No Buses, an inception fanfic

A/N: First, I wanted to say that this isn't the story I said I was working on. Second, I wanted to say that in no way did I mean to be insensitive in dealing with life-threatening illnesses.

Disclaimer: Inception characters are not mine!

Also, this title comes from a wonderful Arctic Monkeys' song.

No Buses

You slump forward on your kneecaps. Your sleeves of your Oxford shirt are rolled up to your elbows, your short, slicked back hair is mildly ruffled from fingers running through them so often. You have bags under your eyes. You sit near the row of windows at the far side of the near-empty hospital ward, your silhouette broken against the grey daylight behind you.

"You should've told me, you should've told me from the very beginning," you had said. Her words echoed as your brain denied every sentence, every word.

"What? To prevent any of this from happening, Arthur?" she asked angrily, her eyes dark and challenging in that infuriating way.

You sit back, your loafered feet forward as you bring your hand to cover your mouth, eyeing the bed near you warily.

"You know we can't be together," you said, despite your hands running along the small of her back. A different time. A different place. Different feelings altogether.

You were new to each other then. You didn't know her sighs or how she loved being kissed.

"Of course," she agreed, her hands winding around your neck in an antagonizing gesture.

"I'm a criminal. There are things I'm not too proud of and people that I've crossed," you said. You fool.

The smirk on her mouth was one of the reasons you went against all of your better judgments. It haunted you way past the first day you met her. "It's fine, Arthur."

"You're not safe with me—" She broke you off with a kiss, and you allowed yourself to feel, maybe a smidge too much.

"You're not safe with me either," she pointed out, pulling away. You didn't dwell on her words then.

You turn your head slightly and look out the window, and you make out the smart black cabs going down the street. The thousands, millions of other people outside.

It was raining the first time when she faced you and you said those stupid words. "This was a mistake."

And you were stupid to reply with, "I agree. This can never happen again."

"We're only going to focus on the job," she said, going back to the warehouse to spend the afternoon huddled in Eames' corner.

She always readily agreed to keeping away from you. That should've been your first clue.

Then again, it did happen again, at her suggestion this time, in your hotel room, when you came back for her.

"This wasn't supposed to be this way," she said, sitting up and pulling on her clothes one by one. A different time, a different place, the same situation. Manically, she stood up, her eyes searching your floor for more stray pieces from her outfit.

You stayed in bed, watching her. "What are you talking about?"

"You were supposed to leave after we met," she said, wrapping her scarf around her. "You weren't supposed to come back for me."

You watched her carefully. Hadn't you given up so much already? "But I wanted to."

She was fully clothed now, her leather messenger on her shoulder and her hands pulling her mussed hair behind her ears as she carried her scarf in her hands. She gave you a pitiful look but came over and kissed you. Her fingers held onto your shoulder as she looked at you. "That was your big mistake."

xxxxx

It was no secret that Stephen Miles disapproved of Cobb's profession. He was adamantly against it, going to such lengths as contacting you to talk to his son-in-law, and you refused.

So when you heard from Cobb that he was bringing in a highly recommended protege into the warehouse, one introduced by Miles, you hesitated only slightly. This little thing?

She walked into the warehouse, confidant, wide-eyed, determined. She asked questions bluntly. She didn't seem fazed by the weird nature of this business.

You drugged her. Cobb needed to explain dream sharing to her and you had to sneakily make her sleep.

And even after all of what she went through, she remained determined, stubborn, curious. She came back. She experimented with the landscapes and played with the worlds she created with frenzied insistence, almost a lack of caution that worried you, excited Cobb, and amused Eames.

That should've been your clue, because Stephen Miles wouldn't recommend a young woman he admired to a band of thieves he didn't respect, not unless he had a very good reason to.

xxxxx

You saw her before she saw you, expectation on your side as you waited for her, purposefully near the street lamp in the middle of the quad. Her face was thunderstorms and dungeons when she broke away from her curious friends in your direction. You gave them a half-hearted wave, prompting her to look behind her. They shooed away out of friendly loyalty, though they seemed really disliking to do so, curiosity winning out.

She was a straight line towards you now. Five feet away. Her face dark, but you took comfort in her natural appearance. The scarf around her neck. Her brown hair. That jacket she wore. All memories of a past you remember so well.

You stood there, poised, expectant. Hands in pockets of your light jacket as you smiled a greeting. "Hello—"

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded, not very much in the tone or words of a lover you note, but you were not discomforted.

