Part Three

Arthur wasn't an early riser unless he had work to do, Phillipa discovered. She caught him two days in a row beating his alarm clock into submission every ten minutes for an hour before trudging downstairs for a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice.

"Don't you drink coffee with your breakfast like Dad?" She asked him curiously.

"Oh, no," he replied simply. "I don't make my coffee until I'm more awake. I like to enjoy it when I'm fully funtio- functioning. It tastes better that way."

"Oh." She made a mental note that Arthur appreciated the taste of his coffee. Later, she discovered he liked it with two sugars and just a bit of cream, and he always smelled it before taking a sip.

That evening, when they all arrived back at Cobb's house, Ariadne and Eames had come to the decision that they had to see all the things Arthur did that Phillipa saw. In fact, they were determined, especially, to see him smile.

And so, Eames proposed to Arthur, "I think you should spend time with her."

"Why?" he asked warily.

"I don't know exactly what she's so crazy about when it comes to you yet, so I want to observe secretly."

"And I'll help," Ariadne added.

"Basically, you're going to spy on her and me."

"Pretty much."

"…Jeez, how complicated can it be to figure out why she likes me? Don't answer that question."

"All you have to do is be nice to her! I don't see what the problem is."

"The more attached she becomes to me, the more difficult it's going to be for her to get over me."

"Or maybe she'll realize how dull and grumpy you always are."

Ariadne giggled. Arthur grumbled.

Miles was with the children, all of them hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree. Soft carols were playing on the radio in the background.

"Welcome home!" Phillipa greeted cheerfully. She was practically glowing over being free for Christmas vacation.

"Hey, you started without us," Cobb said, acting hurt.

"Sorry, Daddy. We were excited," James told him.

"It's all right," he assured him, smiling and tousling his hair. "I'll put the star on top."

"Do any of you want some cocoa? The snow is pretty intense out there," Miles asked.

"I'll just fix some coffee," Arthur said.

After he left, Eames following behind to get a cup of cocoa, Ariadne started helping hang ornaments with Phillipa.

"So…" she whispered. "I couldn't help but notice that you have a crush on Arthur."

Phillipa glanced at Ariadne, grinning. "I knew Mr. Eames couldn't keep a secret."

"I guess not," Ariadne said sheepishly.

There was a moment of silence.

"So, what's this smile of his like exactly?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Phillipa teased.

Ariadne smirked. The little girl was a little crafty. She could see a bit of Cobb in that glint of her eyes.

"Oh, come on, we're both girls. Why won't you tell me?"

"Well… I could tell you… but it's one of my special secrets."

"Special secrets?"

She nodded. "Mm-hmm. I have a collection of special secrets about Mr. Arthur. If I shared them with you, then they wouldn't be mine anymore."

"Surely you can part with some of them, right? I mean, it's hard to keep a secret."

"Well, I'll tell you one of my secrets as long as you tell me one of yours."

"What do you want to know?"

"I don't know yet. Let me think about it."

"…Okay, then."

Ariadne didn't tell her she'd be willing to hand over her entire diary to find out her secrets. She was just that curious (and her life was boring anyway).

In the kitchen, Eames plopped marshmallows into his cocoa while Arthur started the coffee pot. He came to the realization that Arthur really knew the way around Cobb's kitchen. "You stay here quite a lot, don't you?" he asked.

"I suppose you could say that. It's better than spending all my nights in hotel rooms and apartments. I try not to wear out my welcome though."

"Don't you ever go see your folks and stay with them?"

Arthur only gave Eames a passing glance as he opened the refrigerator to get the non-dairy creamer. "I prefer to stay as far from home as possible."

"Is that so? Why?"

Arthur poured coffee into a red mug. "I don't remember signing up for an interrogation."

"I'm just wondering."

Arthur looked at Eames for a moment, pursed his hips, shrugged, and then said, "My mother had an affair with another man and left me with her husband when she ran off with him. You can imagine why the man I called father wasn't too fond of me." He smelled his coffee, savored the scent before sipping at it.

"Sounds like your father and mine should go out to the pub together."

"Maybe," Arthur replied, deadpan as always.

"So, you like being here because you feel at home here?"

"I don't feel at home anywhere else but here."

Arthur babysat Phillipa and James one night, while Cobb had gone out. Phillipa didn't know, but Arthur was sure that Cobb was going to announce his going back to work any day now. He knew how dream work always pulled a person back in, and Cobb was no exception.

She brought in coloring books and set them on the coffee table. "Would you like to color with us, Mr. Arthur?"

She was gleeful when he decided to do so.

James was wild with crayons, and Phillipa enjoyed using colors that she liked rather than the colors that were used for the characters. Arthur, however, was as precise with his coloring as he was with everything else. He colored Scooby Doo characters exactly as they were portrayed on television.

"Do you like Scooby Doo?" Phillipa asked him.

"I did when I was little, even though I usually solved the mysteries within the first five minutes of the episode."

"Scooby Doo was on TV when you were little?"

Arthur laughed, and he had the most wonderful laugh, deep and rich and warm like his coffee. If it had a smell, she was sure it would smell like coffee.

"Scooby Doo has been on television since 1969."

"That's a really long time."

"It seems like a lot less time the older you get."

