To Sleep, Perchance To Dream - Ch 6 - ....What Dreams May Come
Disclaimer: See Prologue
Rating PG13
Pairing: Dom Cobb and Ariadne Bishop
Note: SPOILER ALERT - though anyone who’s gotten this far in my story has probably seen the movie and knows what I am warning against.
Comment: Everyone is free to believe what they wish about Inception. I’ve incorporated some of my ideas and beliefs into this chapter hopefully you will enjoy them. This doesn't negate the disclaimer.
Wine Note: The wine Dom is talking about is a Sancerre. It’s only grown and bottled in the Loire Valley of France.
Previous Chapters: Prologue - To Be Or Not To Be - Ch 1 - Slings and Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune ; Ch 2 - Whether 'tis Nobler In The Mind To Suffer ; Ch 3 - To Take Arms Against A Sea Of Trouble ; Ch 4 - To Die, To Sleep No More ; Ch 5 - For In That Sleep....
Art Credit: All the amazing art found in this story is done by wickedandcruel. The originals and many more lovely pieces can be found at her Tumblr Your Own Destiny
Enjoy
To Sleep, Perchance To Dream
By Lattelady
Ch 6 - .....What Dreams May Come
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miles Elkins whispered, “Sleep well,” as Ariadne Bishop and Dominic Cobb took their first deep breaths in a shared dream, in over seven months. They were slouched together on the large leather couch in his study and he wished them a pleasant journey with as few bumps alone the way as possible.
..................................................................
Ariadne looked around to get her bearings. Stars were tiny pinpricks in the slowly darkening sky. She and Cobb were seated on the old wooden porch swing of a cottage. The small building was situated on a slight rise above gently sloping hills that were covered by row after row of grapevines marching in neat columns until they were lost from site as dusk gave way to night. In the distance men were coming in from the fields. The quiet was broken by their laughter and one of them singing an old French sea shanty.
“Where are we, Dom? It’s...lovely,” she sighed in contentment.
“A vineyard in the Loire Valley.”
“Is this a memory?” She refused to give into worry that a certain very dangerous, feminine projection would appear out of nowhere. It was too peaceful here and the last time they’d met, Ari had finally figured out that the only power Mal Cobb had over her was what she’d allowed the woman.
“No, it’s a dream. I’ve seen enough vineyards in Italy, France, California, and even Australia to be able to borrow bits and pieces to make this one.” He was pleased with his effort. The mix of all the different countries had blended well. “You can’t see it at night, but at the top of that hill.” He pointed far to the north. “There is a sign with the label from one of my favorite wines. This valley, the real one, is the only place in the world that particular variety is produced. I placed it there as a marker. I’ve never been here, don’t know if that is what it really looks like but I wanted it for a reference point.”
“Tell me about the cottage?” She nodded at his safety precaution and caressed the rounded, colored stones that made up the exterior walls. Their texture was smooth and well worn, as if they’d been there for a long time. There were three tall windows on either side of a heavy wooden door that had been painted dark blue. Instead of a knocker there was a small ship’s bell hanging on the doorframe. Along the sides of the building, Ari could make out more windows, but not much else.
“Ahhh well, it was a moment of inspiration. In a dream I used to be able to build anything.” He smiled remembering her joy at learning the art. “A lot has happened in the last two days. I didn’t prepare for this as well as I would have liked. I’m glad I haven’t lost my touch.”
“Pure creation.” Ariadne explained, as she had to Arthur so many months ago.
“Yes, I think I’ve heard that phrase used before,” his voice flowed softly on the breeze, ticking her skin, like the gentle wind did her hair. “But I believe our orders from Miles were to sleep, not examine the architecture.” He stood and held out his left hand to her.
“Wait.” She froze. Her gaze traveled quickly from his left hand, up his arm, to his face, and back down again. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see it was full night and she was trapped, surrounded by nothing but darkness. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see anything further than three feet down the path at bottom of the porch steps.
“Ariadne, what’s wrong?” Dom asked in concern.
“Stay where you are.” She got up and slid around him not wanting to be caught between his bulk and the swing. Where moments earlier her skin had been tingling with pleasure now it was all she could do to hide quivers of fear that danced along her nerve endings. “We can’t be dreaming, because you’re not wearing your wedding ring.” She pointed to the third finger on his hand. “It’s always there in a dream.”
Dom looked down in surprise. “I didn’t know. I never realized... But we are dreaming.” He pulled out his totem, a small hourglass in a heavy metal frame. He flipped it and watched as the sands ran slowly to the lower level. “See, the grains move too slowly for us to be awake.”
“No. That is not your totem!” She cried out in panic, digging in her pocket for her hers. “Yours is a weighted top and you spin it. Who are you really?” She glared at him trying to see beneath the façade of Dom Cobb to the real person who lay beneath.
“Ari, it’s me.” He moved closer to her needing to convince her. “Remember my dream you joined. Remember the elevator and all the levels I told you were memories I wanted to forget. No one else knows that information but you and me. No one else knows what I did to my wife, no one,” his voice cracked.
“I...wait.” She crossed the porch in two quick strides to place her bishop on the wide flat surface of the railing. She knocked her chess piece over and was more confused than ever. The speed of it’s decent and the sound it made hitting wood were what they should be, if they were dreaming...but Cobb’s ring was missing, so was the top she associated with him but this person knew things that only he could know. “Where are we really? Still asleep on that never-ending flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, lost on some level deeper than limbo or is this all a dream of my own making and you’re a...projection? You and Miles, and Sabine, and the children, none of you are real. Or...or...am I having a psychotic episode?” she whispered.
