A/N: I'm becoming worse at sticking to my own updating rule with every day that passes! Although in my defense, it IS nearly Sunday over here (well, midnight, anyway), so I could pretend it's actually a new day. Next two chapters will be up momentarily, but I shall have to get a move on as I only have two done after that now! Perhaps I should have stuck to one a day instead ... :/
As usual, I ... now own Inception! No, of course I don't. But maybe one day ...
10.
Ariadne lay on her bed for a long time after showing Arthur the door. She didn't even get up to watch him out of the small window, knowing that her brittle resolve would crumble at the sight of him leaving, most likely for the last time. It was only after he had gone that she realised how much she missed having him there, even just to shout at. His presence had been a comfort, a reminder of the past two months' work and what it had meant, at least to her. But now ... all she had was a bronze chess piece and a few holes in her wrists as evidence of what she had gone through.
Why had he come at all? He had specifically told her mere hours before they had boarded the plane that under no circumstances was she to attempt to visit another member of the team for at least a month after the Inception was completed. It was for all their safety, to make it harder to link them to the job. She had expected a phone call from one of them (though she had never really considered it would be the Point Man, for some reason – perhaps Cobb instead, being the leader of the group and all) telling her what to do next and the specifics of Saito's payment, but that was it. Instead she had been greeted with Arthur's suited figure standing in her doorway, and no explanation of what she was required to do once he left. What had the others done? Returned to their lives pre-Inception? She supposed so. Eames was likely back in a casino in Mombasa, losing his forged chips on Blackjack and Roulette and then making new ones to replace them. Yusuf would have returned to his day job, whatever the hell that had been – something to do with mixing compounds, wasn't it? Saito had probably gone back to Japan to get over the trauma of his time in Limbo and to celebrate the team's achievements. Cobb had gone back to his children, hopefully free of Mal's insidious presence for good – at least the part of her that had plagued his dreams for so long. And Arthur ...
What the hell did Arthur do anyway? He was so closed off to everyone, refusing to speak about himself unless related to the job in some way. Even after spending a whole week shacked up in a hotel room with him, she knew next to nothing about him, his life outside of his work – his background was a complete mystery, though she supposed he had to have one. Maybe top-secret government work that he was unable to talk about with civilians? No, it was likely just Arthur's way – to say as little as possible about himself unless absolutely necessary. He didn't need an excuse not to talk. She had been too focused on the Inception and finding out what Cobb's real issues were, concerned only with how they were going to get out of the dream in one piece, to try to extract any personal information from the Point Man. He had been only too willing to talk about Penrose Steps, paradoxes and what little he knew about Cobb's problem with Mal. And she didn't doubt that he knew almost everything about her – what cafés she liked to eat at, what time her lectures were at college, who she hung out with on the weekends – since he had been practically spying on her, after all. Yet she was hard-pushed to think of a single thing she could point to and say, 'This is Arthur'. To her – to the whole team, except perhaps Cobb – he was a walking mystery clad in Armani suits. And no-one but herself seemed the least bit bothered by it. Why should they be? It was how they rolled, as her ex-boyfriend Matt liked to say – before he 'rolled' off to another country with a rich older woman. To most of them it was simply a job – a pay cheque and nothing more. For Cobb it had been a way back home at last. She had thought Arthur was different, even like her, more interested in the artistic side of the dreamscape, but that was before she had seen the businessman side of him. Maybe he was just like the rest of them, after all. For some reason, the thought made her want to slap him.
She let out a long sigh and finally slid off the bed, ready to start packing away what few things she had. It wasn't much – a couple of outfits and some toiletries she had flung into a tiny suitcase before leaving for Sydney airport. There was no point hanging around L.A. any longer, not when there was nothing there for her. The others had made it quite clear that they intended to follow their own paths from now on, and she had to do the same; however hard it would be. She couldn't imagine not sharing dreams anymore, creating and recreating the most amazing structures and landscapes her mind was capable of. The real world just didn't compare. How could it? It was governed by too many rules – not least of all physics, gravity. Only in dreams could one flip an entire city on its head and watch as cars rolled by where the sky should be.
She shook her head to rid herself of the image. It was no use dwelling on it now. That life was over, done with. She had to forget about it, move on. Go back to the way things were, before Inception, before she had even heard of dream sharing. Before she had met the small group of men who had changed her life forever. She would have to make do without them and their wonderful technology, their fascinating personalities, and ridiculously annoying habits. No longer would she want to bawl at Eames when he made her jump and screw up the model she had been working on; no longer would she have to listen to Yusuf humming another stupidly long song he had picked up in his hometown whilst he mixed chemicals together; no longer would she have to urge Cobb to deal with his damn issues, to tell the others the problems he was having with his dead wife and the potential danger he was putting them all in. And no longer would she have to bear the sight of Arthur looking at her, a patient expression on his face as he explained all the intricacies of the job to her. She wouldn't have to see those absurdly neat suits or his perfect hair, which gave her the urge to run her hand through it just so she could see it messed up for once. She wouldn't have to look into his eyes, hoping to see the same sense of gut-wrenching loss that she was feeling, but in reality sensing only pity shining back at her. He was sorry for her, sympathetic in her wish to continue on this amazing journey, but ultimately knowing that this was the end. He had known it all along. He just hadn't bothered sharing that particular fact with her.
She felt the anger well up inside her again, the uncontrollable urge to throw things, to slap someone so hard her hand stung. But she didn't give into it. Instead, she took a deep breath, clutching her totem in one hand for support, and thankfully nothing more. As much as it hurt, she knew this was real. These last two months – that felt more like a year – had been a nice interlude, almost a holiday away from her normal life. But now it was time to go back, to finish college and move on to a regular job. Like a normal person. She had been excited at the prospect before Cobb had shown up after her lecture all those weeks ago – and so she could be again. It would just take time, and that she had in abundance.
And so, with a cursory glance around the place to make sure she hadn't missed anything, she shrugged into her brown leather jacket, picked up her small suitcase, and marched out of the door for the first and last time.