Ok, so I know I probably shouldn't be starting another fic with all the others I'm working on, but I just rewatched the movie and I couldn't let this go.

*Full Summary:

A Mal/Ariadne fic, but not the way you're thinking.

Ariadne thought she understood everything she needed to know about the lovely force of nature that was Mallorie Cobb, but after Inception, she realized there were a lot of things she didn't know after all. When complications with the Shade and her Projections begin to grow dire, Ariadne and the team are forced to reexamine their experiences in the dreams, and face demons they would have much rather liked to keep buried.*

I know this is probably not original, but bear with me! Also, I'm no psychologist by any means, but a good writer is also a good researcher, and I will have elements from dream studies and psychology in this story. (How could I not, right?)

Sorry this chapter is so short, I just wanted to set everything up.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy! Let me know what you think in the reviews!

- Raven


The first time Ariadne notices her is on her way home from University. It was a week or so after the Saito case; but really, it could have been months or years. She had been having trouble keeping track. She set alarms on her phone constantly, to go off every few hours to remind her to check. She would look at her watch, count the seconds as they ticked, breathe, and slip a hand into her jacket pocket; subtly, so no one else would notice. Her fingers would touch the cool metal piece residing there, and she would relax, open her eyes, able to continue on with whatever she had been doing.

Her latest alarm had just gone off, but as she drew her watch close to her face, something reflected off the glass face. She froze, and her breath caught in her throat, a tremor overtaking her body. Her left hand slid slowly down her side, inching towards her pocket, but a set of slender fingers gripped her wrist, stopping her motion and turning her insides to jelly.

"Now now, love," the voice purred in her ear. "No need for anything rash."

No.

"This isn't possible," she said, surprised and grateful that her voice was steadier than she thought it would be.

"Isn't it?" The lips brushed her ear, so close she shivered, and the fingers tightened around her wrist, foiling her attempt to reach her pocket. "Why is that?"

"Because you're gone. We've moved on; you're not even a Projection anymore."

"That's right," the voice cooed, and Ariadne drew a sharp, shaky breath. "I'm not a Projection. I'm a Shade."

The word was hissed from everywhere and nowhere at once, and the cold, pale fingers began tracing small circles on the inside of her wrist.

"Please," she stammered, blinking hard and cursing her body for betraying her fear. "Please…stop that."

"Am I making you nervous?" She laughed softly, and Ariadne shivered again, a little harder than before.

"Why are you here?" she asked, deciding for the sake of sanity not to ask how. She could figure that out later, preferably from the shelter of a padded room.

"Come now, you should know that. It was part of your lessons, wasn't it?" She was pouting. Ariadne could feel it- hear it in the mocking lilt of her voice.

She tried to think, to remember what Dom and Arthur had told her about the dream world, and specifically what Dom had told her about Projections. She couldn't remember who had made mention of a Shade, but she knew from her studies of mythology that Shades were the spirits of those who haunted the Underworld. They were mere flickers of the real person they represented, almost like a shadow on the wall. But none of that helped her now, and she wished she could just reach….

"There's no point in that," She said flippantly, as though hearing Ariadne's thoughts. "It won't help you anyway. Not here. Not now."

"Why?" Her words were quick, fear sinking even further in. "Where are we?"

Silence met her question, but she knew She was smiling behind her, in the same way she knew it wasn't Kansas-anymore-Toto.

"What do you want from me?" she demanded, and a full laugh responded this time, dark amusement twisting like a knife in her gut. She regretted the metaphor instantly, but had no time to regret any further.

"From you?" The voice was distant, the pressure of her fingers diminishing. "Nothing. Nothing at all."


It's only after she gets home and locks herself in her room that Ariadne realizes she doesn't know how she got there. And only after that does she realize her alarm never went off, and that her totem, the one piece holding her together, was gone.


"She'll notice, won't she?" The voice was quiet, nervous in the presence of the figure before it.

"Of course she will." The woman smiled, fiddling with the piece a moment more before sliding it across the board. "It's only a matter of time."

Your move, darling.