Ariadne/Eames- In The Business Of Keeping Secrets
Title: In The Business Of Keeping Secrets
Author: butterflys_fics/blacksouledbutterfly
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Ariadne/Eames
Word Count: 3, 976
Summary: The team thought they knew Ariadne rather well but none of them expected her to walk into the office one day with a child- her child.
Notes: For this prompt at inception_kink.
They’ve been dating for three months. Three long months and Ariadne has never let him come back to her apartment, never really spends the night. Even if they end up falling into bed together which they’ve done on several occasions she never stays the night. She always tells him that she has to get back home. She tells him that she has work in the morning, the legitimate type of work she does as a cover so that she can hide the type of work that she does with him and the rest of the group. He doesn’t really question her about it though. If there was anything he needed to know then he was sure she’d tell him.
And there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. She comes into the office every time she needs to come into the office. She does her work just as well as she always has; she talks to them all about the details. Sometimes she checks her totems to make sure that she’s still in reality. It’s become a habit by then. She checks her totem quite frequently when she’s sitting there at her desk sketching out designs for the dreamscapes. Just pushes it over slightly, just tries to make sure that she’s still exactly where she needs to be.
Other than when she doesn’t let him go back to her apartment, other than when she goes home instead of spending the night at his place everything seems to be rather normal with her. And that’s why he never questions her, never asks her why she does that. He just accepts her at face value. They all have secrets, after all. They all have strange quirks. It’s just a part of who they are. It comes with the territory. And since she never seems to have a problem with him in general, with being with him, with intimacy or anything of the like he doesn’t see any reason to be concerned about their relationship.
It’s not until Ariadne comes into the loft where they set up their headquarters with a little pink backpack hanging off of one arm while her other hand holds onto the hand of a little girl about five years-old that any questions actually arise in his mind. Eames watches her walk in, the little girl chattering away while Ariadne smiles at him and he arches an eyebrow, turns his head just a little bit to look at the rest of the guys, his face mostly impassive save for the questioning, inquisitive look in his eyes. The men all seem to mirror his wonder.
Arthur looks the most perplexed. It’s always been his job to make sure that he knows as much information as he possibly can about everyone. Not just the people that are marks but also with the people that he’s working with. It’s just for insurance purposes. It’s just to make sure that they know as much as possible about the people they work with. It’s to keep them safe. It’s to make sure they can trust the people that they’re working with. In their line of work trust is more important than anything else. Without trust you can’t do your job. It’s too easy to get caught, to get killed. So in that moment Arthur looks as though he’s on the verge of a heart attack over not knowing what’s going on. A mild heart attack, of course. But a heart attack nonetheless.
Sitting up a little in his seat so he can move it easier Eames rolls his chair over towards where Arthur is sitting, where Cobb is sitting on the edge of Arthur’s desk. But Eames keeps his gaze on Ariadne as he watches her sit the little girl down at a chair in front of a table at the other end of the room, watches her boost the chair up as high as she can so the little girl can reach the table; watches her as she pulls a coloring book and a box of crayons out of the little backpack and sets them down in front of the girl, runs a hand over the little one’s wavy brown hair.
“Who do you suppose the little girl is?” Eames asks as he turns his gaze back over to Arthur, one of his eyebrows arching slightly again as he looks at the younger man who seems to still look as though he’s ready to have a heart attack, who is keeping his eyes firmly locked on the brunette woman and the little girl sitting in the chair.
“I don’t know,” Arthur admits though he doesn’t seem exactly comfortable with admitting he doesn’t know something like that. As a matter-of-fact he speaks as though there’s something lodged in his throat. It’s a tone of voice that Eames has to admit he’s never heard come from Arthur before. It’s almost startling to hear it.
“Does she have a little sister?” Cobb questions as he leans in just a little bit so he can talk to them better, so they can speak without actually having Ariadne hear them. Eventually she’ll head over towards them but she’s currently standing by the table, taking a little juice box out of the backpack to put it on the table where the little girl is sitting, is trying to make sure that she is entirely set up so she won’t have to go over and set her up again later on.
