Yo-diggidy yo guys. Sorry I've been such a recluse for a while – familial shit is going down, and I'm caught in the middle. Hope you enjoy this chapter!


This was going to be so much easier than Inception. Ariadne was sure of it.

Having something to do was a blessing for all three of them (Yusuf wasn't able to join them until the last minute, but Ariadne kept him updated on dreamscapes and the plans in general over the phone and by email); it meant that whenever someone needed a break – be it from a person (often in Arthur and Eames' case) or just for some time alone – they could excuse themselves and while away the time doing what they did best.

And, rightly or wrongly, Ariadne was starting to look to them like family, even if the relations weren't specified.

"Right, tonight we're having takeout."

Eames came in from the kitchen, frowning as he blew on the mug of tea he was warming his hands around. "Is that a hint I should take about my cooking?"

"It probably wasn't meant to be, but you can take it as one." Arthur suggested dryly from where he was sat on the floor. In front of him was a large whiteboard on a stand, so full of writing (in bright pink board pen – Eames had insisted it had been the only colour he could find, to Arthur's discomfort and Ariadne's amusement) that Arthur had to sit cross legged on the floor to be able to finish the write-up of what was simply being referred to as "The Plan".

"It's not that," Ariadne insisted, rummaging through a pile of takeaway menus on the coffee table. "But I'm a student, remember? Takeaways are an integral part of my diet."

She ordered the food as fluidly as if she were fluent in Chinese.

"Apparently it has to get picked up in twenty minutes? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of ordering in?" Ariadne put the phone down, frowning.

"Looking further in to the term 'takeaway' solves your problem, there." Eames sipped his tea, checking his watch. "I'll go out and get it. I need to pick up a few ingredients for the Somnacin, anyway. They should have arrived by now."

Yusuf wasn't able to fly in till the last minute, a few hours before the actual job itself, so Eames was having to take instructions from him over the phone on how to make the drugs necessary for the job. The kitchen had been turned in to something resembling a chemistry lab, and Eames was having the substances he required posted from Yusuf to a different address, just to be safe. Apparently, the different chemicals and components were becoming harder and harder to come by, even on the black market.

"Alright. Be careful." Ariadne's usual farewell was met with a small smile and salute from Eames.

"Wouldn't dream of being otherwise." He shrugged on a jacket and left the apartment, the door clicking shut softly behind him.

Ariadne was suddenly aware that this was the first time she and Arthur had been left completely alone in a few days and the silence was suddenly profound, only punctuated by the squeak of Arthur's board marker.

"...how's it going?" She asked after a moment, sitting a little straighter on the sofa. "Written everything up?"

"Almost done." If Arthur felt awkward in any way, he didn't show it, and Ariadne appreciated it. It gave her more room to try and dispel her own discomfort. He finished writing with a flourish, putting the cap back on the pen and slipping it back in to his pocket, standing up and taking a step back to run his eyes over his work. He glanced at Ariadne, only a quick flick of his gaze, but it hit her like lightning. "How're those sketches coming?"

"I'm mostly finished. Only adding details now, really." She quickly snatched up her sketchpad and pencil from the coffee table, flipping through it and finding a page she could get scribbling on. Arthur had such an overpowering work mentality, it often made her feel incredibly lazy. "Playing around with carpets, wallpapers. That sort of stuff. Considering the fact there'll hopefully be very little resistance, a lot of this is just architecture practice for me, in a way."

Arthur nodded, putting both hands in the pockets of his slacks and pausing for a moment, before he spoke again.

"You want to be the one to go in to limbo, don't you?"

He was right, of course. But the question still caught her off guard – she hadn't spoken about wanting to be the one to get Fischer out of limbo to anyone, although maybe her intentions had been obvious when they were drafting the original plan.

"Yeah," She coughed up after a moment, clearing her throat and continuing with a couple of nods. "Yes. I do."

Arthur inclined his head a little to the side as he looked at her, and Ariadne felt, with a sinking feeling, that she was under some sort of intensive examination.

"W-what do you think about that?" She had to break the silence, her pencil having stopped moving against her sketchpad long ago – she started tapping it.

"Well," Arthur was using his professional voice; he was in work mode. He would hold nothing back. "Quite frankly I think it's a little ridiculous."


"-with Cobb, to get Fischer back in the first place!"

"Oh, because that went so well, didn't it?"

"Well, the first time you tried to get me out of limbo it didn't go to plan either!"

Eames opened the door and was hit by a wall of sound. He blinked for a moment, trying to get to grips with what was going on in his sitting room. Arthur and Ariadne were stood in the middle of the room, their faces inches apart as they shouted at each other (although Ariadne had to be on tip-toe to achieve this).

"What's going on?" Eames asked, still standing like a dummy in the doorway with his arms full of Chinese food.

Both of their heads whipped around to look at him, and then suddenly the wall of sound was being roared in his direction.


"Right, now we've calmed down a little, explain to me what your little squabble was about." It was hard for Eames not to sound patronising as he viewed the young man and woman sat opposite him across the kitchen table.

It'd taken all of his diplomatic skills to coax the two of them out of their shouting match. Then, he made them eat the food that he'd bought before it went cold, and sat them down at the table as if he were a headmaster diffusing a conflict between two feuding students.

"I want to be the one to go in to limbo and get Fischer-" Ariadne stated simply, only to be overridden by Arthur, who was leaning forward with his elbows on the table and his hands massaging his temples.

