"Don't Lose Yourself!"
She didn't know what to expect when she woke up after the kick. She didn't dare look over there though. She doesn't think she could handle it if he wasn't awake too.
Because she might have a lot of faith in his heart and intentions, but she knows how easily it is to get caught in the dream. And the prospect of his 'wife' and perfect reality with his kids might be too much for him.
She realizes she's scared. She's scared that she made it out and he didn't. That she has to get off this plane with one less person. That she can't talk to this man anymore, because he's stuck in a limbo where she can't reach him now.
She hears everyone around her shifting in their seats. They awoke before her, but she doesn't care. She's waiting for certain movement. She's waiting on two certain people.
If Saito made it then so would he….
Right?
She hears the creaking of the seat in front of her, Saito's seat, and she feels her stomach leap into her throat. Is he awake? Does that mean that they made it?
She realizes she's afraid. She doesn't want to look and for him to not be there. She doesn't want to get off this plane without him. She'd rather be blind and not see him and believe he's there than find out the truth.
She pauses for a moment. Maybe this was how Mal felt, she muses, wanting only her reality, so she turned away from everything else, only seeing her lie…only seeing what she wanted to see.
But she has to look. She knows she does. She will.
Slowly, so slowly that it barely feels like she's actually doing it, she rotates her head to the right. When she hears clothes rustling next to her she freezes. With her head still halfway there, she looks out of the corner of her eye the rest of the way.
Navy pantsuit legs greet her sight, going up and over the bent knee to the white button up shirt and the resting hands, to the gray tie wrapped around the collar of a paled neck and up to-
Blue eyes connect with her brown.
She feels a flutter and vaguely takes note that that's relief. She feels her lips part in wonder and awe, because he actually made it. He made it back. He'll walk off the plane with her; he made it back with them, with her.
He's still staring at her, a dreamy-glazed look to him. Like he's in a daze. Like he's still waking up. He blinks and his eyes focus in on her.
She thinks he's finally reacquainting with the real world. With reality.
She lets a smile steal across her mouth. And she feels a bit smug. They pulled it off, the impossible Inception. They were able to go into one man's mind plant a thought, and bring another man back from his own hell.
He smiles back at her.
Another flutter but she ignores it. She's used to it by now when she's around him.
She sees his eyes slowly leave hers, and feels suddenly cold. She brushes it off and tries to allow her own do the same.
She realizes she can't. She can't look away.
What if this is a dream? What if this is her own dream? What if this isn't real, and they didn't make it back and she's stuck in limbo while he's still with Mal and everyone else is lost and nothing went right and they failed?
She reaches for the bishop in her pocket without removing him from her line of vision. When and only when she feels the weight in her hand of the loaded chess piece does she calm down some.
He looks like he has too; he's relaxed slightly in his seat. His posture isn't as rigid as it was when he woke.
She's startled out of her Dom-watching when the seatbelt sign goes on. She silently clasps the mechanism and settles back in.
The actual landing is a blur; she kept most of her senses trained on him.
When she stands up she feels her legs wobble slightly and when she's about to stumble back into the seat, and hand on her upper arm stops her, keeping her level.
Looking up she's struck down by blue again.
"Th-thanks," she winces inwardly at her stutter and is immediately brought back to that hotel room when Mal was circling her. There she was scared in all senses of the word, why is she stumbling now, it's just him.
He nods, something of a smile, more of a quirk of his lips, is his reply. He lets go of her arm and moves away to pick up his things. She stays where she is, just studying him for a minute, unaware of the small smile on her own mouth, before turning to her own stuff.
She catches Arthur's eye behind her and blushes at his knowing smirk. She jerks her head down and focuses on her task. She completely ignores the chuckle sent her way.
She walks in front of him. She doesn't really know how it happened, but it did, and she just keeps moving. When they reach the baggage check and she knows they're about to part ways, she keeps her head down.
She realizes she doesn't want to see him leave. She's not ready to let him go.
She realizes that, even though they made it, and he walked off the plane with them, she probably won't ever see him again.
She realizes that she terrified by that thought, and she tucks her head even lower.
She starts when a something grazes her back. Looking over her shoulder she's washed away by blue once again. It's only a glance, but his hand is still resting on the small of her back and she can't seem to move or speak. Her feet fell like lead and she can only stare at him.
(She realizes later that the contact was only for a few seconds, and that it only felt like an hour.)
He walks away, and it seems like slow motion to her, like a dream sequence almost, and once again she feels panic rise and quickly reaches for her bishop again.
No…still okay.
She jolted out of her thoughts when the security guard asks her something.
She doesn't remember the process later, but she knows she goes through all the motions. When she reaches the exit and is outdoors and is in the taxi and is in her hotel room does she realize something.
She's not ready to leave them.
She's not ready to leave the dream.
She's not ready to leave him.
She takes out her piece again. The bishop is still smooth, barely used, but if one looked closer they could see the smudges of all the times it's been held lately. She's on her couch, just holding chess part, studying it, feeling the weight that only she knows.
She almost drops it when there's a knock on the door.
She gets up quickly and puts the bishop down almost carelessly on the coffee table, it wobbles but she's not too worried because she still doesn't know who's at the door. Who knows she's here?
She opens the door and is shocked by what greets her.
"Ariadne."
Blue blinds her once again.
"Cobb…"
She never realizes the bishop is still wobbling, and she never realizes that it topples over. All she realizes is that she doesn't want to leave this man.
She doesn't want to leave this reality.
So I'm probably one of the very firsts to make a Dom/Ariadne fic, maybe one of the few who actually ship them. (Anyone can tell me different. Please….I don't want to be the only one out there who likes this ship with the actual substance.) So this is just….whatever, I don't even know. All I knew when I started this was that I wanted to make a fic for these two. Cuz I've found none for them so far. And that makes me horribly sad. I seem to only ship these two, I'm probably the only person who doesn't like Arthur (I like him only in the gravity-defying fights…I have eyes people, I know a sweet fight when I see one) and doesn't like him with Ariadne. I mean, they kiss once. And it just looked like something his character would do. Not to her, but to any pretty girl in that position. It didn't make them soul mates in my opinion and it didn't make them ship worthy to me. So…yea. I just loved the whole Cobb-Ariadne dynamic though. They helped each other out, she helped him through the Mal thing, he tried to protect her throughout the entire film, she wouldn't let him go, told him not to lose himself. It was beautiful. I shipped these two since I saw the first trailer, and it only intensified when I saw the movie :)
Btw, the first line is a quote from the movie. I thought it was pretty significant to this ship, she tells him to not lose himself before she jumps backwards off the building in the limbo. That one line stood out to me, and it's also kinda linking to when she wakes up, aka the beginning of this fanfic xD
Please review, I might make another, might not, depends on….something ;P Hope ya enjoyed!