(fic) A Long Slow Collision part 6
Sep. 24th, 2010 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cicerWhen I started this thing, I thought, oh, hey, this'll just be a short fill! Like, say, 5,000 words!
What's the current wordcount for this thing? 21,820 words.
And how far are we into the story? I have no fucking idea.
Guys. Guys. I have completely lost control of this story. Please send help. D:
Ariadne figures it out about fifteen seconds after Eames hangs up.
She’s immediately furious with herself for not figuring it out sooner. Dammit, she thinks. She should have known!
Lunging for the phone, she hastily punches in Eames‘ number, but evidently he has turned his phone off, because the call goes straight to voicemail.
Dammit!
She curses her own obliviousness. She should have seen this coming!
Of course it’s Eames; he could hardly say two word to Arthur without giving her a lascivious eye-rake or calling her by some new, ridiculous pet name. Ariadne had watched him flirt with Arthur time and again. She hadn’t even known that they’d been sleeping together, but she should have guessed at least.
Ariadne slumps onto the couch and stares at her phone. She tried to think it through.
Yes, Eames flirted with Arthur all the time. But then, that had been exactly what had kept Ariadne from thinking that Eames could be the father of Arthur‘s baby. It was just too obvious.
Eames flirted, but he was the sort of person who just did that sort of thing. Admittedly, he’d flirted with Arthur a lot more than anyone else, but Ariadne had assumed that was just because he knew it annoyed her. She thought Eames was just trying to get a rise out of Arthur. She hadn’t thought he was serious.
And Arthur…! Ariadne shakes her head, thoroughly bemused. She hadn’t guessed that would take it seriously, either.
Studying her phone, she presses redial and gets kicked over to voicemail again. This time, she decides to leave a message.
“Eames!” she shouts into the receiver, after the automated voice has finished telling her to leave a message after the tone.
“Eames! Call me back. I mean it! Otherwise I’ll tell Arthur I know it’s you! And I’ll tell her you called me to fish for information. I mean it, Eames!”
Her words are met with nothing but dead air. Ariadne glares at the phone, checks her watch, and thinks.
“I’m giving you twenty four hours, and then I’m telling her, and I’m telling Cobb!” she threatens. “Call me back!”
That should do it, Ariadne thinks with satisfaction, as she hangs up the phone. She knows better than to think that Eames is the sort of man to be easily cowed by threats; still, the prospect of a vengeful Arthur and a furiously overprotective Dom Cobb should be enough to ensure that Eames returns her call.
Ariadne realizes she is grinning, somewhat manically, and quickly quashes it.
It isn’t funny, she reminds herself. Unplanned pregnancies are not funny. They are stressful and upsetting, and she should be kind and supportive, and not snicker behind Arthur and Eames’ backs.
But she sort of can’t help it.
Ariadne is seized with the unexpected, irrational urge to give Eames a congratulatory fist bump. Seriously, who would have thought he’d be able to get into Arthur’s perfectly-pressed pants? He definitely isn’t the sort of guy Ariadne would have pictured Arthur hooking up with.
Now that she thinks about, Ariadne realizes that she would have guessed Arthur would go for some kind of rich, classy, ultra-sophisticated businessman. Someone like…well, someone like Saito, actually.
Suddenly, the flight of fancy she’d indulged in when she first found out Arthur was pregnant doesn’t seem so irrational after all.
It isn’t that Ariadne can’t picture Arthur with anyone but a guy like Saito. It’s just that Arthur is so buttoned-up, and seems to genuinely respect and admire professionalism in others, especially in men. Given that, out of all the guys on the team, Eames is pretty much the last one Ariadne would have expected Arthur to sleep with.
…Okay, maybe not the last. Yusuf is probably the last one she’d have expected, but Eames is a close second.
Ariadne snorts and grins to herself. Eames. Damn. Who would’ve thought?
Still grinning, Ariadne makes sure her phone’s volume is cranked up high so she won’t miss a call, then drops the phone on the table and goes to make coffee.
Her Paris apartment is pretty much her favorite place ever; comfortably cramped and cluttered, and filled with furniture scavenged from thrift shops and flea markets. Of course, she could afford some more expensive stuff now, after her paycheck from Saito. For a while, she entertained the thought of redecorating the entire place.
There’s a home design catalogue on her coffee table now, in fact. She grabbed it when she bought Arthur’s pregnancy magazines, and spent the last few days looking it over. Ariadne glances at the magazine briefly while on her way to the kitchen.
The things in the magazine are nice, she thinks, but everything looks so sleek, so sterile, so artificial. Ariadne loves her flea market finds, from the scuffed coffee table with names carved into the sides, to the overstuffed couch upholstered in bright purple velvet. They’re nicer than any furniture from a catalogue, she decides. They have character.
Ariadne scoops fresh grounds into the coffeemaker and fills it with cold water before setting to brew. She’s tried to stop bringing coffee to the warehouse since finding out about Arthur’s pregnancy. She figured it would just be unkind, knowing how much Arthur loves coffee and that she can’t have it anymore.
Well…technically, a little coffee would probably be okay. Ariadne scoured three different pregnancy websites, and they all agreed that moderate caffeine consumption was more or less safe. But when she presented this information to Arthur, Arthur seemed skeptical.
And that was perfectly all right with Ariadne. She thoroughly approves of taking the safe route.
The coffeemaker sputters, and Ariadne takes down her favorite slightly-chipped mug and gathers a carton of cream and the sugar bowl before fetching a clean spoon from the sink. She thinks about Eames, and wonders if she should call him back again and tell him about the doctor’s appointment yesterday.