"Which is completely ridiculous, isn't it? She's the least trained out of the three of us, the youngest-"

"That doesn't mean I'm not capable!" Ariadne slammed her hands down on the table, standing up. Arthur shot her a disparaging glance; Ariadne turned to Eames. "I don't need protecting, or shielding from anything. How does he expect me to learn when I'm not allowed to-"

"Are you even so sure this is what you want to learn? You still have very little idea of how dangerous all of this is. You're still caught up in the initial excitement of it all. Think of Cobb – think of Mal. You can't comprehend the risks, so don't pretend you can." Arthur set his chin on his hand, giving Ariadne a scathingly patronising look; Eames recognised when he'd gone past his angry stage and in to barbs and sarcasm. Ariadne flinched.

"How can you say that?" Her voice was an angry whisper, trying to mask the hurt that was all too visible in her eyes. "After everything that's happened?"

Arthur seemed to realise that he'd crossed the line, but he looked back at Ariadne without any visible remorse – back pedalling would be useless, he knew.

"I was there through the entire Inception job, and if that isn't a prime example of what this business is all about and what can go wrong, then I don't know what is." Ariadne looked as if she might hit Arthur, but she seemed to think better of it, leaving the kitchen in a pattering of angry feet. There was the sound of her bedroom door slamming.

"She's impossible." Arthur sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes.

"You've really outdone yourself this time, Arthur." Eames muttered in return, a frown twisting his lips down in the corners as he went to follow Ariadne. Arthur got to his feet, grabbing the Forger's arm.

"You know why I don't want her too deeply involved."

They exchanged a long, meaningful look. Eames took in the lines of stress worked in to Arthur's forehead, the way his brow was furrowed.

"That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with you. If she wants to do this, who are we to say no?" Eames' tone was almost wistful, and Arthur had no reply.


There was a soft knocking at Ariadne's door, and she quickly sat up and wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms. She was sat cross-legged on the guest bed, playing with one of her scarves. "Hello?"

"It's not Arthur, so don't throw anything." Eames' voice came from the other side of the door, inviting confidence and saturated with comfort. He was good at what he did; Ariadne had to give him that. "Want to talk?"

"Not particularly." She sniffled.

"I'll take that as a yes." Ariadne couldn't help a begrudging smile as he opened the door and came inside, sitting on the end of her bed with a small smile. The way he was holding his head and the look in his eyes made Ariadne feel that she was going to have to be the first one to talk.

She twisted the soft material of her scarf around her fist and sighed. "I don't get it. One minute we're fine; close friends. Mucking around even – although not since we really got working," She smiled wryly to herself, watching the silky scarf sift through her fingers "you know how he is. And then, all of a sudden, I'm some irritating kid he seems to want to get rid of."

"Have you ever considered," Eames' tone was delicate – the voice Ariadne had heard him use when picking apart the relationship between Fischer and his father "the reasons why Arthur doesn't want you involved in all of this? We are technically criminals, you know."

"He thinks I don't know anything, that I'm too young to do something so life-endangering, that I'm oblivious to how serious this all is..." Ariadne tucked her knees up beneath her chin, frowning. "I'm not. I know all the risks – I was the one who picked Cobb's brain and found out what he did to Mal. I saw him come to terms with that. I know what can happen when this goes wrong."

"So does Arthur. And it's not something you'd wish upon someone you care about, is it?" Eames cocked an eyebrow. "No one wants to watch someone they feel for put in danger, fighting for their lives... or paying for mistakes that they tried to warn them about, whatever they may have been. Not many people even like thinking about it."

Ariadne didn't understand the small smile settled in the corner of his mouth. "What is it you're getting at, exactly?"

"You know what. I know there wasn't much room for talking after the Inception job went downhill...but that doesn't mean Arthur hasn't described your liaisons in the hotel lobby in at least seven different ways since he got here." Eames smirked as he got to his feet, putting his hands in his pockets. "Don't be an oblivious Mary Sue, Ariadne. You're better than that."

"I am not a Mary Sue!" Ariadne squeaked, affronted. Although, the outburst was merely covering up for the fact Eames had given her something to think about.


You couldn't see many stars from the roof of Eames' building, and Arthur had been trying for a while. Maybe he was being irrational – Ariadne wasn't as helpless as he was making her out to be. He knew that. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes as he leant against the railings. He knew Ariadne wasn't ignorant of the risks, and she was incredibly good at what she did – she'd taken to dream sharing so quickly...

But so had Mal, hadn't she? And look how that turned out.

The fire-escape door clunked behind him, and Arthur quickly found something to have been looking at for the past half an hour. London twinkled sympathetically at him.

The door clunked open, slamming, – Arthur didn't turn to look, but he could tell Ariadne had barged the stiff door with her shoulder and it'd flown up and caught her by surprise – and then quietly clicked shut. There were a few hesitant footsteps, and then

"Hey."

Arthur glanced up for a moment and then away again, as if he hadn't heard her coming. "Hi."

She leant against the railings beside him, but whereas his eyes were firmly on the Thames, he could feel hers boring in to the side of her face.

"I'm sorry I flipped out on you earlier." She said after a moment, her tone as tentative as someone treading on ice. "I overreacted. I'm not as much of a wizened professional as I like to think I am sometimes." She put her hands in her back pockets, looking at the floor. "I'm not in any position to be questioning your opinions on all of this-"

"No, no. I'm sorry." Arthur turned to face her; his hands slipped in to his pockets as he leant his back against the railings, one leg picked up slightly with his foot resting on the bars. It was like they were mirroring each other. "I'm...being over-protective, and...it's... it's really counter-productive to what we're trying to do, so I-"

Ariadne stopped him by reaching up on tip-toe to press a hesitant kiss to Arthur's cheek. She wobbled slightly as she leant up, putting her hands on his forearms to steady herself as she stepped back. "Uhm, I know. I mean, I know why you're over-protective. I think." She bobbed her head once, giving him a small half-smile, before heading back over to the fire-escape.

Confused, and struggling to find the words to voice this confusion, Arthur could only blink as he watched her open the door and shut it carefully behind her.