Well, my darling readers, here we go again. Thanks to those who have reviewed, favorited, or story-alerted for the warm, fuzzy feeling I get when I see that you have done so! I hope you enjoy the new chapter just as much!
-Ballerina Terminator
Chapter Four: Fever Dreams
When Ariadne woke up the next morning it was later than she had planned, and she felt a bit like she was walking around in a fog. Her muscles ached as though she had really performed all of the dream training that she had done the day before. It was enough of an effort to get dressed; there was no way that she was going to walk. She forwent the option of breakfast and called a taxi instead.
When she got to the hotel and knocked on Arthur's door, it was Eames's door, just behind her that opened. She whirled around and staggered for a moment before Arthur put out a hand to steady her. She glanced up to find him giving her a very penetrating look.
"Oh, no, not you too," he sighed, placing a hand on the side of her face. The gesture startled her, but before she could react, he had moved his hand to her forehead.
"Fever," he pronounced with resignation. "Go on in." He stepped back to let her walk into Eames's room.
Eames was laying on the farther of the two queen-sized beds in the room, looking as bad as Ariadne felt. A mug of steaming tea sat on the night stand next to the bed.
Ariadne plopped down on the vacant bed, and Arthur poured hot water into a second mug and handed it to her. She watched mutely as the tea leaves in the tiny bag slowly turned the water brown before taking a careful sip.
"Do you feel nauseous as well?" She shook her head emphatically.
"Well, thank God for small mercies. Give me your coat and take off your shoes. You might as well lie down; we'll just turn the room into a sick chamber. I've already called a doctor to come over."
"You mean like a house call?" she asked, although it came out more like a croak.
"Yes, just like a house call," he said, taking the cup from her, and placing it on the nightstand next to the other mug. "Come on, let's have the coat." She kicked off her shoes, and he helped her off with the jacket and the scarf, before she scrambled under the covers as she started to shiver. Suddenly something occurred to her.
"My assignment for Professor Miles! It's still on my kitchen table."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure Miles gets it," he promised. "I'll have to go see him anyway to tell him why you can't go see him. Is your apartment key in your purse?"
"Yes. Tell him I'm so sorry."
"I will. Just relax. I'll take care of everything."
It had not escaped the notice of Stephen Miles that his favorite student was absent from his class on Thursday afternoon, and it weighed on him to see her empty seat when he could well imagine her asleep next to Arthur Hamilton with a needle in her arm. It was, therefore, with some surprise that he saw Arthur making his way to the front of the classroom during the mass exodus after he had dismissed his students.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Hamilton. May I ask what you have done with my favorite student?"
"I left both her and Eames in bed with the flu. She wanted me to bring you this." Arthur handed him the folder that he had taken from the kitchen table in Ariadne's apartment.
"Ah, good girl. I would not like you to think that your invitation to tea was contingent on Miss Gray's ability to attend. Follow me to my office. It may be useless to work in, but it is a very nice place to have a chat."
Arthur followed the professor though the hallways until they reached a small hole-in-the-wall room. The desk and filing cabinet had been shoved to the side and four comfortable-looking chairs took up the majority of the space. Miles placed his bag down on the desk and turned on a coffee maker that sat on the filing cabinet. In a few seconds, piping hot water began to drip into the pot.
"Please, sit down. Tell me, how is it that you have escaped the illness that plagues the other two?"
"I got my flu shot," Arthur replied with amusement.
"Is she at home resting?" he asked as he poured the hot water into a tea pot.
"No, she and Eames are in his hotel room. Her roommate is out of town, and I thought it better if she were not left alone."
"How do you take your tea?"
"Crème, no sugar, please."
"Very thoughtful of you. I am pleased to find that you are looking out for her."
"I could hardly leave her to take care of herself," Arthur said with a hint of defensiveness in his tone.
"Of course not. I just hope that you plan to take that view when it comes to the job. I must tell you, I didn't approve of many of the jobs that you and Dom took on, and I don't like the idea of Ariadne getting mixed up in some of the groups that you were involved with."
"To be completely honest, I didn't like it anymore than I imagine you did," Arthur confessed as he took the proffered cup of tea. "The only reason that I worked on the jobs at all was because I knew that Cobb needed the money for the lawyers. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't have done it."
"I am glad that is over then. So, I can have your assurance that there will be no more jobs with Cobol or any of their ilk while you work with Ariadne?"
"Sir, I wouldn't do jobs like that again if I were working alone and desperate for the money. Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead."
"Why are you so concerned about her? Is it because you feel responsible for having recommended her?"
"That is part of it. The other part is that Ariadne Gray is a very kind but, in some ways, a very innocent young woman without any family and only a handful of friends whom might notice if she were to disappear. She needs someone who knows what she is doing to watch out for her interests. I don't pretend to have any right to speak on her behalf; as much as I like the girl, my closest connection to her is as her teacher and perhaps as her friend, but, as she has no one else, I shall be impertinent."
Arthur looked up in interest. "No family at all?"
"Not since the death of her grandmother a little over two years ago. It was not a good time for her as I recall, and I was most alarmed to find that she had no other family. I believe she lived with her grandmother in France from a time when she was quite young, and she gave me the impression she was very attached to her grandmother."
"She has no one else?"
"A handful of friends of whom she speaks with great affection. Look, I'm not asking you to pity her or take the girl in as a poor lost orphan, and I'm not asking you to become her personal body guard. I'm just asking you not to throw her to the wolves."
