We All Move in Circles

Clockwise, Chapter 8

First things first: Just want to Clarify, I totally bullshitted James' Age. He struck me as about three or four in the movie, so I figured he'd be about five by the time this rolled around. Yeah, so, if anyone knows for sure what his age his, please, please, please correct me. I'd appreciate it. Also, I just want to give everyone who has supported, read, added, reviewed, whatever, a big thank you. I probably would not have carried on otherwise, so thank you to all, and a pre-thank-you to anyone who decides to add or review this story after this. You will be appreciated as well. :) Now, on to the finale!

For the first week Valerie stayed with Dominic, she was a walking pile of nerves and anxiety. She hardly ate, barely slept, and spent most of her day wearing holes in her socks from pacing around in absentminded circles. For the first month, she was worried, depressed, and could only think of horrible things happening to Arthur. But by the end of the third month, she decided it was time she shaped up, and started earning her keep. She hunted down a job at the nearby Starbucks, working a three hour shift between the lunch rush and picking up Philippa and James from school.

Dom had gone back to his roots, and was in the process of starting up an Architecture and Landscaping company, with what may or may not be a little under-the-table funding from Saito. While eventually, when the company had some established customers and got it's feet under itself, Dom would be able to pick his own hours, for now, he was buried up to his elbows in paperwork, half-completed plans, and resumes, even though, in all actuality, he would probably only consider hiring Ariadne. So Valerie volunteered to keep a handle on things at the house between the kids getting home, and whenever he happened to stumble through the door with a box of miscellaneous papers. She cut her hair and lightened it up, able to pass herself off as a cousin of Dom's, just so that no one would ask questions as to why a strange woman was living in his spare bedroom, and she habitually looked around for cheap apartments, even though Dom constantly reminded her that she ought to stay until Arthur gave it the 'OK'. After all, the reason Arthur had sent her to him, and not to a distant corner of the world, was because nothing served protection quite like Saito's obscene amount of money. The cops wouldn't go within fifty feet of Dom, or his house for that matter.

Before she'd even realized the time had passed, she had been in the spare room for a year, and still, not one word from Arthur. The day she noticed this, Valerie suddenly began to sob, for reasons she simply could not explain. She cried for hours, and Dom could do little but stand in the bathroom doorway and bring her a fresh box of tissues when she ran out, offering a kind or reassuring word when he thought it might help. She asked him if he thought maybe Arthur had been killed. He didn't have anything to say to that, and could only shrug and shake his head. Philippa had finally been able to snap her out of it when she walked in to announce that her Barbie's haircut had gone terribly wrong, and she needed Valerie to fix it, showing them the doll in question, which had become completely bald on one side. With a quavering laugh, Valerie had nodded, wiped her eyes, and then she and Philippa spent the rest of the day pretending to own a beauty salon. Luckily, Valerie managed to rescue James's favorite teddy bear before he became a victim as well.

After that day, those long sorrowful hours of tears, she seemed to have dealt with the emotions. Or, potentially, she had locked them all away in a corner of her mind, so as not to worry those around her. Dom knew that trick all too well, wondering how long she could go before the straw that broke the camels back fell once again.

After getting over the hurdle of the first year, things suddenly became much easier for Valerie. She wasn't sure why, or what had brought on the change. She simply just suddenly felt better, like the world could keep spinning, whether Art was with her or not. The worry faded, though, of course, she still had faith. She had nothing but faith and love in Art, and believed that, at some point, he would come back, as he had promised. But she was able to stop herself from wallowing in despair every time a car pulling into the driveway turned out to not be him.

She would have thought that it would be this way in the beginning. After all, Arthur was gone a lot. More or less all the time if she wanted to be honest with herself. Half the time, he had left in the middle of the night, sometimes not even leaving a note to let her know. Those mornings had always been lonely, depressing, even, on occasion, painful. But, at the very least, then she'd been able to get the occasional email, the longest he'd ever been gone had only been three months, and he hadn't left with Interpol nipping at his heels. But she tried her damnedest to be tough. She told Dom she was okay when he asked, she continued her mantra of daily silent prayers that he would be alright, she dreamed of him every night, and she politely refused the occasional offer for a date.

