Author's Note: I'm at that dreadful point in late August where I have to remember that writing is not my job but school is. My classes start tomorrow, my student worker position starts tomorrow, my activities have already started up. And thus real life begins after four months of summer. I'm still writing and updating, just perhaps not as consistently, at least not at first. But I can't disappear entirely, because, hey, three (THREE) of my friends haven't seen Inception (so I think I must go see it again, of course!), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is still appearing at my school. So there's inspiration abounding. Just maybe not as much time.

Your reviews, alerts, and favorites keep me going. Thank you to everyone for your support of this story! Like always, I don't own Inception, but Chris Nolan has had a crazy influence on my thoughts, so there's that. I'd love to hear your thoughts, good/bad/happy/sad!

She expects to see him the next morning, early, right after she wakes. She slows her routine after there is no indication that Arthur is anywhere close. She glances at the people walking the streets in the early morning, carefully looks at the café customers before choosing a table.

Ariadne fingers the bishop in her pocket. She knows that the day before was not a dream. Everything about it felt real. Arthur felt real. She could remember every detail.

And she'd tested her bishop several times over the course of the day, just to be certain.

But now Arthur has disappeared and it leaves Ariadne wondering why he never said he would see her the next day, or sometime soon, or anytime at all. He'd very much implied that he would stay.

Unless he wasn't really there. Ariadne takes a deep breath, before calmly pulling out her bishop and setting it on the table in front of her. She plays with it a little, tilting it, as if the bishop is a toy she carries on any given day. Then, after taking a sip of her tea, she lightly pushes it with her finger.

Ariadne watches as the bishop tilts, hangs for a moment, and then falls. She lets out a breath, although she's not sure if she's relieved or disappointed, as always. And then she tests the bishop twice more, taking care to look as if she's just toiling with an old chess piece.

Reality, apparently.

"Not a dream?"

Ariadne glances up, surprised, when she hears a voice from above her. Arthur stands in front of her, one hand in his pocket, and his face is expressionless.

"Just tested mine," he continues, his voice casual, as if dreams and totems and reality were everyday small talk for the rest of Paris. "Not a dream."

"Yeah," Ariadne says once she finds her voice. She clears her throat. "Mine neither."

The two of them sit in silence, Arthur sipping a drink that he apparently showed up with, just like the day before. Ariadne can't think of anything to fill the silence, but she wonders if she has to. Arthur looks pleased enough, glancing around the café, eyes flitting from person to person.

He doesn't look confused. He seems to be able to distinguish reality. Or at least believe his totem.

Ariadne clears her throat once more. "So why did you test yours?" she asks, and Arthur turns to her, eyebrows lifted slightly.

She thinks that he's genuinely puzzled by her question, which just confuses her more. "Why did you test your totem?" Ariadne clarifies, and Arthur gives her a look (one of those few, precious, spur of the moment looks).

"Do you still need to finish your assignment?" he asks, and smoothly stands, offering her a hand. She takes it and pulls herself out from her chair, lost in the moment with the sudden change.

She nods in affirmation, but cannot stop staring at him. She understands his change in conduct very clearly, although she doesn't understand why Arthur doesn't want to answer. Ariadne wonders if this is a question that she shouldn't ask, but that conclusion enrages her and she wants to forge on moreso than before.

"Is there a place you'd like to work today?"

He looks relaxed and Ariadne is frustrated that she can't decode him.

"The library?" she suggests.

"Some place more private?" he replies, and Ariadne is surprised.

She thinks for a moment before nodding and walking away from the café. "I know just were to go," she informs him, and she tries to sound sure of herself, even though she's a little unsettled with the way he's walking a bit behind her.

"Are you going to tell me where we're headed?" he asks, and Ariadne thinks that she can hear amusement in his voice.

She thinks for a moment before shaking her head and glancing at him. She smiles a bit, letting him know that she's teasing, and her heart starts to beat twice as fast when he rolls his eyes and winks at her. She has to remind herself to keep breathing, but now more than ever, she wants to test her totem, because Arthur, the Arthur she knows? Doesn't joke like that. He has a less serious side, even a teasing side, but not a silly, eye rolling, winking side.

She jumps a little when she feels Arthur's hands on her shoulders, steering her, and it's only when she shakes her head and looks down that she realizes that she almost walked straight into a woman walking a dog.

"Are you okay?" Arthur asks, and now he's walking beside her

Ariadne nods. "Just day dreaming a little."

"Appreciate those. Eventually they'll go away as well."

She doesn't respond because she's not quite sure what to say. She decides not to think about it too much and just leads Arthur into the college. They walk through the halls and Ariadne knows the moment that Arthur recognizes their intended destination.

To his credit, he doesn't ask questions, just starts to glance around more carefully and walk more slowly.

When they arrive at Miles' classroom, Ariadne leads him down into the front of the room, at the chalkboard. She looks up at the rows of seats and feels a sense of empowerment. She knows that she couldn't do this, stand in front of others and lecture. She'd much rather be doing than teaching. But she likes how this feels, and wonders if it's why professors keep going.

"Miles isn't here?" Arthur asks.

Ariadne glances at the desk, covered in papers and pencils and knickknacks.

"He'll be in and out, I'm sure," she tells Arthur. "But he always leaves his classroom open as an option for work. Sometimes inspiration arrives best from the place you learn."

"Very true," Arthur agrees. "Although you should never derive inspiration exactly from the source."

Ariadne isn't sure if he means to apply that to dreams or to her school project as well.

"I figured we could work on the physics of the project. The abstracts that are concrete," she says, redirection the conversation to their task. She moves to the chalkboard and starts to throw equations up, numbers and letters intermingling.