Your eyebrows shot up at her tone. "I'm—"

"—is everything okay?" She looked around, her hands grasped at the leather strap crossing her small chest protectively.

Oh. Right. That. Romantic gesture aside, your presence signaled a much grander scheme, you remember. You should've remembered first really. You should be the one preemptively reacting. You should be the one alert.

Of course, you should be the one not doing this.

You posed a winning smile at her, grabbing one of her hands away from her bag. She hardly noticed as she looked around. "Ariadne." You realized that saying her name was an exhale of relief to you, a promise of what was to come. "We're fine. Cobb and his children are fine. Yusuf is happily rich. And no one really cares about Eames—"

"—someone does I'm sure," she cut in in that way she usually does to undercut you.

You pulled her other hand away. "I doubt that considerably."

You took it for a good sign that she lets you. "You like him. Underneath all of that bravado, you still respect him."

This wasn't going at all how you planned. First, Ariadne didn't understand the parameters of your actual presence there. Second, you were talking about Eames.

"Ariadne, I'd rather not discuss Eames at the moment," you said instead, tugging her arms towards you.

The small force shifted in her stance, revived her to realization, and you felt that tension in her arms as she started to pull herself away. "Arthur, what are you doing? Why are you—"

"I came to see you," you said, sincerely. You feel lighter just saying it. "I wanted to see you."

She continued to pull her hands away, but you can't let her go. "You told me that that was the last time we would see each other. You said that—"

You stopped her because you didn't want to hear any of it. You knew what you said and you knew what her face looked liked and you knew how you felt when you thought about the possibility of never seeing her again. You knew that you had to fix that immediately.

"I know what I said," was all you admitted.

Her brows looked furrowed and her shoulders looked tense. You grasped her hands tighter.

"I came here, because I was hoping that we could do it. I was hoping that we could start again." You never say things like this. You never hoped for anything past a night or past a job. You never stayed consistent in that way. While these revelations were true and new for you, you felt refreshed when you say them. You expected that this would change you and your way of life would be different.

You expected her to be won over, you schmuck.

Her shoulders sagged. Her head shook in the negative. Her voice sounded tired as she said your name. She sighed. "Arthur—"

No. No. No. Your world didn't accept what her body language was clearly saying. This was not what you wanted to happen. This wasn't how you pictured it at all. "Arthur—look, I'm sorry. I thought that we were on the same page about us—"

Your world fell apart. You thought about your stupid words when everything started. Your hands on her hips, your fingers running across the waistline of her jeans as she pressed herself against you in the far corner of the sun washed workroom. You leaned onto her table of blue prints and models, headless of the closeness of your ass to your dream level.

"We shouldn't be doing this," you said in between kisses, as she pecked a few more along your jaw line. She stood perfectly between your legs. Your breath played against her skin as you spoke.

"Of course," she agreed, pulling herself up to your mouth again, and you allowed her. You kissed back and only jolted when the table screeched back a centimeter. You two stood there, her arms around your shoulders and your hands on her waist, looking at the table like it just grew eyes.

"Um."

She stepped away first, and like a fool, your arms fell away from her. She breached a look at you first, but you broke the verbal silence, "I'm—"

That mouth you were just kissing lined up into a smirk. That smirk haunted you for weeks after. "Please don't," she said. "It's really not a big deal." Her cavalier response stunned you into silence. She looked at the table, and then at your face before exhaling rather loudly. "Okay. Um. Maybe we can meet about your level tomorrow? I think I'll call it a day, if you don't mind." She didn't wait for a response before walking away.

You watched her leave the area and never say a word. It was only three days later when you showed up at her apartment and made the proposition. "This is only for right now. We really shouldn't be doing this anyway."

She was quick to agree. A small, big-minded part of you flattered yourself. "Of course."

"After this job is over," you said, making your way through kisses and clothing, "we won't see each other again. It wouldn't be safe anyway." You shucked your shirt. Her scarf tossed aside. "I promised Miles I wouldn't lead you down a path of self-destruction."

"That's very kind of you, I'm sure," she spoke against your mouth, her hands on your jawline.

You pulled her off for a moment to look at her. "No, but really, Ariadne."

She sagged as she responded, "No, but really, Arthur. You forget that I'm in college." She pulled your shoulders down, her hands played against your cheek as you lifted her up. "Propositions like these aren't that out of the box," she whispered, her voice light, a repressed smile in her tone. You felt it against your cheek. You don't ask her if she'd been propositioned like this before.

