If We Ever meet Again

by ThisIsTrueImmortality

The obvious answer was NO. So, naturally, my perverse human nature screamed out an unequivocal YES! It made the whole thing worse that it was Arthur-good, stable, dependable, sweetheart Arthur-holding out the proverbial apple.

Arthur's Note: In the words of Karl Kraus, "A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer." Thank you.

I'll never be the same - if we ever meet again
Won't let you get away...if we ever meet again
This free fall's, got me sold
Kiss me all night don't ever let me go
I'll never be the same...
If we ever meet again

-If We Ever Meet Again by Timbaland

If We Ever Meet Again: An Inception Oneshot

It was over.

Numbly, I lifted my luggage from the baggage claim, its heavy weight reassuring me in this hour of need. I staggered a little as the suitcase tumbled off the rack, compensating by dropping it to the floor. The large orange sticker against the dark material screamed its message up at me: "FRAGILE." Fragile.

Yes, I was fragile.

I had spent every waking-and every sleeping-moment focused on this task. I had poured my heart into those designs, each asphalt road, each set of glass doors meticulously placed. My creations were beautiful and terrible things, the snow fortress being the most magnificent. I had sat up late for nights coming up with those plans. And, now that it was over, I had been droppped from the picture like so much dead weight. I had been the Architect, for Pete's sake! And now I was nothing?

I realized that we couldn't be too conspicuous; we couldn't go around giving each other high fives, or anything. But we had finished the job, and we'd also recovered Dom. No, actually, I had recovered Dom. That was water under the bridge, however, and it didn't really matter. What mattered was the abruptness of our disconnection from each other.

Could we not even say goodbye? After what they had all done for me, I wanted to say something. Maybe not thank you, as that would seem inappropriate, considering what we'd done together. Maybe, "Good luck?" I wanted them all to have nice lives, and to stay free of trouble. Eames could go be a thief, Yusuf could go back to his chemicals, and Dom could go back to his children. And Arthur...

I sighed and blinked, then blinked again more forcefully. No! I was not crying!

Sniffling, I picked up my suitcase and turned toward customs. How could I be acting like such a baby? Hadn't I just successfully completed what should have been an impossible job? Hadn't I proved that I was a big girl, now, and that I could handle pretty much whatever life had a whim to throw at me? It was hard to beat entering a man's subconscious under fire from the bodyguards inside his head, passing through three levels of said subconscious, and coming out with all my sensibilities intact. Why was I making this so hard on myself?

And then, my ray of hope burst through the clouds, and Dom walked by. He barely acknowledged me, as I stood there with my luggage. I could tell what was on his mind, and I smiled at him. He had the look of a man who just got out of prison-for understandable reasons. I envied him the thoughts of hope and joy and family that must be percolating in his head. Right at this moment, I couldn't think of anything but the fact that it was over, and I was out of a job, and I might never see any of them again.

Oh, why did that depress me so?

There was Yusuf, too! He was farther down the line than me, but our eyes skimmed each other's. I thought I saw him give me the barest outline of a smile, and I returned it. Without Yusuf, I might not have been here to cry like a lost little girl. None of us might be here. Eames, who was unloading his own baggage near me, might not be here to collect his luggage. Dom might not be striding quickly away from us to meet with the family he'd lied and cheated for. And Arthur-

I found myself searching the crowd for him before I caught it. We were supposed to pretend we didn't know each other. Strangers that happened to share the first class cabin on an overseas flight. I didn't know Fischer, the man across the luggage claim, although I knew him almost as much as he did himself. I didn't allow myself to think about Fischer too much, because my conscience would awaken from the dream World, and I didn't need that right now. I didn't know what I did need, but it wasn't a visit from my ethics.

Wiping my sleeve over my cheeks, I started the long walk toward customs and thought of the first thing that came to my mind. That was a bad idea; all I could think of was the bliss, the adrenaline I'd felt in the very beginning of my discovery of dreams. I didn't want this to become my obsession like it was for my teammates. This wasn't my life. I had no desire to repeat this teary, hollow feeling in my stomach. The high of pure creation couldn't be worth this awful crash at the bottom.

But it was. And I knew I'd get used to it, too, if I tried. After a while, I would be able to shake it off and get ready for the next thrill, just like I'd managed to shake off-

Stop it, Ariadne, stop it! I couldn't let myself think about it. Professionalism was everything in this business. How else was I going to retain my sanity after wading in to so many minds? Dom had been a special case in every way. If I hadn't stepped out of professional boundaries and taken the matter into my own hands, he wouldn't have come home. And I hadn't been the only one to overstep my bounds...

