AN: This story exists in the same universe as my "Extraction by Three" story but it can be read as a stand alone. All you need to know is Eames, Arthur and Ariadne are an extraction team.

Eames opens his eyes to a city street, nondescript and deserted apart from one thing: it's burning. Heat seems to lick at him from everywhere, each building burning like a match stick to the sky.

Arthur opens his eyes to a roof but the building should not be standing. Half of the structure is gone, a jagged maw through the entire side leaving tattered offices open to the world.

Ariadne opens her eyes to a long road, cement leading straight each way into the distance. At either end of the road stand cities, tall against the sky, but beyond the edges of the road there is nothing, just open space to fall.

"It's a dream." He reaches for his totem. "Has to be."

His hand slips into his pocket.

Her hand comes away empty. Nothing. Nothing there…

Eames turns 360 degrees. He stares at the burning buildings, stares at his empty hand. It can't be. He always has his totem, dream or no. How is it possible?

His hand stays in his pocket, still as stone. This happened to him once before, only once, but he was awake then. He can't be awake now.

Ariadne can't stop her heart rate spiking and breathing increasing. Despite how much it looks like a dream her totem is her anchor. The pawn says yes or no, awake – asleep. She could be awake now and just going crazy. She could be asleep and… and what is this?

"All right," Eames says to the empty street. "So, what's the game?"

It is then Arthur notices there is a gun in his hand - a test.

She begins to walk. Pick a direction, north or south, pick a city. She picks left but starts walking right. Who's in charge, the mind or the matter?

Eames spreads out his arms, waiting, inviting.

This is not his dream, he knows it. He doesn't need his poker chip to tell him that. He can see the flip, standing on end impossibly with dream physics. This burning city is a poker chip on end. It's not real.

So, someone else is here, someone else is dreaming.

"Come out and play, darling," Eames coos to the city fire.

Arthur stares at the gun. One bullet to the head - bang. He can tell by the weight there is only one bullet in the clip - A test. It's not for defense.

This can't be his dream. He would dream a full clip.

She walks. It's all she can do. She can't leave, she feels there's a reason she can't leave. She never realized how hard it was to remember the before a dream until now. The memory holes have to be a give away to the dreamscape. But then why is her totem gone? Is it just to unsettle her?

Ariadne looks up, no sky. Looks to her left, to her right, nothing. All that exists is a city ahead and a city behind, one road to connect.

Something waits in the city. She starts to run.

"Come on!" Eames shouts. "I'm not going to look for you."

Eames waits and receives only silence.

Despite his words, Eames turns and walks toward one of the buildings. He stands in front of the flames. They'll burn him real or not, unless this is something else. This isn't a normal dream.

He reaches out his hand. A test? He touches the fire and screams.

There are no projections. The thought hits him like science - hypothesis, experiment, solution. If there are no projections this is not a dream, ergo he is awake.

But that's not true. Dream testing brings no projections, building a new layer, building a new dream can just be you if dream it. Lack of projections does not equal lack of dreaming - observation.

"So, who else is here?" Arthur asks the air.

He could fire, he could fall, he could die and then he'd know.

She runs and she runs and she runs and the city stays where it is, no closer, no further.

How far would she have to run to reach the end, to hit the buildings? She doesn't think it's possible to dream infinity but people can be so creative. What's to say this road is not Penrose steps laid flat? Maybe she's running in circles in a straight line.

Eames cuts off his scream, holding his hand to his chest. He looks down and blinks. There are no marks on his hand.

Eames feels himself flicker into someone else, long legs and black hair. He shakes his head and flashes back and he feels like Fischer but he's never been Fischer. Then his clothes are different again, tighter and smaller hands. Eames blinks it away and he knows he's loosing control. Focus.

"It's a dream." He turns around again to face the street, the city, the fire. "I know this is a dream. What do you want?"

Arthur throws the gun off the broken building. He watches it fall until he can't see it anymore. Across from him a building suddenly collapses under an unknown strain.

Passed a test?

The gun falls, the building falls. If he falls, the dream falls.

