DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN INCEPTION.

I really cannot apologise enough for the large delay, but I've had a really bad case of the writer's block, and exams are everywhere at the moment. However, they will be done within a week or so, so updates will pick up real quick.

As always: please enjoy, and review if you have the chance!

It was late. The warehouse seemed a gloomy grey as Ariadne looked around her, and only the dim yellow lighting of the desk lamps gave a faint, but warm glow.

It was just her and Arthur now. Working late, as they always did. She was never sure of where the others went, but always guessed that Cobb retired back to his hotel or wherever he had decided to stay, his mind always tired and tormented with the grief and loss that she had discovered was hidden. Eames probably left and spent the evenings at the local bar, drinking and enjoying his lone self until the early hours of the morning. Yusuf always seemed to leave at the presise same time every evening. At half past 8, he bid them goodnight and retired for the night. Something about these patterns was comforting to her, and she'd got used to the same routines.

7:00- Cobb leaves. Says nothing but a short goodbye to Arthur, and sometimes a small mutter of something she can never understand. Arthur always nods, understanding his need for solitude.

7:10- Eames waits until he is sure that the Extractor is gone. Then he leaves, bids her a goodnight, pats Arthur on the back, and leaves.

8:30- After locking the door to his stored compounds, Yusuf wishes them both a goodnight, and leaves them.

Everynight. Always the same.

It was always her and Arthur to be the last to leave. She wouldn't say that it was because they worked the most, or had nowhere else to go, but she would say that there was something undeniably comfortable about the silences that they shared. Quite often, they would indulge in delightful small talk, but more often than none, they would say nothing at all. Sometimes, no words would be shared throughout the entire evening. And strangely, that didn't bother her in the slightest.

However one night, Arthur began the conversation. Ariadne walked across the warehouse, papers in hand, and marched towards Arthur's desk where he sat, hunched over his laptop, his face creased into a thoughtful frown.

"These are for you," she spoke, gently placing the sheets down on the side. "They're the sketches for the lobby of the second level."

Hearing her, he sat up, and turned his attention away from his work towards her. "Thank you. I'll look over these tonight."

She leaned over, and pointed towards the design. "Just remember, that this is where the bar will be. The elevators will lead off to here..."

"Why are you always here so late?"

Ariadne blinked. She straightened herself and caught his eyes, which were gazing into hers in a scrutinising way that made her want to crawl into the ground and hide from his view. How was she suppose to react to that? Some part of her distant mind told her that she perhaps should be offended by the hidden undertone of his voice, but then again, his gentle features reminded her that not everything he said was suppose to indimidate her.

"Um..." She mumbled, searching for an answer that made even the slightest bit of sense. "I'm not sure. I guess I just like to make sure my work is done."

"Ariadne, you're 21. Aren't students like you supposed to be out partying everynight?"

A small, dry laugh escaped her lips as she folded her arms across her chest. "I've never really been one for partying."

"I guess I should have figured that."

In response, she rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'm a bit of a nerd, there's no need to point it out."

"I wasn't saying that." The corner of his lips upturned, amused by her assumptions. "And you're not a nerd, you just know how to prioritise."

To Arthur, that may have been the best compliment a person can recieve. However, the young Architect wasn't entirely sure how to react to the strange statement.

"Thanks?" she spoke, her voice a little high and uncertain, enough to make the Point Man smirk in the faint traces of amusement, before turning and flicking his eyes back to his screen. She began picking the loose threads of her scarf. "Can I ask you something?"

Without turning his eyes away from the bright screen, he nodded. "You can."

"You and Eames. You don't...like him very much, do you?"

"That doesn't matter." He spoke quickly, dismissively. Nothing apart from job details really seemed to matter to this man. However, Ariadne was determined to continue, and find an answer to the question that was bugging her since she had started working with these people.

She frowned. "Well it does if you're working with him for weeks on end."