Arthur clearly hadn’t needed the company, but Ariadne was gravely offended by the idea of anybody going to their prenatal visits by themselves. And since Arthur didn’t have any family, and since the then-unidentified father apparently wasn’t around, the duty fell to Ariadne.
Unsurprisingly, Arthur protested, but Ariadne knew how to be stubborn. Eventually, Arthur caved. She even let Ariadne drive them both to the obstetrician.
Ariadne had been disappointed to find out that the doctor didn’t need to do an ultrasound yet. She’d already been planning to frame the pictures, and maybe even send a copy to Cobb.
But it was okay, it was all right, because they got to hear the baby’s heart rate, and that was awesome. At that point, Arthur had basically given up on trying to kick her out of the exam room, so Ariadne she got to stick around for the pelvic exam too.
Which, okay, wasn’t exactly high on Ariadne’s list of things she wanted to do in her life, but somebody was supposed to be there to hold Arthur’s hand (Arthur hadn’t seemed to want any hand-holding, but still) and somebody had to ask questions about epidurals and stuff.
Clearly, Ariadne was just the woman to do it.
It had gotten a little embarrassing toward the end, though. Ariadne had shown such interest in the proceedings that the doctor had apparently assumed she was the other mommy and referred to her as Arthur’s ’partner’, and then Arthur had gone red-faced and Ariadne had been left to explain that she was just an overly-involved friend.
…Still. It was still definitely worth it.
The coffeemaker shudders to a stop, and Ariadne pours the coffee into her mug.
She thinks about calling Eames up and telling him that the kid’s okay, Arthur’s blood tests came back clear, and also he should totally get his ass back here, hello, you do not knock someone up and then just wander off to Africa or wherever.
It occurs to Ariadne suddenly that Eames probably just found out about this whole thing. He’s probably freaking out. He had sounded a little choked toward the end of the conversation. He was probably having the whole, oh-shit-I’m-gonna-be-a-dad crisis.
Ariadne softens slightly. That news must have been a little hard to take. She should probably cut him a break and let him have his panic attack.
…For, like, a day. But if he doesn’t call back before that, then she’s totally going get Cobb and fly to Africa and drag Eames back here by the scruff of his neck.
Arthur wouldn’t approve, of course, but Ariadne isn’t fooling herself; Arthur’s already going to be pissed about the whole talking-to-Eames-behind-her-back thing.
Stalking Arthur as she goes to her doctor’s appointments probably isn’t putting her on Arthur’s good side either, come to think of it. But if Arthur’s going to be angry at her anyway, Ariadne figures she might as well help herd Eames back to Paris by means of a shotgun at his back. If it comes to that.
Ariadne doctors her coffee with cream and sugar, then carries it back to the couch and picks up her phone. She double-checks her missed calls, just make sure Eames didn’t call back while she was in the kitchen.
He didn’t.
For a moment, Ariadne wonders if she should call Arthur and give her a heads-up. She thinks about what she would say. Hey, the grapevine apparently still works, and Eames has apparently figured out that you’re knocked up and it’s presumably his!
That probably wouldn’t go over well.
And now that Ariadne thinks about it, maybe the situation isn‘t as clear-cut as she thought it was. Maybe, just maybe, the baby isn’t actually Eames’?
She thinks about it a little longer. It’s possible the kid isn’t his. Ariadne would have expected Eames’ come-ons to be a little too strong for Arthur’s tastes apparently they aren’t. And if that’s the case…well, an attractive woman in Paris who doesn’t mind guys cheap flirtations and blatant solicitations can pretty much have her pick of bed partners. Ariadne’s sure of that.
And, granted, she wouldn’t have thought Arthur would be into that kind of thing, but maybe she is. So maybe, even if she did sleep with Eames, he isn’t actually the dad.
Hell, maybe Saito’s a contender after all.
Ariadne curls up with her coffee and plucks a book off the table.
After she passed on all the pregnancy magazines to Arthur, she’d gone out and picked up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. She still isn’t sure if Arthur has a copy of her own, but Ariadne’s betting she doesn’t. Arthur still seems to be trying not to think too hard about her pregnancy, and reading about placenta previa and Braxton-Hicks contractions would probably cut through the whole denial thing pretty fast.
Of course, the pretending-nothing’s-going-to-change coping mechanism can’t possibly last very long anyway. In fact, Ariadne’s pretty sure it’s on its last legs. Arthur looked kind of pale when they’d heard the baby’s heartbeat.
All the more reason to get Eames back here so that he can support her, Ariadne decides. He has to want to be there for Arthur during her pregnancy. Only a total douchebag wouldn’t want to be around for that, and Ariadne is pretty sure Eames isn‘t a total douchebag.
At the very least, he’s bound to want to see Arthur get all huge and fat. Ariadne’s not going to lie, she’s sort of looking forward to that herself. Not out of any sort of jealousy or meanness or anything like that. It’s just that Arthur’s always so slim and neat and polished, and it’ll be sort of funny to see her waddling around in maternity wear. Ariadne can’t wait.
There are diagrams in the book, and pictures of what a woman will look like in her third trimester. Ariadne studies them and tries to imagine what Arthur will look like when she’s all huge and pregnant like that.
Then it occurs to her, very suddenly, that she might not be able to see it, because maybe Arthur’s not planning to stay in Paris. The possibility startles her. She puts down her book.
