on paper

Ariadne lies still between wakefulness and slumber. She tries to grasp the remnants of the dream. It was a good dream, a PASIV-free dream. It was a summer in the beach, the heat of the sun not overly warm, the breeze salty and Dom’s face stretched in a wide smile. Ariadne tries to remember Dom’s face, the lines of laughter and the crinkle of his eyes. She keeps it close to her heart as she feels the grip of morning.

The heat of summer in this part of Paris is scalding. The light of the sun prickles her eyes. Now that she’s aware of the warmth, Ariadne also hears sounds. There is a knock on her door, a staccato rhythm that can only mean one person. Ariadne tries to burry herself under the covers, but it is futile. The person on the other side of her door has turned from a staccato rhythm to something remotely resembling the beat of some old song. And so Ariadne drags herself away from the bed, pillow still clutched to her chest, eyes still closed. She opens the door and trudges back to the bed not even bothering to close the door.

“And good morning to you too dear.” Eames goes straight to her kitchen. Ariadne can smell coffee and freshly baked croissants from the bags Eames is holding. She guesses it’s from the cafe two blocks from her apartment.

“Get your ass here and eat your breakfast. We need to talk.”

Ariadne cringes. She knows it’s not about work because they’ve talked about this before and she has already told them that she would finish her studies first before even remotely considering a work in the dream sharing business. No, Ariadne knows it is not even remotely close to dream sharing. She wishes the soon to be topic of conversation may as well be about it if it gets her away from the inevitable conversation.

“I’m not awake enough for that conversation.” She mumbles to her pillow. Normal people would not be able to understand the sounds coming from her but Eames is not normal. After all, he’s inside the house of a criminal. Then again, he’s a criminal himself so maybe that offsets it. These thoughts distract Ariadne long enough for her to lose track of Eames and his inevitable questions.

When she comes back to, Eames is already perched on the bedside table, peering at her with a smirk. “Thus the coffee.” He stretches a cup of coffee to her. She just sneers at him and his cocky-all-knowing-smirk. Of course it doesn’t deter him. Instead, it makes his smirk turn to a chuckle.

“Seriously dear, drink your coffee.”

She lies back and looks at the ceiling, heaves a sigh before turning her head to look at Eames. He has a small smile on his lips, a cup of steaming coffee billowing smoke. She looks at Eames intently. And thinks he looks good. There are no dark circles under his eyes, even his skin looks healthy. Ariadne figures he must have been with Arthur if he looks well rested and happy. This does not spell well for her, might as well caffeinate herself before she gets interrogated. She lets the warmth of the cup warm her hands before she gulps the coffee, not caring if it scalds her tongue. She needs to be awake for this.

When she finishes gulping coffee, Ariadne hands Eames the cup and waits for a refill. Eames just shakes his head but gives her his cup of coffee to chug. It’s bitter and extra hot. She burns her tongue and she has to stop and wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. Eames looks at her pointedly but she just shrugs and continues chugging coffee.

The conversation Eames wants to have is difficult. Ariadne needs to be drunk for that conversation but she doesn’t have alcohol. She’s going to down as much coffee as she can instead.

“You haven’t been answering any of our calls,” Eames finally begins when Ariadne finally finishes her second cup of coffee. His voice is quiet and soft bellying the ferocity Ariadne knows Eames is capable of. Ariadne smiles at the knowledge that Eames always plays the good cop in her interrogations and interventions. Arthur is the one that delivers the tough love. She is so glad Eames is the one here with her.

She briefly wonders if Arthur is the one talking to Dom but dismisses the thought immediately before the flash of hurt shows on her face. She probably wasn’t fast enough if Eames’ sigh is any indication. She clears her throat before she talks. “I was busy with final requirements and forms for graduation.”

She stands abruptly and busies herself in making her bed and tidying up the paper strewn on the floor. She keeps her back to him even as he speaks. “You’ve been finished with all of those a week ago. You didn’t answer any of our calls for the past six months.” Eames states this easily. Sometimes, it slips Ariadne’s mind that these people are known for their ability to steal secrets from people’s minds.

“Miles was the only person who knew you were even alive.” She knows what Eames is really saying, asking. Still, she can’t bear to begin talking about it. It may have been months but the words still ring in her ears.

“Ari,” his hands on her shoulder makes her stop fluffing her pillows. It also makes her close her eyes and take a deep breath. When finally she turns around, she looks at Eames and tries to look for something, anything to keep them from having this conversation.

“It’s good to know that you’ve been with Arthur. You look rested, healthy and truly debauched.” She falls back on patterns and tired jokes.

Eames smiles a patronizing smile at her. “While I am astounded by your elementary deduction and warmed by your obvious implication of affection, you’re not getting out of this. You’re stewing in this horrid apartment.” He hugs her and settles his chin on her head. “Ari,” his voice is quiet in its intensity.

She takes another breath to steel herself to finally talk about it but finds that she can’t. Not yet. “I’ve been catching up on sleep and watching documentaries.” She whispers instead. Not so much a lie as an omission of truth. She untangles herself from Eames and heads to the small kitchen and opens the bag of croissants Eames brought. Space. She needs space. She grabs a croissant and bites it viciously.

“Darling, we both know, you watch no such thing. No, you’ve been stewing in this forsaken apartment probably drowning yourself in cheap wine and horrid telly.” Eames follows her to the kitchen and stands right across her, taking the croissant from her and taking a bite of it too.

“I could have started watching them. They’re very educational.” She gets a snort in reply.

“Get your own damn croissant. I’m eating that.” She makes grabby hands at the croissant but Eames just raises an eyebrow at her.

“Just get another one,” Eames finishes the rest of her croissant and pushes the bag of croissant to her.

