So Long And Goodnight

You Were My Guiding Light

1.1

            Ariadne did not find out Arthur was dead until nearly a week after he was killed. He had left to go on a job and when she did not hear from him right away she assumed that he was too invested in his research to call her. It was not the first time it had happened so Ariadne was not worried. They had been together nearly a year and Ariadne's studies kept her in Paris most of the time instead of on jobs. It did not bother her as much as Arthur seemed to think it did so she never resented him for continuing to work. Ariadne knew that if given the choice he would more than likely choose work over her and that was not something she wanted to contemplate. It was nearly three in the morning almost a week and a half after Arthur had left that the sound of someone knocking on her door woke Ariadne up. She rubbed her eyes and crawled out of bed, nowhere near awake. She ran her fingers through her hair as she opened the door and found Eames standing in front of her. He looked a little pale and his eyes did not have that same mischievous gleam that they usually did.

            “Eames? What are you doing here? Do you have any idea what time it is?” Ariadne asked but the forger just stared at her.

            “Can I come in?” he asked and she nodded. They both sat down on the couch in the family room. When he did not say anything Ariadne found herself getting very nervous; this was not like Eames at all.

            “Eames, what's going on?” she asked. Eames hesitated before he reached into his pocket and set something on the table. Ariadne felt her heart skip a beat when she saw a red loaded die. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to find words but none seemed to come. “Why do you have that?”

            “The mark got wind of Arthur while he was doing his profiling. They knew he was there so they essentially led him into a trap. When he wouldn't give away who he was working for or why he was following them they--” Eames cut himself off and took a deep breath. “I found this on a jacket left outside the hideout. There was no note, no explanation, just Arthur's jacket covered in blood and the die in the pocket.” Ariadne felt like she could not breathe. Something inside snapped and she was not sure what it was. Suddenly she could not think straight. She tried to form a coherent sentence but everything just seemed like such a mess that she could not understand. Her own thought process seemed like it was skipping like a scratched record. Ariadne felt Eames pull her close and hug her tightly but she hardly noticed he was there. He whispered something in her ear, she was not even sure what it was, and the tears would not stop. She cried until there was nothing left.

            It was a month later that the real world became too much to handle and Ariadne went into a dream. Cobb had called and warned her about trying to keep Arthur alive in her head like he had done with Mal but she assured him that she would not do that. After she hung up she mentally added that she never wanted to see Arthur corrupted the way Mal had been. The needle went into her arm and for some reason it felt like it hurt more than she remembered. The chemicals soared through her body and everything faded.

            Ariadne was standing in the hotel she had built for the Fischer job. Her own projections were busying themselves throughout the lobby and she felt so out of place. She was not wearing the gray suit that she had worn back then, just her normal clothes, and she felt like a stranger in her own dream. Without realizing it Ariadne reached into her pocket and pulled out Arthur's red die. She turned it over in her hands a few times and began to walk across the lobby. She was not surprised when she ended up on the couch where Arthur had said 'quick, give me a kiss' so long ago. Ariadne clutched the die in her hand and closed her eyes tightly.

            It was the feeling of someone sitting next to her that forced Ariadne to open her eyes. She blinked a few times and saw Arthur sitting next to her, completely relaxed, in one of his perfectly pressed suits. The word 'relief' was not enough to describe how she suddenly felt but the realization that she was in a dream, that he was not real, felt like someone had dropped her in cold water.

            “What are you doing here, Arthur?” she asked carefully.

            “You know why,” he replied evenly and he looked at her. His brown eyes made her heart skip a beat. “You're not supposed to have that.” He gestured to the die in her hand.

            “I know but you're not here anymore, Arthur. You're dead,” Ariadne whispered. Saying it out loud hurt more than she thought it would.

            “I know. I'm a projection, Ariadne, if you're aware that I'm dead then I'm aware I'm dead,” he said as he leaned forward and stared at her. “Quick, give me a kiss.” She could not help it, she laughed, and smiled at the man she loved so much.

            “It's worth a shot?” Ariadne asked and Arthur grinned at her before he leaned forward and stole her lips into a kiss. It was like reality, he felt real, he tasted real, everything about him felt so real. Without even thinking she reached forward and put her arms around him. She could feels the eyes of her projections glance her way for only a moment as he pushed her back against the couch. It felt so right, she could get lost with him, and it felt so real. That lingering notion of how real it felt made Ariadne pull away quickly, the die tumbling to the floor.

            “What's wrong? Isn't this what you want?” he asked and he genuinely looked confused. Ariadne pulled the die into her hand and held it tight.

            “I won't let you become my Mal. I won't hold onto you like that,” she whispered. “I need to let you go before it's too late.”

            “But you can't, you don't want to, and why would you do something that you don't want to do? It isn't logical,” Arthur replied creasing his eyebrows deeply. “I don't understand.”

            “You're right, I don't want to let you go, but sometimes you have to because there aren't any other options. I don't want to get lost, I don't want to twist you into something you're not, I want my memories of you to be true to what you were really like on the outside,” Ariadne said and she placed a hand on his cheek. His eyes, those eyes she used to think she could stare at forever, glanced at her hand and then back at her.

            “I love you,” Arthur said.

            Ariadne woke up and wiped the tears from her eyes. She was not sure if she meant it, if she could really let him go, but it seemed like she had no other choice. She took his die, his connection to the real world, and held it like it was her lifeline.

            The next morning she brought it to a jeweler and had the die made into a necklace.