“She’s never mentioned one,” Eames replies as he turns his attention back to the woman in question. “And if that’s his little sister she’d probably be a late in life baby. A big surprise.” It’s not as though people really tend to talk about their families in their line of work. The only one they know anything about when it comes to family is Cobb. Everyone else has done a rather good job of keeping their private lives just that- private. That’s another important thing in their line of work. If you keep your family dynamic a secret it’s harder for them to be used against you. Because if anyone figures out who you are and what you’re trying to do they can use your family to manipulate you, to hurt you. That’s why they don’t talk about their family to each other. It’s just extra insurance. You can never be too careful when you’re a criminal. Hell, it had taken them four months of knowing Ariadne to find out she had a cat. They just don’t share information with each other. Not about their personal lives.
“And if she was going to mention it to anyone she would mention it to you.” If someone didn’t know Arthur they might think he was jealous over the fact that Eames and Ariadne are close but they all know that isn’t it. He just doesn’t like that it’s entirely possible that someone else could know more about another person than he does. Because Arthur is supposed to be the man with all of the answers, with all of the knowledge. Sometimes Eames doesn’t think that Arthur can get personally jealous, that he wouldn’t be able to do it if his life depended on it. He just seems to be far too well-adjusted for that.
“I would necessarily say that,” Eames counters with a slight shrug of his shoulders as he keeps his gaze on the woman in question. He didn’t really share personal information with her so why would she share personal information with him? They had the same don’t ask, don’t tell policy that the rest of the group did. Just because they were seeing each other didn’t mean they shared personal details. They shared a bed sometimes, yes. But pillow talk didn’t include discussing their families. “Though it seems we would have had an inkling of her having a much younger sister. Or any family near enough that the child would be around here. Bringing her to the office and all. Which begs the question- why would she bring a young child here? It doesn’t seem like the proper element for a little girl.”
“That’s a fair enough point.” Cocking his head slightly to the side Cobb watches Ariadne, reaches up and scratches the side of his chin in thought. Even he never put his kids in a situation like that. They had a hard enough time after their mother died. He went out of his way to make sure that his children stayed as far from that world as possible. It didn’t mean that he was necessarily ashamed of what he did for a living. He just didn’t want his children involved in it. What they did when they were adults was up to them. But as long as he was responsible for them? He wasn’t going to put them in his world. They had already lost their mother to it. No need to lose more of their childhood.
Eames opens his mouth to give a bit more of his input on the situation but Ariadne presses a kiss to the top of the little girl’s head and then heads in their direction. And so he closes his mouth, reaches up one hand to rub at the corner of his mouth to stop himself from letting the telltale smile of amusement spread across his face. Every time one of them comes over there when the others have been talking about them he has to try to find a way to hide his amusement. It doesn’t always work but he manages decently enough.
All three of them try their best not to look like they were just talking about her as she makes her way over to them but she isn’t stupid. She knows better. She can tell by the way they suddenly sit up in their seats and avert their gazes from her that they were just talking about her. She would have to be stupid not to know. So when she gets closer to them she arches both of her eyebrows at him, put her hands on her hips and gives them a look that is so motherly that for a moment Eames even almost feels guilty. The keyword there being almost.
He watches her and waits for her to ask them what they were talking about, waits for her to try to find out exactly what they were talking about but when she doesn’t say anything after several long beats of her standing there with her hands on her hips Eames glances at Arthur and then at Cobb before looking back at Ariadne. He clasps his hands together in his lap, leans back just a little bit so that he has to tilt his head up a little bit to look up at her. “Tell me something, luv,” he drawls as he looks at her standing there. “Who would that little girl happen to be?” He nods his head slightly in the direction of the girl in question though he does so unnecessarily. She’s the only little girl in the room. Ariadne would have to be a fool not to know who he was talking about and she’s anything but a fool.
Ariadne turns her head slightly to look at the little girl sitting there at the table. She watches her for a few moments like she’s considering how she should answer him. Her eyes linger on that little girl in question for a handful of seconds before she turns her attention back to him, meets his eyes in a way that makes it seem like she wants to see if he flinches away. “My daughter.”
