Hello :)

Just to clear everything up, I published this a while back, ended up despising it, and am now re-vising in. The first chapter is a bit short, but alas, here we are. :)

Ariadne shifted uncomfortably in the back of the sleek (and too-extravagant) black SUV Eames had rented. He and Arthur were rehashing everything that had just gone down in the front. She'd opted to sit in the back, glad she wasn't expected to contribute to the conversation.

When she had told Cobb that either he tell Arthur or she join them in the task of performing inception on Robert Fischer, half of her hoped he would pull himself together and talk to his best friend rather than her becoming a part of the team. Dream-sharing was the most incredible experience she'd ever had, but delving into someone else's subconscious had serious connotations and she knew there would be consequences. That was a severe breach of privacy, and even though did more good than harm, she couldn't help but feel unsettled over the whole incident.

"It's up here, on the right," Arthur said. He looked far more comfortable than Ariadne, and she couldn't help but feel envious of his obvious nonchalance. Eames changed lanes, forgoing the blinker, and turned onto a well-kept dirt road. "I doubt Cobb will want us around for long"

"No, I don't think he would. You think he'll stay in the business after this?"

Arthur shook his head before Eames even finished the question. "Not after Mal. There's too much at stake with James and Phillipa."

Once again, Eames turned without the blinker onto a driveway secluded by the trees. As they cleared out, Ariadne saw the house. It shocked her how well Cob had remembered it. It was exactly the same as the house in the dream. She took off her seatbelt as the car stopped, and hopped out. "This is where he lives?" she confirmed.

Arthur smiled. "Impressive, right?" Ariadne smiled back at him, choosing not to respond. Now was not the time or place to tell him how many times she'd been to this house, nor that she'd lived in even more immaculate houses in the past. Arthur had tried to talk to her, ask her about limbo after they met up in the parking lot at their specified time slots, but she'd brushed him off, telling him she was exhausted. She would talk about it with them later, but she didn't want to when everything was so fresh.

The trio made their way up the steps. Arthur knocked on the door. After a moment, Cobb's voice called out, "Come in, it's open." Arthur stepped forward, but Eames sideswiped him, managing to successfully cut him off. He sauntered forward, opening the door. Arthur rolled his eyes.

"Always has to be the center of attention," he muttered. Ariadne let out a laugh as they followed Eames inside. She caught Arthur shooting daggers at the back of Eames' head and she grinned.

At the end of the hall, next to the dining room table, was Cobb, crouched down next to a little blond boy and girl.

"Daddy, who are they?" the little boy (James, Ariadne remembered) asked, scratching his head. Phillipa, the girl, nodded enthusiastically beside him.

"Well," Cobb started, slowly standing back up. "This, James and Phillipa, is your Uncle Arthur. You remember him, of cou…" He was cut off by them rushing off to hug his best friend. Arthur immediately dropped to his knees, embracing them in a hug. Ariadne watched, surprised. Never had it crossed her mind that Arthur was great with kids. But then again, it seemed that he knew everything, so of course he'd know how to handle children.

Eames stepped up and ruffled Philipa's hair. She looked up from Arthur's arms and smiled, making no move to leave him. "Hello, sweetheart," he said with a smile. "I haven't seen you since your little brother was born." A waved was all the older man received.

"And this," Cobb said, catching his children's attention and pointing to Ariadne, "is your aunt Ariadne."

Both of the sets of little eyes bored into her, questioning.

Beginning to feel uncomfortable, she waved. "Hi, guys."

"Hello," James said, and Ariadne counted that as a small victory. Children were not her strong point. Growing up as an only child and living in a neighborhood devoid of kids to babysit had left her without the skills needed to understand them. She'd always been a team player and it was easy for her to get along with people, but she'd never had a true sense of union.

Arthur smiled as James let go of him and stepped over to Ariadne and gave her a hug. She quickly gave him a hug back as Cobb pulled Philipa off his best friend. "James, come along. You two go to the family room with your grandfather, I promise I'll be there in just a moment." He set Philipa down and she shot him a disparaging look before taking her younger brother's hand and dragging him out of the room.

Once he saw that the two heads of blonde hair were safely out of hearing range, Cobb cleared his throat. "So, I'm going to come out and say it. I think that went far smoother that I expected it to."

Ariadne mulled this over. If nearly being trapped in limbo was "smooth," she wondered what would be considered rough.

Arthur began to fidget, clearly on the same line of thought as Ariadne. "There were too many mistakes to call it 'smooth', Cobb. The limbo factor, Saito being shot, Mal interrupting." He looked at his feet. "My missing information," he added quietly.

