Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

- Virginia Woolf

“Eames.”

The voice throws him for a minute, because it’s one he hasn’t heard in more than a year now, timid but with a determination behind it that helps him place the caller.

“Ariadne,” he answers, tucking the phone under his ear and wondering how she got this number, or from whom. “This is a surprise.”

“Have you heard about Fischer?”

The name comes as a surprise, although it perhaps shouldn’t; there are few things tying the two of them together, and Fischer is one of them. When he doesn’t answer immediately, Ariadne speaks up again.

“You should turn on the news.”

He’s in Australia at the moment, which makes the story easy to locate once he switches on the television. “…the scion of the family behind one of the biggest energy corporations in the world fell into a coma on Friday, and was discovered in his Los Angeles penthouse by a member of his household staff. Doctors remain unsure about the cause, although a spokesperson for the company has assured the media that drugs were not a factor. Fischer remains in the care of…”

“Was it us?” Ariadne asks, interrupting the flow of words from the reporter. “Did we do this?”

Doubtful, Eames thinks. Still, there are other factors to consider. “I’ll call you back,” he tells Ariadne.

He leaves the television on while he works, checking message boards and tracking the story across several of the more reputable world news sites. At around half-past seven, he finishes reading one of the most recent articles just in time for the reporter’s voice on the news to filter through. “…are unsure whether there is a connection between the two cases. Rothchild, a Boston native, has been airlifted from Miami back to the care of her primary physician at…”

Eames stills for a moment, and then does another search, skimming headlines with a grim sense of foreboding. Marion Rothchild, heiress and head of the Rothchild Foundation, who six months ago had announced out of the blue her decision to sponsor medical research instead of the arts. Eames still remembers the cold tube of the IV in his arm and the thin blanket he’d had over his lap when Marion had stooped down beside his wheelchair in the pediatric ward and kissed Eames’ bald forehead, calling him a very brave little girl.

He doesn’t waste any more time. Two cases, both in the United States, and there’s a young blonde woman on the television now promising that the FBI will do everything in its power to discover the truth behind the cases of Ms. Rothchild and Mr. Fischer.

He checks the area code of his last received call, and sure enough it has a U.S. country code attached.

“Get out of the states,” he says when Ariadne picks up. “Get back to Paris, or go home to Canada. You should be fine so long as you’re not in the country.”

“It was us, wasn’t it?” Ariadne sounds young, still, but not afraid. Quiet and certain, like she’d known even before she’d picked up the phone to call Eames. Women’s intuition.

“Yes,” Eames replies. “It was us.”

-

The FBI team heading up the investigation are members of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, which Eames takes to mean that the government believes the comas are the work of a malicious individual rather than from natural causes. Natural causes being, say, the aftereffects of an experimental dreamsharing technique, rather than an overdose on sleeping pills.

He keeps his ear to the ground and hears just enough to know that others involved on the inception teams are already following up on the criminal leads, chasing rumors through the dreamsharing community. The point on the Rothchild job, Silvashko, is doing a better job of tracking down that information than Eames can, so he turns his attention elsewhere.

There’s only one team member that the Fischer and Rothchild jobs had in common, which means only one person who could theoretically tie the two cases together.

Whatever the FBI knows, Eames wants to know it, too.

-

Bugging the FBI team members’ vehicles is almost laughably easy. With as much technology as the common automobile holds these days, tapping into the GPS systems and planting microphones takes no more than a handful of minutes, done safely out of sight of surveillance cameras.

The only flaw in his plan comes with Dr. Spencer Reid, who takes public transportation every day and has, so far as Eames can tell, never learned how to drive. According to the files Silvashko had sent along, he’d been busy with graduate studies by the time he was old enough and the parent who’d been granted custody lived out of state, so Eames supposes that’s understandable.

Luckily for Eames, Dr. Reid’s flat is not equipped with state-of-the-art security, and it’s a simple enough matter to break in while his FBI team is away in Boston interviewing family members and employees, and plant a bug inside his entertainment center.

It’s not quite the bachelor pad Eames had been expecting, even for an FBI agent. Everything is in its proper place, neat and tidy, with the exception of the books that are everywhere, stacked from floor to ceiling on shelves and tables, wherever there’s room. There are two bedrooms, both furnished, which makes Eames both quick and cautious in his investigation. Being surprised by a roommate returning home won’t do at all.

The first bedroom has a closet filled with suits, neatly organized in garment bags overhanging a generous collection of men’s dress shoes. Reid’s room, obviously. The closet in the other room is nearly empty, but the drawers are filled with sweater vests and short-sleeved dress shirts, rumpled khaki pants and cardigans. The tie selection looks to have been chosen from a 1970’s department store catalogue. A student, perhaps, or an older professor, subletting the room. It’s a common practice in the D.C. area, and Reid’s name is the only one on the lease.

There’s a Leon Kossoff on the wall in the hallway, which Eames recognizes from a web search he did years ago after coming perilously close to losing an argument with Arthur on the subject of modern British painters. It looks like an original, which puts the roommate either in a well-placed position or a higher pay grade.

The biggest surprise is the Glock taped to the ceiling of one of the cupboards in the kitchen. It’s a standard-issue FBI firearm, but the hammer is cocked, and Eames suspects that if he took the time to look, he’d find a round in the chamber. Not standard FBI practice, and certainly not for a secondary weapon. Presumably Reid has his primary firearm with him in Boston.

Eames gets out clean and returns to the corporate apartment he’s renting weekly near Quantico. There’s nothing new from Silvashko, but Eames hadn’t really expected anything. Yusuf has checked in with an all-clear on the international front; with both incidents in the U.S., Interpol hasn’t made any inquiries. It’s still in the hands of the FBI.

Eames checks the police reports in Boston, and settles in to wait.

-

The lives of FBI agents are just as terrifically boring as Eames suspected they would be. Apart from a few juicy personal phone calls and one horrifying instance of full-blast country karaoke, Eames gets absolutely nothing from his first day of surveillance. The second day is much the same, although with the added bonus of a phone call between two of the agents in which Eames learns that they have no leads and no suspects, as yet.

The third day is when it gets interesting.

“Garcia?” Reid’s voice asks, cutting off a generic cell phone ringtone. The roommate hasn’t come home yet, so far as Eames knows; if he has, he’s been quiet about it.

“I’m in my apartment,” Reid says, sounding confused. Then, “No,” drawn out slowly, wary. “What’s this about?” A pause, followed by, “I’ll meet you there in half an hour?” There’s the sound of a door closing, after which Reid’s voice becomes too muffled to decipher.

It could be nothing, but Eames has fuck-all else to go on. He loops back to the first cell phone ring and raises the volume, filtering out the background noise to pick up the other side of the conversation.

“Where are you?” A woman’s voice, tinged with urgency. Then Reid’s reply, followed by, “Reid honey, is anyone there with you?”

Bugger, Eames thinks. He has a bad feeling even before the woman continues, “I need you to come in. I’m sending a team out to sweep your apartment now, I think you’ve been B-U-G-ed.”

Eames takes off his headphones and taps his pen against the wooden desk. After a moment, he does a quick search through the BAU files on his hard drive. Penelope Garcia, Technical Analyst. Apparently FBI tech support extends beyond the office for this team.

It’s only a matter of time before they search the other agents’ homes, if they aren’t already. Eames can always hope he’ll get lucky and no one will think of checking vehicles, but he doesn’t have enough information yet to withdraw completely.

He waits until the agents have left Reid’s flat, gives them half an hour to report the all-clear, and slips in to plant another bug.

-

Phone chatter gets very interesting after that. None of the agents know who bugged Reid’s flat, and whether it was an internal action taken by the Bureau or one performed by an outside source. Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner is on the phone with someone for every minute of his commute, asking questions and demanding answers with the air of someone who knows how to work the system and will use that information as ruthlessly as he has to in order to get what he wants.

It’s gratifying that they seem to believe it’s an isolated incident, but the hubbub over the bug is distracting from the case. Eames is going to have to switch to another plan shortly if he hopes to get anywhere.

Three days later, the technical analyst catches on again and a team shows up to sweep for bugs. They find the first one. Not the second.

Reid makes a phone call not long after he gets home, from the debatable safety of his living room. There’s no voice on the other end, just an automated message that goes straight to voicemail.

“Hi, it’s me,” Reid says. “I think I might need you.”

Eames is trying to pull favors to have the line hacked and traced when he gets a call himself, this time from Kinkaide. He hasn’t worked with the man in years, not since their failed attempt at an extraction via inception.

“We have a problem,” Kinkaide says, without any preliminaries. “They found Proserpina Christakos.”

-

“This unsub will not inject himself into the investigation,” Hotchner had told the police chief in Galveston. “Whoever we’re looking for doesn’t want us to see him.”

Eames was willing to grant that assumption the benefit of the doubt, but then he wasn’t the unsub. The day after Proserpina Christakos was found comatose in her summer home, a Dr. Geoffrey Black was on the red-eye flight to Texas.

“I appreciate your interest in the case,” Agent Hotchner told him, “but this is an ongoing investigation. Any information we may have is not ready to be shared with the public.”

“Of course,” Eames demurs. “I was merely offering my expertise.”

“Thank you, but right now I’m afraid we can’t accept that offer.” It’s a polite but firm dismissal, and clearly Hotchner intends it to carry enough authority to put Dr. Black right back onto a plane out of Galveston.

Instead, Eames hangs around looking hopeful and academic until he catches someone else’s eye.

It doesn’t take long; he’s chosen his props well, and he’d guessed that either Morgan or Reid would be drawn in by the neatly-printed Dream Therapy for Coma Patients on the cover of the book in his hands.

He gets Reid, who approaches sideways, like a crab, before settling on the bench beside him just inside the busy waiting room of the police station. “Dream therapy,” he says, indicating the title of Eames’ book. “That’s a pretty experimental field.”

“It’s a young science, but growing,” Eames agrees easily. “Dr. Geoffrey Black,” he says, offering his hand. “I heard about the cases on the news and thought I might be of help.”

“I wasn’t aware dream therapy had even been tested on coma patients,” Reid says, studying him. He reminds Eames a bit of a frog, with his wide mouth and prominent bones. There are bruises smudged beneath his eyes that Eames has seen before on work-obsessed, insomniac point men, that tell of nights spent reading poetry and absorbing information.

“There’s been one case study,” Eames answers. “It’s difficult, of course, without the lucid interludes of discussion and discovery one normally has with patients, but many believe that some good can be done by studying the subconscious.”

“You mean dreamsharing technology,” Reid says, and Eames has to hide his surprise. He’d debated whether or not to push them in this direction, but with Christakos now on the list of victims, he hadn’t seen another choice. There was nothing to link Christakos to Fischer and Rothchild; no behavioral changes, no sudden suspect decisions. Because the inception hadn’t worked.