Of course, there’s no reason to assume that Arthur’s going to stay. Ariadne knows that. Arthur is clearly used to traveling a lot, and maybe there are other places she’d rather be if she’s going to have to put down roots. Which, she probably is. The whole extraction business is a little too fast-paced and dangerous for a woman with a baby.
Briefly, Ariadne entertains herself with fantasies of Arthur, a baby strapped to her chest, mowing down rogue projections with a machine gun.
She snickers. Somehow, it’s strangely easy to imagine.
Then Ariadne mentally segues to wondering if a baby can be involved in a shared dream. It’s an interesting idea, she thinks. Would it even work? Would an infant’s mind be too unstable? Is Somnacin even safe for babies? It’s okay for pregnant women, apparently, but does that mean…
Ariadne realized she’s digressing. She yanks her mind back on track.
Where was she? Oh. Right. Arthur. Arthur might be leaving Paris.
This is clearly not acceptable. Arthur has every right to go wherever she wants, of course, but Ariadne already has big plans for the kid. She’s an only child, so this is probably her only chance at a niece or nephew, and she’s already picked out the architecture books she’s going to give the kid when it’s old enough. Arthur is not allowed to steal her adopted niece/nephew away. It’s just not acceptable.
So, Arthur has to stay. Ariadne nods to herself, pleased to have worked that out, and takes a sip of her coffee. The apartment has gotten cold, so she tucks her feet under her and wraps up in an afghan to keep warm. The pregnancy book lies open on her lap.
She might have to fight Cobb for custody of Arthur, she realizes. The idea amuses her. Cobb’s bound to want Arthur to hang around if she’s going to have a baby, but Ariadne’s not going to give up that easily.
Paris is better for the baby, she decides. Arthur’s already got an apartment here; Ariadne’s seen it. It’s nice, and it’s big enough for a baby. Plus, Arthur already has an obstetrician here. If Cobb wants to see her, he’s just going to have to bring the kids and come across the Atlantic himself. Ariadne nods to herself.
And the same goes for Eames, of course. If he wants to be involved with the kid (and he’d better, Ariadne thinks darkly) then he has to come here. Obviously Arthur can’t be expected to travel to him while pregnant. That would just be inconsiderate.
There’s a picture of Eames on her phone. Ariadne remembers this suddenly, and takes her phone out again. She scrolls through the images.
She has pictures of the whole team on her phone, actually. She snapped most of them while they were working in the warehouse just before inception. She was never entirely sure why she took them. Maybe it was some sort of attempt to hang onto reality, to convince herself that everything she was experiencing was real.
Everything had gone so fast, during those crazy, rushed days leading up to inception. Some mornings, she woke up in her apartment and wondered if the whole thing had been a crazy dream. Some days she wondered if she’d just imagined it all, made up some elaborate story about international espionage and dream-making.
It was easy to lose one’s grip on reality. Ariadne could see that now. It was easier than she’d thought, when she first started out. But her totem helped. And so did the pictures.
Ariadne studied them now.
There’s Yusuf, mugging for the camera. There’s Saito, looking at his phone.
She didn’t have many pictures of Cobb. He came and went like a ghost. He’d pop up every now and then while the rest of them were working, and he’d to talk to her or to check in with Arthur, but he never stayed long. Except when he was dreaming.
Ariadne studied a fuzzy picture of him lying in the lounge chair. Yusuf had been monitoring him, but he’d stepped out for a minute, and Ariadne had taken the opportunity to snap a picture.
The picture wasn’t very clear. Still, when she looks carefully, Ariadne can see the creases around his eyes, the furrow between his brows. He wasn’t a peaceful dreamer.
Looking at the picture now makes Ariadne sort of sad. Cobb got his kids back, true, and she’s knows that he’s doing a lot better than he was before. But Ariadne isn’t stupid. She knows perfectly well that he’ll never really be over Mal. Even if he’s doing better now, he’ll never be the person he was before, when Mal was alive. She kind of wishes she’d had a chance to know him then. From what little Arthur’s told her, she thinks he must have been a person worth knowing.
She skims past the pictures of half-formed models and sketches, past a close-up of Yusuf’s face that he took when he got hold of her camera. She skims down, down…and there’s the picture she was thinking of.
It’s Eames, studying pictures of Browning. He looks uncharacteristically serious, almost grim, and that’s why Ariadne took the photo in the first place. He was concentrating so hard he hadn’t even noticed the soft click of her camera phone.
He’s handsome, Ariadne thinks, as she examines the photo. She hadn’t really noticed it when they’d been working on the job. She’d been too occupied with learning everything she could, as fast as she could, and trying to figure out Cobb’s story in the meantime.
Ariadne scrutinizes the photo, then scrolls to a picture of Arthur, typing on her laptop late at night. It’s a good picture. Arthur is looking down, and few strands of hair have fallen from her tight chignon to frame her face. Her face is pale in the dim glow of the computer’s light.
Ariadne compares the two images.
Eames and Arthur…the kid is basically going to be the cutest thing ever, Ariadne’s pretty sure of that. They’re both hot, so that kid’s definitely got good genes to work with. The kid’s gonna be cute, for sure.
Dropping her phone onto the table, Ariadne hauls the afghan over her shoulders. Eames still hasn’t called, and she’s sort of annoyed at that, but he’s got twenty-three hours before she rats him out. She’ll wait.
***
She falls asleep on the sofa. She doesn’t mean to. She’d been planning on going over her sketches for the job and making a few last-minute adjustments.
Not that she needs to make any adjustments. The job’s in two days, but Ariadne’s not worried. She’s sure Arthur can handle it. But still, now that Arthur’s pregnant, Ariadne wants to make doubly sure that everything goes off without a hitch. She wanted to go over the plans one more time before bed, but she falls asleep anyway.
