"Eames told me about your project, and I wanted to see it," Arthur says, fork poised to his lips.
She takes a moment to register this. "Yeah, sure. Sure. We'd have to take the tube really. But we can go after." She bites her food, using the time to consider another point. "So what have you been up to?" she hedges, and Arthur picks up on her reluctance at the question, as if she's worried at the answer.
He hesitates, and Ariadne wants to hit her forehead at this reaction. Of course. "I'm sorry." She decides to save him the trouble and picks up on his reluctance: "It's fine," she quips, understanding, her fork touching her food. "No plans. We won't talk about any of it at all." She waves her hands above their food as if to clear the table of it.
Arthur smiles, hardly. She perks up when she sees his dimples. "No future, no dwelling on the past? What's left to talk about then?" he asks.
Ariadne purses her lips to think, before shrugging, "Seen any good movies lately?"
The tube's slightly crowded when they enter, and Arthur secures her a seat as he hangs onto the metal railing above her.
"You can have the seat, you know," she objects as Arthur guides her to the vacant spot. "I'm a big girl. I've been standing for a while."
He smiles, his arm outstretched, fingers grasping the pole above their heads, when he leans down slightly. "I doubt you could even reach," he teases near her ear, and Ariadne fumes slightly, at the effect of his breath on her cheek. He's not that tall. She forces herself to take this as a grain of salt, hoping that the heat she feels coming over doesn't show on her face.
Then he laughs, standing up straight again and adjusting his stance so that his body faces her fully. Her head is at eyelevel with his stomach, and she looks away, feeling slightly embarrassed.
The train jostles and spurts in movement, screeching at stops to pick up new passengers, and Arthur adjusts his stance as more people crowd around. His feet, once in contra posto, are now pointed at her, and his legs, once spread out for stability, begin to close around her knees. His right leg, her left knee, his left leg, her right knee. When the train moves, he can't help but touch her, and Ariadne tries to pull herself closer to her seat.
She wonders if he's self-conscious over this contact, and she peers at him to see, but Arthur's clueless or comfortable, looking at the train map above his head, studying the stops and listening attentively as the kind voice overhead announces their stops.
Ariadne frowns at herself. She shouldn't be thinking this way, about him after what she said, especially, and she's unsure how to play off this sudden want. Her legs tingle at the mere closeness of him. She wants to look at his expression to see if he feels it too.
She realizes that he's speaking to her.
"Oh." She grounds herself, the sound of his voice in her ears over the tracks. "I gave up on watching it," she says in answer to his question. "They killed my favorite character."
Arthur's aghast. "What?" He grips the pole. Oh you have to finish. It's so good."
"What? I bawled my eyes out at that episode. I can't go back now," she insists, remembering when he first made her watch it as a way to keep talking to one another: over the phone line with time zones in mind, calculating when to press play on their players simultaneously.
"How can you start something and not finish it?" he demands as the tube doors open behind him. People start to shift around, and Arthur takes a slight step back to allow Ariadne through. She stands up, her knees bent slightly so she won't invade his personal space, though she already is. With a few adept moves, she slides past him, starting out, merging into the wave of people rushing out on the platform. "You have to at least see it through," he says, rushing beside her.
There's no room for conversation as they walk through the tiled corridor to the stairs, and Ariadne lingers on that small lecture, smiling as she continues to talk about the show. Arthur pressures her into a promise to keep watching. "At least the next one. You'll see," he says, enthusiastically, climbing the stairs next to her.
Ariadne looks at him through the edge of her vision, she smiles slightly, before she gives in, leading him up to the surface.
Arthur walked Ariadne to her door, and she looked up at the building. "This is me."
"I've been here before, Ariadne," he reminded her lightly, his eyes squinting into a smile.
"Right. To yell at me," she said a little slowly, joking.
"To persuade you to stay," he corrected.
"And miss out on all of the adventure?"
He nodded in understanding. "That should've been my first clue."
Arthur looked at her smiling face, wondering if this was where he should leave her. He liked her, sure. She wormed his way into his conscience, and her big brown eyes, her stubborn questions popped into his head more than he'd like to admit. But he also knew that she wasn't made for something like this. The compromise was made because he sided with Cobb but respected her feelings. When she graduated, he'd see how she felt about joining this lifestyle, but for now, he wanted her to enjoy something so simple like being able to walk home everyday, having friends in one place, being able to sit at the same seat in the same café and have the same waiter bring you coffee because of how often you go there.
He wanted her to enjoy the life he wanted.
She took a few tentative steps away from him to her steps. "Arthur?"
"Ariadne?"
She appeared adorably bashful when his eyes locked onto hers. "I honestly thought that we weren't going to see each other again, ever," she said with a little difficulty.
Arthur understood. "If I'm honest, me too." He also hoped it wouldn't, but he didn't say so.
She looked thoughtful. "But I'm glad we did," she decided.
"Yeah," he had to agree. "Me too."
"Arthur?"
He lifted his eyebrows as a response.
She stood five feet away from him. "Good night," she decided.
He smiled at the sentiment. "Good night, Ariadne," he said, watching as she took the eight steps up her building and went inside.
