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Chapter 19: Falls The Shadow

An hour earlier.

Eames didn't have very many friends due to traveling the globe often but the few he had he tried to keep up with every now and then. This particular friend, Pete, Eames had known for years. He was the first chemist Eames had had the pleasure of working with and Pete was in town on business. They ran into each other on the street and decided to catch up over lunch. They prattled about different business ventures when alarming news came into focus. Pete's cell phone had rung and he'd just come back from taking the call.

"Don't you just love when your extractor calls to yell at you?" Pete joked, "I swear this guy is anal."

Eames scoffed, thinking of one of his best friends, "You don't know anal, Pete."

"No. This guy is insane. Probably OCD. And obsessed…I didn't know a guy could be so f*cking in love."

"One of those, eh?" The forger teased.

"If I had known what he planned on doing from the get-go I would have let the next guy take it. This guy thinks he can pull off another Inception."

Eames eyebrows furrowed, "What do you mean?"

"I mean this guy is an idiot. His fiancée and him suffered some weird ass trauma and now he thinks she doesn't love him anymore. And he is so jealous he can't see straight, it literally empowers everything he does. He thinks he can incept the idea that she still loves him into her brain so she won't leave him for his best friend. How f*cked up is that?"

"Pete, what's the mark's name?" Eames held his breath.

His friend scrunched up his nose and drank some more Pepsi, "I don't know. It's something complicated. I don't know what her parents were thinking when they named her. It's like Pig Latin or something….Armani? Armiade? Aritardi?"

"Ariadne?"

"Yeah! That's it! Ariadne Bourgeois! She's a looker though…I can understand his infatuation."

Eames' skin started to crawl at the prospect of Arthur planning something so devious and dark against the Architect. Arthur's own trauma must have stinted his reasonable thoughts. The only thing he had left was Ariadne and their relationship and it had become Arthur's obsession and driving life force. Arthur had felt threatened with losing it all and now was making rash decisions in an effort to save what was his, if it meant crawling on rock bottom. "Don't tell me the client's name is Arthur?"

"Yeah. Client, Extractor and Point Man. Why?"

"When is the job set to be executed?" Please not today. Please not today. Please not today.

"It's looking good, probably tomorrow. It depends on whether she leaves to see that guy tomorrow afternoon or not. Then we might wait until their date night."

Eames took one last sip of his drink as he stood up, snatched his coat and threw some bills on the table, "Nice seeing ya, Pete. I've gotta run."
xxxxxx

Present.

Eames had invaded their bedroom, threw a suitcase on the bed and began opening the drawers and sifting through the closet to throw everything remotely feminine in.

"I can't leave Arthur."

"You have to, Darling. He's lost it. You're not safe with him anymore." He briskly entered her bathroom, grabbed what he believed to be hers and tossed them in the suitcase carelessly as well.

The forger never overreacted. If anything, he underreacted, if he even reacted at all. He let everything brush over and expected the best out of every situation. He expected all worries to fizzle away eventually. He was fretless, so for him to be barging into her house insisting that something was wrong was more than worrisome for the Architect. "What do you mean I'm not 'safe with him?' We've been fine. He's been acting normal."

He took her shoulders and squared them to him, "Ariadne, he's going to incept you. I've just had lunch with his chemist."

It felt like someone had grasped her lungs and started squeezing. Her hand flew to her heart and her eyes widened almost out of their sockets. "Wha…?"

"And the work is done. They're just waiting for the opportune time."

Gradually, the cloud of shock dissipated from around her head. Like a well-oiled machine or a mind controlled zombie, she blankly and robotically moved to help Eames pack the rest of her stuff. Arthur's betrayal weighed heavily on her brain waves. While Eames was downstairs collecting more things of hers and food for the road, Ariadne slipped in a couple of Arthur's button ups and her favorite picture of them. He may be dangerous and plotting against her but she still loved him and leaving him like this was going to be hard enough. Surely, the separation would only ruin her. Eames reappeared, dumped his findings into the suitcase and hurriedly zipped it up. As he did so, he ushered her to throw on her coat and shoes.

Eames had parked on the other side of the apartments to avoid recognition of his car should Arthur show up. For once he'd thought ahead. He was opening the trunk when Ariadne felt that sickening feeling of leaving something behind. "I left my messenger bag!"

"Well, we'll buy you a new one."

