Glitch - 11/11

[tabi_essentially]

"Now think of all the years you tried to
Find someone to satisfy you
I might be as crazy as you say
If I'm crazy then it's true
That it's all because of you
And you wouldn't want me any other way

You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
It's too late to fight
It's too late to change me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right..."

Billy Joel played over the radio of Hollis's car as Arthur pulled it into a deserted parking lot in the wee fucking hours. He thought maybe he liked that song. And anyway, he'd just gotten to the Western end of Long Island, so it was right to be listening to Billy Joel talking about being crazy. Billy Joel was from Long Island. He'd heard that somewhere.

He had not been wrong in thinking that they would eventually get around to tracking the car. This probably meant that Hollis was still alive, too. So Arthur had taken the car to this depressing lot, that had not even been plowed, and set up just enough C4 on the underside of it before making his way a safe distance from it.

He waited maybe 45 minutes, freezing his ass off in black clothes he had "borrowed" out of his somewhat-host's closet (he would replace them – it was the honorable thing to do,) and a black raincoat he'd found hanging in the mudroom. He hadn't had time to do his hair the way he liked it when he was working, and the wind whipped it into his eyes. Very annoying.

Eventually the handful of goons showed up, at least three cars of them. They were completely obvious in their cautious surrounding of the dark car. They all came in close, guns drawn, and crowded into a tight circle.

Arthur pressed the button. The car, the surrounding cars, and everyone around them, lit the sky in flames. He was far enough away that he didn't get hit with any shrapnel, but close enough to feel the heat.

The heat was nice, because it was so fucking cold.

He looked at his watch. It was 4:45 AM and now he had to get on the Drunk Train to the city. He hated changing at Jamaica.

It was terrifying, how easy it was to get on a train with a pack full of explosives. Arthur was glad that he was sane. He was profoundly glad that most people were, in fact, sane and mostly harmless. This shit was so easy. Massive destruction was one of the simplest acts in the world to commit. Anyone could do it at any time, and so few people actually did. Arthur considered himself an optimist.

And a pragmatist. He was angry at Hollis, that was true. But anger didn't drive him to close the loose ends. That was just being thorough. He had no plans to torment anyone. What Hollis had said was true: he really didn't have the stomach for torture. Cold-blooded murder just wasn't in him.

Great destruction though, as a means to an end? That he could do. He had asked Hollis so often in the days since he'd taken him, to be reasonable. Arthur reminded himself of that. He'd given them more than their fair share of chances. None of them had taken him up on his repeated offers of mercy.

At dawn, he took a cab to the middle of nowhere, in case anyone was still following him. That was unlikely, but it was good to be cautious. It was beginning to rain lightly, but it was still cold. Arthur started to walk the streets of New York, taking alleys and back roads. It was amazing that only days ago, he couldn't remember his name, but he had still memorized the grid that was this city. He walked until his face was numb, until his thighs felt shaky with cold. No one bothered him. His backpack looked like any backpack in the world. It could have had legal papers, books, the Times, and a bagel stuffed into it for all anyone else knew.

He knew where the SomniCore building was; it was easy enough to find. Getting into it while they were on high alert, though; that was another thing entirely.

The building stood on the outskirts of Brooklyn, in a sparse part of nowhere, looking for all the world like an abandoned refinery. He'd never seen it by daylight. It was ugly, concrete, two storeys and badly maintained on the outside. That was probably on purpose. It lay sunken between two hills, in a valley that was probably hideous and sparse in the spring and summer, but looked strangely intriguing surrounded by snow. Like an episode of X Files, he thought.

He took out his binoculars. A handful of guards patrolled all around the building, but not a lot. Most of them were probably out looking for him. When they discovered the SUV had been blown up, they would probably spend a few hours trolling the nearby areas, assuming he hadn't gotten far.

A small power station hummed on the other side of the hill. High-voltage warning stickers were plastered all over it. This could only be the station that powered the SomniCore building.

Arthur made his way towards it in the cover of the snowy hill. From his backpack, he took a pair of wire cutters and cut through the chain locking the door shut. Then he slipped inside the small room that buzzed with electricity, and waited.

Arthur had, in fact, brought a bagel in his backpack. Also a thermos of coffee. He sat down in the power station and ate, thinking of where Hollis might be. In the building, probably. Definitely not out searching for him with the others. Arthur had scared him into a fox hole, maybe even severely injured him.

It was a long wait, but Arthur was patient. He'd watched parked cars for hours in his work.

At sundown, he cut the power to the SomniCore building. Then he cut the generator behind it. Any alarms, any spotlights that might have flared to life, never got the chance. Under the cover of darkness, he slipped past the frantic guards and into the building.

He couldn't see his way in total darkness, but a few goons had their big stupid flashlights out, casting long, shaky lines of light and shadow all over the walls. Arthur made his way into the basement.

