Author's Note: 65 reviews for only 8 chapters? You guys are amazing.
This chapter is dedicated to Kats02980416, who has gone through and reviewed each chapter thus far. You rock my world!
Disclaimer: Still no rights to Arthur. Damn.
Chapter Nine:
Ariadne opened her eyes to sunlight streaming through the open window. She sleepily looked around the room before closing her eyes again. She didn't want to get up. Because getting up meant leaving. Leaving meant going home. And going home meant facing Arthur. And she really didn't want to do that. So she lay in bed, putting off what she knew she would have to do eventually. And so after lounging in bed for twenty minutes, Ariadne got up and reached for her totem like she did every morning.
Except it wasn't there.
Ariadne had never had any trouble discerning dreams from reality. She was in this field for one reason and one reason only: the creativity. She could create something from nothing, pulling buildings out of thin air, something that wasn't possible in the real world.
She walked onto the balcony, picturing the Eiffel Tower clearly in her mind. With all her might, she tried to put that image on the ground in front of her. Nothing. So she wasn't dreaming.
Despite the fact that she now knew she wasn't dreaming, Ariadne was still uncomfortable without the presence of her totem nearby. And so she began looking.
She looked at the empty spot on the bedside table, knowing without a doubt it had been there last night. Not there.
She checked under the bed, thinking she might have knocked it over in her sleep. Not there.
For the next thirty minutes, Ariadne combed through every square inch of her room.
Not there.
Beginning to feel frantic, she began a second look around the room.
"Looking for this?" a voice asked.
Ariadne froze, dropping the shirt she had in her hand.
She stood from where she had been kneeling and turned on the spot. While she had recognized the voice the instant she heard it, her heart still leapt into her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe.
Peter Browning.
He stood in the bedroom doorway, leaning casually against the door frame, her totem in his hand.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said, catching her before she could get her phone out of her back pocket. She mentally swore.
"Besides," he continued, "I think the person you were going to call has already joined us." He gestured into the living room.
Ariadne slowly walked through the threshold, sidestepping to get as far away from Browning as she could, and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight before her.
Arthur was sitting on the couch, his feet bound and his arms behind his back, which Ariadne guessed were also tied together. A gag was tied over his mouth, preventing him from speaking. Two men stood by the door on each side, stopping anyone from entering or leaving. Relief flooded over Arthur's face when he saw Ariadne.
"What do you want?" she snapped, refusing to show him any fear, but already knowing the answer to her question.
"Don't play dumb, little girl," Browning said sharply. "I know what you did. What you all did. And you're to fix it."
Ariadne stayed quiet. She didn't deny it.
"How? How do you know?" she asked quietly.
"Something like this doesn't just happen," he explained, glaring at her. "Once I realized what had happened, I had extractors go into Fischer's mind and pull the memories of the dream. In doing so, they recognized Cobb."
She was starting to get angry. "And how exactly do you think we can 'fix' it?" Ariadne asked.
"Expulsion," Browning said simply.
Arthur's eyes, she noticed, grew wide by a fraction, but otherwise showed no signs of a reaction. Expulsion? What in the world was that? Ariadne voiced her thoughts.
"Expulsion, my dear," Browning started, "is similar to extraction in the sense that you are taking the information from someone's mind. Expulsion though, gets rid of the idea completely from the subject's mind."
Ariadne shot a questioning look to Arthur. He gave a minute shake of his head and she looked back at Browning.
"You already know where this is going," Browning stated. "You and your team planted the idea in my nephew's mind to break up his father's corporation. Now you're going to expel it."
Arthur began to speak, but all that came out was a strangled noise.
"I've never heard anything about this," Ariadne said coldly. "Let him talk."
Browning didn't say anything for a while. Eventually, he gave a stiff nod to one of the guards. The guard untied the gag from Arthur's mouth and Arthur immediately began to speak.
"Are you crazy? Expulsion is only a myth. Even if it was possible, which it isn't, the idea is already too deeply ingrained in his mind. If you remove it now, you'll be destroying that part of his mind," Arthur stated hotly.
"You're destroying me!" Browning roared. "Forty years I've put into this company, and it's all about to be ruined because of you!"
The guard took this as his cue to put the gag back on Arthur.
"You will do this job," Browning said in a deadly voice.
"And if I refuse?" Ariadne snapped.
"Then I'll kill him," Browning replied, holding a gun to Arthur's head.
Ariadne stopped breathing.
"When the extractors were pulling the memories from Fischer's mind, they also happened to stumble across your little kiss with the point man here. To tell you the truth, I really don't know what you see in him," Browning said, chuckling humorlessly.
Ariadne hadn't moved since Browning had pulled the gun out. She looked Arthur in the eye. His eyes were pleading with her, telling her not to fall for Browning's bait.
But she couldn't lose Arthur. Not after he had just found her again. Not when she was slowly starting to fall in love with him.
"Too late," Browning said, pulling the trigger.
The sound of the gun firing echoed off the walls. Ariadne tried to scream, but was too occupied with the sight in front of her.
Blood. Blood was everywhere. On the couch. On the walls. On her. On Arthur.
No, no, no. He couldn't be gone.
Arthur, who had taken her under his wing since day one. Arthur, whose smile made her melt. Arthur, who had always encouraged her to go above and beyond. And as she stared into his lifeless eyes, Ariadne knew this wasn't just a bad dream.
This was a nightmare.
A/N: Didn't see that one coming, did you? Review and tell me what you think! :)