The next seven months drifted by slowly, but gently.

"Valerie have you seen my-"

"Your keys are on the hook, where you left them Dom."

"Right." He shot a look at the series of little hooks by the door that held as many keys as any one person could need, trying to tie his tie and gulp down coffee at the same time. Valerie had to say, this was probably the first time she had ever seen Dom oversleep. Most days, going to bed was the issue, but today he'd snoozed through his alarm for nearly forty-five minutes, and it was only when Valerie strode by on her way to get Philippa and James up for school that she realized he was still asleep. Hence, he was now in a frazzled rush.

"Are you sure you want to drop them off? I think it'll be easier if you just go right to work and I walk them there, like usual," Valerie said, trying her best to rush the kids into getting ready.

"No, no, I've got it, I go that direction anyway," Dom decided, giving up on the tie and tossing it onto the table, nearly into James' cereal bowl, before turning in a slow circle, looking for something again. "Do you have any idea what I did with the box I had yesterday?"

"I'm pretty sure you put it back in your car."

"Right," He said again, but with less conviction than he had last time, obviously not entirely sure that he had actually done so. However, considering the fact he was now nearly an hour late, he apparently decided to take her word for it, and rushed onward. "James, Philippa, let's go, Dad's running really late…"

"Okay," Philippa agreed sliding off her chair. "Bye Valerie," She added as she headed for the door, James not far behind her.

"Oops, James, don't forget your homework." She scooped up the yellow sheet of basic addition, tucking it into the kindergartener's Batman backpack.

"Thanks Mom." He smiled up at her.

Everything in the house went silently still. Valerie stared back at James' smiling face, Philippa stood in the doorway, looking awkward, and behind her, Dom was literally aghast.

"James-" He started carefully, his lateness all but forgotten, "-Kiddo, Valerie isn't Mom."

"I know," He said, turning to look at his Father with a face that indicated he didn't understand why everyone was in such shock. "She's not really Mom. But isn't she our step-mom? Jacob's Mom left, like ours did, but then a new lady moved in with his Dad, and she was his step-mom. Isn't that what Valerie is now?"

"It's…James, it doesn't always work like that-" Dom cast around awkwardly, clearly not wanting to get into the details, which might be a little much for a five-year old to really understand. He hadn't even gone about explaining that Mal was actually no longer alive, not just mysteriously missing yet. Philippa, in the typical older-sister fashion, simply rolled her eyes at her brother.

"She can't be our Mom," She said, "-because her and Arthur are going to get married and have a bunch of their own kids. She has to be their Mom."

"Well, I don't know about 'a bunch', but she's right James. I'm not your step-mom either, because I'm in love with Arthur," Valerie explained. "Think of me as more like…your auntie or something. Your dad isn't ready to get married again, not yet at least. But when he is, he'll meet a very nice lady, and then you'll have a new Mom."

"But, how come you live here? Shouldn't you live with Arthur?" James asked, confusion written all over his little face.

"Arthur is just taking care of some things," Dom added in, as though thinking that simply mentioning his name was going to fling Valerie into hysterical crying. "As soon as he's done with that, then they'll start living together."

"And maybe get married and maybe have a bunch of kids." Valerie added with a smile, though she could sense it probably looked a little strained. In all reality, it would probably never be that simple. But she could sure hope.

About two hours after this, after Dom had successfully busted into his office approximately and hour and a half late, he called the house phone, where Valerie was just on her way out the door to re-supply her caffeine addiction. She plucked it off the receiver with a chipper:

"Hello?"

"Hey, uhm, sorry, but that box is still in my home office. I don't suppose I could talk you into bringing it over to me? I at least need the files on the Greenhill Project."

"Sure, no problem. I was just heading out before going to the café anyway. Greenhill?" She walked back through the main hallway, popping her head into what had once been a playroom, but since the kids were getting older, and were learning to keep their toys in their rooms, was slowly being converted into a home office for Dom's architecture work, drawings and models perched on the walls and flat surfaces, along with a few leftover dolls or stuffed animals. The box was stuffed halfway under the desk, papers poking out of it where he'd been going through them previously.

"They should be right on top, in a folder."