She wakes to the sunrise. She forgot to close the curtains, and they gape open. A wash of bright light floods in. Ariadne throws an arm reflexively over her face.
It’s too bright and she groans, but then checks the time. It’s almost six. She wants to crawl into bed and sleep for a few more hours, but she’s got work to do for her class this afternoon, and the sketches for the job. She pries herself reluctantly off the couch and stumbles into a pair of jeans and a sweater.
She’s going to need coffee if she’s going to make it through the day, real coffee. She needs espresso.
There’s a tiny café just down the street. Ariadne staggers in and orders a latte and a fresh croissant. She’s just finished paying (and jammed half the croissant in her mouth) when her phone rings. She juggles the coffee and her wallet, chews furiously, digs her phone out of her pocket, and finally and answers the phone on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
There’s a faint groan on the other end of the line. Ariadne checks the caller ID. It reads, EAMES. She immediately feels wide awake.
“Eames?!”
There’s a brief silence, then another groan.
“You…are a very cruel woman, Ariadne. Blackmail should be beneath you.”
He sounds groggy, definitely less awake than she is. Actually, he sounds sort of hung-over. Ariadne plops down a little table outside the café and picks the remainder of her croissant.
“Well, how else would I make sure you call me back?” she asks. There’s another pause.
“Can you please not talk so loudly,” Eames says faintly. Ariadne snorts.
“I’m glad to see you’re taking the news well.” She takes a sip of coffee and watches the steady stream of people moving from their apartment onto the streets below. “You know, tequila isn’t exactly the best coping mechanism.”
“Vodka, actually.” Eames’ voice is rough, but he sounds at least mostly awake, and Ariadne supposes that’s good enough.
“So?” she prompts, when Eames doesn’t say anything more.
“So, yourself. You’re the one who threatened me with Cobb to make me call you. Not very sporting, by the way.”
Ariadne snorts again.
“Eames! Come on. Talk to me. What are you going to do?”
The coffee is nearly scalding, but she swallows it down anyway and props her feet on the empty chair across from her. She fully intends to stay exactly where she is until Eames starts talking. Her homework isn‘t nearly as important as this. Or nearly as interesting.
Eames is silent for several moments.
Ariadne toys with the crumpled, butter-stained napkin and waits.
“That’s not really up to me, is it,” he says, finally. He sounds…flat. Ariadne isn’t entirely sure what he’s thinking, but she can hazard a guess. She bites her lip.
“She’s keeping the baby,” she ventures, after a moment.
Eames says nothing.
Ariadne picks at the edge of the napkin. She tears off a small piece, balls it up, and flicks it onto the ground, where a pigeon pecks at it.
“She’s keeping it,” she repeats, when it becomes evident that Eames isn’t going to respond. “And she’s okay. I mean, she’s healthy. The baby’s healthy. I went with her to the doctor. Everything’s okay.”
Ariadne listens to the silence on the end of the line rubs her arms. It’s cold out, and she forgot to bring a sweater.
Eames still doesn’t say anything.
She feels uncomfortable, suddenly. She hadn’t really felt uncomfortable before when she was talking with Arthur, showing her magazine article and demanding to be allowed to accompany her to the obstetrician. It had been a little awkward, maybe. There had been the occasional embarrassing moment. But not like this. This is…well. It’s almost painful.
Ariadne swallows and tried to think what to say.
“Eames,” she says, gently. “Eames. Um. You should really talk to her. Okay?” She lets out a heavy sigh. “Look, if you don’t want to be involved in this, then…okay, whatever, it’s your loss, I guess. But you should at least call her. Or something.” She waits for a few seconds, then prompts him again. “Okay? Eames?”
She can hear him breathing on the other end of the line. He takes in a deep breath, and then exhales heavily.
“Got to go, love,” he says, finally.
Ariadne chews on her lower lip and drums her fingernails on the table. There’s a lot more she wants to say to him, a lot more, but he sounds weary, incredibly tired, and just…sort of confused. She slumps in her chair and gives up.
“Okay.”
She expects Eames to hang up as abruptly as he had the night before, but he doesn’t. She can still hear his breathing, slow and deep, and she can’t make herself hang up on him. She waits.
“Just…” Eames starts, then trails off and sighs. “Just…look after her, right?”
Ariadne sits silently for a moment, frozen and slightly stunned. She forces herself to nod. Then she remembers that Eames can’t actually see her.
“Yes. I…yes. I will.”
She wants to say, get over here and look after her yourself. She doesn’t.
Eames hangs up.
Ariadne puts her phone down and stares at it. She finishes her coffee slowly, and feeds the rest of the croissant to the pigeons. She doesn’t really feel much like eating anymore.
Well, she thinks, as she watches a particularly fat pigeon gorge itself on buttery dough. Well. That was really sort of depressing.
The whole conversation has sort of killed her sense of excitement over the whole thing. In fact, it’s kind of killed her whole morning. And that is not acceptable.
Ariadne thinks about consoling herself by ordering a bunch of baby clothes, but decides on something better. She flips open her phone and dashes off a text to Yusuf.
Yusuf! U know about the bb, right? TALK TO ME NOW!!!
She presses send and waits. Yusuf does not disappoint; two minutes later, her phone beeps, and she opens it to find a new text message.
R we goin 2 have a baby shwer? :D :D :D
Ariadne grins. Maybe the morning can be salvaged after all.
Onto the next part...
