Thanks to all of you who reviewed! Can I tell you? I have 100 reviews. And I don't even have 10 chapters yet. And even if I had ten chapters, that would still be an amazing feat! I love all of y'all for making this story extra fun to write!

Sorry about the lateness of the update. I'm a loser, and so is my school/life schedule.


Ties

Chapter Nine

Wherein Planning actually takes place


The next morning, Ariadne actually woke up before Arthur did. It was a feat, considering Ariadne slept like a rock and Arthur loved greeting the sun with the roosters across the road. There was a thrill, Ariadne felt, in waking up before Arthur did. It seemed to prove to her in a strange way that Arthur did sleep at night. He didn't stay up all night plotting. He was human. He did need rest. Ariadne didn't remember ever seeing Arthur asleep while they were working on the Fischer job, except when he was under the influence of the PASIV.

The PASIV. Ariadne's train of thought suddenly jumped tracks from human Arthur to the story he had told the night before during their group therapy session. Passively, as she brushed her teeth, Ariadne wondered what it would be like to wake up with three days of her life gone. As she brushed her molars, she realized suddenly that it wasn't just three days of her life that would have been missing.

When Rachel had woken up all those years ago, she had had to deal with the fact that those weeks she had spent in her dream world were fake. That they were unreal; that all the occurrences, all of her interactions, were just a figment of her imagination. It would be difficult, then, to tell what was real and what wasn't. Had her best friends really and deliberately forced her into a false slumber? Had they invaded her mind? What was real? She had been trapped in her own dream, so her totem was no use.

Ariadne stopped brushing her teeth with the toothbrush mid-swipe. Maybe that's why Mal had come up with the idea of totems. Maybe Rachel hadn't had a totem before all of this began, so she wasn't able to differentiate between a dream and reality. Ariadne's fingers twitched unheeded towards the bathroom counter. Three months ago, her chess piece would have been there, waiting to topple in its orderly way. Its one-eighty degree spin after its topple would have reassured her that her life was the exact opposite of what she thought it was. It would reassure her that it wasn't a dream. But the chess piece wasn't there. It was tucked away in her suitcase, for the times after the job when reality seemed a little bit too exciting to be real and for when the midnight dreams stopped and she wondered if it was possible to dream in a dream.

She resumed brushing her teeth when she felt a vein of foamy spit make its careful way down her chin.

It all sort of made sense now, Rachel's reaction to her brother's job. Rachel knew personally how invasive jobs like these were. And Rachel wasn't dumb enough to think that Arthur just happened to run into three of his "best friends" in some small town in Virginia. Two friends that she had never heard about in the course of her correspondence with her brother.

Then another interesting, less sad and dreadful thought hit Ariadne.

Arthur had told Rachel about her. Rachel had said so herself. Rachel had told Ariadne that Arthur said she was a great architect. So, somewhere in their sibling chatter, Ariadne had been mentioned. Ariadne nearly gave a squeal of extreme success, but she quit halfway through when she realized that such a squeal would have ended up with half of the toothpaste out of her mouth and onto the mirror.

So instead she contented herself with picturing what Arthur must have looked like when he told Rachel all about his dear Ariadne. Her first vivid daydream wanted to be of a completely gushing Arthur, who had a sappy look in his eyes that sparkled every time he brought up her name. She wanted his cheeks to flush red when he thought of her, but that train of thought hit a herd of problems very quickly and was stopped. For one, Ariadne had never seen Arthur turn red, except on one occasion. He didn't even get red when he was cold and she was certain that he would turn red because of cold far before he ever got red because of her. The second problem that she ran into as the fact that "Sappy" and "Arthur" belonged in the same sentence as much as "Happy," and "Genocide" did.

So Ariadne was forced to admit to herself that Arthur probably looked a lot like he normally did when he talked. Straight faced, completely matter of fact, gelled hair and all. Ariadne almost wished that he might have had a half smile on his face, until she realized that she hated his half smile. It carried a connotation… a connotation of supremacy. And since Ariadne liked to think herself the best person around, such smirks were not acceptable.

