Second, last
First, unfirts- part II
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Ariadne
Genre: Romance/hurt/comfort
Rating: G
Word count: 2271
It’s nine am, a warm and beautiful Sunday’ morning, when the phone calls. Ariadne doesn’t even have to check the caller ID, she knows his identity since the first phone ring.
She have been waiting for this call for a same time. It wasn’t a pleasant anticipation.
In fact she was afraid of it and now her hand trembles when she picks up the phone.
“Yes, Eames?”, she says.
***
It’s half a year since the accident. Arthur came back from the hospital four months ago, but to their previous apartment. Ariadne decides to buy a small semi-detached house on outskirts of Paris, rather than renting that huge and modern flat on the last floor of skyscraper.
It seemed more appropriate; the after accident Arthur doesn’t belong to the world of glass and steel. The world of suits and guns.
And definitely not to the world of Dream-sharing.
Of course he doesn’t remember that aspect of his previous life too. Yet, he doesn’t have any problems with accepting the truth of their financial resources and isn’t surprised by the Pasiv. In fact he’s able to use it, without the slightest hint of hesitation.
Ariadne went under with him, blind to the risk, hoping that maybe the familiar sensation of being in Dream world would help him remembering.
It didn’t.
Arthur still doesn’t remember anything to the day he opened eyes after surgery.
To the day when he opened his eyes to fall love in Ariadne once again.
Ariadne reads a lot about people with brain damages and that makes her realize how lucky she is.
Arthur doesn’t have problems with adjusting to normal life. The level of his intelligence seems to be unchanged. All his senses are working properly. His personality didn’t change in any extreme way.
In fact some things seem to be better right now: he’s more open with emotions, for instance.
Even the physical sings of the injury aren’t big: he’s limping on right leg and precision of his movements is worse, but the scar on his head is already covered with hairs and really hard to notice, even for Ariadne herself.
The only problems are missing memories.
Ariadne tries to forget about it, she knows that Arthur is bothered by holes in his past. Of course she told him everything she knows, but it’s really a tiny part.
She can call Cobb and Eames, they most probably know more about Arthur’s past, but she finds it extremely difficult. Impossible, in fact.
She feels like informing them about the loose of memory makes it more real and irreversible.
Beside, Ariadne knows that the day Eames call them is coming.
After their last job both Ariadne and Arthur decided that they need a longer holiday. They informed about this decision Eames, who promised to call them after appropriate amount of time. Of course with an interesting job offer.
***
“Ariadne!”, Ariadne hears Eames’ happy exclamation. “It’s good to hear you again, sweetheart.”
All of sudden Ariadne realizes that she’s happy to listen Eames’ deep voice again. “It’s good to hear you, too.”, she says honestly in answer. “How are you?”
“Perfect.”, Eames responses happily. “And you and our darling?”
Ariadne pauses and bites her upper lip. No matter how many times Eames teased Arthur and got some spiteful answer in return, Ariadne knows that they’re important to each other. Moreover, she feels guilty: she should have told Eames as soon as the accident happened.
“Ariadne?”, Eames repeats, this time with a hint of anxiety.
“I’m fine.”, Ariadne manages to say. “Where are you right now?”
“on the airport in your beautiful city.”, Eames answers, but Ariadne feels he knows something’s wrong.
“So maybe just go straight to our house?”, Ariadne asks and gives Eames their new address. He doesn’t comment it in his usual teasing way, just promises to be soon.
Ariadne checks Arthur, who’s still sleeping peacefully. That’s another thing that has changed after the accident: the old Arthur barely slept, his dream very shallow, like he couldn’t relax completely.
Now he doesn’t have any problems with sleeping, contrary to Ariadne, who wakes up every night from the same nightmare; in the beginning there’s nothing more than snow in it. But then there’s a first drop of blood and then another and another… Until everything is covered with blood and there’s no way to escape.
That’s the moment Ariadne always wakes up, covered with sweat.
She’s happy she doesn’t scream; it would wake up Arthur and cause question on which there’s no answer.
Ariadne decides to wait for Eames on the porch. She’ll get the chance to speak with him, before he meet with Arthur, prepare him for this meeting.
