Oh, she'd seen them. Him to be more precise. She'd seen quite a lot of him, and had so for the past few weeks. He would sit up the back of her classrooms, immersed in notes. She didn't see, but he would steal glances at her noting her every move. The way she would brush her hair back, fiddle with her scarf, the way she would look at him quizzically. He had to smirk at that.
She saw him, she would watch him up the back, always taking notes. Whether it was actually about the subject, she really never knew. She never saw him before class, but he was there at least once a week, always in a different spot, trying to throw her off. He would talk to Professor Miles, and leave before she could catch him. Elusive.
It was strange.
When she started working with them, he hardly said to words to her that weren't work related.
It frustrated her.
He was there, kneeling beside her when Mal killed her for the first time. His dark eyes searching her face as he shows her his dice, his totem. He explains it, clear and concise. She thinks him cold, unfeeling - explaining to her more about the job, not caring that she just died, but she is alive, and how confused she was.
He was there when she returned. Standing with his back to her, sleeves rolled, and yet immaculate. His thin jumper shielding him lightly from the cold, and covering his pin-striped shirt, gelled hair, dark, calculating eyes sizing her up when he turned.
"Shall we take a look at some paradoxical architecture?" His tone was soft, his question somewhat vague, as he looked at her, she had just entered the warehouse. She felt ashamed, as though she was slinking back to them - to him - but the lure of dreaming was too strong.
Paradox. Something that seems ludicrous in definition, but in reality, expresses a possible truth. Something that shouldn't exist, but could. She'd looked it up in six different dictionaries, and it all came up the same. Something that shouldn't exist, but could. Somewhere, somehow. Anything is possible in dreams.
Standing on top of the Penrose staircase, she was able to forget that she was standing with him, and her subconscious. Walking on the impossible feat of architecture fascinated her. The way he would speak, with such a reverence for Paradoxes, his absolute belief in his words, his care for Cobb. Everything about him is clean, crisp, even. Nothing went wrong.
It starts off small at first, a car, an elevator, a tree. Cars become streets, elevators become buildings, trees become entire parks. How quickly it would grow, the simple wrinkling of her brow, would cause an entire bridge to rise from the earth. Anything is possible in dreams.
Her problem with Cobb was getting worse. It's not that she had a problem with Cobb, it was his own problem was getting worse, and it jeopardised everyone and everything. Cobb could no longer keep Mal out. She watched Cobb slowly deteriorate into darkness and guilt.
Eames was smart, sly and a sociopath, in her eyes. Eames' ideas were fantastical, logical, ludicrous and yet reasonable all the same. She had to work with Eames, who was generally nice to her, but seemed to make it a habit to tease him.
Eames would laugh at him. It would wind him up, make him mad. Displaying the kick crossed some sort of line. Watching him topple backwards, she was overcome with the desire to laugh and run to his aid at the same time, but after some seemingly frivolous flailing, he did not land flat on his back, but upright. The slight turn of the head towards Eames seemed to say all that was necessary. "Really?"
They pushed him over repeatedly while he slept, whether it was for research or entertainment, it seemed more the latter. Eames took a special sort of pleasure in seeing the shock light his face as he tumbled to the ground. Sideways, backwards, forwards, landing flat on his face; it was all funny to Eames.
"It would have to be a 7-47." Of course, he had done his research, he always did his research. Standing in her dream-space lobby. Cobb gives her a brief compliment on the design, before moving away, and she can't stop the slight flutter of her heart at his approving smile. And she leaves with them, leaves the lobby. The lobby she designed for him. Just like he is, clean and crisp, dark and yet light. Paradox. She had even added a set of the Penrose stairs just for him.
She sat cross legged in her chair, reclining in comfortable fabric, reading her book (Influences of Modern Architecture). He sat in the seat behind her. Eames took Fischer's passport, before reclining on the seat across from him. All went according to plan; at the clink of the cups, she tensed. Fischer's head lolled to his chest, and the flight attendant helped them all get comfortable before it began. The PASIV hissed and the world around them goes black.
Cars honk, rains pours down the steel walls of the skyscrapers she created, but she can't enjoy it. It's cold, and the rain chills her to the bone, water seeping through her jacket. She sees him in the taxi occupied by Eames, Saito and Fischer, and hopes everything is going to plan. Cobb's red car pulls over and allows her to get in, away from the rain.