Arthur walked into the open bathroom while Ariadne was trying to figure out just how Arthur (and his step father) were able to contort their faces into such ghastly shapes. She had one side of her lips up, the other in a straight line, when Arthur cleared his throat. Face frozen, her eyes flicked up on the mirror to where she spotted Arthur standing, amused, behind her.

"If you want to practice looking unattractive, I suggest you take lessons from Eames. I've noticed he's rather good at it." Arthur said, with a scratch at his cheek. Even in the morning he looked freshly shaved. Ariadne wondered if this was normal. Judging by Eames and her brother, it was not.

"I'm practicing looking like you," Ariadne turned around to face Arthur. "So if you are saying you're unattractive…"

"Well, if you're trying to look like me: A) copying is the sincerest form of flattery, so thank you. And, B) if that's you trying to be me… well, for the first time in my life I'm glad we have Eames along. You'd be the worst Forger ever."

Ariadne didn't have anything to say to that, so she turned around with as much dignity as she still possessed and screwed the cap back on her toothpaste. With a regal pivot, she exited the bathroom without a word to Arthur.

When she sat down at the island and saw what Ms. James had placed before her for consumption and spotted Orange Juice as the only drink option, she wondered why in the world she had brushed her teeth before breakfast.


"Bowling," Eames explained as he toed the line painted on the floor, "Is the perfect place to have any sort of conversation."

Ariadne, Yusuf, Arthur and Eames had all been tied into their blue and red bowling shoes and had escaped the rage of Ms. James by escaping to the only other form of entertainment in the town besides fishing on the nearby river: the bowling alley.

Eames lined up his sights and with a graceful few steps, hurled the ball down the greased track where it crashed against the pins at the opposite end with a satisfying crunch. As similar sounds echoed around the building, Ariadne understood just why it was that bowling alleys were the perfect place for covert, slightly illegal interactions. It was a place of community, and loud. People doing underhanded deals like they were could plan without being overheard and they didn't look suspicious.

Plus, there was the added bonus of greasy food and the opportunity to see Yusuf stumble around in his shoes.

"I am forced to agree," Arthur said in reply to Eames' previous statement.

As "STRIKE" scrolled across the info board above their lane, Eames gave a satisfied smirk. Whether it was because of his strike or because of Arthur's forced concession, Ariadne wasn't sure. But at the moment, it didn't matter.

"So, we all know that my little sister poses a problem," Arthur said. He was wearing khaki dress pants, which was as close to casual as he was likely to get, so Ariadne soaked in the moment. He was also going tie-less, as his mother had confiscated the whole bunch of them saying that she would not have her son going around uncomfortable in his own house. From the way he kept touching his neck, subconsciously, Ariadne guessed that he was more uncomfortable without a tie than he was with a tie.

"Yes she does," Yusuf said, failing again to stand without gripping the armrest of his chair. He fetched his own silver bowling ball and took his turn. The conversation continued on as he watched the ball run down the path.

"So, Ariadne has come up with a way to make my sister less suspicious of our actions. She has proposed that we get my father to get his flu shots, or some sort of shot, so that we can mask the needle marks that the PASIV makes."

"That poses a problem," Yusuf interjected after taking his second shot. "Spare!" flashed above him, and suddenly Ariadne felt great dread at her turn. She had never been able to bowl without bumpers.

"And what is the problem?" Ariadne asked, hoping to hold off her own turn for as long as was humanly possible.

"The shot needs to be given in an intravenous area if we want to cover it up. Most flu shots are given in the upper arm. We can't connect the PASIV up there. There isn't a big enough vein."

"Wait, what's 'intravenous'?" Ariadne asked, feeling slightly stupid.

"Giving a shot into a vein," Arthur explained. He motioned to the lane. "Are you ever going to bowl?"

