54.
~ "Arthur?" She croaked.
Her husband, her officer stood before her in the doorway. He was thinner and worn looking, but it was defiantly him. His eyes looking intently over her face as his large hands were touching her hair, her face, her lips.
"Arthur?" She cried again as her hand went to his uniform. She could feel the fabric of his dress jacket. The coarseness of it confirming he was real.
"I'm sorry, I tried calling mother and..." Arthur said as his sunken eyes peered over her. He stared at her as if she might not be real. The traumatized soldier not trusting his own eyes.
"Arthur." She cried as her vision of him became blurry through her tears.
She was in his arms then. She could feel how thin he was. How even his smell was different. But he was real and he was home.
She cried as he was apologizing and asking about the baby. His hands in her hair as his lips caressed her cheek.
Her soldier was scared to look at his sleeping son. The pretty nurse kneeling before the baby and telling him how she named him after his father. The colonel knew what to do in battle, but was clueless in the sudden role of fatherhood.
To be thrust from a war zone, into quite domestic life, seemed to shake him.
She looked for little things that reminded her of the man she had married, and could find nothing familiar there.
~ She had waited as he took a long, hot shower. Handing him the clothes she had bought for him when she arrived in America. Anticipating his return and wanting to be ready.
"Might be a little big. You've lost weight." She whispered as he got dressed.
He nodded and said nothing to her. He came out clean and his face neatly shaven. She fed him a small dinner and they spoke very little.
He wanted to know how long she and Beth had been living here. How she was earning a living. She answered all his questions and tried to get him to eat more.
He shook his head as it started to rain.
She worried what it would be like now. Her husband looked and acted so different. So haunted and beaten. She thought about the man who beat his wife to death as Arthur stood up.
"Let's go to bed." He told her simply.
~ Little hands, little feet, little body and a shock of wild, dark hair.
Ariadne had her son tucked in between her and Arthur in their bed. The new parents laying on their sides so the three of them could all stay in one bed, overlooking their son.
It had started to rain outside and it felt natural for them to crawl into a warm, safe bed.
"Didn't know you had that picture." Arthur whispered nodding to her opened compact on her night stand.
"It's from the news article about you rescuing those POW's back in Paris. Remember?" She asked with a soft smile.
"How could I forget?" He said with the ghost of a grin that she remembered. "Not a great picture of me. I look mad."
"Yeah, it's not that great." She agreed dryly. "Thinking of replacing it with Humphrey Bogart." She added.
Arthur seemed to consider this. His brows raising up and his head cocking to one side.
"I don't blame you. All the girls say he's dreamy." He said and Ariadne snorted a laugh.
"I carried that picture of you ever since we met in Paris. I like to go to sleep looking at you." She told him.
That seemed to make him happy.
"I carried this picture of us with me." He whispered retrieving his cigarette case. "I like having my sweetheart to look at."
Ariadne blushed when she saw her own forgotten picture looking back at her.
"Shame you had to come home to your wife." She said sympathetically. Her eyes teasing.
"I know, real shame." He laughed.
She felt her husband's kiss on her then. His lips igniting a spark in her memory at what it was like to be loved.
"I'm so glad you're home." She whispered. "Why didn't you write? I was so worried."
"I'm sorry. After I was captured, I was sent to Berlin. They wouldn't let anyone make contact. The War Department..." he sighed.
"Yeah, I know how they are." She said and looked down at her baby.
"I wanted to. I really did want to tell you I was alright." He said by means of an apology.
"I know you did. I know you wanted to come home." She sighed. "Do you want to talk... about what happened over there?" She asked.
"No." He said curtly. His body shifting as his son held onto his father's finger. Just a few hours ago, she had pictured a life for her son without him. Now, he was alive again and looking over the same son. "I want to pretend it was all just a bad dream."
"It wasn't Arthur." Ariadne said. "Cobb, when he came home, he wasn't right. I don't want you to be like that. I want the man I fell in love with back."
"I am the man you fell in love with." He said somberly. "It's just... it may take me a while to be him again."
She nodded and ran a hand over his gaunt looking cheek.
Arthur looked worried.