"He's a good Forger, if not, the best. In case you haven't noticed, he's a little too brash for my taste."

Ariadne gave him a soft smile, thinking of all the joking and entertainment Eames seemed to get from his banter with the younger man. She leaned against the side of his desk, making herself comfortable. "He seems to think you're the coolest guy around."

Arthur gave a scoff of disagreement. Ariadne smiled, and shook her head.

"You should talk to him about it."

He replied with a half-hearted shrug, and met her eyes with a soft gaze. "It doesn't bother me so much that I would risk the quality of the work we do. There's no point in my trying to have a more tolerable relationship with Eames. We don't always get to pick who we want to work with. Sometimes you get along with people, and sometimes you don't."

"That's very...adult of you."

A small chuckle escaped him. He shook his head to himself. "I wasn't always so accepting of people. When Cobb and I were in our earlier extraction days, I used to complain for hours on end about people he'd hired."

Ariadne drew back, her face contorting into a worried frown. "Oh god, I hope you don't do that about me."

"No, we don't do that anymore," he dismissed. A small, sly smirk spread across his lips. "We just keep our thoughts to ourselves."

Ariadne shifted. "Oh-"

Another low, single chuckle errupted from him. "Ariadne, I'm kidding. Calm down, you're one of the few that I've enjoyed working with."

Strangly, an image ran through her mind. An image of a younger Cobb and Arthur, who laughed and talked like real people. Like real friends. Did something even remotely like that happen at one point? She couldn't tell, not looking at them now. Not with their suits and blank stares, more like men who had nothing else in the world than this very job. But yet, there is was. That faint, but persistant picture of a younger pair, laughing together over the result of a job. It just didn't seem possible.

Her eyes travelled over his features, her curiosity peaking. "How come you don't do that anymore? With Cobb?"

Quickly, his face contorted, his lips twisting as his eyes narrowed in a certain look of discomfort, perhaps at a memory or thought that he wanted to avoid. Either way, it intrigued Ariadne even furthur. "...We changed. It got serious and...suddenly other things seemed more important."

Silence fell between the two. As he resumed his work, Ariadne waited a moment, listening to the sound of the keyboard quickly being tapped away. She sat up, and leaned over slightly, her eyes catching the black and white information before her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Learning Fischer Senior inside out."

As the screen scrolled down, Ariadne frowned as she caught sight of Robert Fischer's face. Blank. Silent. It was interesting, she thought, how the child of a neglective father always seemed to be so calm and collected. How he never seemed to have public breakdowns or noticable emotional turmoils. Especially interesting, considering that his CEO father was now slowly decaying in the public eye. In that sense, Ariadne felt a kind of sympathy for the man. A small tinge of recodnition, of relation to what he was going through. Knowing what that type of loss felt like.

She sighed, and spoke no louder than a whisper. "It's kind of sad, isn't it?"

"What is?" Arthur's voice was no much more than a mumble, showing that his focus was still mainly on the practical information. The things he can use.

"Well...Fischer. He's losing his father."

Turning his head slightly, he caught her eye with a quirked eyebrow of confusion. "It happens to thousands of people, everyday."

"Yeah, but-" Ariadne paused. He just didn't get it. Of course he wouldn't. What did Arthur care? Fischer's present problem was nothing more than a statistic, a note on some paper that would be taken into mild consideration for there plan. No sympathy was needed in Arthur's opinion. "Nevermind," she sighed, her shoulders falling heavily. She reached up and pointed towards the door. "I'm gonna go."

He stopped typing then, leaning back and stretching his arms gracefully out before him, eyeing her closely. "Are you fine to get home?"

It was cold outside. Really cold. And dark. But Ariadne really didn't want to have to drive home with Arthur as she had done before. Not that she didn't enjoy her small moments alone with him (because she did, very much so), but it seemed that she would rather enjoy her own peaceful company that night. She nodded. "Yeah, sure."

Ariadne"Goodnight."

" 'Night."