"Okay…let's see…" Dom was silent for a moment, as she started shifting through the papers, as the folder was not, actually, on the top of the pile.

"Valerie?"

"Yeah?"

"About what James said this morning…"

"It's okay. He's just a kid. I guess I have been here awhile, it makes sense that he'd start wondering about whether I was going to be a permanent addition."

"Are you okay though? I mean, it was kind of weird, him calling you 'Mom', and then about Arthur-"

"Dom, really, it's fine."

"It's nearly been two years."

"Yeah," The single word came out a sigh. "One year, sixth months, two weeks, and four days."

"I'm sure he's okay," Dom quickly tried to amend.

"He is. I hope."

"Arthur's a reliable guy. If he told you he'd come back, he'll be back. He's probably just making sure there are no loose ends."

"That would be an Art thing to do." She agreed, smiling to herself.

"You mean a lot to him, you know."

"I thought you said he never talked about me?"

"That's true. But that's how I know. He was always trying so hard to make sure you never got mixed up in anything, even though he was always thinking about you, probably always wanting to brag about how great you are…he'd never do that for just any girl. He's far too fond of his own neck to risk it unless someone is really important to him."

"You make him sound like such a likable guy," Valerie laughed, a little.

"He can be when he wants to be," Dom said, and she could hear a smile in his voice. "You know, we met Mal at around the same time, and I was actually kind of worried she liked him more than me when I asked her out the first time."

Valerie's eyes drifted to the photo he kept on the desk as he spoke, her hand in the papers stilling. Mal stared back at her, smiling, happy, nothing like the story she'd heard. Given, it was all about Dom's dream version of her. But she failed to see how he could possibly turn something so beautiful into something so utterly destructive.

"Dom, this is kind of a personal question, but…what happened to Mal? Really? Art told me, once, that she died in some kind of accident, something to do with Extraction."

Dom was silent for a long moment, she couldn't even hear his breathing, then he sighed, a rush of static into the phone. She vaguely wondered if he ought to be working instead, and she should stop being so nosy. Before she could tell him to forget the whole thing however, he answered.

"Did he tell you that the police suspected me?"

"No…" The truth shocked her. She could barely picture Dom capable of dream violence, let alone killing someone in the real world.

"That's why the police wanted me, not because of Extraction. It's pretty hard to make charges stick when there usually isn't any real proof. Most people don't even know we were there. Anyway, in…an offhand sort of way, in a completely unintentional way, I suppose I did…kill her."

"How?"

"Inception. It… it worked too well. It was an experiment that went horribly wrong, and when I tried to fix it…well, it got worse. It spread into reality…and in the end, she died by her own hand, but I was the one that forced it."

"You knew that Inception was that dangerous, but you still did again? What if something went wrong again?" Her voice was deceptively calm, but Valerie's emotions were roiling inside. Now that she knew him, she worried about what would have happened to Dom as well, but her primary concern, for obvious reasons, was Arthur. If Dom had potentially put him in danger by trying Inception again, she absolutely would have been on the warpath for his head. She never would have forgiven him if something had happened to prematurely put an end to Art.

"I'm not going to lie. It was a possibility. But I…James and Philippa needed me."

"And I need Arthur. Did that ever occur to you? That the other people on that little venture had families or friends that didn't want to lose them? Just because you had nothing to lose doesn't mean everyone else could toss in the towel. And most of us didn't get a giant corporation to be our new guardian angel."

"I know. I'm sorry," Dom said softly. "I didn't think the job would have the kinds of consequences it did."

"Like with Mal." After the sentence was spoken, she wished she could take it back. That was just too harsh, even to say in such anger as she had. She shouldn't drag her into this, especially not this way.

"You're right. Like with Mal. Look, I screwed up Valerie. I know it, and you can point the finger at me if you want to."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to sound so cruel," Valerie didn't know what else to say. Silence sank down into the phone line once again.

"We'll give him a week." Dom said suddenly.

"What?"

"We'll give Arthur one more week to get here, or at the very least call you. If we get nothing, I'll convince Saito to start a search for him."

"How will you do that?"

"You just let me worry about that. I learned a few embarrassing secrets, Saito will cooperate."