"I swear, there will be only domestic canines involved. Unfortunately, I can't rule them out at all," he said with the ghost of an impish smile on his face. "Eames is our extractor."
"Well, then, let's move on to more cheerful topics. Tell me, is she really as good as Dom says? I notice that she carefully avoids the topic of dreams."
Arthur debated momentarily before reopening his leather messenger bag and handing the professor the second folder that he had taken from Ariadne's kitchen table. It was the folder of mazes and drawings that she had shown him the day before. Miles took it and began to flip through the pages. Arthur watched his eyebrows rise as he made his way through the folder.
"How long has she been working on these?"
"I don't know. For a while, I believe. I think she is afraid of upsetting you or making you worry," Arthur said, not without irony.
"So considerate of an old man's feelings. Well, I'm glad to see her work. I see she still favors the gothic for her churches. Yes, quite remarkable." Miles handed him back the folder. "I can see why you want to keep her as your Architect."
When Arthur walked back into the hotel room, he saw that Ariadne had climbed into the bed next to Eames and they had a laptop propped up between them. Arthur sat down on the bed next to Ariadne, glanced at the screen, and saw that they were half way through "Ten Things I Hate About You".
"Aren't you two a little old for this movie?"
Ariadne glared up at him groggily. "Are you kidding? Of course not. Besides, I thought Cameron was the cutest thing on God's green earth when I was sixteen."
"I miss Heath Ledger," Eames said despondently. "Did you see him as Joker in the last Batman movie?"
"Yeah," Ariadne said sympathetically. "I cried when I found out he died."
Arthur handed a bag to Ariadne. "Fresh clothing. I asked the wife of your building manager to pick out some things for you. I didn't want to go through your things, but I thought you might like some things to wear."
"And people say that chivalry is dead," Ariadne said, affecting a southern belle accent. "Kind sir, how can I ever repay you?" Eames gave a snort of laughter, and she jabbed him in the shoulder with her elbow. "Really though," she went on, sans cheesy accent. "I do appreciate it."
"You're welcome," he said rolling his eyes. "Are you two up to going under for a while?"
"Can we?" Ariadne asked.
"I talked to Yusuf, and he said it would be fine as long as neither of you are the dreamer."
"Why not?"
"You've had dreams when you are sick in the past?"
"Yes."
"What were they like?"
"Weird. Very weird"
"Well, that can translate into shared dreams, and you'll get torn apart by the projections of your companions."
Ariadne grimaced.
"Anyway," he continued, "I'm going to start by showing you some of the dreams that the other architects I've worked with have done, and some of the mistakes that they've made."
"You two have fun," Eames said, rolling over. "I'm taking a nap."
"Are you feeling up to it?" Arthur asked Ariadne.
"I'm fine. Let's go."
Arthur spent the rest of the afternoon showing Ariadne minor errors made by Architects that became major problems, beginning with the rug in Saito's apartment. He described to her how Saito had realized that he was still in a dream because he recognized the wrongness of the fibers, and how it ruined the extraction.
"All because of the bathroom rug?" she asked.
"He disliked it enough to take notice of it in reality, so he noticed how it had changed."
"It is a hideous rug," she conceded.
"Shared dreaming is almost like lucid dreaming; it is easier for your subject to notice the things that are not normal which is why it is difficult and dangerous to recreate from reality. Another time, the subject noticed that the sun was setting at the wrong time for that time of the year, and then she noticed that it was setting in what in reality would have been the north. It is better to avoid recreating real places if you can avoid it, but I'll have you practice a bit, just in case. Let's move on."
The next thing he showed her was the outline of a maze that unintentionally created a loop from which the extraction team could not escape. Ariadne then really impressed him when she spotted the problem before he had pointed out the error. He told her so before they moved on and pretended not to notice when she blushed.
Later, room service brought up their dinner, and as she sipped on her soup, Ariadne was treated to a brief lecture on psychology as it pertained to extraction subjects in dreams. By nine, Eames had fallen asleep again, and Arthur could tell that Ariadne was ready to nod off.
"We could get you your own room if it would make you more comfortable," he offered.
"No, I'm fine," she insisted. "And I really am grateful for everything you've done."
"Don't worry about it. Get some sleep okay?"
Rather than responding, she plopped back on her pillow and yawned before rolling over and closing her eyes. Arthur turned off the light as he left.
The next morning showed considerable improvement in the patients, especially in regards to lucidity, but Arthur still held off from letting them work as the dreamers. The Point Man and Extractor/Forger had originally planned to stay in Paris through Friday, but they extended their stay through the weekend as the flu slowed down the work. By Saturday, Arthur and Eames were running Ariadne though past jobs that they had performed to give her more experience in extraction situations, although they told her that without a proper subject to extract from, one who feared to let go of secrets, it would not be nearly as complicated.
By Sunday, it was clear that full recoveries would be just around the corner, and later that afternoon, Arthur drove Ariadne back to her apartment. He stopped her before she got out.
"You're doing very well. Design more dreams until I see you again. I know that for a job you usually need to tailor the level to the subject, but sometimes you can alter dreams that you've already designed to fit your needs, and it is always important to stay in practice."
"When do you think you'll be back?" she asked.
"By the end of September if we don't get a job before then."
"Well then, I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks if not sooner," she said, picking up her things and getting out of the car. Before she shut the door, she ducked her head down so she could see the point man. "Take care of yourself," she instructed, closing the door and heading into the building.