II.
A month later, Arthur gathers them again for a new mark: an Oxford literature professor suspected of carrying organized crime secrets. Yusuf sets them up for the first practice run and offers to tuck them in; Arthur comments that clearly Eames is a bad influence.
Ariadne finds herself just a few steps from her clearing; shoving through the snow-covered branches reveals Eames grinning up at her flickering lamp-post.
"Ariadne, you didn't," he says, gleeful, and raises his voice. "If anyone sees a strange woman in a sleigh, don't eat anything she gives you!"
"Narnia?" Arthur asks behind her, sounding amused; she jumps. He pushes past her and glances around. "Did you make a wardrobe?"
"Yes, actually," she admits, hiding a smile badly. She hadn't been quite sure how they'd respond. "The house has woods outside it, and they loop you back to here."
"And how far does the dream go in this level of reality?"
"To the Stone Table. You can see Cair Paravel from there, but if you try to reach it then the woods loop back either to the house or here, depending on which way you go around a certain boulder. I'll show you."
"We ought to poke around here for a bit first," Eames says, still glancing around in transparent delight. "I'm going to very disappointed in my subconscious if there isn't a faun in a scarf wandering about somewhere, and we ought to try dreaming up a few uniquely Narnian things. The gifts, perhaps, since this seems to be that era."
"I'm not sure I want to know what Susan's horn would do," Arthur comments, running a finger along the bark of a nearby pine. "Although it would be informative, I've no doubt."
"I was thinking of the cordial, anyway," Eames says.
"Really?" Ariadne frowns. "I hadn't thought it would be the most useful thing."
"Don't be ridiculous, there are all kinds of uses for a cure-all. Besides, the youngest child's gift is always the most powerful. Haven't you read your fairy tales?" Eames laughs.
"What's with the giddy child act, Mr. Eames?" Ariadne asks, doing her best to imitate Arthur's look of disapproval.
"Well, it's Narnia. You've just plunged me into the essential embodiment of my childhood, Ariadne, you must expect some repercussions."
"I suppose it makes sense," Arthur remarks, now turning a lump of snow over and over in his hands as if he isn't sure it's real. "Isn't C.S. Lewis the one with that quote about how putting away childish things includes the fear of being thought childish?" And then the snowball flies out of his hand and smacks Eames on the shoulder. Ariadne gapes.
"Dear God, Arthur!" Eames almost doubles over laughing. "Just when I was almost convinced you couldn't have fun." Arthur shrugs, backing up.
"A good point man knows when to let his teammates blow off some steam," he replies, unperturbed. "We may as well get it out of our systems now." Ariadne doesn't realize why he has one hand behind his back until he lets go of the tree branch and a glob of snow catapults into her chest. She shrieks and crouches to pack a missile of her own.
The resultant fight sends them zigzagging all over the woods, filling them with laughter; they don't run into that many projections and the few they do find are surprisingly peaceful. Eventually they lose track of each other, and Ariadne makes her way back to the clearing, shivering, to find Arthur already there. He holds up his hands in surrender, and she's willing to grant peace.
"I have to admit, I didn't expect this of you," she says. "Starting a snowball fight, I mean."
He fidgets a bit, to her amusement. "Well, we all have to relax once in a while. Normally I wouldn't do it on the job, but we weren't going to get Eames to do anything useful for a while anyway, and we did learn our way around the woods for a bit." The half-smile makes her suspect that's only a justification, but she bites her lip anyway. It hadn't been her plan to render today useless.
"I didn't realize he'd like it so much," she admits.
"Oh, he's always loved Narnia, as long as I've known him." Arthur is playing with a pine branch again, she notices, although now he's just fiddling. He doesn't look nearly as professional (or as old) with his hair all mussed and his fine wool sweater dusted with half-melted snow.
"You seem pretty fond of it too."
"Well, yes." Suddenly he smiles, although not at her. "You know, I haven't seen fresh snow since I was a teenager."
"Why not?" she asks, stepping closer to lean against a sleeping oak.
"I grew up in a tiny excuse for a town in Vermont. I enlisted right out of high school, youthful fervor, and I've been a city boy ever since."
"And you didn't go home, even for a visit? Or, I don't know, holidays?" she asks, frowning.
"Well –" He grimaces. "They don't know – I mean, they think I'm dead. MIA, rather. I didn't exactly leave the military honorably."
"And you didn't tell them what happened to you?" She can't quite stop herself from sounding scandalized. He sighs.
"My mother would probably rather have a dead son than a deserter. She'd never say so, of course, but she believes in honor, in sticking to things. And she'd feel she ought to disown me over all of this." He waves his hand, vaguely encompassing the woods, the dreamscape, their profession. "I may as well spare her the more complicated anguish. Besides, it keeps her and my sisters safe if nobody knows we're connected."
"Sisters?"
"Two. Younger than me. Kathy is in the Air Force, Suzanne just graduated from MIT. They're smart kids." He studies the snow, and for a moment he looks bizarrely like Eames; she can't figure out how, and then she remembers the forger leaning against a doorframe and saying he's a better uncle than a father.
She hasn't told her parents the whole truth about her life since Cobb asked her to draw a labyrinth, but she called them just last night. She has no idea what it would be like to go months, years, without even saying hello.
"A lot of you guys have families I don't know about, it seems like," she says, for lack of anything else. Arthur shrugs, looking up at her, and straightens his tie.
"Well, yes. We usually try to keep our families as separate from this as possible. Our personal lives as well, those of us who have them outside the profession."
"I didn't realize everyone involved was so – focused."
"Most people socialize, but generally with other dreamers or people who work in similar circles. It's safer."
"I see."
"It's possible to spend time with people who aren't criminals, Ariadne," he says, combing his fingers through his hair. "It's just trickier, unless you're willing to get them involved. And most don't appreciate being dragged into high-level crime." He smiles sideways, almost teasing. "Not everyone's as crazy as us."
"I've noticed," she says, smiling back. "I just didn't really think about the, you know, the ramifications before." The nonchalance winds down halfway through the sentence, leaving her perilously close to the tone she uses right before erasing large sections of a schematic.
"You can still leave, you know," Arthur offers quietly. "Teach us this map and then we'll be out of your life. Just say the word."
"What?" She shakes her head, clutching for her totem, less for a check on reality than because it's become a habit in moments of discomfort. "I'm not giving this up, no way."
"Well, then. It's a pleasure to have you." He smiles slightly, then looks away. "But you should realize – that option isn't open indefinitely. We've been keeping you as quiet as possible, but you're going to get a reputation eventually. And the rumors about the Fischer job are intensifying, and everyone knows that Dom can't build."
She swallows. "So… I'd better do something about my family, then." It's possible, clearly.
"Eames and I can help you make your original life look like an alias," he offers gently. "And come up with a story for them. If that's what you want."
I can do it myself, she wants to say, but she knows that's ridiculous. "I'd appreciate that."