A/N: first arthuradriane drabble/one-shot (or as I like to call the pairing, pointmanarchitect) – enjoy please? + review too!

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if vision is the only validation
then most of my life isn't real
'cause if you're not really here
then the stars don't even matter

-Sam Sparro: Black and Gold

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He keeps a photograph of her in his pocket. It's a blurred, half useless thing as far as photographs go, but that fact doesn't really matter to him because it's of her. She's bent over one of the many mazes she's been working on tirelessly for the Fischer job, with a pencil tucked behind her ear and her hair covering half of her face. She doesn't seem to mind that's it's getting in her eyes at all, as she seems too engrossed in the job.

That's exactly why he took it. It was a fleeting shot, taken from his mobile when he should have been ringing various people to check over Fischer's details. But despite that small risk he took, for he was never one to stray from a job, he reprimanded himself for days afterward debating whether to delete it. He didn't, of course but printed it out instead on photographic paper, and stowed it away in his coat pocket next to his totem, as though it was something to hide.

In a way, it was. After all who takes pictures of their co-workers and keeps them in their pockets? He was grateful that none of the team suspected anything. But then again, why would they? He was a self-fashioned 'stick in the mud', never one to take much of a joke and never one to slack on the job. But sometime he gets antsy, and when he thinks no one is looking he digs his hand into his pocket and brushes his hand over the glossy film of the photograph one more time.

The rest of the team, Ariadne included, thinks it's just his totem that's in his pocket. They all know the feeling. That feeling of uncertainty, never knowing quite whether they're awake or still dreaming – the totem is the only thing they've got to ground them to reality. But strangely, it's now always the photograph he touches when he's certain that he's awake. It reminds him that anchored to something other than the job, although she is an integral part of it too. Like the names suggests, she always leads him back to where he's meant to be – to what he's meant to be doing.

In pencil, scrawled neatly on the back, is the word 'kick'. Because, that' essentially what she is: to remind him that there is always a reason to wake up, when dreams seem too close to reality.

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