It had been many months since the Fisher job. Ariadne had done her best to return to normal life. It wasn't easy; she was still afraid to fall asleep and dream. Many nights she had stayed up, drinking caffeine, refusing to drift away. She was sure, that if she did, she would see things she wanted to forget that happened during the job. Things like watching Saito in pain, unable to die. Mal and Dom's world. Mal's murderous rage. And Arthurs kiss…
Not that that was a bad memory. But still….it's not like it was a passionate, purely romantic kiss. Just an attempt at distracting the projections. Nothing to get excited about.
To make things worse, Ariadne hadn't heard from any of them. Not once. No one calling to see if she made it back to Paris ok, no one checking how she was dealing with the job. It made her a little angry. What, did they think they could say Hey, we need you to do this really complex life-threatening job, and after that, even though you won't be able to go back to your ordinary life, we're just going to disappear and never come back? That was a load of bull. Didn't they care about her at all? Didn't they care that they had practically unhinged her grasp on reality?
Cobb, she could understand. The only reason he had taken the job was because it was the only way to get back to his kids. He had gone back to his life, and she would feel bad disrupting it. Saito…well, Saito was a rich business man; it's not like he kept in touch with every person he's ever hired. But what about Arthur? And Eames and Yusuf? She knew it had been long enough that they could contact each other now. But every day, she was disappointed. It was only a giggly friend on the phone, asking for advice on boys; she only received junk mail and bills. When she scanned her e-mail, there were only messages from some relative back home, babbling about the week's dull events.
Maybe, maybe it would sting so much if she only had something in reality to keep her from thinking about the dream world. But she had nothing. Schoolwork? Hardly exciting. No great, wonderfully talented friends to keep her busy. There was only nightlife in Paris for those who had a life. Which, now that she thought about it, she really didn't. She did like her classes in college; but once she was done there, what was she going to do? Designing million-dollar homes and skyscrapers would be nothing compared to constructing a dream. Like Arthur said, there was really nothing like it.
She desperately wanted a job offer. Inception, extraction, anything that had to do with dreams would do. She missed it like one addicted to nicotine misses cigarettes. But even when she yearned for it, even when she had dreams about constructing dreams, she couldn't help but wonder if it was wrong to want something so dangerous. To desire something that could destroy her world, or create it.