I apologize for the long delay with this chapter, I didn't have internet for about a week! But here's the next installment, and thanks for reading!

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Ariadne still dreamed, still dreamed regularly, naturally, even after Inception. After Cobb warned her, eventually this becomes the only way you can dream.

She dreamed cold. Cold and cool on her skin like a sea-breeze, bringing the taste of salt. She shivered. Red and yellow lights flashed, flashed, on and off. The pulsing lighting of an elevator in descent, though she could not feel its movements.

Was she going up? Down? For a long time, she couldn't tell, and she couldn't even be sure which elevator it was - the terrible, haunting, gated elevator of Cobb's distraught subconscious, pouring through memories fueled by regret? Or the warm, red, silver-doored elevator she'd created for Arthur's dream, that led to snug hotel rooms but harbored a danger because if Fischer's subconscious - but why are they looking at us - ?

She shook. She saw her breathe, escape from her lips in a white mist. Lights flashing on the elevator.

Terror consumed her. Broken glass and champagne, dripping, dripping in brilliant silver droplets from the ebony-black hotel table. The smell of perfume and roses, and Mal turning towards her from the couch, eyes like fire - what are you doing here -?

Just as safe in reality.

Another elevator - and another startling, drastic change in emotion, diving into relief, comforted by the stiff but safe feeling of a pale hotel couch. A dozen pairs of eyes on them, but beside her the sleeve of a pressed suit, the glint of red tie - quick, give me -

More than barely. You could be lost to the water.

She dreamed, for a moment, of the kennel. The cool, dark kennel, and the line of Arthur's face, barely visible. Silver in the shadows behind him.

/-\

"I'm on your side. I swear I am -"

Arthur was filling the doorway, blocking Nash's exit from the room. There was a scalpel in his right hand, shirtless, arm still wrapped in gauze and bandage, but the Point Man wasn't even flinching. Nash resembled a man trampled by a bull; the entire left side of his face was a bruised, mashed palette of purple and blue, one long, still-bleeding gash running across his cheek. His shirt was torn up to the elbow, his pant leg shredded and damp with old blood. He limped when he moved.

Ariadne's heart was racing. How did it get here?

The body of a woman was lying on the floor.

Yusuf was checking her for a pulse. Ariadne stood behind Arthur, peculiarly aware of how she could feel him in front of her, as she did on the train, as she did in Inception. From around his arm, she caught the pleading, desperate look in Nash's eyes, as he flashed them over the new Architect.

Someone rang the doorbell to the clinic front-room, but no one moved to answer it.

"...She's alive..." the Chemist acknowledged with some relief. The woman was mid-thirties, maybe, a vicious redhead. Her face was contorted in a surprised, close-eyed mask, the effect of a rather sudden and unwelcome nap.

"I had to put her out," Nash insisted, but he didn't take a step towards anyone. There was a silver briefcase in his hand.

"You should be dead, Nash," Arthur hissed it between clenched teeth as Nash, swallowing fear, backed against the wall. "We saw Saito's men take you away. They turned you over to Cobol."

"Yeah, thanks for the rescue," Nash remarked, with what may have been his last bit of courage.

"Thanks for selling us out," Arthur retorted, instantly. "You got what you deserved."

Ariadne looked to Yusuf for help; obviously there was some old history between the Point Man and the stranger, and it was not much to Arthur's liking. He was rigid, unmoving, in the doorway. He didn't even seem to regard the searing pain in his arm.

"Look - look, I'm on your side," Nash struggled, obviously pathetic before the stiff, unrelenting statue of Arthur. "They have Cobb. They're... Eradicating him."

Only the slight, increased furrow in Arthur's brow betrayed the effect of Nash's words. People walked by the clinic doors, stared in at the assembly of foreigners, obviously perplexed at the stranger-filled clinic.

"...You're working for them," it wasn't a question. It was a statement. The abashed, embarrassed, fearful fidgeting of Nash proved it, and Ariadne wondered how Arthur could see through people with such clarity.

"I was," Nash rushed to say. "I was - but I can't anymore. They keep asking me to do things - I mean - goddamnit, I'm just an Architect -"

"You're a coward," Arthur took a ferocious step towards his ex-colleague, and Nash backed into the wall, muttering furiously.