“Stop, it Ariadne. You’re not losing it. You’re simply exhausted. Think and you’ll remember where we are. You’ll remember that in reality we’re asleep in Miles’s study. Everything that happened today, all the people you met, are real. The inception is over and it’s seven months later. The only things that are a dream are this valley and the cottage behind us.”
“Than explain the lack of your ring and that crazy hourglass instead of your real totem.” She swung around, backing away from him. “You can’t explain it, can you, because this is an out of control dream and you don’t know the beginning anymore than I do.”
“Of course it’s a dream, one that feels almost real, but isn’t. That’s how you know you’re dreaming. I’m in this dream with you to help you get--”
“No! Don’t you dare play Mr. Charles with me. I’m not one of your marks, it won’t work.” She didn’t know if she was more insulted that he would try that gambit on her or afraid of why he was doing it. It really didn’t matter, every instinct was shouting at her to get away. She moved slightly to the left, her foot searching behind her for the steps to the path.
“That’s not what I’m doing.” He held his miniature hourglass between his thumb and first finger, inches away from her face. “This is mine and went with me everywhere, except for the two years after Mal’s suicide. After she was gone, I thought her totem would keep her close to me. And, oh God, was I right. She haunted me every time I closed my eyes.” His words were rough and ragged, coming from places he didn’t know existed. “Even when I realized that the smart thing to do would be to throw it in the sea, I couldn’t. It was my penance and my trap, holding me in the past when all I really wanted was to move forward. I was stuck, carrying it, despite the doubts, and warnings, despite knowing how dangerous it was to have a totem that had meant so much to someone who had once been so dear to me.” Thoughts and feelings gushed out of him. Things he knew instinctively were true, but had kept buried in his subconscious, filled the air between them.
Ariadne wanted to believe him. “Wait, wait...let me think this through.” She rubbed her temples with both hands. What he said made sense, but that was the problem, it made too much sense in a twisted dream-like way. Fear gripped her throat and she gave in to panic.
She slid further to her left in a last attempt to get away, too unsure of what was happening to stay and listen to any more. Then she was falling off the porch but instead of landing on the soft dirt path, she kept on falling like Alice down the rabbit hole. But unlike Alice, she couldn’t breathe.
..................................................................
In Miles’s study it was one minute into the dreaming session and Ari began to twitch. Seconds later she screamed, “Dom! Wake me up. Wake me up. Wake me up, Dom!”
“Easy,” Elkins tried to reassure her as he clamped off her IV. He held her while she gasped for air, her hands pulling at her neck “You’re awake. Open your eyes you’re safe.”
“Is he all right? Is Cobb okay?” Hardly looking at the sleeping man who she was still leaning against, she concentrated on trying to catch her breath.
“Yes, he’s fine.” Miles closed off his IV and let the younger man wakened.
Dom came up fast. Remnants of the shared dream clinging to his mind and senses. “Ariadne, where are you...Ariadne...?” his voice was hoarse as if he’d been calling her name for a long time.
“Help me!” Her fingers fumbled with the scarf around her neck but trembled too badly to untie it.
“Just rip off the damn thing if you have to,” Dom instructed as his hands pushed hers aside and went to work freeing her.
“No, don’t. It was my mother’s.” She took short gasping breaths as she felt his knuckles brushing against her throat.
“There.” He cupped her cheeks reassuringly. “It’s off. You’re free. Can you breathe?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, clutching her scarf in both hands. “That was...terrible!”
“That’s an understatement.” He hugged her to him with one arm while his free hand reached for his totem and turned it upside down. She was soft and warm against his side but Cobb didn’t relax until he saw the sand grains running quickly through the hourglass.
“I’m okay, really, I’m okay.” Ari pulled out of his embrace, but stayed near enough so that their shoulders brushed as she sat back on the sofa.
“You’ve got one hell of a built in kick going on in there.” He tipped her chin upward needing to see her eyes. He was beginning to be able to read her. Even when she buried her emotions behind a mask, the deep brown pools that stared back at him, told him what she was really feeling. This time they were so dark they were almost black, filled with confusion, loss, and doubts.
“I hadn’t expected things to go smoothly the first time in.” The professor watched the two younger people carefully, examining each gesture and tone of voice. He knew that they had to start on the first level and work downward, but if Ari couldn’t even get that far, he wasn’t sure what to do. “But I hadn’t anticipated anything like that. Tell me more about this built in kick, Ariadne?”
“I fall, or it feels like I’m falling,” she explained. “It’s been happening for the last seven month. When I sleep, usually I don’t remember dreaming but I always have that dizzying sensation of falling and it wakes me up.”
“And that’s what happened?” Miles watched them intently. Now was not the time for them to leave out any details, no matter who they implicated or what sad memories they might bring up.
“It was worse than that.” Cobb answered and she shook her head in agreement. “She fell down two steps. The ground opened up and swallowed her. I could hear her screaming for me to wake her up, but I couldn’t get to her. I was left frozen in a dream, calling her name, as she fell further and further out of my reach.”
“Hmmm, no wonder you’re not getting any rest.” Elkins rubbed his chin and began to pace as his mind churned through every scrap of information he knew about shared dreaming. There had to be a way to solve this, and he was going to find it.
Ariadne turned, almost bumping her head on Cobb’s chin. “Back in the café,” she whispered, not wanting the Professor to overhear. “When you convinced me that I needed your help, you told me you thought I could tough this out on my own. Was that the truth?”
“At the time, yeah.” He brushed away tiny strands of her hair that had gotten caught in his goatee. “It wouldn’t have been easy and I doubt it would have been pretty, but yes I thought you could eventually do it.”
“But you don’t think that anymore?” She felt her world sinking around her. For nine years she’d been on her own, at boarding school and then college. There had been a trustee to be sure her finances were protected and that whatever vacation spot she spent holidays was well staffed and chaperoned. It was hard to discover, that after all that time, she needed someone, especially this strange, haunted, blue-eyed man.
