Author's Note: Okay so I wrote this chapter to The Story Never Ends by Lauv (piano cover) and it gave me all the damn feels. Also, endless apologies for the wait…again. Clearly I am never going to get better at uploading regularly. But I did sort of pour my heart and soul into this chapter, so I hope that anyone still reading will enjoy! And thank you if you are, honestly. Knowing I still have readers out there gives me the best sort of feeling.

Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros.

The Absolute Basic

Chapter Eighteen

"Well, our man's finally been let out."

The Italian restaurant was small and niche, tucked along one of the quieter residential streets of London. Square tables draped in white linen were dotted around the restaurant, which was over-spilling with the evening's chatter and the lazy flicker of squat candles wherever you looked. Clara hated how dastardly intimate the whole setting was, and berated herself once again for letting Eames talk her into this.

"Yes, I'm glad he's back on his feet," Clara replied at length, watching as Eames smiled at the text message before putting his phone away. She had ordered seafood linguine, whilst he had opted for a hearty tagliatelle with lamb ragu. She wondered if the bold Englishman was going to insist on paying. The thought made her insides sick.

An hour in, and she was still on edge.

"But we don't have much time," she continued, taking a last bite of her dish. "The deadline's just over a week away."

Eames shrugged nonchalantly as he picked up his wine glass. "We'll make it. Give us two days to rehearse, tops. Then we'll fly to Chicago with a whole week to spare."

"A week's not long if something goes wrong," Clara replied, resting her chin on her hand. If she was being honest, the job had slipped from her mind a little, what with the absence of her father's hospital records and going out to visit him in person. She had forgotten the pressing crisis on their hands, the one that had become all the more dangerous by an unpleasant surprise.

As if he had read her thoughts, Eames leaned in and said, "Don't worry about Carver. It'll be sorted before you know it."

Clara glanced back up, eyebrows knitted. "Don't worry? How can I not? According to Arthur, she's out to get the both of you. And I doubt she'll care much about collateral damage."

"You're the one who decided we should keep at it," Eames reminded her rather slyly, taking a sip of wine.

Clara's scowl became more pronounced than ever. She hated their bickering, the never ceasing back and forth. How he knew the things that bothered her and crawled beneath her skin. "Only because I thought it the best option, which isn't saying much considering the situation. The others have trusted me to make the right decision. I have the damn right to be worried, okay?"

Perhaps she'd been a little too forceful. Eames put up a hand. "Okay. Sorry. If it helps, you can vent." And when Clara remained silent and brooding, he grinned and prompted, "Give it to me, then, go on."

Clara sighed. "You don't want to hear it, Eames."

"Try me."

He sounded so confident that Clara blinked up at him and stared for a few seconds. It was as though he knew the shadows that were plaguing her mind. Been there, done that. It was written in those steady grey eyes: It won't be anything I haven't dealt with before, darling. It gave her a little hope, maybe even a little courage.

But to trust Eames?

"It's my dad," she uttered at last, pausing as a waiter came to take away her plate. Her wine glass was half empty. She didn't trust herself to drink around him. "It doesn't exactly put me in a good mood when I see him."

Eames sat there listening, leant back, hand on the table between them. She could see the edge of a poker chip peeking through his fingers. She took his silence as a cue to go on: "I was closer with him than my mother. So when he had the accident, I guess I just felt really alone all of a sudden…especially after she found out about the Dream-walking."

"Your mother found out?" Eames repeated, one eyebrow raised.

Clara nodded. "I don't know how. Maybe an insider's tip, an old enemy, who knows. She said she was ashamed, didn't want me to keep going any more. And, I mean, added with what was going on between you and me, it was enough for me to quit."

Eames was silent for a long while, playing with the chip in his fingers. Perhaps he was thinking about said times between the two of them: flickering scenes like a cut-up film reel. Isolated darkroom, the processing of images from another time. "But you went back to it," he said eventually, voice low and smooth. "You got into Dream Security."

"She gave in. I was older and in Hong Kong by then," Clara added with a small smile. "It's hard to keep tabs on someone on the other side of the planet."

The same waiter came to take Eames' plate. "More wine, sir?"