"It's not professional," you said instead, your arms holding her closer.

"Well," she said thoughtfully. Her eyes turned to the side in deep consideration, mocking you. Considering that she was straddling your waist and that you were holding her up as you laid in her bed, this conversation was entirely in the way. "Well," she went on. "I'm technically not a professional dream architect, so what's your excuse?" she asked with a quirk of her lip and a hitched eyebrow.

You pulled her closer, if that were even possible, and waivered a sarcastic reply.

Who were you kidding?

Your excuse was her.

xxxxx

"Arthur," she sighed, letting you in her doorway. It was the same apartment since she worked with all of you during the Fischer job. You knew the way to the building and the steps leading up to this specific door quite well. There was the small kitchen where she can only make variances on spaghetti but a number of sandwiches. The living room scattered with models and plastered with blue prints. There was her couch that was rather uncomfortable to fall asleep on as well as the showerhead that tended to lean to the left.

Her shoulders sagged dejectedly when she saw you. You walked in and stayed standing in the entranceway. "What are you doing here?" There was a time when you could walk in without question. There was a time when she would swing it open, leaving you to follow as she walked back to whatever it was she was doing.

Right now, she stood, hovering, dead set on disallowing you entrance in.

"I think we should talk," you said.

She looked annoyed. "I thought I made myself really clear at the campus yesterday."

She did. She said that whatever it was you started during the Fischer job was different. She couldn't live like that now, and she knew you definitely couldn't either.

"You're assuming a lot," you said, as she stood before you, deadly silent. "It was only sleeping arrangements, Ariadne."

Her face twisted at that last sentence, and you knew you were in for it. "Then why are you here, Arthur?"

She made a fair point. On campus, under that lamp post, you sagged and told her, a little haphazardly and with less smooth grace than you normally have. But you told her that you missed her, that you wanted to give yourselves a chance, that you meant it and that you were sincere, despite what you said before. You told her that you missed her.

She didn't want any of it. "Arthur, I'm sorry I can't—" A couple of university students walked behind her and she stopped herself short.

"Why are you fighting this?" you asked. "You've said this before. What is it that you're not saying?"

She cut you off with a look and turned away, leaving you on your own, under the lamppost, as she made an excuse about a class.

Now before her apartment door, you stood there, looking at her, asking to come in, and she let you, because she didn't want to make a scene on the landing.

"What is it Arthur?"

"You know why I'm here, Ariadne."

"Yes, but I'm trying to see why you would even bother," she said, and you were off.

You two argued viciously, knowing, underneath it all, the weaknesses the other has, pushing the buttons just right to send one another over the edge.

You exposed yourself. You told her you wanted to try, and she told you she didn't think you were fair putting these expectations on her. You called her a coward and naive. She called you idealistic and stubborn. You knew the truth that she doesn't mean what she preaches. You told her that you heard her that night before you left for Australia before the inception. You said that you weren't asleep as she looked at you.

She looked defeated and angry, hurt and resolved.

You finalized and told her that you wouldn't be back and left suddenly, marching down the stairs with a bitter taste in your mouth.

xxxxx

It was late that night when you heard a knock on your door. You went to get it, prepared as usual for any sort of contrivance you may need. Your gun in your hand as you opened it.

It was her. She looked bedraggled and determined. Her head pointed down, almost ashamed when you opened your dark hotel room to the lit hallway. She leaned on the doorframe as she waited. You stepped back, very much surprised by her presence. You let her in.

She went towards you, her face immediately on yours.

xxxxx

The grace of intimacy was easy to assume, though you managed to jump from being pure lovers to much more during those days before the Fischer job, worming your way into her everyday life, with the people she knew, the places she frequented, assuming and adopting these things as your own, pretending to be normal just this once. Of course, you had your duties as point man to follow. You had research and test runs with Yusuf, but your hours away from the warehouse were spent in this pretend play you loved—sorry, you hankered for—so much.

Best of all was the comfort in having her near. You held her hand as you walked outside. You would pull her towards you for a kiss. You could assume a lot of these rights, and you grew too comfortable in it, more than you would normally allow yourself to be.

She tried to shatter it once. "Arthur," she said, cozied near you. "It really was never supposed to go any farther than it did."

Before you knew it, you told her you loved her as you pulled her towards you. It was the easiest thing you ever admitted to in your life. She shushed you with her mouth, her hands, her lips. Her words were lost in sighs against your own skin, and she was too tempting.

She needed time, you thought, to say it back.

