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I.
Their first argument was a small one. Ariadne was surprised to find that Arthur was the jealous type, and it showed especially when she excused herself for an evening to meet with her study group. She had been two weeks from turning in her thesis and she needed the peer reflections done, so she had to go and he had to understand that study groups have been known to include both sexes.
However, Arthur was marginally hurt when Ariadne did spend a night partying and celebrating with her college friends the night after graduation. Arthur was taking her on a five-country tour of Europe to celebrate her graduating college and she wanted one last night with her friends. However jealous or possessive Arthur was, he was also intelligent, and he knew that his fears of his Ari running off with a younger man than he were self-induced insecurities.
She came back to her apartment that night slightly tipsy, but hardly drunk. Her buzz and Arthur’s recent attitudes were quite the lethal combination and she was not a force to be reckoned. Arthur’s hand grasped her wrist when she stumbled, not out of drunkenness, but because she slipped on the rug that she always hated by the door.
“You should never have gone out with those people tonight,” Arthur said, more under his breath because he hadn’t encountered her “nondrunkenness” and wasn’t aware that he was basically speaking to a sober Ariadne.
“Those people are my friends Arthur, they have been for six years, mind you,” she bit back at him as she pulled her hand roughly from his grasp and walked into the bathroom.
Not knowing what to do, and hoping not to fight that night, Arthur sat on the bed calmly and waited for her to emerge. He heard her speak and thought she was calling out to him, when in reality (he learns this by leaning into the closed door and listening in) she was calling a friend, asking if it was all right for her to spend the night.
Arthur grabbed the door knob and tugged, pleased that she hadn’t locked him out, but became worried when he saw how angry she looked.
“I’m going to sleep at Sophie’s. Forgive me, will you? I feel the need to spend time with those people tonight when I just accomplished the biggest thing in my life and I need some support!” She walked through the room with speed and ferocity and Arthur was shocked into standing dumbly by the bathroom sink. When he heard drawers being slammed and her purse being zipped shut he snapped out of his daze and followed her into the living room.
“You are not leaving. We are not done talking.” His voice is calm, and flat, but it was with her practiced ear that she could tell he was barely containing himself.
“Oh, excuse me, master; but please grant me permission!” She was standing close to the door already and reached for the door knob as Arthur was blocked by the side table he always thought was ugly.
“Ariadne, just please stay and talk to me about this. I didn’t mean to be rude, I just… You know I hate it when you go out without me and you’re surrounded by men.”
“Arthur! Oh my goodness, there is Marcel and Paul and Christophe, that’s it. I hardly call it being surrounded by men, when the three men that I’m with are close friends who all have significant others! Jesus, we’re all friends. And we’ve been friends longer than I’ve even known you, let me remind you, so next time you want to go off on a jealous rage with your snide remarks and rude comments, I would think twice!”
Arthur was nowhere near the door, but the sound of it slamming still hit in him the face.
When he apologized the next morning, Ariadne hugged him and whispered in his ear, “You better be glad that Sophie is a sensible woman. She’s the one who convinced me you being needlessly jealous means you care and not that you’re a chauvinist pig.”
“I’ll be sure to thank her, then,” Arthur said with a smile and a hug as he pulled her in close and proceeded toward the check-in desk at the airport.
II.
“It isn’t safe, Ari. I know for a fact, and through careful research that this mark is trained, and in a big fucking way. I don’t want you in harm’s way!”
“Arthur! I’ve been through worse, with you, without you, you can’t just tell me I’m out of this job. I’m a grown person, I can make decisions for myself!”
“Not if I’m running point. Please, Ariadne, for me, will you please sit this one out?”
Her face reluctantly softened and she understood his worry for her was born from love and devotion. She saw the conflict in his eyes and the terseness in his muscles showed that he wanted to give her everything but that his subconscious was warning him to protect her. She crossed her arms and pivoted away from him, turning to give him her back. She was still fuming over being sidelined on this job, but she hoped that if the situations were reversed, for whatever reason, and she requested Arthur to sit out, that he would have done it.
“I’m not happy about this Arthur. I’m capable, you know this. This isn’t my first job, and it certainly isn’t the hardest one, and we both know that I am tougher than I look. But for your sake… I will do what you ask.” His smile was slow and small, and she wasn’t happy to see him react in such a way. “Wipe that smile off your face, you should be worried over how I angry I am at you right now.”
And just like the last time she slammed the door, it didn’t matter that Arthur was clear across the room, his nose was sore from the impact.
III.
The third time was completely innocent and not done out of anger or hurt intent.
Arthur surprised Ariadne with a bouquet of sun flowers, native to their favorite part of the French countryside, but hard to find in bustling Paris.
Little did either of them know that that particular family of sun flowers made Ariadne’s skin boil with hives and her throat close with pure agony.
She slammed the door in her fury to get out and Arthur dropped the flowers in a bag, rushed to the bathroom to wash his hands, into the bedroom to change his shirt and coat, and while tersely carrying the bag out with him into the dumpster, ran after her.
He sat forlornly in the hospital room, sitting next to a bed full of puffy Ariadne, hooked up to an IV with a three digit number of milligrams of Benadryl.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t even know I would react that way to those flowers. They were beautiful though, thank you for the thought.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
IV.
“She was drunk! I swear, she was bothering me, and Eames was laughing and drunk too, and he was making it worse. I swear, Ariadne, I didn’t kiss her back!”
She could have been swearing and punching and slapping, hell knows walking into that bar and seeing Arthur bent over backwards on a stool with a gorgeous redhead attached to his face warranted those reactions.
