Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eames first met Ruth when he had been hired to trail her and find out her habits from a man she'd extracted from. The dreamsharing business was a small and close knit one but he probably would have heard of Ruth even if that wasn't so. Everybody who had ever encountered her used the same words to describe the experience and it was a truth universally accepted that the lady Ruth was 'competent' and 'professional'. She worked with the Cobbs mainly but had occassionally lent her services to other teams and every single one of those other teams wanted a repeat experience.

So Eames, even though he knew the dangers of assumptions, had formed the notion that Ruth was a lady in her mid to late thirties, probably from an engineering or architectural background and with an affinity for dark colours.He turned a page of the newspaper he was pretending to read, instead casting another, critical glance over the woman striding across the lobby in a classically cut, blood red dress.

She was a stunner, that much was obvious, and everyone that loitered in the area turned for a second look as she passed. The lady known only as Ruth possessed an elegance that was timeless offset by a beauty that was atypical. Her brow was a little too high and her mouth a bit too narrow, but her hair fell down her back in thick, luscious curls and that dress did incredible things for her arse.

When Ruth came down from her room a few minutes after checking in, Eames was still in the lobby. He held the newspaper a little closer to his face as she surveyed the area but and let a few bodies slip between them as he trailed her down the street.He spent the next few hours with the honour of observing Ruth from behind but lost her in one of Melbourne's numerous shopping malls.

It was only to be expected, shopping centres were the worst places in the world to trail a mark and even someone as skilled as Eames was sometimes known to lose sight of someone. Then the same thing happened the next day in the industrial district, and the day after barely minutes from the hotel. A full four days were wasted in this manner. Either Miss Ruth was as paranoid as she was stunning or Eames had been made. Since he was very, very good at his job, he was disinclined to think it was the latter and reported to his employers that kidnapping Ruth was going be difficult at best and that was if they were being optimistic.

Said employers were not in the least bit happy with the news and tasked two of their men to nab Ruth as she left the hotel the next morning. Eames, who could tell after watching Ruth for a mere half hour that she was more street smart than her stiletto heels would let anyone believe, wanted no part of the operation and surprised even himself by loitering across the street the morning of the op.

He was not so surprised by what happened when the goons tried to grab Ruth as she left the hotel and push her into a conveniently located van. More than one person cried out in alarm and tried to rush to the aid of the pretty, wealthy lady but before any knights in Armani suits could save the day, Ruth had stomped on Goon Number One's foot with her heel then jabbed her elbow sharply into his gut. He released her out of instinct and she took the opportunity to drive the heel of her hand into his nose. When he howled in pain and clutched his face, she grabbed a hold of his hair and bashed his head into the van hard enough to send him sliding to the ground, unconcious.

Goon Number Two rushed at her but his punch was sloppy, his guard wide open and Ruth grabbed a hold of his forearm, using his momentum to toss him over her shoulder. He too hit the van, leaving a sizeable dent in his wake and joining his partner in temporary oblivion. Unsurprisingly, the driver of the van took the opprotunity to make his escape, peeling away from the hotel accompanied by the squeal of rubber against tarmac. Ruth tossed back her hair and straightened her dress, turning to face the astounded hotel guards with a smile that was just the right amounts of apologetic and embarrassed.

A few people made hlaf-hearted attempts to offer Ruth a lift to wherever she needed to go or to treat her to coffee under the filmsy pretense of making sure she was okay. However, you didn't need to be a genius to know that most of them just wanted to gossip and find out the identity of the lady that could simultaneously pull off Narciso Rodriguez and kick ass without so much as a single hair falling out of place. Eames also found himself intrigued. Ruth moved, fought, with the kind of purpose and economy of movement that was usually seen in people who had spent years in service to the military or other kind of security work.

Miss Ruth was too excessive, flaunted her money and her taste with such a total lack of embarrasment that Eames was almost certain she either built herself up from nothing or came from a wealthy background. Since people who came from money seldom had the stomach for the brutality of dreamsharing, Eames was going to assume the former until proved wronged. He watched as Ruth fended off the swarm of people with a charming smile and a few, well-chosen words before carrying on with her day. He idly followed the sway of her hips as she sauntered down the street with his eyes before turning away and starting to make his way back to his own, less expensive hotel.

Mere minute later there was a sharp pain on the back of his neck and Eames found his vision fading to black.

When he woke he was in a large room, with high windows, that was empty apart from himself and another chair placed carefully out of reach. Whomever had nabbed him was good, they had handcuffed his hands behind him and taken the bobby pins he kept hidden in the sleeves of his shirt. This did not bode well for his chances of getting out of this unscathed.

Eames twisted as much as he was able to in his restraints, attempting to get as good of a look at the room as he could. It was unsurprisingly but dissapointedly empty however there must have been camera's somewhere because only a few short minutes passed between Eames regaining conciousness and a door behind him squeaking open. The sound of high heels clacking against concrete was unmistakable and Eames immediately knew who his kidnapper was. Sure enough, it was Ruth who came to stand before him and in six inch heels as well.

“Well hello, darling,” Eames greeted, his smile easy and charming and entirely unsuited to his situation. Ruth didn't so much as bat an eyelash.

“Mr Eames,” she greeted, her voice huskier than expected. “You may or may not be glad to know that Gregory Byrne is dead.”

“Really,” Eames' expression was just the right amount of taken aback mixed with rueful. “Well I can't say I'm surprised,” and then, because he was handcuffed to a chair, and Ruth obviously knew he had been hired to spy on her and because she obviously knew who had done the hiring as well, “after all, he did try to kidnap you against a certain individual's better advice, I might add.”

“And what would you have done in his stead, Mr. Eames?” Ruth asked, perfectly shaped brows lifiting in query.

Eames' libido apparently overthrew his sense of self preservation because what came out of his mouth was,

“Why don't you untie me, love and I'll show you?” And his gaze roved over Ruth from head to toe, lecherous and far, far too suggestive.

Ruth tilted her head to the side, her hair shifting with the motion, and regarded Eames like he was something vaguely disgusting. Eames had been through some of the toughest training known to man and come out of it with the begrudgingly bestowed title of 'bloody stubborn tosser who didn't know when to give the fuck up'. A title Eames translated to mean 'persistent' and (on his more narcissistic days) 'unbreakable'. One glance from this slip of a girl however (those heels weren't fooling anyone) and he suddenly felt three feet tall.

“Tell you what, Mr. Eames,” she eventually said. “Why don't I give you some time to think about it, hmm?”

With that she turned and left the room, not giving Eames any time to reply.

And so Eames was left to try and figure a way out of the rather sticky situation he'd found himself in. Byrne was dead, his men were in jail and for all intents and purposes Eames would be meeting a similarly unsatisfying fate if he didn't get his arse in gear and think. Try as he might, there was no escape route to be found but all that mental anguish did serve to pass the time until the sun was highlighting the dust on the air and the sounds of the city waking up filtered through the windows. Eames considered shouting in order to get someone's attention but as soon as the thought had entered his mind it was banished by the sound of the door being pushed open once again.

To say that the workers who piled into the room, ready for a day's labour, were surprised to find Eames there, handcuffed to a chair was an understatement. Police involvement was avoided by a bit of smooth talking on Eames' part, a process that was aided by the envelope taped to the back of the chair, just out of reach of Eames' fingers. An envelope that contained the keys to the cuffs. Well, Eames had been warned that Ruth was good at what she did and it was to his detrement that he had underestimated her, albeit unwittingly.

Eames knew better now. Ruth deserved every bit of her reputation for being five steps ahead of everyone else and Eames would be keeping that in mind from now on. Besides, it was unlikely he would be crossing paths with the lady anytime soon. People tended not to want to work with someone who had been hired to spy on them. So Eames went back to his hotel and left the country that same day, pushing the enigma that was Ruth to the back of his mind.

~ O

Dom would never forget the first time he met Ruth.

Him and Mal had been married for a few months. They were just back from their honeymoon and were in Baltimore for work, a run-of-the-mill consulting job that had absolutely nothing to do with dreamshare. Neither of them had been to the city before so on their first free evening Mal had insisted on taking a walk after dinner to explore the area. One too many glasses of wine had made them relaxed enough that they didn't pay all that much attention to where they were going and so they had ended up in a slightly unsavoury part of town.

Neither Mal nor Dom was very worried. Despite his fondness for discussing architectural theory, Dom wasn't completely incapable during a fist fight. And Mal, like all modern women, knew how to use her heels to their best advantage. So they wandered through Baltimore with their arms linked, laughing softly to themselves and trying to find their way back to the hotel.

They were about to admit defeat and flag down a cab when a sound, a soft female voice amongst the harsher tones of men, caught his attention. Dom turned, curiosity peaked and he was vaguely aware of Mal echoing his actions. Then his good mood was vanishing and he was moving before being fully aware of what he was doing. Three boys, gang members by the look of them, had a young girl cornered and her bloodied face told Dom all he needed to know. Later he would think back on the incident and thank his lucky stars that the gangsters weren't armed but at the time he was so consumed with the instinctive need to protect that the following moments were a rush of sound and colour.