When Ariadne woke, it was still dark. Without even looking at the bedside clock, she knew that the time must have been an obsene hour for someone to wake when they had a rather important engagement the same day. A very important engagement. But no matter how desperately hard she tried, she couldn't force herself back into that much needed slumber. Especially when memories of the previous evening came flooding back to her. So, she decided that much to her dismay, that any more sleep was certainly not an option.

As she slipped (stumbled, then nearly tripped on her chaotic mess of clothing on the ground) from her bed, she switched on the televsion and sat herself on the couch, flicking mindlessly through the shitty late night dramas. Settling on the news channel, she immersed herself in a robbery report.

She remembered seeing the first news story of the Fischer Morrow company dispersion. Knowing that she hadn't the slightest clue of how the buisness world worked, she couldn't even begin to imagine the effect this must have had in the corporate side of things. How they had done it so perfectly, she'd never know. Somehow, in the mass of all the chaos and questioning of this one event, there had been nothing as much as a tinge of a clue leading onto the inception. Nothing to single their names out at all. It was nothing less than amazing that nobody had even considered it. And in that sense, the Architect actually felt proud at what they had achieved.

But she couldn't help but wonder how this had affected Fischer himself. After all, he'd just lost his father, and probably his godfather not long after the grand buisness choice. There was certainly more in it for Peter Browning than the pleasure of working with his godson, that's for sure. No doubt the change of the company affected him in some rather unfortunate ways, money-wise.

There was really, just the smallest part of Ariadne, that wished that Robert Fischer was having something of a better life as a result of what they'd done. But of course, she'd never know. And that was the way it was meant to be.

As the sun slowly broke through the curtains during the early morning hours, Ariadne decided that she may as well start moving, as the day ahead promised nothing but hard work and little rest. Within minutes, she had changed into something of a formal attire. If not to make an impression, then to give her some emotional confidence. As she changed into a crisp clean shirt, and tied a dark blue scarf around her neck, she wondered if she was the only one ready this early. Probably not. After all, pre-extraction nerves must have been contagious.

After she'd changed, brushed her hair and mentally prepared herself, she decided to wait. After all, Eames was probably still in an early morning mood, and Arthur and Yusuf were probably doing some last minute work, bothering any of them without right or reason was the last thing she wanted to do.

So she did the only thing she could find herself having the strength to do. Like many others, it was one of those things that instantly made her feel calmer.

Eat breakfast.

Two hours, five pancakes and three coffees later, Ariadne found herself sitting in Eames' hotel room, waiting for the Point Man to arrive. She sat on a chair, watching the Forger in pure fascination as he began laying out playing cards on his bed, sat perfectly comfortable on a pile of pillows.

"You playing?" he asked, without removing his eyes from the organised stacks that he was creating.

"I don't know how."

"It's easy. You try to get to 21 without going over. Just say 'hit me' when you want another card."

Ariadne dragged her chair over to the side of the bed, and leaned over onto her knees. Really, she had nothing better to do, so playing a meaningless card game with Eames didn't seem an all too bad idea. "Okay. Hit me."

Eames placed a card down in front of her, before lifting his head a little and catching her eyes. The same knowing, mistivious glint in his eyes. "So..." he spoke slowly, ringing out the word for all it's worth. "Sleep well?"

"Not really. Hit me."

The Forger quirked an eyebrow, eyeing her from a low gaze. "Oh. Why's that?"

She gave a lazy, heavy shrug. "I don't know. Hit me."

"Hmm. I should imagine you were uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable? Hit me."

"Oh yeah, it get's really cold on that roof at night."

Ariadne looked up instantly at that remark. Seeing the beaming smile on his face sent her over the edge, as she threw her hands in the air in frustration, letting out a heavy sigh.

"Damn it, Eames!" she spat at the man, who was still wearing that insufferable grin on his face. Ariadne sound herself stammering, a habit of which she only used when completely bewildered. "I just can't...understand why you're doing this to me. Spying on me?"