...So, yeah, I'm just gonna keep writing this? And...hope that I finish before I'm old enough to collect Social Security. Sob.
What's the current wordcount for this thing? 21,820 words.
And how far are we into the story? I have no fucking idea.
Guys. Guys. I have completely lost control of this story. Please send help. D:
Ariadne figures it out about fifteen seconds after Eames hangs up.
She’s immediately furious with herself for not figuring it out sooner. Dammit, she thinks. She should have known!
Lunging for the phone, she hastily punches in Eames‘ number, but evidently he has turned his phone off, because the call goes straight to voicemail.
Dammit!
She curses her own obliviousness. She should have seen this coming!
Of course it’s Eames; he could hardly say two word to Arthur without giving her a lascivious eye-rake or calling her by some new, ridiculous pet name. Ariadne had watched him flirt with Arthur time and again. She hadn’t even known that they’d been sleeping together, but she should have guessed at least.
Ariadne slumps onto the couch and stares at her phone. She tried to think it through.
Yes, Eames flirted with Arthur all the time. But then, that had been exactly what had kept Ariadne from thinking that Eames could be the father of Arthur‘s baby. It was just too obvious.
Eames flirted, but he was the sort of person who just did that sort of thing. Admittedly, he’d flirted with Arthur a lot more than anyone else, but Ariadne had assumed that was just because he knew it annoyed her. She thought Eames was just trying to get a rise out of Arthur. She hadn’t thought he was serious.
And Arthur…! Ariadne shakes her head, thoroughly bemused. She hadn’t guessed that would take it seriously, either.
Studying her phone, she presses redial and gets kicked over to voicemail again. This time, she decides to leave a message.
“Eames!” she shouts into the receiver, after the automated voice has finished telling her to leave a message after the tone.
“Eames! Call me back. I mean it! Otherwise I’ll tell Arthur I know it’s you! And I’ll tell her you called me to fish for information. I mean it, Eames!”
Her words are met with nothing but dead air. Ariadne glares at the phone, checks her watch, and thinks.
“I’m giving you twenty four hours, and then I’m telling her, and I’m telling Cobb!” she threatens. “Call me back!”
That should do it, Ariadne thinks with satisfaction, as she hangs up the phone. She knows better than to think that Eames is the sort of man to be easily cowed by threats; still, the prospect of a vengeful Arthur and a furiously overprotective Dom Cobb should be enough to ensure that Eames returns her call.
Ariadne realizes she is grinning, somewhat manically, and quickly quashes it.
It isn’t funny, she reminds herself. Unplanned pregnancies are not funny. They are stressful and upsetting, and she should be kind and supportive, and not snicker behind Arthur and Eames’ backs.
But she sort of can’t help it.
Ariadne is seized with the unexpected, irrational urge to give Eames a congratulatory fist bump. Seriously, who would have thought he’d be able to get into Arthur’s perfectly-pressed pants? He definitely isn’t the sort of guy Ariadne would have pictured Arthur hooking up with.
Now that she thinks about, Ariadne realizes that she would have guessed Arthur would go for some kind of rich, classy, ultra-sophisticated businessman. Someone like…well, someone like Saito, actually.
Suddenly, the flight of fancy she’d indulged in when she first found out Arthur was pregnant doesn’t seem so irrational after all.
It isn’t that Ariadne can’t picture Arthur with anyone but a guy like Saito. It’s just that Arthur is so buttoned-up, and seems to genuinely respect and admire professionalism in others, especially in men. Given that, out of all the guys on the team, Eames is pretty much the last one Ariadne would have expected Arthur to sleep with.
…Okay, maybe not the last. Yusuf is probably the last one she’d have expected, but Eames is a close second.
Ariadne snorts and grins to herself. Eames. Damn. Who would’ve thought?
Still grinning, Ariadne makes sure her phone’s volume is cranked up high so she won’t miss a call, then drops the phone on the table and goes to make coffee.
Her Paris apartment is pretty much her favorite place ever; comfortably cramped and cluttered, and filled with furniture scavenged from thrift shops and flea markets. Of course, she could afford some more expensive stuff now, after her paycheck from Saito. For a while, she entertained the thought of redecorating the entire place.
There’s a home design catalogue on her coffee table now, in fact. She grabbed it when she bought Arthur’s pregnancy magazines, and spent the last few days looking it over. Ariadne glances at the magazine briefly while on her way to the kitchen.
The things in the magazine are nice, she thinks, but everything looks so sleek, so sterile, so artificial. Ariadne loves her flea market finds, from the scuffed coffee table with names carved into the sides, to the overstuffed couch upholstered in bright purple velvet. They’re nicer than any furniture from a catalogue, she decides. They have character.
Ariadne scoops fresh grounds into the coffeemaker and fills it with cold water before setting to brew. She’s tried to stop bringing coffee to the warehouse since finding out about Arthur’s pregnancy. She figured it would just be unkind, knowing how much Arthur loves coffee and that she can’t have it anymore.
Well…technically, a little coffee would probably be okay. Ariadne scoured three different pregnancy websites, and they all agreed that moderate caffeine consumption was more or less safe. But when she presented this information to Arthur, Arthur seemed skeptical.
And that was perfectly all right with Ariadne. She thoroughly approves of taking the safe route.
The coffeemaker sputters, and Ariadne takes down her favorite slightly-chipped mug and gathers a carton of cream and the sugar bowl before fetching a clean spoon from the sink. She thinks about Eames, and wonders if she should call him back again and tell him about the doctor’s appointment yesterday.
