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fae_boleynTitle: Back To The Beginning
Fandom: Inception, mild/moderate Whoniverse
Pairings: Arthur/Eames, pre-Ariadne/Arthur/Eames
Rating: R, for language and implied sexuality
Story Summary: "You think you know a story, but you only know how it ends. To get to the heart of the story, you need to go back to the beginning." (The Tudors, Opening Narration). We all have stories. Who we were, what we've been through, defines who we are.
Chapter Summary: Ariadne had a mostly-normal childhood, and there's not much in her past she'd change. But she's never quite felt as though she belongs, and all she really wants is to realize her dreams. She just didn't know how literal an idea that would become.
So I woke up one mornin'
And I put my fears aside
Now look how far I've come
From the back of of an endless line
No, I don't give up easy
I've got many miles to go
But I can't wait to get to
What I see down this road
And all my life I've learned to
Just take it day by day
I'm not there yet
But I know I'm on my way – I'm On My Way, Kellie Pickler
When Ariadne is small, her favorite adult is her grandfather. William Regan isn't entirely sure how he, a practical-minded carpenter, and his equally practical wife turned out two sons and a daughter who are so very much ivory tower academics – not to mention that both of his sons married within that same circle, and are raising their children the same way. But Ariadne, who prefers blocks to dolls even at two or three years old, finds a kindred spirit in her steady grandfather.
And once she gets a little older, she decides that it's not so surprising that all of her grandfather's children grew up to lose themselves in things that aren't really part of the world. Her grandfather is a bit of a dreamer himself, with the paintings he hides in the attic. Strange places that she doesn't know how he imagined, and he never tells her when she asks. He just smiles, and says they came to him a long time ago, when he was young and had dreams of adventure.
Ariadne's grandfather teaches her to play chess when she's seven years old, after her ten-year-old cousin Jacquetta refuses to teach her at Easter because she's “too little to learn it”. Jackie is mean but Ariadne doesn't let herself cry, even though she wants to. She's not little, not like Perseus, her little brother. Percy's just a baby, he can't even walk or talk yet. Her grandfather teaches her to play with a set that is all plastic except for one piece. One of the black bishops is missing, and the replacement is a brass bishop. It looks like it should be heavy, but it's very light.
“Grandpa, why didn't you just buy another black one?” she asks.
“Well, Ariadne, I took this with me when I left a very good friend of mine. It was something to remember him by, besides this old key.” He holds up the chain he always wears around his neck, from which a key dangles. “It's special.”
Ariadne never plays with the black pieces, because her grandfather's special bishop is part of them and she thinks he should always be the one to play with them. He tends to carry it around when they're not playing as well, rolling it across his hand as he tells stories of things that she's sure aren't real but sometimes seem it. He tells her about a very smart man who was much older than he looked, and a hero though he called himself a coward. She wonders if he's made up, or if he's the friend her grandfather talked about. But she never gets the courage to ask.
When Ariadne is ten, her grandfather dies, and she clutches the brass bishop all through the Mass, the burial, and the wake. He was buried with his key necklace around his neck, but she keeps the bishop. And she's sure that for a moment, at the edge of the group of mourners at the cemetery, there is a man who matches her grandfather's descriptions in the stories. She grips the bishop a little tighter when he smiles at her and walks away. So he is real after all. She's not sure if that really means anything now, but it's something to know, just in case.
~ ~ ~
Ariadne has always been a shy child. It's a side effect of her strange name, of how growing up with parents who are both professors at Brown University (her mother teaches archeology and her father ancient Greek literature) means she knows all kinds of strange facts. She can tell you all about the myth she's named for, about Crete and King Minos, but she can also tell you about the Anasazi tribe that used to live in the Southwest. Thanks to her uncle Matthew, Jackie's dad, she can even name every Tudor ruler and most of the Plantagenet ones, and Aunt Kate teaches her basic sentences in Arabic and Japanese. Like any young child who likes to learn, she thinks that so do all the other kids. She finds out differently. They look at her like she's strange because she can already read chapter books in kindergarten, and because she knows such odd things.
