Complexity

A/N: Review. Even if you don't like it, review. And then check out my other A/A fic, Slow Kicks. Review, review, oh, review. Even if you reviewed already, review again.

Soundtrack: Sunday Morning- Maroon 5

Chapter Six: Can you comfort my bleeding (glass) heart?

Not even Ariadne understands it, at first.

How did she let Arthur so far under her skin? She doesn't get it, doesn't understand it, and she has a feeling that she won't ever completly get it. Because with Ky it was different- it was all about him and his interests, how he felt, what he liked. And then after he had stabbed her- hurt her in so many ways she thought she was already dead- then it was the murkiness removed from her eyes.

At first she had though it was her fault: she had, somehow, she had been a bad girlfriend, hadn't done what was expected, and now: this. But over time, while thinking things over (she had a lot of time to do that in the hospital) and then moving out of her solitary apartment and moving in with Carol, she realized that no, it wasn't her fault in anyway (even if Carol drummed this into her head). It was Ky, and he had stabbed her, and he had tried his hardest to make her life a freaking living hell. The only reason it was a living hell and that she wasn't dead was due to the fact that yes, Kyle was an idiot and instead slashed at her arm. She doesn't even want to know where he was actually aiming; but he was drunk and maybe it could've been aiming at the door to scare her.

But that's only proof of how long she's been making excuses for him.

She still has nightmares. That's why she doens't like to dream.

Only when you don't dream- even if you want to dream of angles and colors and a hotel you made all on your own - "It came out fine, Ariadne,"- but even still, it had been so beauitiful she hadn't known what to say. Arthur had laughed at her very expression. "Like you never saw the sun before," he'd said, and she'd smiled.

But this- this, where an empty, cold darkness lies just beneath her eyelids- she doesn't even call this sleeping. She imagines this is what death feels like: cold, icy fingers that just waither to close her eyes...wait, and then pull you under the icy waters...

For the first night, she admits, she went to bed early, thinking everything could be fine now that she couldn't dream. But instead she falls asleep to that thing under her eyelids. The second night she stays up until four A.M., watching movies with Carol and laughing shrilly at the retards in the Hangover, and clutching a cup of coffee with slightly cold fingers. Carol doesn't notice Ari's shaking, and when Carol falls asleep Ariadne slips out the dorm into the quiet streets of Paris.

The next night she does the same, but now she just can't stop shaking. When Carol asks her what's wrong, it comes out as "The weather's getting colder, that's all," so Carol lends her a coat that looks ages old and smells like sugar candy. Ariadne can't even fathom why.

The next night she's working with Arthur on the rest of thier city. Ariadne is fuzzily thinking that 'causaul' for Arthur is no vest or jacket, just his sleeves rolled up and a couple of buttons open, and she watches him sketch. He's speaking, and she doesn't even try to pay attention. She wants to laugh. Arthur's trying to grow a beard (there's stubble in his chin).

Arthur's apartment is exactly what she'd expect of it: neat and orderly, without a paper out of place. Never a hair out of place, she thinks, and then she wonders groggily: does he ever get tired of it all? And then she wonders, get tired of what?

She knows what. The gel in his hair.

Ariadne smiles.

And slowly, like juice seeping through a paper napkin, she falls asleep right there on Arthur's kitchen table.

She awakens to the sound of coffee bubbling in a coffee maker.

She discovers herself in a bed swaddled with blankets and a whole bunch of pillows. She literally has to fight for the air, trying hard not to rip the obvioulsy expensive sheets. She finds herself clutching a hand. She lets go immediately, breathing hard.

Then she sees it's Arthur and actually scoots backward in the bed, ending up banging her head on the headboard. She notices that he has shadows under his own eyes and his knuckles are stark white while he curls his hand into a fist.

"You were screaming..." he says softly. She sits up slowly, clutching her aching head. She feels hungover- is that possible for drinking more then fourteen cups of coffee?

"Were you having a nightmare?"

"No," she snaps. "Just the opposite. Arthur, what the hell! It's freaking 80 degrees and you covered me in blankets!"