“No, I’m sorry, but I don’t.” He cupped her cheek to give support, knowing it wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.
“When we were falling asleep, I thought I heard Miles say something...like...after we’d gone deep enough and figured it all out...” She shook her head trying to jiggle loose more of the memory. Those moments, just before the drug hit her system, were hazy. “He wasn’t just talking about a one time dreaming session was he?”
“I wasn’t listening. I was doing my job as the architect, building in my head so we’d have a place to go.” His hand slid from her cheek, down her neck to her shoulder, giving him time to think how to tell her what she needed to know. “But if you’re asking me if I believe it’ll take a number of sessions, going deeper each time, than yes, after what happened in there, I believe it will.”
“What if the problem is on the first level and all we need to do is push past it and everything will be back the way it should be.” She wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.
“You don’t believe that, Ari.” Dom threw his left arm across the back of the coach, inches from her shoulders. “If it were that easy. It would have been like I thought in the café. You would have used your incredible strength of will and worked it out yourself months ago.”
“This is going to be much harder than I thought,” she sighed.
“You’re not dealing with this alone anymore. That’s why I was in there with you. I know what triggered your panic. First lets deal with the concrete.” He pulled the hourglass out of his pocket and held it in his right palm. “Do you remember what I said to you about this in the dream?”
“Yes.” She leaned forward to get a closer look at the item he had cradled in his hand and her bangs tickled his cheek. “I was always used to seeing you spin a top to get your bearings. It didn’t match what I knew about you.”
“Now you know more.” Blue eyes met brown as she looked up. He could see that she understood he wasn’t simply talking about the hourglass, but admitting awake, how wrong he’d been in his twisted reasoning for carrying Mal’s totem and the implications it’d had for him as a well as the team.
“I...” she fumbled, unsure what to say. “Thank you.”
“You deserve to know.” Cobb couldn’t think of anyone else he would have spoken with that freely. It didn’t matter that it had happened in a shared dream. What was important was that it was Ariadne who had heard him and understood. “About the other.” He nodded slightly toward his ringless left hand and shrugged in doubt. Dom had an idea about that, but he wasn’t going to discuss it with Miles present.
“Maybe it was an aberration.” She sat straighter, determined to confront whatever was waiting for her in the dark, on whatever level it was found. She was sure it couldn’t be worse than the knife-wielding ghost Dom had overcome.
Miles stood at a distance and watched the quickly whispered, yet intense conversation, taking place. Whatever had happened in those few minutes of shared dream had opened up two silent people. He was more determined than ever to follow this to its logical conclusion. His grandchildren needed their father happy and whole and Ariadne needed to be put back on whatever path he’d caused her to stray from when he’d introduced her to his son-in-law.
“Dom, Ari,” The professor cleared his throat reminding them of his presence. “I’ve got an idea that might help.” He smiled gently and stood facing them. “We have to fix it so you can’t fall. Ari, scoot behind Dom. Pull your legs up on the couch and straighten them out so you’re comfortable. Dominic, you too, I want her between you and the back of the couch.” He pointed to Cobb, “Lean against the armrest and Ariadne you lean against him.”
“Pardon me?” Had she heard correctly? Did the man really want her to snuggle with his son-in-law? “I don’t think we’ll fit.”
“Yeah we will. You don’t take up much room.” Dom grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against him so she was wedged securely between his body and the smooth leather back support.
“You’re squishing me.”
“Sorry,” he wound his arms around her and lifted until she was partially on top of him. Her right leg over his left.”
“Now we’re going to try it again and Dom don’t let go of her, even in the dream,” Miles advised.
“But...” She squirmed when Cobb tightened his hold on her pressing her securely against his chest.
“You’re not going to fall. I won’t let you.” Blue eyes looked down into her sleepy brown ones. “We’ll be fine, you’re fearless....”
The dream compound rushed through their veins and Ariadne’s head slipped to Dom’s shoulder and he rested his cheek against her hair.
..................................................................
Ari blinked. She was lying on her side on a bed, facing a white wall that reached to wooden beams along a dormered ceiling. She realized the pillow under her head had that firm-soft feeling of down. There was a dim pool of light coming from somewhere over her left shoulder. It had a warm mellow glow that made her think of candles or a lantern but for some reason she couldn’t turn over to see its source. Otherwise the room was dark.
“I’ve got you. You won’t fall.” Cobb’s breath warmed her ear.
“Where are we?” She stiffened realizing his body was pressed against he back. He was the reason she couldn’t turn over. To appear as casual as possible, she plucked at the rolled sleeve of his navy blue shirt.
“Loire Valley, where we were before, only this time we started inside the cottage.”
“I remembered windows all along the sides and front.” She looked at an expanse of blank wall. The only opening was a large round window incased in aged copper. It was almost to the ceiling, centered into the V where the beams met that formed the brace to support the roof.
“I made a few changes. Given what happened on the porch I wasn’t taking any chances with windows,” he chuckled. “Also there was a second bed and neither of them were against the wall, as you can see, this one is.”
“You’re taking Miles serious, aren’t you.” She lay still, afraid to move, unable to ignore the weight of his arm around her waist or the contour of the one that supported her head, pulling her tightly against him.
“Very,” he grunted.
“We could still fall off you know. I could turn over in my sleep and push you out of bed.”
“I don’t think so,” his laugh rumbled up from deep in his chest. She hardly came up to his shoulder and he doubted she weighed 110 lbs soaking wet.
When he laughed, she felt it vibrate against her back but she refused to give in to the odd way it made her feel.
“Let me see your left hand.” Her fingers moved down his arm until she found what she was looking for. “Still no ring. I don’t understand?”