"What do you want?" he asks the air. "This is a dream."

Ariadne stops running. She looks back, forward, just the same. There is no where to go but here. Something, someone is waiting for her and it's not the city, it's right here.

"This is your dream," she says, "What do you want?"

"Maybe it's not a dream."

Eames shivers because that's not the voice he expected. He didn't expect an answer, at least not an answer with a voice he knows, a voice he loves.

"Maybe we're just stuck in a burning city."

Eames turns around to see Arthur standing on the street with him.

There is a click in Eames' mind, doubt.

"You should know what this is, Arthur."

Arthur turns around at the edge to see another man with him now. He's tall and slim, dressed in a suit. His hair is perfect; his tie is perfect; the way he stands is perfect. He is Arthur in someone else.

There is a click in Arthur's mind, understanding.

"To build." A man is standing between Ariadne and the city now. "And break down."

"Are you trying to sound mysterious?"

"Have you tried to build?" he counters. "Have you tried to fill this empty space?" He motions to the gaps on either side. "Maybe it's meant for you."

There is a click in Ariadne's mind, inspiration.

"You are not Arthur," Eames says with certainty, total certainty.

Arthur looks at him like he's lost his mind. "What?"

"Don't play games like this," Eames says through his teeth. "Just tell me what you want."

"Eames, I'm not playing any games. It's me."

Arthur steps forward once and Eames steps back. He can feel the heat now, feel the real fire - the not real the fire - he can feel fire.

Arthur stops and takes a breath. "Eames, calm down. We're in a dream. It's confusing you."

"No," he says.

"You're a scrambler."

The man smiles and nods once. "At your service."

"At your own service."

He laughs. "Well, yes, but I was certainly hired by someone else just as you are when you run about on all levels extracting secrets."

"No wonder you made crumbling buildings." Arthur points at the landscape. "Did you want me to find out?"

"I knew you would. You're the point man and you're the best. Dream crime is what you do and if anyone would see the plan it would be you." He shrugs. "So why hide?"

Arthur narrows his eyes. "No."

Ariadne scoffs. "I can't build. This isn't my dream."

He tilts his head and raises his eyebrows as if surprised. "Oh? Are you sure?"

Ariadne looks around. She wants to try but she knows nothing will happen - knows, she knows, she knows. But if she tries and a world grows then what does that mean? Or is he just trying to do this to mix her up? Her hands flex near her coat pocket.

"Why don't you try?" he coaxes.

She shakes her head. "No."

"Fine." Eames focuses, focuses on the fire, the feeling of too much heat, focuses on staying just far enough away not to be burned. "Fine, we'll play your game, darling. Then what are we doing here, eh?"

Arthur sighs in that way he always does when he thinks Eames is being ridiculous. Eames feels himself flicker, a woman, a man, himself? Focus, focus - heat, fire - focus.

"I don't know why we're here, Eames. It's not my dream."

"Too much colour?"

"Eames, this isn't a joke!"

Arthur steps forward again and tries to grab Eames' lapel but he steps quickly to the side out of reach. Eames holds up a warning hand.

"Don't touch me."

The fire crackles louder, the heat feels hotter, and another building in Eames' sight bursts into hotter flame glowing red and orange.

"I thought scramblers were just a fantasy, hope for those on the wrong end. 'I can get revenge, destroy their minds.'"

The man puts up his hands, finger tips pointed toward him self. "Obviously not."

"Who hired you?"

The man scoffs. "Do you ever tell when you're found out?"

"I'm not going to let you break me." Arthur steps forward slowly. "You think I won't have a counter attack?"

"Maybe in your own dream you would, if you had projections, but you're here, Arthur, on this broken building all alone." He points at the edge of the building. "And you threw away the gun."

"Then play fair and dream me another. If you're here to destroy my mind they why not give me a chance to fight back?"

The man sweeps his arm out invitingly to the open air. "There's the edge."

"Why do you want me to build?" Ariadne asks. "If this is your dream then you can build."

"I never said it was my dream."

