Author's Note: Wow, after five months, this is finally the last chapter. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: Unbelievably, Inception still doesn't belong to me in any way, shape, or form.

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Chapter Thirteen

The next few seconds passed in a blur. The floor of the hospital collapsed and through the fire in his chest, Eames felt the jolt of falling as the bed beneath him gave way. The familiar but still panicky sensation of falling struck him, and his body instinctively jerked in an attempt to fight the gravity.

Then suddenly, the burning pain was blissfully gone, and he was on solid ground once more, shaking slightly from the shadow of pain. He was aware of a pounding of music through the headphones over his ears just as the echo of another explosion hit him inside what seemed to be a shower room. Disoriented, he felt the sickening sensation in his stomach again as the wet tiles beneath him gave way again and once more he was falling.

This time he opened his eyes as a foot made contact with his side. An instinctive moment of panic hit him as he was kicked him off a cement edge towards a road tens of feet below him. The falling sensation hit him a final time, and he opened his eyes with a jump as the chair he had been sitting in made a hard contact with the floor behind him.

He was in an office lounge once more, his body's natural jerk at the falling sensation prevented him from striking his head on the ground behind him. The momentum of his chair slamming back from the fall sent him sprawling out across the floor. He lay for a moment where he had come to rest on the polished wood, feeling his heart beat thudding in his ears.

As the pounding faded, he turned his head to see the others all on the ground as well. He made eye contact with Cobb, lying beside him and neither of them said anything for a moment as the adrenaline slowly began to fade from each of them.

It was over, Eames realized. They had done it. Again.

He saw Cobb bolt up suddenly and rush to check on Fischer, clearing his line of sight to Arthur and Ariadne. They were both slowly sitting up, Ariadne rubbing the back of her head and looking somewhat dazed as Arthur gently helped her up. None of them spoke as each of their minds whirled.

Eames shoved himself to his feet quickly as well and hurried over to Cobb, who was kneeling beside the PASIV. A glance around the room showed him Rita, the middle-aged woman in the pin-striped suit, standing off to the side, looking unsure of what to do now that her job was done. Two security guards were heading back to their former positions by the door, apparently having finished help Rita tip the chairs back at roughly the same time. Meanwhile, Browning was standing a few paces away with one hand in his pocket and a glass of wine in the other, stepping towards them furtively.

"Did you do it?" Browning demanded.

Cobb glanced up at him briefly from the PASIV. "We're not sure yet." He finished administering the additional sedative to Fischer then stepped back. Fischer had initially jerked awake along with the rest of them as his chair had fallen back (the security man in charge of him being careful he wasn't hurt), but he had been confused and disoriented, unaware of his surroundings.

"Did you get him under again before he was aware of what was going on?" Arthur asked.

"I think so," Cobb replied.

Eames let out all of his breath with a puff, turning to pace away in relief. Suddenly, he laughed. "We did it," he told Cobb as Cobb opened his mouth to finally ask the inevitable question. "We bloody well did it down there."

There was a beat, then a sudden relieved laugh came from Ariadne as they all realized that that was it. Cobb's face broke into a smile, as it finally struck home with him, too. He was going home.

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Epilogue

Eames' flight back to Hammersmith didn't leave for two days, so while they had planned for Arthur to be the one to stay to in contact with Browning for the few days after the eradication, Eames didn't think he would be able to survive two days in The Duke and Dutchess with Arthur and Ariadne as his only company. Cobb had gone the evening of the eradication, driving back home to his kids.

While it was hard for Eames to convince Ariadne to just leave him and go at first, he ended up just telling her point-blank that he didn't want to spend any more time than he had to with them while they were both together.

"Jealous much?" Ariadne had teased him.

"Disgusted, more like," he had replied lightly.

The two of them had left for the plane back to Paris first thing the morning after they had finished the eradication. Arthur had claimed he was just accompanying Ariadne home before taking his connecting flight back to Austria once more, but Eames knew he was telling them this only for Cobb's sake, that it may be a while before Arthur really returned to Vienna again. For the first time in a while though, he bit his tongue and was content in letting them be happy.