It took him about a half an hour to plant all the bars of C4 that he had left. Then he came back up the stairs.

Arthur used his own flashlight and followed the various shouts of direction and panic. He found Hollis in one of his own hospital beds, a light bandage around his throat, an oxygen cannula in his nose. Oh, come on, Arthur thought. Man up. Eames got it so much worse than you.

Still, Hollis was aware enough to know who was in the room with him. His eyes held no fear, but acceptance. As if he knew Death and understood it was his time. Arthur locked the door behind him.

"I need the machine," he said.

"But you're going to kill me anyway," Hollis croaked.

"Yes. Everyone here, probably. But that's an important piece of equipment."

"And if I say no? You won't torture me."

"I could extract it from you," Arthur said. "It would take me a couple of minutes. I actually have a couple of minutes, and you won't like the extraction, after what you did to my head." He pulled up a curved, plastic chair. In the dark, he could make out the various instruments in the room. Syringes, restraints, a PASIV. The ECT device they had used on him. He thought of Eames falling off the bridge.

Arthur reached for the PASIV.

"I'll take you there," Hollis said. He removed the oxygen cannula and eased himself off the bed.

"Good. I'll just follow you. I will have a gun behind you, though. All right?"

"I understand. We don't have far to go."

Hollis wasn't wearing a hospital gown; instead he wore plain white scrubs. Gowns weren't for jarheads like Hollis. He led Arthur not out into the hall, but into an adjoining room. This room looked like storage for hospital supplies, but ones that didn't belong in hospitals that helped a person. In the near dark, Arthur could only make out gleaming instruments behind glass doors.

Hollis squatted down to a metal safe.

"If you pull anything out of there but the device..." Arthur began.

"You don't have to threaten me," Hollis said, opening the safe. "You may not understand this, but I know it's time for me to die. I remember you as a young man."

This bit of commentary seemed apropos to nothing, as Hollis drew the familiar little metal box out of the safe. He stood and turned to face him again. Arthur waited for him to go on.

"You were the best," Hollis said. "You and Cobb, actually. But you, Arthur. When I sent my people after you this time, I knew we would either have you back at our mercy, or that we would fall under your hand. You would either be my dragon, or my death."

"You're an idiot," Arthur said. "Tell yourself whatever you want. Dragons, death, whatever. This isn't fate or destiny or any of that bullshit. I asked you not to fuck with me. That's all I wanted. You did anyway. It's not some kind of epic legend that's going on here."

"You never did have much vision, though," Hollis said. "May I ask what you'll do with my machine? It's a beautiful piece of work."

To this, Arthur gave a moment's thought. "I'm going to have Cobb and probably his specialists take a good long look at it before using it. It could take a few weeks. Once they figure it out—and I know they will—I get this thing out of my head. Then Eames, and then whoever else you used it on."

"It's going to be studied?" Hollis asked.

"It has to be."

Hollis smiled, gruesome and ecstatic. "Will I get credit?"

Arthur thought of the arm he had pulled out of the river. He thought of his team, the ones they'd made him forget about. Of Eames's warm hand on his ankle, and Eames falling into the icy water.

"Probably not," Arthur said, and shot him in the forehead.

He tucked the machine into his mostly empty backpack and made it out of the building just as they got their generator back up. He looked like probably everyone else around there as he jogged past the running guards and techs and interns, or whatever the hell they were.

When he got to the top of the hill, he dug the detonator out of the zipped inside pocket of his backpack and pressed the button.

The SomniCore building didn't explode so much as it just crumbled, slowly. It went from the bottom down, like the earth was eating it. He watched it for a few minutes.

The dust and years of chemical mayhem rolled towards him like a wave. Arthur pulled his sweater up over his nose and mouth and started to jog away. He didn't want to inhale that shit.

On his way back to the train station, he stopped at a deli to get a sandwich. It was pretty stale, but he'd had a long day and it still tasted good. He bought a bottle of water, too. A really pretty girl smiled at him from behind the counter and told him that he had a smudge of dirt on his forehead. Blushing, he thanked her and wiped it away. She gave him her phone number on the receipt.

Arthur took care of a few things while he was in the city. He did a little shopping. He bought three new phones, one for Eames, Cobb and himself, and a DVD to watch tomorrow in case Eames wasn't up yet. He picked Alice In Wonderland, the one with Johnny Depp, because it looked entertaining.

He took the subway to Chinatown and bought a knife with a dragon etched on it. It was really cheesy, but he couldn't deny that he wanted it. He went to a magic shop and bought a stupid, cheap top hat, the kind you'd pull a rabbit out of. He did all of these on different credit cards with different names on them.

It was best to stay local, he thought, in case any stragglers were still gunning for him. He didn't want to lead them back to Eames and Cobb. So he went back to his old, trashed apartment. He didn't have his key, but the door was still open. Nothing else had been touched in his absence.