It never crossed your mind that she didn't.

xxxxx

"I don't need you to save me," she said. Her words were exasperated, fed-up, attempting to cut you down to size as you sat in the back of that cab headed for the airport.

"Ariadne," you said, trying to be reasonable, but your tone only irked her further. She turned away from you, her shoulder pulled toward the window, so she could see outside the window, rather than be near you at all.

"We're just working together, Arthur. The fact that we sleep together shouldn't make you treat me any differently than any of the other team members."

Her words made sense. She made a clear argument, and a part of you realized that it would be one that you made yourself had it not been for the fact that it stopped being an arrangement and started being so much more than that. Something you wanted to explore more than just sex after work.

Treat her differently?

You wouldn't kiss any of your other team members in a dream.

xxxxx

You stayed in bed, watching her. She was the one who came to you last night. She was the one who apologized fervently as she wound her arms around your neck and pulled you closer to her. She was the one standing there, taking everything back. "What are you talking about?" you demanded.

"You were supposed to leave after we met," she said, wrapping her scarf around her. "You weren't supposed to come back for me."

You watched her carefully. Hadn't you given up so much already? "But I wanted to."

And you laid your hand onto hers, gripping it tightly. "You're being stupid," you said. "You want this."

And the guilty look she gave you told you that she knew, but she didn't know what to do. But she waited on your bed as you got up to get dressed. She sat on the edge of the mattress as you went to comb your hair back and button up your shirt.

She sat there at the café as you ordered coffees and breakfast, and she spoke only when the waiter left.

Her first words, careful, clearly thought and overwrought during her wait. "What are we doing, Arthur?" she asked, a little desperately.

"We're being together," you decided, and you could see her half-heartedly accept this, timidly smile as she took a sip of her coffee.

xxxxx

You never talked about why she rejected you, why she pushed you away when you came to her campus, but you felt it sometimes in the empty way she greeted you when you would meet up, in her body language on some days. You could feel yourself putting yourself out there for her, and you felt her retract. You just ignored the signs.

You two were happy, you determined. You felt it those times she kissed you first or when you caught her watching you, considering you. You didn't know how else to reassure her that you were changing now, moving into Paris to be close, ignoring contacts from Eames or any other dream con, finding a legitimate use in the city.

You made your way out of your bed and into the kitchen, careful to not knock her sleeping form or to drag the sheets away from her body. You covered her bare shoulder properly as you treaded softly.

In the kitchen you had plates and utensils in a drawer. You had a fridge stocked with perishable items. You purchased pots and pans to make your own meals rather than eating out. She picked out the plates. You made coffee on the gas stove and began to scramble eggs.

The night she surprised you at your hotel, she came in and took a seat on your bed. She looked tired and uncertain, but a part of her seemed to force herself to sit still. As a gentleman, you took the space next to her and waited.

She looked at you, her hands pulling on the edges of her long sleeves or the end of her scarf. She was nervous, and a small part of you took comfort in that. Nervous was good, nervous meant she wasn't sure of you.

The first words out of her mouth were an apology.

The last words weren't "I love you," though you made a concession as her mouth met yours, her hand played against your cheek, and you just knew.

She entered the kitchen with a wary sort of wave, a large sweatshirt pulled on and riding high on her thigh. As your fry, she faced a counter, grabbing the French press, hot water from the electric kettle, and creating a messing. You placed the fried eggs on a plate before her and sat down to a coffee she made for you. She knew how you took it. The same way you knew how she liked her eggs.

xxxxx

It was a big argument last night. She told you to stop suffocating her. You told her she was a selfish bitch. You left her apartment with blood pounding in your ears, slamming her front door, not caring if you made a scene anyway.

You were happy, weren't you? You thought you were. You were happiest when you were with her. Happiest when you felt that she was sure of herself. It was just those times when you caught it, like lightning. Those moments when she would retract and clam up. Those times when she answered with quick, curt replies and left the room. You gave her her own time, but you just knew, from moments together, that she loved you.

You just wanted to know if she felt it too.

"Why do you keep saying that?" she demanded that night at the sink, elbows in suds from the dinner dishes. You just told her you loved her. "Why do you keep saying it, when I can't say it back?"

You didn't know she couldn't say it back. You thought that maybe you were on different timelines. That your experience with dreams and your life on the run has made you want things faster, expect things faster, play domestic faster. It was only a matter of time for her to catch up, right?

Flatly, you told her that she refused to. You assumed fear or her own misgivings did it. You told her that she was a coward.