"Doesn't that seem a bit…underhanded?"

"Maybe. But a year and a half is too damn long Valerie. If nothing else, when we find him, we'll say you decided to start dating Eames. That'll have him running."

"Okay. He has a week. But Dom, if comes down to Saito having to find him, please don't tell him I'm dating Eames. I'm pretty sure he'd kill one of us. Probably you. Or maybe Eames. I dunno, he wouldn't be happy though."

Dom snickered on the other end. "Alright, fine. No Eames. We'll just tell him to hurry his ass up then. I really am sorry though. I know this is…sort of my fault."

"I think letting me live in your spare room for a year and a half when you didn't even know me pretty well makes up for it."

"Well, I'm glad I did get to know you. You're pretty amazing, Valerie. There aren't a lot of people who can pull through as much as you do, as well as you do. Arthur is probably the single luckiest person I know."

"Thanks Dom. That means a lot. It really does. Oh, hey, I just found the folder you wanted," She added, realizing the stupid thing had been sitting in plain sight, right next to Mal's photo.

"Oh," His tone told her he'd more or less totally forgotten why he was even on the phone to begin with. "Great, just swing by and drop that off on your way to Starbucks, would you?"

"You got it."

Valerie smiled as she set the phone down a few minutes later. She was pretty lucky herself, having Dom around. She may have seemed strong, but really, if she had been made to try and sort through all this on her own, she probably would have gone insane.

A doorbell ringing was the only sound for several blocks. After the forth or fifth time he pressed the button, a dog down the street got annoyed and began to bark. He pressed it again, partially because there was still no answer, and partially to agitate the obnoxious dog more. Finally, a light turned on in the depths of the house, and a stumbling figure in a baggy robe approached the door. They yanked it open, rubbing a hand across a tired face.

"What the hell? It's three in the morning…" The words came out in a yawn, puffy eyes peering at him from under a mess of blonde hair, standing straight up in some places.

"Sorry. I forgot about the time zones."

"Jesus. Arthur?" For a moment, Dom seemed skeptical that it was actually him. He stared at him through hazy blue eyes, becoming slightly more aware with each passing second. "Arthur," He said again, still sounding quite disbelieving.

"Yeah."

"Where in the hell have you been? I didn't think you meant nearly two freaking years when you said you would be gone for awhile."

"I've been in prison."

"Excuse me?"

"I spent the last eighteen months in a federal prison. Valerie is still here, right? Can I see her?" He peered over Dom's shoulder, trying to decide where precisely she might be. He needed to see her, hold her, touch her, just be in the same room as her, anything. He just needed her.

"Why in the hell were you in prison?"

"If you're going to make me explain first, will you at least invite me in?"

"Oh. Sorry." Dom stepped aside, and Arthur slid into the house. Looked the same as it had the last time he had been here, maybe a little cleaner, but the kids were older now, which could explain it. Dom closed the door behind him, and offered him something to drink, which Arthur, none too politely, declined. The sooner he got the explanation over with the better, because it was all the sooner he got to see her. "So what happened?" Dom questioned, "Valerie said you had Interpol after you, but I didn't think you were going to get caught."

"I didn't get caught, I turned myself in." Dom raised an eyebrow, so Arthur continued. "Valerie was right, the only way to fix it was to get locked up. But I knew Serena, the one chasing us, wasn't the person to go to. So I turned myself in at the Interpol headquarters. Turns out, Serena is anything but a legitimate agent these days. You remember Brian Norton?" Dom shook his head. "I didn't either. Until I looked into Serena's background. We pulled some info from Norton about three years ago, in Seattle. He was an Interpol agent, ironically, Serena's partner and former fiancé, and we were hired to steal the list of embezzlers he was chasing, so that our employer would know which of their spies to hide. Unfortunately, we screwed it up. Norton was already a bit paranoid, but once he realized his dreams were getting invaded, he totally snapped. We spread out through the city, trying to lose him."

"You took his gun and got on a bus," Dom said, nodding. "I took a cab, and we met back in St. Petersburg."