“There’s one possibility, but it doesn’t make much sense.” He tightened his arms around her afraid she might panic again. “Do you remember what happened before you jumped, following Robert Fischer back up to the hospital level.”
“Yeah, you and Mal were there. I’d...I’d shot her...” She still felt guilty about it no matter how often she’d told herself she’d only shot a projection, not a person.
“You shot her because she stabbed me.” He’d heard the remorse in her voice and stroked her back gently to ease her pain.
“You died, didn’t you?” She turned quickly in his arms, almost catching him off guard. “That was how you were able to get to Saito. You and he ended up on the same level because you both died in the same dream.” Her words ran quickly one over the other. When she’d jumped she hadn’t been aware how badly he’d been hurt, but after months of thinking about it, she’d realized it was the only way Cobb had been able to find the Japanese businessman. “But what happened to Mal, shouldn’t she have been with you when you washed up on the shores of limbo that was at the bottom of all the sedative soaked layers that made up the inception dream?”
“No. What you shot was only a projection, my projection, that I’d been pulling into dreams and was unable or unwilling to let go of.” He held her tightly against him. Their cheeks pressed into the same pillow so close his breath ruffled her hair. Their eyes were locked on one another, each needing to see the truth reflected back from the other in the dim light.
“Then why isn’t she here now? How did you set yourself free?”
“After you jumped,” he started out slowly, feeling tension coiling in her small slim body. “My projection of Mal was dying from her wound but still alive. When I was sure you were safely riding the kick upward, I...I carried out one final inception.”
“What are you talking about?” Ari questioned.
“All the nights I spent alone in the warehouse, in drugged sleep, I was trying to reason with Mal. But it was useless, just as useless as it had been when she was alive.” He buried his nose in Ariadne’s hair to smell citrus and spice to be reminded that though they were in a dream, they were safe and sane. “As she and I lay there dying on the floor of our limbo home I did one last desperate thing. I told her that we had grown old together. That had been her goal all along and I gave it to her.”
“How?” Ari frowned trying to make sense of it. “I don’t understand. The Mal I met was a product of your subconscious.”
“I know it’s confusing, but it’s the only explanation I can give for the lack of my wedding ring now. I’m no longer married and I know it in shared dreams as well as when I’m awake. I sleep nights, but I’m not sure if I have dreams. Sometimes it feels as if I have them but I don’t remember them. Most importantly, Mal isn’t here now nor was she outside when you took the header off the porch.” It was as close as he could come to admitting that he’d planted the idea in himself by was of a very powerful projection from his subconscious.
Ariadne nodded, hearing the words he didn’t speak. “There are things in dream sharing that don’t make sense in the real world and that must be one of them.” They were pressed together but Dom simply held her tighter. “Why didn’t you and Mal grow old? Saito did or at least he believes he did from what he told me.”
“He did.” Dom pushed her hair off her face as they watched each other from inches away. “Once he hit limbo, he forgot he was in a shared dream. From what you say he sensed that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. The years in limbo became his reality instead of the hours that were passing as we traveled from Sydney to Los Angeles.
With Mal and me, I knew we were dreaming. She did too at the beginning, until she couldn’t take it anymore and hid her totem. I think she believed that if she couldn’t test for reality, it became whatever she chose. Soon after she lost the ability to tell the difference. My knowledge kept me young and because I stayed young, somehow, so did she.”
“All those times I caught you hooked up to Yusuf’s machine, when you thought you were alone in the warehouse, you were what? Trying to keep your projection from interfering?” She was embarrassed she’d been so wrong about his afterhours activities.
“Yes, I was getting desperate. The more our plans come together, the more I could taste home.” He watched her carefully and noted the slight flush to her pale cheeks and how she suddenly couldn’t meet his gaze. “What did you think I was doing, participating in the ultimate fantasy?” As he said it, he could see her shocked expression when she’d come off the elevator and discovered him in a whispered conversation with Mal.
“I’m sorry...I...” Ariadne covered her face with her hands and pressed them against his chest.
“Miss Bishop, you have a dirty mind.” He grinned as she blushed and he gently slid a lock of hair behind her ear. “No, I wasn’t some phantom lover.” As said it, he realized he’d meant for her to think that. It had suited his purpose at the time. “That wasn’t why I went into those dream/memories night after night. I had to convince her to stay away from the operation we had coming up, because if I failed, I’d never get home.”
“You could have told me what you were doing.” She was too exhausted to hide anything from him. Sorrow and disappointment warred for dominance in her expression. “Instead of letting me think...well what I thought about you.”
“No I couldn’t. At the time, I told myself it was because it was better for you. If you thought I was a slightly demented reprobate, then you’d stay out of my dreams. Mal had killed you once and tried a second time. I reasoned you’d be safer. But that wasn’t the truth. I was terrified you’d tell the others how out of control I was and it would have been all over. Then Maurice Fischer died and I didn’t dare say anything, so I took you along. I’m sorry for using you and for disappointing you.”
“I’m not disappointed in you.” She yawned and shivered. “You did what you had to do. We all did.
“Are you cold?”
“Yeah.” She snuggled closer to his warm length. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Miles’s study can get chilly in all but the warmest weather, if he doesn’t have a fire going.” He tightened his hold on her. “Come on, sit up a second, but I’m not letting go. There’s a quilt at the foot of the bed.”
He sat her up and held her tightly to his side as he reached for the colorful patchwork material. When he lay down on his back her head was on his shoulder and he had both arms wrapped around her. The quilt covered them and he hoped it would give the illusion of shared body heat long enough for her to get some much-needed rest. Her eyes were already drooping.
“Go to sleep, Ariadne,” he whispered. “Go to sleep.”
Moments later they were both fast asleep.