"I know, I know, but I just want to get out - I don't want to do it anymore -"

"Tell me where Cobb is!"

Arthur's voice shook the room, cutting the air so violently that Ariadne jumped, shivered, felt an awful rush of adrenaline. Nash cowered, lowered into the corner, half-hiding behind the silver briefcase. The Point Man stood towering in the midst of the room, filling it, his usually expressionless faced twisted - just slightly, but horribly - with rage.

"I - I don't know exactly where! They don't -"

"Oh yeah?"

And suddenly Arthur grabbed the ex-Architect, lifting him clear to his flailing feet and slamming him onto the metallic examinations table. Ariadne lurched forward, but Yusuf grabbed her shoulders and held her in the doorway. Her heart was beating so fast it hummed; Arthur's bandaged arm was on the back of Nash's neck, forcing his bruised face against the cold table, the Architect whimpering pathetically.

"I swear - I swear -"

"Maybe I can help you remember," and Arthur pressed the shining scalpel to Nash's ring finger. Ariadne watched, paralyzed, as the Point Man slowly pressed down the scalpel, enough to let a small sliver of blood bloom against Nash's skin.

Her head swam. She was terrified, terrified - she'd never seen him like this.

"No! no!" Nash's cries where shaky, high-pitched. "No - please - I swear I don't know -"

"Then tell me what you do know!" that cutting, terrible voice again, and Ariadne trembling, unable to speak. Nash close to sobbing.

"I don't know - they kept talking about Cairo, and Stein - and, and surrogates, and you and Cobb and - God please, I couldn't make sense of it, honestly -"

Someone banged on the front door, angrily, a disgruntled customer who's appointment was long overdue. The team inside had barricaded that door, it seemed; the door shook but didn't move, and the banging became mingled with muffled shouts of rage.

"Stein?" the name obviously struck some cord. Arthur released Nash, throwing him against the wall, where he slid to the floor beside the unconscious woman. "What the hell would that have to do with anything?"

"Please, I don't know," Nash whimpered, shaking his head lamely. "I just want out -"

"Was she one of your team?" Arthur gestured, distinctly, at the unconscious woman on the floor. Nash paused, then nodded vigorously, viewing it as an opportunity to escape the situation.

"Yeah - yeah. We were tracking you here, and - this other guy, Flynn, he's the guy you killed. He Extracted her -" and he pointed feebly at Ariadne. Arthur's eyes fell on the Architect, but while her gaze shook and swam with fear, his remained unreadable. "And they'd talk, all the time, about surrogates, and Stein, and how they had to get to Cobb -"

"Does she know where Cobb is?" Arthur demanded, pointing the scalpel at the redhead. Nash looked down at the woman and thought, trembling. Slowly, he began to nod.

"...Yeah. yeah. Probably. I mean, she'd make calls, and mention - but she'll never tell, she's Russian, they trained her -"

"She doesn't have to tell us," and Arthur, in one fluid motion, grabbed and wrenched the silver briefcase out of Nash's hands. Nash made an instinctive move to lunge after it, but stopped himself before he could collide into the Point Man.

"What are you doing?" Yusuf found his voice at last, but Ariadne wondered if she'd ever speak again. Arthur's raised voice, like thunder, like the shock of a sudden crash, slamming into her.

"We're going into her mind," Arthur tore open the cabinets above the table and began to pull down clean towels. The banging on the front door continued, and some people were pressing their face against the window, trying to look in on the foreigners.

"Why?" the breathy, scared tone of Ariadne's voice was so unfamiliar, even Arthur paused, casting her a look the barely breathed concern.

"To find out where Cobb is," Arthur's voice lowered when in her direction. She felt an idea rush through her mind: he didn't want to scare her. Just as safe in reality.

"What about him?" Yusuf gestured towards the still-cowering Nash, the ex-Architect praying to be overlooked, forgotten.

"Sedate him. He's going in with us. We might be able to use him - and that way I can keep an eye on him, too."

"Wait - I don't want -"

"I don't give a damn what you want, Nash. Yusuf, find a sedative and put him under."

Yusuf nodded obediently, squeezing Ariadne's arm reassuringly. The Architect felt a slight pull for the brotherly affection of the Chemist, but he'd left the room before she could respond to his gesture. Nash muttered unhappily to himself in the corner, but didn't dare to move with Arthur's watchful eye still on him.

