A/N: Slowly but surely! I was actually out of the country on an extended work trip and quite honestly, this story slipped my mind. I'm sorry for the wait and thank you for your patience. I'm still working on this and finishing up my TDKR fic, In the Darkness Bind Them, but it is slow going. Just trying to get over the holidays and uh, unpacking. Seriously, I have months' worth of clothing and shoes and junk to deal with but I keep putting it off because… it's a mess.

Anyway, on to the story!

Chapter 21

When she opened her eyes, Ana found herself standing in a long corridor.

She looked around slowly, taking in her surroundings. The walls were made of smooth, gray stone and a rich, dark red carpet lined the floor. Tall, thick candles, impaled on iron spikes on the walls, lit the way.

This is a dream, she thought. It's not real. And yet-

Everything looked solid and felt so real. Ana looked behind her and saw an entry to another hallway at the far end. Before her seemed an endless line of doors.

She was alone.

"Arthur?" Her voice didn't echo and she frowned at that. The carpet wouldn't have damped the sound too much, considering the length and breadth of the hall. "Eames?"

No one answered.

Ana took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, forcing herself to stay calm, to stay focused. There were no details, nothing that gave itself away to her. There were no fraying threads or worn places on the carpet, no heat or wax drippings from the candles that could tell her how long they'd been burning, no cracks in the walls where a stray draft would tell her which way was out.

The candles and their holders are medieval in design, but the carpet is modern. The walls are too smooth, too perfect, too complete…

It was a confusing mix of old and new design and Ana felt off balance, unsure of what her senses were telling her, of what her eyes were seeing.

She looked down at herself and ran her palms over her clothes. She had on the same black sweater and blue skirt she'd been wearing before she entered the dream and…

Oh.

Ana examined her hands. Her palms were wrapped up in gauze and underneath she could feel the familiar pull of stitches. It was odd to see her wounds; she'd figured they would disappear in the dream.

I guess they're a part of me, even here, she thought, frowning. For a moment she considered changing her hands, willing the flesh to knit together and heal…

And if something goes wrong?

That brought Ana up short and she pushed away her curiosity. Without Arthur or Eames, she wasn't willing to tamper with the structure of the dream- at least intentionally.

She lowered her hands and looked up again, frowning at the empty space before her.

What had they told her the night before?

What did Arthur say?

You might wake somewhere else, away from us. But because you know you're dreaming, you'll be aware of me and Eames in your mind. A part of you will be conscious of our presence.

All you have to do is reach out for one of us. It will be instinctive; you'll know where we are.

It had seemed ridiculous then and Ana remembered being puzzled at the vague instructions but now they were the only things she had in this vacuum of details.

"Just keep using your clever brain, no matter what happens, and you'll be fine."

Ana scanned the corridor again. She kept hoping for something, some trick of Eames' mind that would lead her to him or Arthur but there was nothing.

Do I just want them? Do I just tap into the desire not to be alone, do I just…

Arthur?

Eames?

I don't want to be alone.

Ana began to walk.

###

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours, but Ana kept walking.

She didn't feel tired or hungry or thirsty, but the longer she walked, the more she felt as if she were going in circles.

She was afraid, she could admit it to herself now. Fear was what made her keep walking, kept her from trying any one of the doors that she walked past. It wasn't simply the silence that scared her, nor the fact that she was alone. No- it was the lack of everything that unsettled her.

In the real world there would be signs, clues that would catch her attention and direct her thoughts. But the hallways she walked through were all the same. Left, right, right, left, left… no matter what direction she went down, everything was the same.

I'm lost.

I'll never get out of here.

I'll be trapped here forever and ever and-

"Pull yourself together."

Ana stopped walking and pressed her hands against her eyes. For a moment, all she could hear was her own shaky breath and she forced herself to slow down, to breathe in, hold, and then exhale slowly.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

She did it until she felt a little more grounded.

"Okay," she said out loud, opening her eyes, "Okay. It's a maze. Eames created a maze. And mazes are just puzzles. Puzzles have solutions."

The sound of her voice seemed to help clear away the last of the fear-induced haze and she nodded absently to herself.

"Puzzles have solutions," she said again. She stared at the candles, at the barely flickering flames, and straightened, thinking. "Solutions hinge on a key. So there's something I'm missing. Not seeing."

"What do I know?" she asked herself. "Start at the beginning."

I'm in the castle, alone.

"I know I'm inside because Eames didn't create any other buildings," she said. "I'm assuming I'm already inside the castle. Without windows, without signs, I can't know for sure but I'm willing to take that as fact."

I know I'm alone because-

"Because I haven't run into anyone else, so far," she said. She sighed and looked away from the flames. "No projections yet."

I'm in a maze.

"No matter what I do, every hallway I walk down is the same." Ana looked behind her and then turned ahead again. "The doors all look alike. The carpet is flawless, it's the exact same carpet no matter where I turn and the candles are-"

Wait.