Arthur clearly hadn’t needed the company, but Ariadne was gravely offended by the idea of anybody going to their prenatal visits by themselves. And since Arthur didn’t have any family, and since the then-unidentified father apparently wasn’t around, the duty fell to Ariadne.
Unsurprisingly, Arthur protested, but Ariadne knew how to be stubborn. Eventually, Arthur caved. She even let Ariadne drive them both to the obstetrician.
Ariadne had been disappointed to find out that the doctor didn’t need to do an ultrasound yet. She’d already been planning to frame the pictures, and maybe even send a copy to Cobb.
But it was okay, it was all right, because they got to hear the baby’s heart rate, and that was awesome. At that point, Arthur had basically given up on trying to kick her out of the exam room, so Ariadne she got to stick around for the pelvic exam too.
Which, okay, wasn’t exactly high on Ariadne’s list of things she wanted to do in her life, but somebody was supposed to be there to hold Arthur’s hand (Arthur hadn’t seemed to want any hand-holding, but still) and somebody had to ask questions about epidurals and stuff.
Clearly, Ariadne was just the woman to do it.
It had gotten a little embarrassing toward the end, though. Ariadne had shown such interest in the proceedings that the doctor had apparently assumed she was the other mommy and referred to her as Arthur’s ’partner’, and then Arthur had gone red-faced and Ariadne had been left to explain that she was just an overly-involved friend.
…Still. It was still definitely worth it.
The coffeemaker shudders to a stop, and Ariadne pours the coffee into her mug.
She thinks about calling Eames up and telling him that the kid’s okay, Arthur’s blood tests came back clear, and also he should totally get his ass back here, hello, you do not knock someone up and then just wander off to Africa or wherever.
It occurs to Ariadne suddenly that Eames probably just found out about this whole thing. He’s probably freaking out. He had sounded a little choked toward the end of the conversation. He was probably having the whole, oh-shit-I’m-gonna-be-a-dad crisis.
Ariadne softens slightly. That news must have been a little hard to take. She should probably cut him a break and let him have his panic attack.
…For, like, a day. But if he doesn’t call back before that, then she’s totally going get Cobb and fly to Africa and drag Eames back here by the scruff of his neck.
Arthur wouldn’t approve, of course, but Ariadne isn’t fooling herself; Arthur’s already going to be pissed about the whole talking-to-Eames-behind-her-back thing.
Stalking Arthur as she goes to her doctor’s appointments probably isn’t putting her on Arthur’s good side either, come to think of it. But if Arthur’s going to be angry at her anyway, Ariadne figures she might as well help herd Eames back to Paris by means of a shotgun at his back. If it comes to that.
Ariadne doctors her coffee with cream and sugar, then carries it back to the couch and picks up her phone. She double-checks her missed calls, just make sure Eames didn’t call back while she was in the kitchen.
He didn’t.
For a moment, Ariadne wonders if she should call Arthur and give her a heads-up. She thinks about what she would say. Hey, the grapevine apparently still works, and Eames has apparently figured out that you’re knocked up and it’s presumably his!
That probably wouldn’t go over well.
And now that Ariadne thinks about it, maybe the situation isn‘t as clear-cut as she thought it was. Maybe, just maybe, the baby isn’t actually Eames’?
She thinks about it a little longer. It’s possible the kid isn’t his. Ariadne would have expected Eames’ come-ons to be a little too strong for Arthur’s tastes apparently they aren’t. And if that’s the case…well, an attractive woman in Paris who doesn’t mind guys cheap flirtations and blatant solicitations can pretty much have her pick of bed partners. Ariadne’s sure of that.
And, granted, she wouldn’t have thought Arthur would be into that kind of thing, but maybe she is. So maybe, even if she did sleep with Eames, he isn’t actually the dad.
Hell, maybe Saito’s a contender after all.
Ariadne curls up with her coffee and plucks a book off the table.
After she passed on all the pregnancy magazines to Arthur, she’d gone out and picked up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. She still isn’t sure if Arthur has a copy of her own, but Ariadne’s betting she doesn’t. Arthur still seems to be trying not to think too hard about her pregnancy, and reading about placenta previa and Braxton-Hicks contractions would probably cut through the whole denial thing pretty fast.
Of course, the pretending-nothing’s-going-to-change coping mechanism can’t possibly last very long anyway. In fact, Ariadne’s pretty sure it’s on its last legs. Arthur looked kind of pale when they’d heard the baby’s heartbeat.
All the more reason to get Eames back here so that he can support her, Ariadne decides. He has to want to be there for Arthur during her pregnancy. Only a total douchebag wouldn’t want to be around for that, and Ariadne is pretty sure Eames isn‘t a total douchebag.
At the very least, he’s bound to want to see Arthur get all huge and fat. Ariadne’s not going to lie, she’s sort of looking forward to that herself. Not out of any sort of jealousy or meanness or anything like that. It’s just that Arthur’s always so slim and neat and polished, and it’ll be sort of funny to see her waddling around in maternity wear. Ariadne can’t wait.
There are diagrams in the book, and pictures of what a woman will look like in her third trimester. Ariadne studies them and tries to imagine what Arthur will look like when she’s all huge and pregnant like that.
Then it occurs to her, very suddenly, that she might not be able to see it, because maybe Arthur’s not planning to stay in Paris. The possibility startles her. She puts down her book.
Of course, there’s no reason to assume that Arthur’s going to stay. Ariadne knows that. Arthur is clearly used to traveling a lot, and maybe there are other places she’d rather be if she’s going to have to put down roots. Which, she probably is. The whole extraction business is a little too fast-paced and dangerous for a woman with a baby.
