Darling,

The baby is born some months later, and her name is Phillipa. She’s quiet and well behaved, doesn’t cry once when Arthur goes to visit Mal at the hospital, and she’s the spitting image of her mother. Both Dom and Mal look so unbelievably happy. Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever seen them like this before, but then again, this is a change, a big one; nothing will ever be the same from here on out because they have a little girl to look after, a family to call theirs. Arthur tries to ignore the feeling of loneliness that swims in his gut even as he holds the little baby girl in his arms in that hospital room full of smiles and balloons and excitement.

When Arthur goes to visit them at home a few days later, he watches as Mal coos at Phillipa and Dom holds Mal close, fingers toying absently with her auburn curls. Arthur suddenly feels like such an outsider, like he doesn’t belong, even though these are the people he calls his best friends, these are the people he considers almost like family. He excuses himself as quickly as politeness will allow and goes to the lab to work, so he won’t have to think about anything but dreams.

Mal doesn’t return to work for a couple more weeks, and when she finally does

(her mother, Adélie, who came to visit and see Phillipa, has decided to stay for a while to help take care of the little girl so Mal can work. Her father, Miles, came too to visit, but returned to Paris soon after arriving. He and Adélie are no longer married)

she seems distracted, thinking too much about how Phillipa is doing, if Phillipa is crying for her, if Phillipa needs anything. And it’s all fine and dandy; Mal is allowed to act like that, because after all, she’s now a new mother and it’s expected, but it’s getting in the way of productivity a little bit, and that’s a little annoying, especially when what Arthur wants is to just submerge himself in work.

She does focus, however, when they show her and Dom what they’ve discovered in their absence, and Mal insists on going under to see how it works. She and Arthur get sent down two dreams deep and they’re walking down the street to a little park that vaguely resembles the one Mal went to all the time when she was a child.

“It’s nice,” she says to Arthur, “Being back. I’ve missed this.”

The corner of Arthur’s mouth curves up into a soft smile that he only ever uses on her. “Couldn’t stay away?” he says, a slight teasing lilt to his voice.

Mal laughs, her voice ringing out delicately through the air. She shakes her head, still smiling, her hair bouncing around her face.

“No,” she muses. “There’s really nothing quite like it.”

(Years later, in the midst of prep work for the Fischer job, Arthur will realize only too late after speaking that he is almost directly quoting Mal to a wide-eyed and curious Ariadne. Let go, he’ll tell himself as his heart races in his chest, just let it go)

They walk in silence for a while, crisp leaves in bright autumn colors crunching beneath their feet. The park they arrive at is full of people, young couples holding hands, parents watching their children chase each other, elderly couples sitting on park benches and feeding pigeons. It’s clear from just one glance that Mal is feeling particularly sentimental today (it’s her subconscious, after all).

Mal looks over at Arthur, her eyes worried. Her eyes are perhaps the most expressive thing about her, and it’s times like this Arthur wishes they weren’t, because it feels like her emotions are dripping out onto him, weighing him down in a way he can’t quite describe.

“What?” Arthur asks.

Mal sighs softly and sticks her hands in the pocket of the trench coat she’s sporting. She gazes out over the park around them.

“I worry about you sometimes, Arthur,” she says. Her voice is soft, but that doesn’t make her tone any less serious (in fact, it’s when her voice is quiet and barely even audible that she’s the most serious).

Arthur forces a laugh, and it sounds sharp, even to his ears. “I’m fine,” he insists. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”

Mal studies his face for a moment and purses her lips, quietly contemplative. “You work too hard,” she says finally.

She reaches up and brushes her fingertips along the curve of his cheekbone. The faintest strains of heartfelt opera music filter through the air around them. Mal sighs again.

“I love you, Arthur, you know that,” she says, eyes almost pleading.

It hurts to hear her say that, but not quite, just almost, almost. Arthur smiles at her that sweet, sad smile reserved just for her.

“Of course,” he whispers.

Mal leans in and presses a tender kiss to his forehead. She’s very tall and doesn’t even need to stand up on her toes to do so.

“Of course,” she repeats, her head resting against his, “Of course.”

There’s a sharp, sudden pull and they both wake up in the lab.

Arthur met Dom first and then Mal. He met the two of them separately. When he met each of them, neither knew the other. Arthur introduced them somewhere down the line and is somewhat responsible for what the two of them have found in each other. Sometimes, it’s kind of painful, knowing this, but other times, it’s just kind of lovely.

Arthur met Dom when he interned at the university over the summer a few years back. He was still in high school then and Dom had just begun working with Project Somnacin. They ran into each other often enough, as the lab Arthur was interning at wasn’t too far from the dream research lab, and they started talking, just simple stuff at first, just hellos and how are you doing today? And then before Arthur really even realized it, they were kind of friends, or at the very least close acquaintances.

Arthur met Mal that same summer, but perhaps a month and a half after he met Dom. He met her in the second hand bookshop a few blocks down from the university that he loved (and still loves) going to very much. Mal was there one day and happened to ask Arthur in passing if he knew where she might find a copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, as she seemed to have misplaced hers and it was one of her favorite books.

Arthur had raised his eyebrows at her, her voice mostly, that light, airy French accent. It probably wasn’t all that polite of him, but he was still young then and he hadn’t quite perfected the art of keeping his emotions in check yet.

“You’re French?” he’d asked her.

She’d said yes and smiled at him. “Parlez-vous français?” she’d asked with delight in her eyes.

He’d responded with a yes, (he was quite nearly fluent in the language, as he’d taken French as a foreign language in school since elementary school) and her excitement grew. He pointed her over in the direction of the area of the shop that held all of the foreign literature, and she’d smiled a warm thank you at him.

She came back victorious a few minutes later with the book in hand. She’d asked him if he had any plans for the afternoon. She wanted someone to talk to, her English was rather rusty and it was exhausting trying to translate all her thoughts into English all the time; she hadn’t yet met anyone who spoke anything close to fluent French – would it be too much trouble for him to spare her a few hours? Of course, he’d easily replied with a yes, and they’d spent their afternoon weaving between an odd mix of French and English, and by the end of it all, Arthur had felt a little bit smitten.

When Mal and Dom met, Arthur could see it right away; Mal and Dom had something in each other, something Arthur knew he could never compete with. That’s when he threw up his hands in defeat (figuratively, of course) and gave up. He loved her, he resolved, but he wasn’t in love with her, and that would just have to be good enough.

(Mal knows that Arthur loves her, and she loves him too, but not like that, and Dom might know it too, subconsciously, somewhere at the back of his head, but they just let it be and it’s not awkward; Mal and Arthur don’t let it get awkward. No one mentions it these days, anyways; it’s a thing of the past, not something they should be worrying their heads about now)

Over the years, they’ve grown close, like a family, and Arthur wouldn’t trade it for the world. His own family has never been much to him, so whatever this is, it’s infinitely precious to him.

And there’s more to it, of course, much more to the story of exactly how they all became friends, but that’s all details and it’d be impossible and tedious and boring to recount every last aspect of their history together.