"Yeah. But that's not really what's important. Norton was decommissioned, because he had been compromised. A few weeks later, he commits suicide, and Serena turns into a revenge-crazed psycho, convinced we were the ones to blame for her partner's death. So, in a long-winded plot to avenge her partner, she steals a Dream-share kit that was in the evidence locker, and recruit's the best Extractors she can find, costing herself her career in the process."

"So…she tried to recruit all of us."

"Right. Because according to the rumor mill, we're all the best at what we do, especially since the Fischer Job. Once she realized we were the same people, she figured that we could just destroy each other, and she wouldn't have to get her hands dirty. But, Eames turned it down, Yusuf was never contacted, Araidne was moved before Serena could find her, and we were the Marks. She couldn't find you, because of Saito, and even if she could, she wouldn't have been able to get to you. So instead, she tracked me down. All things considered, it was probably just really unlucky for me that she just so happened to live in Seattle too, not even three blocks away from Valerie. She just had to spot me, one time, and follow me. Once she found the link to me, she fixated, broke her other team members out of jail, and attempted to extract the information she needed to lock me up from Valerie's mind, figuring she would know everything she wanted. Needless to say, it was unsuccessful, and I believe you know the story from that point on."

Dom crossed his arms for a long, thoughtful pause. Looking first at Arthur, then down at the floor, then back up at him, leaning against the table. "So, how did you end up in prison?"

"I was sick of running. Serena was never going to quit. So I went to Interpol, and made them a deal. They'd shorten my sentence for evidence on Serena and her team, assuming I gave Interpol information leading to them. As you know, that's sort of what I do best. They didn't have a lot that could carry over to court, so I managed to whittle it down to three years, factor in my good behavior, and I'm here after a mere eighteen months."

Dom nodded thoughtfully at him, his arms still crossed, giving Arthur an appraising look. "Must mean the world to you, if you're willing to go to prison for her," He said, nodding his head back, towards the hallway, apparently indicating Valerie.

"More than the world Dom."

"And here, I always thought you were way too cynical to fall in love." The former top Extractor dropped his arms, practically falling into a kitchen chair. "She's in the spare room, first door on the left. Do me a favor and don't wake the kids up, okay?"

"Don't worry," Was Arthur's semi-thought out reply, tossed carelessly over his shoulder as he made his way toward the hallway.

"I do have to say, I can see why you fell for her. Valerie's an amazingly easy person to love."

Arthur turned sharply, to find Dom smiling at him in an amused fashion.

"Don't look at me like that. I mean it in the platonic way and you know it," Dom said, as though he was trying very hard not to laugh at Arthur's adverse reaction to his earlier statement. "Besides," He added, fiddling absently with a threadbare placemat, "-that girl is never going to love anyone but you for the rest of her life. She hasn't even looked at anyone else while she was here. You should know that."

"Yeah. Guess I should," Arthur nodded, and Dom shooed him off, toward the hallway.

Arthur suddenly felt nervous, unsure why. It had been a very, very long time. He had a lot of explaining to do. Would she listen? Or was she upset by now? He wasn't even sure what he wanted to say yet. Or whether he wanted to say anything, and just wanted to kiss her first. The door creaked as he opened it, and Arthur cringed, before telling himself he was being silly. He seriously doubted such a small noise bothered anyone but him.

Valerie was snuggled down into the pillow, laying on her side and turned toward the center of the mattress, her arm stretched out flat on the undisturbed side of the bed. She laid the same way when they slept together, against him, a leg and an arm wrapped around him protectively, as though to try and prevent him from ever getting up again. He sat on the edge of the mattress, just absorbing it all for a moment. Everything was finally right with the world again.

"Valerie." He sat a hand lightly on her face, stroking over her hair. Soft as ever. Warm as ever. She moved slightly, eyelashes fluttering, then her entire body tensed as she recognized his voice.

"Is this a dream?" She asked, her voice soft with contained tears. "Please tell me this isn't a dream…" She didn't move, didn't open her eyes, probably praying with all her might.

"It's not a dream. It never has to be a dream again."

Her eyes snapped open, fringed with tears, and she shot up from under the covers, latching onto his neck, a choked sob barely held back. "Art!"

"Miss me?" He asked, wrapping arms around her. He already felt better, just knowing that she was glad to see him.