Ariadne shot him the dirtiest look she could, and walked as slowly as she could toward the ball drop off area. She picked up the lightest ball—she wasn't a huge person with huge muscles, nor was she a male that was trying to show off his strength. Wishing on whatever stars were in the sky at the moment—even though it was the middle of the day—she tossed her ball down the lane and willed safe passage not in the gutters. Surprisingly, the ball rolled true and when it knocked down four pins at the end, she thought maybe she had been doing herself a disservice all of those years, bowling with bumpers. Her second ball clipped the edge of another pin, which brought down its buddy.

Six pins—not bad for her first time bowling without bumpers.

"The best I can tell," Eames was saying when she got back, "is that we'll need to connect the PASIV in an area that can't be seen."

No one seemed to notice that she had knocked down six whole pins, and Ariadne was tempted to point it out to them. Then she remembered that the two men in front of her had knocked down all of their pins, so she decided that it was best not to bring it to their attention.

Arthur was up, and when he walked off, stride heavier on the left foot, the conversation died down. It was obvious that everyone wanted to see how Arthur did. He was hardly brawny, but he was athletic. Paired with the fact that he seemed to be good at everything, it was no surprise that the ball slid down the lane like there was a string guiding it. It smacked into the pins with a satisfied (and unwelcome) smash, toppling all of the pins.

Ariadne wished, not for the first time, that Arthur was bad at something.

"I was thinking," Arthur said to the group of disgruntled faces he came back to—

"And here I was, thinking 'What great focus this boy has!'." Eames drawled, picking apart the lining of one of the bowling alley chairs.

Arthur ignored him. "Like I said, I was thinking: since we can't connect it into the back of the hand, why not his wrist? My father wears a watch every day of his life—even while gardening. It has a thick enough band that it should cover up the puncture marks."

The group conceded to his point—not for the first time, and they continued on with their bowling game. The only other business related topic that came up was that Ariadne needed to start making a model of the house to use in the dream world.

The rest of their discussion centered around whether or not Ariadne was a pixie and Eames wondering if their chili cheese fries would look good in Arthur's face after his seventh strike.


Convincing the James family that she needed to work on a model of their house turned out to be much more of a breeze than Ariadne expected. She had expected Rachel to give her questioning looks, not the look of excitement that Ariadne actually received.

When Ariadne announced that it would be awesome if she could make a mini model of their house, the James family—including Arthur—dumped interesting fact after interesting fact on her. The house had been in their possession for a long time. And before that, it had been a family house and they had got it when Mr. James' father passed away. It would be passed on to Arthur, even though he wasn't blood related. Did she see the crown moldings? because they had been done by Mr. James himself.

The house was old. That was about all Ariadne had picked out from their crazed blabber. The family was obviously proud of their house—which made Ariadne's job all the harder. If they loved it so much, they would be more likely to notice if she did something wrong.

Mr. James was so excited for her to make a model that he showed her to his woodworking garage right after dinner. She and he clomped a ways into the woods where his garage was located, and he showed her all of his tools.

He was a nice man—that was the first impression she got of him. He was standoffish, like Arthur, but once she got him talking about something he liked, he couldn't stop his chatter. His half smile was infectious and the way he talked about his tools made her excited to use them. Never had a band saw looked so interesting and never had a hammer been handled in such a gentle way.

He was meticulous about details—each hanger was labeled with the tool it held. Each screwdriver had its own place. All the nails in his large shop were facing the same way and, despite what she thought she would find in a woodworking garage, there was not a scrap of sawdust to be seen.

"You're very clean," she noted. Mr. James nodded, but his smile faded a little when she said it. He ran his hand familiarly and absentmindedly across his work table.

"Yes, I am." The corners of his lips quirked up a bit. "Recent events make this place a little neater than I'd like it to be."

She was just about to ask what was making his hideaway—it was obvious that he loved the garage—cleaner more recently, when Arthur pulled open the manual garage door. Under his arm, he had a stack of wood and next to him was the plywood he had obviously had to drop to pull the big door open.

