Fandom: Inception
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Arthur/Ariadne
Summary: Though you may wander, you will find your way home.
Disclaimer: Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Christopher Nolan, Legendary Pictures, Syncopy, and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. All others belong to me, and if you want to borrow them, you have to ask me first. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.
Again, Cincoflex straightened out this chapter for me, for which I am profoundly grateful. And she made the banner--isn't it gorgeous? *grin*
Production notes for this and other chapters are available on my LiveJournal.
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Chapter Nine: Emulating Silicates
He was right. When she woke, to early light coming in the window and Yusuf snoring quietly in the chair near her bed, Ariadne felt much calmer--still tired, but calmer. She lay still for a while, thinking.
It still hurt, what Arthur had done. She could understand why he had; to Arthur, the mission was the most important thing, and besides that it was his neck on the line--all of theirs, really, but his most of all. But asking--demanding--that she endure had been cruel.
She didn’t like to think of him as cruel. Brusque, standoffish, even cold in between those flashes of humor--but not cruel.
Not really cold, either, Ariadne admitted, when the goodbyes had been said and the planes boarded. She curled up in her seat, still not used to traveling first class, and stared out the window. He put up a good front, Arthur did, but there was more to him than he tried to show. He did care about people--look at Cobb, after all; it was clear how much Arthur missed his old friend--
Oh.
Her reflection in the window was faint, but it was smiling. Ariadne tapped the cold plastic, the hurt easing a trifle. That’s why.
They definitely needed to have a talk, she and the boss.
Arthur left the hotel the minute the check-out desk was open, leaving it to Yusuf to make sure that Eames was all right. He’d called Ariadne just before leaving, and she had very politely told him she was fine, thank you, she would see him back in Paris. Part of him wanted to see her face to face, but he didn’t think she would open her door to him, and anyway he had a more pressing matter.
The information they’d plucked from Fitzhugh’s head was a weight in his own, though he’d sketched the plans out as soon as possible lest he lose a detail. The drugs they used for Dreaming let them hang onto dreams longer than normal, but there was no sense in taking chances.
Usually, of course, there were at least two of them memorizing the relevant data, but that hadn’t been possible this time...
The journey to Kenya was long and enervating, but if there was one thing Arthur knew how to deal with, it was jet lag. He took only enough time on landing to freshen up and change clothes before heading to Cobol’s headquarters.
An hour later he stepped from its sterile coolness into the downpour of winter rain, pausing to pop open the umbrella he’d brought with him. It was done; the information was safely transferred, and the bargain was kept. He trusted Cobol about as much as he would trust an upset cobra, but the deal he’d made was common knowledge among the very small and exclusive world of extraction teams. The company would have to keep its word if it ever wanted to make use of an extractor again. The hard knot that had tightened under his breastbone the second the gun had nosed under his ear was now gone. You don’t have to watch your back any more, he promised silently.
It hadn’t taken long, in the end, once they’d left Ariadne and made the last few turns. The treasure chamber had glittered subtly with mica wherever their headlamp beams had touched, and on a boulder in the center of the high-roofed room was a battered metal box, rusty and riveted. It had opened at Fitzhugh’s touch, revealing the sheaf of equipment plans, and in her triumph she had scanned each one and passed it to Arthur, never sparing a thought for the woman dying back in the fallen passage.
He had never been so relieved to hear the signal.
Had it been worth it? That sort of sacrifice was something any of them might be asked to make during a job, but to be in that amount of pain… And Ariadne was a tyro. It hadn’t been fair.
Life isn’t fair.
Arthur returned to his little hotel room, made one phone call, packed up his suitcase, and boarded the first plane back towards Europe. He was asleep before the wheels left the ground, but awake again too soon.
It took him almost two days to get back into Paris, and in much worse condition than when he’d left, but that too could be remedied. Part of him wondered why he was even bothering; it was entirely possible to wire his team their money and close the lease on the workshop remotely. But he preferred to be tidy.