Not the same.

Ana narrowed her eyes and stared at the candles all in a row. There were thirty-four of them on both sides of the walls, evenly spaced out.

On either ends of the halls were entryways into other hallways- choices to turn left or right. She walked back from where she came and stared down that hallway.

Fifty-five candles.

Twenty-seven on the right wall, twenty-eight on the left.

"Thirty-four, fifty-five," she muttered under her breath. "What does it mean? Thirty-four, fifty-five."

She ran down to the other end of the hall and counted.

"Eighty-nine," she whispered after a moment. "Eighty-nine, fifty-five, thirty-four. Same number of doors but the candles are different."

But what did it mean?

Odd number, odd number, even number.

There was purpose there, writ large through the numbers of candles on the walls, but Ana didn't know what it meant or to what end it lead to. Logically, if she were to build a maze and use numbers as a message, the larger numbers would lead to the outside. It just made sense to her to begin with the smallest amount of something and work up to the largest.

"But I didn't build it," she said, touching her fingertips to her lips. "Not me, it was Eames. I don't think like Eames, Eames is an artist, he's creative. He-"

With a start, she realized that she was touching her mouth just like Eames did when he was anxious or deep in thought.

Think like Eames.

Flash and wit and cleverness, all wrapped up and hidden behind masks.

"He's an artist but…" Ana closed her eyes, thinking back to the library. To Eames' library. To his studio. The books, the art, the patterns in his work.

Patterns.

Ana blinked and then let out a startled laugh.

It can't be that simple, can it?

"It's too obvious," she said, shaking her head at herself. "He'd come up with something more complicated, more complex."

But even as she spoke, she realized that wasn't necessarily true. Eames didn't take shortcuts, that much was fact. He wasn't lazy but he wouldn't make things needlessly difficult. And Eames was the kind of man who would take amusement from hiding in plain sight.

"Patterns," she said again, walking back to the hallway with only thirty-four candles. "Patterns and spirals."

If she were right, the larger numbers would only lead out to a larger maze, expanding until infinity- or at least whatever infinity their minds could create in the time they were given. If she had followed her own logic, she would have been walking for a very long time to nowhere.

Ana walked down the hallway, counting, and when she reached the end, she counted the candles in the other hallways and chose the one with twenty-one candles.

The Fibonacci sequence, she thought, shaking her head as she walked.

This was Eames' maze and it was meant to lead in.

###

And then there was one.

It was a small hallway, lit by only one candle, and terminating in a brick wall. Ana stared at it for a moment, uncertain.

Across the way was a door. It was larger than the others, made of dark wood and held together by iron bands.

Ana walked towards it slowly, noting the lack of keyhole or any other sort of lock. Instead of a doorknob, there was a ring on the side, meant to be pulled back instead of pushed forward. She reached out and put her hand on it, feeling the cool surface against her fingers.

She paused.

What's inside?

Ana drew back.

She'd found the center of the maze, she was sure of it, but now the fear came back. She didn't know what waited for her behind the door but now that the excitement of cracking the code of the maze, of finding the solution to the puzzle, was gone all that was left was dread.

"Arthur?" she called out weakly. There was no answer, though she hadn't really expected one. She couldn't help but try again. "Eames?"

It will be instinctive; you'll know where we are.

But it hadn't worked. She wanted to see them. The desire to have both of them, or even just one, by her side was all she could think about and yet she hadn't found them.

There really was nothing left to do but open the door.

Pull back instead of push forward.

Go inward instead of outward.

Ana raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders.

Nowhere to go but ahead.

One again she reached out for the ring but before she could touch it, the door creaked open.

Ana froze, stunned. Her mind went blank, wiped clean with terror. Without being conscious of it, she took a few steps back, ready to turn and run at a moment's notice.

Calm down. Calm down and don't move.

What do you see?

Details, she told herself, focus on the details.

There was light inside, bright and clean and different from the light of the candle. It was the light of the sun shining through a window.

It could be the way out.

(It could be a trap.)

She forced that thought out of her mind. It wouldn't help her now; it would add to her fear and she didn't need any more distractions.

She forced herself to call out, "Hello?"

Her voice sounded odd, strangled and she licked her lips. "Is a-anyone… is anyone there?"

There was no answer.

She felt as if her heart were in her throat but she forced herself to take a step forward, and then another, and then another, until she was past the high arch of the doorway. She squinted, feeling the harsh light on her eyes, blinking until her vision cleared and she could see once again.

Ana frowned, looking around herself.

She was in a map room.

Large windows made up most of the far wall but Ana studied the room around her, eyes widening with surprise. All thoughts of escaping the castle disappeared as she took in the room.