The only thing linking all three victims, so far as Eames knew, was inception. And Eames himself.

He hadn’t expected Reid to catch on so quickly, however. “You’re familiar with the field?” Eames asks.

There’s a flicker of something in Reid’s expression, there and gone before Eames can pin it down, and in its absence a keen interest that Eames can read like his own reflection in a mirror. It occurs to him suddenly how very dangerous it is to be playing this game with an FBI profiler who may well be as good as he is.

“I’ve read some of the theoretical work,” Reid answers. “As I understand, the prospect of dreamsharing therapy hasn’t yet become a reality.”

“Ah, but the possibilities available to us if it does,” Eames enthuses, letting some of Dr. Black’s passion glimmer in his eyes. “Child psychologists already use the medium of fiction, asking their patients to tell stories and act out events with toy dolls. Imagine if we could reach the patients directly in their dreams, test their reactions to people and places, discover hidden truths. Amnesia patients could be helped to unlock doors within their own minds.”

“And coma patients could be shown the way back to consciousness,” Reid finishes for him. “Is that why you’re here, Doctor?”

“This is the perfect opportunity for a field test,” Eames confirms. “If you had someone on-hand, someone familiar with the relevant theories and techniques….”

“Dreamsharing technology, even in its current state, is restricted and overseen by the U.S. military,” Reid says. “How did you think you were going to facilitate a field test?”

Eames lets his expression go blank, bewildered. “You’re the FBI.”

Reid is still suspicious, Eames can tell, but he has no reason on the surface to distrust Eames’ alias, so after a few more minutes of small talk, Eames is shuttled off to another officer willing to take down his – fictional – information and send him away. It’s not what he’d hoped for, but it’s better than nothing. With any luck, the FBI will be able to turn over stones that Eames’ own resources can’t reach. He needs to find out who’s targeting inception marks, and why.

He needs to find out soon, before anyone can tie them all to him.

-

Eames is lurking a block away from Christakos’ summer house when a black sedan with rental plates pulls up just outside of the police blockade, parking rather brazenly in front of two marked cruisers with lights flashing. Eames doesn’t recognize the car, but he does recognize the silhouette and body language of the man who gets out, flashing some sort of falsified identification at the officers guarding the perimeter and ducking confidently under the crime scene tape.

Eames turns and makes his way back to his own car, careful not to angle himself in a way that reveals his face until he’s back in his own vehicle, safe behind tinted windows.

“Fuck.” He dials Kinkaide because Silvashko doesn’t know about Christakos, and Eames would prefer to keep it that way. The fewer people who can connect him to this, the better.

“We have a problem,” he says when Kinkaide picks up. “There’s another team.”

-

“Arthur’s in Belmopan,” Ariadne says when Eames calls her.

“Arthur was in Belmopan yesterday,” Eames corrects. “Apparently something came up and he left late last night for Los Angeles.”

With the time difference and the red-tape of American customs, even for an ex-military agent with Arthur’s credentials, that makes it likely that he’d only taken one connecting flight. Taking the time to cover his tracks is apparently not as critical as unearthing whatever it is the FBI has found.

There’s some risk in disappearing from sight so quickly when Dr. Black would have been expected to keep trying, to hang about asking questions and posing theories, but with another dreamsharing team in the mix, Eames can’t take the chance of being spotted. He’s already in the airport, booked on the first flight back to D.C. as Dr. Black.

“There’s more,” Ariadne says. “I got in touch with Cobb, he says that while the BAU is handling the coma patient cases, there’s more going on. One of the agents has access to information about extraction teams, and it’s being leaked to other agencies. That’s not part of the official investigation. Probably because dreamsharing technology isn’t public knowledge yet, even for the FBI.” She sounds impressed, undoubtedly delighted that a Canadian citizen has one up on an important branch of American law enforcement.

“You got in touch with…” Eames cuts off the question. Of course Ariadne had gotten in touch with Cobb. She’d been able to track down Eames within a day of the story breaking. “Have you contacted all of us?”

“Not Saito,” she says, for which Eames is profoundly grateful. “And not Arthur. All I knew was that he was in Belmopan, I couldn’t get a number.”

“Yes, he does tend to make it difficult,” Eames agrees. He wonders if Cobb really thought through what he was doing, introducing Ariadne to their little underworld. In his reflective moments, he fully believes she and Arthur will be ruling them all by the new year.

“So what do we do now?” Ariadne asks.

“Let me handle this for now, all right?” Eames replies, already formulating plans. “I have a team of sorts already. It should be a simple extraction, and then we’ll know everything they do.”

“You’re going to extract from the FBI?” Ariadne’s tone is mixed parts horrified and thrilled. Eames can already imagine her setting her sights higher.

“Only one of them. We can use this,” Eames tells her. “If Arthur’s here, he’s after the same thing we are. He’s ex-military; he has government contacts, and his intelligence is bound to be better than ours. All we have to do is wait to see which member of the team he focuses on. That’s our man.”

“Why don’t you just work together?”

Eames smiles briefly. “You haven’t spent nearly enough time around Arthur and I if you have to ask that question.”

Besides which, he doesn’t like the idea of anyone from the dreamsharing community knowing something he doesn’t. If the FBI connects all three victims to him, which they no doubt will, Arthur may decide to cut his losses and take Eames out directly before he can lead them to everyone else.

It’s what Eames would do.

-

There’s a black sedan with tinted windows and rental plates parked a block from Reid’s flat, so Eames assumes Arthur has chosen his target for the night. He doesn’t make a move yet; Arthur could be doing the same thing Eames is, watching everyone in turn and narrowing down his suspect list. It’s too early to tell.

He thinks he may have made a mistake when his bug picks up the sounds of an altercation around midnight after Reid returns home, scuffling and the thump of a body hitting something with force.

Fucking hell, Arthur’s already made a move, he thinks, checking his gun in haste and preparing to force his way in if necessary, if it’ll give him access to the information Reid has before Arthur can steal it and disappear. He’s in the process of jerking off his headphones when he hears Reid speak, breathless but still unmistakably, “Yes.”

Eames pauses. Setting his gun back down on the desk, he adjusts the background noise filter and turns up the volume.

“Oh, oh.” Reid’s voice, high and breathy, and Eames is cracking a grin even before he hears familiar wet slapping sounds, distorted by the ambient noise filter but still recognizable. Eames has done enough surveillance in his day to be able to identify the sounds of someone receiving excellent head.

Awkward, evasive Dr. Reid is apparently getting lucky.

Eames listens for another few seconds to confirm, and then takes off his headphones and turns his attention elsewhere. He’s not above a little voyeurism, but he’s not sordid enough to eavesdrop on someone’s private party just for the hell of it.

He wonders if Arthur is getting an earful, as well. The idea of buttoned-down, put-together Arthur squirming in the confines of his rental car listening to someone else getting off is enough to make Eames’ night.

He hopes Arthur brought tissues on his stakeout.

-

The next night, Arthur’s sedan returns to park two blocks from Reid’s flat. And again the night after that. That’s all the proof Eames needs.

The following afternoon, while Eames is still putting the final touches on his extraction plan, he receives an alert message in his inbox. Arthur has booked a flight out of the country. He’s leaving that night.

There’s only one reason for Arthur to be laying down an escape route. Eames has to do the job on Reid today, or Arthur’s going to get in ahead of him and fuck the whole thing to hell.

Eames prefers his plans for sedation and extraction to be clean, elegant, leaving the mark with no trace of suspicion. If you’re made after the job, it’s just as bad as being made before it. The end result will be the same, once the mark knows you’ve been in their mind.

If pressed, however, Eames knows how to default to a backup plan. A home invasion and mugging isn’t an unusual crime, and Reid’s security is negligible. There will be enough trauma from the event to cover up any hints of unease that might linger from the dream.

He makes his move the next day, breaking in just before Reid typically returns from Quantico and waiting just inside the front door. If he times it right, he can have Reid unconscious and unaware before he ever gets a glimpse of Eames’ face.

What he hadn’t counted on was Reid having all the grace of a newborn colt, and being on the phone besides. “I told you, it’s fine,” Eames hears, muffled through the front door. The lock clicks, the handle twists. Reid’s voice grows louder and clearer as he pushes the door open. “Garcia’s checking my apartment again tomorrow, it could be nothing. It could be the Bureau, this kind of thing happens sometimes when agents…”

Eames is a breath away from catching Reid in a sleeper hold when the strap of Reid’s messenger bag catches on the door handle and he gets caught, twisted up in his own luggage. He tries to lift the strap free, misses, bangs his elbow into the door, trips over his own feet, and overbalances enough that the weight of the bag yanks the door handle backwards, revealing Eames lying in wait behind it. Reid’s eyes go wide, surprise followed almost immediately by understanding.

“Dr. Black,” he says, still holding the phone open. “I didn’t expect to see you again. You’re looking very well for someone who died in his eighties, by the way. Your colleagues at Stanford send their condolences.”

Well, it’s not as if Eames had expected that alias to hold water for long, anyway. He tilts his head sideways, pushing the door shut behind Reid when he complies with the wordless instructions. Eames holds his free hand out for the phone.

“You don’t have to do this,” Reid says, almost in a rush. “Whatever you want…”

The click of Reid’s jaw snapping shut is almost as loud as Eames’ safety going off.

“Spencer?” Eames hears through the open phone line. A deep male voice, tinny and tense. “Spencer?”

Reid lowers the phone slowly and clicks it off.

“Good boy,” Eames approves. “Now turn around slowly, please.”

Reid goes tense. Eames imagines he’s spent enough time in hostage situations to know what that usually means. “They know you’re here,” Reid says, still trying to be reasonable. “There’s someone coming for me already, they’ll be here any minute. You can still end this.”

“Turn around,” Eames says again.

When Reid does, every movement of his body tight and afraid, Eames clocks him neatly across the back of his head with the butt of his gun.

-

He doesn’t have much time. The authorities have no doubt been alerted, and Reid has seen his face, which is going to make working in this country hell unless Eames actually abducts him, which is a logistical nightmare and almost worse than ending up on the FBI’s most wanted list.

He drags Reid’s body into the first bedroom and dumps it across the bed, cracking open the PASIV case and readying the lines. Response times vary by city and Reid will undoubtedly be called in as a priority, but it still takes time to make calls and dispatch vehicles. He should have three minutes in the real world, and Reid won’t be militarized. There shouldn’t be any problems.

He’s just slid the needle into one of Reid’s prominent blue veins when he hears footsteps thundering up the stairs. Too soon, far too soon.

Eames steps into the hallway and levels his gun just as Arthur kicks in the front door.