He kicked at the first guy's knee caps a followed it up with a punch to the gut. The guy dropped to his knees in pain and Cobb reinforced the punch with a kick to the stomach to keep the guy down for a little longer. Meanwhile Mal had produced a can of tear gas from somewhere in that tiny thing she called a handbag and the other two men were clutching their faces and howling in agony. Dom didn't waste time being impressed. He placed a hand on Mal's back and beckoned to the girl, urgency sharpening his movements.

"Come on!" He said. "Quick! Lets go before they get up!!"

Dom practically ran onto the middle of the road to hail down and cab and then he pushed Mal and the girl inside and yelling at the driver to get them to the police station. The girl was silent through it all, staring at Dom and Mal with such solemn eyes, so out of place on someone so young. Mal was fussing, pulling out a pack of pocket tissues from her bag and tutting as she tried to clean the girls face as much as she could.

“Are you alright?” Cobb asked the girl, perhaps belatedly.

“Yes, thank you Mr. Cobb,” the girl replied. Her voice was soft and respecful and both Mal and Dom blinked, taken aback.

“How...” Dom began to speak, his confusion apparent but the girl interrupted him.

“I was at the talk you gave at the University two days ago,” she said, taking the tissue from Mal and doing a much better job of cleaning herself up. “The one on advanced architectural constructs and systems?”

“You're a student?” Mal asked, surprised.

“No,” the girl shook her head and lowered her gaze, not looking at either of them.

Dom and Mal glanced at each other, their unease growing with every passing second, before looking back the girl. It's not difficult to guess her lot in life. Her clothes were thin and threadbare, her greasy hair pulled into a tight knot, she's skeletally thin and not even the way she held herself, fists clenched and spine ramrod straight was enough to hide the shivers that wracked her small frame. At best, this girl was sneaking into lectures purely to have somewhere warm to spend the day. At worst it was to avoid the men that had been harrassing her.

Dom met Mal's eyes once more and their expressions were identical. They filed a report with the police then took the girl back to the hotel. She told them her name is Ruth, gave them no last name and looked at them with that same serious, unreadable expression she had in the cab when Mal pressed a towel and some clothes into her arms and gently urged her towards the shower.

While she was in the shower Dom and Mal talked about what they were about to do with the air of people who couldn't believe they were actually going to do what they're about to do. It was crazy and irresponsible and a little illegal but she was so young and she was so bright. That she even remebered the topic of the lecture Dom gave was telling. Ruth was so young and if they didn't do something who would?

Then the bedroom door opened and Ruth stepped out. Her hair fell down to the small of her back in thick, wet tendrils and Mal's nightshirt was huge on her, showing the bruising over the prominent lines of her collar bones and the wound on her head was already turning a deep purple colour, stark and unmissable against Ruth's pale skin. Mal practically melted.

She beckoned Ruth over and wrapped a blanket around the girls thin shoulders before pushing her onto the sofa and wrapping another one over her lap as Dom brought over the hot milk and toast they'd ordered from room service. They worked in silence, neither Dom nor Mal knew how to say what they wanted and Ruth just looked at them with her old eyes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Ruth who broke the silence.

“Why are you doing this?” She asked after she had eaten a slice of toast and drunk half the milk. For a moment Dom had thought she would refuse the food but then it was unlikely that she knew where her next meal would be coming from.

“What do you mean? “ Mal asked in return, stalling for time.

“I mean,” a hint of impatience entered Ruth's voice, her brow furrowing a little as if she thought the need for clarification was dumb, “what do you want from me?”

Dom opened his mouth, ready to assure the girl that they really wanted nothing from her (even if that was only partly true) when Mal glanced at him and the words caught in his throat.

“You're a clever girl, Ruth,” Mal said. “What do you think we want from you?”

“Could be anything,” Ruth shrugged and glanced away and that was when Dom realised that she was afraid. Ruth was terrified of them and was doing a damn good job of hiding it.

“Are you in school?” Dom asked and Ruth shook her head to the negative.

“But you understood the lecture I gave?” He prompted and this time Ruth nodded her head.

Dom and Mal looked at each other and Mal nodded, her mind made up so Dom moved to stand in front of Ruth before dropping to his haunches, bringing them both to the same eye level.

“What we want from you is simple,” Dom said, his expression open and clear and serious. “We want you to get an education and to do that we would like that you come and live with us.”

“What, like foster care?” Ruth asks, surprised.

“Ideally something more permanent,” Mal said. “But we would need papers.”

“But, but why?” Ruth exploded out of the sofa and took a few, fast steps away before whirling to face Dom and Mal. “You don't know me! I could be a druggie, or a hooker for all you know. I could be a thief, I could have a record!”

“We were already at the police station,” Mal reminded her softly. “They did not have your fingerprints on record. Also there are no needle marks on your arms, your hair and teeth and clothes are cleaner than expected for someone living on the streets and, more than anything, you have the brain that you have and didn't use it for illegal purposes. That is something that needs to be nurtured, Ruth.”

“You can't be sure I'm not a criminal,” Ruth's chin tilted upwards in defiance. “If I'm so smart, maybe I just haven't been caught yet.”

“Ruth,” Mal says and she's smiling now, “In the taxi, my handbag was open right next to you. You could have taken my purse and I would not have noticed until I looked for it again. Also, if I go into the room now I'm pretty certain I will find all my jewellery exactly where I left it. You are no thief and you are no criminal.”

Ruth is silent for a long time staring at them with wide eyes and her chest heaving as if she'd run ten miles. Eventually she sighed and seemed to collapse into herself. Her shoulders sag down, out of the rigid line she'd kept them in and her chin dropped forward, like a puppet who's string has been cut.

“Good things don't happen to good people,” she said, almost too softly for them to hear but the silence in the room had been absolute so they did hear and Cobb had to fight the urge to punch something.

“Oh mon cher,” Mal was across the room in an instant, wrapping her arms around Ruth and pulling her into a hug. “Sometimes they do.”

Dom will never forget the first time he met Ruth. She was being harrassed by thugs, didn't have a dime to her name but had her passport and birth certificate wrapped in tin foil and kept in a hidden pocket in her threadbare cardigan, advice given to her by parents she wouldn't speak of except to say they were dead.

When Dom first met Ruth, she was fourteen years old.

~O

A month had passed since that fiasco of a job in Melbourne where Eames had been hired to trail Ruth and he had successfully pushed the incident from his mind (mostly). He was in Nacala, taking the opportunity to spend his days on one of the best beaches in Africa and generally doing absolutely nothing at all. Being a lazy git was his preferred way of decompressing between jobs but he'd been in Mozambique for three weeks now and his feet were starting to itch. As if on cue a shadow blocked out the sun and Eames opened his eyes, squinting up into Dom Cobb's smiling face.

“Please tell me it's at least hot where we're going,” Eames said, not even bothering to go through the pretences of hearing about the job. The Cobbs always got the best ones.

“Brazil,” Cobb replied as he lowered himself onto the sand next to Eames. “Specifically, Campo Grande.”

“Never heard of it,” Eames shrugged and Cobb beamed.

“Good,” Cobb's smile grew when Eames feigned confusion. “That means there's no warrants for your arrest there...yet.”

Eames laughed, taking the joke in the good nature it was intended and stood, brushing the sand from his shorts. Surprisingly, he'd never been to Brazil and it was about time that mistake had been remedied. Also, he'd get to see Mal again. Cobbs wife was a brilliant woman, a really brilliant woman who's greatest flaw was her nationality.

He flew into Campo Grande a couple of days later, and found that the city was everything he'd been expecting. The heat was fitting of Brazil in summer and the town was the eclectic mix of Asian and European and native Brazilian that he'd envisaged. What Eames hadn't been expecting was to find that Ruth was also on the job. In hindsight, it was silly of him to be surprised. Everyone knew that the Cobbs only ever trusted one person on point.

“Mr. Eames,” Ruth greeted, extending a hand for him to shake. Her grip was firm, her fingers long and elegant, there was a thin gold bracelet encircling the delicate bones of her wrist.

“Hello again, darling,” Eames hid his surprise behind an easy grin, one that grew wider when Ruth's brows furrowed slightly in annoyance.

“You know each other?” Mal asked, her gaze shifting between Ruth and Eames.

“We've met,” Ruth nodded and turned back to her work, obviously unwilling to offer up any more information.

Eames, who enjoyed leaving people guessing, decided to play along and sent a shrug and a bland smile Mal's way when she turned her inquisitive gaze on him. Then he sauntered further into the warehouse they were working out of, he'd heard good things about the chemist Dom had hired. Or rather, about the chemist's promiscuity.

It was during that first job together that Eames realised that for all her beauty and class and competency, Ruth was actually quite boring. She worked, and worked, and worked. It was 40ºC and the job was going well. It was going so well, in fact, that they had a week before the actual operation was scheduled to go down and almost nothing to do. The test runs had been performed a dozen times over, each going even smoother than the last. Wilson, the chemist, had had his compounds spot on three days in and had disappeared to explore Campo Grande's bars. Even Dom was relaxed, taking the opportunity to consult on something a little more legit via Skype while they waited for the day of the op to arrive.