And he owed Ariadne something. Maybe it was the chance to blame him face to face; he wasn’t sure. But the need was there, and the need to see her one more time and make sure she was all right.
It didn’t surprise him to find her waiting in the workshop. In fact, Arthur realized, he’d half-expected it. Her messy corner was tidy now, all the plans and models swept away; she sat crosslegged on one of the chaises, huddled in a sweater and her ubiquitous scarf, reading a battered paperback. When he stepped into the room, she set the book aside, but didn’t move.
“Ariadne,” he acknowledged, and hung up his coat. The day was bright and sunny, but quite cold; the light pouring in the windows made her look almost ethereal.
She didn’t reply. Arthur walked over to the briefing area and its huddle of seating, but he didn’t take a chair. Her gaze followed him, and he realized that the anger he’d expected wasn’t there. It baffled him.
“Go ahead,” he said, and leaned back against one of the tables. “Say what you need to.”
Ariadne leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. “You think it’s going to be that easy?”
He shrugged. “Dancing around the subject won’t get us anywhere.”
She breathed in, then seemed to change her mind, hesitating before speaking again.
“You made me wait. You left me alone to die.”
He swallowed hard. “I know.”
Her eyes were wide and dark, and strangely distant. “I should hate you for it.”
By that phrasing, he knew she didn’t. “Why don’t you?” He kept his voice cool.
“Because.” She smiled, small and wistful. “I figured it out, Arthur. It wasn’t just for you.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but he was too late. “You did it for Cobb. So he would be safe.”
How did she know?
When he said nothing, her smile widened, and she shook her head. “Arthur, it’s not something to be ashamed of. He’s your friend.”
He dropped his gaze, embarrassed despite her words. “Yes, well. He has those kids…”
Ariadne sighed. “Why the hell are you so determined to pretend you don’t have a heart?”
“I don’t,” he said quickly, meeting her eyes once more. “I have a gear, remember?”
Her grimace was eloquent. “This is ridiculous.” With sudden energy, she slid off the chaise and reached for the silver case on the table. “We’re going to Dream.”
“Ariadne--” His protest was cut off by her glare.
“You owe me, Arthur. Twice over.”
He could walk away, he told himself. She couldn’t stop him.
But she was right, and he did try to pay his debts.
He reached for the lines, and she smiled.
It wasn’t what he expected. Not city nor prairie, not anything he’d ever seen; it was a vast sky, a huge golden sun that was sinking to the horizon, and a bizarre island, a chunk of grass-furred earth that floated what looked like miles above the ground. It had two small trees and a little pond on it, and roots hanging out into the air, and no visible support whatsoever. It was completely absurd, sailing serenely along through the atmosphere as if it were a cloud.
He liked it.
Ariadne wrapped her arms around her knees and looked out over the edge; Arthur stretched out on his back and stared up at the sky, which was darkening from blue to violet as the sun sank away. The stars appearing, he noticed idly, were thick and bright but did not fall into any familiar constellation.
“Why do you pretend so hard, Arthur?” Ariadne asked at last.
He thought about claiming that he didn’t understand what she meant, but it was pointless. “It’s easier.”
“Really?” She wasn’t looking at him; her hair curled down her back, tangled from the persistent breeze, and he bit back a desire to smooth it. “You just jeopardized quite a bit to rescue a friend. Is it really easier to act like you don’t care?”
“If you act hard enough, sometimes it comes true.” The words came too easily to his lips, but he didn’t try to stop them. Maybe if he explained, she would finally give up. Maybe--
Ariadne turned her head, resting it on her folded arms to regard him. “Does it?”
Arthur looked back to the stars. “No.” Not when it really mattered, apparently.
She was silent for a while, long enough for the sun to vanish entirely and the sky to achieve the blue that borders on black, a magnificence only seen far from cities and their lights. He could almost hear the stars singing.
“Who hurt you?” she asked at last.
