Inception Fanfiction - ENJAMBMENT, Chapter 7, Waiting by the carousel
Title: Enjambment, Chapter 7 Waiting by the carousel
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.
The top was lying on its side on the gray melamine surface. Dom Cobb smiled the smile of a truly free man. He turned and caught Saito's grateful countenance. The Asian motioned towards his in-seat phone and nodded, his reassuring smirk saying all Cobb needed to know.
Turning further, Arthur gave him a surreptitious thumbs up (Cobb was seated behind Fischer after all). Then he noticed that the IV was still attached to his wrist… and Fischer was also still attached to the PASIV.
Yusuf was already on the move, clearing up the remaining IVs and the machine while the chief flight attendant was ensuring the cabin was configured back to its original state.
"We only have about an hour left to descent," drawled Eames from behind. "Next time old chap, you could leave a map."
He pocketed his totem and looked out the window. The sun was bright and the contrast between the wispy, cirrus clouds and the blue sky was much sharper than he could imagine. He knew he was truly awake - there was no way he could remember to include the stubborn grime outside the tempered glass of his window in his imaginings, along with the multitude of scratches likely made in the name of removing said scum. He should have crested the Uncanny Valley a long time ago, but he knew now he didn't. He had yearned for his freedom for so long, he barely remembers anything else. What do you choose to believe? He'd been running around with a shade in his head for over two years and had still been the best in the underground espionage world he was originally brought in to bring to heel. He had always been such a realist - had it been desperation and hubris that proved to be his undoing?
The urgency that drove him to sense out, seek out, hunt Saito moored him to a harbor in his mind. But when Saito had shot himself across that table... somehow, it became urgent to do something else. Niggling at the back of his head was a promise, to come back... of course that meant to come back to his children, right? What else did he have to come back to? Now, even awake, he tries to grab on to the rationale behind a dream wherein one chose to stay behind. It was fading, but he knew it had to do with doing what was fair... for his family? Of course, that's what it was. He had been lost in limbo fifty years, and carried a real world guilt for so long that there couldn't possibly be any psychiatrist trained to deal with his neurosis. Unless he went back to the Agency... and he found that distasteful. He felt driven to become something whole, to be the father his children deserved and... what else is there?
Once Fischer was fully awake, it was critical that they acted like strangers. In the few moments that they had to debrief before this point of no return, both Saito and Arthur confirmed that Ariadne had attempted to pull him out of limbo. It was impossible based on what they had left on them, he thought. Any outlandish attempts to get to limbo while Fischer was connected would have alerted him. They didn't have any more of Yusuf's special Somnacin blend. Yusuf was awake, the first level of dreaming should have collapsed once he disconnected. Finally, Ariadne had too little experience, though her insights had been spot on and brilliant (and that he had shared his dreams with her, even when he didn't want to).
Cobb absently rubbed his wrist while pressing down on the wound left by the needles with the cotton ball Yusuf gave him. How was it possible? He turned around, scanning the cabin again. They were all present and accounted for, except…
And there she was, returning to her seat. With a familiar scarf around her neck.
####
LAX would always be a busy, crowded hub of activity that would be easy to get lost in. They had split up, ensuring that none of them were in Robert Fischer's point of view at any time.
It was déjà vu. He handed his passport to the immigration officer who cursorily examined it, placing it against the scanner.
"Welcome to the US, Mr. Cobb." Cobb had been nervous standing there, but truly Saito was a man of his word.
"Welcome back to the United States, Ms. Bacchus."
Cobb looked across the next immigration line and saw Ariadne looking back at him with a small reassuring smile on her face. And then she walked away without turning back.
####
He sees her hanging back by the baggage carousel, away from everyone else. She is so small he realizes she is perfect for these jobs because she's easy to miss even when you're looking for her.
Cobb approaches her from behind, saying in hushed tones "Ariadne Bacchus. I didn't know you were Greek. You don't even look it."
Ariadne starts and nearly jumps back into the man. She recovers quickly though and composes herself hopefully before the rest of them could see. (In truth, Arthur sees it all.)
Ariadne allows Cobb to stand beside her, her posture casual but turned towards the carousel mouth in case her luggage arrives first. For all intents and purposes, they look like a gentleman offering his assistance to a small person who may have a massive amount of luggage.