They sit on a stone bench in a quiet courtyard, looking at a wall with clean shapes and lined with windows. From how she speaks, he can tell that she loves these south-facing windows over the calm courtyard, the slight arch of the doorway that led into the adjoining gallery, even the doorway to the restrooms.
From where they sit outside, he can see how people fill up the space, dressed in cocktail outfits, talking, sipping champagne, laughing, even pointing at some of the newer design elements. He watches as she puffs with pride at that.
He sits next to her quietly, taking it all in, as she points out her baby, sharing stories over small arguments as far as time and commitment with her partner or the client, and he listens, taking in her voice, this ease, this sense of comfort in just sitting next to her.
Arthur weighs it in his mind, almost a little reluctantly, because a part of him tells him to just enjoy this, to mull in her presence without expectation or study. Stupidly, he sort of thought that he could get away with just talking to her, falling into the same footing as before.
He thought he could go through the whole night leaving it at this night. Closure was what he wanted, but he's starting to think of how weak that reasoning was just to come see her. The idea of just wanting to see her, the tease of possibly everything coming out was there, he has to admit. He just thought that he would be able to see her for this last time and leave with a better memory than the last. He wanted to keep his plans to himself really, but with her here, so close, he truly can't kid himself anymore.
There were signs of her everywhere in this small building, and he recalls her design process on the inception job, as she calmly explains the choice in materials, her partner Sybil.
"It's beautiful, Ariadne," Arthur compliments, sensing that familiar tingling in the pit of his stomach as he looks at her. He knows what it is, but he wrenches it down.
He's leaving tomorrow.
Ariadne tilts her head and glows with pride. "It's small."
He shrugs over this and admires it all the more. "Still. It's real, and it serves more utility to more people."
Ariadne agrees freely at this shared allusion, sipping her champagne. "I like to think so." She turns to him after a moment. "I thought we saw the last of each other," she admits.
"I thought so too," he agrees. "Unresolved issues and what not."
Ariadne laughs at this. "Everything about you is unresolved issues and you don't mind leaving what nots around," she points out. Arthur doesn't dispute this, and she curls her legs under her as they sit, looking in front of them.
Unintentionally, she waits for him to talk about his new job he's taking. She wonders if he saw her text, but he doesn't seem upset or suggestive in any of his comments towards her. She waits for him to say, maybe, but she doesn't expect anything. She knows that she lost that right months ago.
"Where are you staying?" she asks, suddenly, uncurling her legs to rest back onto the ground.
Arthur looks perplexed, then shrugs. He looks at the street they just walked. "Hotel a few blocks from here, I think."
Ariadne stretches out, before standing. "Let's get a drink."
Ariadne made her way down the lecture hall steps, past her remaining classmates bent over their own exams. She checked her answer sheet for stray marks and shuffles her essay in order as she walks down, her boots slightly hollow against the aged wood.
It was all very unnecessary. She had done this walk thousands of times, and this was just a thousand and one. Granted it was her last one, and she relished the moment, almost unsure if this sincerely was it, because of how almost mundane it all felt. Movies usually made this moment feel, well, momentous, with building 80's music, and perhaps a freeze frame. Instead, there was just the scrape of her shoes on the floor, the slight cough from a classmate still working, and the slight rustle of paper here and there.
Miles sat at his desk in his usual crouch, grading papers from what appeared to be another class, when she interrupted him.
"Ms. Inman?" he asked, his eyebrows rose, and she handed over her sheets, separating them, as he would want. He thanked her for them, then looked down again towards his work.
Ariadne stood by a second longer, prompting Miles to look up. "I wanted to thank you," she whispered, feeling her face heat up slightly. "For the class and for everything," she said a little haphazardly. There was more. She felt the appreciation down to her toes, but Ariadne stumbled on her own thoughts and gestures, but Miles' reassuring smile put her at ease.
He stretched his hand out, and Ariadne took it. "It was a pleasure having you in class, Ms. Inman, and I am glad that you had the opportunity to gain as much as experience as you have."
He gave her hand a slight squeeze at that, and they shook.
The door behind her was loud and resounded in the wood and stone hallway.
She was done.
The bar's closed when they come in.
"English hours," Ariadne huffs with stubborn realization. "I forget that."
They stand there looking dumbly at the darkened cavern where the bar is, almost as if willing for something exciting to happen. Arthur doesn't turn his head when he asks, "Mini bar?"
She doesn't flinch when she responds, a part of her not wanting this, whatever this was, to be done. "Sure."
Ariadne doesn't know what she expects from tonight, but she feels the familiar prickles in her hands as she stands next to him in the elevator, as she watches him open his hotel room door, as she sits on his bed, and as he tosses the entire contents of the mini-fridge at her.
She extends her fingers, flexing them in a familiar way as she sits against the headboard. She takes a swig from the small bottle to release the tension.
Ariadne sits on his bed, a small bottle of whiskey in her hands, a bag of Walkers in her lap. It's very reminiscent of their faux-date, and Ariadne shoves that memory away as she sits up. "Can I break a rule?" she asks, looking at him.
He shrugs. He sits turned to her, though he sits on the edge of the bed, a bottle of water in his hands. "It depends on how," he says thoughtfully.