He sighed, and gave up. “It’s a long story.”
It was too dark now to see her brow go up, but he knew it had all the same, and almost laughed. “It was years ago, okay? She…I thought she cared about me, but in the end she wanted something else. She loved the image, not the real me.”
He paused for breath, amazed at how much the memory hurt--the sheen of light on Jeanette’s skin, the way she’d fitted in his arms, the look on her face when he’d proposed.
The sound of her voice when she’d told him she was leaving him, for someone who had the impulsivity she craved and who wasn’t breaking the law.
“Then it was her loss,” Ariadne said quietly, and Arthur laughed again, more pain than humor.
“Maybe. But I loved her.” And she had taken the only other person he had left with her, leaving him utterly alone. “I just wasn’t good enough.”
“That’s bull,” she said, firmly enough to make his temper flare. “That’s just self-pity talking.”
Arthur sat up, glaring at her. “Really? She walked away, just like everybody else. Even Dom--”
“Dom is right there,” Ariadne returned, cutting him off. “Just because you aren’t working together any more doesn’t mean you can’t be friends.”
“How would you know?” Arthur snapped.
“Because I know him. He’s a good man, Arthur.” She was just a silhouette against the sky, but the warm touch on his hand was unexpectedly comforting. “And loyalty like yours--he has to treasure that.”
Almost without his volition, his hand turned under hers to grasp her fingers. “It doesn’t change anything,” he said tiredly.
“No. If you want change you have to make it yourself.”
“I don’t like change, remember?” Her chuckle made him smile in the dark despite himself.
They watched the stars for a while, her cool skin warming against his. Arthur knew he should let her go, but he couldn’t muster the will.
Finally Ariadne spoke again, her voice trembling just slightly. “I think I’ve made it pretty clear what I want, Arthur. But you haven’t. I can deal with no, but the ambiguity is getting to me.”
You’re not the only one. He let her hand go and pushed to his feet, a weird feeling rising in him, as if he had stepped off the island and was plunging toward the ground. “You don’t really want me, Ariadne. You just want the image, the same way she did.”
“Maybe.” He caught the gleam of starlight in her eyes as she looked up at him. “But how can I know what you’re really like if you don’t let me see?”
He could feel the earth rushing up at him, blotting out the sky. “All right. I’ll show you. Give me control of the Dream.”
“What?” She sounded startled. “You--I can do that?”
“We’ve worked with each other enough,” he said, impatient now that he’d made up his mind.
“Okay, but how?” Ariadne stood, and he could just make out her propping her hands on her hips.
“Symbolism will do. You choose.” He waited, and after a moment he saw something forming in the air just ahead of him. At first he thought it was a door, but when he squinted he realized it was a wardrobe.
Arthur couldn’t help the snort. “Optimist.”
Ariadne laughed, and he reached out and grasped the handle.
The house was an abrupt transition, full of dust and sunlight, and Ariadne found herself blinking even though the sudden onslaught of light didn’t actually hurt. She looked around her; the place looked like a repurposed Victorian, cluttered and messy. They were standing in the front hallway; before them was a living room, and the stairs rose up on their left. As Ariadne watched, the front door just to their right flew open and two young boys ran in.
They weren’t quite “nothing alike”, Ariadne noted--they were both dark-haired and round-cheeked, and were even dressed alike in t-shirts and jeans. But where one boy dumped his bookbag just inside the door and ran into the living room to pounce on the Nintendo, the other hung up his bag on the hooks by the door and took out a sheaf of papers, heading past Arthur and Ariadne as if they weren’t there. She glanced at the adult Arthur, who jerked a shrug at her, face closed.
All right, then. Ariadne followed the memory through a dining room where the table was lost under a welter of paper to an equally cluttered kitchen. The little boy was trying to attract the attention of a tall woman who was speaking into a phone. “Mom. Mom?”
“Hold on a sec--What is it, Arthur?”
The boy held up the papers. “You have to sign the permission slips so we can go on the field trip, Mom.”