"I'm not Greek," she responds. "My father found it amusing though. It's a classics in-joke, given the family name." She takes a short breath before continuing. "Father loved the classics… There are perfectly good schools in the US and in the UK, so why bother with graduate school where I had to learn another language?" She steals a glance at him, a wistful hint of a smile gracing her face. "I like the classics too. French neoclassical architecture changed the world you know."
He remembers Paris folding over itself, and smiles ruefully, "Yes I know. You like bending the rules of the classics too don't you?"
She doesn't know what he means by that, so she doesn't respond. They stand in companionable silence, the conveyor not moving and no bags in sight. Ariadne starts humming a snippet from her childhood. She knows opera singing was never one of her gifts so she opts for her own version of slam poetry delivery. She likely sounds out of tune and doesn't care as she sings softly to herself to pass the time.
"Dunkel wird auf meinen Augen
Und in meinem Herzen sein,
Diese Glieder werden bleiben,
Schön geschmückt und ganz allein.
Du wirst mich befreien, Mir selber mich geben"
Cobb looks at her stunned, then recites a memorized verse,
"Darkness will shade my eyes and enfold my heart
These limbs will remain adorned and all alone
you will set me free, restore me to myself."
Ariadne's face stills, her mouth slightly agape.
"I didn't know you spoke German!," they both exclaim at the same time, in almost the same tone. It was slightly embarrassing, and though they didn't know it both suspected the other of lying.
A few beats later, "My father loved the classics, like I said. Plus given my name he felt Ariadne auf Naxos would be a good thing for me to know. I ended up loving it. How… how do you know it?"
"I lived in Europe for a long time before I moved back to the States. I picked up a smattering of German and Spanish, and of course French. You go to Europe to be immersed in culture and history, as you know. Architecture, theatre. I ended up loving opera." Cobb halts then confesses, "It was one of Mal's favorites."
Ariadne turns away, craning her neck at the mouth of the conveyor when it starts moving and a variety of boxes and strollers became visible. She was facing away from him and it gave him the opportunity to study the scarf around her neck… and her. There is more he wants to say, but it just isn't the place or time. He thinks she is a busybody and brilliant and tenacious and that he owes her for more things than he realizes. He hadn't wanted to infect her mind with his, yet she steamrolled in. Part of him agonizes over why she would do what she thought she did, and recalls her saying something about ensuring everyone's safety. But everyone else had already been saved. The irony that real Mal (and not the psychopath that was in his head for so long) loved the story of Ariadne trapped in an island who was rescued, and loved, by a god was not lost on him.
####
They were priority passengers, so they were supposed to get their luggage first along with business class passengers. Robert Fischer is the first to leave, and all the team members visibly relax when he exits. Among the team their luggage arrived last, everyone else had moved on to the arrivals area. Cobb deliberately helped Ariadne with her luggage despite her protests. He wanted to delay the inevitable.
Ariadne had done what she set out to do. She felt light, yet conflicted. She accepted the coming end but a part of her didn't want to let go. She… had known what it is to be a lover. To be a lover is to give love without condition but without losing yourself. She wanted what was best for him… and that meant his children and his soul. For now, what gratitude was there was more than enough. She knows she will let him go, she has no choice if she wanted her sanity and self respect intact. She knows how to survive it now.
"You're welcome."
Cobb raised an eyebrow in response, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
Ariadne knew that Cobb knew she tried to bring him back. She wasn't sure how she avoided Fischer's militarized level, but she did. "I don't know if I actually did anything. I don't even know where I was exactly because I never actually saw you."
"Limbo is not simply another level," Cobb explained, "When I... first got lost there, I don't even recall how many levels we went down to get to that point. Definitely more than what we had done on the plane. It's the state of unstructured subconscious. I don't know how you deliberately -"
"Got lost?", Ariadne said, cutting him off. "Don't... don't look for the factors or the variables. I don't think that would be something you can replicate in another experiment." They both looked down at their feet, the implications of what had been said and not said too big for the time they had left.
Ariadne had all her luggage with her. She looked up at Cobb, giving him a warm smile. "Enjoy your life, Dominic Cobb. Goodbye."
Cobb's expression became stormy, then unreadable, then finally relaxed. He did not move to touch her, nor close the gap between them, but his voice was a silky caress.
"I'll see you when I see you, Aria." Then he turned and walked to his waiting family.
She didn't know how, but he called her by that special name only her father had known. It was the secret name that spoke to her soul.
Epilogue