Arthur starts coughing on the sip of coffee that he just took, his eyes widening in surprise while he sits there. Cobb reaches over and pats his back slightly to try to make sure he doesn’t literally choke on the coffee. “How didn’t I know about that?” Arthur whispers to himself in a hoarse voice while he sits there, his dark eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“Daughter?” Eames arches both of his eyebrows at Ariadne but doesn’t look away from her. He simply sits up straighter in his chair, adjusts a little as he watches her standing there in front of him. “How old were you when you had her, darling? Twelve?”
Ariadne rolls her dark eyes just a little bit to tell him that she doesn’t appreciate his humor. He knows very well that she’s not quite that young. She’s the youngest member of the team, yes, but she’s not quite that young. And he knows that. But she can’t really be mad at him. He’s just being himself and she’s quite use to him and the way he is by then. “I had her my senior year of high school. She wasn’t planned. She was just a bit of a surprise, I guess you could say.”
“That’s the understatement of the millennium, luv,” Eames drawls as he looks at her and then angles his body a little bit to look around her at the little girl sitting there at the table, coloring in the book that her mother laid out in front of her.
“How did you manage to keep her a secret this whole time? Who was even looking after her while we were doing the Fisher job?” Arthur puts his coffee mug down on his desk as he turns his attention towards her. His dark eyebrows are furrowed as he watches her, his head cocked slightly to the side, the surprise at not knowing about that child and the confusion about the whole thing still etched all over his face. “It’s not like you could have just left her all by herself.”
“Obviously not,” Ariadne agrees with a slight nod of her head. No, you can’t really leave a child that age alone for more than a minute or two without it causing a big problem. She wouldn’t be able to take care of herself. “A friend watches her,” she answers after a moment. “I told her I had to go home for a visit and didn’t want to cart her back and forth. It wasn’t hard to get her to watch Nicole.”
“Nicole, huh?” Eames smiles a little bit when he hears the little girl’s name, keeps on looking at her as she sits there and colors in her book. He can’t make her out all that well from where she’s sitting but from what he can see? She looks quite a bit like Ariadne. Which means she’s probably going to be a very attractive girl when she gets older.
“And why did you bring her here?” This time Cobb is asking the question and it doesn’t come as a surprise. Sometimes they got to see his children but he never brings them around the team when they’re working on something.
“I didn’t have anyone to watch her today.”
“Mommy.”
Ariadne turns her head slightly to look at her daughter the moment she hears her voice and then she turns to head back over to her. Before she can get very far at all Eames stands up and reaches out, puts a hand on her arm to stop her from going anywhere just yet. He leans down a little bit so he can speak into her ear. “We should talk later, darling.”
For a moment Ariadne just stands there and then she nods her head, just once, a quick up and down bobbing nod before she slips her arm out of his grasp and makes her way over to her daughter, comes up behind her, runs a hand over her hair and leans down to talk to her.
Its two nights later that they get together to talk. She shows up at his apartment later in the evening, is standing on the other side of the door when he opens it with her hands in her coat pockets while she waits for him to let her in. and then he steps back a little bit so she can slip inside, does so wordlessly which is the exact way she steps inside. It’s not until he closes the door and turns to look at her that she even considers saying anything to him.
“I was seventeen,” she finally says after a moment, turns slightly so she can walk over towards the couch, so she can go and sit down on it. And kicks her shoes off the second she sits down, tucks her legs up underneath her body. “He was my first real boyfriend. I ended up pregnant, he wasn’t ready to be a father, I considered giving up the baby but in the end I decided to keep it. That’s really all there is to say.”
“That’s not all there is to say by a longshot,” Eames argues as he sits down on the chair near the couch. “Were you ever going to tell me about her? I can understand you might not want to tell the entire team but we’re involved, darling. At least it seems as though we are. So you would think you would tell me you have a daughter. That’s something that should have come up.”
“I was going to tell you. Eventually. I just hadn’t quite figured out how to tell you yet. That’s not something you just blurt out. And not a lot of men like the idea of dating someone who has a kid.” She had learned that rather quickly after she had Nicole. She adored her daughter, loved her to pieces but that didn’t mean she made life easy. As a matter-of-fact it became rather difficult to get a guy to look at her the moment they found out she had a child. That was one of the reasons she didn’t tend to tell people about her daughter. And she definitely couldn’t tell the team. It might put her daughter in danger.