Eventually, he would have to come back here and clean up. Pay his security, too. In the meantime, he went back outside and took Eames's belongings out of the back of the trunk of his stolen car: his first responder kit, the portfolio with his traveling workstation, and the bag of clothes that he'd bought for Arthur.

He took the items back up to his apartment and looked again through the clothes. That was thoughtful of Eames, to buy those things for him. Looking at them again with his memory returned, he understood how carefully Eames had chosen them, even in his mad rush.

Putting the clothes aside, Arthur took a walk through his defiled apartment. The destruction of items didn't mean too much to him. He could buy whatever he wanted. Only a few things were irreplaceable. One of those things was the Ninth Wave painting by Eames. That one really pissed him off. Sure, Eames could paint him another, and probably would, if asked. But Arthur had stolen this one from him and kept it for years. It held unexpected nostalgia for him. He picked up the torn canvas from the floor and rolled it up, setting it into one of his bags. Well, he would keep it anyway, torn or not.

He found Cobb's overnight bag still in the kitchen. It had been turned inside out, but his clothes and sundry were still intact. He folded them hastily and shoved them back into the bag.

Then he retrieved his actual external hard drive from its real hiding spot: inside a box set of Bruce Lee movies. He put that into the bag, too. Everything else he would just have to do without.

He took a quick shower (they had left the glass shower door intact at least,) and then got a few hours of sleep on his ripped up sofa, his gun clasped loosely in his hand on his chest.

In the morning, he took a cab back to Jamaica and got right on the LIRR. He had to switch at Bethpage.

I wonder if Eames is mad that I went alone, Arthur thought, letting the train lull him. But if he was, then it was an unfounded and useless anger. He knew that Eames trusted him to get the job done. Arthur was not reckless. And this venture, this tying up of loose ends, had not been a reckless thing. This had been an organized attack. Quickly organized, but organized nonetheless, and flawlessly executed. He had to give himself credit for it.

Arthur was in perfect control and was definitely not one of the crazy people on the train that citizens had to fear.

He played around with his new phone, downloaded some ring tones, hacked into Cobb's stolen one, (which was actually Hollis's,) and switched the ring tone to a new one.

'You may be right, I may be crazy,' Billy Joel snarled.

Yes, that was a good song to listen to as he rode back out east on the train.

** ** ** **

Cobb pulled up beside the small, easy-to-miss train station situated behind a cluster of quaint stores. Arthur was waiting under the shelter of the station, collars pulled up against the rain and mist, arms bogged down with bags and luggage, and Eames's portfolio. His backpack hung strapped across his shoulders. He looked for all the world like an art college student home for the weekend.

Until he came closer, and Cobb could discern the marks of his true life: thin scars here and there, the still-fresh burn mark on the side of his head, and the fading bruises under his eyes. Misty, filtered light flattered Arthur, but Cobb saw through it, and the lingering scent of explosives from his backpack did nothing to dispel the image. He wondered sometimes how much influence he'd had over Arthur during his life. If he'd had a hand in creating this person. He was proud of Arthur for his strength, but, as a father, a small part of Cobb mourned for him, too.

"All set," Arthur said, stepping over a ledge of blackened snow by the curb. "I got the machine. It's for you, Cobb. I mean, we need it to undo the Glitch. But it's for you and your school to use. Or to destroy. Whatever you think."

"Arthur, listen," Cobb said. "I, umm. I need to get back to the kids." He couldn't help feeling shame at saying so, at such a bad time. But, damn it, he couldn't be away for too long. They were his first priority. Arthur was second to them, now that they he was confirmed to be alive and would likely remain so. "And I'm going to need some time with this machine to figure it out. It won't be overnight."

"I know," Arthur said. "That's why I'm giving it to you. If you think about it." He sounded as if this was not a surprise to him. He thrust the machine out with both hands, forcing Cobb to take it from him.

When they got into the car, Arthur took the wheel this time.

"Arthur," Cobb said, fidgeting with the machine in his lap, "what I'm saying is that I got a call. From Tokyo."

Arthur turned to him as he pulled away from the curb, concerned. His hands tightened on the wheel. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, it's fine. Word about this whole thing got back to Proctus Global. Saito's flying me out today. The kids are there, so there's that, and he wants to know what's going on. I said I'd go."

"Good," Arthur said. "I'm glad everything's fine. What does Saito want to know?"

"The Glitch made its way out there. He wants to fund a study of it. He wanted me, and now that I have the machine, I'd probably be able to work through it pretty fast."

"Excellent," Arthur said. He took a left turn and started heading west instead of east. "Then you can get this thing out of my head even quicker. The sooner the better, Cobb. I can't have random people wandering into my dreams and I can't keep destroying everyone who does. And me and Eames keep meeting up in our sleep. It's really disturbing." He sounded completely annoyed. "So, what's the problem?"