It is barely a moment later when a freight train smashes into the side of the car, a screeching groan of the metal against tarmac - it's not meant to be there. Cars little the road, in various degrees of damage, glass littering the road. Cobb watches out of the window, transfixed, mesmerised, before turning and they head to the warehouse.
Eames rushes out to open the door and both cars enter the warehouse. Once inside, it is a minefield of accusation. He is dragging someone out of the taxi, almost unconscious, in serious pain.
She - cold and scared - watches.
"Where were you, what happened to you?" He asked, Cobb tells him they were blocked by a train, which is when he turns on her.
"Why would you put a train crossing in the middle of a down town intersection?" He turns to her, she sees his mind is full of a million and one things, and this was her fault.
"But I didn't!" She can't help the indignation rise in her words, but he just continues asking why a train was there. She thanks the heavens when Cobb turns on him, not that she liked seeing the two men fight, it as even harder when he was the one getting yelled at. It wasn't his fault! That was your train! She wanted to shout obscenities at Cobb, but fear and cold froze her tongue. Fear and a realisation.
Saito is dying.
Eames proposed that by shooting their employer, he'll wake up. It's a battle of wills, Cobb restraining the dirty Englishman.
"When we die in a dream, we wake up." Eames reasoned, the gun cocked in his hand, although it was lowered by his side as. The chemist - Yusuf - he was the one who explains that they are too heavily sedated. The only option when you die in this dream.
Limbo.
"Just unconstructed dream space. Just raw infinite sub-conscious. Nothing is down there. Except anything that might have been left behind by anyone else sharing the dream who's been trapped there before; which in our case, is just you." He turn on Cobb, his oldest friend, accusing the aged man with no place to call home.
Fischer is taken in the back, the problem remains unsolved. She confronts Cobb, and they share a quiet moment. Cobb tells her about Mal, the dream world they built, how they lost themselves and what it took to get back.
How Mal died.
A truth Cobb finally had the courage to reveal to someone. To her. Cold washed through her soul at every word. She tried to convince Cobb that it wasn't his idea that destroyed her, but Cobb was convinced otherwise.
Movement was everywhere, projections with guns, projections with big guns. She was scared, trapped in Yusuf's mind surrounded by Fischer's private army. Blasts were heard as the giant metal doors slid open. Him, Eames and Cobb; a symphony of destruction.
"Downward is the only way forward."
They were loaded into the van, the shifts in gravity made it hard to get in a proper resting position, but she managed. The needle in her arm was a painful pick, but it was dulled as the world turned black.
She found herself sitting next to him, an itchy grey suit and skirt (she thanked god the inside was silky - if not silk). Her hair was pulled back off her face and she felt somewhat exposed with out her usual scarf. He looked life he could just fade into the background, neatly pressed, black suit, dark gelled hair. His eyes narrowed and he nods his head, gesturing to her, where Cobb is walking past, also in a black suit.
"There goes Mr Charles." He said quietly, his voice hides hints of anger. She's confused, is this Mr Charles so bad? His answer, yes. Yes it is. He explains this to her, and she begins to see the possibilities for things to go wrong. Many, many things. She asks more questions, about Mr Charles, about Cobb, about work. He rewards her with a brief smirk, a single quirk of his lips that makes her heart flutter.
Something in the pit of her stomach drops as she feels the gravity shift. Fear grows in her belly where that thing dropped, and she clutches the couch they sit on. She asks him what's happening to them, be explains as if he is explaining how to work a toaster.
They're looking for him. The projections turn to them searching his face, her face.
"Quick, give me a kiss." It's a quiet request, and she's much too preoccupied to say no. The brief touch of his lips against hers makes a shiver of electricity run down her spine, a tingling sensation spread through her and it is over much too soon. Turning away, she sees the eyes of the projections till trained on them.
"They're still looking at us." She whispers, and she can hear the smirk in his voice,
"Yeah, it was worth a shot. We should probably get out of here." He looks at her, telling her they should leave, and she looks to the ground, trying to asses what just happened, nothing of very much importance, to him, perhaps, but it is as if the gravity shifted for her, in a good way.
With a brief turn of her head, she tried to catch his eye to figure out his motive, but he's up and leaving, so she follows and can't help but smile to herself.