“And what did you think I would do?” he queries as he arches an eyebrow at her. “Did you think I’d call you a slag or something and take off? That I would be a complete jerk to you? You know me much better than that by now, darling.”
“I just want to protect her. To keep her safe.” Shrugging her shoulders just a little bit she turns her gaze over to him, turns her body as well so she’s facing him rather than looking straight ahead. “And I know I can trust you. I know you wouldn’t purposely put her in danger. But it doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t end up being in trouble if too many people in our world know that she exists.”
“There’s also the theory that the more of us that know about her the more people there are to protect her. You know Arthur and Cobb wouldn’t let anyone hurt her either. Just like none of us would let anyone hurt Cobb’s kids.”
“I guess you have a point there.”
“Listen to me, Ariadne.” Standing up from the chair he makes his way over to the couch, sits down next to her, takes one of her hands in his, rubs the back of her hand with his thumb. “Us knowing about Nicole isn’t going to make her be in any danger. None of us would let anything happen to her. And if we’re going to be involved? You have to let me know about things like that. Keeping her a secret from someone you’re with isn’t a good idea.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just wasn’t sure what to do. How to tell you. And we’re not the only ones involved. This all directly will affect my daughter. And I have to put her first. That’s the thing, Eames. My daughter has to come first. She always has and she always will.”
“And I understand that, luv. But if you want to see if this is going to work? Then she has to be a part of it. That’s all there is to it. And I think deep down you know that.”
She opens her mouth so say something but closes it back up, simply nods. She knows he’s right. If she wants to be with him then she has to have her daughter be a part of things. And maybe things won’t work out with him but maybe they will. But they can’t work if they don’t at least try to involve their daughter in some way.
“You know…Arthur was rather startled when you told us she was your daughter. It’s his job to know about everything and he didn’t know. And I have to admit- you did a good job of hiding her. You never mentioned anything at all during the Fisher job that would have led any of us to believe that you had a daughter. It seems that you’re a lot sneakier than you appear to be.”
The edge of her mouth twitches slightly as she tries to fight off a smile. “I guess that works for me with what we do.”
“I guess it does.”
“I can’t stay late,” she blurts out after a moment. “I could only get someone to watch Nicole for a little while. I just thought if I didn’t come and talk to you that you would try to get me to talk to you in the office one day and there are some things…there are some things that I just don’t think should be discussed with everyone else around.”
“I understand.” He squeezes down a little on her hand and then leans over, presses a kiss to her temple before he releases her hand so she can stand up from the couch. For a few seconds she just stands there and looks at him before she dips down, brushes her mouth across his in a goodbye before she turns so she can head towards the door.
“Ariadne,” he calls as she’s reaching out to take ahold of the doorknob. She turns to look at him, watches him stand up from the couch. “Why don’t we all go out together next time?” he suggests. “We could take that little girl of yours out and I could get to know her. It might be nice. And she might appreciate it. Or, well, really I would appreciate being able to actually meet her. Only if you’d like for me to meet her, of course.”
“No, I’d like that.” That time she doesn’t fight the smile. She just lets the corners of her mouth turn up into a smile, reaches out with one hand to press her palm against his cheek, to brush her thumb over his skin almost as though silently thanking him for that. “I think Nicole would like you. You’re sometimes a big kid yourself. And children tend to like people that are big kids themselves.”
“Then we should get along swimmingly.” The edge of her mouth turns up into a sort of smirk while he stands there looking at her.
“Yeah, I think you will.” She drops her hand down away from his face, takes a slight step back from him as she opens the door behind her. “Thursday then?”
“Thursday sounds lovely.”
Ariadne smiles again as she looks at him and then slips out into the hall, closes the apartment door behind her. For a few seconds she just stands there, closes her eyes, takes a couple of deep breaths even as her mouth is turning up slightly into a smile.
Bringing her little girl to meet Eames should end up being rather interesting. But she has to admit- she’s quite glad he’s taking it all rather well.