Eames shook his head, and they were left alone again.

"So, it wasn't just me, then. Why you left."

"No. Not just you."

Eames looked like he had more to say on the matter, and for a second Clara gripped her fingers beneath the table. Go on, she thought bitterly, eyes wide and a little apprehensive. Blame me for blaming you. Four years was a long time. Had he lived it all in guilt? It seemed both very much like him and not at all.

Instead, Eames simply chuckled. "I've got mummy issues too, you know." He finished his wine and looked out the window for a moment. "She had big plans for me, but was ultimately disappointed by the absolute idiot that was her son. Never thought I was smart enough, even when I was young. She was the type of woman who wouldn't give a man a bloody chance. So she shipped me off to boarding school by the tender age of twelve, hoping to drill some sense into me. It didn't work. Thirty-something grand a year on tuition, and I was still lousy and rebellious and ungrateful. Imagine all that wasted money and potential, just for me to get drafted and become a common soldier."

Clara swallowed. Funny how she had never asked Arthur for a background check on Eames. Or maybe she'd known that Arthur would never have agreed. She'd always guessed they had an unspoken respect for each other, despite their difficulties. "I didn't know."

"Well, I never made a habit to talk about it." Eames looked back round. "This was her favourite place."

"Where is she now? Here in the UK?"

"I assume."

Clara paused, taking it all in: the indifference, the hidden chapter in his life.

"Didn't think I was rich?" Eames smirked.

"No, no, I just…"

"Thought my family was uneducated and deprived? Had to scrape together a living for myself?"

"No." Clara glared reproachfully at him. "Don't be like that."

"Hm. I would've thought all those months of scrutiny, you would've figured it all out."

"Of course not." Clara sat back, feeling a swell of something like disappointment. "You should know by now: we hardly know each other."

Eames continued to look at her from an angle, not quite head-on. The noise of the restaurant seemed muted, reaching them through woolly ears.

"Could've fooled me," Eames said, and signalled for the bill.

They walked down empty streets in the night, the cold haloes from the streetlights guiding the way to her place. Eames was heavily aware of the way Clara kept her distance, even as they walked side-by-side. A tiny gap, but it was there: a conscious effort on her part to protect herself.

He remembered turning up at her door that evening, a pocket of warmth in his chest. Perhaps they would have a good time. After all, things had been progressing, or so he thought. They were no longer dodging around each other quite so urgently, and that had fuelled Eames with precarious hope. Besides, he simply couldn't forget that token look at the hospital, where she had turned to him and silently told him she wanted him there by her side.

"Ready?"

She smiled. "As I'll ever be."

But the longer Eames had waited in that restaurant, pouring her wine and smiling and teasing, the more he'd realised that it was all just a pointless dream. There would always be that rift between them, and although they hadn't talked about it in a while, he knew that they both felt it as deeply as an old scar.

All too soon, her apartment building loomed over them. The same harsh fluorescent lights spilling through the same double glass doors. They stopped outside, facing each other. Clara's arms were wrapped around herself, her brown eyes fixed on his.

"Thanks for tonight," she said quietly, standing rather still. "It was nice."

Eames chuckled, though the sound was a bit humourless. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "You don't have to lie, darling."

Her eyes were so clear in the winter air.

"Eames?"

"Yes, Clara."

"Will we always be like this?"

The words took a heartbeat to register. He felt his mouth go dry. "Clara."

She looked so small, standing there hugging herself. "It'll always be like this, won't it? I don't know if it'll ever get better. If I'll ever get better."

"Don't be silly, love." He took a step forward; a dizzying distance. "We're fine like this. I can wait."

Clara shook her head. "That's what I was afraid you'd say."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't wait for me."

Eames stared at her, and abruptly he was angry. Angry that she always gave up so easily, that she always lost faith in him. "You're jumping to conclusions."

"I'm not." She sighed heavily, brushing her hair back. "I don't know what tonight was about, but—"

"It wasn't about anything! I just thought—"

"Did you sleep with her?"

Eames gaped at her. A second too long. She latched onto it like a lifeline.