"Who's your favorite on Scooby Doo?"

"Um…" he thought about it. "I guess I always liked Velma because she was smart. Scooby too, of course."

"I like Scooby best!" James exclaimed.

"I like Daphne because she's pretty," Phillipa said.

He smiled.

She'd seen his smile so many times now, but it felt like the first time every time. "Mr. Arthur…"

"Yes?"

"Can I take your picture?"

"I don't like getting my picture taken."

"Please?"

"All right." He seemed to have forgotten that she'd already done this before. She didn't tell him that she already had plenty of pictures of him, some of them with him smiling even, but she liked having a few pictures with him looking at the camera.

He had great eyes, after all.

Cobb had to go Christmas shopping, so everyone got the day off. James had wanted to help, so Cobb took him along, knowing that James's attention span was just low enough for him to sneak his presents past him without him ever knowing.

Eames was lounging on the couch in his boxers and pink button-down, feet propped up on the coffee table, and Ariadne was curled up in an arm chair with a cup of cocoa. Both of them were watching Saturday morning cartoons because they couldn't decide on anything else ("There is no chance in hell that I'm going to watch Gossip Girl," Eames had said, and Ariadne had rightly refused to watch anything on MTV).

"Hey," she said.

"What?"

"Where's Arthur?"

"Do you think he could be with Phillipa?"

"We could be missing the smile…"

Both of them jumped to their feet and took the steps two at a time.

They found Arthur still in his bed, beating his alarm clock. He turned to the door, bleary-eyed, and saw them there, staring.

"What?" he asked, voice still heavy with sleep.

"Nothing," they replied, turning away quickly and going back to their cartoons. Arthur went back to sleep.

As Ariadne and Eames descended the stairs, Ariadne sighed. "I think you and I might just be a little obsessed."

"Ugh, I know, but it's haunting me. I even went under and tried to forge it, but I can't forge something I don't know."

"Hello."

Both of them jumped, shouting.

Phillipa stared at them in confusion, standing in the kitchen doorway in her Disney pajamas, hair plaited down each shoulder. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," they repeated again.

Phillipa shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Could one of you make me some breakfast?"

Arthur couldn't cook, no matter how hard he tried. He would swear up and down that he followed the directions exactly, and yet the food always ended up burned.

"Cooking isn't as simple as following directions," Cobb had explained to him. "It's an art. It takes finesse."

"Keep talking like that, and I'll start to think that you're Eames forging as Cobb." His voice was biting and unpleasant, but it was only because he was frustrated. "If the directions say to cook it for twenty minutes, then it should cook for twenty minutes."

Cobb checked the box. "That's twenty seconds."

Phillipa couldn't help but break out in a grin when she saw Arthur turn red all the way across his nose, right to the tips of his ears. She thought that it was the cutest thing she'd seen, and she was glad she had her camera with her to catch it on film.

Both of them looked when the camera flashed, but she was gone before either of them knew she was there.

Eames was an amazing cook, and a show-off at that. He could flip pancakes with a flair that neither of the girls had ever seen, and Phillipa even applauded. It didn't make him look any less ridiculous with the frilly apron on.

"Where'd you learn to flip pancakes, Mr. Eames?" Phillipa asked.

"Ah, see, my dear Phillipa, I could tell you that, but I'd certainly need some information in return."

He placed the finished pancakes on a plate with the others and went back to finishing frying the bacon.

"Okay. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but only one thing."

"All right," Eames flashed her his million-dollar smile. "I learned how to flip pancakes from a cooking show. I taught myself all the tricks in order to impress a girl."

"Did it work?" Ariadne found herself asking.

"Of course it did," Eames laughed. "Aren't you impressed as well?"

"Admittedly, yes," Ariadne said.

"Yes, she quite liked watching me cook breakfast for her… Her boyfriend didn't like it so much though."

"Why? Did you not make enough for him?" Phillipa asked, so innocent.

"I didn't know he was coming, so no," Eames chuckled. "Now… what is it that I want to know about you?"

He set the pancakes and bacon on the table, grabbed a plate and caught the toast just it popped up, placing it on the plate. Phillipa giggled, then gasped. "These pancakes have chocolate chips in them!"

"I had a feeling you'd like that. Now… about what I want to know… Tell me more about why you like Arthur."

She smiled through a mouthful of pancakes and swallowed. "Well… it's hard to explain. Mr. Arthur is the best person in the world. He's smart, and he's nice, and he likes the color red, and he like Scooby Doo, and he's really, really cute."

"You said you liked his smile. When did you see him smile? What makes him smile?"

"I said I'd only answer one thing," she responded, beaming.

"You ruined our chances, Eames," Ariadne grumbled, glaring at him.

Eames just laughed. "You're too smart for your own good, Phillipa."

Arthur came in for breakfast then, dazed and still sleepy, so the conversation ended for the moment. He didn't eat much, particularly disturbed by the way Eames and Ariadne were watching him.

Arthur helped Cobb fix his car one day during the summer. Phillipa listened from her spot in the driveway, where she was drawing with sidewalk chalk, while Queen's "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" played over the radio.

Arthur knew every word, and even though he sang quietly, he was wonderful. She swooned and drew hearts all over the driveway.