Part of her is surprised by how versed Arthur is in physics, but another part of her thinks that all things are natural to him. She wonders if she struggles with anything. She knows that it's a foolish thought - didn't she see him miss a critical detail with the Fischer case? - but he handles himself so well that she wonders how often he's truly caught by surprise.

They work diligently for an hour, and Ariadne gets lost in the very real feeling of equation solving, working with something concrete. It's why she chose architecture in the first place; she could create things, tangible things, see the results. She likes the feeling. She likes remembering how a love for her trade feels.

And then that nagging part of her wonders if it's all too good to be true. She tries to erase the doubt from her mind. She remembers every detail of this. There are no projections. This feels too real to be fake.

But she finds herself reaching for her totem anyway. It's becoming a habit, a nagging desire just to make sure that what she's feeling is real.

Arthur is staring at the board, chalk in his hand, running through various equations to solve the riddle. Ariadne is sure that he's not paying her attention. She can simply tilt it on the desk and be done with it, sure that what's happening here is concrete and will last.

She's just set her bishop on the table when Arthur says, "Don't do it."

She looks up, startled, because his back is still to her, although he's craned his neck a bit and can probably see her out of the corner of his eye.

"Do what?" she asks, caught in a moment of panic, although she can't pin down why she's so worried that Arthur will disapprove of her or her actions.

"You've already tested your totem. You remember every detail of the day," Arthur replies, turning around to face her fully. "There's no need."

"You tested yours earlier."

Arthur nods. "Sometimes, when I see people testing theirs and I'm not sure why, I like to test mine. To be on the safe side."

"And I just want to be on the safe side," Ariadne replies, but Arthur shakes his head.

"Testing your totem can too easily become an addiction," he says, and Ariadne looks at him in disbelief.

"An addiction?"

"An addiction. A disease," he adds. "Testing your totem can blur the distinction between reality and dreams."

Ariadne shuts her eyes, trying to process. "We have totems to tell us that we're in reality."

"And how many times do you test yours? Even when it's told you once that you're not in a dream?"

She doesn't answer, but she thinks she doesn't have to.

"I saw you playing with your totem at the café. Of course, to anyone else, you were just mindlessly toying with a chess piece. But I know your totem, and more than that, I know you."

Ariadne wants to object that he doesn't know her, just knows one aspect of her, professionally, but he continues before she can get a word in.

"I went through the same thing. And you just can't believe reality sometimes, can you?" He looks at her intently. "And then you start to question your totem and whether or not your totem is behaving realistically. And then you start to think yourself in circles. Suddenly," Arthur says, and spreads his arms, "you aren't sure if your totem is reality or not. And that defeats the purpose of having one at all."

She takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm. She's not angry. She's not sure what she feels. A little overwhelmed.

"Are you saying that I shouldn't use my totem?" she asks, and the question sounds silly to her.

"Not at all," Arthur objects. "Your totem is necessary, after what you've experienced, and especially if you want to continue work in the dream field."

Ariadne's mind races at that comment. She'd never considered mind work as a plausible career option. But Arthur is making it work. Cobb made it work, although Ariadne thinks that he'll never return to that field again. Eames excels in it for a profession. Yusuf has found a place. Why shouldn't she?

"It's a delicate balance," Arthur continues. "This divide between reality and dreams. You can't question it too much or else you'll be caught in a never-ending circle."

She licks her lips. "I'll be like Mal." Her voice is quiet as she says it and she's not sure how Arthur will react.

He stares at her. "Yes," he replies, his voice steady, matter of fact. "You'll be exactly like Mal."

She glances away but can still feel his gaze. She knows what happened to Mal.

"But how do you know that the totem is correct?" she asks, and she can't bring her volume up to more than a whisper.

"It is," he says, and his voice is solid and steady.

"But how do you know?" she presses, partly because she wants to be sure and partly because she wants to know how Arthur can be so sure.

"You have to believe it. You have to believe in your totem as your connection to reality."

She turns from him, examining her fingernails. She just had to trust that her totem - that chess piece she made by hand - told the truth. She takes a deep breath because it sounds easy, but her question of the truth isn't.

"Force yourself not to test," Arthur says. "You have to stop yourself. Trust in this feeling. Reality feels different, Ariadne. You have to remember this feeling."

His voice is more intense, not exactly pleading, but as close as Arthur would get to it. She can't think of anything to say; she's trying to just focus on her breathing. Arthur pauses for a moment as well before reaching for his piece of chalk and moving to the board.

Ariadne blinks and tries to focus, eyeing the letters and numbers in front of her.

Her attention is interrupted when she hears feet tapping down the stairs, and she turns to see Professor Miles walking down, smiling.

"Arthur, good to see you again," he says. "And Ariadne, a pleasure as always." He moves to his desk to grab papers, shuffling them together. Professor Miles and Arthur make polite small talk, which Ariadne finds a bit odd, considering that Arthur is the godfather to Phillipa. But for all their polite talk, nothing about the situation feels out of the ordinary. Just two friends who haven't seen each other quickly catching up.

"I'm just in here to grab some assignments I've yet to grade," Miles says.

Arthur raises an eyebrow. "Started taking work home with you?"

"Oh, just a few papers," Miles replies, waving away the comment. "Nothing too extraordinary."

Miles shuffles his papers and moves toward the stairs, stopping to glance at the equations and drawings on the board before he leaves.

"Interesting tactic to fulfill the assignment," he concludes after a few moments. He turns to Ariadne and smiles. "It's exactly what I'm looking for."

Ariadne watches as he walks up the stairs and leaves the classroom. She sighs and turns back to the board, staring at her equations before erasing them and picking up a piece of chalk. She can't bring herself to look at Arthur as she says, "Let's start over from the beginning."