The gravity keeps changing, but it no longer bothers her. They walk down the corridor she spent so long designing before she sees him enter 491 the stylish gold numbers. He explains how the room should be just below 528. Opening a safe in the room, he pulls out the charges, and she watches him as he stands on the furniture, attaching dynamite to the ceiling.
She peppers him with questions, and he answers truthfully. None of the questions are personal, they are all work related. She watches as he stretches to the ceiling, lethal, precise. Like a panther. Yes, he is a panther, dark, lethal, a predator in the jungle.
He finishes, and they exit, riding the elevator in a tense silence. She saw Cobb and Fischer (the latter scared out of his brain), as they exited the opposing elevator. He and Cobb pulled out there guns, kicking the door of 528 and searching the small, creamy room.
He came back out of the adjoining bathroom, PASIV in hand, Fischer looked at each of them, confused. His's shoulders tense as someone burst through the door, and she can feel Fischer freeze.
"Uncle Peter?"
And so the story unfolds, Cobb questioning Fischer's faith in his godfather, the projection of Peter Browning acts like they expected, leaving Fischer a confused mess. She feels as though she should comfort him, but she is pretending to be a project, do they have feelings? Eames and Saito join them, she smiles at Eames (if not a little worriedly) and lays on the bed, where he helps them connect.
"Wait, who's sub-conscious are we breaking into?" Everything gets confusing and a haze of somnacin mixed answers pervades her thoughts before this reality drops away to nothing.
She is standing beside Cobb on the top of a snowy hill, one she put so much time and effort into. Cobb looks at her when she talks, but she knows he is seeing something else.
Mal. Mal is down there.
They regroup, a snowy expanse exposing them all. She is scared, what is happening up above? Is He ok? Is Yusuf ok? Or have they been killed, dropped into Limbo by some unknown projection's well placed bullet? The thought scared her, so she thought of it no more.
Then there was the kick. Yusuf's kick, off the edge of the bridge. An avalanche sped down the side of the mountain they were climbing, like a freight train. She and Cobb managed to make it to the sniper spot, but something went wrong.
Mal. Mal was down there.
Mal with her curly brown hair, framing her face like one of Leonardo Da Vinci's angels. This woman, so threatening, and so threatened. But she was just a shade, a shade of Cobb.
"Cobb, no, no she - she is not real! She's just a projection! Fischer! Fischer is real!" She tried to convince her employer, but he was doubtful, so doubtful, and it was too late. Mal shot an oblivious Fischer. Cobb sot Mal.
It all went down hill from there.
She was scared out of her mind, trying to protect her co-worker, herself, and the damaged man beside her. The whole time they took going down to the centre area, she could see the self doubt searing behind Cobb's eyes, and it was that self-doubt and yet determination that made Cobb agree to going down to Limbo to get Fischer.
She woke up, soaked in the water of an endless beach, surrounded by decaying buildings - the remains of Cobb's mind. She saw Cobb wading towards her and they walked through the deserted streets of memories, ducking away from the falling debris, until they got there. A huge apartment building.
Riding the stainless steel elevator up to the top floor she asked Cobb the plan. Answer; improvise. A quaint house spread before them. Cobb walked though, shoulders tensing at the sight of Mal, fingering a knife on the dark wood bench before her.
Mal turns to face them, eyes trained on Cobb, who sits at the beech table. The odd couple share a quiet, tense moment. She feels as though she is trespassing, and Cobb tells her what really happened. She became distraught, a freezing wind ripping across her being. And she sees Cobb as someone, not as the damaged man, but as half of a whole.
She realised she wanted to be half of a whole. To have someone to love. Not Cobb's other half, dear lord no, Cobb was a mentor, an older brother, but as someone else's lover.
"Fischer is on the porch." Mal has let Fischer go for Cobb. The mark was on the balcony, bound and gagged. A shudder of disgust ran through her being, and she heard Cobb's whispers to Mal.
"You can't stay here to be with her!" She shouted at him over the rolling thunder. Without taking his eyes of Mal, Cobb tells her that he isn't, that she isn't real. He needs to save Saito. With a flick of her boot, she sends Fischer off the edge of the building, and she knows, Fischer is no longer a target, but an innocent bystander.
It's over before it begins, Mal pulls a gun out, and a surge ripples through her pulling out a gun and shooting the projection of Cobb's late wife in the chest. The world crumbles as Cobb hold's Mal's hand.