"Well..." Now that Cobb thought of it, it sounded weak. "I just wanted to make sure you and Eames were going to be all right. I don't want to run out on you. But it feels like that's what I'm doing."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "If going to your kids when we're both fine, and then hurrying up and finding a way to cure this thing that's inside all of us is 'running out on us,' then get the fuck out, seriously. I want this thing out of my head. Can Saito get a plane to a private airport? There's one about twenty minutes from here. Rich people with private jets use it. He could probably even buy out security so you could breeze through with the machine."

Cobb unfolded a piece of paper that he had written on in haste, pulled off to the side of the road as he spoke to Saito's connection. "Gabreski?" he read. "That's what he said."

"I have your overnight bag with me," Arthur said, smiling. "I can get you there in twenty minutes and be at the beach house in time for a late lunch."

Cobb smiled. It felt as if a tight cord had unwound from his chest. "Arthur, you're still brilliant. I can never understand how you manage to get every last detail done."

"Don't lay it on too thick, Cobb," Arthur said, smiling nonetheless.

"I feel like I need to repay you."Not for driving me to the airport, Cobb thought. But for everything. He couldn't say it, though. He was awful at saying things like this, and Arthur didn't want to hear them anyway.

"What the fuck," Arthur said. "You came to help me when you saw me on the news. You shot someone for me. You drove us all the way out here. And now you're going to fix this and make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm pretty sure you don't need to repay me."

"You know why," Cobb said. He didn't know if Arthur actually did understand. Because to Arthur, everything he did just fell under his job description. He didn't require extras.

The rain was relentless by the time Arthur got him to the airport. It was a small one, private, and Arthur parked the car, took an umbrella from under the seat, and went around to the trunk to get Cobb's stuff from the trunk. Cobb followed him around, feeling unsure and unsteady, the way he never used to feel around Arthur. They weren't partners anymore. This was something different.

Arthur turned to him and beckoned him closer. Cobb wondered why at first, until Arthur reached out with the umbrella, holding it over both of them. Businesslike, he handed Cobb his overnight bag.

"So what I can do," Arthur said, still shielding them both from the rain, "I can get in touch with the university where you're teaching and see if they have anything on this. They might have a lead on my last team. And if you or Saito hear anything about that, keep me in the loop, okay? While we're waiting for you to figure out how to undo this, me and Eames..."

He talked on, the umbrella in one hand, his free hand gesturing emphatically and drawing abstract shapes to illustrate his points. Under the shared umbrella, Cobb was close enough that he could once again smell explosives on him, and debris. Arthur smelled like violence, like the kind of man that Cobb would never let near his children. He felt repulsed by this and wanted for a second to shrink away, because this was not his life anymore. His reaction shamed him. He'd spent years relying on Arthur's skill in getting things done. It was, in part, that skill that allowed him to even be with his kids.

Arthur had given him years of service, and now Cobb wanted to run from him. At the same time, he felt an indescribable fondness for Arthur. The kids were a part of Mal, something of her that he could cling to. Yet, Arthur was a part of Mal, too – because she had loved him. And because Arthur had been so loyal to her, and then had transferred his fearless loyalty to Cobb.

"And so," Arthur went on, "A: first scenario, we fly out to Tokyo once we're ready to travel and join you there, or B: second scenario, we wait unti you're..."

Cobb cut him off by slinging an arm around Arthur's shoulders and pulling him close. He tried to make it a manly hug, one-armed, with back-slapping and all that, but he had never been any good at those. Arthur wasn't, either. Neither of them liked to touch. Eames was allowed to touch Arthur. Cobb had loved nothing more to hold Mal to him, and he lived for pulling both his kids onto the sofa to watch Disney with him at night. But this was just weird.

Necessary, though.

"Cobb, what are we doing?" Arthur asked. He patted Cobb's shoulder awkwardly. "Are you crying? Or... I don't know what's going on." He laughed nervously.

"I'm not crying." Cobb pulled away, still gripping Arthur's arm. He wasn't crying at all. "I'm just, I don't know, saying thank you for everything, thank you for..."

"I already told you..."

"For everything, for the last four years or more, for trying to help Mal, for being my right hand. Please don't ever forget that again. I never want to look at you and not have you know who I am. I never want to see your face on the news again. Okay?"

"Sure, Cobb. Yeah, I get it. I'm sorry."

"Jesus," Cobb said, exasperated. "It wasn't an admonition. It's just. Okay, being a Dad and not a criminal changed me a lot."

"Err. I noticed."

"You're a good man, Arthur." He felt it needed saying. He didn't care that Arthur had likely just killed many people. Or, he did care, but he couldn't let it matter.