"No. My life is in that bag, if I needed to bring anything, it's that! It has my sketches, my supplies, my phone, my wallet…and Rex! I can't leave my puppy!" She didn't add that she also couldn't leave a red colored pencil with a white ribbon tied around it. The one that had worn her engagement ring before she did. Eames bit his lip and thought hard…Finally he nodded, "I'll finish loading the car and pull around. Hurry, though."
xxxxxx

She sprinted around the apartment building, up the flight of steps and fumbled with the spare key to their flat. Once inside, Ariadne hurriedly looked around, not really thinking but mostly doing the motions and expecting her bag to jump out and say 'here I am.' She nearly forgot what she came for and then jolt of epiphany waved through her and she realized she'd left it upstairs under her nightstand. She did that thing you do when you're trying to climb stairs quickly. She skipped every couple (and that proved to be more difficult than her mind imagined because of her short legs.) Ariadne dove to spot on the ground where her bag had been left and threw it over her shoulder. Her puppy danced out of her bathroom and looked up at her with sweet brown eyes. His collar dangling his name and taking her back to the moment Arthur had revealed him to her.

Reality hit her like a brick. She was leaving Arthur. She'd packed her stuff, threw it in Eames' car and would be hundreds of miles away before he found out. Arthur would come home from work and notice her empty spot on the couch. He would ascend the stairs with a smile, intent on surprising her with a hug from behind and a sweet kiss. He would open their bedroom door to find it cleaned out. She observed the room's state as if she was Arthur. Her drawers of the dresser sprawled open and empty. All of her clothes missing from their closet, not but a few things hanging pathetically on a hanger here and a couple scarves fallen on the floor there. In Arthur's position, were she to come home to this, she'd be devastated. But there was a reason. Arthur wasn't the same. He was plotting against her now; he was going to invade her mind. For her own safety and morality, she needed to get out. With that, she took one last look at the room that held a plethora of memories and turned her back on it. She was at the top step and fixing to descend when her hand was grabbed and she was pulled down to a kiss.

"Arthur!" Well this was awkward.

He was a few steps below her and took the opportunity to wrap his arms around her waist and smile up at her. Making her wonder why she would ever want to walk out on him. "Hey you."

"You're home early…" Her voice wavered a bit as he reached the step just below hers and his face eye level. Those sparkling eyes made her want to run the other direction.

"Yeah. The work for the job is done…So I told them I wanted to come home and take you to dinner." Arthur then took in her red coat, her ankle boots and her messenger bag, "Unless you're going somewhere?" His countenance dropped marginally but she saw him try to shake it off. He looked down at his watch and his next smile was fake, "It's only four. I can always wait three or four hours for you to get back and we can go then." Arthur brushed passed her, unbuttoning his suit and entering their bedroom.

She sucked in an exorbitant amount of air and shut her eyes for what she knew was coming. Ariadne could've just taken off and ran back to Eames car and rammed the gas pedal before Arthur had the chance to make sense of it. But that didn't seem right. She had been caught, fair and square, and she would handle this maturely…before leaving. She would understand why he was doing this.

Arthur lazily entered their room and tossed his jacket over the chair in the corner when he noticed something missing. The reading table was missing a picture of him and Ariadne. Arthur wasn't the type of person to show sentimentality. He wasn't the type of person to deck the halls with framed photographs of him and his friends or family. He didn't like taking pictures and he didn't like his face all over his own house. Ariadne on the other hand, loved pictures. They were frozen memories, she would call them. She had pictures up all over her side of the room of her and old college friends, the Inception team and her cousin. The one picture he'd let her put up of him (he bought the frame, too) was his favorite of them. Cobb had invited them to LA for Phillipa's 3rd grade graduation and Yusuf had sneakily shot the picture without Arthur knowing. Ariadne was in a blue dress and his tie had matched it. In the picture, Ariadne was in mid laugh, looking at the camera and Arthur was kissing her cheek. He loved the picture because it was purely candid and it captured the very essence of their relationship. Ariadne always laughing and making him smile and Arthur always stealing kisses from her to make her laugh. The picture was taken months before he proposed and even a bit before they agreed to live together. It was back when they were discovering each other and he liked to look on it and be reminded of how they felt about each other. How they would always feel about each other. Now that was gone.

This puzzlement is what led him to turn and observe the rest of the room for anything else out of place. What he found was the strange sense that this room had become void of anything Ariadne. All of her stuff had been cleaned out. This realization made his toes tingle and his face flush. He was at the doorway then, her figure still standing there.

