A/N: Hello again, lovelies! Thank you again for all of your heartwarming reviews and suggestions. I can assure you that I have an interesting story planned out, but I will definitely take your suggestions into account. Eventually there will be some Arthur/Ariadne moments, I promise. You'll just have to be patient. ;) I'm going to attempt to be inside of Arthur's head for a while here, so wish me luck!
Disclaimer: I am not Christopher Nolan, nor do I own his works. I'm just playing with his characters. :)
I'm an asshole. Arthur knew he was harsh with Ariadne. But harshness, he reminded himself, was necessary. She would never listen if he had merely suggested staying away from dreaming; this was the only way.
Ariadne could not dream anymore- at the very least, not with him. It was too dangerous, and she was simply too damn distracting to have around. To his vexation, he had developed…. not a crush, that was much too trivial- too childish. He had developed an interest in the Architect. It was her simple beauty, her spirit, and her intelligence that was the issue. It was distracting, inappropriate, and too damn unprofessional to put up with. After all, Arthur prided himself in his professionalism.
This was just the way it had to be. Ariadne had to hate him, detest him, in order to ensure that she would stay far away from him. The Point man had to remove temptation- to refocus on his job.
The job. Unfortunately for the team, removing temptation also meant removing the best damn architect that he had ever seen. He could find a new one, however, and mold the architect to his liking. Preferably one of the unattractive male sort…
One thing was for certain. Arthur would never see Ariadne again.
It had been two months. Two months of dreamless nights. Two months since Ariadne had returned to Paris, still full of an unrelenting resolve to continue dreaming- along with a broiling undercurrent of anger and, though she would never admit it, pain, towards the Point Man. Ariadne numbly returned to her studies, mindlessly going about her everyday life. She e-mailed both Saito and Yusuf in order to attempt to connect back into the dream world. They both, at the very least, knew where to find more dreamers. Both were dead-ends, however, as both men were loyal to Arthur. Apparently, he had known what her first moves would be, and had forewarned both men of her eventual contact.
And so, Ariadne was stuck going through the motions of a normal life. She craved the pure creativity of the dream world, taking out her frustrations on papers that littered her otherwise nearly empty apartment. Her money from the Job sat almost untouched in her bank account- only used for food and rent when necessary.
On her way to class, she stopped at her usual coffee shop, ordering her espresso. On her way to the door, she felt a hand grip her upper arm. Startled, she looked up. A large man, with a strong, slightly scarred, almost dangerous looking face, looked down on her.
"Ariadne. Please come with me," The man had a thick Bostonian accent. Ariadne dragged her feet. How did he know her name?
"I don't know you, sir. Let me go, now!" His grip tightened, almost painfully.
"I will not hurt you, honey, just come with me. We're just going to talk- I have a job offer for you." She was still suspicious, but she went with him anyways; it didn't seem that she had much of a choice. He led her to a black, official looking car, and opened the door, motioning for her to get in.
Ariadne hesitated for a moment, and then slid into the car. The man quickly followed her in, shutting the door.
"Who are you? What do you want with me?"
"My name is Marcus Blackhurst, an employee of Cobol industries. We have heard through the grapevine that you are an exceptionally talented dreamer, and we believe we could use your services." Ariadne stared at him, shocked. This was everything that she had hoped for… but there was one, glaring problem.
"But, Mr. Blackhurst, I'm only an architect. Do you have a team assembled?"
"You are the team. Should you accept, we will train you in becoming an extractor and point… person. Forging will be unnecessary, the subject had never seen you before."
"And the subject is…?"
"Are you saying that you accept, Ariadne?"
"Well, I should thi-" What was she saying? This was her opportunity to prove herself- and to prove Arthur wrong. "Er- absolutely. I accept." Blackhurst pulled a manila folder out of his briefcase, handing it over to her.
"Well then, study up on this, and tomorrow, at 7 am, you are to go to the address printed inside the folder." The car stopped, and Blackhurst stepped out. "We are at your class, Ariadne. You are not to tell anybody about this." With that, he was gone.
Later that night, Ariadne decided to look through the folder. The subject, Samuel Robinson, was an American ambassador of the UN. The thought of attempting her first extraction on someone so powerful, so important, made the Architect shudder. According to the information, he held important nuclear information that was dangerous to the rest of the world, and Cobol wanted to stop it in her tracks. Ariadne thought it was a bit strange that a corporation was taking such an interest in foreign affairs, but she was also unclear on what sort of business that Cobol was involved in. After all, perhaps they were simply doing their civil duty to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, it still made her slightly uneasy.
Ariadne looked through the content of the folder for a couple more hours, before finally heading to bed. The next morning, she awoke with a start, before throwing on some clothes. Topping off her outfit with her favorite sky blue scarf, she headed out the door, calling for a cab. When the cab arrived at the address that was given to her, Ariadne took a deep breath before stepping out of the cab. She was nervous. She was shocked to see that she arrived at a warehouse very similar to that in which the team had prepped for inception.
The nervous Ariadne entered the warehouse, seeing Blackhurst sitting with another man.
"Ah, Ariadne, right on time. This is my associate, and your dream teacher, Liam Wright." The tall, thin man, probably in his early fifties, ran a hand through is long blonde hair, before standing up and shaking her hand.
"It's a pleasure, Ariadne."
"Thank you, nice to meet you, Mr. Wright." Ariadne sat down in the chair that Blackhurst indicated with a nod of his head, waiting for them to speak.
"Liam will first be teaching you the duties of being a Point Man, and than going into the art of extraction. It will be a challenging couple of weeks, and I hope you are prepared. The extraction will take place in exactly three weeks, and we have no room for mistakes."
"Three weeks? Are you crazy? Is that even possible?" Wright cut her off.
"We have heard you are a very talented dreamer, Ariadne, and I must say, I am a very talented teacher. With your cooperation, I believe that this is possible." Ariadne was still skeptical, but a much more prominent part of her craved dreaming enough to overpower the skepticism.
"Alright, I'll do it." Blackhurst stood up, ushering her to the door.
"Wonderful. We start training tomorrow."
A/N: I've been lucky so far, and have had very little writer's block. I just wanted to let you know that I will not necessarily be updating everyday, but I will try to update frequently.
Please, please review. :)