, "You're beautiful. That's all."

Arthur is quiet, and Eames opens his eyes a moment later to find him watching Eames with a startled expression.

Then, a slow, brilliant smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, his cheeks deepening into those fucking gorgeous dimples, and Eames' chest swoops again.

"Are you gonna make love to me now?" Arthur whispers, batting his eyelashes.

Eames bursts out laughing and shoves at Arthur's chest. "You little *shit*--"

“What were.” She swallows. “What were the other Phillipas like? The one in limbo and then father’s?”

Her mother looks off to the side. “Your father’s was very much like you, from what little I saw of her. A bit more inclined towards the outdoors than you were as a child, perhaps, and as I said the hair was wrong. I imagine she would have grown up into a different person, though. The one in limbo … she was sweet. We both loved her very much. She stole my perfume and read stories to her brother when they were both learning to read, and she eventually grew up to be an architect like her father and married a biochemist named Peter.”

“Do you miss her? And the other James?”

“I have two sets of children, a boy and a girl each, and they happen to have the same names. One set is grown and gone and I think of them fondly but know they were happy and settled when I left them, and one set is still growing and showing me everything they’ll be someday. I don’t love you or your brother any less, I promise you.” She pauses. “Yes, I miss them. But it matters, knowing they were happy.”

Phillipa scalds her tongue when she tries to sip her tea. “They were in your head.”

“They were still real, for a certain value of it. But I wouldn’t give you or James up for the world. You’re wonderful in your own right.”

Phillipa doesn’t say that she doesn’t want to be an architect and doesn’t ask if her mother is disappointed that she never steals her perfume.