"You're leaving me?"

He saw her shoulders rise up and down, signaling a deep breath. Ariadne slowly turned her head over shoulder. She was looking at him in this way, that alone, made his breathing terse. Water already began to sting his eyes because the look she gave him was a look he'd never seen and hoped he never would: Pity. Guilt. Confirmation of his thoughts. "I'm sorry, Arthur."

"Why? I don't—"

"Ariadne! Did you find your—" Arthur's eyes locked on the forger's with loathing. And so released a string of curse words from Eames, "Arthur, you're home early."

"I know." Arthur gritted. He looked Ariadne, back at Eames, Ariadne, "You're leaving me for him."

"Arthur, no." She said it like he was child and she was telling him he couldn't do something.

Back at Eames, "You just can't stand me being happy. Can you?" Grimly, Arthur began making his way down towards Eames. When he passed her, Ariadne put her hand on his shoulder to keep him from descending, "Arthur." Ariadne gave him a warning look and gripped her fingers into his shoulder. It normally would've kept him in line but this time was different.

The Point Man tugged his shoulder out of her reach with a look ready to kill. His focus never shifted from Eames. "You're always trying to cut me down…Making Ariadne yours was just the ultimate insult wasn't it? I loved her first, Eames."

"It's not like that, lad." Eames shook his head and backed down a few steps.

Arthur was too close for comfort. He stood on the bottom level now in front of Eames. His face was a mask of calm before the storm. Unmoving, blank, stoic. Out of nowhere, Eames felt blood trickling down his nose and a cold aching pain in his head. "You turned her against me!"

Eames held his hands up in surrender above his head, "Arthur, I—"

Another blow to his stomach, "You took her from me!" The Point Man shoved Eames into their breakfast table and tore a curtain rod from behind him. He began smashing the cabinets, shattering the glass, making holes in the wall, "You know what I've done for her? I've given up everything for her!" Ariadne winced when he threw the rod across the room and it knocked a lamp off, shattering it on the floor. She made her way down to Eames in haste and gently analyzed his swelling eye.

Arthur pulled dishes out of the smashed open cabinets and threw them on the tiled floor, "She is everything to me! Is this what you wanted Eames?" The Point Man maniacally pulled his jacket off and tossed it in a ball away from him. He picked up a shard of dish and held it so tightly he hand started to bleed. "To take everything from me?"

"Arthur!" Ariadne yelled to stop him but he'd taken the shard and cut his shirt with it, some of his flesh coming off with it then he tossed it into the sink, let it shatter some more. "Make me less of a compliant, robot?"

Ariadne was a mixture of terrified and angry, "Arthur, stop it now!"

"Arthur," Eames cautiously pushed Ariadne aside, gestured for her to stay out of it and made his way to the man. He put a hand on his shoulder while Arthur took a chance to look at Ariadne pointedly. His fist collided with the Forger's face again. And again. He ignored Ariadne's pleading voice. Arthur kneed the other man in the crotch and pushed him to the wall, his hands on Eames' throat. "I hope you're happy…" He gritted as Eames sputtered and flailed his arms, trying to push Arthur off of him.

Ariadne was in front of Arthur somehow, pushing his arms to his side and guiding him back to sit on the stairs. Her body created a shield for Eames as long as she stood between them. He still leaned towards Eames as he was being pushed back, "You've been screwing my fiancée!"

Ariadne sat him down and looked him in the eye, bewildered, "What?" Eames was too busy sucking in air, finding a wet rag and cradling his nose to be too affected by the accusation.

"I found the test in the trash in our bathroom. I know you're pregnant with his baby…You haven't let me touch you like that since the miscarriage."

She straightened at the news, confused. "Arthur, I'm not pregnant at all."

"Haven't you lied to me enough?" Then he yelled, "I saw it!"

The Architect kneeled in front of him, "That was Clarisse's. Her and Claude are having a baby…she was afraid he'd leave her if he found out so I let her take the test here."

He didn't believe it. Arthur dropped eye contact and shook his head angrily. Ariadne stood to tower over him, upset that he wouldn't take her word. "I'm not pregnant!" The Architect screamed at him. She let her chagrin hit him with full force. How dare he think she'd do that to him. "Get me another test and watch me pee on it! Take me to the OBGYN! I'm not pregnant! I'm not sleeping with Eames!"

"Then why are you leaving me?" This time Arthur stood. He now towered over her rather than the other way around. Eyes boring accusingly into hers.