So she hides away, behind her books and her sketchbooks. Ariadne likes to draw, but she doesn't really like drawing people. She's like her grandfather, she likes to draw places. And she really, really likes buildings. They're just so fascinating, because there's so much variety. And they're solid, permanent. They aren't alive, so it doesn't matter to them that “that weird Regan girl” is drawing them, unlike her classmates who laugh at her for it. They don't change, except with time. You can trust things that don't change.
Her art teacher talks about Frank Lloyd Wright, how even though he was an architect, he was also an artist. “He was an artist who made his art real,” Mr. Howard tells her seventh grade class. There's something she likes in that idea, and she wonders if she could be an architect too, make buildings – art – that has a real use in the world and doesn't just look pretty.
But she puts the thought aside. She knows better. Her entire family is made up of people who don't do anything, who just read about things. Well, that's not entirely true; her mother goes on digs and her aunt has taught English in two third-world countries. But something as practical, as everyday as architecture – because it is everyday, buildings are everywhere – is not the sort of thing people in her family do.
Still she thinks about it even though she knows she'll probably end up as a professor of art history or something like that. That wouldn't be too bad, though – she likes da Vinci and Michelangelo, though really her favorite is Monet who is from a different time entirely. Yes, her parents started buying her book after book of famous artwork from the second they realized her interest. They give her sketchbooks and there are two easels and several paint sets in her bedroom at home.
She loves her family. They love her. It's just... Even at thirteen, Ariadne knows she doesn't really fit in with them that well. She doesn't want to lose herself to studies the way they do, she wants to do something that's more... real. But she's the girl who hides in the corners of classrooms and goes to the library at recess to avoid the playground. So how can she do that?
One day the librarian won't let her in, and tells her gently that she should at least try to talk to the other kids. Ms. Prybutok is one of Ariadne's favorite faculty members, so she listens to her and goes outside. She just walks around the schoolyard for a little while, until she hears familiar taunting. But it's not directed at her. Instead, the target – of a group of boys from her class – is her brother Percy.
Percy is only six. Usually, she knows the first-graders don't have recess with them, but an assembly messed up everyone's schedule. And a group of thirteen-year-olds are picking on him. It doesn't matter, suddenly, that these are the boys who have tormented Ariadne from her first day of kindergarten. It doesn't matter that she's always been scared that they'll do more than yank her ponytail or knock her sketchbook off her desk. They're making fun of her little brother and he's crying, and that is just not acceptable.
One hand is in her jeans pocket as she storms over, fingers curled around a brass bishop. “Leave him alone!” she yells, grabbing the ringleader – Danny Lenkin, who's always been a horrible creep to her – by the arm and yanking him around.
“Oh, it's the other Regan freak,” he says mockingly. “What, don't like to see your brother cry like the weird baby he is?”
“I said leave him alone!”
“Make me!”
She punches him in the nose hard enough that he bleeds. A lot. And even though Ariadne ends up suspended for a week, she can't bring herself to mind. Because the other boys scattered after she punched Danny, and Percy ran over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, and for the first time she felt like she'd done something real. And she never hides again. Partly it's because that particular group of boys is scared of her now, and everyone else is shocked, and partly it's because she no longer feels like she has to.
~ ~ ~
She gets to be her sister's godmother. She's had her confirmation, she's an adult in the eyes of the Catholic Church, and so she's godmother. It's a good thing that the Church isn't as strict about children being named for saints anymore – though Cassiopeia's middle name is Mary to be safe – because her family loves weird names and they're also Catholic. Cassiopeia will be called Cassie by everyone but the adults, though, because the kids have learned how to cope with their crazy names. The best way is nicknames, though Ariadne's never bothered, personally.
Ariadne is fourteen when her sister is born, in eighth grade and looking forward to high school. She's not enrolled in the same one as most of her current classmates, which is probably the best part. She does worry about Percy, because she's the big sister and ever since that day in the schoolyard she knows what that means, so she worries. But at seven, he wants to be a big boy and he tells her he'll be all right. She's not sure, but maybe he will be.
Now there's Cassie too, and she's not sure how her parents managed the same seven year gap between their children. Hopefully it wasn't intentional. But Ariadne really would not like to think about any planning that went into her parents' child-making, because that would then require thinking about how they go about said making. And thinking about your parents having sex is just creepy. Especially when holding your baby sister at her christening Mass.