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Eames stayed at The Duke and Duchess another two whole days in the end. He called Browning the first night to check on Fischer, and everything they had worked towards seemed in order. Fisher had apparently withdrawn his original orders to split up the company, somewhat confused about his motives, but absolutely fine apart from that.

Fischer was fine, and the business would be, as well. Their job had been successful. Browning didn't need anything more from any of them.

Finally, Eames was able to at last catch a flight back to Hammersmith. He bought a first class ticket, the same airline Saito had purchased what felt like a lifetime ago now during the inception job. He had no problem getting on, and once they were safely in the air, he called his sister to tell her he was coming home. She told him she would be waiting.

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Cobb rented a car to drive back to his children the evening of the eradication. He phoned Browning before he left, repeatedly spinning Mal's top on the desk in front of him and watching it fall over and over again as the other man reassured him that his family was safe and that they would never bother him again.

"Not even for another job?" Cobb checked.

"We'll hire someone else," Browning promised.

It was nighttime as Cobb finally neared his city. The evening news was on, and at the sound of a familiar name, Cobb turned the volume up. The Fischer-Morrow company had broken up for all of half an hour that afternoon, before Fischer's orders could be withdrawn and his new ones reinstated. In that time frame, however, Proclus Global had bought half the shares of the Fischer-Morrow conglomerate, and the rival company wasn't about to sell the shares back.

Cobb smiled to himself as he turned the volume back down, pleased at least for Saito, if not for the company itself.

He pulled down the familiar street, and spotted his house back amongst the trees with a rush of excitement. Pulling into the driveway, he hastily pulled the keys from the ignition and hurried up the front steps of his house.

Miles and Marie were in the living room watching a television show together, and as Cobb glanced into the room, he saw his father-in-law's arm around Marie's shoulders as they sat with their backs to him.

Smiling, Cobb continued down the hallway to his children's bedrooms. Philippa was asleep in her bed, and as he walked into her room he felt his heart skip just to see her face again. He walked quietly over to her and scooped her gently up in his arms. She didn't wake as he held her to him, her chin resting on his shoulder and her cheek against his neck. Her warmth in his arms seemed surreal; too good to be true.

He carried his sleeping daughter into James' room where he knelt down beside his son's bed, watching his deep and even breathing. He moved the free hand that wasn't holding Philippa up to James' face, tucking a blond curl behind his son's tiny ear.

James' eyes opened and he stared up at his father for a moment in silence. "Is this a dream, Daddy?" he asked quietly.

"No, sweetheart, I'm here for good now," Cobb replied softly.

He felt Philippa stir against him, and she woke to find herself in her father's arms once more. She hugged him for a long moment as James sat up and also put his tiny arms around his father.

"Don't go again, Dad," Philippa said.

"I won't, honey."

"Promise?" said James, his voice high but muffled as his face was still buried in his dad's stomach.

"I promise. Here." Cobb managed to free an arm and pulled out Mal's top from his pocket. He felt the familiar weight of the totem in the palm of his hand and looked at it one last time.

"What's that for, Daddy?" James asked, looking up at it.

"Nothing that either of you will ever need to worry about," Cobb said softly. Philippa didn't say a word as he finally handed it to her. "Now I want you two to keep it somewhere safe, somewhere neither me nor anyone else can find it. Can you do that for me? It was Mom's."

Philippa nodded solemnly. "Yes, Daddy."

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And that's it! I'm so happy to have finally finished my very first fan-fic (though a little sad, too) and I just wanted to thank everyone who's ever reviewed, favourited, or alerted this story. You guys really kept me going with the knowledge that somebody was reading (and hopefully enjoying) my work. And I especially want to thank Kitty Quasar one last time for your page-long reviews of every single chapter, you kept this story going so much. I hope you all enjoyed reading, you guys are wonderful!

~kat