"Damnit, of course I missed you, idiot!" She flung herself back suddenly, hands holding his jaw, her eyes darting around his face, before skimming over the rest of him. "I mean…Jesus. Are you okay Art? Did everything go-" She interrupted herself, pausing long enough to press her lips on his, a quick parody of a kiss, and then she sat back again, eyes still searching. "I mean, with Serena, what happened? I was so worried, I was really freaking worried! It's been forever, Art! Are you really okay?" She flung arms around his shoulders, and clung tightly.

"I'm in one piece." He assured, running hands over her back, just re-learning the feel of her. It seemed, somehow, that she would have changed over their time apart. He didn't really know how, he had just expected…something to be different. But everything about her was exactly how he remembered it, except for, obviously, her new strawberry-blonde locks. "I like your hair this way," He stated randomly, fluffing the shoulder-length bob.

"Suppose that's good, because I think it will be awhile before I get it to go back to how it was," Valerie laughed in his ear. She peeled her head off his shoulder, and simply looked at him for a few moments, then snuggled her face back into the crook of his neck. "God I missed you. What happened? Why didn't you call or write, or something?"

"They don't like outgoing mail in maximum security."

"Maximum-…Did you get arrested?" Bright green eyes met his, filled with questions.

"Not exactly. It's a long story."

"Tell me everything," Valerie insisted.

"…and it turns out, the badge you found on Serena was about two years expired. But now, she and her team are all in custody, in her case, getting help."

Valerie nodded, taking the whole story Art had told her in, tucked up against him, wrapped up in his arms while they leaned against the headboard together. Her fingers wound around his hand, pulling it towards her, and cuddling his arm against her neck. He could feel her pulse beating, a steady rhythm, it soothed him exponentially.

"I'm sorry."

"What about?"

"Art, you had to go to prison. That's horrible."

"It's not nearly as bad as they make it seem in movies. Boring, but they didn't torture me or anything. Most of the time we were just left to amuse ourselves."

"But it was still prison."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't bad. And now, I'm officially a law-abiding, fully reformed citizen," He shrugged, leaning his head to press his face into her hair. Garnier. She truly was a creature of habit, and did he ever love it.

"Oh really?" She asked mildly, a smile in her voice, turning her head slightly, trying to look at him, but he was nestled quite comfortably at the nape of her neck.

"Mhm," Was his mumbled confirmation. "And you know what that means, don't you?"

"No, I don't," She confessed.

"It means, my dearest Valerie, that we get to be normal people. I may be an ex-con, but now I don't have to worry about getting caught. No more secrets, no more half-truths, no more hiding, I can tell you everything. I'm a regular guy now, we can live together, go out in public together, we can get married, we can do whatever you want, and we don't have to worry even the tiniest bit about cops anymore."

"Really?" The hope in her voice was thinly veiled, she seemed to think he was kidding. This, however, was something he would never joke about.

"Really," He nodded. "I never have to keep secrets from you ever again."

"Art, this is great!" She pulled away from him, turning so that she sat on her knees facing him. "Then…then you've got to tell me everything! There are so many things that I still don't know about you. I want to know your whole name, I want to know where you grew up, and-"

"Let's start at the beginning," Arthur suggested, "-that way we don't miss anything."

"Right. The beginning." Valerie nodded with a smile. "I want to know everything."

"Well, I was born in New York…"

"You sure you want to do this?"

"Art, this had to happen sooner or later, right? I'm glad you're finally going to meet my family though." Valerie laughed, while Arthur turned the car into her childhood driveway, fidgeting nervously, his fingers tapping the steering wheel rapidly. "It's okay, really, they'll all love you."

"What should we tell them first?"

"Well, I'd suggest we go with the obvious one," Valerie shrugged, as her house appeared through the trees. She smiled widely at the thought of seeing her Mother and Father again, after what felt like ages. Not to mention, Sophie was finally home as well, her A/A fully completed. With Danielle flying in tomorrow, it was a whole Sinclaire reunion. Plus, a couple of new additions. She glanced first at Arthur, who seemed to be on the verge of freaking out, and then down to her four-month baby belly, AKA: "the obvious one". The less obvious was evidenced by the engagement ring sitting pretty around her finger. Her Mother was likely going to throw a fit at both, but she knew her father and sisters were absolutely going to love Art, and her Mother would, just as soon as she got over the shock, and that they were all going to be happy with the fact that a little one was on the way. She reached across the car to set her hand on Art's knee. "Stop worrying. I already told them a little about you, so they've got the gist of things. And I already told Sophie and Danielle that I'm pregnant. My Mom might faint, but that's okay, she'll get over it."