Ariadne continues a little timidly. "Can I just apologize for everything I said the last time when you and Liz were here?" she asks.
Arthur's still light and teasing. "Does that count or would you like to put your question in the form of a statement?"
"No, really, Arthur." She crawls over the mattress to him. She mirrors his seated position. "I am really sorry about it."
"I know."
"I meant it at the time, and I know that you're better than that treatment. And it was just selfish of me to push you away, when you were always there for me."
Arthur thinks about how her words hit him before. Anger, hurt, defeat, those feelings swam in his head, for him to pull out and consider until he could palate each and every one with reasonable deliberation. In his darkest moments, he resigned himself to outward anger towards her. In his most considerate, he understood her. "Actually, it was almost a good thing that you talked to me like that."
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"You were right. I did want you to feel like I fixed some things in my life, and that wasn't fair to you or to whatever we were. I used you before to pretend that I had stability, pretending that Paris was a home, when really I was just thinking that you'd wait for me, no questions asked."
"I should've," she's quick to say.
"No, you shouldn't have," he's just as quick to correct. "We never really talked about it, before, and I would leave you alone, stop talking to you, always with this hubristic idea that you'd be waiting for me anyway." He laughs at his past, selfish self. This past self that always saw Ariadne as this static location, the same as he saw his family. But he was wrong to do that.
Every time he saw Sam, he was taller, more eloquent, bolder, a growing reminder of missed opportunity and lax action on his part. Easily, he felt that those that loved him would still be there, but even then it was unfair to ask all of them to conform to his standard of living, a standard he himself knew was wrong: never investing or connecting with those people, keeping them thousands of arms' length away, and feeling like he made a difference just by the attempts to keep contact.
The sheer desire to want to keep talking to Ariadne made him realize that he could.
She sits thoughtfully next to him. "I'm still sorry I said it."
"Only because we stopped talking," he points out.
And he's surprised by her frankness when she admits, "Actually yes."
"Really?"
"Yes." He watches her sit properly next to him on the side of the bed. Her feet hang over the mattress edge. Their knees are inches apart, but his awareness stinging, like it was in the train. He wondered if she felt it too. That her presence made him more self-conscious. That her nearness was invigorating. Arthur knew he had it under control, but he also knew what denial looked like. "You're one of the most important people in my life," she says, "and I pushed you away. I should've just talked to you about it, rather than asked you to leave me alone."
"You know?" he asks, surprised himself by this. "That's really all I wanted."
"To leave me alone?" she jokes.
"For you to tell me to stay," he exhales all at once. And his chest feels lighter at that. He's quick to see how she takes this, feeling exposed and honest and damn good. He watches as her eyes sparkle with amusement and as her lips purse because she's biting the inside of her cheek in thought.
"Because giving you keys to my apartment wasn't enough?" He can tell that what she's saying is light and joking, and he doesn't mind the jibe at this. "No, but that was stupid," Ariadne says, deadpanned. "You were welcome to all along."
"Yeah, well," he goes on, carrying the lightheartedness, "someone recently told me that she didn't want to have anything to do with me," he teases.
"I believe that someone said that she wanted to be friends, old chap."
He levels a look at her. "I think we both knew that that wasn't true." And her smile falters slightly, her face consciously blank as he reaches over, holding her hand, almost considering this move. He hears her slight intake of breath as he closes the space between them. He feels her eyes on him, her body tense.
He closes the gap to kiss her, his lips familiarly light on hers, testing her reaction and savoring the moment. He backs away for a second to see how she takes it, his fingers dragging themselves out of her grasp.
She's smiling as she inclines her head towards his, disallowing that gap of space to grow, and his other hand glides lightly up her thigh, sending a tingle down her spine. Her own hand inches forward towards him, but before she reaches for him, properly, he pulls away. Their hands still coupling on her lap. "I really thought I could persuade you," he says, and Ariadne blinks, a little sigh escaping her mouth.
She smiles, forging her body towards him, her other arm wrapping around his neck to drag him closer. There's a hum of connection as she pulls him close. He feels her fingers grasps his. "Tease," she chides, bringing her mouth to his, unable to flatten her smile on her face. It's the type of kiss where teeth collide, and through the fervor and surprise, she wonders why they never did this more often.
They let go of one another's hands, and Ariadne feels his fingers begin to play up her sides. She can't hide her grin properly as Arthur bends them both down against the mattress, leading her up, up towards the pillows. She reaches for him again, laughing as he jokingly lifts his eyebrows at her.
"Just go with it," she advises, arching herself to kiss him again, and he reciprocates, his body falling onto hers, pinning her into the mattress properly, greedily.
He woke up next to her often in the warehouse. He remembered opening her eyes, looking across the way, and there she sat the tubing connecting them all together.
"Spot on your face, I think," Eames would say from where his chair was positioned behind them. His tone holding that gleeful, knowing tease that bothered Arthur so much, and Arthur would scowl and look away as Ariadne laughed, plucking out the tubing and needle with expert hands.