Now she just has to figure out the best way to explain things about her daughter to the rest of them. It should be rather interesting to say the very least.
Author: butterflys_fics/blacksouledbutterfly
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Ariadne/Eames
Word Count: 3, 976
Summary: The team thought they knew Ariadne rather well but none of them expected her to walk into the office one day with a child- her child.
Notes: For this prompt at inception_kink.
They’ve been dating for three months. Three long months and Ariadne has never let him come back to her apartment, never really spends the night. Even if they end up falling into bed together which they’ve done on several occasions she never stays the night. She always tells him that she has to get back home. She tells him that she has work in the morning, the legitimate type of work she does as a cover so that she can hide the type of work that she does with him and the rest of the group. He doesn’t really question her about it though. If there was anything he needed to know then he was sure she’d tell him.
And there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. She comes into the office every time she needs to come into the office. She does her work just as well as she always has; she talks to them all about the details. Sometimes she checks her totems to make sure that she’s still in reality. It’s become a habit by then. She checks her totem quite frequently when she’s sitting there at her desk sketching out designs for the dreamscapes. Just pushes it over slightly, just tries to make sure that she’s still exactly where she needs to be.
Other than when she doesn’t let him go back to her apartment, other than when she goes home instead of spending the night at his place everything seems to be rather normal with her. And that’s why he never questions her, never asks her why she does that. He just accepts her at face value. They all have secrets, after all. They all have strange quirks. It’s just a part of who they are. It comes with the territory. And since she never seems to have a problem with him in general, with being with him, with intimacy or anything of the like he doesn’t see any reason to be concerned about their relationship.
It’s not until Ariadne comes into the loft where they set up their headquarters with a little pink backpack hanging off of one arm while her other hand holds onto the hand of a little girl about five years-old that any questions actually arise in his mind. Eames watches her walk in, the little girl chattering away while Ariadne smiles at him and he arches an eyebrow, turns his head just a little bit to look at the rest of the guys, his face mostly impassive save for the questioning, inquisitive look in his eyes. The men all seem to mirror his wonder.
Arthur looks the most perplexed. It’s always been his job to make sure that he knows as much information as he possibly can about everyone. Not just the people that are marks but also with the people that he’s working with. It’s just for insurance purposes. It’s just to make sure that they know as much as possible about the people they work with. It’s to keep them safe. It’s to make sure they can trust the people that they’re working with. In their line of work trust is more important than anything else. Without trust you can’t do your job. It’s too easy to get caught, to get killed. So in that moment Arthur looks as though he’s on the verge of a heart attack over not knowing what’s going on. A mild heart attack, of course. But a heart attack nonetheless.
Sitting up a little in his seat so he can move it easier Eames rolls his chair over towards where Arthur is sitting, where Cobb is sitting on the edge of Arthur’s desk. But Eames keeps his gaze on Ariadne as he watches her sit the little girl down at a chair in front of a table at the other end of the room, watches her boost the chair up as high as she can so the little girl can reach the table; watches her as she pulls a coloring book and a box of crayons out of the little backpack and sets them down in front of the girl, runs a hand over the little one’s wavy brown hair.
“Who do you suppose the little girl is?” Eames asks as he turns his gaze back over to Arthur, one of his eyebrows arching slightly again as he looks at the younger man who seems to still look as though he’s ready to have a heart attack, who is keeping his eyes firmly locked on the brunette woman and the little girl sitting in the chair.
“I don’t know,” Arthur admits though he doesn’t seem exactly comfortable with admitting he doesn’t know something like that. As a matter-of-fact he speaks as though there’s something lodged in his throat. It’s a tone of voice that Eames has to admit he’s never heard come from Arthur before. It’s almost startling to hear it.
“Does she have a little sister?” Cobb questions as he leans in just a little bit so he can talk to them better, so they can speak without actually having Ariadne hear them. Eventually she’ll head over towards them but she’s currently standing by the table, taking a little juice box out of the backpack to put it on the table where the little girl is sitting, is trying to make sure that she is entirely set up so she won’t have to go over and set her up again later on.