"What about your Father?" He cast her a curious eye.

"He'll like you, and he'll be fine, just so long as you don't plan to leave me anytime soon."

"I'll never leave either of you," he spoke to her, but set his hand on the growing bump that would, in about five more months, be their child. "Any kicking?"

"No. Still got a couple of months on that one, Art." Valerie smiled, laying her hand next to his. His reaction to her pregnancy was sort of like a kid waiting on a long-ways-away Christmas. He'd asked whether there was kicking at least once a week for the last two months. "So glad I realized before we bought the dress though, could you imagine trying to fit into it now? I'm huge!"

"You're beautiful."

"…Are you going to think that when I look like a whale?"

"You won't look like a whale. You'll be gorgeous," Arthur insisted, leaning over to kiss her ear.

"I'm going to hold you to that. You better be able to still say that with total sincerity in five months when I'm in labor and breaking your hand."

"I'll make sure it's my left."

"You're so terrible!"

Before Arthur could offer her another witty remark however, Sophie tore out of the front door of the old farm-house, ran through the yard, and very nearly ripped open the door of the rental car.

"Hello baby!" She practically squealed, and Valerie, for a moment, thought that maybe Sophie was simply being overly affectionate towards her sister. That was before she grabbed both sides of her tummy, and leaned in close, clearly talking to her stomach instead. "I'm going to be your Auntie Sophie! Oh my god! Val, this is so freaking exciting!" She stared up at her, and then Sophie's eyes darted over Valerie's shoulder.

"Hi," Art said awkwardly, Sophie staring silently at him, scrutinizing him.

"Sophie, this is Arthur. My fiancé. Stop being rude," Valerie interjected into the quiet.

Her sister looked between the two of them, and then broke into a wide, clownish, grin. "You two are going to have the fucking cutest babies."

"Sophie! They can hear you at this age you know!"

"Oops. Sorry baby…" Sophie cooed at Valerie's tummy, then took a hand off her primary interest, and stretched it over to Arthur. "Hi. I'm Sophie, the crazy one."

"Nice to meet you…" Art began, still sounding terribly awkward, but Sophie only shook his hand for about a second, and then she danced off, back toward the house.

"Dad! Come meet your first grandbaby! And also your son-in-law!"

Valerie laughed, Art looked traumatized. "Ready to meet the rest of them?"

"Ready as I'll ever be I suppose."

"Hey, you better get used to them. They're your family now too. You want me, you get the whole package. Including the battle-ax mother-in-law."

"I'm willing to pay that price. Just so long as your mother isn't breathing down my neck the rest of my life."

"Probably only on holidays, dollface." Valerie leaned in and kissed him quickly, just as her Mother and Father began to march towards them, her father with an easy grin, her Mother looking somewhere between rage and tears. Art got out first, circling the car to help Valerie, even though she was still fairly mobile at this stage, she appreciated the gesture.

"Mom, Dad, this is Arthur. Arthur, this is going to be our family."

And wasn't love just the grandest thing? She glanced over at Art, shaking hands with her Father, and in his other hand, she could see his fingers loosely holding his die, absently shuffling it around.

-Fin.

Author's note: Well. There it is. There it all is. It's finally complete, so, now it's strictly for you all. This is the first thing I've finished in a long while, so I feel very accomplished at the moment. As to the ending, there are a few things I suppose, that should still be said. First, I decided not to make up a last name for Arthur, just for the sake of not giving him something stupid. Which I probably would have done. Second, I realize it's not super conclusive. That's because I feel that's the way an Inception fic should be. That's what it's all about, isn't it? So yeah. Thanks again to everyone who has supported this, and I apologize if I'm breaking anyone's heart ending it, but all good things must come to an end, or so the cliche goes. Thanks for reading. :)