She huffs in defiance but does grab a croissant and this time bites it like a normal person. She’s just so tired of this. “What are you doing here Eames?”

For a moment, Eames just looks at her. His gaze is unwavering, unraveling. For a moment, Ariadne can see the wonder that Arthur probably sees whenever he looks at Eames. But mostly, she sees a person who is obviously worried about her.

“We’re family. We look out for each other.”

Once upon a time, they were nothing but strangers but then they became a family. Slowly. Achingly so. There were week right after the job where they can’t seem to do anything but shout at each other, all of them still running on adrenalin and the constant fear of being found out. There was elation too, elation of having incepted a mind successful. They watched the news as their plan succeeded wonderfully. In the interim, they found a semblance of family; a very dysfunctional family of course, but a family nonetheless.  

She remembers lazy Sundays in the Cobb’s residence. James head is pillowed on her legs, Philippa sits beside her reading a book. Eames would be in the kitchen making food that fills the place with mouth-watering aroma. Arthur would be parked on the coffee table beside Dom, talking about one thing or another. Ariadne remembers it still. Eames would call out lunch and for a beat no one would move until Dom ushers them all to the dining room where Eames has laid out a feast. Ariadne would sit across Arthur and James would scramble to her lap. Dom would sit beside her and give her that smile that Ariadne thought was just for her. Of course that wasn’t real was it? It was all in her head.

Ariadne can’t help but look away. The bile rising in her throat is hard to swallow.

Eames grasps her hand. “We’re still a family. Arthur was hysterical when you wouldn’t answer his calls. You always answer his calls.”

She feels guilt eat at her. She knows how Arthur worries, has seen him hysterically worry about Eames and Dom and her. After inception, after all the secrets of Mal’s eventual succumbing to insanity, Arthur was never the same. His eyes gained that fear that they won’t come back to reality, that they too would choose to stay in Limbo, never to return, just a hair’s breath away from going under never to return.

And although Ariadne has not touched a PASIV since she left for France, Arthur does not know that. And so Arthur worried. She could only imagine his wrath once he sees her.

As if sensing the turn of her thoughts, Eames lets out a chuckle. “He’s not apoplectic if that’s got you worried. You’d survive with all your limbs intact. He was worried that you won’t be taking care of yourself but he knows you won’t go under without us there.”

It doesn’t take the guilt away but it does make her feel a bit better. And in the face of Eames’ smile, Ariadne can muster an answering smile. “I have so much to make up for don’t I?”

She musters a smile at that. “Oh darling you’ll be buying so many cups of coffee.” He turns away and starts going back to her room. She stays where she is and lets him survey her apartment. When Eames comes back, he’s holding bags with what looks like her things. She arches an eyebrow at him. The answering smile of Eames worries her.

“You can start making up for all of it today!”

Arthur is waiting for them at a condotel in the middle of the city. His legs are propped on the coffee table in their living room, a tumbler of scotch dangling from his hands. He’s wearing jeans and a faded black shirt that Ariadne is sure Eames owns. He looks so at ease until you notice the tautness of his back and the rhythmic tapping of his left fingers on his knees.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He doesn’t turn to them but continues to watch River Monsters. His fascination with fishing and underwater creatures will always be a mystery.

“Darling, we’re home.” Eames drops a kiss on Arthur’s head before heading to what Ariadne can only assume will be her room. Arthur doesn’t react, doesn’t even twitch but continues to watch the show. She inhales before she marches to the couch and plops beside him, grabbing the tumbler of scotch and tossing it back. She curls up next to Arthur and rests her head on his shoulder. His arms loosely drape her but he doesn’t speak. She doesn’t either.

Eames may be the sunshine in her life but Arthur would always be the ground under her feet.

It takes an episode and another for Ariadne to speak. When she does, her voice is raspy and sounds foreign to her ears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

She closes her eyes and begins. “He said he doesn’t feel the same way. Well, that isn’t fair, he didn’t really say the words but he got so mad when I suggested we move here. He said he couldn’t just leave their house. That it was their first house. I know he wasn’t talking about the kids because it was never really their house. I thought we were building a family but it’s still about Mal and I he just let me go and I can’t—“

She tries to say the words and tries to explain but can’t find the words anymore. She knows it’s unfair of her to dump all of this on Arthur when he was their friend first and she’s nothing but an outsider trying to fit in and fill the place where Mal used to be. And she tries to untangle herself, musters up the energy to move and get away but Arthur’s arm just tightens around her.

“Next time, if you can’t call, send a text.” She wants to burst into tears at that, knows what he isn’t saying.

“We’re always going to be by your side. We’re family. We love you.”

Ariadne might not believe it all just yet but she settles for burrowing further in his arms and finally lets the tears fall.

Eames hums a tune. She knows he heard every single thing she said and those few she didn’t. She thinks it might be best if they just leave her alone. But she’s selfish too and cannot bear to part from this. Not yet at least. He settles on her other side, closing the parenthesis: Eames and Arthur with her in between. For the first in so many months, Ariadne feels like she’s finally home.

 Arthur and Eames stay for the rest of the week until her graduation. Most days, they idle in her apartment, fighting over watching Doctor Who or River Monsters. They end up just watching reruns of Friends instead. When Arthur gets antsy, Eames would drag them out to see the rest of Paris and they visit restaurants even Ariadne doesn’t know about.

“A good meal is the best cure to all hurt.” Eames declares the first time they go to a restaurant hidden behind a gallery. And that’s the closest they get to talking about why they’re all here.

They don’t talk about Dom or the kids or the reason why Ariadne had to go back to Paris and finish her degree. She’s eternally grateful for both of them.