Only Ruth was still working, checking over her notes for the hundreth time and doing background checks on her background checks. Eames was at the warehouse under the pretense of perfecting his forge (he'd taken only a day to master it) but in reality he was putting his time to good use by irritating Ruth. She really was incredibly easy to wind up. Eames hid a grin as he studied the point woman, taking in the curve of her neck beneath the smooth top knot she'd pulled her hair into. Her dress was sleeveless and short in deference to the Brazilian heat but was still nothing less that professional and the six inch, stiletto's she'd pushed her feet made her legs look endless. Especially since her dress was so deliciously short. Eames had seen, and forged some spectalularly beautiful women in his time but Ruth's legs truly were magnificent.

“Careful Mr Eames,” A soft but distinctly accented voice said, right next to his ear, and Eames almost fell out of his chair.

“You were beginning to drool,” Mal explained, all faux innocence but a laugh was evident in her voice. Eames couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed.

“Well,” Eames shrugged, unashamed at being caught staring, “she does have a great arse.”

That was true too. Ruth's arse was second only to her legs and Eames didn't feel the slightest bit sleazy for thinking so. Nobody was more aware of Ruth's sex appeal than Ruth herself.

“Hm,” Mal straightened and stepped away a bit, something undefinable settling on her features. “Well perhaps a bit more...decorum is in order Mr. Eames? Ruth is a bit too young for you don't you think?”

“Oh you needn't worry Mal,” Eames laughed because Mal really needen't worry. “As gorgeous as Ruth is, I prefer a woman with personality.”

“Of course,” and now Mal just looked amused. “Although, for someone whose job relies on his power of observation, you really do not see much Eames.”

And with that Mal was walking away, making a bee-line for Ruth and moving out of earshot remarkably fast and Eames was left staring after her feeling slightly put out. Nobody had ever questioned his skill before. Not even Ruth who questioned his professionalism, his sense of style, his moral compass, his sense of humour, his taste in women....you get the picture.

Ruth looked up as Mal approached and she didn't smile but her expression softened when Mal smiled fondly at her. From this distance, Eames couldn't make out what they were saying but he saw Mal offer one of the shopping bags on her arm to Ruth. Reaching inside, Ruth pulled out a dress. It was a deep blue in colour, sleeveless and with a bit of tonal jewel work on the sharp v-neck. It also lacked shape completely which implied that the dress was going to hug Ruth's body tighter than the most possessive of lovers.

Then Ruth was disappearing into the bathroom and when she emerged she was wearing the dress Mal had bought her. He had been right. That dress did cling to Ruth like a lover. And that neckline, dear Godthat neckline!Ruth's usual attire was bad enough, if she started wearing dresses like that then the delicate balance between Ruth's looks and washboard personality (a balance that was key to Eames' ability to focus around her) would tip in the wrong direction and he'd never be able to work with the Cobbs again. Eames liked the Cobbs.

“What do you think, Eames?” Mal's voice broke through his reverie and Eames looked up, raising both eyebrows in query.

“Sorry, what was that? I'm afraid I wasn't quite paying attention,” he said.

“I asked what you thought of the dress,” Mal said, waving a hand in Ruth's direction. “It looks good on her, yes?”

Eames pretends to think about it, resting his chin on his hand and eyeing Ruth from head to toe. She crosses her ams over her chest and glares at him and Eames smirks.

“You look positively ravishing, darling,” he says and injects a leer into his voice that makes the words exponentially more sleazy than they should have been.

Ruth rolls her eyes and disappears back into the bathroom without speaking and when she emerges once more, she's back in her original clothes and Eames breathes a sigh of relief, not noticing the speculative glance Mal aims his way.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that they pay for the relaxed nature of their preparation by the job going balls up within five minutes. The mark's mind isn't militarized but he's such a paranoid, psychotic son of a bitch that militarized projections would almost have been preferable. There's only one layer to the dream. Ruth, predictablly, is on point while Mal administers the somnacin. Cobb was playing architect/extractor, trying to talk the mark into telling them where he'd stashed the millions of dollars in drug money he'd stolen from the head of the cartel while Eames located the safe in his mind and tried to break in.

The mark didn't have anyone he was close to and had killed his own parents before he turned sixteen so forging a friend or dead relative was unlikely to help them in anyway. Cobb didn't think he'd actually be able to ferret any information out of the mark and the rest of the team were inclined to agree with him which was why Eames was necessary. They expected the mark to realise not that he was dreaming but that something was up and they expected his projections to turn on them. They just hadn't expected it all to happen so fast.

Eames was on the second level of the house they'd dreamed up, working on (correct) a hunch that the safe would be in the bedroom. He'd been trying to crack for about five minutes and would need another seven, when he heard sounds from downstairs that meant things were about to get nasty. Then the distinctive sounds of gunshots filled the air and Eames tried to work even faster.

It was a minute or two later that he heard someone shout at him and glanced over his shoulder to see two projections start to make their way towards him. The next minute they crumpled to the floor and Ruth was standing behind them, her gun still poised. She had a tear in the side of her dress, going from the hem to halfway up her thigh and her hair was was a little ruffled. Otherwise she looked unharmed.

“How much time do you need?” Ruth asked.

“Four minutes,” Eames replied and finished in three. When he turned around, he barely had to open his lips to let Ruth know he was done and the next thing he knew he was gasping as he woke. Mal and Cobb had already started clearing up and moments after Eames woke, Ruth was sliding out of the the shair she'd gone to sleep in, completely unruffled and packing away the PASIV with the efficiency of practice.

Eames was too much of a professional to falter and he did his share to make their escape quick and clean and it was only much, much later in the privacy of his hotel room, that he allowed his mind to process the events of the day. Having done his time serving Queen and country, Eames was well aware of how long a few minutes could seem when spent under fire.

Also, given that Cobb had been awake for a while before Eames had been jerked out of the dream, Eames could only conclude that Ruth had woken Cobb up as soon as everything started going downhill. It was only to be expected, she was on point after all but Eames just didn't...he just didn't expect her to be so damn good at it!

Despite all the rumours, all the talk and whispers and tales of Ruth's exploits both witnessed and fabricated, Eames had somehow failed to grasp the true extent of Ruth's competence. So she could throw off a couple of thugs that had vastly underestimated her. So could thousands of other women. So she was good at research and planning. Hundreds of thousands of people possessed the same intelligence and thoroughness.

What thousands of people could not do, what even Eames himself would struggle to do, was hold off the amount of projections Ruth had managed to hold off, for the amount of time she had done so as well, with such efficiency.

It only took a second to shoot somebody. One shot from one projection would have been all that was needed to knock Ruth out of the dream. Dozens, upon dozens of men had converged on her, in teams of two, three and sometimes four but Ruth had fought her way upstairs and held her position at the bedroom door with an ease that spoke of...well, Eames didn't know what the hell it spoke of other than it was absolutely terrifying. Nobody should be that good at fighting and Eames knew better than to wonder how it was Ruth possessed such deadly skill. Down that way lay ghosts better left buried.

Also, in the dream, Ruth had killed him before he was even aware of her reaching for a weapon. He still didn't know how she had done it but suspected a gun shot to the brain, it was the only way to explain the swiftness with which he had been woken. Nobody, and that truly meant nobody had ever managed to draw a gun on him without his being aware of it. He didn't particularly care for a repeat performance.

So from then on in, Eames was very careful about working with the Cobbs. He accepted their jobs more often than not because they were far too lucrative to pass up but he made sure to keep Ruth at arms length. A woman like her was bad news in more ways than one.

~O

When Ruth was 17 she joined the army. It wasn't a decision that Mal and Dom were particularly happy about but Ruth was adamant. When Dom and Mal had officially adopted her, a task that was sped up by Miles speaking to a friend who spoke to a friend who worked for Social Services, one of the first thing they had done was test what level of education she was at.

Ruth's parent's had worked for the goverment. They'd never her told which agency exactly but they'd been grooming her since she was old enough to talk. Combined with Ruth's extraodinarily high IQ that grooming had seen her graduate from high school at 11. She'd spent the next year being home schooled, learning science and philosophy and languages from various tutors whilst her parents spent more and more time working. Then the day came when a man in a dark suit had knocked on the door and told Ruth her parents were dead.

This was one of the many situations they had prepared her for. She had no family so the goverment paid for her parent's funeral. Ruth didn't cry. She listened to all the people that came to talk to her, nodded to show she understood what they were saying and then, the night before they moved her into care, she slipped out of the house and escaped into the dark. She wore a cardigan with a hidden pocket in which she had her passport and birth certificate wrapped in tin foil.

She stowed away on the next bus out of train out of town and remembered what her parents had once told her. Good things don't happen to good people.

Now Ruth was seventeen and legally adopted by the Cobbs. She was a genius and assimilated information like a sponge. She made them enroll her in martial arts classes because she never forgot what she'd been groomed for ever since she could talk.Ruth's parent's had served their country. They would have wanted her to do the same.