"But it has to be." She points at the empty space on either side of the road. "There is no one else here."

"I could just be a projection."

"A projection would never say that."

The man nods in contemplation then snaps his fingers with some sort of realization. "Ah ha, but you're the architect! Who's to say you won't start building projections?"

Ariadne begins to scoff, to laugh, to brush the nonsense aside but… but why not?

Really why not? She builds roads and halls and houses and landscapes and worlds, entire worlds. Why couldn't she build people too? Why couldn't she have built him? Why couldn't she build people to fill a world?

To indeed be a God?

"Did I hit something?" Eames asks, watching the new fire – the fire – burning, hot fire.

Arthur begins to move again, slowly, like a cat stalking prey or a mother calming a child. He's moving like Arthur but he's also not. It's a crack and Eames needs to wedge it open. He needs to believe that this is not Arthur.

"Eames, I swear I don't know what's happening." Arthur puts up his hands, open, empty, safe. "We must have missed the kick, right? That has to be it. I don't know how much time is left."

Eames tilts his head and smiles. "Now, Arthur wouldn't say that. Arthur would know."

"Eames." His voice gets move insistent, less Arthur. "This could be limbo!"

Eames starts in surprise because it could be. His eyes dart around at the burning buildings, the lack of projections, nothing but the city and the fire and Arthur. Then Arthur's hand touches his and fire fades a little.

"What do we do?" Arthur asks him.

It's doubt. Now, it's doubt.

"You're not Arthur," he says again but his voice sounds uncertain.

A click in his brain, this is two and there should be three, Ariadne?

"Let me ask you this, point man, why am I here?"

"We've covered that."

"Yes, of course," he begins to walk from side to side slowly. "But why I am right here? Why not make some never ending maze for you to run through until you go mad? Why not physically torture you until the pain fries all your nerves? Why am I standing here?"

Arthur's jaw clenches. "Your methods are not my concern."

Then suddenly the man moves so quickly he is right in front of Arthur before Arthur can react. He grabs Arthur's shirt and practically spits in his face.

"Maybe that's not it." He shakes Arthur hard. "Maybe I like to see you break with my own eyes." He suddenly lets Arthur go and steps back. He smiles, long and thin like a predator. "Or maybe I'm giving you all one chance to escape."

A click in his brain, Arthur is just one and there should be three, Ariadne? Eames…

Ariadne reaches out from inside herself. She feels for the base, for the ground. Her mind plans pathways, roads and gravel and dirt paths. She plans trees and bushes, parks and the wild. She sees a tall stone tower in the middle of a field. In the distance is the road she stands on.

"I can build what you see," he says.

Her eyes slide into focus on the dream world, the empty space. The cities in the distance seem smaller, older, less New York and more Paris.

"I'm not building." Her ego folds a little, breaks down, not a God. "I can't. This isn't my dream."

"We can build together; build your own world with your creativity and my mind."

"Not a projection…"

"Or one just very alive."

Ariadne huffs, frustration growing at the circles. "Enough with the riddles! You're as bad as…"

A click in her brain, she is only one and there should be three, Eames? Arthur?

"Where is Ariadne?" Eames asks. "Wouldn't she be here too?"

Arthur tilts his head like the question is silly.

"Well?" Eames insists.

Instead of answering, Arthur kisses him and it's like the world blinks out. Eames' eyes flutter shut and he forgets - no fire, no flame - he forgets, and he kisses back. Real lips, real hands, real hair under his finger tips, and he forgets everything else.

"Arthur…"

He feels the heat, the heat of Arthur.

Arthur stiffens and looks around. He knows there is no one else here. He would have noticed by now.

"Where are they?" he asks. "Scramblers can be in more than one place in a dream."

The man says nothing.

"What have you done to them?" He shouts.

The man shrugs like it's nothing, like Arthur's rising anger is a win; Arthur playing into his hands.

"Jump and find out. Maybe they'll be there when you wake up." He shrugs and seems to be trying not to laugh. "Or maybe they won't. Maybe I've already torn through them."

Arthur just breathes, pushing down the anger bristling in his shoulders.