The woman waved a hand at the counter. “Just leave them, baby, I’ll get to them.”
She patted him on the head, oblivious to the frustration on his face. “Sorry, Annie, just the twins--so he’s gone again--”
“Mom, it’s tomorrow.” When his mother ignored him, the boy flung the papers down on the counter between boxes of cereal and stalked out.
Ariadne trailed him up the stairs to a bedroom at the back of the house. It was fairly large--it had to be, because it had two of each piece of furniture. But where half the room was as messy as the rest of the house, half was ruthlessly tidy, the bed made and the chair pushed in. The young Arthur sighed heavily and took off his shoes before lying down on the neatest bed and pulling a book from the shelf nearby.
Ariadne glanced back behind her; the Arthur she knew stood there, arms folded. His eyes met hers, expressionless, and the scene shifted; the same room, but dark with night. There was enough light coming in from the hallway for Ariadne to make out the twin beds, but only one was occupied. Both boys were cuddled together in the other, sound asleep.
Then one jerked up, and screamed--
The Dream got hazy for a little while; when she looked back on it later, Ariadne figured Arthur had lost control of it. She saw a young man who looked enough like Arthur to be his brother, face angry, turning away over and over again; a blonde woman who spoke words she couldn’t make out in a soft and pleading voice; a tall couple with welcoming smiles that she recognized with a shock as Dom and Mal.
Things settled down, coming into focus. Ariadne found herself in a narrow corridor lined with glass-windowed doors and transoms; it smelled closed-in, and faintly of cigarette smoke. She looked down, and realized she was dressed in another one of those conservative outfits--though the shoes were oddly heavy--and gloves?
The weight of the hat clued her in. Nineteen-forties fashion--maybe Fifties. Ariadne pulled off the hat, regarded it, and shook her head. Okay, Forties. So where’s Arthur?
She replaced the hat, tilting it rakishly, and set off down the corridor, hoping she was headed in the right direction.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the building. Ariadne passed door after blank door; the corridor didn’t seem to get any shorter, and she was starting to wonder if she should turn around when she saw printing on one window. The Thomas Arthur Chase told her she was in the right place, though the Professional Thief beneath it made her snicker. She pushed the door open.
The room beyond was an office, with a huge battered wooden desk and cracked blinds on the windows. Arthur was there, dressed in his usual fashion but minus the coat. What shocked her was the woman in his arms, dressed in the same plum-colored suit Ariadne wore, sitting on the desk and tilting her head back to accept his mouth on the curve of her throat.
Ariadne froze, torn between outrage and embarrassment. Before she could close the door, Arthur looked up, and there was no surprise in his face.
So did the woman, and Ariadne felt another shock pass over her as she realized it was her. From her dark hair to her damnably short stature, Arthur had duplicated her, and was apparently on the point of making love to her in what looked like the setting for a noir novel.
On some level, Ariadne thought, she should be furious. Instead, she strode forward, took the simulacrum firmly by the arm, and drew her away from Arthur. The duplicate didn’t resist at all; Ariadne guided her to the door and bundled her out, closing it behind her copy and locking it before turning back. Arthur was staring at her with the air of a man whose well-rehearsed play had just gone off the rails. If you’re trying to scare me off, you’re going to have to try harder than that.
Ariadne pulled off her hat and marched back to the desk, hitching herself up onto it and tossing the hat behind her. She reached up and began unbuttoning Arthur’s vest, feeling a mad excitement building in her. “You know, all you had to do was ask.”
His hands closed on her wrists, and she looked up, ready to argue the point, but the words died on her tongue. His eyes were dark and intense, and he slowly raised her arms, urging her until she put them around his neck.
The feel of him pressed against her was exhilarating, even through all the layers they were both wearing. His arm went around her waist, and without a word he bent his head. His mouth grazed the skin beneath her ear, and Ariadne shuddered, because she had never felt anything quite that erotic, asleep or awake.