They're in the kitchen when those words slip out of her mouth. Mal and Dom are stunned into silence because Ruth never talks about her parents but the sentence has it's desired effect. They let her join the army. She already has a doctorate in architecture and a masters in maths to her name. They don't have any reason to stop her.

So Ruth joins the army when she's seventeen. She's recruited into black ops before her eighteenth birthday. Ruth's parents were good people. Ruth's parents had served their country.

~O

Ariadne is completely and utterly in awe of Ruth.

From the first time she'd walked into that abandoned warehouse with Cobb to find Ruth already there, wearing a dress that had to have been made especially for her, Ariadne had starting crushing hard. Who could blame her though? Ruth was classy and polished and looked like she belonged in some mansion with a driveway that was longer than some roads and a butler to answer the door. She could also build and probably knew as much about architecture as Cobb himself.

While Cobb was off fetching the mysterious Eames, Ruth was teaching Ariadne about dream sharing and building mazes. She was a good teacher too, she didn't treat Ariadne like an idiot and let try to figure some things out for herself. She was always at work before Ariadne and always left after Ariadne (who was pulling some serious hours trying to learn as much as she could as fast as she could).

They striked up a remarkably quick friendship. Ariadne recognised the loyalty and possessiveness in Ruth's demeanour when she talked about Cobb. It's the same way Ariadne felt about her own family. She didn't know the story behind Cobb and Ruth's familiarity with each other, whether it was simply years of working together in such a high risk job or something deeper and she desperately wanted to ask but she bit her tongue. Something told her that Ruth would not be as amenable to personal questions as Cobb was.

Other than that, they get on surprisingly well. Ariadne was a student by profession, mentality and demeanour. She wore jeans and comfortable shoes, she always went for the cheapest food option available and she drank soda like Coca Cola was going to suddenly stop production and announce that they're going the organic, herbal, healthy route. Ruth wore high heels and heat styled her hair and seemed to live off of coffee and fruit. She skipped lunch altogether sometimes, owned an honest to God Balenciaga handbag and people turned for second and third looks when she passed them on the street.

They had nothing in common apart from a love of architecture but Ariadne swapped her bulky woolen scarf for cashmere and wore three inch wedge heels instead of runners one day. Ruth beamed at her, cheeks dimpling for the first time in their acquaintance and let Ariadne persuade her into trying a horrendously greasy tuna melt bagel. The tuna was from a tin and the cheese was processed but it was worth it to see Ruth use a fork and knife to eat a bagel. Ariadne valiantly tried to hold in her laughter but the entire situation was just so ridiculous that she couldn't help herself. She expected Ruth to be insulted but Ruth merely raised and eyebrow, amused, and her lips curved into a smile that dimpled her cheeks. Then she continued eating. Her bagel. With and knife and fork.

So when Cobb returned from Mombasa with two extra people, Ariadne watched Ruth's defenses come back up. And then she just watched.

~O

When Ruth turned twenty one she left the army and black ops behind and joined the CIA. It was surprisingly easy for her to find out in which area of the government her parents had worked. Her upbringing narrowed the field significantly. It was also unsurprising that the CIA were practically salivating to get their hands on her. Her parents, it turned out, were something of a legend and Ruth's achievements since joining the army were a pretty good indicator that she had the potential to surpass even them.

Ruth knows this, of course. She spent two years living on the streets and avoided getting killed by gangs or blackmialed into brothels or dependant on drugs. You didn't do that without being scarily good at reading people, without being scarily good at manipulating people. That she could do it at twelve years old was even more terrifying. Eames was right to be wary of her. Ruth was a dangerous person. She applied under the surname Cobb. That name (since Dom and Mal were already a year or two into Project Dreamshare), combined with her army references, was more than enough to get her hired.

So she left the army when she turned twenty one and joined the CIA. They had an entire unit dedicated to monitoring dream-sharing activities on foreign soil and Ruth, with her her adopted parents backgrounds is an obvious choice for the team. She was miles ahead of everyone when it comes to dreaming, had better subconcious security than anyone the CIA had ever encountered before so the team trained in Ruth's dreams. It's a habit that would later carry over to Cobbs teams as well. Working for the CIA's dream-sharing unit required surprisingly little travel. Once every couple of months Ruth would be sent to do reconnaisance or gather intel or outright apprehend someone who's pinged the Agency's radar. More often than not she was involved in training other Agents and militarizing the minds of people she's not allowed to say she's ever met.

The Ageny's Chief of Staff was Desmond Hubert, a man who was said to already be in consideration for promotion to Associate Deputy Director. He was tall and slim, in his early forties, with dark hair and sharp blue eyes. He was her father's best friend. Hubert did a double take when Ruth walked into the room for her first day on the job and, when her initial briefing was over, beckoned her to follow him to his office.

“I knew your mother,” he says, “And your father. They were good friends.”

(He doesn't say that she looks eerily like her mother. He doesn't have to, Ruth has seen the photo's. )

Ruth's breath caught in her throat and all her training, all her skill, all her experience, couldn't stop her eyes from widening rather comically.

Hubert asked about what happened to her. He knew her parents had left her with strict instructions to make her way to his house should anything happen to then and Ruth had done precisely that but, when she'd arrived at the address written down, she'd found someone else was living at the house and there was no forwarding address.

Desmond had moved a month before her parent's death and they hadn't updated the address.

He moved around the desk then and drew Ruth into a hug that she hesitantly returned. He didn't seem to mind. The full story came out then and Ruth found herself telling him everything, about her time on the streets, meeting the Cobbs, about them adopting her and making sure she was always challenged, intellectually and physically. She told him about the army and her introduction to dream sharing. He's the first person after the Cobbs with whom she instantly connected because Ruth remembers Desmond Hubert. She remembered the times he'd come to their house for dinner. He hasn't changed much in last decade but the wedding band on his finger is new. She says as much and Hubert laughs and Ruth smiles.

~O

“What's up with you and Eames?” Ariadne asked as she leant a hip against Ruth's desk and offered the other woman some chocolate.

“I don't know what you mean,” Ruth said, waving away the chocolate and reaching for the bowl of blueberries that she was currently using as a paperweight.

“Sure you do,” Ariadne rolled her eyes. “All that 'your condescension is appreciated crap'. Did you break up with him or something?”

“I wouldn't touch that man with a ten foot pole,” Ruth wrinkled her nose in distaste. She was alone with Ariadne in the warehouse so there was no-one around to see.

“Seriously?” Ariadne tilted her head in thought, “cos he's kinda hot. Don't tell me you haven't fantasised about those shoulders. And his lips are indecent. Don't tell me you've never fantasised about his lips.”

“Ariadne,” Ruth said with pointed delibrateness. “I spent four years in the army, in black ops. There's not much room for modesty when you're in black ops so it will take more than a pretty mouth to get my attention.”

“Ohmigod,” Ariadne whispered, a delighted smile breaking across her face. “You totally have the hots for him! I knew it!”

Ruth considered denying it but truth be told she'd been lusting after Eames ever since he'd smirked up at her from that chair she's handcuffed him into, legs spread and with a promise in his eyes that made shivers run down her spine. Eames was ridiculously, ridiculously attractive but Ruth has always had impressive self control. What she refuses to think too much about is how, with every job and every glimpse into the genius that is so uniquely Eames that lust had been slowly twisting into something deeper.

“There are plenty of attractive men out there,” Ruth said instead.

“Doesn't change the fact that you want to jump Eames' bones, dude,” Ariadne was unfazed by the look Ruth sent her way when she called her 'dude'.

“I don't blame you...those lips!” And with that Ariadne wandered away, leaving Ruth smiling after her, bemused.

Then she went back to typing up her report. When your adopted father had to flee the country because he'd been framed for murder and your Godfather is the CIA's Chief of Staff, it's not difficult to get assigned to a solo op of undetermined length that let Ruth follow Cobb around the world without becoming a criminal herself. Hubert couldn't outright remove the charges himself, not without evidence and not without exposing one of the militaries deepest secrets, but he could sanction an Op that would help Ruth obtain said evidence.

So while she'd been travelling around the world on the Agency's dime, occassionally going home to see Phillipa and James, she'd also had to do all the paperwork associated with an op. Including mission reports. By the time the warehouse door opened once more the sun was significantly lower on the horizon and Ruth had moved from reports to checking Cobol's movements. It wouldn't do for this job to be interrupted by any nasty surprises.

Cobb closed the door behind him and smiled at Ruth. It's a tired, despondent sort of smile but he's trying and for that Ruth was grateful. Ever since Mal had died it felt like Cobb's been slipping further and further away, drowning in his guilt and depression. The only thing keeping him going was the thought of seeing Phillipa and James again and Ruth shuddered to think what would have happened if she hadn't been around, if Cobb had nobody he could rely on.

“How's it going?” Cobb asked, stepping further into the room. “Any progress on the background checks?”