Arthur woke up alone that morning. He got out of his bed, an unfamiliar, generic mattress dressed with a thousand-thread count, fluffy pillows, and the smell of hotel decadence. It took him a few minutes to start climbing out and to make his way to the bathroom, his hands running across his disheveled hair as he did so.
He picked up the paper outside his hotel room door and reads about Fischer's latest business strategy and Browning's continuous attempts to recover. It's the only sign that they accomplished that job. He saw reminders of it often on the news.
Fischer and Browning were the only ones he could keep track of months after the job, and as if they gave him a connection back to the team, and yes to a certain architect, he read the knews, always wondering what they thought of it all.
He started to talk himself out of doing it, though. He had more to do, more to forge forward with. He needed to keep going, because Arthur wasn't one to live in the past or think of the what-if.
She wakes up next to him. She shifts on the mattress to face the edge of the bed, debating whether to sneak away or not, but a perfunctory hand under the sheet and on her thigh prevents her. She blushes at the sheer stark contact of his fingers along her skin, and she gathers the sheet more securely over her chest as she turns to face him. As she does so, his hand sweeps to her waist.
His eyes are open. "Hey creepy," she greets, cheerfully as if she wasn't just contemplating getting up.
"You were going to leave," he accuses lightly. She doesn't give him enough credit sometimes.
"I was debating it," she admits.
His hand rests more firmly, pulling her towards him. "And what did you decide?" he asks, the arch at the edge of his eyebrow meaning that he's not angry but conversational, just teasing.
Ariadne chews the inside of her cheek in thought. "That it would be awfully difficult to leave when held hostage," she says, looking down the sheet where his fingers rove up her hip.
"It was preemptive," he reassures her, resting his lips onto her forehead, before sweeping down towards the point between her eyebrows, her cheek, her lips. His mouth slides along hers.
She allows it, assumes it, reaching for his face to hold in between her hands, and she feels his hand roams over her hip and higher. Gently, he maneuvers them, so she's on her back.
She pulls herself away slightly, which really doesn't deter him. He easily finds a place along her cheek, under her chin, making it difficult to talk. She presses a firm hand onto his chest. "Arthur, I should tell you," she gasps, attempting to scoot away from him.
"You're leaving?" he asks, moving to her collarbone. "I saw your text."
Ariadne has a foggy idea of her text, especially as Arthur continues to explore her skin, but whatever will she has pushes its way up and through her arm. Her resistance must register then, because Arthur pulls slightly away, and Ariadne finds herself wanting those centimeters back. "You weren't going to tell me," he says like a point of fact. She wasn't going to tell him, and her previous reasoning sounds petty to her own saturated mind.
She debated it before, but "I wasn't sure if I should," she admits. His eyes burn into her, and she feels her face heat up. "But I did." That attachment feels hollow to her own ears and she bites the inside of her cheek as she watches Arthur register her words, leaning on his hands, hovering above her.
"Because you were tired of waiting for Eames," she hears and she feels waves of regret come over her.
"Because I realized that you both were leaving and that it could possibly be a forever deal. You're not the easiest person to find again, Arthur." She relies on the truth, she decides, and as her words come to her she feels surer of her previous resolve.
"You could've told me sooner."
"You could've told me that you took Eames' job," she poses back, not in retaliation but almost like a tit for tat discussion.
Arthur doesn't say anything else.
Ariadne tucks her lips in, licking them, and sits up onto her elbows. Arthur rolls off of her and onto his back. "You once said that you sent me the postcards because you had no one to send them to," she says a little quietly, looking down at him. She grasps the sheet over her chest.
Arthur's expression looks uncomfortable as he considers the ceiling. "It's true, I didn't." When she doesn't go along with his laugh. He looks up at her. "I don't have any outside connections. But I knew that I wanted someone who knew where I was coming from, and who I could turn to, even if it was to write something so silly like a postcard. And, if I'm honest, I knew that I wanted to keep talking to you. And I knew that you'd like it."
"Oh the gall!" she says with an exaggerated pull on the last word, plopping down onto her pillow, and just like that they're buoyant again.
"When were you going to tell me that you were leaving?" he asks, and that threat comes back. She turns to him.
"When were you going to tell me that you were leaving?" she poses as if she's teasing him.
"Probably after you did," he says with the same light candor.
She laughs. "Liar."
"You forget that tracking people is what I do for a living," he explains, and Ariadne nods.
"Yeah, I never realized how creepy that is actually."
"What are you talking about?" he asks, smiling. "You point it out a lot. I don't think you'd let me forget it."
She laughs, feeling his arm coming around her shoulders, forcing her to look at him.
"So what is this?" he asks, his fingers twisting in her loose hair.
"Apparently, we've learned our lesson," she says smartly, reveling in the small action of his hands.
"We're not leaving this bed, until we figure it out," he replies, and his hands stop that delicious movement.
"I'm fine with that, actually," she says, winding her arms around him, bringing her body towards his.
He sighs, forcing himself to deflect the light touches of her fingertips against his skin. "Ariadne."
"We're both leaving," she says, into his neck. "We're wasting time debating this."
He thinks back to Cobb's advice. When never happens.
But, she has a point.
"You're smiling."
"Excuse me, Mr. Eames?"