"Are you still the girl I fell in love with?" He asked. "Are you still the girl I dreamed into life? The girl who had a picnic with me? Who went to the front even though she promised not to? The girl who danced on my feet on our wedding night?" He asked. His voice breaking as for the first time ever, she saw tears fall out of his eyes.
She wasn't that girl. War and time had changed her so much. She wasn't sure she was that same girl who he wanted her to be. She surely wasn't the same girl with the bleeding feet.
She bit her lip.
"I'm the same girl who loves you." She whispered.
Adam was cooing in her arms. Kicking his legs at them.
"He's a fighter huh?" Arthur said wanting to change the subject and looked over his tiny son.
"I'm sorry he was born early." Ariadne said.
"That's not your fault. All the stress my mother put you under." He said. An angry scowl darkening his face.
"I want you to forgive your mother." She said.
"No. Not after what she did to you. If I had known she was like that, I would have had you stay in London. I just thought... she would love you." He said helplessly. His eyes sad.
"Arthur, the poor woman lost her husband and her two sons in just four years. Then her youngest, her baby, sends home some pregnant stranger to live with her? It was too much." Ariadne said. Becoming a mother suddenly made Ariadne more sympathetic to Lydia.
"You're too good." Arthur said kissing her. "I don't deserve you."
"I know you don't." She teased.
She was laughing and blushing as Arthur could not stop kissing her.
"I bought you some more clothes to wear. I don't want you in uniform all day, Soldier."
"What if I don't like them?" He asked nuzzling her ear. Her heart fluttering wildly like it was when they first met. His smell back and her body turning into his kiss. Irrationally she was afraid they might be caught and that made the moment all the more exciting.
"What's that got to do with anything?" She asked furrowing her brow.
"Hey, be nice." He laughed. "I'm a returning war hero. Be nice to me."
She was giggling as her husband moved in closer to her and their son.
~ Beth came home that evening and went strait to work at her type writer. Not even noticing the change in the air at her brother's return.
"Beth?" Ariadne called to her sister-in-law.
"What is it?" Beth called back.
Ariadne suppressed a smile as Arthur held Adam in his arms. The baby falling asleep easily.
"Look who's here." Ariadne said.
Beth turned and looked annoyed at being bothered.
"Arthur." She said in shock at seeing her brother. Ariadne took the baby from him as Beth rushed to hug him.
"Arthur! I'm so glad you're home!" She cried. "I thought I might never see you again!"
Arthur was smiling.
"Beth, you know have any saucy lines for me?" He asked. "I was looking forward to them all day."
"Oh, shut up!" Beth cried as she refused to let go of her brother.
Ariadne happy to see Arthur laughing.
~ "That's amazing the Phillip is alive and here in America." Arthur whispered that night. Adam had woken them up for his feeding and the new parents were happy to be roused from their light sleep. Arthur wasn't used the sounds of a crying baby and his first instincts when he heard Adam cry was to wonder who's baby it was.
Ariadne changed him and fed him. The baby soothed back to sleep easily.
"I can never thank Beth enough for finding him." Ariadne whispered as Adam nodded back to sleep. His shock of dark, feathery hair standing out wildly.
She climbed back into bed with the colonel and snuggled into his arms. Happy to have her body so easily fold into his.
"So, you got a promotion." She said nodding to his dress jacket hanging over a chair to preserve it's shape. The colonel's new rank obvious even tough he hadn't mentioned it to her.
"Yeah, it happens." He whispered as he seemed only interested in her.
She smiled as he kissed her. She suddenly felt very shy with her husbands return.
"Ariadne?" He asked suddenly. His voice almost frightened.
She looked at him. She wasn't used to seeing Arthur like this. His strength cracked and in need of healing.
"I won't be angry. I'll understand. Were you, I mean, did you keep company with someone? While I was gone?" He asked.
She didn't say anything.
He was asking if she had met another man. If she had been unfaithful to him.
Her mind briefly flew to Robert. How she had spent time with him, but never anything more a close friendship. She didn't want anything more from Robert then friendship.
She doubted Arthur would understand that. It was best to not let him ever know. Never let him know Robert was there when Adam was born or the Robert wanted to marry her if Arthur hadn't come back.
"No." She told him sadly. "I never kept company with anyone."