Another kiss, another--the roaring in her ears was more than their breathing, it almost drowned out his whisper of her name. His other hand slid up her back, and she felt him pressing her slowly backwards, cradling her as he laid her on the desk and loomed over her, and she tugged him down, wanting more than anything to feel his lips against hers--
The Dream dissolved, and she cried out with frustration.
When she opened her eyes, the chaise across from hers was empty. So was the workshop, she discovered; Arthur had taken his coat and gone. The only sign of his presence was a sheet of notepaper weighted by a corner of the machine.
I’m sorry was all it said.
Paris in the snow was a bleak cityscape--picturesque as all hell, Arthur had to admit, but bleak. But it suited his mood. He walked for hours along the whitened streets, watching the snow turn gray with dirt as wheels and feet churned it, as machines scraped it away; he paced through areas where tourists never went and places better known for hazards than charm, leaving his own prints behind him, gloved hands thrust deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. His ears burned with the cold and then went numb, but he paid no attention, more interested in setting one foot in front of the other.
It was better than going back to his hotel; he wasn’t going to sleep either way, and walking was more distracting.
The whole thing was so damned maddening. Ariadne had handed him the perfect opportunity, and he’d taken it, bewitched by the sensation of freefall--turning daydream into Dream, and confronting her with it.
I should have known better.
She hadn’t been disgusted--she’d taken it as a challenge. She hadn’t walked away.
He’d barely had time on waking to dose her just a smidge longer, to try to make the break clean. Hurting her--embarrassing her--had made him sick.
Coming back to find his note still there, with Coward written neatly across the bottom, had been the collision with the ground.
Every night he looked through his e-mail to see fresh messages--job offers, mostly. Holiday messages from friends in Beirut and Florida. The occasional dirty joke from Eames. A Christmas e-card from Eric, no doubt as impersonal as the last several.
Arthur opened none of them. Go, he urged himself. Find someplace warmer, someplace you’ve never been. You could use a vacation. Just go.
In the end, though, there was only one place. No, not a place, but a person; but now Dom was holding still. And he had promised.
“About time,” Dom said when he opened the door. “James asks about every three hours when you’ll be getting here.”
Arthur managed a smile at his old friend, and stepped past him. “You told him I was coming?”
Dom shrugged, closing the door and reaching for Arthur’s carry-on bag. “He sort of picked up the idea on his own. Want a drink?”
Within minutes they were settled in the living room, drinks to hand and the stuffed animals displaced from the chairs. Arthur looked around, aware of an unnatural silence. “So where are the kids?”
“Out shopping with their grandmother. Presumably for Daddy’s Christmas present,” Dom said wryly, propping his feet on an ottoman. “I give even odds that James will blab before Christmas Eve night.”
“No bet.” Arthur sipped his beer, appreciating the flavor and feeling the back of his neck relax. “Is Miles coming back for the holiday?”
Dom raised his bottle in an ironic toast. “Yep. Lots of fun.”
Arthur tipped his own in response. Dom’s in-laws had been divorced for fifteen years; the grandchildren brought them into proximity from time to time, but with a careful politeness that didn’t always translate into actual conversation.
They chatted quietly for a while, deliberately avoiding heavier topics. For a little while Arthur pretended that there was nothing wrong at all, that this was just a visit with a friend, not an agonized retreat; and while Dom’s gaze was sharper than usual, he said nothing, letting Arthur take the lead. It was a relief.
But eventually Dom came around to the subject Arthur was hoping he’d avoid. “About that Cobol job…”
Arthur fiddled restlessly with his glass. “It’s done.”
Dom’s lips twitched. “I know that. Suck it up and let me thank you properly. I owe you.”
Arthur gave him a driven look. “I didn’t do it to put you in my debt,” he said stiffly.
“No, you did it because you’re my friend.” Dom’s grip on Arthur’s shoulder was hard and warm. “A better one than I deserve, sometimes.”