The Point Man placed the silver briefcase on the examination table beside the stack of towels. Without ever letting Nash leave his sight, he opened the case and examined the complicated mechanism inside. After a few seconds of study, he grasped a few silver cords and began drawing them from the brief case. The Chemist re-entered, and Ariadne

"I think they're going to call the police," Yusuf meant the unhappy customers outside the clinic. There was a surgical sedative in his hand, some form of animal tranquilizer for prolonged operations. Ariadne could only read half the label - Acepro - and it did not comfort her. He had a clean, clear syringe in his other hand.

"No..." Nash began to shake his head, backing into the cabinets.

"I can still take the finger," Arthur hissed between clenched teeth. It was not a threat; it was a statement. Nash stared wildly at the Point Man, his fingers curling up instinctively, before finally stretching his wrist to Yusuf.

"Ariadne," she shivered, even though his voice was calm again, even though his face had returned to its chiseled, expressionless equilibrium. He stood close to her, just close enough to make her feel the slight heat radiating from his body. "Do you remember that one level you built - the train station? The one you based from Grand Central?"

She found she hardly knew what he said, staring so intently into his eyes. She felt his gaze, more than saw it; felt the pulsing, angry pounding of his heart, the intensity in which he regarded her, the bare skin and bandage, the slicked hair still unkept from sleep. And she could feel herself, weak in comparison, barely reaching his shoulder, tussled brown hair half-shielding the uncertainty in her face.

"...Ariadne," and she felt his large, calloused hand on her arm, and he felt the smoothness of her leather jacket, the smallness of her frame. "...Do you remember?"

"I... I think so," she managed, then closed her eyes, shook her head deliberately to remember. "yeah... yeah I know it. The station. Yeah."

"I need you to come in with me," and Arthur seemed severely loathe to say it, knowing the kind of danger this idea implied. "You know it better than I do. That's the level we'll use when we Extract from her."

Nash's head had dropped in Yusuf's hand, the sedative taking swift effect. The Chemist palced a towel under his head as he sank into the floor, and then turned his attention on the unconscious redhead.

"Wait, I..." Ariadn'e suddenly drew closer to Arthur, and whispered. "I haven't studied that one in awhile. What if we get lost?"

How can it not matter to you? - the tide is coming in - a train that will take you far - if you stay as you are, you could be lost to the water -

Arthur, another step closer to her, and she was aware that the smell of bleach and dogs no longer stained him. His cologne was not there, either, washed away.

"I'll be with you," Arthur's lips very close now, his bare shoulders framing around her, a human shield. "Ariadne... stay close to me in the dream. I'll keep you safe."

His dark, flaming eyes were almost too much for her - she had to resist the urge, the impulse, come get lost, stand in the water with me -

His hand touched her back again, the beautiful memory of Trafalgar Square, and his smile that showed more in his eyes than his mouth. Another impulse, a strange desire to lie down beside him in the kennel again, to prolong that touch and passing smile, widen it, deepen it...

She lay down on the slick floor beside Arthur, who kept his eyes on her. The Point Man instructed Yusuf; barricade the door; we'll only need an hour; keep the public out and lock them in the examination room. Make sure Arthur woke up before anyone else.

As Yusuf inserted the silver cord into her arm, Ariadne found herself perplexed, entranced by the patterns on the clinic floor. It was a blue-diamond tile pattern, spotless, shining with strange shadows from the dim examination light. It bothered her, that pacing symmetrical pattern.

She looked over at Arthur. His expression was set, refusing to show anything - pain, apprehension, what couldn't be fear. The more you change things...

"...The floor," she finally said, in nothing more than a whisper.

Arthur's eyebrows knitted ever so slightly. His eyes fell, studying the hard, slick floor, as Yusuf reached to press the release in the silver suitcase. Blue-diamond tiling.

It must have dawned on them both, at the same time - Arthur's oxycodone hangover but only dull pain from a ripping bullet wound, though he'd taken no extra painkiller? - and the floor, slick, clean, but the clinic had linoleum floors, didn't it, a black-and white checkered pattern - ?

And the people - the people - the people banging on the door, staring in through the windows, but not staring at them, but at Nash -

"No -"

But Yusuf had pressed the release, and they were under.

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