Summary: Ariadne is dead and Arthur falls into Eames's arms.
A/A and Arthur/Eames depending on how you decipher it.
***I would love a review***
The funeral was unexpected.
Arthur drove Cobb to the church. November dawned upon them and the air inside the vehicle was just as piercing cold. Cobb sat in the front seat and his children occupied the back. They were solemn.
"Where is aunt Ariadne?" Asked James, who was now six years old. The end of his sentence fell to a low enunciation. He looked at his twelve year old sister Phillipa.
"I already told you, she's not here anymore." Cobb sighed plaintively.
"That's what you said about mom." Phillipa looked at her hands. Cobb remained silent.
"She's not coming back, is she?" James asked further. He didn't understand.
"No. And mother isn't either." Phillipa tucked a strand of hair behind James's ears.
"Seems like everyone's just been leaving." Arthur murmured out the window. His breath tainted the clear glass, and he closed his eyes as the traffic lights flew and the street lamps waltzed. He gripped the car wheel, his hands numb and freezing cold.
"Sometimes I wish I hadn't started all this..." Cobb muttered.
"It wasn't your fault." Arthur constrained his voice, but the emotions were taking their toll and demanding to surface. He swallowed.
"…All this shit about dreams, all this illegal shit." Cobb clenched his frigid fists.
The point man eyed him.
"You know what, Arthur? Why don't we just quit it? It's time the team disbanded. You can't stay here with me." Cobb's voice raised a pitch higher.
Arthur exhaled. Little swirls of white heat swam in his vision. "You know as well as I do that's not an appropriate resolution."
Cobb swallowed his anger, his misery, heartache.
"When it's time, Dom, when it's time."
The church where the funeral was hosted was an old building. Hundreds of weddings and funerals had taken place there. Out of the one hundred marriages, maybe only fifteen had survived. Out of all the funerals, only one was the most sorrowful. Ariadne's.
Arthur stood in the second row of the church holding James's hand. Arthur's head, hair neatly slicked back, was bowed down dejectedly. The sound of sobbing resonated through his strained conscious, the choir sang sonatas and holy melodies that made everything all the more heartbreaking to withstand.
He did not cry. Inside of him was bubbling and building up into an explosion, but for now he kept it all in. A small tear slid out of his control and fell on his leather shoes.
A woman in a black sweater was talking on the platform. Something about the funny things Ariadne used to say. It just brought more tears. More forced smiles. Arthur ached. His throat burned, and his restrained heart thumped sadly against his chest. He trembled. Fists clenched, unclenched. Cobb walked up too, offering good praise of Ariadne in the warehouse and during work. Arthur was beckoned up to speak. His legs seemed to move mechanically while his mind stayed dormant. He depended absolutely on instinct while his legs moved him up to the platform. His voice was steady, calm, and guarded. It was all the aid his mind could offer him.
"Ariadne was the most talented architect I had ever come across." He uttered every word slowly; letting it all sink in, sink in the century old bricks in the walls, lasting forever. Let it sink in the blurry faces of the people. And most of all, making it sink into himself. "Her architecture will last forever."
The memorial service ended briskly and the food offered was meager. Arthur could not find Cobb. All the comments the people made about Ariadne, her loved ones, all those words sunk deep into him and hibernated in a corner of his mind. He felt a false sense of security. He feigned a farewell and walked hurriedly out the door, to the edge of the roof where placid raindrops collected themselves and emerged one by one down the ceiling. He felt the rain, surprisingly warm, against his frozen face. He staggered down the stairs, gasping for breath. He reeled forward; rain poured angrily at his feet. He stumbled to a confused stop, as a car screeched and veered away from him, the puddles splashing on his grey Armani pants. He ignored it and kept walking, even when the driver wounded down the window and demanded dejecting words towards him. They all came out as meaningless whispers, and Arthur walked away, tripping over a step and dropping himself on an old park bench, the same one where he and Ariadne had sat and sketched skyscrapers for the vacant view from the park opening. The anger rose, and like salty waves they engulfed him, the burning in his throat became an existent desperate longing, and a dormant desolation in the corner of his mind emerged and took him under. He shook, and he cried with the pounding rain. He leaned forward, feeling nausea ascend inside of him and he put his trembling hands to his mouth and lurched. Anger…and disbelief which ceased to acceptance, to sadness, and now, numbness. He continued sitting there, alone, counting silently how many raindrops descended from his wet hair and fell in his cold palms. How many raindrops…until it all suddenly stopped.
When Arthur finally looked up above him he saw a dark figure. A black umbrella was looming over him, and the raindrops continued to drip over the edge of the rain shade.
"Oh, Arthur." Eames said under his jagged, warm breath. It smelled of fresh mint over a shade of tainted alcohol and cigarettes and old Sundays spent working at the warehouse. He crouched beside Arthur on the rain stricken bench, remaining silent. The rain was ceasing to a slow rhythmic dribble, the clouds cleared and a stream of sunlight shot through the center of the sky.
Arthur did not bother wiping away his face. He stayed quiescent. "I'm a mess, Eames, I'm a mess." He gasped for breath.
"Arthur." Eames repeated again, putting his warm arms around him. Arthur did not fight it; he hung on and he sobbed into Eames's broad shoulders, his breath becoming jagged and torn, his eyes stinging of fresh tears mixed with the November rain. He was limp and helpless and Eames was the only thing for him to hang on to, and so he did, clinging on to Eames's deep voice. His heart opened like a butterfly fluttering its wings and opened up to the sunlight of Eames's words: "It's only in the space of waking dreams that we truly feel okay."
Arthur felt warmed in Eames's protective embrace and felt a little less hallow with the new sun basking his face. A rainbow materialized and displayed itself gracefully across the icy blue sky.