Finally finished the third chapter, after some difficulty, and I must say it's a weird, convoluted mess. But I rather like it. I hope you will like it as well:)

I'm trying to flesh out the characters and the relationship between them, how one makes the other feel. I hope I get that across.

The sentences in French are translated in the brackets. French is not my mother tongue so please French readers don't bite if there are any annoying mistakes, I tried my best :)

Thanks to all the reviewers and readers and to Sophia for her nice review:)

Please let me know what you think! Reviews make me happier than chocolate, which is saying something :P

Everyone in the classroom was looking at her expectantly. She could only hear the sound of the tram outside. There was an eerie silence in the room. So nothing but the usual small sounds, like someone dropping a pencil, a girl coughing in the first row and her professor cleaning the panes of her glasses.

'Ariadne, tu peux continuer,' the professor told her, shrugging her shoulders. (Ariadne, you may continue)

She was standing in front of them, presenting the basis of her thesis.

'Alors,' she said, cleaning her throat, 'cette partie est dessinée au-dessus, donc l'ongle est un peu renforcé.' (So then, this part is drawn from above, so the angle is a bit reinforced)

The girl in the front row coughed again.

'La plupart de fenêtres rondes est montée vers l'ouest, et les autres, plus petites, vers le nord, en créant un espace de lumière plus focalisé dans ces chambres, tandis que les verres, qui sont en effet les murs, permettent le movement de la lumière partout.' (Most of the round windows are placed on the western side, but the other, smaller ones, are placed on the northern side, creating a space of light more strongly felt in those chambers, whereas the walls, which are actually made of glass, allow the light to reach every corner)

The professor nodded, encouraging her to continue. She seemed slightly intrigued by her choice of design.

'Tu t'es un peu inspirée de Ribart, n'est ce pas? Un choix obscure. Je vois le ventre de l'éléphant. Pas si clair mais tu en as conçu une version moderne et tu as aussi utilisé le mobilier qui se plie dans le plancher. Très interessant.'

(You drew inspiration from Ribart, didn't you? An obscure choice. I see the elephant's stomach. Not very clearly, albeit. But you did create a modern version of it and you've also used the furniture, which folds into the floor. Very interesting)

Ariadne let a tiny smile appear on her lips she felt relief Madam Lapaditte was not easy to please.

Maybe everything would go alright for once and she might actually get a grade higher than 7 at this course. Miracles happened every day. Maybe today was the lucky day.

The silence was broken.

A ringtone suddenly burst into her ears.

The students gaped at her in shock. They checked their bags in fear. Simultaneously, they let out a breath of relief. It wasn't theirs. The professor looked around the class outraged

If there was one thing she could not stand it was cell phones and their ringing. Everyone knew that.

'Qui a osé?' she snapped. (Who has dared?)

Ariadne put a palm over her face in agony. It was hers. She had left it open in case she received a call from the team. She had forgotten for once to shut it.

'Madame professeur, je suis très désolée. C'est le mien. Je l'ai laissé ouvert', she whispered ashamed. (Madam, I am very sorry, it's mine, I didn't shut it off)

'Pourrais je demander purquoi?' (Might I ask why?)

'Ah, je devais recevoir un coup de fil regardant un travail,' she mumbled. (Oh, I was supposed to receive a phone call regarding a job)

That took everyone by surprise. A general wave of whispers was heard around the class. People were giving each other curious looks.

Ariadne Miller had got a job offer. She wasn't the most outstanding student of the year, that was for sure.

Craziest? Yes. Most brilliant? Not by far.

Many people knew her. Not by name, but by reputation.

There were some who called her schizo. Others just thought she was obsessive.

She was the girl that had come to Architecture because she liked aesthetics.

She was the girl that had no idea what to do with Architecture, per se. She was the one that treated it like an abstract, immaterial notion.

She was the one that always tried the boldest and most dangerous ideas. But it could have also been said she was the one that always tried the stupidest ones.

She sacrificed physical laws for the sake of creativity. She came up with (very) silly projects, tastefully designed and laid out, but that didn't add up to much in the real world.

Many would have called that being bohemian. But she sometimes went overboard. Much overboard.

Who had trusted her enough to hand her a job?

Probably someone as crazy as she was.

Needless to say, to her colleagues, she was the harmless idiot.

To the faculty staff she was Scarf Girl.

Scarf Girl was a hardworking student, but inevitably, a dreamer. A dreamer fed by illusions.

To Miles, Scarf Girl was special. Just because she always dreamed her architecture.

Scarf Girl never drank, never smoked, never wore dark eyeliner, and always attempted to fit in with her classmates by going out with them on any available occasion.

Scarf Girl followed them in cafes and bars, trying to make conversation, trying to be cheerful and casual. She joined them, even if she didn't like it all the time, strongly believing that if she couldn't relate to other people, that was her problem, not theirs.

Scarf Girl didn't know any better.

But right now, Scarf Girl was in trouble.

'I'd better go shut that off,' she mumbled in English, running off to her seat.

When she turned around, she saw the professor marking something on her canvass, her back turned to them. When she walked away, Ariadne saw the red grade. It was a seven.