"Thanks. So are you. Umm." He thrust the umbrella towards Cobb. "Here. I'm driving back so I don't need it. I'll just, you know. Get in the car now."

Cobb both hated and loved having to laugh at Arthur when he was like this. "Thanks," he said, taking the umbrella. "Be careful. I'll call when I get there."

"Good. Safe flight, tell the kids hi. Tell Saito to send me eight billion dollars if he finds some lying around."

"Will do."

Cobb waited until Arthur was in the car and driving away before making his way toward the terminal.

** ** ** **

Eames lay halfway comfortable on the couch, wrapped in a duvet, when Arthur returned. He cracked an eye half-open and watched him fuss with some bags in the doorway. Arthur had Eames's portfolio with him, among other things. A backpack, various suitcases, an attache case. Canvas grocery bags, it looked like. He dripped water all over the hardwood floors, and kicked his shoes off before coming into the great room. He opened his mouth to speak. Eames quickly shut his eyes, feigning sleep. Arthur remained quiet.

Eames just wanted to listen to him move around the house for a while. He didn't know why. He was also still exhausted and not ready to sit up, not ready for conversations about explosions and headshots. The rain beating against the tall windows, and the muted light of the grey sky were too soothing for that kind of thing. Not yet. He needed another few minutes.

Arthur crossed the room silently, bringing the scents of smoke and dust with him. He had clearly showered and changed overnight, but it was in his bags, his backpack, maybe his skin for a few days.

He passed by the sofa that Eames was on. Eames felt, feather light and brief, Arthur's cold fingers against his hair. A door from down the hall opened and then closed, softly. After a few minutes, he heard the shower running.

He slept for a while, or half slept, listening to the shower and the rain.

When Arthur came out again, a billow of clean-scented steam followed him from down the hall. Arthur could easily go for months on the barest essentials, but when he could get his hands on froofy soap and shampoo, he did. These smelled really nice, maybe extra froofy. When Arthur was safely past him, Eames opened his eyes a little bit and spied on him. Arthur was wearing jeans, heavy socks and a button down shirt. He bent down to rifle through one of the wet bags he had left in the hall. Eames took a nice long look at his ass when he did it. It was good to get back into routines after an upset. That's what Eames thought.

Then Arthur disappeared into the kitchen with the canvas bags. He rattled around some cups or pots or whatever he was doing for about five minutes. When he returned, Eames closed his eyes again. This time he smelled chocolate.

"You can stop pretending to be asleep," Arthur said. "It's not like I haven't watched you sleep for long enough to know the difference."

Eames smiled and opened his eyes. "To be fair," he said, "I was still halfway asleep and didn't want to be disturbed."

"Are you up for being disturbed now?"

"I think I can handle it." He turned over and pulled himself up so he was half reclining against the armrest. His neck ached with a burning pain, mostly the front. Whiplash, no doubt, from getting clipped. His shoulders hurt, too. Lying still for so long hadn't helped.

Arthur handed him one of the mugs. It had a lighthouse on it. "I figured you'd be all right if I made a quick grocery run. This is the best hot chocolate in the world. I thought of this recipe myself."

Eames looked into the mug. "You just said you bought it at the grocery store."

"Yeah. But the different kind of honey and the amount... Look, don't split hairs, just taste it."

Eames did. It was dark and not too sweet. But mostly it just tasted like high end hot chocolate that Arthur had bought from the store. "That's delicious," Eames said anyway.

Arthur smirked. "Asshole, don't patronize me." He took a huge gulp of his own chocolate. "It's fucking amazing," he said when he was done.

Eames set down the mug on the end table and looked him over. His hair was wet and slightly long. He hadn't cut it since before he'd gone into hospital. The top three buttons of his shirt were open. Bruises still lined the soft skin under his eyes, and the burn on his temple looked raw, a perfect circle. The fact that it was so precise made Eames feel angry all over again. He reached out and touched it lightly.

Arthur just looked at him, at once both dark and open. "I took care of it."

Eames let his hand travel down the side of his face, over his neck and shoulder, and to the front of his shirt. He opened a few more of the buttons and pushed the fabric aside. Slid his hand inside of Arthur's shirt and curled it around the side of his ribs. Arthur's mouth dropped open, and he licked his bottom lip. Eames felt his breath speed up, but that wasn't his intention.

"They won't be coming back," Arthur said. He set down his own mug down on the table.

"Good," Eames said.

"SomniCore should be gone forever." He pulled the blanket off of Eames and pressed his hand over his chest, as if feeling for a heartbeat. "I killed Hollis."

"Even better." He rubbed his thumb slowly over one of Arthur's ribs.

"I got the Glitch machine and sent it off with Cobb. He's on his way to Tokyo. They're going to fix this for us. Get this thing out of our heads."

"You're brilliant."

"It's my job."

"You're still brilliant."