The man spreads his hands out like some sort of showman presenting fate at Arthur's feet. "Maybe they'll be awake and waiting for you or maybe they're asleep."

Arthur looks at the edge, at the drop, at death. He turns around.

"But if you jump," the man says behind him, "you can't get back and if they're asleep what will you do then?"

"If I can build with you," she begins slowly, "then build me a bridge, the bridge I create."

For the first time a real expression crosses the man's face, confusion. And she's got it. She's got a card on him.

"A bridge? To where?"

"To them."

Eames reaches his hand inside Arthur's coat, slides around his waist. Arthur's real, tastes real, feels real. Eames has to touch; he has to know. He doesn't break the kiss because Arthur is his and he believes.

If they're lost, they're lost together.

Arthur stares at the open air. As he watches more concrete and steel break off a building, tumbling down. This time he can hear the crash as they hit. The ground exists.

"No one dreams infinity." The man says as if reading Arthur's thoughts. "At least not yet."

"If I jump, I die," Arthur says looking back over his shoulder, "why would you give me a way out?"

"What makes you think we're on the first layer?"

Arthur involuntarily backs up.

Stairs rocket into the sky at a steep angle. They climb high until they begin to curve and curve and curve until they are falling out into the distance, into the nothing. The stairs grow banisters, posts connecting and clicking into place. Color bleeds over in waves tinting the stairs blue like the nonexistent sky.

Ariadne can't figure out if this is the bridge she dreamed, the bridge she built. It could be but she's not sure either way. It jars her, hits her right in the core that she doesn't know.

"It's all right," Arthur says, "I'm here."

Eames laughs, "Yes you are, love."

His hands trace Arthur's neck, mapping out this skin he knows so perfectly. Arthur feels so perfect. His kiss is all completely Arthur and Eames would gladly drown in it, sink down and stay at the bottom so warm.

Eames can feel Arthur smile against his lips so he only kisses Arthur more.

"If I take the way out I'm a coward." Arthur stares out at the broken buildings but not down. "Is that your plan? If I jump, I leave them to where ever they are."

The man claps his hands once. "Do you see me stopping you?"

"You've left no other options."

"But you don't know the answer; you don't know for sure where you'll go." Arthur doesn't need to look to feel the man's smile. "And that is what breaks you."

Arthur can't move.

The stairs are pure elegance in their smooth connections, just the right amount of space between each one. Ariadne always builds her stairs perfectly. The bridge looks like stairs, looks like a tower. It's not the way she builds, with mystery, but this whole place, this dream is something else.

"Is this…" she doesn't want to ask, doesn't want to admit she can't tell.

Is this the first sign she's lost in the dream? Is loosing her connection to the one thing which is always hers another slice of reality gone?

"I've never made an angle like this," she says instead.

The man smiles. "But you're always growing."

She feels a catch in her throat. "Then how do I know what's mine?"

Eames pulls back, touches Arthur's face, looks at his eyes then stops. Arthur's eyes are green. The gap breaks open.

Everything snaps into focus. The fire burns and burns and burns and suddenly it's so hot that Eames thinks they might starting cooking. How could he have forgotten this? Eames smiles and feels low laughter bubbling up.

"Eames?" Arthur asks.

Eames steps back out of the embrace and begins to clap.

"I would say excellent work, did fool me for a moment there with your devilish kissing, however…" He reaches out a hand and touches Arthur's forehead. "How could you mess up something like the eyes? What good forger messes up the eyes?"

Arthur tenses and backs away from Eames' hand. Now Eames holds a gun. Arthur touches his waist band looking surprised then glares back at Eames.

"I'm a thief as well as a forger, sweetheart. Surely your research told you that?" Eames shifts the gun under his chin. "By the way, Arthur's eyes are brown."

He clicks back the hammer.

"Wait!" Arthur shouts.

"Either way I wake up," Arthur says with hesitation he never has in his voice. "I move up a layer or I wake up and then I can help them."

"Maybe."

"What else is there?" Arthur snaps.

"Or you fall into limbo."

