Ariadne felt a little lift somewhere in her chest at the notion of who might be on the other end of the phone.
"Yes…yes I'm sure you thought it would come in useful." Arthur rolled his eyes, looking at the floor as he listened to the response. "Alright. Yeah, I got her. She's fine, absolutely fine."
He glanced at Ariadne, who offered him a weak smile in return.
"Have you had any trouble?" Arthur asked, and the reply was quite long. He stayed perfectly motionless, listening intently, as Ariadne tried to decipher the buzz of words she could hear from the phone. "No, neither have we. Oddly quiet, isn't it? If I were you…Oh, alright then, don't take my advice. I forget how comfortable you are being on the wrong side of the law…A hypocrite? I'm not a hypocrite- Oh. Yes, she's right here."
He passed the phone to Ariadne, apparently eager to get it away from him. Ariadne took the phone, pressing it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Ariadne." Eames' rich voice was like a soft blanket of comfort; Ariadne had been worrying about him. "I'm glad to hear that you found your way out of limbo - you had me worried for a moment, darling."
"I was rescued." Ariadne muttered, shooting a furtive glance at Arthur who politely pretended not to notice.
"Arthur's a little too much of a killjoy to be a knight in shining armour, surely?" Eames chuckled. "Looks like an accountant, acts like James Bond, drinks like a girl and dresses like my grandfather."
"Ha ha." Ariadne rolled her eyes, but softened her tone as she went on. "How're you? Where are you now?"
"London," Eames seemed pleased. "Visiting some old friends. Seeing as the passport I boarded the plane with was Canadian, I figured it'd be safe to go home for a little while."
"We're in Paris." Ariadne said softly, although she thought he probably knew this already. "Do you reckon we'll be able to meet up any time soon?"
Arthur's expression darkened considerably at this notion, though a small twitch of the lips indicated this was in jest.
"I doubt it, darling. I want to make sure no one's on my tail, first." Eames muttered. "I highly doubt there is anyone, with me being as good as I am, but better safe than sorry."
"Alright." Ariadne nodded. "Alright. I'll talk to you soon then, hopefully?"
"If I can get a hold of you." Eames replied. "Be careful."
"I should be saying that to you. At least I've got someone to stop me from walking in to trouble." Ariadne muttered, frowning slightly. "You're on your own."
"Darling, if anything I'm the trouble that other people want to avoid walking in to." Eames' smirk showed through in his voice. "You should come to London. The crime scene is a lot more hospitable, if you know the right people. The right people, of course, being myself."
"I'll think about it." Ariadne smiled. "Stay safe."
"You too." There was a click as Eames hung up. Ariadne walked past Arthur, handing the phone back to the air hostess.
"Eames always did choose the most inconvenient times for polite conversation." Arthur muttered as Ariadne returned to him. "Usually when I'm being shot at – it's nice to see he's branched out to when I'm not trying to draw attention to myself, too."
"He's invited us to London." The squeak was unavoidable. London was somewhere Ariadne had yet to see, and the very idea of it was making her excited. She hoped that the slight flush of embarrassment in her cheeks was invisible under the moon.
Arthur pulled a face as they began to continue their way across the dark car park, Ariadne falling in to step beside him; a quick pace to match his long strides.
"What's wrong with London?" Ariadne asked when Arthur didn't explain the reasoning behind his expression.
"Nothing, I suppose." He left the sentence hanging so that she knew that was not all he had to say on the subject, but fell silent again. Ariadne took a tiny moment to appreciate how the amber glow of the street lights accentuated the angles of his face. Then she shook herself.
They reached the car; taking the keys out of his pocket Arthur silently opened the passenger door for Ariadne, who slid on to the seat with an awkward attempt at effortlessness. Only once he had put the PASIV device on the backseat and settled in front of the wheel did he complete his objection to London.
"I just thought you might want to check on Cobb first."
"Cobb?" Ariadne's stomach gave a guilty throb as the car slid in to motion. She hadn't thought about Cobb since she'd woken up. "You said…you said you were going to try and get him to Professor Miles, right?"
Arthur nodded. "I haven't heard from him yet, but I think he'd be avoiding contacting me at the moment to be on the safe side."
There was silence for a moment. Ariadne was trying to get rid of the images of Cobb's lifeless body swarming her brain. She knew Arthur wouldn't try to reassure her everything would be fine – they were both well aware of the distinct possibility that it wouldn't. Neither Cobb nor Arthur had ever gone in to detail about the company Cobb had been running from, but imagining Cobb vulnerable and defenceless (something Ariadne had never known him to be), directly in harm's way was making Ariadne edgy. And tearful. She ducked her head, hoping the shadows and fleeting light would hide the fact she was wiping her eyes.
Arthur flicked a sideways glance in her direction, and then nudged a box of tissues across the dashboard towards her.
They reached Paris and Arthur, as ever, had everything set out perfectly as far as what they were going to do right then was concerned.