"You know, there is a front door," Ariadne giggled, pointing to the Dutch-style door she and Mr. James had come in through.

"Eh," Arthur shrugged, placing some of the wood on the table. "It's easier to get things into the garage through the big door."

Mr. James had been watching Arthur and he gave him a pat on the back as he left. They were close to the same height, and for the first time, Ariadne realized that Arthur wasn't actually all that tall a person. With this new thought to consider, Ariadne sorted the wood Arthur had brought into the woodshop.

It took him four trips to bring enough wood for her to chose from. And even when he had finished bringing the wood, he didn't leave. Instead, he pulled a stool up to the work table and watched her as she worked.

"Your dad seemed a little bit sad about being out here," Ariadne started, considering two pieces of plywood for damage.

"Yeah," Arthur said, sliding a better piece of plywood across the table. "He hasn't been able to do a whole lot of work for a while. He was a carpenter before we moved here. Did you know that?"

Ariadne stopped looking at the wood to look up at Arthur. "Huh. I guess it kind of fits. Why'd he stop?"

"Well, in a town where everyone has owned their houses for a million years, there was only fix-it jobs for him to do. There were no new houses being built. So he switched professions. He was able to keep up carpentry as a hobby though."

Arthur gestured around to the shop.

"He hasn't been able to do as much carpentry work recently though. Arthritis is setting in, and bad." Arthur shrugged sadly. "He can cut big pieces of wood, but his hands are so achy that he can't do the detailed work he is so well known for. The crown moldings in our house are the last thing he really did."

"So that's why thing are so clean out here?" Ariadne had stopped looking at wood and was now looking around the woodshop.

"I think so. Even if he can't work with his tools, I think he still likes being out here—you would too, with my crazy mother." Arthur smiled a bit when he said it. "But since he can't really work, I think he just putters around. He wants to do something out in his shop, so he just cleans it.

"He's really excited for someone to be using it again. He'll probably want to be out her, working with you. But I think he's a little too shy to ask…" Arthur petered out, leaving his veiled request hidden.

"Do you want me to ask him if he want s to help?" Ariadne asked, returning her attention to the wood.

"If you would, I think that my step-dad would be really pleased."

While Ariadne nodded her consent, she inwardly wondered how in the world Arthur and Mr. James weren't related. Or why Mr. James hadn't adopted Arthur as his son. It was obvious that the two had a father-son connection. Arthur loved his step-father. Mr. James loved his step-son.

Ariadne figured that the pair of them were both just too shy and worried to bring it up with each other.

She shook off her thoughts—there was no need to focus on the depressing side of Mr. James and Arthur's relationship. They seemed content enough to live as they were. Instead she asked business questions.

"So, as I'm building this, anything I need to know?" She asked, lifting the piece of plywood she had chosen for the base of the house. "Any trick stairs? Any hidden rooms? Stains on carpet."

"Nope." Arthur said, self-assured. "Nothing hidden at my house. There's nothing for you to overlook."

"And what about you?" Ariadne asked. The look Arthur gave her in return was confused.

"Is there anything for you to overlook? We can't have another mess up like the Fischer job." Ariadne was teasing, but the look on Arthur's face was completely un-amused.

"I got distracted, okay. And you should not be teasing me. It was partially your fault it happened."

Ariadne scoffed. "Oh, high and mighty. Please tell me how you overlooking the fact that Fischer's subconscious was militarized was my fault." She stacked a few more pieces of wood and then went to grab a measuring tape. She was stopped when she heard his next words.

"Because you were the one that distracted me."


Again, I apologize for the two week break in between updating. If you want to trade lives with me, I will willingly sign away by pitiful life to you. I haven't done anything social in the last two weeks because I have been so bogged down in responsibilities. You know your life is packed when your best friend's parents say that they miss you. C:

Please review! Again, I won't be doing my normal shout outs. I figure I should just get this posted.

REVIEW! I love them! They are food for thought, and you know how things go. No food=no creative energy. (Just kidding. ;D)