Soon Eames is getting off the cab and waving his hand in a greeting. He embraces her tightly, when she opens the gate.
“What’s wrong, love?”, he whispers into her ear.
“It’s about Arthur.”, she answers and feels Eames tenses, his grip on her shoulder stronger, almost painful.
“There was an accident, he’s alive but… But he lost his memory.”, Ariadne continues hurriedly, afraid that if she hesitates a little longer, she won’t be able to speak.
Eames lets her go and takes a step back. “What?!”
He clearly wants to add something more, but he stops frozen, looking over Ariadne’s shoulder. She doesn’t need to turn over.
It must be Arthur standing on the porch.
“Ariadne?”, his voice, filled with confusion and concerned proves her assumption right. She comes about and sends him a slightly forced smile.
“Everything’s fine!”, she replies, but Arthur is already heading for them. Eames watches him in silence, with sadness in his stormy eyes.
Arthur pauses few steps in front of him.
“I’m sure I knew you.”, he announces with pure disbelief in his voice. Ariadne freezes, feeling her heart beating so rapidly, that it almost escapes her chest. It’s Eames, who reacts first.
“Of course you know me, darling.”, he says lazily, shooting a quick glance at Ariadne.
“Don’t call me that.”, Arthur answers mechanically, like so many times before, with the usual half-irritated, half-amused intonation. Those words wake Ariadne up from her frozen state. She comes closer to him, right in the moment he falls on the grass, pale.
“Arthur!”, she knees beside him, vaguely noticing that Eames does the same.
“Arthur…”, she pleads, unable to say anything more, but it seems that her voice catches Arthur’s attention. He blinks and focuses on Ariadne, his eyes filled with confusion.
“I remember dying.”, he complains, sounding slightly like hurt child. An involuntary sigh escapes Eames’s throat, but Ariadne doesn’t pay any attention to him. She puts her slim arms around Arthur, in the way he did this so many times before and embraces him tight. She feels the rapid and uneven motions of his chest, his fingers digging deeply into her body. She’s sure she’ll have bruises in those places, but it doesn’t matter at all.
Ariadne can’t even imagine what he’s coming through.
She witnessed a couple of Arthur’s deaths during their common working, all of them caused her to suffer and think if pure creation is really worth looking as the most precious people for you are dying, sometimes in very nasty way.
Ariadne hisses, when Arthur’s nails puncture her skin. She hears Eames coming closer but sends him away with a wave of her hand.
Nobody can help here, but Ariadne feels that her presence is soothing for Arthur, making this horrible experience at least partially less terrible.
If going through endless numbers of various deaths, which reasons are incomprehensible for you can be soothed in any way.
Finally, when Ariadne’s back are blazing with pain and her limbs are numbed because of her forced position, Arthur moves aside, taking his hand from her back.
“I’m sorry.”, he says quietly, but she silences him with quick and chaste kiss on the lips.
“Don’t be.”, she commands, her voice slightly choked. “And help me up.”
He obeys and helps her stand. His hands are shaking, but the outburst of emotion has already ended, now he suffers from aftereffects of it.
Ariadne feels Eames’s intense gaze on them, when he opens the door. She leaves Arthur in under his care and goes to the bathroom.
Pulling off her shirt reveals eight tiny, but deep scratches on a couple of already forming bruises on her back. Ariadne sighs and leans on the wash-bowl. She feels exhausted and scared.
Why Arthur’s memories have to go back like that?
Why couldn’t he recall their chaste kiss during inception or their vacation in Greece, rather than all this unnecessary deaths?
Because nothing is so intense as death.
Even if you died many times before.
Ariadne takes a long and shuddered breath.
She’ll make Arthur, hopefully with Eames help, remember all his amazing experiences too.
When Ariadne enters the kitchen (why all important and serious conversation with Eames always have to take plane in kitchen, she wonders vaguely.)
Both man are sitting beside the table and the picture of Arthur strucks Ariadne.
He’s calm, collected and completely unreadable.
Arthur, the Point Man as he was before.
Only whitened fingers, clutched desperately on the coffee mug reveals the storm of emotion boiling in him.