Arthur smiled. "Eames. On the bridge the other night. Did you crush a man's neck with your thighs?"

"Honestly, I don't remember anything from then. Maybe? Do you want me to have?"

"I"m pretty sure you did," Arthur said. "Fuck." He didn't remove his hand from Eames's chest, and Eames didn't move his either, as Arthur picked up his mug again and finished the hot chocolate. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "It's a special kind of honey. You don't even realize."

"Yes, I said it was lovely," Eames said. "And before you even bother to ask, I did feel a bit slighted that you went on this latest adventure without me." Arthur opened his mouth to reply. "But, of course I couldn't have been much use, and time was a factor. I do understand why you did it. I'd love to tell you that next time, we can jump off a bridge or blow up a building together. But sometimes I can't help but wonder if our luck won't eventually run out. As with any game, skill can only get you so far. Chance has a hand in everything."

"I know," Arthur said. "If I had my way, none of this would even have happened. It's not something we put into motion ourselves this time. I mean, I like it here, with you? But I kind of wish we hadn't got our asses handed to us in order to get here. I really wish you hadn't gotten shot in the head."

"Me too," Eames said.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Eames reached his hand around Arthur's back and ran his fingers down his spine. Arthur scooted forward so he wouldn't have to stretch too far. He thought of Arthur's clever fingers and what they did to him, to guns, to explosives, to computers. Thought of his stupid video games.

"Arthur," he said, "this place doesn't have a Wii Station, thing."

Arthur scowled when something confused or concerned him. He took his hand out of Eames's shirt and pressed his fingertips to his forehead instead. "What are you saying? I don't understand. Do you need to pee or something?"

It hurt to laugh, pain blazed all up and down his neck, down his chest and ribs. But it felt good, too. Arthur scowled even more. "Your game system, or whatever it is," Eames said. "With the zombies and guns."

Arthur pulled his hand away. Any other time he might have shoved him, but this time he just rolled his eyes. He didn't bother hiding his amusement. "Playstation, dickhead? Or maybe Wii? Wii-station. Jesus. And it's more than just zombies. If you gave it a shot, you'd understand."

"I did. I shot zombies with you in your last apartment, it was fascinating for about ten minutes."

"Yeah, then you pushed me down and stuck your hand in my pants and we got killed."

"Yes, but my hand and your trousers, that is far more interesting than pressing buttons."

Arthur shrugged, a slight concession. Eames made an attempt to pull him closer, but moving his arm too much made his neck and shoulders hurt worse. He gave up. Arthur obliged him by leaning down, though. What started out as a few shallow kisses slowly escalated to Arthur trying to eat his face. Which was lovely, except that everything hurt.

"Darling, darling," Eames tried to say around Arthur's tongue.

"Yes, yes," Arthur breathed. He took Eames's free hand and shoved it between his legs.

"I can't move my neck, Arthur," Eames finally said.

Arthur stilled over him, needing a minute to process words. Then he huffed out a laugh against Eames's lips. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to hurt you. Sorry." He backed off, sitting up straight. Almost primly, he replaced Eames's hand over the blanket.

"You're a beast."

"I said I was sorry."

"That's all right. Guess I won't be giving head for a while. Oh, la."

"Well, I can," Arthur said. Then, seeing the look of alarm on Eames's face, hastened to add, "Not right now. I mean when you're better, later. Or whenever. Not later later, like tonight. Unless you wanted me to. Whatever."

"I'm mad about you, Arthur. Let's go somewhere."

"We're going to Tokyo once you can handle it."

"After that," Eames said. "Somewhere not for a job, or business. Somewhere just for the hell of it. Spend a week or two bored out of our skulls whenever we're not fucking. No one to chase us and no work to be done."

"The word you're looking for is vacation. Say it with me now. Vay-cay..."

"I'm going to strangle you," Eames said.

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "I'd be willing to try it."

"You are a beast."

Arthur shrugged again. He stood up and stretched. His open shirt showed the fine muscles of his chest when he linked his arms behind his back and stretched his shoulders.

"I'm gonna make a fire in the fireplace," he said.

"Well I hope it's in the fireplace," Eames said. It was a valid concern with Arthur. "And then get some wine, I suppose? And play a romantic album while we sit on a bearskin rug, gazing into each other's eyes before making sweet, sweet love?"

"I'm going to punch you in the head," Arthur informed him. "When you're better, I mean."

"Give me head, punch me in the head, always so contrary, my Arthur. So, what do you say? After Tokyo, when we're both cured of this. We'll get away somewhere, yeah? Somewhere warm and quiet. Mosquitoes and bad water the only dangers. Unreachable for a week or so, you and I."

Abruptly, Arthur turned back to him. Eames didn't know what set him off, that dark look in his eyes, nearly unreadable. He sat back down on the edge of the sofa.