It resulted in a simmering of an argument. A calm discussion of hurtful words that appeared to sting more when voices weren't raised and thus excusable as a heat of the moment sort of response.

Walking along the Seine the next morning, you felt her pulling away from you, though your arm kept in touch of her. The faded morning stretched out, and a small part of you cheered when you saw the voicemail asking you to meet her here.

Another part of you still stung at her words, and already you began to prepare yourself. Her stance, her demeanor. The way she clung to your arm told you already what she was going to say. You resigned yourself that she wasn't happy with you, that you forced her into all of this.

She didn't look at you as you continued to walk. "Arthur. I'm sorry. You really were supposed to go away."

"I didn't want to," you said immediately, meaning it entirely, wholeheartedly. The words are a relief to say.

"You don't understand. Arthur." She stopped to face you. "There's more to it than you know."

"Aren't you happy?" you asked, and you felt stupid for asking, stupid for saying it aloud. She wasn't happy. She couldn't be happy if she walked along the Seine with you to break things off.

You wouldn't be expecting it if you were happy too.

"No, Arthur," her voice cut in. "You don't see. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

And you focused entirely on her voice as she spoke, hearing her explain, hearing her talk about an illness that you never knew existed in her. You listened in shock, hardly understanding the words past the opener. "Arthur, I'm sick." She said it with this odd little laugh as if what she was saying was so natural. At your expression, she plunged into the information immediately, words you couldn't grasp, a world you didn't know. "And I didn't tell you," she continued, "and I knew I should have but I'm really sorry—" And the stuffy sound of her voice, and the harsh inhalation of her breath through her nose, made it all the more real.

Her apology jolted you into action. Your judgment, cloudy and still muddled, forced you to interrupt. You stopped her. "How long have you known this?" you asked, gaining the ground back beneath you.

She bit her lip, looking at the sky to judge. "About a year?"

"Since before the job?"

Her brown eyes looked at you. "Since before I met any of you." Her word choice was purposeful. Since before she met the team, before she understood that dream sharing existed, since before you two took to sleeping together, strictly. "I stopped responding to treatments," she said.

Your mind traced back to her behavior, to times you should've been more aware, clues you missed, things she said. Everything explained itself more.

Your words struggled out of your mouth. "Who else knows?" A part of you wondered at the importance of this question, but a part of you also understood it to be obvious. Those times of distress from her, those times of secrecy, or concealment. It was there all along. You just never saw it.

Who else knew?

She didn't meet your eyes when she replied. "Only Yusuf." She couldn't stand still waiting there. Her hands shook with nerves. "He had to ask me what sort of medication I was on, needed to know things about my medical history, and he figured it out from there."

You tried to grab her attention, but a part of you was angry at being left out, not being trusted, being taken for a chump. You swallowed the boiling anger and concern in your throat to keep talking to her. "Only Yusuf?" The strategic point man in you began to make a list, wanting to solve this problem. A problem that you quickly accepted and began to quantify and qualify.

"Miles knows," she explained. "I think it's the reason he set up the meeting in the first place."

Your inner self stopped formulating plans. "What do you mean?"

She looked agonizingly exasperated. "I'm a dooms day clock Arthur, I don't have much time to try to build cities and build around me. I think he wanted to give me the opportunity to do it, in a way."

Yes, yes, the old man was sweet. Arthur shook his head. No, no, this couldn't be real.

"Why do you think he let me meet Cobb?" Her words washed over you in a daze. Through a funnel, you heard her piece together this puzzle properly. "After what happened to him, Miles wasn't going to lead anyone else down that path. He didn't want to see anyone else ruined by it. He said that he knew it was an opportunity I could take advantage of. He said that it was a perfect fit because I could live, actually live longer in dreams. Or at least see something I want to build come to life. He gave me—"

You were seeing things with renewed clarity. Miles' disapproval of Cobb was pretty public. Why would he bring an innocent into the fray? Most of all, why would he bring a woman like Ariadne, a woman who was so susceptible to the intoxicating world that killed his daughter, into all of this?

Everything made sense to you. From her behavior during the dream, her enthrallment with building, the unnecessary extra hours logged, her shady behavior, her secrecy, your relationship, her reluctance. "Stop it. Just—." You stopped too. "Ariadne, I can't listen to this right now." You took a step away from her.

Her face broke down. "Arthur," her voice called you back calmly. Her hand reached out for you, and you held it, running your hands over her fingers.

"You should've told me, you should've told me from the very beginning," you said quietly.