Arthur’s expression goes slack with surprise and recognition, but he doesn’t waste time. “Where is he?”

“He made a call, someone’s already on the way,” Eames answers. “If we do this together, it will be faster.”

“Where is he?” Arthur repeats, biting out the words.

“In the bedroom,” Eames says, gesturing with one elbow. Neither of them have lowered their guns. Eames supposes it’s only self-preservation, getting into a standoff with Arthur. “Where’s the rest of your team?”

“There is no team,” Arthur says. “It’s only me.”

That’s unexpected, but then Arthur did drop everything on a job in Belize to get here and he has nearly as much to hide as Eames does where Fischer is concerned, so perhaps Eames shouldn’t be surprised that he’s working this one solo.

“In that case, shall I go down alone while you stand guard?” He’ll have to lower his gun to roll up his sleeve, but they’re running out of time. Waiting for the FBI to break down the door is just as dangerous as giving Arthur a clear shot. “Three minutes, full disclosure…”

“There is no team, Eames,” Arthur repeats. “There is no job. He’s not a mark.”

Eames pauses.

Arthur’s jaw is tight. “Profile the room, Eames,” he says, which is an odd choice of words coming from Arthur, but Eames supposes it must be what comes to mind, standing in Reid’s flat…

Reid’s flat.

Two bedrooms. One of them filled with suit jackets and designer ties, and Eames has spent enough time watching the BAU now to know that Reid dresses like someone’s academically-inclined grandfather. A Glock much like the one currently in Arthur’s hand, taped to the top of a cupboard, in carrying condition one. An original Kossoff on the wall, which Eames knows is exactly Arthur’s taste.

Eames lowers his gun. “You’re not here about Fischer,” he says cautiously.

“No,” Arthur says, moving past him into the bedroom – Arthur’s bedroom – now that they’re no longer holding each other at gunpoint. “I’m here because someone bugged my fucking apartment.”

Eames follows him in, waiting in the doorway while Arthur crouches down beside the bed to check Reid’s vitals.

“Did you give him anything?” Arthur asks, with unexpected urgency. “Sedatives? Narcotics?”

“Nothing. A mild concussion, possibly. You arrived before I could put him under.” Eames checks his watch. “Speaking of, should we be worried about the company on the way?”

“No one’s coming,” Arthur answers shortly. “I’m the only one who knows you’re here.”

“And vice versa, it seems,” Eames comments. “I didn’t know you kept a place in D.C.”

“You’re not supposed to. That’s the point.” Arthur glances over at him. “You have a team?”

“No one in the city.” It’s the truth, and less revealing than anything else he might have said. “I take it your flight back to Belize was scheduled because you’d determined the surveillance wasn’t a threat?”

“So I’d thought,” Arthur replies darkly.

“Perhaps that was a premature conclusion,” Eames allows.

Arthur shoots him a glare and doesn’t deign to respond.

Eames isn’t such a bastard that he doesn’t understand he’s probably blown Arthur’s cover in this city, and that Arthur may have to burn an alias because of it. “Can I help?”

“No,” Arthur says, shrugging his suit jacket off and rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll take care of it.”

-

“You don’t see a conflict of interest, sharing a flat with an FBI agent? A profiler, at that?”

Arthur ignores him, packing up Eames’ PASIV with practiced proficiency. This lasts until he stands up and tries to leave the room, only to find Eames still in the doorway, blocking his path.

“He knows what I do,” Arthur says finally, recognizing that Eames is not about to be moved without persuasion. “There’s no conflict.”

“What you used to do, or what you do now?” Eames inquires, because everyone has heard Arthur’s background story: ex-military black ops, possible CIA connections, one of the first pioneers of the United States dreamshare program. Most of it is almost certainly fabricated or at least exaggerated, but there’s enough of a paper trail beneath the bluster to give it credence.

Arthur hesitates, then sidesteps Eames to get through the door. This time Eames lets him go, because handling Arthur is always something that’s best done with one step forward and two steps back. There’s also the fact that Eames can easily block him again on the way back, this time putting himself between Arthur and Reid, which is an even better strategic position.

Arthur turns on the tap in the kitchen and runs a glassful of water through the filter on the faucet. “Do you really believe,” Eames asks behind him, “that any cover story you’ve fed him will stand up to scrutiny at close quarters if he gets curious? That he won’t start tracking your comings and goings, wondering why an ex-military agent is called on so urgently to travel abroad?”

Arthur remains still for a long moment. Then he turns around and faces Eames squarely. “I’m not ex-military,” he says finally.

Eames rejects the correction with an impatient gesture. “Whatever…”

“I’m not ex-anything.”

Eames falls silent. There are a great many ways that statement could be interpreted, but he instinctively knows already which one Arthur means. He’d heard the rumors about Arthur still having ties, about being dirty rather than divorced, but he hadn’t given them credibility. Now he wonders how far they were off the mark.

Arthur isn’t dirty, though. Arthur is noble, whatever his criminal actions, and loyal to a fault.

“How long,” Eames asks, “have you been spying on all of us?”

Arthur doesn’t flinch. “Since the beginning,” he says. “Since it started. There were undercover agents in the field from every country with a dreamshare program as soon as the technology leaked. Don’t think I’m the only one.”

Eames grits his teeth. When he gets his temper under control, he can still tell that his tone is too calm to be anything but a threat. “I’d rather not leave a trail of bodies behind me in this country, Arthur. How much do they know?”

“Only what’s relevant,” Arthur replies, as if that makes it any less of a knife in the back. “My job is to monitor and report back, not give the details of every job and everyone involved.”

“You could, though,” Eames counters, cold with the knowledge that it’s the truth. Arthur’s network spreads farther and wider than anyone else has ever managed; it’s one of many reasons why he’s the best. If it ever came to it, Arthur could hand them all over on a platter with enough rope to hang them all, and with plenty to spare.

Arthur, at least, doesn’t try to deny it.

“I could kill you for telling me this,” Eames tells him. “I should. It’s the smartest thing to do.”

“You could,” Arthur agrees. “But you won’t.”

There’s a rustling noise from the bedroom. Arthur doesn’t take his eyes off Eames, but he moves away from the counter with clear intent, and Eames has to either force the issue or step aside and let him pass.

He stays in the hallway for another moment, just breathing. Fucking Arthur. It might sting less if some part of Eames hadn’t already suspected he was being double-crossed.

When he finally walks back into the bedroom, Reid is just stirring. Eames sees his eyes flutter and then focus, taking in Eames standing by the doorway.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Arthur says, crouched down beside the bed again. “Spencer. You’re okay.”

Eames watches the quicksilver dart of Reid’s eyes as he maps out Eames’ position relative to his own, and then Arthur, the gun on Arthur’s hip, and his own line of sight, in that order. Eames holds up his hands, showing that he’s unarmed before Reid decides he can get to Arthur’s Glock and take the shot. The FBI trains shoot-to-kill, and Eames would rather not be a casualty.

Arthur sees the same danger and turns his body slightly sideways, just enough to discourage any attempt at drawing his firearm. “Spencer, this is Eames,” he says, before Eames has a chance to interject another alias. “Eames, Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“Sorry about before,” Eames says mildly, still watching Reid’s eyes and his hands for any sudden movements while keeping his own posture open and unthreatening. “There was a slight misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding,” Reid echoes, pushing himself upright on the bed and turning away the water Arthur tries to offer. “You broke into my apartment and knocked me out with a gun by accident?”

“He thought you were my mark,” Arthur says tightly, retreating slightly from Reid’s side and incidentally putting himself in a position where he has a clear view of both of them. Eames doesn’t believe for a moment that it’s an accident, or that any of them is anywhere close to having their guard down.

Reid looks Eames over, sharp intelligence in his eyes that isn’t hidden by the wince when he presses one hand to his head. “I wondered if it was you, when you showed up in Galveston. I’ve read your file, you fit the description. The only thing that didn’t fit the profile was you injecting yourself into the investigation. When you disappeared, I was almost expecting another victim.”

Eames throws a hard look at Arthur. “My file,” he echoes.

Arthur holds up both hands. “I use code names in my reports.”

“It wasn’t difficult to figure out, once I had some basic information,” Reid says absently. “The dates and locations all matched up, although it would presumably be more of a challenge for anyone who only had the official reports to go on.”

“So much for your code names,” Eames tells Arthur. His right eyelid is beginning to twitch.

“Like I said, not everyone would have had the ancillary information necessary to make the connection. I haven’t even brought up the theory that it’s related to dreamsharing yet, I wanted to do more research first. It’s only a viable theory if there’s something else connecting the crimes.”

No one else knows yet, Eames thinks. Arthur catches Eames’ eye and shakes his head slowly, correctly interpreting Eames’ expression. “If you kill him, I will bury you,” he warns. “You’re not even a suspect for this yet.”

“That being said, the risk you’ve taken in coming here is significant for someone with nothing to hide,” Reid continues, blithely overconfident about Arthur’s ability to keep Eames from putting another hole in his head. “You must have been following the investigation closely even before…ah.” He cuts off, eyes squeezing tightly closed and pressing his hand gingerly to the back of his skull.

“Do you want a painkiller?” Eames asks, not remorseful in the least but willing to at least make the offer.

“No,” Arthur and Reid say together, and there’s a beat of silence before Reid adds, “Thank you.” He pries his eyes open carefully and says, “I’m fine. I don’t need to go to a hospital.”

Eames snorts. Arthur’s eyes do the compulsive twitch he can never quite stop when he so obviously desperately wants to roll them. “Of course you’re not going to the hospital,” he says. “It’s a concussion.”

Reid smiles at Arthur, although Eames doesn’t get the joke, and says, “I’ve missed you.”

-

“Brief me,” Arthur orders, sliding a coffee mug onto the table and taking the third chair. “Everything you know.”

“I want assurances first,” Eames says, toying with the handle of his own mug. None of the mugs in the cupboard match, but they’re all arranged in the same direction, handles facing back and left. Eames wonders which of them is OCD.

He turns his attention to Reid now and asks, “How much of what’s said here gets back to your friends in the Bureau?”

“I trust them,” Reid says. He’s painfully honest for someone who’s seen the kinds of things he must have seen, working for his particular division. Eames keeps catching himself trying to spot the con behind the big-eyed baby deer act. If there is one, Reid hasn’t slipped up long enough to show it yet.

“I don’t,” Eames says, and over the objections he can already tell Arthur is about to raise, adds, “You’re not the only person to suspect dreamsharing as a common element. Someone on your team has been funneling information into other channels.”

Reid frowns. “They wouldn’t…”

“Prentiss,” Arthur says, cutting him off. “She used to be Interpol. Black market dreamshare technology is their jurisdiction. They’re the only ones watching closely on an international level.”