“Some,” Ruth nodded. “I'm waiting for a few lines of enquiry to pan out. Do you know when Eames will be back?”

“In a few minutes I guess, why?” Cobb frowned.

“I wanted to go over his forge,” Ruth shrugged. “Just make sure everything's going according to plan.”

“Checking up on me, Ruth?” Eames' familiar accent came from a side door the the warehouse, startling both Cobb and Ruth.

“Just doing my job, Mr. Eames,” Ruth's smile was polite and distant in response to the icy disdain in Eames' voice.

“Of course you are, darling,” Eames rolled his eyes. “It's not like Teacher's Pet would be playing suck up.”

“Of course not,” Ruth agreed, and her smile turned sharp, her eyes hardening as she slipped into her coat. “But I was just about to go and get my supply of apples for the week. When I get back we really do need to go over your forge.”

Ruth was walking away before Eames had time to reply so the forger merely turned to Cobb and raised both eyebrows.

“Where on earth did you find that woman, Cobb?” He asked, thoroughly exasperated but hiding it behind a veneer of derisive amusement.

“Baltimore,” Cobb smirked before he also turned away and Eames was left with the distinct impression that he'd missed something.

Eames shrugged it of as an inside joke between Cobb and Ruth because none of his research into Ruth had turned up an affiliation with Baltimore. His intial queries hadn't turned up anything actually and if he'd been any less cynical he might have been suprised that no matter how deep he dug, no matter how well-connected his contacts were, all he'd managed to find on Ruth was that she'd spent some time in the army. Anyone who had ever dream shared with her would have been able to infer as much.

Cobb had been right when he said that Ruth was good at what she did and Eames had meant it when he'd said she was the best. He wasn't ashamed to admit her trails were too complicated for him to follow.

What he would admit to being, was a little confused. People like Ruth and Eames, people who had both feet firmly planted in reality no matter what their line of work might suggest, people whose military careers had taught them when to stay and when the situation was FUBAR didn't waste much (read: any) time on sentimentality. Eames had been just as fond of Dom and Mal as Ruth was. They'd been two of the very few people Eames had trusted not to screw him over (he'd held no such faith in Ruth). When Mal had died Eames had been genuinely distressed but the first time her projection had turned up in Cobb's dream, vicious and sadistic and not at all like Mal had been in reality, Eames had cut his losses and run.

He liked Cobb, he truly did, but the man was slowly and steadily going crazy and Eames had not stayed alive as long as he had by refusing to jump when the ship started to sink. It just surprised him when Ruth didn't do the same. Gossip travelled quickly in their circles and, if half the rumours were true, Cobb accepted some truly insane jobs that led to some truly spectacular cock ups. He had at least four different corporations after him, each at least as powerful as Cobol, and Ruth didn't strike Eames as the kind of person that hung out with lost causes.

Which meant that Cobb had, somehow or the other, earned her loyalty and wasn't that something? So Little Miss Psycopath was capable of giving a shit after all. Eames would have been more surprised if the person Ruth had decided was worth her time wasn't as unbalanced as she was. And okay so maybe that was a little harsh. Ruth wasn't unbalanced, Eames was just uncomfortable with how well she carried violence, by how little death and torture seem to faze her.

(She once managed to shoot both Eames and Cobb out of a dream whilst impaled. The woman had a pole sticking out of her stomach and she could still aim properly).

Also, while it was true that dream sharing did tend to drive people closer, the shared experience of escaping hostile projections creating the sort of bond that wasn't easily broken, most simply switched teams and partners often enough to avoid said bond becoming too strong. Dependancy could be as lethal as incompetant team members after all. But no, Cobb and Ruth had been working together for years and Eames just couldn't figure out why.

Something else happened during the job that had Eames revising his opinion of Ruth. He'd gone under with Ariadne and Ruth, testing out the girl's constructs since Cobb was adamant that he needed to know as little about the dreamscape as possible. Ariadne was sharp, she took to manipulating the dreamscape like a duck to water but some of the details eluded her.

She could create literal mountains out of molehills but the grass was a slightly too uniform shade of green. She could create an office in the blink of an eye but the carpeting would lack the worn, thin nature of all workplace carpeting. Architecture was no problem for her, imagination wasn't much of a problem either but the details, the details were somewhat of a weak point.

Ruth was unsympathetic, pointing out flaw after flaw and making Ariadne redo the dream over and over again. Eames had half a mind to intervene but Ariadne needed to learn quickly and, unfortunately, there was little time for mollycoddling. When their session was over, Eames was the first to wake but only by moments. Waking from a dream always left him feeling a little bare, a little vulnerable so it was habit by now for Eames to roll to his feet, getting himself into a more defensible position, and take a few steps away from the PASIV before turning to his teammates.

This time, when he turned back, it was to find Ariadne looking a shade despondent. Eames opened his mouth, about to take pity on her and suggest they do something fun but found himself beaten to the punch.

“So, Andre called to tell me your dress is ready,” Ruth said as she gently withdrew the needle from Ariadne's forearm and swabbed the prick, “and I know the perfect place to wear it. So what do you say? Cocktails?”

“I'm not really in the mood for going out tonight,” Ariadne smiled and shrugged. “Besides, cocktail bars aren't really my scene.”

“In that dress, Ariadne, anywhere would be your scene,” Ruth scoffed. “Besides, you missed the part where I wasn't giving you a choice. We're going out and we're going to have fun. Trust me, you won't have to pay for a single drink.”

“You don't have to...” Ariadne began but was interrupted when Ruth smirked, wicked and mischievous and goddamn gorgeous.

Eames watched in surprise as Ruth threaded arms with Ariadne and led her out of the warehouse. As they disappeared Eames heard her say:

“Araidne, honey, I have so much to teach you! Neither of us are going to be paying for a anything.”

Eames blinked and stared after the girls, neither of whom were aware of his scrutiny. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his totem because he did not just witness Ruth, she of the 'shoot first ask questions later mentality', actually being nice. Ruth wasn't nice, she wasn't even tolerable most of the time. She was a snobby, elitist, violent pain the arse who had absolutely no sense of humour!

Also, after five years and what seemed like countless jobs, Eames suddenly realised that the smirk she'd given Ariadne was the closest thing to a smile he'd ever seen on Ruth's face.

Eames is remarkably self-aware but, at the time, even he didn't recognise the emotion that coiled in his gut.

~O

Ruth was fully aware of Mal's downward slide, she was just powerless to stop it. No matter what she did, or said, nothing could convince Mal that she wasn't dreaming. So Ruth watched as the woman who'd been a mother to her through the roller-coaster that was a person's teenage years slowly and steadily went mad and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop it. Cobb had refused, still refused, to tell Ruth what had happened and she would have been insulted if she didn't know that he wanted to protect her.

And didn't that speak volumes about the kind of man Dominic Cobb was? His wife committed suicide and framed him for her murder and he still wanted to protect Ruth, the runaway he adopted when she was fourteen. The girl who turned out to be a genius, the kind that was suited to both academia and combat. Ruth was under no illusions about herself. For all her degrees and academic acheivements, she was first and foremost a soldier, a spy, a killer. Dom knew this too but still, he wanted to protect her.

How could she possibly do anything other than follow him to the end of the earth to ensure his name was cleared?

Inception was a turning point for the entire team. It made them famous in dreamshare and it made them rich. Ariadne went back to school, unwilling to drop her masters after having invested so much time and effort and with only a few months left before the final draft of her thesis was due anyway. Yusuf went back to Mombasa and Saito stayed in LA for business. Eames, well, Ruth would investigate where Eames had disappeared later (she didn't like loose ends). Cobb, unsurprisingly, went straight back to his kids and Ruth, well Ruth flew to DC. She still had to report in to work after all.

“You're sure you can't take a couple of days off?” Cobb asked as he waited in line for a taxi.

“No rest for the wicked,” Ruth smirked and smoothed back a strand of hair before letting a comfortable silence fall over them.

“Hey,” Cobb said after a few moments passed and he shifted a little. “About your report...”

Ruth held up a hand to silence him, immediately recognising where this was going.

“Don't worry about it,” she said. “I'll make sure this stays off everyone's record.”

“You can do that?” Cobb frowned, unconvinced.

“Hubert's gonna pull some strings,” Ruth shrugged. “Also, I think I'm getting promoted. It shouldn't be too difficult to...adjust a few things.”

“Promoted,” Cobb echoed, staring at Ruth in disbelief. “Seriously.”

Ruth shrugged and looked away, embarrassed that her career had been furthened by this man's suffering. The next thing she knew, she was being pulled into a hug and it was sudden enough to startle a laugh out of her.

“I'm proud of you, Ruth,” Cobb said and something lodged itself in Ruth's throat, robbing her of the ability to speak. Instead she just returned the hug.

Ruth changed her clothes in the airport bathroom before catching a flight to DC, swapping mint green Roland Mouret for a black Gucci pencil skirt and white blouse. She slipped her feet into heels two inches lower than her current pair and swept her hair into a professional twist.

