open | prompt five | ENDINGS

[wrens]

prompt five | E N D I N G S dressing-room style. start your own thread. tag others. wash, rinse, repeat. open to all.

 

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phillipa cobb | inception (age 25)

[hardship]

[ A woman bounces a sleeping child on her hip, a hand on his back rubbing tiny circles to make sure he doesn't wake even when she speaks. ]

Things don't end, they just change.

[ Her mother had died, but her ghost had lingered. Her father had left, but then he'd come back again. She'd fallen in love with a man haunted like she was, but then the ghost got the better of him and he went away for a while. But good behavior and early parole meant that he was here now, with the both of them.

Each thing, each moment, at the precise time it was happening, had felt like an ending, like a tiny death. But instead of dying, she'd continued. On and on, up until now. ]

[blends]

That is a very optimistic perspective for someone in your position, love.

[Eames shouldn't be here, sitting next to her on a park bench. He should be far away, on a warm beach on the coast of Greece or in a pub in northern Ireland. He could be absolutely anywhere else in a heartbeat, but he's not. He's directly in the line of fire and under his calm, collected exterior his pulse is racing. If Eames is anything, it is damn good at keeping himself safe from harm if the harm is more than 60% likely to happen. And it is, in this case, a bullet right through Phillipa's skull. He knows this because he was the one to warn her.

A right big mess he's gotten himself into this time, isn't it? It's Arthur's fault in the end, manipulating him into even seeing the kids of a woe-begotten family unit torn to shreds by somnacin. He'll always be a sucker for kids, in the end.

He kept himself distant, but that wasn't enough. He should have cut off all contact, but instead he's here, squinting up at the sky next to a mother soon to be dead and an innocent baby.]

[signatures]

You have every power in each fingertip to end them for yourself, [ Eames retorts patiently, leaning forward from his recline on the armchair to set his cup down on the low table in front of him. Still hunched forward, he continues, his own fingers linked casually as he peers up at her and the baby. ]

But I didn't come all this way to fight, Phillipa, only to check in on you two.

[hardship]

[ Maybe I don't want to end them. Maybe I want what I've earned.

Phillipa doesn't say the sentiment aloud because she knows that she doesn't have to (Eames had been one of the best, after all). There's no effort made to keep the thought from her face either because it needs to be out there, even if it's not said. (A bad habit picked up from her father, but at least she's not denying things, at least she's not blind.) ]

Three, [ she's eager to correct. Francis is on probation now, the reprieve won by good behavior and a decent lawyer and the highly circumstantial evidence that had been used to hang him in the first place. Even now he insists: I didn't kill anyone. And Phillipa believes him. Without a doubt. ]

It's the three of us now.

[signatures]

[ Three. Eames doesn't have to approve, nor does he have to hide the disapproval set just between his eyes. Francis at least is not home at current so it's not as though Eames has to deal with seeing his face around again, and while Phillipa may love him Eames' feelings on the boy more-so edge toward deep distrust. It is, of course, difficult to put much stock in an unstable mind - as fierce as her loyalty is. ]

Three. That's right, Arthur told me of it.

[ He stands, finally, coming close enough to run the side of his index finger against the soft baby hairs of the child, keeping his voice low for sake of avoiding fussiness. ] You ought to bring your lot over the pond for this one's birthday, hm?

[ Certainly Francis' probation keeps him homebound. ]

[hardship]

[ Phillipa knows quite a lot about unstable minds, having been plagued with her own problems for most of her life. During her father's absence she had grown in ways that no child her age should rightfully have to. And by the time he'd made his way back to stateside, there were somethings that had already set themselves into the foundation of her burgeoning self. A sleeplessness that could never be shirked, a kind of mental restlessness that bordered on paranoia. And then, of course, the Shade — not one of dreams, but one that haunted Phillipa's waking life. Haunted her the way that Francis had been haunted (was still haunted, or at least that's what the doctors told her). ]

And did Arthur have anything else to say about it? [ Everyone did. One way or another.

Phillipa gives baby Francis another little bounce and he yawns gawpishly before shoving his fist into his mouth and dozing off again. There's a tiny mark on his cheek, the side of a toddler's thumbprint. Not entirely unlike the mark daddy Francis has on his own face. (That's where God touched you before you were born, she tells him. You were so special, he wanted everyone to see he made this miracle all by himself.)

It takes Phillipa a moment to process the possibility of the estate, of traveling with the baby. ] So soon—?

[signatures]

[ Eames' brows quirk sharply at that. Everyone has their opinions of it, certainly, because so many people simply wish for different situations, what they perceive to be in any case. Even Eames is guilty of this. But Arthur, at least in his unshamed opinion, seems like one of the remaining few with unwavering patience on the issue - Phillipa's happiness, first and foremost, before anyone else's thoughts on the way she was (and is, a different degree entirely compared to just holding on to a man who's been incarcerated) living her life. He supposes it's in some different measures hypocritical - but whether or not Francis is actually a criminal, a murderer, is very much secondary to Eames; it's the baggage that is attached to everything else around the man himself.

It's just not healthy to raise a family around, he considers, but what does he know? He's not the one with children. ] He sends his regards and wanted to say he regretted not being able to put together that portfolio of lawyers for him ahead of time for you, what with us being stuck in Vietnam.

[ The appeals, he knows, were a long process in that itself. Eames moves his fingers from the babe's heads to his pudgy little wrist, close to Phillipa's own neck. ]

We can accomodate private transportation for you if you're worried about him catching something from a public flight.