Arthur looks up from his seat at the wooden table, where his laptop lays open in front of him. He's near a small, open window with a lush view of Manila, or rather the tropical forest past the bustling dirt streets.
He arrived a week ago, and with rusty aplomb, he begins the plans with Eames and this new head extractor, he adjusts his body to the time zone, he does reconnaissance, studies the mark and contacts a few chemists in the area to get the compound required. He's back in action. He feels comfortable and his instincts come back over time as they train and prepare.
Eames is his usual lackadaisical self, exploring the city, annoying Arthur, and admiring himself in the mirror. Well, this may be him actually working to mimic so-and-so's movements, but Arthur swears that the Forger just wants to look at himself longer in the mirror. He's seen him purse his lips at himself once or twice.
He hasn't brought it up, but he did think Ariadne would appreciate it when he told her. He hadn't spoken to her since he left that morning.
"Stick-in-the-mud, you're genuinely smiling," the Englishman accuses across the room. "It's almost offending me. It's putting me off-kilter. I think an angel's got its wings."
Arthur feels that familiar purse of skin form between his eyebrows. "Go away, Mr. Eames," he advises. He should know better.
Because of course, Eames doesn't take the hint. "What happened, eh?" he pursues conversationally. "You never did tell me about what happened with our dear architect."
Arthur scowls more. "Mr. Eames."
"What's going on between you two anyway?"
The question irritates him, maybe because of who asks it but also because, well, Arthur deserves this. He was the one to ask Eames to arrange it for him, so the Englishman would naturally be curious about it.
But did that mean that he was privy to it?
Arthur woke up with Ariadne's leg wrapped around his waist, and despite this being the first—or rather second time he's woken up this way— he can't help but feel unexceptionally that this is how he was meant to wake up before. Undeniably, he felt the familiar pull of a smirk as he looked at her sleeping. Her wavy brown hair was carelessly tossed over her back, her shoulder, her bare neck—he loved her neck—and her arms were tucked tightly under her chest as she laid on her stomach.
He had an itch to touch her, to trace the outlines of her back, where it dipped down to her waist. The sheet was pulled tight where she twisted but in sleeping, she didn't seem to care.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to wake up like this every morning? And for a split-second, Arthur played the what-if game with that thought, wandering down that sinfully sweet imagined place where Arthur only had to live for moments like this and not care about finding his own place. Not worrying that he's bored to flinders staying put. Not worrying that he was a no one, though known in the underground world.
But he chose to go back with new perspective. Perhaps he needed that.
Arthur sat up slightly to look at the clock on the night stand. He had an hour to get to the airport before he missed his flight and the meeting with Eames when he landed in Manila. He looked at their tangle of limbs and the sheets. Almost like taking off a band-aid, he made the decision to climb out, the cold morning air, hitting him straight through. He stood and found his pants. Ariadne shifted on the bed, and immediately, his eyes were on her. His button down on but left open. His fingers poised over the row of buttons.
"You're leaving?" she said, a little sleepily curling up to the pillow under her. Her eyes still closed, but her voice heavy with sleep.
Arthur kept his hands at the row of buttonholes and buttons, standing stock still as he watched her blink awake. Her wide eyes following his movements carefully. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," she sighed the words as she attempted to lift her head, and all Arthur wanted to do was settle back into the bed with her. She radiated warmth. She radiated security. Her eyes never faltered from looking at him so contently, and Arthur wondered at how easy she took this, why she didn't immediately get mad or feel hurt. He's left her before, in situations less heavy than this, and yet, here she was, genuinely at ease with watching him go.
"I didn't want it to be this way," he said, holding his shirt a little dumbly.
Ariadne sat up, pulling the sheet across her and pulling herself up towards him. Her hands went past his own, and with small, dexterous fingers, she did them up as Arthur watched her in amazement. He lowered himself so she could adjust his collar. "Maybe this is who we are. Maybe we just function better like this," she said simply into his ear, finishing and reaching over to kiss him on the cheek. She looked back at her handiwork as Arthur stood up straight.
It was a small favor, and while she had adjusted his collar for him before, her hands smoothing out his shoulders familiarly, she had never dressed him before. As each button found its place, and as her fingers ran so closely to his chest, separated by a piece of fabric, Arthur understood that she was fine, just fine with seeing him go this time.
Arthur thought about how he was never happier, than returning to Paris just to see her. The adventure and the girl. He wondered if life can honestly be that way. He wondered if he could see her the same way as he was now, if he left in this hour.
Time, catch-up, and postcards seemed flimsy to him now.
"I'll still be in New York, whenever you come back," she reminded him, as if she read his thoughts. "We're still friends."
Arthur made his way to the closet to get his tie, and her made his way to the mirror to make it. "I know," he said, because he wasn't sure what else to say. But he felt a comfort in the fact that she said so, it was an invitation to come back to her. It was leaving the door open for him, rather than closing him out, or wondering.
Friends. It felt amazing, relishing her presence. It felt easy and comfortable just having the security of knowing what they were. They were friends. They were back to their old selves.