"We'll stay in a hotel tonight. Nothing too noticeable. Tomorrow I'm going to go and visit Miles and see if anything went according to plan. Whilst I'm doing this you should probably go home and pack some clothes. Make sure you do it at a time when no one who will recognise you will be around." They'd parked the car in a secluded car park that Ariadne had already forgotten the way to, and were now walking through the deserted streets.
Paris in the early hours was something Ariadne had experienced only a few times before – she'd never been able to cope with staying out too late with friends; it made her feel a bit of a wallflower, but she'd grown to accept it over her time of being a student. The lights of the city seemed delicate – their time was almost up, after all. Ariadne could tell the sun would be coming up soon.
A wave of tiredness hit her all of a sudden, and her feet began to drag. She knew Arthur was matching her slow pace out of kindness; the expression of readiness on his face didn't match the gentle loping gait. Things begun to blur in the breaking light, and Ariadne was vaguely aware of a warm hand closing around hers, the lobby of a hotel and someone taking off her shoes. Then her head hit a pillow and sleep came too quickly for her to really appreciate it.
Arthur walked quickly through the hallways of the college where Cobb had found Ariadne; he was keeping his head down and trying not to return any of the looks he got from the students, be they friendly or otherwise. Miles was not in his office, but one of the other professors had told Arthur which auditorium he liked to work in.
He'd felt hesitant about leaving Ariadne by herself that morning – she was new to being a wanted criminal, after all, whilst for Arthur it went under his list of Occupations, right underneath Point Man and Thief. But the peacefulness on her face as she'd succumbed to sleep had warned him away from waking her; unlike on the plane, she hadn't appeared dead, merely weary.
She was incredibly brave, Arthur now knew. And strong, stronger than Cobb had realised when he'd hired her. Although Arthur had started working in dreams at a younger age than Ariadne was now, he'd never been exposed to so much so quickly as she had. So much danger, insecurity and doubt about your own morals, your own world.
He arrived at a door, shaking himself out of his reverie; although the depth of his thoughts hadn't registered on his face. Arthur always had been and always would be a fairly closed book.
"Miles?"
His voice echoed down the seats towards the white-haired man sat behind the desk at the bottom of the room. Miles looked up from the papers in front of him, looking at the Point Man as if he couldn't quite believe who or what was right in front of him. There was a long pause where Arthur put his hands in his pockets, long fingers automatically turning the die and feeling the pockmarked sides; his thumb rested on the side with six dots.
"Arthur. It's been a while since we've spoken in person." Miles got to his feet, removing his glasses.
Arthur gave a singular nod of agreement, but said nothing. He stood at the top of the stairs, staying in the corner of the room by the door. He liked Miles, the man passed on wisdom to him through Cobb, but right now Arthur was only interested in one thing; the fate of his old accomplice. The older man took a moment to acknowledge Arthur's sole motive, before tucking his glasses in to the breast pocket of his jacket and speaking. He sighed.
"He's gone. Right now, he's probably on a plane back to the states. To see Philipa and James."
Ariadne woke up alone, with the dull, heavy feeling of being out of sync with her body clock and having been in a dark room for a long time. The peachy curtains glowed faintly with the promise of sunlight, but Ariadne wanted to burrow back under the covers and stay there. Vague recollections of the past twenty four hours made her head throb. She wanted more sleep.
Wait, no she didn't. There was something she had to do first. The bishop was in her pocket and it clattered comfortingly on to the bedside table.
Now she could happily burrow back under the covers of the soft hotel bed. She went to do so, but as her head went down to rest on the pillow once more she heard and felt the crinkle of paper. Sitting up, still bleary-eyed, she unfolded the hotel stationary and peered at the impeccably neat handwriting that could only be Arthur's.
Ariadne,
In case you don't remember – go home today, pack some clothes and prepare to be on the run for some time. Try to be minimalistic about what you bring, and make sure you don't run in to anyone you know. If you wait at your old student lodging I'll meet you there – I'm going to see Miles, so someone at the university can tell me where it was you stayed.
Arthur
Ariadne knew that it was probably silly of her to notice this fact above all else; he hadn't signed it with a last name. She checked the clock on the bedside table; it was early afternoon. All of her old flatmates would just be finishing morning lessons and heading out for lunch; they very rarely went back to the flats to eat.
With a sigh, she flung the covers away from her and swung her feet over the side of the bed.
It was almost eerie, walking through the streets of Paris that she still knew like the back of her hand, but that she hadn't travelled in what seemed like the longest of times. She felt detached, set apart from the rest of the people traversing the streets with normal goals like food shopping or visiting friends. Their little lives seemed so closed – how were they not aware of all the excitement and wonder that went on right underneath their noses! And, she thought, all the danger that went on unnoticed within that.
She was surprised that she still had the keys to get in to the student village – their weight was familiar, and yet cold. Unused. A few of the other students were milling around the corridors and the courtyard – none Ariadne particularly knew or liked.