"Okay," he said, his eyes soft like they could be when he wasn't carrying out missions, and armed with C4. "Mosquitoes, that sounds nice. I can handle those."

Eames was almost convinced, at some points during their mostly separate lives, that Arthur could probably handle anything. He didn't feel the need to tell him so. Or really to tell him anything furthur. He figured that at this point, they both knew everything they needed to know.

Outside, the rain continued to melt the snow.


** ** ** **
Epilogue


Giggles and shouts resounded from the break room as she made her way into it. Lizzie was the loudest, squealing about how Dr. Grisham looked so fucking professional on TV.

"Or on the telly," Darlene corrected in a faux-British accent. "'Cause that's the way Mr. Bishop would say it. Fuck, he was hot."

It had been a week since a man named Luke Bishop had come to take Scout out of the hospital, claiming to be his husband. Two days, or maybe three, if you counted nights as days (and Emma, as a nurse, sometimes did,) since she'd last seen both of them and their third partner, on the side of the road. Mr. Bishop (if that was his real name, which she doubted,) blue-lipped and bleeding from a wound on the side of his head.

A week, and the news story had just come out now about the mystery amnesia patient who had gone home to his family and was requesting privacy. The station had interviewed Dr. Grisham. She'd stated that she was happy for The Bishops and all their loved ones, and she was glad that the hospital had been able to provide care for them etc. etc. Saying all the correct things.

Emma came into the room and sat down with her lunch: a home-made salad and a cup of grapes. She loved this part of the day. Just her and her vulgar girls letting off steam. Darlene, Lizzie, and Marian – known on the television and to patients as Dr. Grisham. The group on her shift, able-bodied, tough, thick-skinned and foul-mouthed. This was down-time.

"Scout was hot," Darlene offered. "I mean, once you could see his face. And he was pretty fucking built."

"He wasn't hot," Marian offered. "He was cute. In, like, that boyish kind of way. Yeah, his husband was hot, gotta agree with that."

"I liked them both," Emma said, pouring lite dressing on her salad, closing the tupperware and then shaking it up.

"Yeah," Darlene teased, "we all know how much you 'liked' him." She made air quotes with her fingers. "How you'd always be in the room 'reading' to him and 'helping' him."

"Fuck you and your air quotes," Emma said, grinning. Blushing, still.

"'Oh, oh,'" Darlene mocked, in a fake, high voice, "'I'm pretty sure it's my turn to bathe him tonight!' God, you could not have been more obvious."

Emma threw a grape at Darlene. It bounced off her forehead.

"Fuck you!" Darlene laughed, and threw it back. Emma dodged it.

"No, seriously," Lizzie said. "I have to agree that his husband was really fucking hot. I like them like that. Huge. All muscley and shit. Mmm."

"Did you see his mouth?" Marian said, fanning herself. "I'd sit on his face for hours."

Emma turned uncharacteristically quiet. Yeah, sure, everyone had a crush. And she'd been doing this job long enough to know that nothing was sacred, and nothing was off limits. Corpse-jokes, practical jokes involving fake occult specimens and urine samples, and, hell, they even made fun of some of the stupider patients. This was behind the curtains, and back here, anything was fair game. It was the only way to stay sane.

But this one got to her a little. She guessed that it was because she'd seen them outside of the hospital, so desperate. Because Scout—rather, Arthur—had called on her to help. He'd allowed her, however briefly, into his very private life, because he had trusted her. And the other man, the one who called himself Bishop, lying in the back seat like that, bleeding. Arthur and his other friend, the professor guy, so plainly afraid for him in the near-dark, on the side of the highway. It was so far away from sterile white hospital sheets and bleached walls. It was real. It was dangerous. And she couldn't tell any of her friends. She ached to, though.

But because he had let her in, she would never breathe a word of it. And she felt a little funny about making jokes about them.

"Emma?" Darlene said, tapping the top of her head, hard enough to hurt. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. What the hell? Are you stoned?Got into the drug box again?"

"Yeah, that's right," Emma said. "It's getting to be a bad habit."

"Next thing, you're gonna be out on the street giving head for twenty bucks a pop just so support your habit," Lizzie joked.

"Yeah," Emma said. "I'll tell your Mom you said hi."

They laughed, uproarious and too loud.

"So, fucking, this guy comes into ER last night, right?" Lizzie said. "And he's like, 'I think I got a lightbulb stuck up my ass!' I was like, Oh, shit, it's gonna be one of those nights."

"Did he?" Darlene asked.

"I'll show you the X rays," Lizzie said. "Holy shit. Nights like that go really fast. I need the longest fucking vacation, like out on a cruise."

"Oh," Emma said, remembering. "Getting back to Scout, that last night he was here? We were talking about, like, if he was some kind of super rich secret agent or something..."

"Which I think he was, or is," Marian interrupted.