Ch 7 - The Heartache and Thousand Natural Shocks
Rating PG13
Pairing: Dom Cobb and Ariadne Bishop
Note: SPOILER ALERT - though anyone who’s gotten this far in my story has probably seen the movie and knows what I am warning against.
Comment: Everyone is free to believe what they wish about Inception. I’ve incorporated some of my ideas and beliefs into this chapter hopefully you will enjoy them. This doesn't negate the disclaimer.
Wine Note: The wine Dom is talking about is a Sancerre. It’s only grown and bottled in the Loire Valley of France.
Previous Chapters: Prologue - To Be Or Not To Be - Ch 1 - Slings and Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune ; Ch 2 - Whether 'tis Nobler In The Mind To Suffer ; Ch 3 - To Take Arms Against A Sea Of Trouble ; Ch 4 - To Die, To Sleep No More ; Ch 5 - For In That Sleep....
Art Credit: All the amazing art found in this story is done by wickedandcruel. The originals and many more lovely pieces can be found at her Tumblr Your Own Destiny
Enjoy
To Sleep, Perchance To Dream
By Lattelady
Ch 6 - .....What Dreams May Come
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miles Elkins whispered, “Sleep well,” as Ariadne Bishop and Dominic Cobb took their first deep breaths in a shared dream, in over seven months. They were slouched together on the large leather couch in his study and he wished them a pleasant journey with as few bumps alone the way as possible.
..................................................................
Ariadne looked around to get her bearings. Stars were tiny pinpricks in the slowly darkening sky. She and Cobb were seated on the old wooden porch swing of a cottage. The small building was situated on a slight rise above gently sloping hills that were covered by row after row of grapevines marching in neat columns until they were lost from site as dusk gave way to night. In the distance men were coming in from the fields. The quiet was broken by their laughter and one of them singing an old French sea shanty.
“Where are we, Dom? It’s...lovely,” she sighed in contentment.
“A vineyard in the Loire Valley.”
“Is this a memory?” She refused to give into worry that a certain very dangerous, feminine projection would appear out of nowhere. It was too peaceful here and the last time they’d met, Ari had finally figured out that the only power Mal Cobb had over her was what she’d allowed the woman.
“No, it’s a dream. I’ve seen enough vineyards in Italy, France, California, and even Australia to be able to borrow bits and pieces to make this one.” He was pleased with his effort. The mix of all the different countries had blended well. “You can’t see it at night, but at the top of that hill.” He pointed far to the north. “There is a sign with the label from one of my favorite wines. This valley, the real one, is the only place in the world that particular variety is produced. I placed it there as a marker. I’ve never been here, don’t know if that is what it really looks like but I wanted it for a reference point.”
“Tell me about the cottage?” She nodded at his safety precaution and caressed the rounded, colored stones that made up the exterior walls. Their texture was smooth and well worn, as if they’d been there for a long time. There were three tall windows on either side of a heavy wooden door that had been painted dark blue. Instead of a knocker there was a small ship’s bell hanging on the doorframe. Along the sides of the building, Ari could make out more windows, but not much else.
“Ahhh well, it was a moment of inspiration. In a dream I used to be able to build anything.” He smiled remembering her joy at learning the art. “A lot has happened in the last two days. I didn’t prepare for this as well as I would have liked. I’m glad I haven’t lost my touch.”
“Pure creation.” Ariadne explained, as she had to Arthur so many months ago.
“Yes, I think I’ve heard that phrase used before,” his voice flowed softly on the breeze, ticking her skin, like the gentle wind did her hair. “But I believe our orders from Miles were to sleep, not examine the architecture.” He stood and held out his left hand to her.
“Wait.” She froze. Her gaze traveled quickly from his left hand, up his arm, to his face, and back down again. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see it was full night and she was trapped, surrounded by nothing but darkness. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see anything further than three feet down the path at bottom of the porch steps.
“Ariadne, what’s wrong?” Dom asked in concern.
“Stay where you are.” She got up and slid around him not wanting to be caught between his bulk and the swing. Where moments earlier her skin had been tingling with pleasure now it was all she could do to hide quivers of fear that danced along her nerve endings. “We can’t be dreaming, because you’re not wearing your wedding ring.” She pointed to the third finger on his hand. “It’s always there in a dream.”
Dom looked down in surprise. “I didn’t know. I never realized... But we are dreaming.” He pulled out his totem, a small hourglass in a heavy metal frame. He flipped it and watched as the sands ran slowly to the lower level. “See, the grains move too slowly for us to be awake.”
“No. That is not your totem!” She cried out in panic, digging in her pocket for her hers. “Yours is a weighted top and you spin it. Who are you really?” She glared at him trying to see beneath the façade of Dom Cobb to the real person who lay beneath.
“Ari, it’s me.” He moved closer to her needing to convince her. “Remember my dream you joined. Remember the elevator and all the levels I told you were memories I wanted to forget. No one else knows that information but you and me. No one else knows what I did to my wife, no one,” his voice cracked.
“I...wait.” She crossed the porch in two quick strides to place her bishop on the wide flat surface of the railing. She knocked her chess piece over and was more confused than ever. The speed of it’s decent and the sound it made hitting wood were what they should be, if they were dreaming...but Cobb’s ring was missing, so was the top she associated with him but this person knew things that only he could know. “Where are we really? Still asleep on that never-ending flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, lost on some level deeper than limbo or is this all a dream of my own making and you’re a...projection? You and Miles, and Sabine, and the children, none of you are real. Or...or...am I having a psychotic episode?” she whispered.
“Stop, it Ariadne. You’re not losing it. You’re simply exhausted. Think and you’ll remember where we are. You’ll remember that in reality we’re asleep in Miles’s study. Everything that happened today, all the people you met, are real. The inception is over and it’s seven months later. The only things that are a dream are this valley and the cottage behind us.”