With a sigh, I gave in and let myself think about it. Misery would be my company until a new job came, anyway. Why not let it have its way with me? I remembered every moment of the levels and I reconstructed the scenes in my mind. Would I dream of this tonight? I didn't see any way to avoid it. I lingered especially on my favorite level, the hotel. It was such a symmetrical building, one I had designed over and over before I had been happy with the final product. I had enjoyed the calm before the storm in that level, the patrol I'd shared with Arthur.

That had been the best moment of the whole escapade, hands down. In the eye of our self-inflicted storm, we had found some serenity together. It made me happy just thinking about it, and I blushed behind my hair. Out of all my colleagues, Arthur had been the one I would have trusted implicitly, with my life. I didn't know why: what made him so much more reliable than Dom? Well, all right, that was an easy question, but I didn't think that, had he been given any other choice, Dom would have misused us the way he had. It was unfair to place him on a lower level (no pun intended) of my esteem than Arthur.

But, there it was.

The smell of sticky buns assaulted my nose, and I wrinkled it, repulsed. How could anyone eat one of those sugar-infested things before or after flying? Un-salted peanuts with coke pushed my limit of intestinal endurance. I was about to line up for the customs luggage search, keeping my nose pointed away from the sticky bun kiosk, when I saw him.

And he was right next to me!

Arthur didn't show that he knew me from Eve as we walked silently to customs, side by side. His Halliburton case containing the machine of dreams was nowhere in sight. I wondered if he had hidden it in one of the giant planters all around us. My mouth lifted into a tiny smile. That would be so typical of him.

My face flushed a little when Arthur answered my personal smile with a matching one of his own. We both looked like we were enjoying some internal joke, and for a second I entertained the thought that we could read each other's minds. After what we'd been through together, that wouldn't surprise me in the least. Why would it, if the world we had manipulated and conquered in our heads really existed?

The Korean couple ahead of us moved up further in line, and Arthur reached over and slipped something into my free hand. I started, but as I looked up at him he broke away from customs and headed back the way he'd come. My heart lurched in my chest; it was like breaking the connection all over again to watch him leave. My desolate feelings had been soothed at the sight of his calm, easy smile, and now he was gone. I almost wished he hadn't bothered to see me one more time. But then I came to my senses and sighed in gratitude. He hadn't spoken one word to me, but Arthur had just given me the most warm send-off of anyone from our team.

Sweat beaded up on the inside of my palm from whatever he had left there. I peeled the scrap of paper off my skin, eager for this last correlation between my real life and the one to which I had just been christened Aridane the Architect. For the pause of a breath, I stared in perplexity at the words scrawled there in his handwriting. A breath later, I crumpled the note into my deepest pocket and shuffled forward in customs with renewed energy.

The note said:

Robie House, Chicago?

I had a flight that left from Chicago in two days. My final link had just turned into a steel support cable.

I hung back for a minute at the end of a group of tourists, putting on an appropriately engrossed face while the tour guide expounded on the house before us. It really was a work of architectural genius, with its horizontal motifs. A prime example of his prairie house style. Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the giants of the field. I mean, he began experimenting with the very modern ideas of symmetry and simplicity before they were anywhere near popular. I was a little ashamed that I couldn't concentrate on the eaves of Robie House when I knew who was waiting for me just inside its shadow.

Arthur seemed to be made for Frank Lloyd Wright art; his suave demeanor combined with his schoolboy posture complimented the understated beauty of the house. As he stood admiring the cream-and-glass structure, I took a moment to memorize this scene. The tall outline of the house, its rectangular edges nestled amid the trees. The hints of mist left over from the cold rain that had just stopped. And the figure of my first friend in the world of dreams, the grey of his shirt blending into the mist but the darkness of his hair and dress pants standing out. The picture was an artistic one.

I would attempt to recreate this scene later, in my mind or with my hands. I needed inspiration from somewhere, after all.

Having had my fill, I broke off from the tourists and made a direct route to my contact. I had pondered how to approach him, to make it look like we had never been colleagues, and this was the only way I could figure out. "Hi!" I said, in that distantly enthusiastic tone former girlfriends often used. Then I held out my arms and stepped forward, my smile the right shade of pleasant. "How are you?"

Arthur picked up on my game with alacrity. "Hi, yourself," he said, laughing in a very convincingly surprised voice and returning my hug with a gentle one of his own. "I'm fine. How are you?"