She wanted to ask why he stayed sitting with them, if they were both drunk and she continually made passes at him. She wanted to keep him from touching her hand, even though she knew it was futile to try to rip her hand out of his iron grasp. She wanted to slap Eames for bringing around that whore, who obviously didn’t understand the words, “back the fuck off bitch.”
Instead, she stood, slowly for Arthur was reluctant to release her grasp, and turned away so he wouldn’t see her wipe away tears. She was younger, and more impressionable, and easily let her fears and insecurities get the better of her. And seeing Arthur that night, with another woman, woke something inside of her she feared ever facing.
“I’m not mad. If she forced herself on you, then I believe you. I’m going to go for a walk, okay?”
“Ari, it’s past midnight, you shouldn’t walk by yourself at this time.”
“Arthur… that was code for ‘I’m going to get a cab and go somewhere else to think’ all right?”
“No, please, Ariadne, I don’t want to sleep apart from you.”
“I’m not mad, it wasn’t your fault—okay I get that. I just… seeing that was… I just need one night okay?” He nodded, not because he liked the idea, but because he knew that if she needed or wanted time, then it was in their best interest to give her that.
The door didn’t slam. It didn’t creak or whine with age. No, he barely heard her leave. But he saw it from the window that he bent out over the edge. A cab came quickly and he imagined her naming a hotel and turning toward the window to look up at their window and see him.
The next day when he saw Eames, his face apologetic and worried, he punched first, spoke second.
“I’m sorry, mate, really. Is Ariadne, all right?”
“I wouldn’t know, you prick, she slept at a hotel.” He paused and calculated his words (because that was what he did in those situations; he thought). “You know I hate Brigitte, you know I think she’s an incompetent forger and a dangerous one at that. And you know she always makes passes at me like that. Why on fucking hell would you bring her around me like that?”
Eames looks down, ashamed, because all Arthur said was true. “I’m sorry mate; I thought it would be all right to poke a little fun. I didn’t realize she would whore herself all over you and that Ariadne would walk in like that. Really, mate, I am sorry.” He pauses for a minute to collect himself, for it wasn’t the time to offer advice, but he couldn’t not say it.
“You know, Arthur, you should really start going after Ariadne when she runs off like that. She’ll begin to think you’re okay with watching her walk away.” Arthur looked at Eames for a long minute before nodding his head and turning away to hail a taxi. He knew where she was, at her favorite hotel, in the center of Paris.
It was the second to last time Arthur ever spent time alone with Eames, for his ill consideration of their friendship stung more than just Arthur’s ego, but as he would learn, it stung Ariadne’s too. For the rest of their careers, he would only meet with the man if Ariadne was by his side.
V.
Things were hardly normal after the Eames-Redhead incident and Arthur frowned painfully at the distance between them. She’d been quiet and reserved, only answering when spoken to, and never contributing more than five or six words at a time. She’d barely let him kiss her, turning her cheek for him to catch, and the one time they had sex she faked it.
She’d been brewing with insecurity and hurt for a long time. Thoughts like Arthur thinks I’m stupid, weak, dumb plagued her. Nightmares of that woman coming into their bed and pushing her out were normal. Projections of that woman, or others equally as beautiful shot her in the dreamscape. Really, Arthur was helpless to the fact that soon enough Ariadne would walk out, for what seemed, like good.
When she left him that night, he thought he would see her the next day, and that she just needed time to cool down. When he came back to the apartment after running errands, she was in their bedroom packing her clothes in a suitcase.
“No, no, you are not doing this. Ariadne, look at me, I love you.” His palms cupped her cheeks and wiped the tears away.
“I’m sorry, Arthur. But I don’t want to stay here anymore. It’s my fault, and it’s your fault, and it’s the world’s fault and I just can’t take it anymore. It isn’t just you, I feel guilty too. We say we love each other, but we barely show it. Maybe it’s our nature, sure, but it isn’t enough anymore.”
She wasn’t making sense, her heartbreak getting the better of her. He was so stunned by all of her hurt pouring out like that and he was too bewildered to do anything intelligent about it.
When he finally got off the floor it was because Cobb forced his way into their apartment, saying things like, “Ariadne asked me to check on you. Are you all right? Why didn’t you answer the door?” Eames comes through the door, having arrived with Cobb, his face ashen and apologetic.
Arthur could barely be heard when Cobb pulled one arm and Eames got the other, but he whispered over and over again, “She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone.”
Arthur stared at the door wondering why he didn’t stop her.
+I.
If she thought she could lose him, then she was mistaken. He wasn’t shocked anymore, and he’d had a few days to think of a plan, find her, and go to her.
The coffee shop was an innocent stop, she was thirsty. When she turned from the barista to wait for her drink to be made, she saw him standing by the door, a hand rooted in his pocket, and the other tightly fisted. She saw the determined look on his face and she knew. She just knew it right then and there. She walked into that café alone, but he wouldn’t let her leave that way.
And maybe subconsciously she had been hoping he would find her, and maybe to her this was the sign that told her fate hadn’t tricked her and that they were soul mates. Subconsciously, this was the moment that defined everything for her. She grabbed her drink and made to walk out of the shop, hoping he would follow her, but this time, his plans were unpredictable to her.
He grabbed her arm, that wasn’t carrying hot coffee, and turned her around and into his arms. He deftly took the cup and wrapped his arms around her. They hugged tightly, by the door of a faceless coffee shop. It didn’t matter that she had intended for him to merely follow her out of the shop. It didn’t matter that he was prepared to fight her in almost every way so that she would see that she was it for him. It didn’t matter, because for once, Ariadne went to walk out the door and Arthur stopped her.