She looked hurt. "What? To prevent any of this from happening?" she asked bitterly. "To make everyone act different to me," she said, self-conscious. She stopped. She retracted. She pulled back her hand. "He didn't think that I'd meet someone, like you," she explained more calmly. "And you protected yourself so much, that I knew it was fine to love you, even when I realized I started. I thought that you'd save yourself from all of this."

You looked up at her, hearing the words you thought she needed time to admit, hearing words in the wrong place with the wrong circumstances. "What are you doing?"

She shrugged, helplessly. "I'm giving you a way out."

xxxxx

You grappled with the rock under your fingers as you fished yourselves out of the water. Sitting near her, you asked her about Cobb, and she told you that he stayed to get Saito, not for Mal.

"He'll be lost."

"He'll be all right."

And you admired her optimism, though you sincerely doubted it.

Through the light rain, you helped her up and led her past the rocky beach back to the main road to walk back to the city. After everything, the projections didn't feel threatened anymore, so this road was more or less deserted as you two walked back to the city to find the safe house constructed as you waited. She shivered slightly in her wet clothes but kept pace with your long legs through the drizzle.

"This is the last time we can see each other," you said, looking at her.

She looked up, her arms coming across her chest as she shivered further, shook further. "What do you mean?"

"When we wake up on the plane, we won't know each other. We have to pretend to be strangers, and after that, we won't see each other anymore."

She didn't say anything as you hollowly said the words and a part of you felt torn apart just watching how resolute she looked, how she never said anything but nodded stoically.

"I guess this is goodbye then," she said without any hint of emotion. Admit it. You thought she'd say that she'd miss you, and you mistakenly thought that maybe it was because of you that she didn't say it.

You grabbed her hand then. She shivered fervently and her hand shook as she allowed you to pull her arm away and lead her down the desolate asphalt, waiting for the music to play above.

Je ne regrette rien.

xxxxx

You didn't need him to, but Miles confirmed everything, and you cross referenced all of your time together to see where you stupidly ignored the signs, how she held herself away from you, how she kept herself secreted in so many other aspects of her life. You felt like you wormed your way in, when she had you controlled all along.

You can't be angry, because you did it to her too. Only this time, you consciously forced yourself into her life, you allowed yourself to feel comfortable.

Her records, as point man, you would have seen, but with Miles' recommendation, the short time frame, Dom's insanity, Eames' annoyance, and Yusuf's drug testing—especially on you—you can only assume that something significant like this can get past you or maybe she hid it well.

Your quick background search on her only told you that she wasn't a criminal and had no ties to the enemy. Her monetary needs were a clear insight. She was about to quit school by the end of the semester. You figured that this job was more incentive. Her character was good. Miles fervently assured you of her capabilities when you spoke to him too. You never thought to look in her medical history when researching her. You never thought that she wouldn't tell you anyway.

You assumed too much.

The night before you left for Australia, the night before the Fischer job, you laid in her bed, getting as much sleep as you could for the plan. She laid beside you, squirming, restless. Half asleep you heard her, but you couldn't will yourself to move, to let her know you were with her. You've never felt this tired before, but maybe the idea of the job and the stress of working up to it had finally gotten to you. Tired, so, so, so, tired, you laid there as she curled herself against you. Your arm stretched out and your hand open to her fingers as she spoke.

"Sometimes," she said to you, to the darkness, maybe more to herself. "I forget," she said. "Sometimes, I like forgetting."

You couldn't respond so much, but you remembered thinking that sometimes, you liked forgetting too. You liked forgetting that what you had with her was temporary and at arm's length. You liked forgetting that silly little agreement you made. You liked forgetting that it wasn't what you thought.

xxxxx

You sit in the empty hospital ward, your shirtsleeves rolled to your elbows as you slump forward onto your knees. The gray skies outside offer vague comfort to the cold room, and you shake your head. Your eyes weary and tired. You shake your head again, ruffling your hand through your hair before bringing both hands together.

In your clamped fists you hold a hollowed out Bishop.

You didn't want a way out, you knew, as you stood in front of her door, waiting for her to open it, that day's discussion along the Seine finally absorbed in you.

She opened her door. Relief, happiness, surprise mixing in her expression as she took you in. She spoke first. "I love you."

That was all you needed.

xxxxx

That's it. Thanks for reading!

Update: FFnet ruined my posting of this, so I had to go back and include those changes that I could remember from editing. Hopefully it reads okay. Never edit on Doc Manager, you guys!