Arthur couldn’t deny that the words felt good, but the sensation was overlain by desperate discomfort. Fortunately, before he could embarrass himself searching for words, the quiet was shattered by the pounding of small feet and the smell of pizza. Frances herded in their grandchildren, carrying supper, and for a few minutes it was a confusion of greetings and mittens and sticky hugs. Arthur dutifully admired James’ new toy car, and kissed Frances decorously on the cheek.
Dom gave him the raised-browed look that was their old signal for a conversation to be deferred until later, but dinner segued into a game of Candyland, and baths, and bedtime stories. Dom put the kids to bed, but Arthur and Frances had never had much to say to one another, so he read while she tatted lace. And when the children were asleep, somehow that time turned into reminiscing about Mal.
It was strange, after two years, to hear Dom talk about Mal so freely. It wasn’t that she’d been a forbidden subject before, exactly, but none of them had felt comfortable discussing her. Now it was clear that Dom and Frances both still grieved, but without the agony of before; every so often Arthur caught the gleam of a tear on the old woman’s face, scarcely visible in the low light, but her voice was easy and her stories humorous.
Arthur himself felt almost as if Mal were sitting with them, perching on the edge of her chair in the old way and smiling.
The guest room in which Arthur’s bag reposed was small but comfortable. He lay back on the bed, sitting up against the headboard, and tried to read in the silence of the sleeping house; he knew that sleep wouldn’t come for him until nearly dawn, if then. But it was impossible to concentrate, and eventually he laid the book down with a sigh.
Ariadne.
He’d run--thousands of miles he’d fled--and yet, like Mal, she seemed no further away than the other side of the room. It was unfair.
But Arthur had learned long ago that fairness had little to do with what life chose to hand out. And the Ariadne who lingered in his mind’s eye watched him reproachfully, without the malice of Dom’s shade of Mal but still discomforting.
Arthur had never had much use for guilt; he was practical, and made choices and moved on, seldom spending any time on regret. But it wasn’t practicality that drove him finally to his feet and out of the little room.
It was cold enough to nip his ears outside, but the sense of space helped, and the air was sweet. Arthur walked into the woods behind Dom’s house, using the moonlight to guide himself along the faint path through the young trees; they were dormant now, and their shed leaves rustled slightly underfoot, scarcely louder than Arthur’s own frosting breath.
He hadn’t been down this way since Mal’s death, but there had been quite a few picnics and walks before that, and he remembered the way even if the trees were taller. Before long the path opened into a small meadow, sere and pale under the moon. Arthur stuck his cold hands in his jacket pockets and stepped out into it.
Ariadne had driven him out of the house, but as he paced, Mal was on his mind--Mal and Dom, as they had been, mates in more ways than one. They had had what Arthur had observed nowhere else, a unity of soul that had served them well in the world of the Dream…for a while. The old sorrow surged as he remembered the early days of their friendship, Dreaming with the two of them, Dom and he fitting together like a hand in a glove and Mal creating glorious cities and teasing Arthur about his taste in art and ties.
Dom had possessed that--and lost it.
Arthur rarely envied anyone, but he’d envied Dom and Mal their unity. After Jeanette, he didn’t expect to obtain it himself, but the quiet joy his friends had found in one another had underscored a hunger in his own soul; one he would rather not been aware of, let alone admitted to. Losing that, having the whole torn in two, was a pain he couldn’t imagine.
And yet…Dom seemed to have found peace. Arthur had no idea how he’d achieved it, how he’d reconciled a wound that would never fully heal, but the torment was over.
Ariadne…
She was so young. Fully an adult, to be sure, but just emerging into life, sampling possibilities both legal and criminal. She was ferociously intelligent, quick-witted, suffered no fools. He could appreciate that; he was much the same.
But he was also different. Where she could imagine whole worlds, he was hard-pressed to construct a room; and while she as yet had had no involvement with the law, he had a considerable record.
Face the real issue. She’ll walk away.