Of course. Could it be anything else?

The class ended shortly afterwards. Usually by now Ariadne would have joined the after-discussions. And for once, people were more than eager to talk to her about it. Everyone was dying to know what that so-called job offer of hers entailed.

But she didn't have time for that right now.

She called back the foreign number that had caused her so many problems during the class.

'Hello?'

'Ariadne. It's Arthur.'

Not like he had needed to say that. She instantly recognized his voice.

'Be in front of the college in twenty minutes. I'll pick you up.'

Ariadne frowned, checking her schedule from her purse.

'I already know you don't have any more classes,' Arthur added.

Ariadne dropped her schedule in surprise.

Of course he knew. It was his job to know.

'Oh, right, yeah, I didn't… well, I guess I'll meet you in front,' she babbled.

'Good then. See you there.'

She shut her phone and put it in her purse again. She didn't know why she always had such a nervous reaction to Arthur.

With all his problems and obsessions, she felt more comfortable around Cobb, because he, at least, showed he had weaknesses. He seemed more human, more flawed. He didn't intimidate her with his perfectly unaffected attitude.

But Arthur did exactly that, reminding her she was a clumsy school girl with absolutely no experience, in any field whatsoever.

Also, the fact that she of all people was involved in something so extraordinary, so out of place, so…illegal, was mind blowing.

Half the time she had a hard time concealing her enthusiasm.

She walked around the college dorm singing to herself. She spent all and I mean all of her free time drawing only mazes, one more elaborate than the other and in the morning, after waking up, she would jot down what she thought she had dreamt the night before.

She even wanted to run around school yelling 'I am doing something amazing, something that very few know about!'

Of course, she never even ran.

And she never told anyone and never would.

Ariadne waited in front of the college patiently until a black Mustang veered around the corner and she saw Arthur in it. He was wearing a black shirt and a grey tie as usual. His expression was that of a busy man.

She quickly got in the passenger's seat.

Arthur was already driving away when she put on her seatbelt.

'Hi,' she said, smiling at him.

'Hey,' he replied.

He saw that he was carrying several portfolios with her and she was barely struggling to keep them all in her lap.

'Why don't you put those in the back seat?'

She smiled again, gratefully, and proceeded to dump them in the back, straining her neck in order to do so, because she had already put her seatbelt on.

Arthur watched her amused as she fidgeted and squirmed under the seatbelt.

'Do you want me to drop you off at your dorm to put those away?' he asked.

'Oh, no, those are the mazes I've been working on. Remember? Just like you said.'

'Hm, yes I did say that. How many are there?'

'About twenty five or so. I'll show them to you when we arrive at the warehouse,' she said looking out the window. It was good that she wasn't looking directly at him, because she would have noticed something similar to surprise cross his face.

'Twenty five? It's been…three days,' he remarked.

'Well, I had some free time on my hands,' she replied, arranging her scarf.

'And I sometimes get the feeling I'm drawing in my sleep too. Which now would actually be a possibility,' she chuckled, alluding to the dream world.

He stopped at a red light. He took the time to eye her carefully.

Was this girl really as stable as she seemed? But what was he saying, she didn't seem stable at all.

'Yes, that is a possibility,' he said, agreeing to her previous statement.

'Cloudy sky today. It might rain,' she observed. 'Not very windy so it might be a small shower.'

He nodded his head, not sure of what to reply. She seemed to be fishing for words.

Ariadne always had the bad habit of starting a conversation with anyone, no matter the time and place.

She noticed the radio was on. She hadn't noticed it at first, with all the commotion and traffic.

It was playing a song she had heard before. She wondered where she had heard it before. She tapped her finger on her leg to the song, thinking of possible names.

Immersed in trying to remember, she didn't notice that she was playing with her scarf rather oddly. She was pulling at it, as if she was hot.

Arthur noticed her finger tapping and her scarf playing but chose not to say anything about it. He also noticed she was constantly moving, in one way or another.

She was like a mirror of awkward teenagehood.

After a while, she gave up on trying to remember the song, but recalled another pressing matter in her head.

'Oh, I wanted to ask you, is Cobb alright? Has he returned from Mombasa? I hope nothing bad happened to him.'

'He hasn't returned yet, but he is alright, I've called him and checked,' he said, trying to abate her concerns.

But she wasn't finished.

'Oh, that's good. Great actually. Has he found the forger?'

'Yep. They will both be here in about two days.'

'That's good news. Can I ask, unless of course it's private, why Cobb was in danger in Mombasa?'

'Yes,' he replied. 'It's private.'

Ariadne's shoulders sagged.

'Oh…you can't tell me?'

'I don't need to tell you. It's none of your concern. It would only distract you from your job. And it's in the past anyway.'

'It involves one of the members of the team. Shouldn't I show some concern when I find out he is in trouble? Should I just not care?'

Arthur sighed, realizing he had been a bit too harsh. He had been used to treating Nash this way.

He couldn't do the same with a (how old was she again? oh yeah) twenty-two year old female.

'Okay, look, our last job didn't go as well as planned and our employers weren't pleased with the results. Safe to say, they're trying to get back at us. We aren't going to allow that.'