Cobb shook his head. "You don't need to be so hard on anyone. Especially yourself, Arthur. We got it done, successfully and we're all alive. I'd say that's wonderful."

Thunder cracked in the previously sunny outdoors. Arthur looked outside, rubbing his neck. Ariadne realized she'd never seen him be given a compliment. She could tell he was trying to push it away when Eames punched his arm.

"The anti-gravity kick was ingenious, even though you did launch an entire army at us." There was no bitterness in his voice, but Arthur still shot him a glare. Eames glared back in what was meant to be menacing.

Cobb stared bemused between the two of them. When the staring match ended, he rolled his eyes. "Ariadne, those mazes were fantastic. And I don't know if I could have made my way out of limbo without you. You did great." She blushed and looked at her hands. Arthur's forehead creased and his head shifted downward again.

Effectively shifting the conversation from the tributes, Arthur cleared his throat. "You'll be staying, yes?" After the words left his mouth, the sound of James' cheerful laughter carried into the room. Cobb smiled.

"Right you are. I couldn't leave them. They are my reality, and I plan to keep it that way." He glanced at the briefcase sitting at Arthur's feet. "I'm done with dreaming. I don't need it. But I think you three should stick together. You're as good as it gets. And I think you could do anything you put your minds to."

Ariadne felt like she had missed something. As far as she knew, there wasn't exactly a huge market for jumping into other peoples' dreams. "Stick together?" she asked. "It's just…I know we should all stay friends or something, but are there really that many jobs? Enough for us to have our own sort of business, so to speak?"

Arthur threw her a patronizing glance, but Eames laughed. "Really, Ariadne, you have no idea how serious and in demand this business is. Most people who understand it at all, let alone know how to use it appropriately are in the military. They're not pleasant folk to deal with, if you catch my drift. And as Cobb said, we're the best."

Arthur obviously agreed. "Anyone who can work together well enough to get inception done is going to be at the top." The expression on Cobb's face showed that Arthur's remark redeemed his previous one. "Even without Cobb, we can do it."

This was a lot to take in. She'd assumed she go back to her life…but then again, what was her life anymore? She'd graduated college with her degree in architecture, but it wasn't like there was tons of jobs open for that in France right now. With this, she could make things that would be completely out of her reach in reality, working with people that she enjoyed spending time with. Really, she didn't understand why she was having trouble with this.

Cobb was watching her closely. "You know you don't have to do this."

Now Eames and Arthur were looking at her and she felt her blush return. "No, no, of course I want to, it just caught me off guard."

"Now that that's settled, I expect all of you to keep in touch, but as I haven't seen my children in a very long time and I'd like to get reacquainted with them."

"Right," Eames said. "We'll be going then."

The abruptness of the end of their meeting caught Ariadne off guard. She was still trying to process everything. Eames and Arthur gave Cobb pats on the back and made their way down the hallway. Ariadne could distinctly her Eames say, "Your buy on dinner, yes?" and Arthur grumble a reply.

"Are you alright?"

Ariadne smiled at the man she'd come to look at as a mentor. "Is it weird that I just slept for ten hours, but I feel more exhausted than I ever remember being?"

Cobb smiled, and she began to see how tired he truly was as well. It was something he'd hidden extremely well, and she was finally understanding how desperately he had wanted to get home. Mal's words rang through her ears. "Do you know what it is to be a lover? A half of a whole?" Ariadne certainly didn't, but it was clear Cobb did. There was no way for her to comprehend the depth of need Cobb had to get back to his children, the one connection he had left to his wife, his other half. Whilst dreaming, Mal's words hadn't meant much, mainly due to her terror, but now that she was awake and away from all types of dreams, the impact of Cobb's loss was evident. "It happens. You may experience some…" He paused. "Disturbance in the next couple of weeks."

She tilted her head to the side, "But I've dream-shared before."

Cobb smiled the smile one gives to a child when they think they know everything. "Not to this extent. You went into limbo and that obviously affects people." His smile turned sad. "Don't worry about it, you'll be fine. If," he said, stressing the word to appease the twenty two year old, "anything happens, Arthur and Eames will be there for you." He pulled her in for a hug, and she took that as a dismissal.

"Ariadne!" Arthur called from the front door. She stepped away from Cobb, smiled, and started down the hall. When Arthur saw she was in motion, he left the doorway.

"Bye, Cobb."

"Good bye Ariadne. Be sure to keep them in their place."

She grinned over her shoulder. "Of course."

As she left the house, she thought about Mal's words and Cobb's warning, feeling uncertain.

I really dislike this ending, but oh well. :)