"Well, I was taking a late night wonder and saw you head up. Naturally, I wanted to make sure the little Architect was okay, so I followed you."

Little Architect. Little Architect. Little Architect. Ariadne felt her face contort into an expression of anger. "First of all, stop calling me that," she spoke, just short of snapping. "And secondly, your concern doesn't justify your spying on me and Arthur in any way." She leaned back and cross her arms over her chest, watching the Forger with a challenging glare. "Hit me."

Eames however, barely looked up. Instead, he simple shrugged and kept his gaze lowered onto the cards below them. "It was rather fun to watch."

"You're a real bastard."

Letting out a small laugh, Eames shook his head to himself in clear amusement. "This really bothers you."

Ariadne scoffed. "Please, you don't effect me nearly as much as you think you do."

He looked up then. Tilting his head just enough to catch her eyes in his typical knowing, satisfied glance that only infuriated her furthur. "Well, considering the fact that your face is now a lovely pink colour, and the fact that you're now on 32 in this game..." A corner of his lips upturned. "I'd say it does bother you."

"I-" Ariadne stammered. She found that really, he was getting to her, just as he always did. There was no real way to deal with it, because deep down, she regrettably knew that he was right. So she shut herself up, swung her legs over the side of the bed and slipped away, keeping nothing but her back turned against the Forger.

The thing that annoyed her more so than anything else was the fact that someone else had intruded on a very private victory for her. The previous night on the roof had not been anything special, nothing romantic, dangerous or life-changing, but more or less productive. She'd found herself drawing closer and closer between the cracks in the hard exterior of the Point Man, uncovering and discovering little things that she hoped nobody else had ever known. An immature thought, maybe, but the idea of the small moments of exposure made her feel somewhat special. It was something that she wanted to remember. The way he'd assured her with his words, the way his hands lightly brushed against her cheek, burning that feeling forever into her brain.

Now, as childish as the thought was, the memory felt tainted to her. Knowing that Eames, the source of her devistation over the past few days had been watching, drinking it in as a satisfied confirmation that he had been right from the start.

She turned her head as the door opened, and in walked the man in question, and the attentive Chemist wandering behind him, mumbling about the stablility of the levels.

Arthur, clad in a light striped shirt and dark brown tie stepped in, eyes running quickly over the contents of the table, before slipping off his suit jacket and placing it carefully over the nearest chair. (God forbid it would crease or something.)

"Good Morning," he spoke polietly as he saw the Architect, standing beside the bathroom door, hovering aimlessly.

She gave him a small nod. "Morning."

Eames, who had previously been sitting against the headboard of the bed slid off, and tugged on his sleeves in an attempt to smooth out the rumbled fabric. "So what shall we do until the time comes, eh?"

Arthur gave him a quick glance before moving towards the desk, flicking open the locks on the PASIV, and pushing it open. "We wait."

Ariadne had decided a long time before the Fischer job that waiting was boring. But then again, living in a big city, not only as a student, but as a young person, waiting was encountered on a daily basis. Waiting for trains, food, money, class deadlines...it was all there. Waiting was really just a part of live.

However, the idea of waiting for the passing of Robert Fischer's father seemed an almost digusting prospect to her. What would happen when he died? Would there be cheering from other members of the team. Sighs of relief? Balloons and party hats? It seemed that the entire routine of their job depended on when and where this man's life would end. And Ariadne knew, probably more than anyone else on the team, that the death of a loved one was nothing to be taken lightly. Not something one waits for.

But there they were, Arthur and Saito standing by the side, looking towards Ariadne and the Extractor in anticipation at the beginning of the end.

Cobb looked towards them, his stony face hiding any memory of what had just occured between him and the young Architect. "Book us another seat on that flight."

Arthur, who's head was down, his hands buried deep through a bag of paperwork, looked up. His eyes flickered momentarily from Cobb to Ariadne. "Why?"

