Fanfiction - ENJAMBMENT, Chapter 4 Standing on the aisle
Title: Enjambment, Chapter 4 Standing on the aisle
Characters: Ariadne/Dom, all the cast
Rating: T/ PG-13
Summary: It is about the gaps, the leaps of faith necessary to go from one line to the next. the lines don't break where you expect them to, and sometimes it doesn't go anywhere it was supposed to go. An Ariadne-centric story set on the plane before Dom wakes.
Disclaimer: Chris Nolan and WB owns everything. I just dream my little dream because they let me. This is my first ever fanfic so I would appreciate it the feedback.
It bothered him.
He climbed downstairs in a deliberate fashion, as they were the only occupants of the first class compartment. For the whole flight, they practically owned the joint. His pulse quickened when he met Saito at the foot of the stairs. He was about to bounce off, a merry quip to greet his best friend when he caught the somber expression on the Backer's face. He knew then.
He went down the last riser at a more sedate pace instead. Yusuf said they only had about two hours left before they have to disengage the PASIV from both Fischer and Cobb. Yusuf met him and Eames at the bar about an hour ago and told them that Saito had already woken up but Cobb was still under.
Yusuf also mentioned that Ariadne had also wakened from her self-induced stupor and was at least communicating with Saito. He supposed it was natural, as they were the only two to have come out of limbo. Probably taking notes.
He didn't come down immediately to check on them as Eames had expected. There was a part of him that just wanted to prove Eames wrong about his whole read of the Ariadne Situation. He fancied the girl - that much was true. She broke the mold from his normal type. He usually did like smart brunettes. Though he usually liked them leggy… and classy. Cobb knew he had a bit of a crush on Mal, but that had never gotten in the way of his friendship with both Cobbs.
Cobb was his best friend and he loved the man. Correction, he loves the man like a brother. So what really bothered him was exactly why and how his crush of the moment usurped his position. For goodness sake, I've known Mal for years.
Arthur walked down the aisle and stopped next to Cobb's armrest. Cobb's eyes were rapidly shifting under his lids, indicative of active REM sleep. He had been like this for several hours now. Based on the latest dream theories posited by the Agency, his brain was practically frying from all the abnormal cerebral activity. There was another theory that said he might actually be expanding the use of his brain from the so-called regular five percent of the average human, but at this point it really didn't matter if he didn't wake up.
He felt helpless standing there. He missed so many details throughout this whole job, each failure cascading from one small mistake to another. For a moment, Arthur felt like he had stabbed his best friend when he was supposed to have had his back. His face was crestfallen, displaying emotion that normally would not have been witnessed by anyone other than… Mal, in fact.
"It wasn't your fault."
Ariadne's alto voice penetrated his depression. He instinctively straightened his back and wore a blank mask as he faced her. Her eyes were penetrating yet kind, and he allowed himself to relish how lovely she was. It was that brief moment that he recognized what attracted him to her in the first place. She's got the same no-bullshit spirit.
"How are you?", he asked with genuine concern.
Ariadne shifted her eyes from him to Cobb then back to him. "How are you?", she asked back.
They were running out of time, and there were things he needed to know. He did like her, but he needed to get Cobb out.
"What aren't you telling me?," he asked point blank. He approached her, taking his seat behind her.
How could she tell him? She didn't even know where to start. First of all it wasn't even her place. She didn't even have the right to know the things she knew herself. However this all panned out, she vowed to herself (and to him) that she would not betray the secret that broke the man. She would do that for him at least.
Arthur waited. Ariadne held on to her silence. He decided he needed to take a different tack. He looked at his watch. "We only have forty minutes left. We need to take the PASIV off then." He did learn extraction from the best, and extraction is after all just another form of interrogation.
Ariadne glared icily at him, put off by the deliberate ploy. She saw through the attempt to guilt her and she did what her instinct told her. She stood up and slapped him in the face.
Arthur was stunned, clearly not expecting that reaction.
"I told you that it wasn't your fault. Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes things get missed. We all missed things down there."
She falters and seems to look inward, but only for a moment.
"It wasn't your fault that he didn't tell you what you thought you should know. The truth of the matter is you couldn't possibly, remotely have understood anyway. It had nothing to do with your friendship. Knowing about it now will not help you nor him," Ariadne monotones, eyes shining with concern.
Arthur looked at her face, his mind digesting the information slowly. "I'm just trying to understand."
Ariadne's heart ached upon hearing her words thrown back at her.
"It's not your fault either," he says. Whatever it was that ate at her, he wanted to help lighten that burden because whatever millstone was around Cobb's neck - it was now around hers. She had spent an inordinate amount of effort helping Cobb, and he realized that she was doing the same for him, probably Saito too.
Arthur had hit the nail on the coffin. She didn't have enough time. Her guilt felt unbearable to her... and another feeling that she didn't want to place was stubbornly finding traction in her psyche.
"I could go back for him," she broaches knowing full well she doesn't know where to even begin.
Arthur was already shaking his head in disapproval when it hit her - she did know where to begin. Where it all began (at least for her).
Arthur continued to shake his head, alarmed at the determined change in her face. She was leaving him. Nothing had even begun and here he was losing his oldest and newest friends. He didn't have that many people he called friends, and now he was losing them. Shit, I'm not gonna stand for this.
"Why the hell do you have to be so much like him?", he fumes.
And there it was. The root of it all.
She was like them both, Dom and Mal.
He had always counted on Dom's no-BS stolidity in the Dream Space. And as much as he denied it he hadn't allowed himself to even think that Cobb was losing it because that meant he was losing the little family he had become a part of. Cobb had become Mal, and Ariadne had become Cobb.
"I think I know how to get him back, and I don't need to go to limbo to do it," said Ariadne with a smirk. "And no, I won't lose myself. I'm better, remember?"
Arthur was spurred to action, taking out a new IV tube and a regular sedative dose while Ariadne returned to her customary seat.
"I'm not going to be gone long," she reassured him. "Give me maybe five minutes real time."
"Are you sure? That's all you need?" Ariadne nodded.
When Ariadne finally went under, Arthur knelt by her seat and stroked her face. He realized that he never had a chance. Just like with Mal.
Chapter 5