When Ruth strode through the doors of the Agency, ID badge clipped to her lapel, she looked like she's coming in from a restful night's sleep instead of a five hour flight that was preceded by another fourteen hour flight. Hubert had coffee waiting and she smiled her thanks before letting him lead her to the briefing.

Inception is a big enough deal that Ruth report directly to the heads of the CIA, FBI, NSA and the President himself. Technically, no crimes were committed other than the forgeries Eames had to make to get himself into Fischer-Morrow. Ruth took a breath after she'd laid down all the facts and given the men some time to assimilate them.

“I'd strongly advise against military testing of inception,” she said and all eyes focused on her. “If it does prove successful, it would be because the team was composed of a rather...unique...set of individuals. It is highly improbable you will find other's like them. Also, the levels of sedation needed is a problem that is impossible to circumvent.”

“Impossible is a strong word, Agent Cobb,” the Director of the CIA said.

“Yes it is, Sir,” Ruth agreed. “But it is also accurate. The levels of sedation required in order to go deep enough into a person's subconcious to perform a successful inception will automatically prevent the inceptor awakening in case of death and would thus nullify the very feature that made dream sharing such a desirable training tool to begin with.”

She wanted to say more but Ruth knew how things work, she gave her report and she's got a high enough profile that they'll listen to what she said. The goverment, like the military, is inherently chauvanistic. However, when someone like Ruth came along (Lieutenant Colonel at twenty one and now team lead in the most covert branch of the CIA ), nobody can help but pay very close attention.

“What would you suggest Agent?” President Obama asked.

“That the Agency's team be vigilant in monitoring the activities of those in dream share, Sir,” Ruth said. If she weren't so exhausted she'd probably be nowhere near this composed over meeting Obama himself. “I also believe that the inception team I worked with will prove to be valuable assets to the Agency if cultivated correctly.”

There was silence as Ruth's suggestion was digested but, predictably, nobody in the room gave away their thoughts.

“Okay,” President Obama eventually said. “We'll take your advice into consideration. Thank you, Agent Cobb and good work.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Ruth said and inclined her head in an abbreviated bow before leaving the room.

How she made it back to her apartment she'd never know but somehow, she made it back without walking into traffic or just falling asleep standing up as she felt on the verge of doing. Apparently she had also managed to change before going to be because when she woke she was under the covers and wearing a nightgown. Unable to contain a smile, Ruth stretched, letting her toes curl and easing out sleep stiff muscles before snuggling further into the duvet. She was gloriously comfortable and had absolutely nowhere to be. The smile is still on her face as she falls back off to sleep.

~O

It truly was an accident.

Eames had stood in baggage claim for an embarrassingly long period of time, trying to decide where to fly next. He wasn't going to stay in LA, it was a big city but it was a big city that contained Cobb and Ruth. After the job they had just pulled, a little space was definitely in order.

He had spent the night in LA then decided to fly out to DC to suprise a friend from his SAS days. Joe Flynn was a tank of a man who had taken what turned out to be a permanent position as a consultant and training officer to the US Army after he'd grown tired of the constant state of alert and hyper-awareness that Special Forces required 24/7. Eames kept in touch with his squadron, or what was left of them. They'd been a particularly stubborn bunch of lads and too many had been lost in combat.

But Flynners was still around and on the same continent so Eames really couldn't pass up the opportunity to drop in on him. Of course that didn't stop Eames from sleeping for three days upon his arrival in DC, rousing only when his stomach or bladder insisted he did so. What? He'd successfully performed inception whilst on a fourteen hour flight then had to catch another five hour flight the next day. He was knackered. When Eames finally ventured out into the world, it was five days after the Fischer job and approaching dusk.

If Eames didn't love surprising his friends as much as he did he might have pulled out his phone and told Flynners that he was in town. Instead, he just checked the time and headed to the bar the other other man frequented on a Saturday night, Flynners was nothing if not a creature of habit. The bar was a few miles away but Eames had languished in bed for three days and fancied a bit of exercise so he stuck his hands in his pocket and people watched as he walked. Summers in DC were notoriously hot and humid so Eames found himself unbuttoning his shirt, letting it hang loose over the white vest he wore under. He winked in return to the occassional, appreciative glance he got and, by the time he reached McGill's Sports Bar and Grill, Eames was in a very good mood indeed.

Flynners was already at the bar when Eames arrived and Eames took great amusement in the look on his friends face when he saw Eames walk in.

“You absolute wanker!” Flynners' voice echoed through the room like...a megaphone in a, very small, enclosed space.

“Three months and no word from you arsehole!”

“Guess the next couple of round are on me then, yeah?” Eames grinned, slinging an arm around Flynner's shoulders and giving him a friendly pat on the back before signalling for the bartender.

“Yeah right,” Flynners snorted. “You'll end up sticking me with the tab, bloody blighter.”

“That was only once,” Eames protested then caved at the disbelieving look Flynner's gave him. “Okay, so it was three times but I assure you I had a very good reason all three times.”

“Yeah,” Flynners challenged, “what where they?”

Eames thought it over for a moment.

“I don't remember.”

Flynners grinned and was about to reply when another voice interupted them.

“Another of you Brits? Joe, seriously man, one of you is enough!”

Eames looked up at the group that had approached their table. There were three of them, all fit and dressed casually and with the sort of bearing that practically screamed 'military'. That wasn't surprising, this bar was a regular haunt for army grunts serving in DC. Joe was smirking up at them so Eames assumed they were all work buddies and shifted over to make room in the booth. Joe introduced the men as Braddock, Williams and Jones, no first names and the men quickly settled into conversation with the ease of men that have all known combat. The booth was at the front of the bar and off to the side and Eames was situated such that he had a full view of the door. He didn't pay much attention to the comings and goings of the patrons however, content to let the beer and conversation play their parts in helping him unwind.

All that changed a few hours after Eames had arrived, when a wolf-whistle pierced the air.

As one, the group looked up and Eames felt like time stopped. Ruth had just walked into the bar but she looked so out of character that Eames was honest-to-God too stunned to contain his reaction. His gaze travelled from the obscenely short denim cut-offs that exposed miles and miles of leg to the unlaced combat boots then up to the white tank top that hugged the curve of her breasts and the flat, toned planes of her stomach. By the time he took in the battered leather vest, the belt holding those shorts low on Ruth's hips, the way the curve of her neck was exposed by the messy knot she'd gathered her hair into, Eames was pretty sure he was gaping and his teeth click as he closed his mouth.

Ruth was obviously just as surprised to see him as he was her but she contained it better, only pausing for a moment before continuing on her way and that was when Eames realised that she was heading for their table.

“Ruth!” Braddock, Williams and Jones practically beamed in greeting and she smiled back, small but genuine.

“Fella's,” she greeted and snagged Braddock's beer, taking a drink from it before turning to Eames.

“Mr. Eames,” Ruth said as she sat down, “I didn't expect to see you here.”

“Darling,” Eames still felt like he'd gotten run over by a truck. “that's the understatement of the Goddamn century.”

Ruth snorted and one corner of her mouth quirked up and Eames immediately checked his totem because strict, unsmiling Ruth looked like she was actually relaxing. Around him.

“You two know each other?” Williams asked and it was Ruth who answered.

“Yes,” she said, meeting Eames' gaze for a moment before looking away. “We just finished a job together.”

Braddock, Williams and Jones looked at Eames while Flynner's looked at Ruth, obviously assessing. Eames had had rumours that Ruth was CIA and that she was following Cobb around on a sanctioned mission. He'd believed them to be just rumours until he'd seen her filling out mission reports and had almost quit the Fischer job then and there. His better sense prevailed however and he'd waited until she left the warehouse for lunch before sneaking a look at her reports (picking the lock on her briefcase to do so). Surprisingly he'd found hard copies of mission reports going back years and he'd taken out his phone, taking pictures of everything to review later. Then again, Ruth probably liked to cross-reference extensively so that would explain the back copies.

Eames had spent almost the entire night going over the photos. They'd covered every job Ruth had ever worked and, to Eames surprise, he hadn't been mentioned in a single one. Not one. He never did figure out quite what to make of that.

“So how do you all know each other?” Flynners asked, using his bottle to include Ruth and her friends in that statement.

“We served together,” Ruth said and took another drink from Braddock's beer. He merely looked resigned and gestured for the waitress to bring over another round but Eames was more interested in the way Flynners' eyes widened in surprise.

“Holy shit!” Flynners cried and the American men didn't even try to hide their grins. “You're Widow!”

“That was my nick-name, yes,” Ruth was unfazed by the discovery, merely raising her eyebrows at her squaddies. “I see my reputation precedes me.”

“Nothing's changed there,” Eames muttered, soft enough that nobody could hear. Around him the conversation shifted to Ruth's exploits (or rather, whatever they were allowed to reveal of them) but through it all the lady in question stayed relatively silent.

It was a little while later, when the place was almost full, that Ruth excused herself for a moment.

“You been working with her long?” Braddock asked, a hint of protectiveness in his tone and Eames kept his posture as relaxed as possible.