“She’s never mentioned one,” Eames replies as he turns his attention back to the woman in question. “And if that’s his little sister she’d probably be a late in life baby. A big surprise.” It’s not as though people really tend to talk about their families in their line of work. The only one they know anything about when it comes to family is Cobb. Everyone else has done a rather good job of keeping their private lives just that- private. That’s another important thing in their line of work. If you keep your family dynamic a secret it’s harder for them to be used against you. Because if anyone figures out who you are and what you’re trying to do they can use your family to manipulate you, to hurt you. That’s why they don’t talk about their family to each other. It’s just extra insurance. You can never be too careful when you’re a criminal. Hell, it had taken them four months of knowing Ariadne to find out she had a cat. They just don’t share information with each other. Not about their personal lives.
“And if she was going to mention it to anyone she would mention it to you.” If someone didn’t know Arthur they might think he was jealous over the fact that Eames and Ariadne are close but they all know that isn’t it. He just doesn’t like that it’s entirely possible that someone else could know more about another person than he does. Because Arthur is supposed to be the man with all of the answers, with all of the knowledge. Sometimes Eames doesn’t think that Arthur can get personally jealous, that he wouldn’t be able to do it if his life depended on it. He just seems to be far too well-adjusted for that.
“I would necessarily say that,” Eames counters with a slight shrug of his shoulders as he keeps his gaze on the woman in question. He didn’t really share personal information with her so why would she share personal information with him? They had the same don’t ask, don’t tell policy that the rest of the group did. Just because they were seeing each other didn’t mean they shared personal details. They shared a bed sometimes, yes. But pillow talk didn’t include discussing their families. “Though it seems we would have had an inkling of her having a much younger sister. Or any family near enough that the child would be around here. Bringing her to the office and all. Which begs the question- why would she bring a young child here? It doesn’t seem like the proper element for a little girl.”
“That’s a fair enough point.” Cocking his head slightly to the side Cobb watches Ariadne, reaches up and scratches the side of his chin in thought. Even he never put his kids in a situation like that. They had a hard enough time after their mother died. He went out of his way to make sure that his children stayed as far from that world as possible. It didn’t mean that he was necessarily ashamed of what he did for a living. He just didn’t want his children involved in it. What they did when they were adults was up to them. But as long as he was responsible for them? He wasn’t going to put them in his world. They had already lost their mother to it. No need to lose more of their childhood.
Eames opens his mouth to give a bit more of his input on the situation but Ariadne presses a kiss to the top of the little girl’s head and then heads in their direction. And so he closes his mouth, reaches up one hand to rub at the corner of his mouth to stop himself from letting the telltale smile of amusement spread across his face. Every time one of them comes over there when the others have been talking about them he has to try to find a way to hide his amusement. It doesn’t always work but he manages decently enough.
All three of them try their best not to look like they were just talking about her as she makes her way over to them but she isn’t stupid. She knows better. She can tell by the way they suddenly sit up in their seats and avert their gazes from her that they were just talking about her. She would have to be stupid not to know. So when she gets closer to them she arches both of her eyebrows at him, put her hands on her hips and gives them a look that is so motherly that for a moment Eames even almost feels guilty. The keyword there being almost.
He watches her and waits for her to ask them what they were talking about, waits for her to try to find out exactly what they were talking about but when she doesn’t say anything after several long beats of her standing there with her hands on her hips Eames glances at Arthur and then at Cobb before looking back at Ariadne. He clasps his hands together in his lap, leans back just a little bit so that he has to tilt his head up a little bit to look up at her. “Tell me something, luv,” he drawls as he looks at her standing there. “Who would that little girl happen to be?” He nods his head slightly in the direction of the girl in question though he does so unnecessarily. She’s the only little girl in the room. Ariadne would have to be a fool not to know who he was talking about and she’s anything but a fool.
Ariadne turns her head slightly to look at the little girl sitting there at the table. She watches her for a few moments like she’s considering how she should answer him. Her eyes linger on that little girl in question for a handful of seconds before she turns her attention back to him, meets his eyes in a way that makes it seem like she wants to see if he flinches away. “My daughter.”