"Most people would say thank you." The way he's looking at her...

She sinks back under the bed, shaking her head slowly to disspell the cloudiness in her mind. It stays there, stubborn.

Just the opposite.

"Thank you," she mutters, not looking him in the eyes. He lifts her chin with his fingers and looks her in the eyes sqaurely while she tries to avoid his gaze. "You're welcome," he murmurs, and she notices that the sunlight falling through the high arched windows of his apartment make his dark eyes look the most beautiful black...

"Just the opposite," he says under his breath, and she glances at him sharply. "What does that mean?" He looks down at his hands.

She shifts under the blankets.

"It's scary sometimes," she says softly. "Like...cold darkness...and I can't breathe. I used to think I wouldn't dream..." She looks up to see Artthur watching her with an expression she's never seen before. "I'm sorry," she says abruptly, getting out of the bed. "I don't know why I'm telling you this..."

She's happy and proud to see that she still has her clothes from last night on. She glances around the room for her sketch pad and finds it sitting on the dresser. With a carefulness she wouldn't usually use, she picks it up and begin to flips through it nonchalantly.

"Do you dream like that too?" She asks hesitantly. He stands as well. "Coffee's ready" is all he says before leaving.

But she saw it. The little flicker of yes (yesyesyesyes) is his eyes.

.Carol.

She has loved Eames.

Once, he made her palms sweaty and her heart race and made her try oh-so-hard to stay nonchalant. Well, that had been blown out of the water once he'd touched her. She thinks blown, but her heart says rocketed.

Electricity. That's what it was- the simple touch of his fingers on her flesh and she'd wanted him, simple as that. And for some weird, unexplicable, cosmic reason, he'd wanted her back. And when they'd kissed the first time...

"I think I love you."

"I love you. I do."

And they'd kissed again.

But that was once.

A whole scandal with a girl named Rachel- Rachel, was, ironically, Carol's sister, and Eames had gotten onto his knees and begged her to take him back. Carol was lithely aware of the stirring in her heart (maybe it's the truth,) it whispered. (Maybe he still does love you.)

But her mind had said something different, and her eyes, when she's came across them kissing in the awning of her apartment. She hadn't wanted to believe it, but Eames had immediatly spotted her. She threw her bag onto the sodden ground and shoved her drenched hair out of her eyes to see.

She never wanted to see those perfect eyes again. But one last time

"I thought you loved me," she'd shrieked in the aching, perfect silence that followed. "I thought you felt the way I felt."

"I do," he'd said, and his eyes had that look that meant he wanted to hold her. She backs away, shaking her head. "You don't, you don't. You're an ass, Eames! A asshole! I loved you! How could you?" And she had collapsed to the wet ground, arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the rain. Her sister started to help her up, but Carol had shoved her perfect, tall, truely blonde sister out of the way and started to run. She ran- ran to the airport, ran away, ran from him. Ran from Georgia (permenately).

Sometimes, at night, she'll hear him whisper in her ears the words she wants to believe.

"It's not what it looks like."

Sometime later, Carol had come to a concrete conclusion.

Her sister was a bitch.

She hadn't talked to her sister for three years, and now Carol is twenty-three. Ironically, Carol had met another girl once she had come to Paris. A Vermont girl, who had liked the leaves and hated caramel, the same colour of her own eyes. A girl with a haunted past. A girl who dreamed so big that her own imagination spanned across the world and landed in Paris, girl who like the lines and curves of architecture: Ariadne.

Eames was a beautiful, scarred memory.

"For what it's worth, I still love you."

.Ariadne.

Ariadne slowly drinks the coffee. It's just the way she likes it: three sugars, cream and milk. He even gave her eggs and toast. "Sorry," Ariadne apolpgizes for the fifth time. "I didn't mean to fall asleep on the table..."

Arthur shuts his newspaper to look at her. "I know," he says softly.

Right before he leaves, Ariadne has to remind herself he's leaving in three weeks.

A/N: REVEIW. Really. It makes life worth living.