“She’s proven herself before,” Reid says stubbornly. “She wouldn’t go behind our backs.”

“She wouldn’t have to,” Eames points out mildly. “There’s nothing to stop her from reporting to both departments, possibly even with your team leader’s knowledge.” When Reid looks taken aback, Eames raises an eyebrow. “You don’t see any conflict of interest here either, I take it?”

“Technically, the existence of dreamsharing technology hasn’t been acknowledged by any world government,” Reid replies quickly. “Extraction, while immoral, can’t be considered illegal so long as there are no laws restricting its employment.”

“You’re prevaricating,” Eames says.

“It’s not Emily.”

“I’ve learned that Arthur is very rarely wrong, unless he chooses to be,” Eames says evenly, holding Reid’s gaze. “In this case, the only reason I could see that happening is if he were protecting someone, most likely you. If it isn’t you, then I would start with her.”

Reid shuts his mouth. He doesn’t look happy, but he nods.

Arthur takes that as his cue that they’re all cooperating for the time being. “You said there would be something connecting the victims. Fischer and Rothchild were both inception jobs, which is the first place I’d look. But there have only ever been two known inceptions, and you can’t keep that kind of thing quiet.”

Reid frowns again. “You think the unsub ran out of targets, so he had to change his victimology in order to keep satisfying his urge to harm?”

“No,” Eames says, before Arthur can respond. “Christakos was an inception job as well.” He clears his throat when Arthur pins him with a look. “Two years ago. The attempt failed, which is why you never heard about it. People rarely brag about their failures.”

“You were on the team,” Arthur infers.

“Which is another thing tying the victims together, if we’re keeping track,” Eames says, keeping his tone deliberately light. “I worked all of those jobs, and I’m the only team member they have in common.”

Reid’s attention sharpens and focuses, but Arthur brushes the information aside with a gesture. “Not surprising. Inception requires a strong personal connection with the subject, and there are only three forgers worth working with in the world. I’d have found it stranger if one of those teams hadn’t used a forger.”

“So it’s someone who knows the dreamsharing community well enough to track the failures as well as the successes,” Reid surmises. His fingers twitch and jerk briefly in another gesture Eames recognizes from working with Arthur, that of the eternal need for a writing implement when receiving new information.

“Unless it’s someone on the teams themselves,” Arthur says. “But the only overlap on all three jobs is Eames.”

“There could also be a connection between the employers,” Eames points out. “Anyone willing to hire a team for an inception is in an influential position. You don’t get to that level without having some skeletons in the closet.”

“There are also contractors,” Arthur adds. “Teams who hire out for sedatives, or an outside party who assembles the team.”

“Guys,” Reid says suddenly, “I really need to get to my team.”

Arthur gestures, an offhand go that signals Reid bolting from the table in his haste. “Keep Eames out of it,” Arthur says. “Use my name as a source if you have to, they already know enough about me to buy it.”

“I’ll call you from the office,” Reid promises, just before the door slams behind him.

Eames stares across the table at Arthur, trying to determine where to even begin with the conversation they’re about to have. “Do we even know what’s happening to these people?” he asks finally.

“Yes,” Arthur answers. “They’re in Limbo.”

-

They talk around the issue until there’s nothing left to do but confront it.

“You realize that if one word of your allegiance gets out, you’ll be dead within days.” Eames has dealt with enough spies – and seen them dealt with by others, which is always worse – to know that Arthur’s unflinchingly put his life into Eames’ hands. It’s a staggering demonstration of trust, and not one Eames would return.

“It doesn’t matter,” Arthur answers. “If we don’t find whoever’s targeting marks, all of us are going down anyway.”

Eames rolls his mug between his hands on the wooden table, back and forth. “How long have you been sharing living space with an FBI agent?”

“A few years,” Arthur answers. “We met when he worked a case at Langley. It’s a convenient arrangement; I have to keep up enough places as it is. I don’t consult for his team. We don’t work together.”

“Until now,” Eames corrects.

On cue, Arthur’s cell rings. He glances at the caller ID, at Eames, and finally opens the line. “Arthur.”

“Hi, it’s me,” Eames hears through the speaker, followed by something rapid and complicated that Eames can’t parse and which makes Arthur frown.

“Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker, it’ll be faster,” Arthur says, apparently giving up on getting a word in and just hitting the button mid-sentence.

“- looking at the victimology, trying to predict a pattern. If you’re right about the reason these victims were selected, then we might be able to learn something by figuring out why they were chosen before anyone else. If Christakos wasn’t even the victim of a successful inception, she wouldn’t have been a high-profile target. There had to be another reason the unsub chose her: accessibility, knowledge, another common link.”

“Does he ever stop to breathe?” Eames asks quietly. Arthur glares at him.

“Is that Arthur?” a man asks in the background, and Arthur’s glare redirects at his cell phone speaker, turning sour.

“Morgan’s here, we’re putting together a timeline,” Reid continues, seemingly unbothered by the fact that neither Arthur nor Eames have offered up any information yet. “I need to know the dates of when the inceptions were performed on Fischer and Rothchild, as well as a list of any other potential victims that you can think of. Have there been any other successful inceptions?”

Eames shares a look with Arthur. “Those are the only ones I know of,” Eames admits. “There were rumors about Douglas Kennington, but never anything substantial.”

“Cobb said he’d done it once before,” Arthur says slowly. “He never told me who. It had to have been someone on his research team, before he went on the run.”

Mal. Eames is surprised into silence. He’d heard the story from Ariadne, not long after the whole inception fiasco, but Arthur had disappeared immediately after the Fischer job the way he always did, handling payment and covering their tracks from a safe distance. Eames hadn’t realized that Cobb had never told him.

“Already dead,” he says briefly, ignoring the sudden weight of Arthur’s gaze on his face. He’ll have to tell Arthur at some point now, he knows, but if he has any choice in the matter he’ll put it off as long as possible. “That one’s irrelevant. There may have been a woman in Switzerland, but I don’t have a name.”

“He’s kept within federal bounds, there must be a reason,” Reid muses. “Christakos spent three-quarters of the year in Greece; the unsub may have struck when he did because it was when she was available.”

“You think this guy won’t leave the country,” Morgan – he of the terrible karaoke – says in the background.

“I think it’s more likely that this is where he’s comfortable,” Reid says. “Any time serial crimes are spread across jurisdictional lines, it makes the evidence more difficult to process. Sometimes neighboring districts or states aren’t even aware that there are other ongoing investigations into similar cases. Fischer traveled regularly, it would have been easy to target him while he was in transit. Instead he was found in his own bed, inside a well-armed security system. Christakos was only in Texas for two days before she was scheduled to leave on a cruise; that’s pretty exact timing.”

“It may be more to do with your legal system,” Eames puts in. “If I were given a choice between pulling off a risky crime here or in, say, Indonesia…”

“Here,” Arthur agrees. “They can’t prosecute. You said it yourself, earlier: There are no laws yet against crimes that have taken place inside someone’s mind.”

“That’s true of everywhere, though,” Reid says.

“True,” Eames allows. “But in a lot of other countries, they simply wouldn’t care.”

“Stick to the U.S.,” Arthur advises. “I’ll see if I can come up with any more names.”

“Start with failures,” Reid says. “Christakos was the most recent victim; it may be that the unsub has reached his limitations as far as getting access to victims and that’s why he’s moved on to subjects who weren’t actually incepted.”

Eames raises an eyebrow. “That’s a longer list. The idea has been around for years, and extractors love the prospect of a challenge. It’s a competitive field.”

Arthur remains silent. When Eames looks at him, questioning, he finally speaks.

“Candice Forsythe,” he says. “Four months ago. Sixteen years old, she lives with her parents in Philadelphia. The job failed, but word still got around afterward.”

“Why didn’t it succeed?” Eames asks, intrigued. It has to have been Arthur’s job, and he can’t imagine Arthur failing at anything.

“Because I didn’t let it,” Arthur says shortly.

Eames shakes his head. The idea of Arthur intentionally sabotaging his own job is even harder to believe than the idea of him failing. “You can’t tell me you’ve grown a conscience now, after all…”

“She was sixteen, Eames,” Arthur says sharply. He takes a deep breath and returns his attention to the silent, waiting phone. “Check on her first. I’ll call you with a list once I have more.”

Eames supposes Reid must be used to Arthur hanging up on him, if they’ve been roommates for this long. He waits while Arthur takes another moment, before they meet each other’s eyes.

“I could use your help on this,” Arthur says.

Eames has a dozen sarcastic responses he could make to that, but he’s well aware that right now he’s still the prime suspect. He’s also uncomfortably aware of how much trust Arthur has put in him to keep this from going any further.

“I’ll call Ariadne,” he says finally. “Three will be able to work faster than two.”

-

Eames is ending a call to Bhaktapur when he registers that the tone of Arthur’s voice has changed, softer around the edges than the clipped professional tone he uses on the job.

“I’ll ask him,” Arthur says, and his gaze flicks briefly to Eames. “Either way, I’ll see you in half an hour.”

“The roommate?” Eames asks when Arthur hangs up.

“They’re having trouble with the profile. Reid’s the only one who knows even the basics of dreamsharing, and he’s never been under. They’re getting bogged down in the technical side.”

“And they’ve asked for a consultant,” Eames surmises.

“Two, actually.” Arthur gives him another veiled, measuring look. “Would you consider…”

“No,” Eames says flatly. “You must be joking. Would I like to waltz directly into the FBI, attend a meeting with a team of profilers, at least one of whom is connected to Interpol, and reveal myself as the prime suspect of their investigation?”

“They won’t know who you are.”

“The illustrious Dr. Reid had me pegged after one conversation from a codename in a file. How long do you think it will take the rest of them, once we start discussing the details of my colorful criminal past?”

“That’s different,” Arthur says, rubbing at one eye like he has the beginnings of a headache. “That’s Spencer.”

“No,” Eames says again.

Arthur eyes him for a long, considering moment. “You’ll have access to an official FBI visitor’s pass for several hours,” he says. “And I’ll let you borrow my consultant’s badge while we’re inside.”

Arthur has always been skilled at baiting a hook. Eames blows out a breath. “Fine,” he agrees finally. “But we don’t use your bloody codenames.”

-

“Hey pretty boy, your guests are here.”

Eames turns at the sound of the voice, but he’s obviously not the one the words are intended for. Line of sight grants that distinction to Reid, who nearly trips over his feet on his way down the stairs to meet them.

The agent who’d spoken pushes off his desk and moves casually to intercept, holding out his hand. “Arthur. It’s been a while.”

“Morgan,” Arthur returns, looking less than pleased by their welcoming committee. Eames files that away for future consideration and shakes Morgan’s hand with a much friendlier expression than Arthur had offered.

