The Charles De Gaulle airport was more jammed than usual.

It was a weekend, and midmorning, the ideal time to travel. The weather was crisp and sunny, also ideal for travel. It was good, though, they could blend in with the crowd and pretend they didn't know eachother easily.

Unfortunately, there were no direct flights to Los Angeles, so they'd be connecting through Chicago O'Hare, which they would almost certainly be delayed in. It was Chicago. It was a given. But they had a schedule to maintain, and though Chicago was a wild card, but it was their best option.

November sighed as she unpacked her two laptops for security. Such a pain. In central America all you had to do throw your bag through an x-ray. You kept your shoes on, your liquids in your toilet kit and your laptops in your backpack. But then again, in Central America you'd always get secondary searched before boarding.

To her left, she heard Eames' voice protesting against the throwing away of his whiskey. The security women studiously ignored him. November had a momentary thought that she could get along with that woman.

She found her gate and settled down with a breakfast biscuit and a cup of coffee. She had about 45 minutes till they called boarding, so she pulled out a laptop to work on computer program she'd been planning to eventually market.

Juliet was already at the gate, and had her phone out. Florence was next, her size and confident stride drawing eyes her way. Arthur showed up after that, feet barely making a sound, and lastly Eames, who in his usual mix matched suit and barely shaven face, looked like a walking advertisement for the evilness of nicotine and alcohol.

The flight to Chicago went smoothly. An 8 and a half hour flight, they arrived in the evening. An hour later the plane to LAX was boarding, and surprisingly, they made it out of Chicago on time. 4 hours later they touched down in Los Angeles. The flight to Tokyo Narita left in the morning, so November found a hotel room and passed out.

c c c

Arthur walked wearily from the jetway and into the LAX airport. It was close to midnight, and he could still hear the hum of voices and see people milling around.

Jet lagged and just overall tired, he missed the brown haired girl at first, but quickly did a double take.

There she was, without a doubt. 5 foot nothing, wavy brown hair, determined stride. What a coincidence that they should end up halfway around the world together. In fact, why was Ariadne in Los Angeles?

Eames had seen her too, and the two men exchanged a glance before following her toward baggage claim. They stayed a safe distance from her, just out of her line of sight.

They went as far as they could without leaving the terminal, but watched from baggage claim as she waited a few moments on the curb before a blue sidan pulled up, and Dominic Cobb got out. He hugged Ariadne.

Eames glanced at Arthur, gauging his reaction. Arthur expected to feel jealous, but... the feeling didn't come. All he could think was... that he was happy she had found someone who suited her better. Like he had.

They trudged back up the stairs, a few people apart. Arthur knew he'd be questioned by Eames when they could finally talk to eachother again, and he'd tell the truth. There was no point lying, or refusing to talk about it. He felt at ease. Peaceful. And as he passed November, who dared to make eye contact, that feeling intensified.

Author's note: Shortish chapter, but whatever. If you wanna know the full story of why Ariadne was in LA, I wrote a one-shot about her and Cobb called "In Search of Peace". Please Review! :)