Disclaimer: I do not own Inception, or its characters.
One of us is Still Asleep
"I tell him, we needed somebody who thinks like a lawyer and dreams like an architect." Mal turns to Arthur and smiles tiredly. "And Dom brings me you."
"And you said, 'I should have also asked for someone who dresses like an adult.'"
Standing in hospital room, still not used to the smell of antiseptics even after all this time, they laugh together, timidly. There is a feeling like any sudden movement will crack the walls of reality, though Arthur knows that's not the case. Arthur knows very, very well that they're awake.
"I dress all right now," he defends, and runs his hands over his sweater because he doesn't want to say I miss you, Dom, and he doesn't want to cry. They are telling stories of the early days because they don't want to discuss what the doctors have just told them.
"Only after I dressed you like a doll for six months," Mal gripes. But she doesn't look Arthur in the eye.
The steady beep of the monitor is not so much a comfort, reminding them that Cobb is still breathing, as it is an incessant mockery, reminding them that he is still asleep.
"Tell the one about Saint Patrick's Day," Mal says, just as Arthur steals his courage and says, "If we're telling stories"-
Mal freezes like she knows what's coming, which of course she does.
"Tell me what happened in there, Mal." Arthur's voice is quiet. "I think you've put it off long enough."
I'm your research partner and your husband's best friend, he doesn't say. He also doesn't say, whatever it is you can tell me because I won't wouldn't couldn't ever not love you.
"You know this is the end of the research," Mal mutters, by way of reply. "You know this is the end of the lab."
"I know. We'll all have to get jobs at Starbucks."
"Will you go back to law school?"
"I'll do whatever you want me to do," Arthur swears, though in the pit of his stomach, along with every other bad feeling in the world, is the quiet knowledge that there are no respectable places left to go in their field of expertise. Already the line is blurring between researcher and thief.
"Mal," he repeats; he doesn't have the strength to walk down that line of inquiry at the same time as this one. "Tell me what happened."
She stalls. She stammers. She is a beautiful and articulate woman who has been reduced to this, this half-widow who can no longer be bothered to eat or sleep or style her hair.
Arthur gets her a cup of coffee. He smiles and tells her that he's practicing. And in return he slowly, finally, gets the story.
He hears about their life together, down there; hears about their fantastic homes and cities and endless beaches. Hears that they grew old together, hears that they died together, waiting on a train. The way she describes waking up, he can almost see them, his closest friends, groggily sitting up together on the floor of their living room, lit by the sunset.
"For a while," she tells him, "we both think we're awake."
And then Arthur hears the rest.
They're sitting now; they've pulled the visitor's chairs together and up against the wall so that they're almost a sofa. "I just knew," Mal says, and Arthur understands even if Cobb never could. Mal has always been able to feel a dream in the same way that Arthur has always been vaguely able to notice one. It's eminently more organic than totems, though of course it's not as reliable, and they've never used it to make the ultimate decision.
At least, Arthur hasn't.
Sitting together in Dominic Cobb's hotel room, Arthur takes Mal's hand and asks to hear the ending. "I killed myself," she says quietly, and Arthur takes her into his arms.
They've all had to do it and it never really ceases to shock. But he can't imagine how it would feel with Dom not knowing, with Dom thinking that it was all real. He wonders what he said to try to talk her down. He wonders what Dom feels now, in the dream, with her gone.
Mal is crying quietly, shaking her head against Arthur's chest. "He would have followed by now, if he were going to. Don't you think, Arthur?"
Mal was under ten hours; Cobb's been under almost a month. "I think so," he whispers back. Tears are running down his cheeks now, and he holds Mal tightly so that she won't lift her head, won't see.
Together they listen to the monitor's beep.