It looked like the library of an old college, save for the windows. There were tables and chairs, and bookshelves and glass door cabinets that held a variety of items. It was a cluttered space, despite its expansive size – maps were littered over almost every surface. Some of them were rolled up and stacked into pyramids. Some of them were laid out on the tables, flat and colorful and filled with lines.

There were smaller tables with what looked to be topographies set in miniature, with little hills and valleys, mountains and rivers and lakes in scale. She could even see water in some of them, and wondered how deep they actually went. There were globes of all shapes and sizes and some of them hung down from the high ceiling like a child's model of the universe.

Ana walked farther inside, stepping carefully over piles of books and loose pages. She picked up a map, half opened like a scroll, and tilted her head to the side as she read the words at the top of the page.

The woman at Ebenezer's Coffeehouse, May 23, 2002, 3:00 pm EST.

It was a map… and yet it wasn't just a map.

"You used to tell me that people were essentially topographies. You saw us all as maps. Every action and reaction was a destination, a road that led to some essential truth about a person."

Arthur's words came back to her and she followed the lines of reasoning leading to deductions on the page. Ana put it down feeling a thrill run through her.

She walked to a table and scanned the various papers on it, excitement rushing through her veins now.

The man walking down the street, turning left on 3rd and Pike, February 12, 2010, 1:30 pm PST.

Mark Webber, suspect, surveillance on October 29, 2012, 4:42 pm EST.

They were all maps of people. Some of them were shorter than others, the lines incomplete and the colors faded with lack of care. Some maps were long, highly detailed affairs with vivid colors and writing so small she could barely read them.

It was all so fascinating.

Ana walked up to a set of scale models and leaned down, looking at the raises and dips and reading the tiny words on the surface.

…just came from baseball practice, changed at school but his hands are still red from holding the bat and…

…keeping my birthday present under his bed because he knows I don't like dark places and won't try to steal it from there. Used mom's wrapping paper from Christmas because the tube was askew in the closet and…

Ana let out a soft breath, realizing that she was reading about her brother. She straightened and looked down at the maps on the floor beside the model. She picked one up and realized they were about Matthew too, dated like the others but with much more detail.

She suddenly understood why she'd come to the room, why she'd been led to the room.

"I wasn't really looking for a way out," she said softly.

She had been looking for Arthur and Eames.

In a way, her mind had taken her to them.

"If part of me knows where they are in the dream, then it would be written on their maps," she said to herself, looking around her. "Because I'd be cataloguing them, even now. All I need to do is find them."

Ana took a step away from her brother's model and then stopped, hesitating.

She looked back.

I could find out everything I wanted to know about him. Everything that Arthur and Eames couldn't or wouldn't tell me about him.

The truth was all laid out for her. All she had to do was look.

"I need to find Arthur and Eames," she said, frowning. "We have a job… we're here because…"

You wanted to be whole again.

You wanted to remember.

"But it means nothing," she said out loud. "Just reading the words… I still don't remember anything. It's like reading a story, like…"

But it's all here.

All you have to do is…

"It's not the same thing," she said. She knew she was talking to herself but it didn't matter really. She had to talk herself out of reading more about Matthew because Eames and Arthur were in her mind, because reading about her brother wasn't the same as remembering him. She would still be an incomplete thing, only someone who looked like Ana Tremont but wasn't because-

…Stay.

-because what harm would it do, really? Just to read a little further, just a few more lines. Maybe she could skip to the edges of the model, see what she was thinking when her brother died-

Murdered.

-so that she could at least prepare herself when or if she regained her memories. Really, she could read just a bit more and then find Arthur and Eames. Maybe they would even find her first. After all, it was Eames' maze- it would take him but a few short turns to get to her. Once they realized she was missing, they would find her. All she had to do was…

Stay.

Ana decided to stay.

###

Arthur exhaled slowly, feeling relief wash over him. Through force of habit he patted down his sides, making sure he was armed, and looked up, satisified.

"At least we ended up in the right place," he said, feeling the dirt ground give slightly underfoot. The castle Eames had built for them was only a short walk away; they had woken up in a grassy clearing just outside, close enough to see the enormous arches that led to the interior.

"Lucky enough," Eames agreed. Arthur saw him touch his hip- just a slight movement of his hand, and knew that Eames had come armed as well. "Well, fair fortune favors the brave. We should go in now. No use standing around here as easy targets for whatever Ana's mind cooked up for us, no?"

He glanced back and grinned crookedly. "No offense, pet."

Ana shrugged, looking back at Eames and then at Arthur with a slight smile. A breeze ruffled her hair and for a moment, Arthur was struck by the way the sunlight hit her face. She looked better in the dream- healthier, stronger. Her cheeks were no longer sunken in and her eyes were bright.

Must be her mind compensating, adjusting her appearance back to better times.

It was strange what the mind held on to but Arthur was glad to see Ana's smile again.

"None taken," Ana said. Her smile grew wider.

"I can't wait to get started."

###