Briefly, Ariadne entertains herself with fantasies of Arthur, a baby strapped to her chest, mowing down rogue projections with a machine gun.
She snickers. Somehow, it’s strangely easy to imagine.
Then Ariadne mentally segues to wondering if a baby can be involved in a shared dream. It’s an interesting idea, she thinks. Would it even work? Would an infant’s mind be too unstable? Is Somnacin even safe for babies? It’s okay for pregnant women, apparently, but does that mean…
Ariadne realized she’s digressing. She yanks her mind back on track.
Where was she? Oh. Right. Arthur. Arthur might be leaving Paris.
This is clearly not acceptable. Arthur has every right to go wherever she wants, of course, but Ariadne already has big plans for the kid. She’s an only child, so this is probably her only chance at a niece or nephew, and she’s already picked out the architecture books she’s going to give the kid when it’s old enough. Arthur is not allowed to steal her adopted niece/nephew away. It’s just not acceptable.
So, Arthur has to stay. Ariadne nods to herself, pleased to have worked that out, and takes a sip of her coffee. The apartment has gotten cold, so she tucks her feet under her and wraps up in an afghan to keep warm. The pregnancy book lies open on her lap.
She might have to fight Cobb for custody of Arthur, she realizes. The idea amuses her. Cobb’s bound to want Arthur to hang around if she’s going to have a baby, but Ariadne’s not going to give up that easily.
Paris is better for the baby, she decides. Arthur’s already got an apartment here; Ariadne’s seen it. It’s nice, and it’s big enough for a baby. Plus, Arthur already has an obstetrician here. If Cobb wants to see her, he’s just going to have to bring the kids and come across the Atlantic himself. Ariadne nods to herself.
And the same goes for Eames, of course. If he wants to be involved with the kid (and he’d better, Ariadne thinks darkly) then he has to come here. Obviously Arthur can’t be expected to travel to him while pregnant. That would just be inconsiderate.
There’s a picture of Eames on her phone. Ariadne remembers this suddenly, and takes her phone out again. She scrolls through the images.
She has pictures of the whole team on her phone, actually. She snapped most of them while they were working in the warehouse just before inception. She was never entirely sure why she took them. Maybe it was some sort of attempt to hang onto reality, to convince herself that everything she was experiencing was real.
Everything had gone so fast, during those crazy, rushed days leading up to inception. Some mornings, she woke up in her apartment and wondered if the whole thing had been a crazy dream. Some days she wondered if she’d just imagined it all, made up some elaborate story about international espionage and dream-making.
It was easy to lose one’s grip on reality. Ariadne could see that now. It was easier than she’d thought, when she first started out. But her totem helped. And so did the pictures.
Ariadne studied them now.
There’s Yusuf, mugging for the camera. There’s Saito, looking at his phone.
She didn’t have many pictures of Cobb. He came and went like a ghost. He’d pop up every now and then while the rest of them were working, and he’d to talk to her or to check in with Arthur, but he never stayed long. Except when he was dreaming.
Ariadne studied a fuzzy picture of him lying in the lounge chair. Yusuf had been monitoring him, but he’d stepped out for a minute, and Ariadne had taken the opportunity to snap a picture.
The picture wasn’t very clear. Still, when she looks carefully, Ariadne can see the creases around his eyes, the furrow between his brows. He wasn’t a peaceful dreamer.
Looking at the picture now makes Ariadne sort of sad. Cobb got his kids back, true, and she’s knows that he’s doing a lot better than he was before. But Ariadne isn’t stupid. She knows perfectly well that he’ll never really be over Mal. Even if he’s doing better now, he’ll never be the person he was before, when Mal was alive. She kind of wishes she’d had a chance to know him then. From what little Arthur’s told her, she thinks he must have been a person worth knowing.
She skims past the pictures of half-formed models and sketches, past a close-up of Yusuf’s face that he took when he got hold of her camera. She skims down, down…and there’s the picture she was thinking of.
It’s Eames, studying pictures of Browning. He looks uncharacteristically serious, almost grim, and that’s why Ariadne took the photo in the first place. He was concentrating so hard he hadn’t even noticed the soft click of her camera phone.
He’s handsome, Ariadne thinks, as she examines the photo. She hadn’t really noticed it when they’d been working on the job. She’d been too occupied with learning everything she could, as fast as she could, and trying to figure out Cobb’s story in the meantime.
Ariadne scrutinizes the photo, then scrolls to a picture of Arthur, typing on her laptop late at night. It’s a good picture. Arthur is looking down, and few strands of hair have fallen from her tight chignon to frame her face. Her face is pale in the dim glow of the computer’s light.
Ariadne compares the two images.
Eames and Arthur…the kid is basically going to be the cutest thing ever, Ariadne’s pretty sure of that. They’re both hot, so that kid’s definitely got good genes to work with. The kid’s gonna be cute, for sure.
Dropping her phone onto the table, Ariadne hauls the afghan over her shoulders. Eames still hasn’t called, and she’s sort of annoyed at that, but he’s got twenty-three hours before she rats him out. She’ll wait.
***
She falls asleep on the sofa. She doesn’t mean to. She’d been planning on going over her sketches for the job and making a few last-minute adjustments.
Not that she needs to make any adjustments. The job’s in two days, but Ariadne’s not worried. She’s sure Arthur can handle it. But still, now that Arthur’s pregnant, Ariadne wants to make doubly sure that everything goes off without a hitch. She wanted to go over the plans one more time before bed, but she falls asleep anyway.