“And you must be our other expert,” Morgan says, sizing Eames up with the air of a man used to calculating exactly where he ranks on the totem pole in any given company, and rarely coming up short.

Agent Hotchner, alerted to their presence either by Morgan’s announcement or Reid hovering close by, is the next in line to greet them. “Dr. Black. I didn’t expect we’d be seeing you again. Especially not so soon.”

“Yes, well, I hardly expected to be here myself. Let’s get this show underway, shall we?”

Hotchner gives him another of the standard FBI handshakes and gestures for Eames to precede him up the stairs toward the row of glass-walled offices. Arthur, Eames notes, isn’t treated to the same display of polite professionalism, merely a nod of Hotchner’s head and a brief, “Arthur.”

“Agent Hotchner.” Arthur hasn’t thawed in the slightest. If anything, Eames thinks he may have gone chillier. Eames would rather like to know exactly where Arthur stands with the FBI, to have this sparkling rapport.

There’s a woman waiting for them at the top of the stairs, and she at least looks perfectly well aware of the stilted awkwardness in the room, smirking lopsidedly at Arthur as they approach.

“Still wearing the suits,” she says. She has a strong face, and a strong voice to match it; an intimidating woman, not one who would be easily mistaken for fragile. “Hello, Arthur.”

“Hello, Emily,” Arthur says in turn, which is all Eames needs to know.

“Ah, Interpol,” he says, offering his hand when she turns her attention to him. “Charmed. I trust we’re all playing nicely for the purposes of this investigation.”

“I see someone’s wasted no time telling stories,” she says, her eyes cutting briefly to Arthur, but there’s no rancor in it, only a vague sense of weariness. She’s been tested before, Eames thinks, and he remembers Reid’s quick defense when Arthur had named Prentiss as their most likely information leak.

“And yet here I am,” he replies, because she deserves that much at least, and she won’t be getting an inch of leeway from Arthur. “So I think so long as we stay on our best behavior, there should be no difficulties.”

“That’s why we’re all here,” Hotchner says, smoothly taking the conversational reins and guiding them into a conference room. “Everyone, this is Dr. Black, he’ll be consulting with us today about the possibility of this case being linked to experimental dreamsharing technology. Dr. Black, this is…”

“Agents Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid, and David Rossi,” Eames finishes for him, inclining his head to the older man with heavy Italian features lurking in the corner and doing a piss-poor job of looking like he isn’t giving the interlopers a thorough evaluation. “Yes, I have read the files.”

The silence that falls after his interruption is broken by Reid clearing his throat. “It’s Dr. Reid, actually,” he says, with amusement in his eyes that suggests this is his idea of a joke. “That should be in my file, as well.”

A blonde woman steps forward, steel in her voice when she addresses him. “I’m Jennifer Jareau, liaison for the department. Any communication you have with outside sources about the nature or details of this investigation will go through me.”

Normally, Eames’ first defense would be to disarm through flirtation, but the wedding ring and the no-nonsense pantsuit are against him. This isn’t a woman who wants to be flirted with on the job. “A pleasure,” he says instead, mild enough not to ruffle any more feathers than his presence here already has.

“And you all know Arthur,” Hotchner says. “Let’s get started. The three victims we know…”

“Is that him?” someone asks, and Eames lets his chair drift around to take in the doorway and the woman standing in it, staring at him. She’s the opposite of everything else in this office; bright, loud, unapologetic. Her gaze carries something like awe.

“Dr. Black,” he says, offering a somewhat sincere smile. “And you might be...?”

“Oh, and he’s British,” she breathes, stepping forward neatly to offer him her hand. “Penelope Garcia. Technological goddess and defender of the helpless, which you may have learned when I caught your attempts at bugging young Dr. Reid’s apartment. Both times.”

“I am fairly rebuked,” Eames answers, smiling now in earnest. “Although you only get credit for two out of three.”

He would appreciate her look of surprise more if it weren’t eclipsed by Arthur swinging around his chair, halfway between shock and fury. “My apartment is still bugged?” he demands. “Since when?”

“A week ago. Three days before Christakos.”

Most of his attention is on Arthur, but he can still see Reid doing the mental math, see his eyes widen and his cheeks color as he realizes.

“Don’t worry,” Eames assures him, tipping Reid a wink. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

“Focus,” Hotchner orders, reclaiming everyone’s attention. Garcia slips into a seat just as the lights go out and someone starts a slide show. “We have three victims in three different states. All were attacked inside their homes, all are now in – we believe – artificially-induced comas.”

“We have reason to believe he’s drawn to these particular targets because they’ve already been victimized once before,” Morgan says. “The previous invasion could have left them vulnerable in some way that the unsub could exploit.”

“Unlikely,” Eames interjects. He tips his head back, playing casual in this roomful of agents who are all watching him like he’s a sheep wandered into the wolf’s den. “I presume we’re talking about sub-security. Fischer and Rothchild may have been militarized by the same person, but Christakos was years ago. Sub-security was anything but common, and she had no need of requiring it.”

“That doesn’t mean certain doors weren’t opened,” Morgan says. “People can sense when something’s wrong. Maybe they sought out a support group. Maybe they talked to someone. Maybe they started digging around on the internet.”

“Whatever the method, the unsub found a way to link them to these previous crimes.” Hotchner’s voice is calm, even. On the surface, he and Arthur could be of a type, but there’s a steady gravity in Hotchner that Arthur has always been a touch too hot-tempered to master. Eames wonders if it’s their similarities or differences that create the distance between them.

“We believe he’s preferentially targeting victims who have had ideas successfully implanted in them,” Jareau says, with a hesitation in both her voice and body language that signifies she hasn’t come to terms yet with the full ramifications of that concept. “His secondary targets are those who have been violated, but who failed for some reason to recognize the idea being planted.”

“If we look at this as rape, his real interest doesn’t lie with the victim. It lies with whether or not the victim has brought a child to term.” Rossi turns to Eames. “Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

Eames shrugs one shoulder. “An oversimplification, but essentially correct. Are you suggesting, then, that the real target is the ideas themselves?”

“Is that even possible?” Garcia, from the corner, her eyes still as wide as they’d been before this briefing began.

Eames makes a noise of polite disagreement. “Possible, but bloody difficult. If the idea’s fully assimilated, it won’t exist independently. There should be no way of separating it from other thoughts.”

“Unless the unsub already knew which ideas had been planted,” Reid muses.

“There are easier ways,” Arthur says, finally speaking up. “If we’re talking about someone within the dreamsharing community, there are a lot of easier ways. Most of them involve guns.” Garcia’s eyes widen further; Eames watches Prentiss’ posture change, responding to the idea of a threat even though she undoubtedly doesn’t realize she’s doing it. “Even if this person doesn’t want casualties, it’s faster to go after the team who did the inception. It only takes one extraction.”

“Most of us are militarized,” Eames points out, for the sake of playing devil’s advocate.

Arthur just gives him a look. “So was Fischer.”

“Ah, yes,” Eames says, unable to help himself. “Nice that we know that now.”

Arthur swings around in his chair, clearly about to rise to Eames’ bait, but he doesn’t get the chance to retaliate – undoubtedly by throwing some other piece of their shared history back in Eames’ face in turn – before Hotchner diplomatically intervenes.

“So the unsub has picked difficult targets,” Hotchner summarizes. “We need to find out why. Why go after the victims and not those who committed the crimes?”

“It’s not vengeance,” Morgan says. “This isn’t a vendetta.”

“And yet the victims are the ones being punished,” Prentiss points out. “This unsub is targeting them for a reason. Maybe he sees them as weak, for not being able to withstand the mental pressure of the initial attack.”

“That doesn’t explain Christakos,” Rossi says. “If that attempt failed, she should have been this unsub’s hero.”

“I think we have to ask whether it’s a punishment at all,” Reid speaks up, leaning forward intently. “He’s not killing them, he’s sending them into Limbo, a place that’s really only been defined by those who are familiar with the risks of dreamsharing. How we profile the unsub depends on what we think his goal is in sending the victims into Limbo.”

“You said it’s a risk,” Prentiss offers. “Could it be an act of bitterness? If the unsub is someone who’s been in Limbo before, maybe this is his idea of justice. Forcing others into a fate they were spared when he wasn’t.”

“I can track coma patients, see if anyone’s woken up unexpectedly shortly before the date of the first attack,” Garcia offers.

“It’s a long shot, but it will give us somewhere to start,” Hotchner says. “In the meantime, we can cross-reference known dreamshare users against the times and locations of the attacks. The unsub had to know about these victims somehow. If the teams that committed these acts had someone in common, that’s our most likely suspect.”

Eames clears his throat. “I can save you some time on that one, I’m afraid. The only person on all three teams was me.”

“And Eames isn’t the leak,” Arthur says, unexpectedly belligerent and practically daring Hotchner to say something. Eames would appreciate the support if he thought it was in any way meant for his benefit.

“Do you have an alibi for any of the attacks?” Hotchner asks, as calmly as if he’s inquiring after Eames’ breakfast.

“That depends,” Eames replies, scratching the stubble on his jaw. “Would Agent Reid like me to give a detailed description of the events happening in his flat on the night they got Christakos, or will you take it as read that I was a bit busy working surveillance on all of you, hoping it would lead me to the same place?”

“I think we can take it on faith,” Hotchner says. “For now. But surveillance can be done remotely. It’s not proof that you weren’t in Texas at the time of the attack.”

“Could it be a job gone wrong?” Reid asks, quickly enough that Eames has to suspect a diversion. It’s not a terrible idea, though. Eames looks automatically to Arthur, whose ear is always closer to the ground than Eames’ is.

“It would be a risky one,” Arthur allows. “To end up accidentally sending someone to Limbo, you’d have to go deep enough…” He trails off, and Eames knows immediately what he’s thinking, because he’s just had the same thought.

“You’d have to have the right sedatives,” Eames confirms. “You’d have to have a chemist.”

“And chemists don’t work in the field. They’re not on the teams,” Arthur finishes. He looks at Eames. “Yusuf, every time?”

“Every bloody time,” Eames agrees.

“You’re saying these drugs were specially formulated?” Morgan asks. “Someone developed a sedative specifically to do this?”

“No,” Eames corrects. “But someone did have access to compounds similar to the ones used on three-level inception jobs, likely from the same source. If we can get samples from all three of the victims, we might even be able to find a match in a laboratory.” He purses his lips and meets Arthur’s gaze again. “I think it’s time we paid our friend a visit.”

Arthur hesitates. “I can’t go to Mombasa,” he says after a beat.

Eames frowns. “Cobol Engineering? Still? You-know-who hasn’t cleared that up?”