“Than explain the lack of your ring and that crazy hourglass instead of your real totem.” She swung around, backing away from him. “You can’t explain it, can you, because this is an out of control dream and you don’t know the beginning anymore than I do.”
“Of course it’s a dream, one that feels almost real, but isn’t. That’s how you know you’re dreaming. I’m in this dream with you to help you get--”
“No! Don’t you dare play Mr. Charles with me. I’m not one of your marks, it won’t work.” She didn’t know if she was more insulted that he would try that gambit on her or afraid of why he was doing it. It really didn’t matter, every instinct was shouting at her to get away. She moved slightly to the left, her foot searching behind her for the steps to the path.
“That’s not what I’m doing.” He held his miniature hourglass between his thumb and first finger, inches away from her face. “This is mine and went with me everywhere, except for the two years after Mal’s suicide. After she was gone, I thought her totem would keep her close to me. And, oh God, was I right. She haunted me every time I closed my eyes.” His words were rough and ragged, coming from places he didn’t know existed. “Even when I realized that the smart thing to do would be to throw it in the sea, I couldn’t. It was my penance and my trap, holding me in the past when all I really wanted was to move forward. I was stuck, carrying it, despite the doubts, and warnings, despite knowing how dangerous it was to have a totem that had meant so much to someone who had once been so dear to me.” Thoughts and feelings gushed out of him. Things he knew instinctively were true, but had kept buried in his subconscious, filled the air between them.
Ariadne wanted to believe him. “Wait, wait...let me think this through.” She rubbed her temples with both hands. What he said made sense, but that was the problem, it made too much sense in a twisted dream-like way. Fear gripped her throat and she gave in to panic.
She slid further to her left in a last attempt to get away, too unsure of what was happening to stay and listen to any more. Then she was falling off the porch but instead of landing on the soft dirt path, she kept on falling like Alice down the rabbit hole. But unlike Alice, she couldn’t breathe.
..................................................................
In Miles’s study it was one minute into the dreaming session and Ari began to twitch. Seconds later she screamed, “Dom! Wake me up. Wake me up. Wake me up, Dom!”
“Easy,” Elkins tried to reassure her as he clamped off her IV. He held her while she gasped for air, her hands pulling at her neck “You’re awake. Open your eyes you’re safe.”
“Is he all right? Is Cobb okay?” Hardly looking at the sleeping man who she was still leaning against, she concentrated on trying to catch her breath.
“Yes, he’s fine.” Miles closed off his IV and let the younger man wakened.
Dom came up fast. Remnants of the shared dream clinging to his mind and senses. “Ariadne, where are you...Ariadne...?” his voice was hoarse as if he’d been calling her name for a long time.
“Help me!” Her fingers fumbled with the scarf around her neck but trembled too badly to untie it.
“Just rip off the damn thing if you have to,” Dom instructed as his hands pushed hers aside and went to work freeing her.
“No, don’t. It was my mother’s.” She took short gasping breaths as she felt his knuckles brushing against her throat.
“There.” He cupped her cheeks reassuringly. “It’s off. You’re free. Can you breathe?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, clutching her scarf in both hands. “That was...terrible!”
“That’s an understatement.” He hugged her to him with one arm while his free hand reached for his totem and turned it upside down. She was soft and warm against his side but Cobb didn’t relax until he saw the sand grains running quickly through the hourglass.
“I’m okay, really, I’m okay.” Ari pulled out of his embrace, but stayed near enough so that their shoulders brushed as she sat back on the sofa.
“You’ve got one hell of a built in kick going on in there.” He tipped her chin upward needing to see her eyes. He was beginning to be able to read her. Even when she buried her emotions behind a mask, the deep brown pools that stared back at him, told him what she was really feeling. This time they were so dark they were almost black, filled with confusion, loss, and doubts.
“I hadn’t expected things to go smoothly the first time in.” The professor watched the two younger people carefully, examining each gesture and tone of voice. He knew that they had to start on the first level and work downward, but if Ari couldn’t even get that far, he wasn’t sure what to do. “But I hadn’t anticipated anything like that. Tell me more about this built in kick, Ariadne?”
“I fall, or it feels like I’m falling,” she explained. “It’s been happening for the last seven month. When I sleep, usually I don’t remember dreaming but I always have that dizzying sensation of falling and it wakes me up.”
“And that’s what happened?” Miles watched them intently. Now was not the time for them to leave out any details, no matter who they implicated or what sad memories they might bring up.
“It was worse than that.” Cobb answered and she shook her head in agreement. “She fell down two steps. The ground opened up and swallowed her. I could hear her screaming for me to wake her up, but I couldn’t get to her. I was left frozen in a dream, calling her name, as she fell further and further out of my reach.”
“Hmmm, no wonder you’re not getting any rest.” Elkins rubbed his chin and began to pace as his mind churned through every scrap of information he knew about shared dreaming. There had to be a way to solve this, and he was going to find it.
Ariadne turned, almost bumping her head on Cobb’s chin. “Back in the café,” she whispered, not wanting the Professor to overhear. “When you convinced me that I needed your help, you told me you thought I could tough this out on my own. Was that the truth?”
“At the time, yeah.” He brushed away tiny strands of her hair that had gotten caught in his goatee. “It wouldn’t have been easy and I doubt it would have been pretty, but yes I thought you could eventually do it.”
“But you don’t think that anymore?” She felt her world sinking around her. For nine years she’d been on her own, at boarding school and then college. There had been a trustee to be sure her finances were protected and that whatever vacation spot she spent holidays was well staffed and chaperoned. It was hard to discover, that after all that time, she needed someone, especially this strange, haunted, blue-eyed man.