Elevator. Floor three. The mundane routine of her old life was starting to come back, but slipping in to her flat as quietly as possibly made her feel like a thief – something that ran with the new direction her life had taken.
Bedroom. Rucksack. Wardrobe. Clothes.
…Toothbrush? Ariadne headed in to her little ensuite bathroom, examining the contents of her shelves. Did a toothbrush really count as a necessity when she was on the run from the law? Wow. That was an odd thing to think. She grabbed it from the pot on the shelf, looked at it for a moment, and then headed back to the bedroom to continue grabbing clothes.
She caught sight of herself in the full length mirror stuck to her bathroom door and doubled-back.
Different. She looked so, so different. Struggling to remember the last time she'd really looked at herself, Ariadne took a step closer, her eyes scanning over the slightly gaunt face – the roundness in her cheeks lost to long days and little want for lunch breaks – the bags under her eyes. She looked older. World-weary. She dropped the toothbrush.
Ariadne found herself sinking on to the end of her bed and unable to tear her eyes away from the stranger in the mirror.
"What do you mean?" A rash or surprised reaction was something Arthur never gave, so when he calmly asked Miles to expand on his explanation, the older man didn't seem to be troubled by his composure. But still, the room seemed quiet, as if every object was holding it's breath to hear the story.
"He woke up. By himself." Miles walked around to the front of his desk, leaning against it. "He'd only been in Paris half an hour when he just sat up. Mumbled something about limbo, and needing to call a man named Saito. This Saito man had been in limbo too, it transpired. Somehow they'd woken up together, despite no longer being hooked up to the PASIV device. This man fixed things so Dom could go home, and that's where he's gone."
Arthur listened, the blank mask on his face concealing his engrossment in Miles' story. There was a long pause where the cogs in his mind could almost be heard working before he spoke. "…He just woke up?"
Miles nodded. "Something must have stirred him in the dream. He may have checked his totem, or the illusion may have slipped slightly. It may have just been the act of finding Saito. I didn't want to delay him from going home any longer, so I didn't ask."
Arthur took a moment to process this, before bobbing his head in a conserved farewell as he turned to leave. "Thank you, Miles."
"Arthur-"
The Point Man's hand had closed around the door handle, but he paused to hear what Miles had to say.
"Dom isn't going back in to the extraction business, Arthur. Never again. He came close to a fate worse than death this last time. If I were you, I would quit before the same happens to you."
There was a minute of silence and stillness as older man's warning hung in the air, drifting towards Arthur like chilled smoke.
"Thank you for the advice, Miles." Arthur's tone was the epitome of politeness as he shut the door behind him.
Ariadne was roused by knocking at the door.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting there, on the end of her bed like a statue, just staring at herself. The enormity of the change that she and her life had undergone was weighing down on her as if she were being smothered by a huge, heavy pillow; there was a vague ringing in her ears, and she couldn't shake the feeling that dreaming used to have; that she couldn't talk or run or even move. Back when she dreamt as a by-product of sleep, and not the other way around.
The knocking on the door grew impatient.
She got to her feet, stumbling like a particularly clumsy zombie. Her limbs felt dead and heavy. Her subconscious still had its wits about it, however, because she somehow she managed to put the chain across the door before opening it a jar.
Arthur took in her appearance for a few moments, looking her up and down in a way that would have made Ariadne feel self-conscious if she hadn't been so out of it. She quickly (slowly) shut the door and removed the chain before opening it again. Arthur was inside the room and had his gun in hand in seconds, and all Ariadne could do was blink dumbly as he prepared to sweep search her few rooms for the cause of her distresss.
"It's nothing. Nothing's happened." She mumbled quickly; he stopped. "It's…just me."
He paused, holstering the gun and watching Ariadne for a moment. "What do you mean?"
Embarrassment made her cheeks flush, and she looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. "Being back here…so much has happened so quickly." She gulped. "I've done a lot of growing up in a short space of time. I can see it, now I'm back in this place where I used to fit…I've changed so much. It's…almost scary."
Ariadne felt incredibly stupid; her problems must have seemed so trivial to Arthur, perfect, professional Arthur who had been doing this for years. She couldn't dare to meet his gaze.
She was surprised when she felt him tug her comfortingly against his chest.
She told me not to step on the cracks
I told her not to fuss and relax
Well, her pretty little face stopped me in my tracks
But now she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid
Author's Note: Well, uh, hi there. Long time no speak, hey? But seriously…I have had the most amazing 2 weeks. That acting course I went on? Genuine life-changing experience. Met so many interesting people with such interesting lives and stories, participated in many amazing things.
In the two weeks before that, however, I was under the baking sun of Crete, plotting away by the side of the pool.
Yes, this fanfiction is now planned out from start to finish. I have an ending. It might make you cry, providing I do it well.
However, I can't guarantee it'll be good. Enjoy where you can.