"Just great." I pulled back but took his arm, and together we walked into the house. I waited until the group of tourists brushed past us before I asked the question I'd been dying to pose, still in a politely interested tone. "So, what are you doing in Chicago?"

"Oh, you know," Arthur smiled at me, and I felt myself color a faint pink, "business."

"Really?" It was more difficult to keep the avid curiosity out of my voice.

Nodding, Arthur stared out at the lush but simplistic room. "I just got the call in L.A."

Wow. He had agreed to another job not an hour after the last one was finished? I couldn't fault Arthur's work ethic, but I didn't know how he could do it. Hadn't the stress from his vital role in the Fischer Fiasco left him drained? "You're a busy man," I remarked mildly, stooping to feel the carpet on the floor of the room. "Do you think this is cotton or polyester?" Arthur laughed. "What?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it."

"So, Arthur..." I bit my lip. Did I really want to know? In the end I decided that I did. "Why did you bring me here?" I asked, keeping my voice low so that no one else could hear us.

Arthur's response was a long time in coming; he looked up at the tall ceiling above us and the dark wood surrounding us. He took my arm and led us into the next room, separated from the tourists. Out of sight from the bunch of senior citizens, we settled ourselves comfortably on the floor, our legs crossed and our faces close. I tried not to stare too avidly into his deep, dark eyes.

Arthur spoke. "Are you ever coming back to it, Ariadne?"

I blinked, scrambling for an answer that wasn't too cavalier. "To extraction?" was my brilliant response.

"No, to herione."

I gasped, then gigled. "Do you always use sarcasm at these inopportune moments?"

"I would call that more deadpanning than sarcasm," said Arthur lightly, but his expression was serious. "But, really. Are you ever coming back to it?"

Sighing, I took my turn studying the architecture of the room. "I...I don't know. Two days ago, after I saw what going in too deeply can do to your subconscious, I told myself, 'no more.'"

"But?" Arthur leaned forward, so focused on my words that I blushed again. The pink wouldn't drain out of my cheeks for days, most likely.

"But," I continued, "um, how...how is it possible for me not to come back? I will never, in the real world, ever create so freely like I did in that dream. It was just indescribable...some kind of high..." I gestured vaguely to the beauty of the glass windows behind me.

Arthur smiled, the smile that originated from his eyes downwards. "It is a high. It's just like a high."

I tore my eyes from his to give myself a breather from the entrapment of his gaze.

Eames had been under the misguided impression that Arthur was the boring member of our team. Because Arthur didn't leave things to chance, he didn't count on Cobb to tell him where to go and what to do-he already knew where everyone should be and what everyone should be doing. Eames equated order with the mundane and control with the untalented.

I knew better. In Arthur's case, control was his creativity, and order was his canvas. Inside the parameter of caution, he worked wonders of his own, similar to the ones I made with my fantastic dreamscapes. His was simply a more subtle art form, and unfortunately for him, his medium was often ridiculed. How defeating, I thought, to be the artist that no one appluads. I'd gotten so much praise for my mazes I could feel my head increase in diameter. And what did Arthur get? He got the label: unimaginative, flat, unsuitable for the job.

"You brought me here to offer me another job, didn't you?" I said. I had just been hit with lightning. It made sense now.

"If you want it," Arthur said. As I opened my mouth for an emphatic 'yes,' he interrupted me. "Think about it, Ariadne."

Closing my mouth, I frowned at him. "I thought you wanted me on the new team."

Arthur shrugged and laid one set of fingers against his knee, putting the other set to his cheek. "I do, of course." Before I could obsessively analyze the of course, he went on. "But I also want you to think about the consequences of accepting another job so soon after your first. You should consider what will happen if you turn yourself into a professional Architect."

He wasn't giving me too much credit to use my brain on my own initiative. On the way to Chicago, I had done nothing but think about dreams and mazes and whether or not I had the strength to put myself through them again and again. Dom had said architects weren't needed in the job itself, but I wouldn't be satisfied with designing. I had to do as well. Arthur could sense this in me, I theorized, and maybe that's why he was warning me away. And hadn't I, two and a half short days before, sworn to myself not to get involved in the obsession?

"I've never been a professional architect," Arthur said, "but I've built several worlds." He took out his totem, the little red die, and rolled it between his fingers. "It's pretty insane."

I shook my head, a self-conscious chuckle escaping me. "Oh, no, it's beyond insane. It's sublime."