Arthur starts coughing on the sip of coffee that he just took, his eyes widening in surprise while he sits there. Cobb reaches over and pats his back slightly to try to make sure he doesn’t literally choke on the coffee. “How didn’t I know about that?” Arthur whispers to himself in a hoarse voice while he sits there, his dark eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“Daughter?” Eames arches both of his eyebrows at Ariadne but doesn’t look away from her. He simply sits up straighter in his chair, adjusts a little as he watches her standing there in front of him. “How old were you when you had her, darling? Twelve?”
Ariadne rolls her dark eyes just a little bit to tell him that she doesn’t appreciate his humor. He knows very well that she’s not quite that young. She’s the youngest member of the team, yes, but she’s not quite that young. And he knows that. But she can’t really be mad at him. He’s just being himself and she’s quite use to him and the way he is by then. “I had her my senior year of high school. She wasn’t planned. She was just a bit of a surprise, I guess you could say.”
“That’s the understatement of the millennium, luv,” Eames drawls as he looks at her and then angles his body a little bit to look around her at the little girl sitting there at the table, coloring in the book that her mother laid out in front of her.
“How did you manage to keep her a secret this whole time? Who was even looking after her while we were doing the Fisher job?” Arthur puts his coffee mug down on his desk as he turns his attention towards her. His dark eyebrows are furrowed as he watches her, his head cocked slightly to the side, the surprise at not knowing about that child and the confusion about the whole thing still etched all over his face. “It’s not like you could have just left her all by herself.”
“Obviously not,” Ariadne agrees with a slight nod of her head. No, you can’t really leave a child that age alone for more than a minute or two without it causing a big problem. She wouldn’t be able to take care of herself. “A friend watches her,” she answers after a moment. “I told her I had to go home for a visit and didn’t want to cart her back and forth. It wasn’t hard to get her to watch Nicole.”
“Nicole, huh?” Eames smiles a little bit when he hears the little girl’s name, keeps on looking at her as she sits there and colors in her book. He can’t make her out all that well from where she’s sitting but from what he can see? She looks quite a bit like Ariadne. Which means she’s probably going to be a very attractive girl when she gets older.
“And why did you bring her here?” This time Cobb is asking the question and it doesn’t come as a surprise. Sometimes they got to see his children but he never brings them around the team when they’re working on something.
“I didn’t have anyone to watch her today.”
“Mommy.”
Ariadne turns her head slightly to look at her daughter the moment she hears her voice and then she turns to head back over to her. Before she can get very far at all Eames stands up and reaches out, puts a hand on her arm to stop her from going anywhere just yet. He leans down a little bit so he can speak into her ear. “We should talk later, darling.”
For a moment Ariadne just stands there and then she nods her head, just once, a quick up and down bobbing nod before she slips her arm out of his grasp and makes her way over to her daughter, comes up behind her, runs a hand over her hair and leans down to talk to her.
Its two nights later that they get together to talk. She shows up at his apartment later in the evening, is standing on the other side of the door when he opens it with her hands in her coat pockets while she waits for him to let her in. and then he steps back a little bit so she can slip inside, does so wordlessly which is the exact way she steps inside. It’s not until he closes the door and turns to look at her that she even considers saying anything to him.
“I was seventeen,” she finally says after a moment, turns slightly so she can walk over towards the couch, so she can go and sit down on it. And kicks her shoes off the second she sits down, tucks her legs up underneath her body. “He was my first real boyfriend. I ended up pregnant, he wasn’t ready to be a father, I considered giving up the baby but in the end I decided to keep it. That’s really all there is to say.”
“That’s not all there is to say by a longshot,” Eames argues as he sits down on the chair near the couch. “Were you ever going to tell me about her? I can understand you might not want to tell the entire team but we’re involved, darling. At least it seems as though we are. So you would think you would tell me you have a daughter. That’s something that should have come up.”
“I was going to tell you. Eventually. I just hadn’t quite figured out how to tell you yet. That’s not something you just blurt out. And not a lot of men like the idea of dating someone who has a kid.” She had learned that rather quickly after she had Nicole. She adored her daughter, loved her to pieces but that didn’t mean she made life easy. As a matter-of-fact it became rather difficult to get a guy to look at her the moment they found out she had a child. That was one of the reasons she didn’t tend to tell people about her daughter. And she definitely couldn’t tell the team. It might put her daughter in danger.