Ariadne stepped back. Disappointment shadowing her face. "Don't make me out to be the bad guy, here. I wasn't the one planning to incept you. I wasn't the one plotting to betray you and infect your mind." She seethed with a look of disgust. "If anyone should be mad- if either of us had the right to leave, it's me."

His face sobered. Anger gone. "How'd you find that out?"

Her arms crossed over her chest, "Your chemist is friends with Eames." She pivoted and stormed away from him, stepping over the broken lamp as she went.

Arthur's hand clinched around her wrist. He tried to explain, "Your mind was taking you away from me…"

"No." She faced him again, "Your mind was taking me away from you."

Arthur dejectedly turned his head. It was her voice lilting down its normal tone—devoid of animosity- that made his eyes lock with hers again, "You don't have to incept the idea that I'm still in love with you into my mind, Arthur. I still do. How many times do I have to reassure you? I always have and I always will. No matter how many jobs gone wrong, no matter how many deaths or miscarriages or fights, it will always be you."

She caught Arthur's gaze flickering to a point behind her and she followed his gaze to the forger. Eames was still holding his head back and bloodying their kitchen towel. Ariadne looked back at Arthur, face red, eyes wet. The Architect brought her hand up to slap him across the face. "Why won't you believe me? Why can't you give me the benefit of the doubt!"

Arthur's hand slid up to feel the stinging patch of skin. It was such a shock that she had done so that he needed to further feel the discomfort to confirm it.

"I can't help that Fischer decided to torture us. I can't help that I have nightmares and flashbacks and I can't help that they make me scared of you." She tried to meet his eyes again. "I can't help that I need Eames to make them go away. I wish it was you, I wish I could change it but I can't. I tried, Arthur. I can't live with them. And I can't live knowing that you think I'm cheating on you every time I walk out that door. You can't love me if you don't trust me."

"Well I can't help the way I feel about Eames. I can't help questioning everything you do. I have my own nightmares, Ariadne. I'm helpless to my own views and problems." His Point Man voice was back.

The Architect brushed her fingertips against his. The sinking feeling she felt when her fingers weaved as his curled away was blunt and unforgiving. Her hand ended up grasping at his fist before dropping to her side altogether. "You're all packed, just go."

She opened her mouth—

"No. Obviously, neither of us can stand to live this way anymore. We had our time together and I'm letting you go. I'm giving you a way out. Go do whatever you need to, to be able to live with yourself." He scoffed, recalling a memory, "Browning said we wouldn't love each other when they were through with us…"

She could handle the suspicion. She could handle the anger. She could handle his insecurities and his accusations. She could almost, almost handle the prospect of his betrayal. What Ariadne could not handle was the thought of him not loving her anymore. Out of nowhere. Out of her strong-willed, hard-headed persona. Out of her fiery eyes and her set jaw, her tears spilled over and seemed they would never stop. Ariadne's heart was constricting and everything burned when she tried to step forward and just touch him, just be held by him. She grabbed his neck and tried to save the sinking ship. Ariadne was trying to salvage the feelings they had left, to make this work, to make the words he'd just uttered a lie. How could they have come to this? How on earth could it have gotten this far? She wanted nothing more than to rewind everything. Absolutely everything and be in that hotel. Be in that skirt suit. Have no problems except having to come up with a distraction. "Quick, give me a kiss…" she begged and he stood unmoving. He just looked down at her…his face slowly becoming that shielded poker mask she'd seen the day they met. "Please, Arthur. Give me a kiss…" she quoted again and rubbed her thumb along his neck. But he stepped away. It broke her heart…"My God…" the realization in her voice was unearthing. "I don't even know who you are anymore. Fischer changed you. "

Arthur's own eyes threatened to overflow through his walls.

"I was so ready to marry you, Arthur. I wanted so badly to have your baby. I wanted to make you happy , we were so in love and he just ripped it all out from under us."

He couldn't look at her; it was slowly ripping him to shreds to do so. He had to avoid the brown pools of eyes that fascinated him and settle for nodding his head solemnly. He acted as if he hadn't heard a word she'd just said and simply stated as he made his way back up the stairs, "I wish you all the happiness in the world, Ari."

Ari…His nickname for her. She buried her face in her hands and began heaving. A few seconds later, her and Eames heard the quiet click of their his bedroom door close. Eames had to practically carry her limp, sobbing body out of Arthur's flat and into his car.