He turned to her again gesturing towards his half-done wardrobe, and Ariadne nodded with an exaggerated expression of being impressed, her lip quirking downward. Laughing she stood on her knees on the mattress and reached over—the sheet held to her chest—to hug him. His face went to her neck. "This is how we function," she said with that same contented, wistful lilt to her voice.
"At least we are functioning," he pointed out, smilingly.
"At least we're together," she riposted.
Eames looks at Arthur from his face, then to his seat at his desk. "It can't be nothing because you're smiling." Eames comes closer to look him over, and Arthur rolls his eyes. "But it also can't be something," he says.
Arthur looks up at that deduction, a defensive feeling in his tone, his eyes. "Eames?"
"You wouldn't be here if it was something," the Forger says with a lackadaisical shrug, walking out of the room, clearly done with picking on him for the day.
And despite his usual experience with the Forger, after all of the small annoyances, the jibes, the laughter, that comment actually stings.
Arthur lived almost a hundred plus years because of dream sharing. He had hundred of lives, some he used well, and others, he used unfairly, but maybe because of it, he decided to act so careful in how he handled his reality.
Cobb and Mal eventually grew old together, not in reality, he knew, but in a dream, he learned.
"We did get to grow old together," Cobb explained to him, weeks following the Fischer job. Arthur came to visit Dom and the children to see how he was. "I did spend my life with her, and now I'm going to spend this one with my kids."
Arthur never fully understood how Cobb allowed Mal to invade his mind and take over their plans, but he also didn't understand giving something like that a chance. He had to admire his friend for trusting something so blindly as that.
"So what do you plan to do after graduation?" he asked, leaning forward and looking her right into the eyes, and Ariadne didn't flinch as she leaned forward herself, her fork poised with chocolate cake on it.
"Anything," she replied a little smugly, taking a bite.
Arthur stood in front of the window in his London hotel a month later. She would be graduating today, and for some inexplicable reason, he pulled out his phone to call her. She tried to convince him to come visit for the parties afterward, and he shook his head good-naturedly, looking at the closed silver PASIV case on his made bed.
On the other end of the line, Ariadne spoke about her parents needing to see her soon.
"Well don't let me stop you," he said. He heard the rustle of clothing and guessed at what she was doing.
"Never," she replied quickly. He could hear the smile on her face as she spoke quickly, her breath rushed as he imagined her going about her apartment, grabbing her cap and gown. "I'll see you later Stick-in-the-Mud."
He winced at the nickname, one she picked up from Eames no doubt. "I thought you were leaving?" he asked as a revenge on that score.
For a second, Arthur debated whether he should go or not.
It sounded like she was jumping from one foot to the other. "Commencing," she corrected with a heave of air, before hanging up.
Arthur looked at the third postcard he purchased from the spinning rack. The ones to Pippa and James were easy, describing the culture and sending love and a promise to visit when he's back in the States. He knew that they'd enjoy the novelty of it. He enjoyed it himself.
So he sat in the airport near his gate, the last blank post card on his Moleskin on his knee, his pen poised over it. There was a sale on three for one, and like a tourist, he bought into it. He thought about sending the last one to Sam maybe or Liz, but letting his family know that he was here wasn't ideal. He could send one to Dom, maybe just to see how his old friend was settling in. Arthur did want someone who would understand this lifestyle, who would appreciate the old-world romance of writing thoughts down on a card, because once he sent it, Arthur wouldn't be able to read them back. His words wouldn't be his anymore.
And there was only one person he wanted to have them.
Arthur committed pen to paper. He didn't write anything of substance, but he relished writing something at all. He relished the idea that she'd be surprised by it.
He also knew that she'd get annoyed that she wouldn't be able to write back. He didn't expect anything back or anything to come from it, but it acted as a catharsis to this moving around.
He never realized how wearying it could be doing this, but he had Cobb to look out for, for a while and before that he had Mal and Cobb's experimentation to deal with. Now, everything seemed more settled and the job, started to become unreal without someone to share it with.
He ran out of room quickly, despite his small handwriting, so he signed off with a curt initial. He sent it out without a second thought.
Two weeks have gone by, and she doesn't hear from Arthur. She accepts this. It's a natural order of his work, and she has work of her own as she prepares for her flight back into the New York.
Ariadne's phone dings again, signaling the missed call and awaiting voicemail she received while climbing her stairs. She drops the Tesco bag onto the counter and makes room on the empty floor near one of her large suitcases to sit, pulling out a sandwich and bottle of water, her final repast for her time here. It's extremely reminiscent of her first meal here, and she thinks it extremely fitting.
All of her furniture has been purchased, gifted, or sent, and she only has these two large, all-consuming travel luggage as furniture. A small lamp sits in the corner, she figures she'll leave it for the next person, almost as a nice symbol. She settles her back fully on the back of one lumpy bag and brings her mobile to her ear to listen, pressing the right buttons to hear. She realizes that she never checked to see who called.
"Ariadne?" It's Arthur's voice.
"I love you." The words are sudden, rushed, breathless, almost as if he couldn't contain it in a calm, more dignified Arthur-manner. "I've said it before, I know, but I don't think I'm really tired of saying it, and, if I'm honest, I think you need to hear it. You deserve to hear it." He pauses. "This is extremely terrible to leave as a voice mail, you know? I'd rather hear a reaction when I'm putting myself on the line, though this makes it more literal.
