Just a little idea that popped into my head.
She was sitting facing the back of the bus. It was kind of a funny experience. She was used to sitting in the passenger seat, watching the world passing by, or seating in the driver's and seat and moving forward, leaving things behind. Watching out of the back was like looking at the world being created. Instead of seeing an overhanging tree in the distance grow from something the size of her hand to the great towering beauty that it was, she would first see the delicate edges of the leaves from the corner of her eye and the slender branch that it was hanging from would slide into view, the long trunk and the of the overhang of the tree would follow fairly rapidly. The rest of the street, the buildings, lamp posts and benches lining the side of the road, slid into view in the same fashion.
Ariadne leaned back into the seat and closed her eyes. If she wanted, she could pretend that she was sitting in a bus driving into blank landscape and she was the one that was creating the street that was appearing in front of her. A tree would go on this side of the road, a young couple holding hands underneath it. Across the worn down concrete would be an old building with a lamppost and bench gracing its doorstep. Her imagining of creating things was a pathetic twist off of what creating her own world in a dream really was. The similarities were so few that the key thing that they had in common was their differences. But for a moment she could feel the same exhilaration, the same power that existed only in her mind.
The familiar mild clean smell of soap brushing past her nose caused her to open her eyes. Sitting in front of her, framed by the world coming into view behind in was Arthur. Perhaps in her desperation to pretend that she was playing a pallid version of her role of an architect, she had imagined him into existence. The pristine appearance of a crisp three-piece clean suit, the gelled back hair and clean shaved face, Arthur looked exactly the same as the last time she had him. That would have the last time she had seen any of their former team, walking out of the airport pretending that they were complete strangers. It had been three months, and every day since then she had wished she could turn back time to return to where she was the creator of the impossible.
From the small smile starting to form from the ends of his mouth, she had a sinking suspicion that he was indeed real. Arthur was actually sitting across from her leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and she had just been staring at him. For months she had thought she had seen the familiar silhouette of a tall dark haired man turning a corner, or leaning in the shadows against the edge of a building as she hurried by, late for class. She had passed them off of as a side effect of her attraction for the man stemming from hours working side by side and a chaste kiss shared in a dream. Now he was sitting in front of her framed by the dirtied and fraying fabric of bus seats and a moving scenery looming behind.
"Ariadne," He inclined his head towards her in a polite greeting "How have you been?"
"Great." The short answered lie came tumbling out of her mouth. She had been feeling anything but. Finishing school had been a slow torture. Now restricted by the rules of reality all of her projects seemed like works of constraint. Now that the possibility of what she actually could be building was known to her, everything else seemed so much less. She had gone back to the workshop once, in the futile hope that someone would be there. Even though she had known it was a hope against hope, her disappointment at finding nothing but an empty room, no evidence of their many hours of preparation still left a bitter taste in her mouth. But at the word 'great' something that she suspected was relief entered Arthur's eyes and his face relaxed slightly. She was touched; he had been worried about her.
"How have you been?" She asked, the expected response to a common question. The normal pattern of courtesy seemed strangely out of place, this whole meeting was starting to turn her world on an edge and inside was a fierce hope that this was more than a casual inquiry into her life.
"I've been doing alright." He answered, "Haven't been on a job since Fischer. But I've been around in a few places looking into the state of things. Cobb's gone back to his kids and seems to be out of the picture for now. It's changed the dynamics of the extractor hierarchy. He really was the best."
"How is Cobb doing?" Ariadne wanted to know. She had seen his dreams in which he constantly reminded himself of what he had once had. Being able to go home to kids was the one desperate dream that had potential of becoming a reality, though it would have been a bitter sweet experience without Mal by his side.
"He should be doing alright." Arthur answered "I don't really know. I heard from him two weeks after he returned home, in a quickly penned letter tell me that he was home and out of the extraction business."
"Do you really think that he's done?" The dark hair architect couldn't imagine Cobb completely out of the business.
"I don't think so. Once you've started to really dream, it's hard to leave." Arthur looked at her, dark eyes straight into hers. "You should know. What did you say when you came back?"
"It's pure creation." Ariadne smiled. "Arthur, why are you here?"
"People are scrambling to fill the void that Cobb left. The opportunity to be the best extractor in the business is one that people are fighting over each other to prove. Saito has been in contact with me. He has a friend who has a very difficult job that has the potential to place the team that completes it successfully, in the top. Cobb may be gone, but I know what I'm doing and would like for you to help me." The dark eyed gaze directed towards her was intense.
Ariadne stared back. "You have a very straight forward way of doing things Arthur. Not so much as a good bye and then three months later, you come to rope me into a life of crime." Her voice was laced with amusement and the slightest hint of bitterness. She didn't expect to see him after leaving the airport. There wasn't supposed to be any sort of contact between any of them. But she still held out the small hope that Arthur would have caught her wrist as she was leaving the arrivals area, just to check up on her.
"I looked into you a couple times." Arthur responded. "You seemed to be doing alright, finishing school, doing well in your courses. You always had a smile on."
Ariadne's eyes grew a fraction wider in astonishment. Those times that she had thought he had been a figment of her imagination, a play of light; he had actually been looking out for her.
"I wanted to be sure that I had a job before I contacted you again to... Well as you would probably put it 'to recruit you as my partner in crime'." Arthur spoke with a crooked smile gracing his face.
"What are you going to do without Cobb as your extractor?" She asked.
"I've been partners with Cobb long enough. I may not be as good as him, but I would still stay that I'm amongst the top of rest out there."
"It seems that mild arrogance suits you." Ariadne teased. "When and where do we start?"
Arthur leaned forward and handed her a white piece of paper crisply folded into quarters as the familiar ding of a stop request sounded in the background. "Everything that you need to know is in there." He leaned in closer, the open flaps of his blazer swaying slightly as they were pulled down by gravity. "Thank you."
As the bus rolled to a slow stop he stood up and started to move forward. Ariadne could see a slight hesitation in his face as he passed her. It disappearance when he bent over, mouth brushing next to her ear. "I've missed you." And with that Arthur stepped off the bus.
Ariadne unfolded the sheet of paper and smiled. Written on it was the address to her house, and the time was for in half an hour, about when she would be getting home. How Arthur had an idea of any of this was beyond her, but details were his thing. She looked out the window of the back of bus and watched the landscape slide into view as her smile grew broader. Creating things was hers.