“Round about five years,” Eames nodded, “so, yeah, long enough.”

“You're CIA as well Eames? Or British Intelligence?” It was Jones who spoke and Eames barked out a laugh that was effortlessly surprised even if he'd seen the question coming all night.

“Eames is something of a free-lancer,” Ruth said, having returned far sooner that anyone had expected, and Eames just inclined his head in agreement, watching as suspicion gave way to curiosity.

“Next round's on me gents, what'll it be?” Ruth continued, killing any further questions and Eames eased himself out of the booth.

“I'll help you carry,” he offered and Ruth acepted with a shrug.

“Of all the bars in DC, Eames, you had to choose this one?” She said the minute they're out of earshot.

“I could say the same about you, darling,” Eames replied, pushing his way through the crowd at the bar to lean his elbow against the counter. Ruth has no such problems, everyone just made way for her. “This doesn't seem like your usual sort of haunt.”

“Because of course you'd know what my 'usual sort of haunt' is,” Ruth snarked. “I didn't realise forgery equated to mind reading.”

“And that,” Eames acted as if she hadn't spoke and gestured to what Ruth was wearing, letting his eyes rove over her once more from head to toe, “that definitely doesn't look like your usual ensemble. You've been holding out on us, love, and I feel terribly cheated.”

Ruth looked at him like he'd grown two heads and gave her order to the bartender before turning to face Eames more fully.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not really a machine you know.”

Eames opened his mouth to reply but before he could the man behind Ruth groped her ass and grinned when she spun to face.

“Hey baby!” He leered.

Ruth grabbed his hand and twisted his fingers back then did the same with the other hand when he tried to pry her off. Eames relaxed and enjoyed the show.

“What was that?” Ruth asked as the man whimpered in pain.

“I was just...fuck! Bitch, that hurts!” The man cried out, his eyes watering slightly. Ruth bent his fingers even further back and he practically couldn't contain a scream.

“I mean s-s-sorry, ma'am! Won't happen again!”

“Damn straight it won't,” Ruth muttered, letting go of his hands and turning back to Eames. He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes. When the group they were with applauded, having watched the entire spectacle from their table, even Ruth couldn't fully supress a smile.

And so the rest of the night passed. They all got pleasantly tipsy and Eames laughed more in that one night than he had in the three months preceding it. Even Ruth was looser, not as rowdy as the men but more prone to smiling those small, genuine smiles. Once or twice, Eames even caught a hint of dimples.

He ended up staying in DC far, far longer than he expected.

~O

Life post-inception was...boring. Ruth liased with other departments to keep tabs on Cobol and some of the other corporations that were after Cobb. She took a two week vacation and flew back to LA, spending her days with James and Philippa and trying to persuade Cobb to move up to DC where she'd be available to babysit and the house wouldn't be haunted my Mal's ghost. A month later he took her advice and bought a house in Ruth's new neighbourhood.

(She had refused Saito's money but her pay grade was a couple of notches higher after her promotion and she'd moved out of her apartment and into her very own house. After three years of hotel rooms it was heavenly).

So from then on Ruth got to see her siblings more often. She took them to the park and the zoo on the weekends and more often than not headed straight to Dom's house after work because Dom couldn't cook worth a damn so it fell to Ruth to make dinner. Dom got a teaching job at Georgetown and they were eager to have him now that his slate had been wiped clean. Sometimes Dom even consulted with the CIA but that was only occassionally.

Ariadne was almost finished with her studies and Ruth had made sure that the Agency had approached her with an offer. Ruth planned to approach Ariadne herself to add more weight to said offer but there was still time for that. Surprisingly enough, Saito had kept in contact. He often called Ruth up for security consultations and she knew that he utilised the rest of the teams talents as well. Eames was consulted most often, his skills as a thief and his ability to read people being called upon whenever Saito needed them.

Ruth tried not to think of Eames too often. When she did her mind was inevitably drawn to that night at McGill's. Eames was always so...distant. Oh he hid his dislike behind insincere endearments and clever, distracting words but he wasn't the only person in the world that could read people. Ruth might not have his intuition but even she could tell when someone didn't like her. It happened often enough. Ruth was driven, focused and set a very high standard for herself. She expected the people around her to be similarly dedicated and had very little patience for those who weren't. It didn't endear her to her co-workers and her attitude (combined with her considerable accomplishments) often earned her the reputation of being a 'hard-assed bitch'.

Eames, Ruth was aware, disliked her for entirely different reasons. He didn't have problem with her work ethic (as much as he might infer otherwise) but neither did he appreciate the ease with which she accomplished the less savoury parts of her job. Eames was a soldier and thus had a better idea than the rest of the team just what Ruth's combat skill meant. He also had a better idea than the rest of the team what her lack of squeamishness meant and was suitably wary of her. Were she in his position, Ruth might have felt the same.

What Eames didn't, couldn't, know was that her ability to brush of serious injuries, her ability to kill with such ruthless efficiency (even if it was in dreams) didn't stem solely from her military experience. What Eames didn't realise was that the reason even the most unsavoury tasks didn't faze her wasn't because she couldn't empathise with their marks or their victims. Once, they'd had to construct a dream scape in which they had to lead a father to believe they were holding his children hostage. Dom had flinched at the man's plea's and even Eames had been affected. Ruth had simply done her job (and Cobbs) and, when they'd woken, packed away the PASIV as usual. She hadn't missed the searching and slightly disgusted look Eames had sent her way but then he hadn't been in her room to witness the nightmares that kept her up at night.

Most people in dream share lost the ability to dream naturally. Not Ruth.

Eames didn't know about the two years Ruth had spent on the streets, stealing scraps where she could and doing everything in her power to avoid gang wars and drug lords and unscrupulous pimps. He didn't about the times when she'd cowered behind dumpters or in filthy, stinking alleys, scared to death and trying not to make a sound because a crime was being committed and she couldn't afford to let anyone know she was a witness.

There was a lit Eames assumed but, as good as he was at reading people, there was only so much that could be inferred without the facts so Ruth didn't blame him for getting a few things wrong. That didn't stop it from hurting, it didn't stop her from wishing he'd taken the time to ask the right questions instead of understimating her so much. Usually, when her thoughts reached this point, Ruth forced herself to move on and think about something else because she knew what lay down this path.

Her current train of thought would bring her from wishing Eames had asked the right questions, to her her wishing she'd taken the time to make him ask the right questions. It wouldn't have been difficult. All she had to do was get him to go out for drinks one evening and his natural charisma and talent with people would have done the rest. But Ruth, for all her accomplishments, was still very young in ways and still very scared.

The people she cared about didn't stay in her life very long and good things didn't happen to good people. These were two truths Ruth had learned at a very young age and they were the reason she was so determined to track down every corporation Cobb had ever pissed off and ensure they didn't come looking for vengence. Eames...Eames had the potential to become someone she cared about very, very much.

He'd already slipped too far under her defenses as that evening at McGill's had proven. Ordinarily, Ruth would have found some excuse to leave early, but instead she'd found herself responding to the open curiosity in his gaze, to that easy smile on those sinful lips, to the way his wifebeater did absolutely nothing to conceal the breadth and strength of his chest. She'd found herself relaxing, smiling, partaking in conversation. And Eames, Eames had spent the entire evening watching Ruth and she couldn't help but think that he'd learned far more than she ever wanted him to.

She was proven correct when Eames showed up at her office the next week. Ruth had been having an average sort of day. The team had done a training run that morning and, as usual, nobody had lasted longer than a couple of hours in her subconcious. Then movement in Vienna had been brought to her attention – a team was going to try and override the brain's instinct to send pain signals when you were hurt in a dream. Ruth was familiar with the team in question and they were nowhere near competant enough to pull of such a feat (anyone who was would know better than to try) and they just weren't that competant in general so Ruth tasked two of her agents with apprehending them.

Then she'd retreated to her office to try and make a dent in the mountains of paper work that came with a position of authority and had only been at it a short while when a knock on her door drew her attention. To say that she was surprised to see Eames there, in jeans and a t-shirt that was actually toleable, was an understatement. She wasn't so surprised at the appreciative glances he was getting from the women (and some of the men) in the bullpen.

“What are you doing here,” Ruth demanded the moment the door had closed behind him. She'd managed to get all warrants for his arrest in this country removed but that had only gone through this morning.

“Haven't you heard?” Eames smirked and sank into a chair as if he regularly waltzed into the CIA without a care in the world. “I'm a free man.”

Ruth narrowed her eyes at him because there was no way word should have gotten back to Eames so quickly.

“You still haven't answered my question,” she said instead.

“Come now, darling, I'm not a fool.” Eames replied. “Of all my acquaintences only one has the power to pull of something like clearing my name. Although, to be honest, I didn't realise you had such power until a couple of hours ago. Climbing the ranks rather quickly, aren't we love?”

“It's only in this country,” Ruth parried and Eames snorted. She ignored him.

“Also, because I know you're wondering, I don't want anything from you.” Ruth continued. “I was just hoping you'd consult with the Agency from time to time.”