Her parents don't send her to Catholic school – they're religious but not that much, and besides, they think Classical High School is the best place for her. It's a prep school, and there is a quiet expectation in her parents' eyes. They expect her to be like them. It's nothing said outright, it's certainly not meant to upset her. But somehow, the thought has her breath catching in her throat. The idea of spending the rest of her life poring over old paintings or talking about them in front of a class (because the only subject she can see herself pursuing in academia is art history) leaves her feeling like someone's hand is closing around her throat and cutting off her air. But what else is there?
~ ~ ~
All the students hate the school building. It's built of concrete, with only a handful of windows. There's a story that says whoever designed it must have specialized in prison construction. There's almost no natural light and it's stuffy. And really, Ariadne could do better. In fact, she does do better, before the end of her first two weeks – she needed the first week to read up on the practicalities of architecture because for all the buildings she's drawn she never knew those – she has two different designs that would be so much better.
“I think I love you a little for these,” says Julian, the boy who sits next to her in English class. She looks at him with a raised eyebrow and a dry comment on her lips – after punching Tommy in the nose, Ariadne learned that verbal jibes are often just as effective, if not more so – but the look in Julian's hazel eyes stops her. He's teasing, but not in a mean way. He certainly doesn't love her, but he just might like her a little.
Julian's her first boyfriend. It starts out with just them talking about whatever book they're reading in English and working together on projects – they read some Greek mythology at the very start of the year and it's like an old friend for Ariadne, the familiar stories. All Julian knows about Greek mythology is from that Disney movie and Xena: Warrior Princess. While Ariadne will be the first to admit that the blue Hades from the cartoon is hilarious (also, 'I Won't Say I'm In Love' is a fantastic song) and Xena was pretty cool, that feels like a travesty.
Their English teacher also happens to run the drama club, so in February, when they finally get around to reading Romeo and Juliet, he actually assigns them roles. He's already made them act out parts of the Odyssey and the Iliad – Ariadne got to be Helen, which was certainly interesting – so she's not too surprised when she ends up being Juliet for one of the scenes. Having Julian as her Romeo is, however, slightly awkward.
Ariadne doesn't actually like Romeo and Juliet, as it happens. There's too much melodrama, and she's heard somewhere that Shakespeare originally planned for it to be a comedy, which might explain why she doesn't like it. After all, she read Macbeth over the summer and her mother pretty much forced The Taming of the Shrew on her right after, and she liked both of them.
But as much as she might not like the play, she likes the way Julian runs to catch up with her at her locker after the bell – English being their last class of the day. “Hey, Ariadne, I was wondering... you want to go get a milkshake at McDonald's, or something?”
She thinks about it for a moment, backpack dangling from one shoulder, and she finds her hand slipping into her pocket where she still carries a brass bishop that is curiously light. It's smooth against her fingertips, warm from her body heat, and it's soothing. She gives Julian a bright smile. “I'd love to.”
The freshman dance is two weeks afterwards, and later Ariadne's not sure if it's something to be ashamed of that her first kiss is in the middle of the gym, with the latest pop ballad blasting in the room and people dancing (if you can call it that) all around them. She decides that she shouldn't be, because Julian tastes like Cherry Coke and even though it's a little awkward it's nice too.
He lets her borrow his leather jacket in April when it's chillier than it should be and they're at a carnival that came to town way too early. It's too big for her but she likes how it's still warm from him and how sweet the gesture is. In July they go to the pool and she wears a cute tankini that she's a little nervous about, but it doesn't matter because they end up splashing each other and yanking each other underwater and generally acting like little kids.
And then in October of their sophomore year, she catches him behind the school, making out with Victoria from her geometry class. Ariadne ends up borrowing the matches from the top shelf of the left kitchen cupboard and torching all of the photographs she'd taken of Julian, all the photos of both of them. She's just glad she doesn't have any drawings – she's stopped drawing people altogether because the photos are always better, and now she just sketches buildings.
By junior year, she can actually stand to speak to him again. However, she is very, very glad when she actually gets a lead role in a school play (she's Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing) and he tries out for the male lead and does not get it. She really doesn't want to have to kiss him again, even if it's a fake stage kiss. That would just be an unfair thing to ask of her.
Link to the next section: fae-boleyn.livejournal.com/11448.html