"See? You don't even deny it." Clara shut her eyes. "There's nothing for you here, Eames. Maybe we're too different, like you always said."

"I care about you! Can't you bloody see that by now?!"

"I suppose you cared about Abigail Carver too."

"Is that what this is about?" Eames laughed, a sharp, resounding bark. "Did you really think I'd be waiting around for four fucking years?! Oh Clara, you overestimate me. I don't have that kind of strength. Do you want me to say it again? I cared too much about you! I – cared – too – fucking – much!"

She blinked up at him. He could see specks of white in her irises.

"I never said I felt the same way."

Eames opened his mouth, but to his terror no words came out. When had his heart started pounding, when had his hands begun to tremble? He felt stranded all of a sudden, the last man alive on earth.

"You did, once upon a time," he said at last, daring her to look at him.

Perhaps she'd heard the crack in his voice. "I'm sorry," she muttered, turning away. He wondered if she was about to cry. "I'm sorry, Eames. I just had to let you know. This, tonight? This is all we'll ever have."

And just like that, the moment was over. Clara walked away from him, her shadow long and black against the pavement. Eames glared after her, his chest heaving, furious and betrayed. Tell her to stay! Yell! Shout! TELL HER TO STAY. Deep down, he knew if he did it right, he could've pulled her to his side, made her see things his way at last. But he couldn't move, and how could he? Everything she had said was true. He'd been a damn fool to think tonight would have fixed the past. No veil of denial could have made her forget.

Then I will too. I'll forget this whole fucking mess.

Clara Etheridge. He hadn't realised how much he'd cared about her until he'd said it out loud.

I never said I felt the same way.

Her words dug in somewhere deep and misaligned a vital cord. He had to cut her out, this poisonous talisman in his chest. Eames spun around and went back the way they'd come, except he was alone this time, alone and determined to forget.

And suddenly—against his will, against all the power his humble body could muster— there appeared all the star-lit moments in his mind's eye, all the times she had given him bursts of hope like rainstorms in the desert: her lips turned up in a smile, the unexpected sound of her laugh and the oldest birdsong couldn't compare; her well-learnt body draped in an elegant dress, her waist under his palm in a new way, a champagne kiss lost in her hair, they could've been swaying on the moon; her familiar face in a sea of strangers, tired and jetlagged, glancing up and meeting his eyes for the first time in what felt like light years, feeling the shock of electricity jolt through his entire body and he had fought so, so hard to keep himself from smiling like a child again.

"Attention. We are now boarding for flight BA1525 to Chicago. Passengers in economy class, please make your way…"

A ghostly overhead voice pulled Arthur from his thoughts. He glanced around. The rest of the team were scattered throughout the waiting area, reading or checking their phones or simply staring into space like he'd been doing. It was better this way, to be separated. They would have looked too odd a group to be traveling together.

"You okay?"

Arthur looked back around. One exception. Ariadne was gazing back at him, a slightly worried expression on her face. He smiled. "I'm fine. Just glad we're on our way."

Ariadne nodded. They had been practising non-stop at the warehouse for the last two days, and only then had Clara deemed it fit for them to finally book their tickets and get on the next flight to Chicago. So here they were, the grey London sky through the terminal glass bidding them farewell.

"Just make sure you don't do anything stupid," Ariadne told him. "We don't want our Pointman ripping his stomach open."

Arthur's smile widened. "Relax. It's not the first time I've had a knife in me before a job."

The colour seemed to drain from her face.

Arthur grimaced. "Sorry. Too soon."

Ariadne shook her head, sighing quietly. "It's fine. I think I'm still getting used to the fact that the man I'm involved with is probably in danger most hours of the day."

He raised his eyebrows. "The man you're involved with?"

A pleasant pink painted her cheeks. "Well, what would you call it?" she retorted, eyes bright and challenging. A look she wore very well.

He considered. "I'm not sure."

"We are now boarding for flight BA1525 to Chicago. Passengers in economy…"

Arthur stood up and picked up his briefcase. "Com'on. We'll debate it on the plane."

Ariadne grinned and slipped her arm into the crook of his arm. They made their way to the back of the queue, following in the cold echo of Eames' and Clara's footsteps.