“Hoping?” Eames raised both eyebrows in disbelief.

“Yes,” Ruth confirmed. “Hoping.”

“No threats of imprisonment if I don't do as you wish?”

“That's not my style, Mr. Eames.”

“No,” Eames hummed his agreement. “I don't imagine it is.” He was silent for a moment longer before continuing:

“Is it your style to starve yourself? You're looking a bit thinner than usual darling.”

“I'm eating just fine, Mr. Eames, thank you.” Ruth returned, hiding her confusion behind a pointedly neutral expression. What was he getting at?

“All the same, I'd feel much better if you let me take you out for coffee. You're the boss of this little dream team, yeah? Surely you can give yourself permission.” Eames smiled.

Ruth opened her mouth to refuse but before she could Eames leaned forward in his seat and spoke again, a strangely intent expression darkening his eyes.

“I really won't take 'no' for an answer, I'm afraid.”

Ruth sat back in her chair and observed him for a moment, trying to figure out whether or not she was going to play along before deciding to just go with it.

“I know the perfect place,” Ruth said as she stood, shouldered her bag and smoothed down the skirt of her dress, hiding a smile at the way Eames practically beamed.

When he slipped her arm through his own as they descended the stairs to the bullpen, Ruth almost jumped out of her skin. Eames merely squeezed her arm slightly and smiled down at her, winking when nobody was looking and Ruth rolled her eyes and forced herself to relax. This new, friendly Eames was incredibly distracting but she could play along until she found out what his game was. There was no way he didn't want something from her.

“You know,” Eames said as they settled into a booth and the waitress took their orders. “For the longest time I kind of despised you.”

Eames sounded slightly cheerful about admitting this and Ruth blinked, willing herself not to show any further reaction.

“You don't anymore?” She asked and it took effort to make it sound as if she didn't care about the answer.

Eames hummed softly and tilted his head as he considered the question. Ruth had to remind herself to breathe.

“These days I find myself wondering what on earth happened to make you so wary of people,” Eames finally said and Ruth reached down to adjust her handbag and hide the tremors in her hand.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” She said and the smile Eames gave instantly had Ruth's suspicions raised.

“Well let's start with the fact that we've been working together for half a decade and I only today found out that you're Cobb's adopted daughter.”

Ruth stared at him for a long moment, inwardly cursing herself for forgetting that to find her office he would have had to know her last name.

“Does it really matter?” She eventually asked.

“I suppose not,” Eames shrugged and leaned back in his seat, draping his arm across the back rest. “I just don't see why you had to hide it.”

“We didn't hide,” Ruth countered. “It's just that nobody asked.”

“I hate to break it to you, darling,” Eames laughed, “but nobody asked because you and the Cobbs acted more like friends than family.”

“I was fourteen when they found me,” Ruth shrugged. “We sometimes are just like really good friends.”

Eames was silent for a moment, assimilating the new information. It was unlikely that Ruth had noticed her slip, she'd said 'found' which implied that she'd been lost in some way or another. Eames had come across his fair share of people from difficult backgrounds, he'd just never realised that Ruth ranked amongst them. When it came to Ruth, though, Eames was finding he had to revise a lot of his notions. He'd never before met someone so skilled at deception. She was almost as good as he was. Almost.

“So what made you join the CIA?” Eames asked.

“So what made you want to reinact the Spanish Inquisition?” Ruth countered, flipping her hair over her shoulders with a haughty toss of her head.

“I'm just a bit put out to discover you've been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes for all these years,” Eames grinned. Sometimes honesty really was the best policy, when it could be passed off as a joke that was.

“I'm sure your ego's taken a massive blow,” Ruth smirked.

“You can make it up to me by cooking me dinner,” Eames replied, bold and brassy. “I've been reliably informed that you're a wonderful cook.”

Ruth rolled her eyes.

“If you're staying at Cobbs then I'll be over tonight anyway,” she said and Eames grinned, the speed with which Ruth's mind worked was amazing when it wasn't being used against you.

“What are you really doing here Eames,” Ruth asked after another long moment of silence passed between them. Her voice was soft and the hint of underlying wariness caused the smile to slip from Eames face.

He debated with himself for a moment. Lately he'd been getting increasing amounts of evidence that called into question everything he knew about Ruth and he had more that enough reason to believe she wasn't as twisted and trigger happy as he'd initially assumed. That knowledge led to the unsurprising relevation that he could genuinely like her.

More than that, it led to slightly more surprising relevation that he wanted to get to know Ruth. He wanted to know what really made her tick? What was her favourite movie? Which martial art did she learn first? What had happened to her before she'd met the Cobbs? What did a genuine smile look like on her? He was willing to bet that happiness transformed Ruth from 'beautiful' to 'truly enchanting'. Also it kind of scared Eames how he wasn't at all scared by thoughts like these. Eventually he decided that honesty had been working really well for him thus far.

“I fear I gravely misjudged you, Ruth,” he said and let him expression open up enough to show her he was serious. “And, in doing so, I feel like I have done you a grave injustice. I'd truly like to rectify that.”

Ruth's eyes widened and her heartbeat hammered in her ears. The reply was so unexpected, so completely opposite to all the animosity and disdain that had defined her interactions with Eames for years that she was honestly and completely stunned. The surprise was quickly supressed with a surge of anger because of course Eames would find it amusing to play with her. Lips thinning, Ruth stood and grabbed her bag before striding out of the cafe in a whirlwind of curled hair and the clacking of stiletto's on tile.

“Where are you going?” Eames demanded, catching up to her mere moments later and grabbing her arm to stop her.

“Back to work,” Ruth answered as she twisted out of his hold. “Your jokes are not appreciated Mr. Eames.”

“Darling,” Eames caught her arm again and this time Ruth came to a stop, spinning to face him. Thankfully they were in a little square behind the cafe that was deserted at this time of day and afforded them some privacy.

“Darling,” Eames said again, “whatever gave you the impression that I was joking?”

“I'm not stupid,” Ruth snarled. “You want me to believe that you're revising your opinion on someone you've know for five years. You, Eames? Who can learn more within ten minutes of meeting a person than others do over an entire year! Pull the other one.”

“Your faith in me is flattering, darling, truly.” Eames said quietly, “But even I'm only human. You're a powerful woman, Ruth and you're very, very good at keeping people out. But part of this entire thing is my fault for not looking harder.”

Eames was silent for a while, the weight of his gaze keeping Ruth in place and she wondered how on Earth a simple break for coffee had led here.

“I don't know what happened to make you want to shut everybody out so completely,” Eames eventually spoke, stepping closer as he did so and Ruth forced herself to hold her ground, “but I can hazard a guess. I can't speak for the people who have hurt you, or for those who have left you but I can speak for myself. I'm a stubborn arse, Ruth Cobb, and whether you like it or not, I'm not going anywhere.”

What happened next was completely out of Ruth's control, Eames had this smile of his face that she'd never seen before and she just couldn't help herself. Before she knew what was happening, Ruth had curled a hand around Eames' neck and slotted their lips together, pressing slightly in a kiss that was as chaste as it was unexpected.

Eames tensed against her in surprise for a heartbeat before relaxing. He wrapped one arm around her waist, the other angling her head into a better position as he assumed control of the kiss. Eames' lips parted, his tongue tapping against her mouth and she practically melted. Sensation overrode all Ruth's common sense and she let herself sink into the strength of Eames' arms around her and his lips moving over her own with expert ease.

Then the hand cradling her head drops between her shoulder blades and the hand around her waist drops to cup her ass and drag her closer and Ruth can't stop from moaning into Eames' mouth. Her hands travel up his chest, a shiver of delight running through her at the feel of hard muscle beneath thin cotton. Then Eames' mouth left her own to explore the skin behind her ear and clarity returned with the force of a bulldozer.

“What the hell!” Ruth pushed Eames away, her chest heaving as she dragged air into her lungs. She tried to ignore the way Eames' eyes had grown heavy-lidded with desire.

“Darling,” Eames said and when had he started to sound like he actually meant the endearment.

“Ruth,” Eames reached out and brushed back locks of her hair that had fallen out of place, his touch achingly gentle, “I know you're scared but now that I know you want this too, I won't let you run away. Just remember that.”

Ruth stared at him, completely and totally thrown.

“Oh love,” Eames sighed and his hand settled on her shoulder, his thumb gently stroking the curve where her neck met her shoulders. He was standing close enough that his breath brushed against her ear as he spoke.

“All you have to do is let me in,” Eames said, his voice gruffer than Ruth had ever heard it. “Just let me in, darling, and I promise you shan't ever regret it.”

Ruth had seen and heard Eames in almost every conceivable situation. She'd heard him angry, scared, playing a part, teasing...but she had never heard him sound so honest. She closed her eyes and shuddered and nodded, her forehead coming to rest against Eames' clavicle. Eames' smile jostled strands of her hair and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head but didn't move other than to curl a protective arm around her and draw her closer.

And Ruth, Ruth felt something in her stomach unfurl and she thought that maybe, just maybe good things happened to good people after all.