She wakes to the sunrise. She forgot to close the curtains, and they gape open. A wash of bright light floods in. Ariadne throws an arm reflexively over her face.
It’s too bright and she groans, but then checks the time. It’s almost six. She wants to crawl into bed and sleep for a few more hours, but she’s got work to do for her class this afternoon, and the sketches for the job. She pries herself reluctantly off the couch and stumbles into a pair of jeans and a sweater.
She’s going to need coffee if she’s going to make it through the day, real coffee. She needs espresso.
There’s a tiny café just down the street. Ariadne staggers in and orders a latte and a fresh croissant. She’s just finished paying (and jammed half the croissant in her mouth) when her phone rings. She juggles the coffee and her wallet, chews furiously, digs her phone out of her pocket, and finally and answers the phone on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
There’s a faint groan on the other end of the line. Ariadne checks the caller ID. It reads, EAMES. She immediately feels wide awake.
“Eames?!”
There’s a brief silence, then another groan.
“You…are a very cruel woman, Ariadne. Blackmail should be beneath you.”
He sounds groggy, definitely less awake than she is. Actually, he sounds sort of hung-over. Ariadne plops down a little table outside the café and picks the remainder of her croissant.
“Well, how else would I make sure you call me back?” she asks. There’s another pause.
“Can you please not talk so loudly,” Eames says faintly. Ariadne snorts.
“I’m glad to see you’re taking the news well.” She takes a sip of coffee and watches the steady stream of people moving from their apartment onto the streets below. “You know, tequila isn’t exactly the best coping mechanism.”
“Vodka, actually.” Eames’ voice is rough, but he sounds at least mostly awake, and Ariadne supposes that’s good enough.
“So?” she prompts, when Eames doesn’t say anything more.
“So, yourself. You’re the one who threatened me with Cobb to make me call you. Not very sporting, by the way.”
Ariadne snorts again.
“Eames! Come on. Talk to me. What are you going to do?”
The coffee is nearly scalding, but she swallows it down anyway and props her feet on the empty chair across from her. She fully intends to stay exactly where she is until Eames starts talking. Her homework isn‘t nearly as important as this. Or nearly as interesting.
Eames is silent for several moments.
Ariadne toys with the crumpled, butter-stained napkin and waits.
“That’s not really up to me, is it,” he says, finally. He sounds…flat. Ariadne isn’t entirely sure what he’s thinking, but she can hazard a guess. She bites her lip.
“She’s keeping the baby,” she ventures, after a moment.
Eames says nothing.
Ariadne picks at the edge of the napkin. She tears off a small piece, balls it up, and flicks it onto the ground, where a pigeon pecks at it.
“She’s keeping it,” she repeats, when it becomes evident that Eames isn’t going to respond. “And she’s okay. I mean, she’s healthy. The baby’s healthy. I went with her to the doctor. Everything’s okay.”
Ariadne listens to the silence on the end of the line rubs her arms. It’s cold out, and she forgot to bring a sweater.
Eames still doesn’t say anything.
She feels uncomfortable, suddenly. She hadn’t really felt uncomfortable before when she was talking with Arthur, showing her magazine article and demanding to be allowed to accompany her to the obstetrician. It had been a little awkward, maybe. There had been the occasional embarrassing moment. But not like this. This is…well. It’s almost painful.
Ariadne swallows and tried to think what to say.
“Eames,” she says, gently. “Eames. Um. You should really talk to her. Okay?” She lets out a heavy sigh. “Look, if you don’t want to be involved in this, then…okay, whatever, it’s your loss, I guess. But you should at least call her. Or something.” She waits for a few seconds, then prompts him again. “Okay? Eames?”
She can hear him breathing on the other end of the line. He takes in a deep breath, and then exhales heavily.
“Got to go, love,” he says, finally.
Ariadne chews on her lower lip and drums her fingernails on the table. There’s a lot more she wants to say to him, a lot more, but he sounds weary, incredibly tired, and just…sort of confused. She slumps in her chair and gives up.
“Okay.”
She expects Eames to hang up as abruptly as he had the night before, but he doesn’t. She can still hear his breathing, slow and deep, and she can’t make herself hang up on him. She waits.
“Just…” Eames starts, then trails off and sighs. “Just…look after her, right?”
Ariadne sits silently for a moment, frozen and slightly stunned. She forces herself to nod. Then she remembers that Eames can’t actually see her.
“Yes. I…yes. I will.”
She wants to say, get over here and look after her yourself. She doesn’t.
Eames hangs up.
Ariadne puts her phone down and stares at it. She finishes her coffee slowly, and feeds the rest of the croissant to the pigeons. She doesn’t really feel much like eating anymore.
Well, she thinks, as she watches a particularly fat pigeon gorge itself on buttery dough. Well. That was really sort of depressing.
The whole conversation has sort of killed her sense of excitement over the whole thing. In fact, it’s kind of killed her whole morning. And that is not acceptable.
Ariadne thinks about consoling herself by ordering a bunch of baby clothes, but decides on something better. She flips open her phone and dashes off a text to Yusuf.
Yusuf! U know about the bb, right? TALK TO ME NOW!!!
She presses send and waits. Yusuf does not disappoint; two minutes later, her phone beeps, and she opens it to find a new text message.
R we goin 2 have a baby shwer? :D :D :D
Ariadne grins. Maybe the morning can be salvaged after all.
Onto the next part...
...So, yeah, I'm just gonna keep writing this? And...hope that I finish before I'm old enough to collect Social Security. Sob.