“You don’t just ‘clear up’ a price on someone’s head,” Arthur says, annoyed. “The issue isn’t whether I’m still legally blacklisted, it’s whether a hit team is going to shoot first and find out if I’m worth anything later.”

“I’ll go,” Reid speaks up suddenly, and Eames isn’t bothered by the fact that he’s staring at Reid only because Arthur is doing the same thing. “I can use vacation time, it can be an unofficial visit.”

“If we’re inquiring after dreamsharing compounds, it’s going to be a bit more involved than asking whether it was the one in the blue bottle or the one in the red bottle,” Eames tells him.

“I hold a doctorate in chemistry,” Reid says with a crooked half-smile. “I think I can understand the basics.”

Eames realizes that Arthur is both trying to look imploringly at Hotchner to shut down this line of discussion and attempting to look like he’s doing nothing of the sort. Unfortunately for him, Hotchner is either unable to read Arthur or simply doesn’t care.

“It’s our best lead so far,” Rossi says, with a tone of finality that suggests he’s used to having the last word in these debates.

Reid apparently thinks the same thing, because he twists around in his seat and looks up hopefully. “Hotch? Can I borrow the jet?”

-

Getting off the ground involves a long string of advice and admonitions from Reid’s teammates about flying to Kenya. Jareau gives Reid clean drinking water protocols, Hotchner sets a schedule for checking in with the team, and Prentiss writes lists of embassy contacts Reid can get in touch with if needed. Dr. Reid’s credentials and expertise apparently don’t exempt him from being considered the baby of the team. He accepts the fussing with a combination of longsuffering patience and bewilderment, as if he too can’t understand why anyone should think they have to feed him statistics on anything, but he’ll allow it because they mean well.

Eames, by contrast, gets Morgan.

“If anything happens to him, anything at all, I will hunt you down.” Morgan’s demeanor hasn’t changed an iota from the briefing, still relaxed and friendly, which is assuredly meant to be just as alarming as his threat.

“Noted,” Eames replies, just as friendly, and sets about extracting Reid from the well-meaning circle of his team.

“Your boyfriend is intimidating when he chooses to be,” he comments as he steers Reid away from Rossi, who seems to be working through a list of recommended vaccinations Americans should have before traveling to Africa.

“You have no idea,” Reid replies obliquely, and thankfully lets Eames manhandle him out the doors to the landing strip where Arthur is waiting to see them off.

Reid comes to a halt by the stairs and raises his eyebrows. Eames is expecting another list of warnings and safety protocols, as is Reid by the way he’s braced expectantly, but Arthur just says, “Keep an eye on Eames.”

“Oh, certainly,” Eames says. “It’s not as if I’ve lived there for years or anything.”

“That’s what worries me,” Arthur says, but he cracks a faint smile when he says it. “I’ll call you on the plane.”

-

The BAU’s private jet is spacious, comfortable, and well-equipped. “So this where all of those American tax dollars are directed,” Eames comments as they settle in for departure.

“It’s more time-effective than taking a bus or a train,” Reid answers, already pulling files out of his bag. “The hours that would be lost to travel aren’t worth the cost in human lives, especially in cases like this one where the unsub spreads out his attacks through multiple large geographic areas.”

“You fly a lot, then,” Eames gathers. “Your teammates seem worried about you going off to Kenya.”

“I think they’re jealous,” Reid answers absently. “We don’t get to travel a lot outside of work.”

He quite obviously devotes himself to reading after that, working through a stack of folders organized and itemized in a way that’s very familiar after as many jobs as Eames has done with Arthur. Eames takes the hint and leaves him to it, using the time to review what he knows about the person who might be pulling the strings behind the rash of suspiciously-linked comas.

Arthur calls before they’ve taken off, even before the customary warning reminding Eames to turn off his cell phone. “News so fast?” Eames inquires, glancing out the window reflexively.

“Nothing yet. Garcia and I are going through Interpol watch lists in a few minutes.”

“Ah. Pity, I’d thought you might give me something to do on the flight.”

“Reid has all of the files?” Arthur sounds amused, like this is not an unexpected circumstance. Then he asks, “How fast is he turning the pages?”

Eames looks blankly at Reid, then checks his watch covertly. “Every eight seconds or so. Why?”

“He’s not actually reading. He’s probably just forestalling conversation so he has time to think. Take whatever you want; he’ll reclaim it if he really wants it.”

“Cheers,” Eames says dryly. “Why did you ring, then?”

Arthur’s tone sobers abruptly, a marked change after the joking a moment ago. “Don’t let him into Yusuf’s dream den. Not at all if you can help it, but definitely not alone.”

“I presume there’s some mysterious reason behind this,” Eames replies, glancing again at Reid, who appears completely absorbed in his reading material.

“Just trust me on this. Keep him away from there.”

“I’ll do my best,” Eames says, and ends the call.

He studies Reid as the captain drones on about departure and safety, watching the small crease in Reid’s brow and the way his eyes don’t track across the pages in front of him.

“How long?” he asks.

Reid frowns without looking up. “I’m sorry?”

“You and Arthur,” Eames clarifies.

“Oh.” Reid looks up belatedly, clearly gathering his thoughts from somewhere else. He doesn’t sound surprised, and there’s no flush in his cheeks when he answers. “Five years. Roughly. Technically,” he clears his throat, “four years, nine months, and eleven days. Or twenty-one days, depending on where you count from.” He smiles quickly. “We had a bet on when you’d figure it out.”

Eames is honestly surprised it had taken him this long. He blames the cloak of untouchable mystery Arthur keeps wrapped around him at all times to appear aloof and detached. It doesn’t fit well with the man in front of him and a flat full of secondhand paperbacks.

He can see it now, though. Living in other people’s bodies as often as he does, Eames has gained enough insight to be able to see physical attractiveness in nearly everyone, the appeal of a certain hand, a wrist, the definition in someone’s shoulders. It’s not even that difficult to imagine Arthur and Reid together, kissing slowly against a wall, long fingers entwined and eyes closed.

If Arthur were here, he’d be able to recognize the look on Eames’ face, and likely Eames would be in danger of experiencing a minor but incredibly effective amount of pain right now. Luckily Reid can’t read him as well, or perhaps he’s just unaware of himself, unused to being considered a sexual object. His expression when he looks back at Eames is mildly baffled, but not suspicious in the least.

“Who won?” Eames asks, diverting Reid’s attention from the things Eames may have been envisioning.

“I did,” Reid answers promptly. “Arthur thought you already knew.”

Eames blinks. “But you didn’t,” he surmises.

“On two different occasions I responded to Arthur with non-verbal cues which you could have interpreted as evidence of a physical relationship. The fact that you didn’t recognize either one of them means you weren’t looking for confirmation or even open yet to the possibility.” Explanation given, Reid returns his attention to one of Arthur’s neatly-prepared files.

Eames isn’t quite ready to let it go yet. His professional curiosity has been piqued. “But Arthur assumed I already knew.”

Reid looks up again. “He thinks very highly of your skills as a profiler. You had the opportunity to watch us interact in private, as well as access to shared living space and surveillance tapes.”

Arthur, Eames thinks suddenly. Arthur’s sedan parked outside the flat, and Reid’s voice in his headphones saying, oh, and yes, yes.

He rubs the bridge of his nose. Then he considers the rest of Reid’s statement and echoes skeptically, “He thinks very highly of my skills.” He can’t imagine Arthur allowing him the barest hint of a compliment even if he were threatened with torture.

Reid’s mouth quirks upwards. “I didn’t think I was ever going to meet you,” he says. “If you hadn’t gotten involved with the case and broken into our apartment, I likely never would have.”

Contrary to what some people might think, Eames can be patient. He waits. Unfortunately, Reid appears to be equally adept at playing this game, and he’s the one with information Eames wants rather than the other way around.

“Why might that be?” Eames asks at last.

Reid peeks up at him from behind the cover of his file, and finally lowers it, revealing the same shifting smile playing around his mouth. “Because he told me once that if the team ever found out what you could do as a profiler, we’d never let you go, and he couldn’t afford to lose you as a colleague.”

Eames is caught uncharacteristically speechless. After a moment of half-grinning at him, Reid disappears into his files again, leaving Eames blinking in his wake.

After a moment, he gets hold of himself again and recalls Reid’s attention by the simple expedient of kicking Reid’s foot. It’s a tactic that has always worked on Arthur in the past, with varying degrees of what could be termed success, and Reid is no different. He jerks up, startled, and Eames smiles.

“Are you going to be reading those the whole time?” he asks. “Because this is an awfully long flight.”

“I’ll be finished with everything in approximately fifty-five minutes,” Reid estimates after a quick glance at the stack of files. Then he appears to remember his manners and asks, “Would you like some to start with?”

Eames dismisses the idea with a brief gesture. There has never been anything in Arthur’s files that Eames hasn’t learned more thoroughly and more entertainingly from Arthur himself. “I was thinking more of another way to pass the time.”

“Do you play chess?” Reid asks, suddenly lighting up. With a mind like his, Eames imagines there aren’t many people still around willing to play against him. Eames isn’t inclined to even make the attempt.

“How would you feel about a friendly hand of poker?” he counters, pulling a deck of cards from the inside pocket of his coat and flipping the chipped token that also resides there into his other hand.

Reid smiles.

-

Reid is not only a bastard card counter with a devastating knowledge of higher mathematics and a memory that makes cleaning Eames out child’s play, he’s also a bastard card counter who blatantly cheats.

“Someone,” Eames says, using sleight of hand to reverse the top two cards before he deals, undoing whatever Reid had managed to arrange when he cut the deck, “has spent time handling cards.”

“I grew up in Vegas,” Reid answers, reaching out to sweep up his hand. In the process, Eames is almost certain he conceals a switch between one of the cards in his hand and the top card on the deck, but it’s too fast to catch. Reid looks up, catching Eames’ close watch on his alarmingly nimble hands, and adds, “I also do magic tricks.”

Knowing Reid is using every tool at his disposal, Eames doesn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about sliding the sixth card out from behind his palm and weighing his current hand slightly further in his favor. “Interest in the fantastic,” he observes. “This must be something of a dream for you. I saw the shelves of science fiction novels in your hall,” he expands, when Reid looks at him again, curious. “Surrounded by brutality, it must be a pleasant form of escapism.”

“Most of those are Arthur’s,” Reid responds, asking for two cards and almost certainly getting three. “He uses them to formulate new theories on how to manipulate dreamscapes, says it challenges him to think in more flexible ways.” Reid tosses in a few of the paper clips they’re using as betting tokens. “I was wondering when we’d get to this part.”

Eames raises his eyebrows. “And which part would that be?” He has two aces and two queens. By Eames’ deal, Reid ought to have a pair of eights at most. Somehow, by the number of paperclips making their way into the pot, Eames doesn’t think that’s the case.