"I'm on a flight in—" and Arthur pauses as if he's calculating something—"thirty minutes. I'm at the airport waiting to board my plane, because I realized, quite late, I know, that we should be together. Like traditional, normal together. I know that we said that we function like this but—"
He stops again and Ariadne holds the phone closer to her ear to hear it all. "I know that I said that this was just how are," he says. "But, frankly, I don't want that. It's been awful not having you there to talk to. I'm not sure how I did it before, really.
"The thing is, we can't go back or pretend that we're not anything more than just friends Ariadne. It's just foolish to pretend otherwise, but, if I want to talk to you, be there for you even more so I'll do it. I want to."
His voice stops and she can hear the faint call overhead. "Leave a voicemail if you want, I'll be on the plane soon, so in a few hours, I'll be able to listen to it. In the mean time, you can listen to this one for five hours if you replay it over and over." She listens until her automated machine tells her her options of deleting, saving, responding—
She doesn't hesitate when she presses the keys, her hand over her mouth. She flexes her fingers.
"Hello?"
Stunned. She looks at her phone, before bringing it to her cheek. "Arthur?"
"Ariadne?" The sound of her name from him startles her further.
"Have you boarded yet?" she asks, attempting levity.
"Soon." She doesn't say anything. "Ariadne?"
"I'm sorry." She holds her right temple for a moment with the tips of her fingers. "I'm trying to wrap my head around talking to you, because I thought I was going to leave a voice mail. Um, when do you think you'll be there?"
He tells her.
"Right…" she wavers, thinking.
But ever-practical Arthur is there to keep her on line. "Ariadne I'd rather hear it, rather than wait the entire flight," he says crisply, and she hears the stone cold tone in his voice as if he's preparing for the worst.
"You'll probably fall asleep," she reasons, humor her go-to.
"Ariadne," his voice scolds.
"You're right," she blurts.
"About what?"
Ariadne almost wants to slap him for being so coy. She can hear the smile on his face. "I know that I don't want to go back to what we were before either, and I'm sorry I got in the way with that before."
"You were right to."
Ariadne laughs. "Come again? Can we leave that as a voice mail for future reference?"
"You had every right to, Ariadne, and I know that I've taken you for granted at times, thinking that you'd always be there. I'm sorry too." She hears that contained smile over the phone. "So what do you want to do now?"
Ariadne stuffed the plastic kangaroo keychain into her mouth. It was a whimsical purchase from the Australian airport, which, though adorable and amusing, had the negative aspect of reminding her of that trip.
Without thinking, she opens the small metal door to her mail slot and pulls out a small, tidy stack of envelopes. She rifled through it carelessly, reading the return addresses and spotting bills with a roll of her eyes, before her fingers brush against something a little more unfamiliar.
One side was glossy. A picture of some foreign landscape, romanticized and enhanced in color to show the country at its best. Ariadne studied the photo, before turning it over, reading the short missive quickly, barely registering it, to get to the signature.
-A
She felt a stupid smile on her face grow at that.
She sits at her gate and, inexplicably, a stupid smile will spread across her face. Embarrassed, she covers it up with a knotted fist, her index finger curving over her top lip, her arms wound round her middle tightly.
The couple down the row eye her good-naturedly, and she takes a sip of her accidentally purchased fizzy water.
She thinks some semblance of sensibleness will help her, so she picks up her mail she pulled from her mailbox that morning. The top piece of stationary is all too familiar to her.
That stupid smile will not go away.
"So what do you want to do now?" Arthur asked, and Ariadne can't hide a smile growing on her own lips. She touched her mouth as if to verify it. Her heart began to beat rapidly at this exchange.
"You're on a flight."
"Yes."
"To New York."
"Yes."
"To see me?"
"To start over for myself. I'm thinking about school, but for you, essentially, yes."
She licked her lips, crouching forward slightly in an effort to contain herself. She pulled back her hair behind her ears, needing some sort of movement. "What are you doing Friday night?" she asked on tense pins and needles with the rush of the question.
She listened to Arthur sigh over the line. "I'll be jet-lagged, drunk, depending on how this conversation goes," he joked, and Ariadne laughed at the small attempt.
"How about dinner?" she asked, sitting in her flat, her legs stretched out in front of her, the orange glow of the single lamp nearby emanating a little more warmly than before.
He appeared to consider this question flippantly. He wasn't going to have any of this, she realized, but Ariadne bites back her excitement, enjoying this ebb and flow more than anything. "That depends on how drunk I want to get," he replied smoothly.
This. This was easy. She could talk to him for days on the line, but this was something entirely new and exciting, something easy and something entirely teasing. There was something at play that Ariadne always felt was there with him. That hint of something more that she wanted to uncover, that idea that what they were before, friends, was a precursor to something a little more. Her heart paced at the thought of it, at the newness of it. "Arthur," she chided.
She imagined him sitting at his gate. She could see him biting back that tight lipped smile of his as he leaned onto his knees, sitting in front of a window of airplanes roving on tarmac, a dark sky above. "Are you asking me out?" he asked.