"Better than drugs?"

"Heroine's got nothing on endless inspiration."

"It's addicting." I looked back up, only to be sucked in by Arthur's eyes. Unconsciously, we leaned closer together. "Dreams are worse than heroine, Ariadne," Arthur whispered. "Because you have all the pros-suspension of reality, escape, exhilaration-without the cons."

"But you do lose your personal dreams," I said, my mouth just inches from his. I blinked twice to stay on track. "That's a loss."

"Yes, it is."

I closed my eyes, hoping that would level me. We were too close. He was overwhelming. "And there's the chance that you'll get lost forever in limbo, although I guess that doesn't happen often. No one would do it if it was a regular thing..."

"You'd be surprised," Arthur said. "I would."

My eyes flew open. "You would?"

"I don't have a choice anymore." Arthur was the one with his eyes closed, now, his expression tight. "I'm the product of too many dream hits. I couldn't stop if I tried."

"But why, Arthur?" I asked haltingly, although I knew the answer.

"It's addictive. Don't ever think it's easy to walk away, because it's not." He opened his eyes, too, dark irirses melding into darker pupils. "If you take this job, Ariadne, it'll make it that much harder to quit dreaming if you ever need to."

This was the pivotal point. This was the moment where I should say, "Thanks, but no thanks, Arthur, I've had enough dream heroine to last me eighty years or so. I can't take any more. I don't want to raise my tolerance. I don't want to keep coming back for more and more until there's nothing else I can do." Extraction was wrong; inception, doubly so. They violated so many moral standards, even a Muslim and a post-modernist would agree on how sinful it was. And this was my chance to reject dreams for reality, to deny my soul in favor of supporting my mental health.

The obvious answer was NO. So, naturally, my perverse human nature screamed out an unequivocal YES! It made the whole thing worse that it was Arthur-good, stable, dependable, sweetheart Arthur-holding out the proverbial apple. His schoolboy eyes made the proposition that much more tempting.

"What would it take to make you stop?" I asked. It was the first question on my mind, and it was part of my decision.

Arthur's head tilted to the side and his mouth turned down-the speculative look he wore during note-taking sessions. "A lot," he admitted laconically.

He wasn't getting off that easily. "Such as?"

My probing proved too much for him, and he went back to Frank Lloyd Wright, eschewing eye contact. "Something better than dreams." He caught my exasperated look from the corner of his eye and cut me off. "You know, a family. Love." He said it in a very straightforward tone, as if it was obvious. "It was the only thing that kept Dom here. Going on that assessment alone, it must be the most powerful antidote to the dreams."

"Ah," was all I could say. I was glad he was watching the architecture, and not me, as I floundered, my ready response gone. "Well, what if the person or persons you loved were extractors, too?"

"Then it would be up to the both us to decide what to do, whether to quit," Arthur answered, finally looking back at me. His eyes were unreadable, like they always were when he was talking to Eames or Yusuf, and sometimes even Cobb. It hurt to see the meticulous facade build itself up for me, too. I wanted to break it down permanently-with a sledgehammer, if need be.

"But it wouldn't matter, if you were both in the dream world," I said, swallowing back my dismay, "because..."

Arthur didn't say anything, but I could feel him waiting for me to continue. That was what I felt every time he was with me: he was waiting for me, waking or sleeping. He was waiting for me now, and it was so much more than an anticipation for me to speak. And yet I couldn't be sure what exactly he was waiting for.

My eyes fell closed again. I sighed. "I'll tell you a riddle. You're waiting for a train...

A train that will take you far away.

"You know where you hope this train will take you," I whispered, "but you don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter where it's going."

"How can you not know?" Arthur said, his voice low as well. "And how can it not matter?"

"Good question," I said. "How can it not matter where this train will take you?"

Here, in this moment, lay my decision. Did I finish this riddle by blowing off this most profound of questions? Or did I end it the way it had been told to me, with all strings attached? Did I dare to sever my ties with my new world forever, or did I fling myself back into the drug of dreams, arms wide?

"It doesn't matter where the train takes you," I said, "because you'll be together."

There was a silence that hung between us, and I stared at the man across from me with the truth of my decision laid bare. Arthur stared at me, too, the red die turning slowly in his fingers. Then he stood, and I followed suit, still watching him. He took my hand and faced it palm upward. Once that was accomplished, he put the red die into my open palm, closing my fingers tightly around it.

"Fair enough," Arthur said, with his private smile.