((-))

No one ever really asked Eames for anything. No rides to work. No emergencies at 3 am. No loans. His life was uncomplicated by having few close friendships. With his job that was the simpler way to go.

So, when Chloe asked him for help, he was more confused than anything. The first time she wandered into the loft the team were scattered throughout working individually. He was lying on the floor (sometimes it helped him think) and spotted those legs that went on for days with high heeled boots and knew he was in trouble.

Her legs, ass, thighs, breasts, arms… her laugh. All distractions that he needed as much as a hole in the head. The fact that she would never leave also proved difficult, but the rest of the team quickly warmed up to her, so she was never asked to. The only female on the team was borrowing her earrings by the second day.

The bar was another set back. Kissing her was a monumental mistake and he shouldn't have done it. After the moment passed and he took a seat at the card game, he decided that he was just drunk and it would never happen again.

But the next morning lying in bed, head aching from the massive hangover, he began to over examine. He came up with a few plausible explanations. One: he had kissed her because he was drunk and bored and frustrated that this woman was distracting him from work and everything else. Two: Subconsciously he had wanted to kiss her since he first saw her and was just acting out on that fantasy. Or three - and this was the one he hated the most - someone had finally asked him for help and he was ecstatic about it, so he did the first thing that popped into his head.

Eames wanted to believe that he finally agreed to teach her out of sympathy or the goodness of his heart, whatever the hell that meant, but he knew that was a lie. She was beautiful and sort of interesting in a dangerous way and most of all a forbidden fruit.

Entangling himself with an employer's daughter was one thing he had never done. Truthfully, it had crossed his mind, but he'd never had the opportunity standing in front of him, staring up at him with blue eyes and a perfect face. There was a first time for everything.

And teaching her was not easy. He remembered when Cobb taught him years ago and realized just how much better he was at it. Her questions were often asked in four parts and loaded with sub-questions and hypothetical what-ifs. Chloe thought out all the angles. What could go wrong, how to get out of a situation that did. Her biggest concern - more of an imminent fear really - was limbo.

"How long could someone be stuck there?" Chloe asked as they made their way down a crowded sidewalk. In her dream, there was some kind of a celebration going on in the streets. People danced and wore masks. Music blasting from all directions.

He made a face at the unbearable ringing in his ears. They'd been at this for four days and her dreams got louder each time. He had specifically asked her not to make this one so complicated and hard to navigate. The last was a carnival with clowns and a fun house that put even someone like Eames on edge. He was anxious to bring her into one of his more relatively quiet dreams. "It depends. If you keep a grasp on reality vs. a dream you'll be fine. It's never even happened to me."

Chloe chuckled at how uncomfortable Eames was with the area. "Do you have some sort of mental block when it comes to parades?"

"Just the bloody loud ones." He answered.

With a worried expression, "Do you know anyone it has happened to?"

Eames glanced over his shoulder at her briefly. He could tell this was the one thing about extraction that frightened her, and it frightened him too (even if he would never admit it out loud), which is why he waited such a long time to answer. But before he could, he noticed the projections closing in. A man he had been keeping an eye on had been following them for the past block.

He grabbed onto Chloe's hand, who was still trailing behind, and pulled her beside him. "Stay close. They're starting to…"

And then they attacked them. After it was over, Eames woke up in the loft reclined on the leather sofa. His breath steadied, eyes searching the room for the Chloe, who was being ripped apart limb by limb the last time he saw her.

When he spotted her sitting at a nearby table, she was laughing so hard that she was close to tears.

The dreams where they had to die to wake up always ended like that. Him waking up, her laughing. After awhile he would laugh too, but never got a straight answer as to what was so funny.

((-))