Arthur jerks his head around. The man smiles like a snake, like a cat, like a trap. It's poker and that's Eames' game, not his, but Arthur knows what a bluff is. The light turns on and Arthur smiles.

"You wouldn't be warning me if it was limbo because your job would be done. I'd lose my mind down there without you having to do any more work."

The smile of the snake falters just a fraction - the tell.

"It's not limbo. It's waking up."

Arthur steps forward.

"Wait!" the man shouts.

Ariadne breathes in slowly. "I have to know. I have to know if I can build this world. I have to know if it's mine."

"Climb," the man says. "If it's yours won't it lead you where you want to go?"

She reaches out and grasps the banisters with both hands. She climbs.

The bridge is really more like stairs, even more than that, like a ladder. The climb leads straight up because if there is an angle she can't feel it. She climbs higher and higher waiting for the curve to begin. If she reaches the precipice will she see the destination? What will she see? She doesn't know.

She stops. She doesn't know. If she doesn't know where she's going then how will she get there? How can she build what she doesn't know? How can they build together when there is no plan in her mind?

"This isn't my bridge," she says.

"It is," he calls up to her, voice so clear despite the considerable distance. "Through me."

She peers back over her shoulder down, down, down, at the small figure below. He's a little figurine, a doll and he's the one who curves the ladder into a bridge, not her at all. She smiles and thinks of her boys.

"It's not my bridge," she says clearly, "and not my dream."

She starts to lean back.

"Wait!" he shouts.

Eames shoots. He falls.

Arthur steps out. He falls.

Ariadne let's go. She falls.

He feels the pain, the bullet, sees the fire and he falls into –

the air and it rushes, rushes by with such speed everything goes silent and he -

hits and she hits, did she hit - she falls and did she bounce into nothing and it hurts –

hurts like he's never died before, like he's burning even though he's shot and he can't –

tell if he's falling or if he has hit the ground or if the buildings are falling over him because the pain –

is still there and why hasn't it gone away or is she just floating in empty space because she can't see and it hurts –

it hurts

it hurts

it hurts, why does it still hurt?

Then it's a flash of fire, so much heat and crackling flames then Arthur and Ariadne and life.

An explosion - that's the only thing to call it as he can suddenly see and everything is just chaos and there is Ariadne and Eames and life.

Finally, there is a world, her world - It's all color and the road is gone and she smiles because there is Eames and Arthur and life.

Eames, Arthur, and Ariadne gasp together and jolt upright in their chairs. Everything is silent for one moment all three just breathing, in and out. They're in a hotel if the wallpaper has a say, three chairs side by side, PASIV device abandoned on the floor and there is no one else in the room, just silence now.

They turn slowly to look at each other, Arthur in the middle shifting back and forth. Ariadne rips the tube from her wrist and rubs a thumb over the needle mark before she looks back at the other two. Eames does the same then suddenly reaches out and grasps Arthur's arm. Arthur starts as if surprised Eames is tangible. Eames leans forward slightly and stares at Arthur's face.

"Brown," he whispers.

Arthur slowly pulls the tube out of his arm and looks at the floor, tapping his feet a few times as if checking the floor is there then back up.

Ariadne abruptly stands and her hand flies to her pocket. Arthur and Eames follow suit like a waterfall. All three pull objects from their pockets, hands no longer empty. Ariadne knocks, Arthur rolls, and Eames flips.

"Yes…" Ariadne whispers at the feel, at the fall, and the pawn on its side on the chair with notches up.

Arthur just smiles at the four face-up in his hand. He rolls it twice more, four and four.

Eames flips his poker chip in the air and lets it fall until it hits the ground. It lies flat at his feet and Eames breathes out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

A light seems to click on and they come together, hands grasping and arms holding and life is real around them. Totems say yes, they are here, together. Arthur's fingers curl tight in both their hands and Eames' lips find Arthur's, his arms around them both, and Ariadne rests her head against the crux of their chests.

No fire, no building, no street, no broken minds, just the three of them in contact, combined, their trio.

Awake.