He’d shown her a bit of his true self, and she hadn’t. But sooner or later she would, just as Jeanette had; he was never enough, he was the dark side, not the bright, and in the end it was the light everyone loved.
Movement at the edge of his vision came at the same time as the rustling sound reached his ears. Arthur turned, but it was only Dom, coming across the meadow, tall and bulky in a puffy coat. He crossed the uneven ground with the ease of familiarity and halted near Arthur, looking up at the setting moon.
“Two a.m.,” he said, tired and amused. “Do you ever sleep?”
“On occasion,” Arthur said dryly. “I needed some air.”
Dom nodded, eyes still on the sky. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.
Arthur flexed his cold fingers, unwilling to give even Dom that particular truth. “Just stuff.”
The snort was familiar, acknowledging his evasion but letting him get away with it for the moment. “I like it out here,” Dom said finally. “In the summer there’s deer. It’s a good place for thinking.”
“You think about deer?”
Dom shoved him with one elbow, and Arthur snickered, feeling some of his tension ease. “You know, if you want to talk…” Dom offered.
Arthur looked away. “It…wouldn’t help. But thanks.”
Dom sighed, breath pluming. “You always were a stubborn son of a bitch.”
Arthur elbowed him back, catching the gleam of Dom’s smirk. “Good thing for you that I am.”
“True.” They were both silent for a while, the moon whitening the meadow and Dom’s hair; Arthur felt like it left him dark, but when he looked down he realized that it spilled silver over him as well, profligate and cold.
“I don’t know what’s bugging you,” Dom said eventually. “But you’re probably overthinking it.”
Arthur raised both brows. “Oh, thanks. That’s so much help.”
“You didn’t ask for help. This is just a public service.” Dom smirked again. “I’m going back to bed. Don’t freeze to death, all right?”
Arthur watched him crunch away into the woods; after a few minutes, a light sprang up in the distance, barely visible through the trees, and he knew that Dom had left him a beacon.
Overthinking it. Dom knew him too well. Arthur began to walk again, wondering sourly what Mal would have made of his dilemma; she who had never had patience with uncertainty.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Arthur. Her eyes would flash as she frowned, he could see it so vividly. Do, or don’t, but stop agonizing over the girl.
And which should it be? he shot back, exasperated with his own imagining.
Her smile was the sly one that had always boded some mischief--not the cold malice of Dom’s shade, but the challenge of the woman who thought life should be lived to its fullest. Look at your totem.
She was vanishing, her voice fading, but something in him shifted painfully at her words. He could feel his totem in his pants pocket as he walked, that tiny weight, and everything it represented. Her meaning was clear.
Take a chance.
Like Dom did? The thought was bitter. He lost.
But the truth persisted. For all Dom had lost, he had the memories. Mal had changed him.
I don’t like change, remember?
And yet, the craving just under his breastbone was stronger.
Memories.
Arthur realized abruptly that he had circled the meadow at least three times. The moon was nearing the trees and his hands were frozen, and he had to piss.
“Damn you,” he said out loud, not even sure whom he addressed. “Don’t you ever get tired of being right?”
Dom asked no questions when Arthur left, just dropping him off at the airport with a slightly puzzled glance and best wishes for the holiday he knew Arthur usually ignored. Arthur read biographies all the way across the Atlantic, trying with only some success to keep his mind occupied, but Ariadne’s name still whispered across his consciousness, hastening his stride as he crossed concourses and streets. Paris was no more pleasant than when he’d left; the snow was mostly gone, but the wind was raw and the skies grey.
Arthur didn’t care. He stuck to routine because it was what kept him balanced, and besides, Ariadne deserved better than a jetlagged unwashed showing up on her doorstep. So he booked a room and set out his possessions, bathed and shaved and dressed again, and went to find her. To explain, to ask forgiveness, to do he didn’t know what, but he had to go. He already knew her address by heart.
She wasn’t there.
She wasn’t anywhere.