“And what did you think I would do?” he queries as he arches an eyebrow at her. “Did you think I’d call you a slag or something and take off? That I would be a complete jerk to you? You know me much better than that by now, darling.”
“I just want to protect her. To keep her safe.” Shrugging her shoulders just a little bit she turns her gaze over to him, turns her body as well so she’s facing him rather than looking straight ahead. “And I know I can trust you. I know you wouldn’t purposely put her in danger. But it doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t end up being in trouble if too many people in our world know that she exists.”
“There’s also the theory that the more of us that know about her the more people there are to protect her. You know Arthur and Cobb wouldn’t let anyone hurt her either. Just like none of us would let anyone hurt Cobb’s kids.”
“I guess you have a point there.”
“Listen to me, Ariadne.” Standing up from the chair he makes his way over to the couch, sits down next to her, takes one of her hands in his, rubs the back of her hand with his thumb. “Us knowing about Nicole isn’t going to make her be in any danger. None of us would let anything happen to her. And if we’re going to be involved? You have to let me know about things like that. Keeping her a secret from someone you’re with isn’t a good idea.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just wasn’t sure what to do. How to tell you. And we’re not the only ones involved. This all directly will affect my daughter. And I have to put her first. That’s the thing, Eames. My daughter has to come first. She always has and she always will.”
“And I understand that, luv. But if you want to see if this is going to work? Then she has to be a part of it. That’s all there is to it. And I think deep down you know that.”
She opens her mouth so say something but closes it back up, simply nods. She knows he’s right. If she wants to be with him then she has to have her daughter be a part of things. And maybe things won’t work out with him but maybe they will. But they can’t work if they don’t at least try to involve their daughter in some way.
“You know…Arthur was rather startled when you told us she was your daughter. It’s his job to know about everything and he didn’t know. And I have to admit- you did a good job of hiding her. You never mentioned anything at all during the Fisher job that would have led any of us to believe that you had a daughter. It seems that you’re a lot sneakier than you appear to be.”
The edge of her mouth twitches slightly as she tries to fight off a smile. “I guess that works for me with what we do.”
“I guess it does.”
“I can’t stay late,” she blurts out after a moment. “I could only get someone to watch Nicole for a little while. I just thought if I didn’t come and talk to you that you would try to get me to talk to you in the office one day and there are some things…there are some things that I just don’t think should be discussed with everyone else around.”
“I understand.” He squeezes down a little on her hand and then leans over, presses a kiss to her temple before he releases her hand so she can stand up from the couch. For a few seconds she just stands there and looks at him before she dips down, brushes her mouth across his in a goodbye before she turns so she can head towards the door.
“Ariadne,” he calls as she’s reaching out to take ahold of the doorknob. She turns to look at him, watches him stand up from the couch. “Why don’t we all go out together next time?” he suggests. “We could take that little girl of yours out and I could get to know her. It might be nice. And she might appreciate it. Or, well, really I would appreciate being able to actually meet her. Only if you’d like for me to meet her, of course.”
“No, I’d like that.” That time she doesn’t fight the smile. She just lets the corners of her mouth turn up into a smile, reaches out with one hand to press her palm against his cheek, to brush her thumb over his skin almost as though silently thanking him for that. “I think Nicole would like you. You’re sometimes a big kid yourself. And children tend to like people that are big kids themselves.”
“Then we should get along swimmingly.” The edge of her mouth turns up into a sort of smirk while he stands there looking at her.
“Yeah, I think you will.” She drops her hand down away from his face, takes a slight step back from him as she opens the door behind her. “Thursday then?”
“Thursday sounds lovely.”
Ariadne smiles again as she looks at him and then slips out into the hall, closes the apartment door behind her. For a few seconds she just stands there, closes her eyes, takes a couple of deep breaths even as her mouth is turning up slightly into a smile.
Bringing her little girl to meet Eames should end up being rather interesting. But she has to admit- she’s quite glad he’s taking it all rather well.
Now she just has to figure out the best way to explain things about her daughter to the rest of them. It should be rather interesting to say the very least.