“No, I’m sorry, but I don’t.” He cupped her cheek to give support, knowing it wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.
“When we were falling asleep, I thought I heard Miles say something...like...after we’d gone deep enough and figured it all out...” She shook her head trying to jiggle loose more of the memory. Those moments, just before the drug hit her system, were hazy. “He wasn’t just talking about a one time dreaming session was he?”
“I wasn’t listening. I was doing my job as the architect, building in my head so we’d have a place to go.” His hand slid from her cheek, down her neck to her shoulder, giving him time to think how to tell her what she needed to know. “But if you’re asking me if I believe it’ll take a number of sessions, going deeper each time, than yes, after what happened in there, I believe it will.”
“What if the problem is on the first level and all we need to do is push past it and everything will be back the way it should be.” She wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.
“You don’t believe that, Ari.” Dom threw his left arm across the back of the coach, inches from her shoulders. “If it were that easy. It would have been like I thought in the café. You would have used your incredible strength of will and worked it out yourself months ago.”
“This is going to be much harder than I thought,” she sighed.
“You’re not dealing with this alone anymore. That’s why I was in there with you. I know what triggered your panic. First lets deal with the concrete.” He pulled the hourglass out of his pocket and held it in his right palm. “Do you remember what I said to you about this in the dream?”
“Yes.” She leaned forward to get a closer look at the item he had cradled in his hand and her bangs tickled his cheek. “I was always used to seeing you spin a top to get your bearings. It didn’t match what I knew about you.”
“Now you know more.” Blue eyes met brown as she looked up. He could see that she understood he wasn’t simply talking about the hourglass, but admitting awake, how wrong he’d been in his twisted reasoning for carrying Mal’s totem and the implications it’d had for him as a well as the team.
“I...” she fumbled, unsure what to say. “Thank you.”
“You deserve to know.” Cobb couldn’t think of anyone else he would have spoken with that freely. It didn’t matter that it had happened in a shared dream. What was important was that it was Ariadne who had heard him and understood. “About the other.” He nodded slightly toward his ringless left hand and shrugged in doubt. Dom had an idea about that, but he wasn’t going to discuss it with Miles present.
“Maybe it was an aberration.” She sat straighter, determined to confront whatever was waiting for her in the dark, on whatever level it was found. She was sure it couldn’t be worse than the knife-wielding ghost Dom had overcome.
Miles stood at a distance and watched the quickly whispered, yet intense conversation, taking place. Whatever had happened in those few minutes of shared dream had opened up two silent people. He was more determined than ever to follow this to its logical conclusion. His grandchildren needed their father happy and whole and Ariadne needed to be put back on whatever path he’d caused her to stray from when he’d introduced her to his son-in-law.
“Dom, Ari,” The professor cleared his throat reminding them of his presence. “I’ve got an idea that might help.” He smiled gently and stood facing them. “We have to fix it so you can’t fall. Ari, scoot behind Dom. Pull your legs up on the couch and straighten them out so you’re comfortable. Dominic, you too, I want her between you and the back of the couch.” He pointed to Cobb, “Lean against the armrest and Ariadne you lean against him.”
“Pardon me?” Had she heard correctly? Did the man really want her to snuggle with his son-in-law? “I don’t think we’ll fit.”
“Yeah we will. You don’t take up much room.” Dom grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against him so she was wedged securely between his body and the smooth leather back support.
“You’re squishing me.”
“Sorry,” he wound his arms around her and lifted until she was partially on top of him. Her right leg over his left.”
“Now we’re going to try it again and Dom don’t let go of her, even in the dream,” Miles advised.
“But...” She squirmed when Cobb tightened his hold on her pressing her securely against his chest.
“You’re not going to fall. I won’t let you.” Blue eyes looked down into her sleepy brown ones. “We’ll be fine, you’re fearless....”
The dream compound rushed through their veins and Ariadne’s head slipped to Dom’s shoulder and he rested his cheek against her hair.
..................................................................
Ari blinked. She was lying on her side on a bed, facing a white wall that reached to wooden beams along a dormered ceiling. She realized the pillow under her head had that firm-soft feeling of down. There was a dim pool of light coming from somewhere over her left shoulder. It had a warm mellow glow that made her think of candles or a lantern but for some reason she couldn’t turn over to see its source. Otherwise the room was dark.
“I’ve got you. You won’t fall.” Cobb’s breath warmed her ear.
“Where are we?” She stiffened realizing his body was pressed against he back. He was the reason she couldn’t turn over. To appear as casual as possible, she plucked at the rolled sleeve of his navy blue shirt.
“Loire Valley, where we were before, only this time we started inside the cottage.”
“I remembered windows all along the sides and front.” She looked at an expanse of blank wall. The only opening was a large round window incased in aged copper. It was almost to the ceiling, centered into the V where the beams met that formed the brace to support the roof.
“I made a few changes. Given what happened on the porch I wasn’t taking any chances with windows,” he chuckled. “Also there was a second bed and neither of them were against the wall, as you can see, this one is.”
“You’re taking Miles serious, aren’t you.” She lay still, afraid to move, unable to ignore the weight of his arm around her waist or the contour of the one that supported her head, pulling her tightly against him.
“Very,” he grunted.
“We could still fall off you know. I could turn over in my sleep and push you out of bed.”
“I don’t think so,” his laugh rumbled up from deep in his chest. She hardly came up to his shoulder and he doubted she weighed 110 lbs soaking wet.
When he laughed, she felt it vibrate against her back but she refused to give in to the odd way it made her feel.
“Let me see your left hand.” Her fingers moved down his arm until she found what she was looking for. “Still no ring. I don’t understand?”