"Ariadne's coming."

Ariadne caught the Point Man's eyes, which were now looking rather uncertain, something that did not fit Arthur well. He kept his steady gaze on Cobb.

"Cobb..." he started, clearly minding his words around the sensitive younger woman. "This...we can't afford any last minute changes like this."

"I'm coming." Ariadne rose from her seat, smoothing out the fabric of her shirt. "Whether you like it or not."

Saito, who was just as new to the rising tension that filled the room as she was, began to shift on his feet, a sense of discomfort about him. "I shall see what I can do." And with that, he turned his back and disappeared, turning on his heel quickly from the others.

Ariadne kept her focus on the Point Man, who was now staring back, his sharp eyes hard with the prospect of any change to the plan. He stepped forward, and looked toward Cobb, who had began packing up the PASIV.

"She hasn't been trained. She doesn't even know-"

Cobb turned swiftly, his jaw set. "Arthur. She's coming. That's all there is to it." Ariadne wasn't sure, but his eyes seemed darker, hiding an unspoken threat. "Your opinion might matter, but you don't have the final say."

He turned his back to the younger man, who hovered wordlessly for a moment before turning, and storming from the room.

Ariadne found herself sitting cross legged on the floor in silence. Arthur had given her the option to order room service if she got hungry, but the nerves of the oncoming event twisted a knot in her stomach that made it extremely difficult to keep down her dangerously large breakfast, let alone try and consume anything more. Eames however had more or less jumped at the choice to splurge on a large feast, and considering it was all on Harvey Walton's cash, nobody had really told him to do otherwise. Arthur had spent the wasted hours away on his laptop, seemingly running through a particularly shady website from Ariadne's point of view. Something to do with CIA or FBI or something along those lines. Yusuf sat beside her, humming whilst finding perfectly decent entertainment flipping through the channels on Eames' television.

Oddly, she used that time and began thinking of Cobb. Hoping everything was alright in his world. Going back to his children after years of abandonment couldn't have been easy. What might he be doing now? Did he talk to Arthur after the job? Thank him? There was something Ariadne felt, a little like admiration for the man, and his two children. For the fact that they were a small family, without a mother or a wife, just reunited after years of forced seperation was both upsetting and frightening at the same time. It would have been far from easy.

But she had seen it during her working time with him. Always that slight glimmer of hope that the job would be sucessful. The pushing determination. In her opinion, those people, the ones that carried the hope and the push with them, even through the hardest times would always be able to find the happiness that they were searching for to begin with. Those things, the things that are the most important, they never go away.

It was around half past two that Arthur's phone rang. Suffice to say, they all sat up and locked their eyes towards the device, as Arthur opened it and brought it to his ear.

His face was a blank portrait as he spoke into the phone. "Yes?...Yes...Alright...Thank you." As he clicked off and turned towards the others, Ariadne bit her lower lip, her heart beginning to pound quicker inside her chest. "It's time. He just checked into his hotel."

She leaned forward, trying to ignore the way her skin crawled at the statement. "How do you know?"

He was already out of his seat, Yusuf and Eames in tow, slipping his jacket on while the others grabbed the necessary things. "I tipped off an employee." His voice was breezy, quick, reminding her that time was of the essence in order for everything to work perfectly. "Yusuf, pack up the PASIV. Bring what you need."

Ariadne found herself rooted to her seat, not sure what she was beginning to feel. Fear? Panic? Excitement? Either way, it was enough to shut her up as she watched the others move around her. This was it. Everything they had prepared for, ready to go under and extract the information necessary. She suddenly found her mind throwing accusations at her.

You've never done an extraction before.

This isn't going to work.

You should have said no.

She barely had time to even think about acting out, or saying something, as she felt a light hand gently pull on her arm. She looked up, and saw Eames' gentle face above her, urging her out. "

"Come on, Ariadne," he whispered softly, just loud enough for her, and her alone to hear.