"Normal, run of the mill, all couples do it dinner." She pulled her legs tight against her chest. She held her phone tightly to her ear. "Simultaneously in the same city, sitting at the same table, eating at the same restaurant, during the same time. Maybe leading to another one." She nodded at the bare window of her flat, looking at the back of the building behind hers, the windows with their hint of lights escaping the gaps between shades and curtains. She was exposed to any of them. Her naked apartment was open to anyone, a girl sitting against a suitcase on a wooden floor. "I'm feeling pretty traditional."
She heard his realization through the lines. That smile, constant. "Sounds normal," he agreed coolly. "Eight o'clock?"
She played it as well. "Sounds normal." She heard a few voices from his end, and she tried to discern them.
"Excellent—I'm sorry, I'm getting off the phone right now." She guessed he was at the gate entrance, getting his ticket scanned by a flight attendant. "I am," he said, slightly nerved. "I'm sorry—Ariadne?" His voice was back to ease, back to her.
"Arthur?" she asked, laughing at that slight break in his composure. She imagined a slightly off-kilter Arthur, walking down the accordion hallway to the plane. Travel posters and credit card ads flashed by his profile as he fixed his messenger bag onto his shoulder, he adjusted his phone to his ear.
"I have to go. I love you." It wasn't sentimental or dismissive at the end of a conversation. It was a fact that Ariadne already understood and felt safe with. It was a fact that she felt like she could own up to now.
She turned away from her window and replied readily back, "I love you too." How often had they said it of or to one another, but in a different capacity altogether? Love, Ariadne began to understand, held different pockets in her heart. Different guides and different wants and needs from her own perception of the word before. Love called a need and a want, but it also created a security, a comfort. She felt that as she replied back, stretching her legs out again, reveling in this admission from both of them. "Have a good flight."
"You too." She looked at her toes. "When will you be in?" he asked quickly. She listened to the bustle and the pardons around him as people settled into their seats.
She juggled her head from side to side. "Thirty-six hours from now?" she estimated.
"I'll get you," he said steadily in that Arthur way that left no questions or room for arguments.
"There could be delays," she couldn't help but point out.
"You guys could get lost," he added, clearly on to her.
She frowned. "These aren't the things I want to hear before my flight. In fact, I avoid watching LOST and Snakes on a Plane for these very reasons."
He laughed. "But I'll wait for you. Just let me know your arrival time—" She heard a small voice on his end murmur something. "—I'm getting off now. I'm sorry—Ariadne?" His voice changed from professional smooth, then warm at her name. She perked up at it.
"Arthur?" she posed back.
She heard him smirk. She could see his eyes squinting slightly as he does so. "This is it."
Her toes curled. "Yeah."
"We're both sticking it out this time."
"I stuck it out the first time," she pointed out.
"You were moving and told me in a text message," he argued lightly.
"Says the man on a plane leaving in two minutes?" she questioned.
"Right. I have to go actually," he explained uneasily. "I'm getting dirty looks."
"You always get those," she chided.
And Arthur's voice is back to warning. "Ariadne," he said, sobering.
"Arthur?" she asked, attempting to be serious too.
"I love you."
Her heart peeked a little. She shook her head. "We already did this."
"I know," he said, his tone lingering, egging her on. But she didn't tire of hearing it.
She sighed. "Arthur?" she asked, mock-wearily.
"Yes, Ariadne?" he asked.
"I love you too."
Ariadne sits near her gate, that stupid smile still on her face, despite her best efforts, as she holds a familiar piece of stationary, her fingers slick on the sheeny front. It's a landscape of Manila. There are tropical trees, a stagnant volcano, a blue sky. The flag is on the side with a small, cheesy inscription of, "Wish you were here!" in swirly white script.
He must've sent it before he left for the States. Perhaps it was written in the airport and sent off quickly, but his call came faster.
Perhaps he couldn't wait too.
The message itself is succinct and short, probably the shortest one he's sent. It's also the only postcard with his name on it.
It's right there at the bottom, right after a word that she reads over and over and over. It's why she can't stop stupidly smiling.
"Wish you were here" doesn't even begin it.
I'm going back. I'll be waiting.
Love, Arthur
And Ariadne shoves the card into her bag. She hears the voice on the loudspeaker announce boarding, so she shuffles along, gripping her messenger bag, looking at the ground and smiling to herself, still.
She'll be in New York in a few hours. She'll show him the card. She'll be able to reply properly this time. She'll start over. She'll build buildings. She'll meet new people. She'll miss Europe terribly.
But she'll be there with him.
A/N: That's all folks. Well, actually there's an epilogue, and I'll post that in a couple of days. But that's my first multi-chap fic that I've finished. I feel quite accomplished actually. I do want to give major thanks to Laura-xx and SGundy for their kind reviews from the last chapter and for keeping up with the story. To anyone who has kept up with the story, really! I'm really happy you have and that you've read this far. So thanks for sticking it out, and thank you so much for the support and kind reviews I've received for this. I've learned a lot about my writing process and what should work and what doesn't because of you guys.
You're awesome.
As always, thanks for reading!