Emma ignored her, because she knew she was right. "Anyway, that last night he was here, he was like, 'If I ever found out I was a millionaire or something, I'd send you all on a cruise.' I was like, 'Fuck yes, I'd go on a cruise.' Well, I didn't say that in so many words, but still. You just reminded me. God, I wish. That'd be so nice."

"Out there in the middle of the ocean," Lizzie said. "Surrounded by guys like him and his partner, guy or whatever."

"Husband," Emma corrected. She wasn't sure if it was true or not, but it was what they had told everyone, so it was truth enough for her.

"Yeah, that's what we'd do," Darlene said, even though no one had offered any suggestions. "Just get on a big boat, all of us one day. Get tons of massages, bake in the sun all day, get laid every single night. That'd be the life."

"Yeah, I'm so sure that Secret Agent Man is going to come back into our lives, like, with an armful of cash," Lizzie said, "and all his really hot friends and take us all on a million-billion dollar vacation. Yup. All of us. He'll be like, 'Here you go, thanks for tying me to my bed every night.'"

That last part made Emma cringe, but she hid it. She had legitimately hated restraining him. The rest had insinuated that she secretly liked tying him up—Scout himself had made the same joke—but it had really kind of bugged her out, seeing the honest fear in his eyes. She hated doing it to anyone, really. And it was mostly old, senile people she had to do it to. It was worse than changing shitty sheets and cleaning up blood.

"He liked you," Marian said. When Emma looked at her, her eyes were unusually sincere. "You made it easy for him."

"Yeah, well," Emma said, shrugging. "Whatever. He seemed nice. And he was hot. So that helps."

"Cute," Marian corrected again. "The husband: he was hot."

They went about finishing their lunches and cleaning up, still laughing and swearing at each other.

That night, a six year old girl came into the hospital through ER and went straight into surgery. She'd been hit by a drunk driver. She died a few hours later in ICU. Emma cleaned the room after they'd taken her out of it. It sucked. You never got used to it when it was little kids.

By the time she got home, she was exhausted and pissed off, the merriment from earlier in the day long since faded. She wanted a glass of wine and to sit down and watch Idol. She wished for quiet, and to not be bothered for the rest of the night.

Someone knocked on her door. Every time this happened, she was always wary. It was New York, but not that New York was bad. Any city was bad, and she lived alone.

In her slippers and bathrobe, she looked out the peephole. It was the UPS guy. She knew this guy because he always delivered stuff to her, care packages from her Mom, books from Amazon, things like that. This time he was holding a huge box. She opened the door.

"Hey," he said. "I need you to sign for this."

"Okay. Wow." She took the electronic clip-board from him and signed. "Wonder what this is. I didn't order anything."

"Have a nice night," the UPS guy said.

"You too."

Emma took the box inside. Something stirred inside her, something eager and squirmy and warm. Because, what the fuck was this? Her intuition made her think it was something cool, something exciting. Her life this past month had been pretty exciting, now that she thought of it.

She took the box into her kitchenette and cut the tape off with scissors. There was no return address.

Inside the box was another box, this one white. Emblazoned in gold across the top of the box were the words, "FANTASMIC MAGIC SHOP" with the address below it. Right here in new york.

Her entire self tingling, she took the smaller box out of the bigger box and opened that one. And she knew, right away, even before she parted the paper over it (purple, with silver stars,) what it was.

A big dumb silk magician's hat.

'I pull rabbits out of hats or something?' Scout had asked her, when she'd suggested that he was maybe a rich Vegas magician.

She fully expected to pull a stuffed rabbit, or even a chocolate rabbit out of the hat. What she pulled out instead was an envelope with her name typed on it. She opened it with shaking hands.

Four tickets fell out of the envelope. She already knew they were to a cruise on one of those bigass cruiseliners to somewhere hot, because the picture on the tickets was of said bigass cruiseliner.

It was the note, though, that she clutched to her chest, grinning like an idiot, feeling like she won the lottery.

Told you I would.
Thank you for everything.
Yours,
Scout

** ** ** **






Thank you, all of you, for everything. ^_^

I had such an awesome time writing this, and it pleases me to no end that you guys also liked it. I love reading and answering you guys's comments, I really love your insights. You lot actually gave me tons of ideas between chapters, whether you realize it or not. I sometimes toy with just putting up a post asking a bunch of you to challenge me to a fic. :D That might be fun but I don't know if anyone else would be into that.

So, I never had any idea where this fic was going from one chapter to another. That's what I like about writing WIPs; I never plan what comes next. But I will say this: the only thing I did know about was the epilogue. That, I knew since chapter 2. Everything else was a surprise to me, and I really really hope you guys are satisfied with the end.

And just, as always, thank you all so, so much. ^_^

♥❂❀❤

(P.S. My stupid spellcheck stopped working. I apologize for errors. :/ )