Title: No Longer What was Once Remembered
Author: MinaRobins
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Rating: G
…..
When he blinks open his eyes he's welcomed by the view of a familiar park. The sun is out and a little too bright. There aren't any projections here either.
"I keep creating more worlds you see, and they have a hard time populating all of them." Ariadne continues, in a manner one would use to discuss weather or comment on a particularly dry piece of steak. "I keep killing them when they get too close so they seem to avoid me now."
Arthur's tongue feels dry. She was no longer what he once remembered.
"You see, dreaming, not that I'm saying this is a dream, but dreaming." She takes a breath and smiles. "Is the best high."
Arthur just stares.
"You better talk to me or I'll have to kill you and find Mal, her screams are every so delightful."
"Ariadne, why?"
The girl, the madness shrugged. "I don't like being knifed."
Her voice sounded childish. Like she had been chosen last for a game instead of holding a grudge for being stabbed in the stomach the first time she had met Mal. She was only a projection.
"Look Ariadne, I should have paid more attention to you." Arthur runs a hand through his hair. "I didn't notice you were so…"
"Messed up?" She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. "No, I don't suppose you did."
The young man rolled his neck. This had been going on for days. The fifth level of the subconscious. He didn't realise she was so far gone. Was it even worth bringing her back? He pushed the thought aside and moved to hold Ariadne.
"Don't." She had said it so quietly he almost misses the syllable.
"Sweet heart." He's pleading.
"Stop." Her tone is final.
The ground erupts with a pillar. Its golden body shapes into a queen chess piece. The sun reflects off the crown of the totem. It grew right in front of him, Arthur stops abruptly to avoid running into the oversized chess piece.
"Whatever happened to the pawn?"
"Why the fuck would I want to trudge my way through the whole fucking board to queen my pawn piece when I could just have two queens in the beginning?" Her laugh bordered on hysteria. "Heck I could have an army of queens, and well horses, you know how much she liked horses, love" His tone softens.
"Yes, darling." His voice wavers with controlled emotion, he had to stay focus. "She loved horses."
It wasn't fair. Holy lord it wasn't fair. Why did he have to follow in Cobb's unfortunate footsteps?
"Do you want to see her, lover?" She had flowed through the chess piece making him wonder if it was ever between them. "She doesn't understand why daddy won't spend more time with her."
Sanity was the only thing between them.
"No, don't, don't do this to me Ariadne, my heart can't bare it."
"Daddddy!" The utter delight in his child's voice causes him to fall to the ground and open his arms to eagerly wrap them around his child. "You found us!"
She leans in and gives him messy sticky kisses. "I'm not playing hide and seek with you anymore, you're bad at it daddy!"
"I suppose I am." He sounds resigned.
….
His wife passes him the bottle of Lynn's grape juice. "Hold it for her, you know she can't drink from it herself without spilling it all over her dress."
His daughter pulls on his shoulder's until he leans down. "I promise I won't daddy, I won't I won't!"
His smile is genuine as he passes the My Little Pony's toddler sipping cup to his sweet 6 year old. She sits on his lap the weight is so right and her body smells of her favourite soap and of the jasmine tea Ariadne always shares with her.
But he knows it's not real. His baby and, he look at Ariadne and she shakes her head in denial when she sees his despair. He doesn't need to throw his dice to judge whether this was reality or a dream. His baby is in the hospital, in a coma, declared a vegetable. His wife is in the hospital linked to his child "trying" to wake her. He should have noticed when she had screamed 'waked her to WHAT Arthur, she can't move from her neck down!' But he was in denial then, and she is in it now. His life is so flooded with agony. Everything so filled to the rim with sheer desolation.
Tears row freely down his face and he can't help but bury his face into his little girl's light chocolate hair. "Ariadne, is she…is she real?"
"Of course she is, don't be silly!"
He snorts, silly, after all the blood, gore and swearing she resorts to the word 'silly'.
"Is she fucking real?" He knows he's holding a little too tight but Lynn stays quiet and continues to sip her grape juice like he wasn't there. That was an answer enough. "Where has she gone?"
"She said it was time she left." Ariadne nibbled on her sandwich, "I suppose she's just visiting Uncle Cobb and," she sneered "Mallorie." The name rolled of her tongue like a curse.
"Then why, why are you here Ariadne?" The tears just kept flowing down his face but he could not let go of the projection. "She's gone!"
"Jesus, I married a drama queen, you're holding her, right fucking now!" She points her finger in accusation.
He wasn't holding onto their little angel. She and he never fucking swore around their baby.
The little girl in his lap spins around, a nervous smile adorns her face. The sippy cup was missing the cap.
"Daddy, I…sorry!"
"Oh baby, it's my fault I should have been watching, don't worry love." It should spark something in his mind that his 6 year old daughter wouldn't spill juice on herself. But the on in his lap right now was his 2 and a month old daughter. He knows because he had just brought her a purple summer dress for her birthday a month ago and the warm weather had finally come by. It was family time for the…Oh what the fuck. He places the child on the grass. Disgusted at himself for falling into the trap.
When he stands up so does his daughter. She rises to the full height of her six year old self. "Up?"
"No, not today."
"You always say that." Ariadne's anger hurts him, but she's right, he never has time. It's raining outside and he doesn't want to go, but he loves his job, but does he love his family more? Ariadne looks at him with such longing he just wants to tear of his jacket and ravish her and maybe give Lynn a sibling. But he has a team and the job needs a Point man. He winks and walks into the rain.
He had forgotten his umbrella but it wouldn't matter soon, their bus would drive by in a matter of minutes. His face turns to stone. Precision his calling card. Seriousness an inborn trait. It's what saved Cobb's ass for ages.
As he steps onto the wet linoleum of their bus he hears the screech of tires on wet asphalt but it's too late.
If the brakes were a little newer, if the street lamp hadn't been broken this morning, if he had remembered his umbrella.
…
"I didn't know she had ran out after you, oh my god, Arthur, Arthur, what are we going to do?"
Different people find different ways to escape. He found his way to deal with it when he dived into high danger jobs for more money to FIND a way to awaken his child. She suggested going into limbo her dreams to retrieve her. Even when the doctor had confirmed Lynn's paralytic state, he wanted to see those perfect blue green eyes. She had told him to stop then. He wouldn't listen. She spent too much time in the sweet quality of unreality. He forced her to stop for a while but then she need to feel it in reality as well. Drugs were a poor substitute for infinite power. She fell into the dreams, looking for their daughter as first but lost herself in the rule, the power of being god. Both his wife and daughter vanished before he had a chance to say goodbye.
The doctors never questioned why the little girl was hooked up to an extra machine that connected her to her mother. When you make the amount of money Arthur did. No one questions you.
….
"Stay with us."
It's a simple enough request. He could stay. And even when their lengthy amount of cash had run dried and they were pull from sleep. Which would not happen for another 20 years. Their brains would be long gone and dead. It would be a Nirvana. It would heaven.
The little girl in his arms smiled up at him. "It would be home."
"Yes, sweet heart. It would be." Arthur feels his mind slip. What would be the point of waking? She's dead; his wife is half way into lunacy. There was no meaning.
He took Ariadne's out stretched hand. She was still warm, still so soft. He placed it over his chest. He watched in both fear and awe as she reached in his pocket and pulled out his very hold on reality.
The dice seemed so small and insignificant.
…..
A/N: I don't know why I like tormenting Arthur. I think this and Avestan was supposedly sprang from the same idea. I don't know what happened.