Reid’s lips twitch again, the almost-smile that flickers whenever he thinks of something he finds amusing. “The profiling. Traditionally it happens within the first few minutes after introduction. The inherent rivalry between two individuals who share a specific skill set manifests in displays of knowledge to prove superiority. Particularly when one or both parties is an alpha male.”

“Now who’s profiling?” Eames returns mildly.

“I work with an entire team of alpha males and females; it’s not hard to identify defining characteristics after reasonable exposure.”

Eames has seen enough of the group dynamics on Reid’s team to guess that he’s the only non-alpha in the group, with the possible exception of Jareau. It’s interesting that he’s paired off with Arthur, who is intensely independent but also a loyal follower to a fault when he finds a natural leader.

Eames raises. “I don’t profile,” he says. “Not the way you think of it, at any rate. I observe a target to analyze the best ways under their defenses, their strengths and vulnerabilities, but what you and I do with that information is entirely different.”

“Not so different,” Reid replies. “From what Arthur’s said, most of the plans you come up with are based on a profound understanding of your subject’s psyche. The only real difference is that you start with a known subject and expand into postulation based on your observations, while our goal is to pinpoint identifiable characteristics in order to gradually narrow down a suspect pool.”

Eames toys with his cards, considering where to go with this conversation. Curiosity wins out. “How is it, living with Arthur?”

“It’s kind of like having a cat?” Reid says, tone lilting up on the last syllable to make it a question, inviting Eames to share his hypothesis. “He comes and goes as he pleases, and is only willing to accept expressions of affection on his own terms.”

“He doesn’t like to be petted,” Eames interprets. Reid meets his gaze openly when he looks up from his cards, frank and unembarrassed. Eames thinks of how careful Reid is to avoid physical contact whenever possible, how his teammates are so used to his personal space bubble that they move around him without having to consciously think about it. “Something you have in common,” he suggests.

Reid’s eyebrows raise pointedly. “Profiling,” he says.

Eames lays his cards on the table. “Observation.”

-

“How much do you know about Yusuf?” Eames asks as they step off the plane into the dry Mombasa heat.

“I think any reports I may have heard are biased,” Reid answers, squinting before digging around in his jacket pockets for a pair of sunglasses.

He’s probably right. Arthur neither forgives nor forgets betrayal, and Yusuf had rather impressively stabbed them all in the back the first time they’d worked together. Eames can argue for either side, point out that they’re all criminals and it’s every man for himself, that the blame should really rest more on Cobb for declaring himself leader and ordering the secret kept in the first place, but none of that would matter to Arthur. Arthur is loyal, and he mistrusts anyone who lacks that same trait.

They catch a taxi to Yusuf’s shop, bells tinkling to announce their arrival when they walk through the door. Yasmeen winds around Reid’s ankles, ignoring Eames as usual, and Reid catches himself on the doorframe just in time for his thumb to get pinched in the closing door.

“Not a cat person?” Eames inquires.

“Not really an animal person,” Reid answers, shaking out his hand. He looks up then, at the same trace of movement that’s caught Eames’ eye.

“My friend,” Yusuf greets him, discreetly leaving out names and speaking in English, no doubt for Reid’s benefit since he sticks out clearly as non-native. “What brings you to my humble shop today?”

“Yusuf,” Eames returns cheerfully. Yusuf’s smile is bright and contagious. “This is Dr. Spencer Reid, he’s a new friend. An American friend.” That should be enough for Yusuf to understand that Reid’s loyalty does not by any means belong to Eames.

“Ah, a new friend. Welcome, then. Are you here for business, or is this a social call?”

“It’s actually neither. We’re here about dreamsharing compounds that might allow a person to descend three or more levels in a dream. Maybe even all the way to Limbo.” Reid somehow manages to keep from sounding antagonistic, but the FBI has trained interrogation tactics into him too well. Yusuf glances knowingly from Reid to Eames.

“An American friend,” he echoes, and then seems to come to a decision and takes his customary seat behind the counter, Yasmeen jumping up onto the ledge behind him. “Tell me what you want to know.”

“Has anyone bought these compounds recently, say within the past six weeks? He wouldn’t have been forthcoming about what he needed them for, but he would have been adamant that they could do the job he had planned. He would likely have used a false name and paid in cash to avoid detection.”

Yusuf looks at Eames skeptically. Eames just shrugs.

“Dreamsharing is not something that officially exists outside of private government projects,” Yusuf tells Reid. “How many customers do you think I have who use their real names and legally-obtained credit cards?”

“You must know most of those involved, though,” Reid says. “This is someone acting outside of traditional channels. He wouldn’t have had a team or an actual job, just a need for the sedatives.”

“He would also have needed an intravenous device,” Yusuf replies. “Without that, my compounds are useless.”

Reid pauses, visibly taking that in. “How many are out there?”

“Dozens,” Eames answers. “The technology can be replicated, for the right price. We’re well past the days of government theft being the only option.”

“We already knew he was involved in the dreamsharing community.” Reid turns back to Yusuf. “Would it be possible for a layman or someone with only a basic understanding of chemistry to create a compound capable of sending someone to Limbo?”

“What’s all this about?” Yusuf asks, directing the question to Eames rather than Reid.

Eames unwraps a single-serve toothpick and sticks it into his mouth, looking briefly back at Yusuf. “Fischer. Someone got to him after we did.”

Yusuf appears appropriately alarmed, which is at least one reassurance. Eames hadn’t really suspected Yusuf of being capable of going out into the field away from his dreamers for frequent trips to the States to put people in comas, but seeing his reaction is still a relief. Yusuf is a terrible actor.

“It appears someone is targeting former subjects who have undergone a procedure known as inception,” Reid explains, causing Yusuf to cast another cornered look at Eames. “We need to know if any similar jobs were planned recently.”

“I often deal with an intermediary,” Yusuf defends. “Not all extractors become involved in obtaining the compounds. Sometimes it’s point men, or even the architects with particular specifications. There are times I don’t even deal with teams at all.”

“Could you give us a list?” Reid presses. “Anyone who’s been through within the past six weeks. Anyone with specific needs.”

“I told you no one uses their real names here,” Yusuf says.

“That’s all right,” Eames interjects. “I’ll send whatever you have on to Arthur, he’ll know more names than either of us.”

Because somewhere, Eames thinks grimly, the United States government is keeping records of that same information. It isn’t a particularly cheering notion.

“Are you aware of any other sources for similar compounds?” Reid asks Yusuf. “Someone who may have had access to your lab or your research? Possibly a rival wanting to prove his superiority?”

Yusuf shakes his head, but not completely in denial. “The sciences are a competitive field. There will always be others looking for a way in.” He studies Reid. “Do you know what it’s like? Dreaming?”

“No,” Reid says, too quickly even for Yusuf to have missed his knee-jerk discomfort. He recovers well, and almost fast enough to throw off the impression of something having been very wrong for a moment. “I’d like to take a look at your lab, though, if I could. I’d be interested to see how your research allows you to tailor sedatives to fit the needs of individual experiments.”

Reid is clearly in earnest, wide-eyed and keen as only a lab geek can be at the prospect of chemicals and beakers. He must have been serious about the doctorate.

Yusuf looks once more at Eames, and then nods. “By all means,” he invites. “Right this way.”

-

When Eames’ mobile rings he steps outside to take the call, leaving Reid and Yusuf neck-deep in discussion of enzymes and hypnotics.

“Any news?”

“Not yet,” Arthur answers shortly. “How are things going there?”

“No bloody idea,” Eames answers truthfully. “I never knew how good we had it, only having one chemist in the room at a time, until there were two. I haven’t asked them to translate yet for the layman.”

“You might want to get started,” Arthur says, with a tight edge to his voice that brings Eames immediately to attention. “I just got a call from Saito.”

“Fischer?” Eames guesses.

“He wants this taken care of. Quietly. He’s making it perfectly clear that if it isn’t, he has no problem eliminating the evidence that anything involving Proclus Global and Robert Fischer ever happened.”

Eames whistles through his teeth before another thought occurs to him. “He could have had us all bumped off months ago. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t tried.”

Arthur snorts. “You think I go into a job like that one without insurance? It’s in his best interests to keep us all alive, and I’ve made sure he’s very aware of that.”

Eames thinks of Mal, of Cobb driven out of his own country on the word of a dead woman, and wonders when exactly Arthur had picked up that particular trick. “He’s reconsidering?”

“Not yet, but Fischer’s inception is exposure he can’t afford. And if he’s getting nervous, there are other clients out there who will be too. Ones who are less savvy when it comes to handling their business arrangements.”

Ones with whom Arthur does not already have precautionary measures in place, Eames surmises. This is Arthur’s way of warning him to watch his back. “I’ll keep an eye out,” he says. “Black is a new alias; no one will be looking for me in Mombasa right away.”

“Yusuf,” Arthur reminds him, which is a valid point. They won’t be the only ones connecting the dots, and Yusuf has been stationary for at least a decade.

“We can be out by tomorrow,” Eames hazards. “I’ll ring back once I’ve talked to the others.”

He ends the call and walks back inside, only to find Yusuf’s lab empty. There’s no one in the front of the shop, either. Yasmeen stares at him from the windowsill, tail flicking watchfully back and forth. The heavy, archaic ring of keys is missing from its hook behind the counter.

“Bugger,” Eames mutters, and heads for the door that leads down to Yusuf’s den of dreamers.

He’s too late and he knows it; whatever Arthur had feared would happen has already occurred, and all Eames can do now is try to limit the damage.

Reid’s face is white in the stark light of the room and his nostrils are flared, lips pressed together in a thin, unhappy line. Eames takes in the rest of the room at a glance: fifteen men of varying ages, most of them older, all slumbering peacefully under Yusuf’s ministrations. The caretaker in the corner watches them all with ancient, knowing eyes. Everything exactly as it should be.

It’s almost commonplace to Eames, now, but he knows how this will look to Reid. He’s been here with enough people in the past to know the reaction of pity, horror and nausea that usually follow, even from people in the business. He thinks Yusuf delights in it, secretly, in playing the mad scientist with his dark basement full of secrets. Anyone Yusuf works with has seen this room, and knows exactly who they’re dealing with when they bring him onto their teams.

Eames moves slowly closer, alert. Reid’s body doesn’t suggest the threat of violence, but his tone when he speaks is harsh and accusing.

“How can you do this?” he demands, turning bright, hard eyes on Yusuf. “How can you even look at this? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? These people are sick, they need help, and you’re enabling them. You’re no better than any other chemist dealing heroin or methamphetamine. These people have an addiction, and instead of getting them help, you’re feeding their habit. You’re killing them. You’re destroying these people’s lives, how can you stand there and…?”