“So every single death of mine is in the same time real and fake.”, he states, never taking his eyes from Eames, who slowly nods his head in agreement.
“Arthur.”, Ariadne calls softly and he turns to her, forcing a small smile on his lips. He has a hunted look in his eyes and Ariadne’s heart silently cries for him.
“Shouldn’t we go to the hospital?”, Ariadne asks him hesitantly, knowing in advance his response. The accident couldn’t change the fact Arthur just hates hospitals and avoids such places with all his strength.
“No. I want, I need to remember more.”, there is a fever in his voice, which causes Ariadne and Eames to share a worried look.
“But…”, Arthur doesn’t let Ariadne finishes the sentence.
“I want to go under. As a dreamer.”, he interrupts firmly.
Ariadne and Eames watch him in silence, completely unsure about this idea.
“Ari.”, Arthur says, his voice almost pleading.
“Fine. Fine. Prepare the Pasiv.”, she finally gives up and wants to follow Arthur, when Eames grabs her shoulder.
“Are you sure?”, he inquiries with a hint of anxiety in his deep voice.
“Just watch us over, ok?”, Ariadne replies and walks out of the kitchen.
The Pasiv is ready to use, soughing softly on the bed.
Ariadne hesitates on the door frame. Last time they went under she was the dreamer and Arthur’s subconscious filled the Dream space with confused projections, so different than his normal ones. It didn’t help in anything.
But now the effect of such experience can be huge and Ariadne isn’t sure if they should do it like that.
No matter how many times she was telling him stories about their previous life, it couldn’t prepare Arthur for the intensity of it.
“Ari, please.”, Arthur calls her, ready to Dream. Ariadne lays beside him, Eames presses the button and darkness falls around her.
***
Ariadne is sitting on the small couch in a hotel lobby.
In a very special hotel lobby.
In the hotel from Fisher Job.
It seems that Arthur recreated the space around her perfectly, according to her old projection in every detail.
There two main differences, though; the hotel is crowded with her own projections, not Fisher’s angry and dangerous ones. And Arthur isn’t sitting beside her.
It startles Ariadne but soon her eye catches the familiar picture of tailored three pieces suit and she sighs with relief. She hurries toward him and grab his hand.
“Do you remember?”, Ariadne asks curiously and Arthur shrugs.
“Not exactly.”, he admits. “It’s rather a sensation of something familiar. I’m sure that something important took place right here. And I know it has something to do with you. Am I right?”
“Yes.”, Ariadne smiles, her anxiety faltering slowly. “Do you remember anything else?”
Arthur frowns and looks around. “I remember two numbers. 491 and 528, even though I can’t… Hotel’s room?”
“Exactly.”, Ariadne confirms. “We shouldn’t stay like that so long, my subconscious doesn’t like it.”
Arthur nods his head in agreement and they start walking slowly. It’s when Ariadne notices Arthur doesn’t limp, his movements as graceful as they were before the accident. That realization causes her eyes to prickle; it means that Arthur, even though unconsciously, misses his old dexterity.
They’re passing by the lift, when Arthur suddenly stops.
“I remember being in this elevator and… flying?”, he says hesitantly, looking at Ariadne with question in his dark eyes.
“Zero-gravity.”, she explains hurriedly and Arthur smiles, like he could see something special. “Right.”
They continue their slow walk in silence, until Arthur’s grasp on her hand tightens.
“I remember another hotel… And you. There was a wall made of glass…”, his voice falters and Ariadne fervently searches her mind for appropriate Dream. There was so many hotels…
And then she knows.
Their first Dream together.
“You told me that my subconscious will turn ugly.”, words slip her mouth, before she can stop them.
Surprisingly it causes a soft chuckle from Arthur. “I believe, I was right. Anyway there was something more in that hotel…”
In the middle of the lobby, just in front of their eyes raise a stairs.
But not normal stairs, like you can see in most buildings.
The Penrose’s stairs.
“The infinite staircase.”, Arthur says slowly, staring at them. “Come on.”, he adds, taking Ariadne’s hand.
They make their first step on stairs in perfect synchronization.
THE END