He saw the look of fear that crossed Ariadne's face.

'Before you panic, let me assure you we have it under control and no one is going to come and threaten you.'

Ariadne quickly dismissed the idea with her hand.

'Oh, I wasn't panicking, I am simply concerned,' she said. 'I don't really know what I'm getting myself into, I guess.'

'You of all people shouldn't worry about your safety. They know nothing about you. And you're only the Architect. Which means you're here to design and nothing else.'

She nodded.

'I'll make sure you're safe, anyway,' he added, trying to reiterate his point.

Once again, he felt very much like the Point Man around her.

It was a reassuring feeling, although he was supposed to reassure her.

'Thank you,' she replied. 'I promise I won't be too much of a burden.'

They stopped at another red light. He sneaked another glance at her, slightly puzzled at her last statement.

She started fidgeting with her scarf yet again. He almost wished he could snatch that damn thing away from her so she could stop doing that.

It was slightly annoying.

Also, she kept looking back at her portfolios that were lying in the back seat. Almost as if she was afraid they would disappear.

Odd, he thought. I didn't think she had such a low self-esteem. A bit self-deprecating too.

In the dream world she didn't seem insecure. Not like this anyway.

He chuckled internally.

She's almost too much of a teenager.

He had to admit he didn't know a whole lot about her, except for what his job implied he should know. There was also the fact that Miles had singled her out from the swarm of students. He wondered what the criteria for the selection had been.

What he did know for a fact, however, was that the more she fidgeted and squirmed, the more she acted awkwardly around him, the more she tried making small talk to diffuse her own self-consciousness, the more she proved to be what he thought she was and the more he felt more comfortable. Even though he was tense and careful all the time, around her he didn't feel he had to prove anything. Around her, he didn't have to be self-conscious, because she was self-conscious enough for the both of them.

She wasn't comfortable around him.

She didn't seem to feel comfortable full stop.

That seemed to be her natural habitat; always feeling on the edge. Acting like a neurotic workaholic 24/7.

She had no other way of expressing herself, outside of drawing.

Not that he expected her to be comfortable around him. Or wanted to.

He liked it that she was on her guard. And ready to burst out any minute.

Once again it made him feel strong.

'So…how was school?' he asked after a momentary silence. Maybe he could judge her better after hearing her talk about her personal life.

Ariadne blinked surprised. She hadn't expected that question. It wasn't the type of thing she thought Arthur would ask. But then again, maybe she didn't know him that well.

'It was alright I guess. Same as always,' she answered, wondering briefly if this was some sort of trick.

'Same as always? Hard to believe,' he muttered.

'Actually, it isn't. All those rumours you hear about French schools are false.'

He chuckled. She had made a joke. That was a start. Maybe she was getting comfortable.

'Lucky I have you to show me the real face of L'école Française.'

She grinned, biting the inside of her cheek. She liked this side of him, whichever it was.

'So tell me more. I'm curious,' he added, although he didn't sound curious.

'Well, some of the teachers, like Miles whom you know, are amazing. But some are frustrating. It's not about what they demand. It's about their standards. You always have to comply with their standards. It doesn't matter whether your work is actually good. They judge you by a whole different set of principles. They give you a beautiful idea, but then they expect you to make it boring.'

'They expect you to make it boring? Why would they encourage that? Maybe they just expect you to make it feasible,' he replied.

'It can still be feasible,' she protested.

Arthur shrugged his shoulders as if to say he couldn't know for sure.

'You don't have to rob it of all its beauty in order to achieve some standards,' she added.

'No one said you should. You just shouldn't always think beautiful equals good,' he countered.

'I know, of course... I just have a way of thinking that physics should obey me and not the other way around. That I should be the one in control. That the structure should depend on my view and no one else's.'

'You can do that in the dream world.'

'I know and I am thrilled about it. I just wish I could apply it in the real world.'

'That's a bit childish now, isn't it?' Arthur asked, unable to stop himself.

'I don't mean that I want to ignore laws of nature and physics. I don't mean that I wish to create impossible structures just for the sake of it. I am not unaware of the possibilities of life. What I do want is to find solutions to make the impossible possible. I would like to build buildings that would not be at the mercy of any earthquake or any miscalculation of nature. I would like to make them independent of some unnecessary mundane aspects that prevent them from achieving their full potential.'

There was a long pause after this precipitated monologue in which she avoided looking at him directly. He didn't avoid her gaze.

'Okay,' he said finally. 'I think I understand.'

He thought he understood.

The girl reminded him of Cobb, in a good way.

She had the same naive and beautiful ideas about the world.

She was just as emotional as Dom used to be, if not more predictable.

She also had an innocent, sweet way of looking at life and architecture.

Sure, she wasn't brilliant, but she still tried to shine in her own way.

He smiled internally.

She was your typical insecure, misfit, misunderstood, head-full-of-dreams, hopeful-believer, infatuated teenager.

It was comforting to know he could still be around someone like that.

All these years, he had been around strong, powerful, distant, calculating, pragmatic people, full of secrets and hypocrisy.

It was refreshing to be around Ariadne now.

'We're almost there,' he let her know.