8.

~ "It worked." The man who looked remarkably like the D.A said.

"Are you sure?" Cobb asked.

"We know what were doing Mr. Cobb." Arabella Marks said casually. The lady with the flame colored hair smiled kindly at the Extractor.

"The fact that she wanted to find the women, succeeded in finding them, lead to her cathartic experience. She vanquished her enemy. Me. She defeated her fear of the darkness and completed the mission."

"How do we know the Queen and the Child won't come back in the dream state?" Arthur asked looking over the still sleeping Architect. Her hands heavily bandaged as she slumbered on. Unaware of what they were saying.

"Because she no longer sees red. Her coat was no longer red in the dream. It was black. The door went from red to black. She stayed focused on the mission. I buried the Queen and the Child so deep in her subconscious that they can not get back out again."
"I told you." Eames said happily looking at Marks. "Arabella and her Team here are the best Repressers in the business."

The Represser laughed.

"I will admit this was a lot more interesting then the normal line of work I do. Witnesses who saw things they shouldn't." She admitted.

The two men on her Team who played the part of the Doctor and D.A alike smiled.

"This was not the worst case of dream splintering we've seen." The phoney Doctor told them.
"Oh no. We once worked with a gentleman who have five people running around in his mind."

The man who posed as the D.A laughed.

"He's fine now. Back to work in dream extraction like nothing happened." He added.
"So she can work in the dreams again?" Cobb asked.
"She's too talented a mind to not work in the dreams." Arabella Marks said.

The Represser sighed.
"I can repress her memories of the Red Queen and the Child. Had to do both because they are the same. It was the only way. I don't need to tell you that she can never know. Make up a story about what happened to her hands. Make up anything and make her believe it." She said.

~ "I should have listened to you Cobb." Arthur said soberly. "I'm sorry."

They were alone in the warehouse with the sleeping Architect. Eames had seen the Repression Team out. The Extractor sighed as he took a seat next to Ariadne, across from the Point Man.

"There was a time I wouldn't listen to you either." Cobb said.

Arthur looked down at the Architect. Still under the hold of the sedatives.
"Do you really think this will work?" Arthur asked.
"Eames says it will. He's worked with Marks before. She seems to know her stuff." Cobb assured him.

"God Cobb. I was so scared. Seeing her there with that knife. Her hands cut up. She was asleep. Completely asleep. Wayne telling us about the Queen and the Child in the dreams. I thought she had gotten better." The Point Man looked exhausted despite his resent sleep as he went into the dream with Marks and her Team.

"I know. I went through all this with Mal, remember? The important thing now, is that we don't lose Ariadne the same way." Cobb said assuredly.

"It must have been unbearable for her. Hearing voices in the dark, the snakes." He shook his head and brushed a errant strand of hair from her face.

The Point Man and the Team had journeyed down into the Architect's dreams after she had cut her own hands just hours before.

Cobb, still suspecting that she was losing her grasp on what was real. His fears were founded as they watched, helpless, to her falling victim to the things in the darkness. The snakes and the Red Queen were still looming in her mind. It was Eames who suggested they bring in outside help.

Arabella Marks had presented a radical idea of inception/regression. She posed as a serial killer to make Ariadne see her as a true villain. One that needed to be stopped at all costs.

Arthur had been leery of the levels of dreaming. The first being the infirmary where they all went under with Marks as a killer needing to get information from. The second layer, the forgotten maze under the snow fall. Finally the third, deep in the Architect's subconscious where the Red Queen and Child were now locked away.

"We just have to do what Marks said." Cobb told him. "We have to make up a lie about what happened to her hands, and make her believe it."

~ Ariadne came awake feeling like she had slept far too long. In a way, she had. Her head and body hurt as she fought her way back into the waking world.

"Hey, looks who's awake." Arthur's deep reassuring voice reached her.
"Arthur?" She croaked. Realizing her throat was sore. She was in their bed, the covers felt warm and safe as night was falling.

"I've got you some water. How do you feel?" He asked setting a glass on her night stand as he sat on her bed next to her.
"Terrible." She confessed. Her limbs feeling clumsy as she reached for the glass.

The white bandages covering her hands shocked her.
"Your alright." Arthur assured her.
"What... what happened?" She asked her eyes having trouble focusing.

"We were cooking dinner last night. You slipped and cut your hands open with a knife." He told her believably. I took you to the ER and they stitched you up. Gave you pain medication. You've been asleep for hours." He said honestly.

"Oh my God." She said taking all of it in.

Remembering her hands bleeding. Blood on the floor. Arthur calling her name.

"That's so stupid." She said. Mad at herself.

He laughed.

"Yeah you were mad when it happened to." He said. "They said you might not remember because of the pain medication." He told her. The Architect took her water and drank till the glass was empty.

"Are you hurting? Are you hungry?" He asked.
"No, I'm not hurting." She said numbly looking at the white bandages. "Yes, I'm hungry." She admitted.
"I'll fix you something." he said leaping off her bed.

~ She clumsily ate the soup Arthur brought her. Asked some questions about her accident and seemed satisfied by the answers.

"Don't tell Cobb and Eames I accidentally cut myself." She asked. "I still have to work with them and they will never let me forget it."

Arthur laughed.
"What do you want me to tell them? That you got into a knife fight with an mugger?" He asked.
"That will work." Ariadne smiled.

Her confidence, her courage was back. As if her mind had been washed clean of all memories of the Red Queen. The fearful things that came with it. Her eyes were bright and happy, like they had been before the accident that caused the Queen's birth.

"I think those pain meds are still working. I'm tired." She admitted. Putting her empty bowl on her tray and yawning.

"Go back to sleep." He told her happily taking her tray away.

"I had the strangest dreams when I was asleep." She said.

"What about?" Arthur asked, cautiously.

The Architect thought.

"I... I can't remember." She faltered. Searching her mind for the memory only to find the dreams had been lost.

She shook her head freeing herself of the idea.

"Can you turn off the lights?" She asked as she pulled the blankets over her.
"Are you sure?" He asked. "It's dark outside."
"Course I'm sure. I can't sleep with the light on." She told him.

~ Deep within the recesses of the Architect's mind, the Child cowered in the dark cold well.

"Hello?" She called out feebly.

Feeling herself fade away. Becoming less then a memory.

"I'm frightened." She breathed as the cold took her away. The well was empty as the black water was still.

Darkness there and nothing more.

~ End ~

Thank You all so much for reading. I'm sorry it took so long to post up. I was literally tossing out entire chapters of this story because I suddenly didn't like them.

I hope you enjoyed the death of the Red Queen. She was a fun one.

I wonder if anyone noticed the "1849 Usher" reference. Poe died in 1849. Usher as in "The Fall of the House of Usher".