“There’s one possibility, but it doesn’t make much sense.” He tightened his arms around her afraid she might panic again. “Do you remember what happened before you jumped, following Robert Fischer back up to the hospital level.”
“Yeah, you and Mal were there. I’d...I’d shot her...” She still felt guilty about it no matter how often she’d told herself she’d only shot a projection, not a person.
“You shot her because she stabbed me.” He’d heard the remorse in her voice and stroked her back gently to ease her pain.
“You died, didn’t you?” She turned quickly in his arms, almost catching him off guard. “That was how you were able to get to Saito. You and he ended up on the same level because you both died in the same dream.” Her words ran quickly one over the other. When she’d jumped she hadn’t been aware how badly he’d been hurt, but after months of thinking about it, she’d realized it was the only way Cobb had been able to find the Japanese businessman. “But what happened to Mal, shouldn’t she have been with you when you washed up on the shores of limbo that was at the bottom of all the sedative soaked layers that made up the inception dream?”
“No. What you shot was only a projection, my projection, that I’d been pulling into dreams and was unable or unwilling to let go of.” He held her tightly against him. Their cheeks pressed into the same pillow so close his breath ruffled her hair. Their eyes were locked on one another, each needing to see the truth reflected back from the other in the dim light.
“Then why isn’t she here now? How did you set yourself free?”
“After you jumped,” he started out slowly, feeling tension coiling in her small slim body. “My projection of Mal was dying from her wound but still alive. When I was sure you were safely riding the kick upward, I...I carried out one final inception.”
“What are you talking about?” Ari questioned.
“All the nights I spent alone in the warehouse, in drugged sleep, I was trying to reason with Mal. But it was useless, just as useless as it had been when she was alive.” He buried his nose in Ariadne’s hair to smell citrus and spice to be reminded that though they were in a dream, they were safe and sane. “As she and I lay there dying on the floor of our limbo home I did one last desperate thing. I told her that we had grown old together. That had been her goal all along and I gave it to her.”
“How?” Ari frowned trying to make sense of it. “I don’t understand. The Mal I met was a product of your subconscious.”
“I know it’s confusing, but it’s the only explanation I can give for the lack of my wedding ring now. I’m no longer married and I know it in shared dreams as well as when I’m awake. I sleep nights, but I’m not sure if I have dreams. Sometimes it feels as if I have them but I don’t remember them. Most importantly, Mal isn’t here now nor was she outside when you took the header off the porch.” It was as close as he could come to admitting that he’d planted the idea in himself by was of a very powerful projection from his subconscious.
Ariadne nodded, hearing the words he didn’t speak. “There are things in dream sharing that don’t make sense in the real world and that must be one of them.” They were pressed together but Dom simply held her tighter. “Why didn’t you and Mal grow old? Saito did or at least he believes he did from what he told me.”
“He did.” Dom pushed her hair off her face as they watched each other from inches away. “Once he hit limbo, he forgot he was in a shared dream. From what you say he sensed that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. The years in limbo became his reality instead of the hours that were passing as we traveled from Sydney to Los Angeles.
With Mal and me, I knew we were dreaming. She did too at the beginning, until she couldn’t take it anymore and hid her totem. I think she believed that if she couldn’t test for reality, it became whatever she chose. Soon after she lost the ability to tell the difference. My knowledge kept me young and because I stayed young, somehow, so did she.”
“All those times I caught you hooked up to Yusuf’s machine, when you thought you were alone in the warehouse, you were what? Trying to keep your projection from interfering?” She was embarrassed she’d been so wrong about his afterhours activities.
“Yes, I was getting desperate. The more our plans come together, the more I could taste home.” He watched her carefully and noted the slight flush to her pale cheeks and how she suddenly couldn’t meet his gaze. “What did you think I was doing, participating in the ultimate fantasy?” As he said it, he could see her shocked expression when she’d come off the elevator and discovered him in a whispered conversation with Mal.
“I’m sorry...I...” Ariadne covered her face with her hands and pressed them against his chest.
“Miss Bishop, you have a dirty mind.” He grinned as she blushed and he gently slid a lock of hair behind her ear. “No, I wasn’t some phantom lover.” As said it, he realized he’d meant for her to think that. It had suited his purpose at the time. “That wasn’t why I went into those dream/memories night after night. I had to convince her to stay away from the operation we had coming up, because if I failed, I’d never get home.”
“You could have told me what you were doing.” She was too exhausted to hide anything from him. Sorrow and disappointment warred for dominance in her expression. “Instead of letting me think...well what I thought about you.”
“No I couldn’t. At the time, I told myself it was because it was better for you. If you thought I was a slightly demented reprobate, then you’d stay out of my dreams. Mal had killed you once and tried a second time. I reasoned you’d be safer. But that wasn’t the truth. I was terrified you’d tell the others how out of control I was and it would have been all over. Then Maurice Fischer died and I didn’t dare say anything, so I took you along. I’m sorry for using you and for disappointing you.”
“I’m not disappointed in you.” She yawned and shivered. “You did what you had to do. We all did.
“Are you cold?”
“Yeah.” She snuggled closer to his warm length. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Miles’s study can get chilly in all but the warmest weather, if he doesn’t have a fire going.” He tightened his hold on her. “Come on, sit up a second, but I’m not letting go. There’s a quilt at the foot of the bed.”
He sat her up and held her tightly to his side as he reached for the colorful patchwork material. When he lay down on his back her head was on his shoulder and he had both arms wrapped around her. The quilt covered them and he hoped it would give the illusion of shared body heat long enough for her to get some much-needed rest. Her eyes were already drooping.
“Go to sleep, Ariadne,” he whispered. “Go to sleep.”
Moments later they were both fast asleep.
Ch 7 - The Heartache and Thousand Natural Shocks