“Let’s take a walk,” Eames suggests quietly, taking Reid by the elbow and turning him away. Reid is shaking under his hand, tiny tremors running through his arm, although Eames can’t tell whether it’s from shock or anger. He falls silent and lets Eames lead him outside into the dry Kenyan heat, but Eames can tell by the way the muscles remain coiled tight that he isn’t finished yet.

“It’s wrong,” Reid says finally, shaking his head and staring out across the busy street, not looking at Eames. “Those people in there are sick, they’re addicts. How can you stand seeing them in there like that?”

“We’re all addicted, mate,” Eames tells him. “All of us. Even Arthur.”

Reid shakes his head again, not speaking. It’s not a denial.

“There’s only one reason to work in dreamsharing,” Eames says. “And that’s because once you get that first taste, you can’t stop yourself from coming back for more. Nothing else is ever enough again. We can dress it up all we like, get ourselves a valid career choice and a paycheck out of the deal, but there’s only one thing anyone really wants. It’s always about the dreaming. Always.”

They stand in silence for a moment before Reid breaks it.

“Astronaut Pete Conrad once said he fully expected that NASA would send him back to the moon as they did John Glenn. And that if they didn’t do otherwise, then he would have to do it himself.”

“’I don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets,’” Eames quotes in turn.

“John Glenn,” Reid says, slanting a look at him.

“It’s as apt an analogy as any,” Eames says. “Once you’ve experienced the truly amazing, it’s difficult to accept a life filled with nothing outside of the mundane.”

“It’s still wrong,” Reid says eventually. “What’s happening in there. You’re still living your lives. Those people, they aren’t even experiencing the world anymore.”

“They’re living the way they choose,” Eames replies, shrugging slightly. “Who are you or I to decide that for them?”

Reid doesn’t answer. Eames can see his hand working at something inside his trouser pocket, twitching in a repetitive motion.

“It’s difficult not to let our own experiences color the way we see things,” Eames says. “I do know.” When Reid looks sharply at him, he smiles faintly and says, “When I said we were all addicts, I wasn’t making myself an exception, after all.”

Reid looks down, and when he pulls his hand from his pocket there’s a gold medallion in it. “Did Arthur tell you?”

“He didn’t need to,” Eames answers. “I’ve been addicted to more than dreaming, I can recognize the signs.”

His first guess would normally have been alcoholism. Reid has surely seen enough, in his line of work, to be forgiven for hitting the bottle. Eames would be surprised if it didn’t drive most of his colleagues to the solace of false comfort. Reid’s quick refusal of narcotics, however, coupled with Arthur’s urgent interrogation when he’d thought Eames might have put Reid under with a sedative, points in another direction.

“I was clean when I met Arthur,” Reid answers. “It’s been more than five years. But I still… Sometimes, I still…”

“I know,” Eames tells him. He’d let it drop, but curiosity gets the better of him, as always. “Is that why you’ve never dreamed?”

Reid nods. “Arthur offered, once, but it’s too much like… I know it’s not the same, but.”

Eames understands. He understands all too well. “Shall we take a brief respite?” he suggests. “Yusuf won’t mind if we slip off for a bit of lunch.”

Reid nods, awkward and grateful. “I don’t know that I’d want to spend any more time dreaming, anyway,” he admits. “I dream about babies and circles, and people I can’t save. My subconscious scares me more than a lot of other things.”

“The upside to structured dreaming is that, by and large, you choose the framework. It’s not as haphazard as a normal dream. There are fewer unpleasant surprises.” He can’t say there are none. He still remembers too clearly finding Robert Fischer dead on the floor of a hospital and Mal’s eyes staring up at the ceiling from a few feet away.

“In dreams they live the way they choose,” Reid says slowly, as if tasting the words in his mouth. “It’s their choice.”

Eames raises his eyebrows. “You’ve lost me, I’m afraid.”

Reid doesn’t even look at him, already turning blindly back to the door, which jangles loudly when he jerks it open. “I have to call the team,” he says without pausing. “I think I know why he’s doing this.”

-

“Goddess of the satellites and fount of all knowledge here, who may I say is calling?”

“Garcia, I need to talk to Morgan,” Reid replies, sounding not at all taken aback by the unusual greeting.

“Right away, boy wonder. Your yummy man’s here too, I’ll get him,” she adds, and Eames has to put a hand over his mouth because they’re using a video link, and if Arthur sees the grin on Eames’ face at Arthur being called Reid’s ‘yummy man,’ Eames won’t live to see another sunrise.

“What is it?” Arthur asks, sliding into a view a second later.

“Can you get Morgan?” Reid asks, and Arthur’s expression changes rapidly from serious to scowling. It’s not a terribly obvious change, perhaps, but the intensity certainly increases. Eames is suddenly not as concerned about being first on Arthur’s mental hit list.

“What have you got?” asks Morgan a second later, leaning toward the screen and incidentally over Arthur’s shoulder. Eames, knowing from experience the radius of Arthur’s personal bubble to the precise inch, watches in mesmerized delight as Arthur’s entire body goes rigid and his expression turns blank, half-hidden by the considerable bulge of Morgan’s bicep as he leans forward on the desk.

“I think we’ve been looking at this wrong. We’ve been profiling someone involved in dreamsharing, but without taking into account the changes in outlook that might entail. What if the unsub doesn’t see the coma patients as victims, but instead believes he’s setting them free?”

“You’re saying these aren’t attacks,” Morgan deduces.

“Not the way we’ve been thinking of them,” Reid agrees. “Dreaming isn’t a punishment, it’s a release into another life, directly into the mind. For someone warped by experiences in dreamsharing, it could be seen almost as a gift.”

“And he’s targeting victims of inception, not extraction,” Morgan finishes. “Not the people who’ve had something stolen from them, but the people who have been altered against their free will.”

“What have you got?” Hotchner appears behind Arthur, frowning as seems to be his default expression and materializing directly in Arthur’s blind spot, which Eames could have warned him is never a good move for anyone’s health.

“I think we’re dealing with an angel of mercy,” Reid says. “This unsub believes he’s setting these people free of the lives they’ve had stolen from them. He’s giving them the only thing he can.”

“A lifetime of dreams.” It’s Rossi’s voice, and the man himself appears a second later in the camera frame. Onscreen, Arthur twitches slightly.

“We’re most likely looking for a victim. Someone who has either been incepted or had an inception attempted on him. Someone who believes he’s been incepted and robbed of his free will.” Reid’s voice is confident, gaining speed and strength the more he speaks.

“He can’t find peace in his own dreams, so he’s made it his mission to grant that peace to others,” Rossi says.

“We need to go back to the list of failed inception attempts. The unsub is most likely someone on that list. Good work,” Hotchner finishes, and leans over Arthur to cut their connection before Arthur can say anything about this development. The last thing Eames sees before the screen goes dark is the thinly-veiled murder in Arthur’s eyes.

“Arthur doesn’t get along with anyone on your team, does he?” Eames asks.

“Not really,” Reid answers absently. Then, “I need to talk to Yusuf again. I have an idea.”

-

“There are too many potential victims,” Reid concludes an hour later, digging into the plate of kuku na nazi in front of him with the appetite of a man who’s forgotten to eat twice in a row already. “Even cross-checking Yusuf’s list of customers against Arthur’s suspected inception attempts, the suspect pool is too extensive. We need to find a way to narrow it down.”

“You have enough for a credible head-start,” Eames allows. “Operating only in America, access to the necessary tools and technology, inside knowledge of the rumor mill. Ours is not a large community.”

“That will take time, though,” Reid replies. “Convincing any member of an exclusive group to turn on the others takes both time and the right leverage. Organized crime circles could be considered less tightly-knit because there’s already a baseline lack of trust, but each member of the group also has more to lose.”

There’s also the fact that the man they’re looking for could be using any number of aliases, including some that even Arthur won’t know. Even if they do ferret out his identity, they’ll still be a step behind in tracking him. It’s why Eames had slipped outside of Arthur’s information net when he’d come to D.C. Arthur hadn’t known beforehand that he had anyone to look out for.

That thought gives him pause. “If you could determine the next likely target – victimology, I believe you called it – there’s a chance we could raise flags on the movements of your list of suspects.”

“Statistically, there’s not enough data to present one individual as a more or less likely target at this point,” Reid tells him, sounding matter-of-fact rather than disheartened by that fact. “He’s working reverse chronologically, but we’ve hypothesized that it’s only because his preferential victim pool has dried up. From here he could branch out to any rumored victim of an inception attempt, unless a better target presents itself.” He stops, chapatti halfway to his mouth and dripping sauce.

Eames knows that look. “You’re about to suggest we offer your unsub a more tempting reward,” he hazards.

“Just because we don’t have a victim of a successful inception doesn’t mean we can’t create one,” Reid says, confirming Eames’ guess. “How long would it take for a rumor of that type to circulate with any degree of significance?”

“Days,” Eames says. “Word of success gets around more quickly than failure.”

“How long would you need?” Reid asks, his speech picking up speed the way it seems to whenever he has the bit between his teeth. “To assemble a team and complete an assignment?”

Eames studies him shrewdly. “That depends,” he allows. “On the target, mostly. Their accessibility, my familiarity with their schedule and habits, and the idea in question to be planted. If you’re suggesting actually going through with a job, the answer is months.”

“You wouldn’t have to complete the inception,” Reid says, which means he’s taking this exactly where Eames has suspected it’s going. “All you’d have to do is make it look good, and then circulate the rumors that it was successful.”

“I take it you have a target in mind.”

“You already mistook me for a mark once. Your surveillance on my apartment would hold up to scrutiny, and you’ve had a reasonable window of opportunity since the time we left the U.S.”

“I think…” Eames begins cautiously, but Reid’s fingers are already flying over the keys of his federal-issue laptop.

“Love line, open for all requests, we do charge international rates,” Garcia answers a few seconds later. “What can I do for you?”

“Garcia, how long would it take for you to set up a watch list for everyone under all known aliases based on our current suspect list?”

“Less time than it takes for you to ask that question,” Garcia answers with a smile, and Eames can recognize cocky confidence easily, but he can also tell when the person in question has the capability to back up their claims. Garcia does not appear to be a woman to take lightly.

“What’s your plan?” Hotchner asks, appearing in the frame with Arthur a half-step behind him. They very nearly look like siblings, although in that analogy Arthur is the younger gay son with all the trust fund money and appreciation for fine tailoring. Hotchner dresses well, but his suit still screams federal agent over international criminal.

“Victimology gives us a profile of how the unsub will choose his next target. I’ve already attracted attention, and I’m currently outside my jurisdiction.”

“If we can float the story, there’s a good chance you’ll prove more interesting to the unsub than anyone else on the list of potential victims,” Hotchner concludes. 