She is struggling to keep a hold of the banister, wanting to see Cobb through to the vey end. Wind tears the buildings apart, lighting ripples like white waves across the black sky.
"Don't lose yourself! Find Saito and bring him back!" She yells over the din, finally letting go and plunging down, falling.
Falling.
The building around her has collapsed. She can no longer see the snow surrounding it for blasts and debris. There is no-one near her and she can only assume that the inception worked, that Fischer bought it. Her stomach flips, as the cracked stone she lies on tips, and she finds herself falling.
Falling.
She is in an elevator, the screeching of protesting elevator chains combines with the bangs of what she can only expect is the charges. A gasp escapes her lips, her collegues (all but Cobb and Saito) lie with their eyes open, he crouches in the corner, cradling the remote, eyes squeezed shut. He goes limp as they move through the air, and in the pit of her stomach, only one feeling pervades this, the feeling that she is falling.
Falling.
Water crashes in around her ears as she opens her eyes, back in the van at what she knows as level one. Her thoughts fly to Cobb, back in Limbo, and Mal. She squeezes her eyes shut as the van tumbles under the lake. She can feel the movement around her, but wont open her eyes in case it's Fischer.
A piece of plastic is pushed into her grip, and through the water and bubbles, she sees him, holding an oxygen thing out to her. Taking a deep breath, she hands it back to him. He flashes her a brief smile, which she tries to return, before going up to the surface.
She drags herself up above the water and onto the land, sloshing around in her boots filled with salty water. She waits to see if Cobb's head bobs above water, making sure she is alright. No such luck.
He bobs up. The all knowing point man. He sits with her, cold, wet, waiting. She tries to convince herself that Cobb will be alright, but can't help the tears that make tracks down her cheeks, leaning her head against him as she weeps he doesn't care, his leather jacket is already ruined. She weeps for him. She weeps for Cobb. She weeps for Saito. She weeps for Fischer. She weeps for herself. She weeps for Mal.
He doesn't stop her, she has a sneaking suspicion that he is holding back tears also. She's too sad to even ask.
This is how they spent the first day, rain pouring down them as she cried onto his shoulder. She saw Eames and Fischer, talking. After an hour, Eames turned from Peter Browning, to Eames. Fischer ran.
The crying couple struggled to their feet, she clutched him from support, and they made their way through the streets she had designed.
They spent the next seven days in a replica of the warehouse they had spent the last few months in, slowly recuperating.
She cried and she scream. She blamed herself, she blamed Cobb. She punched various objects. Once she punched him.
He tried to comfort her. He blamed himself, he blamed Cobb. He remained stoic, even when she punched him.
By the third day, she stopped crying. A small sandwich came into her hands, and she nibbled at the corner. It tasted dead, tangy and metallic, like the bullet that she fired, ending Mal's life. That wasn't real. She had to tell herself that over and over. None of this was real. He smiled at her, seeing her eat. It wasn't healthy to starve yourself, even in a dream.
Thoughts swirled in her head, bad thought, good thoughts, scary thoughts.
She thought about the kiss. But didn't bring it up.
She thought about Limbo. But couldn't bring it up.
She thought about Mal. But wouldn't bring it up.
She wanted to be a lover, to be half of a whole. She wanted to be his lover.
The thought occurred to her on the sixth day. She was eating again, and the two of them were engaging in fairly normal conversation, about fairly normal things. They argued over petty things, such as the best architectural structures. They agreed to disagree. That's when she decided.
He seemed to decide it too. He liked her, that was clear, and he had stolen that kiss. But now, he held her close - for warmth -, let her in - for security - and expressed his feelings - for himself. By the end of the eighth day, they knew each other like old souls.
He was a panther, her panther, purring by her feet, still dark, still lethal, but half of a whole.
Things began to warp, crash and fall around her.
"The sedative is gone. Yusuf's gone." He whispered to her. She screamed when the roof fell in, only now really forgiving herself, only now really letting someone in. And he shut her out again. The cold, unfeeling mask of the point man returned to his face before they were flattened by the corrugated iron.
She woke up, calm. No tears, no snow, no water, no grey suit. She was in the plane. Her eyes found Cobb's and she tried to ask him silently what happened . He avoided her gaze, but fortunately recognized each of them, before fixing his eyes on Saito. Her eyes found his, and she tried to communicate to him in any way, but he was smirking at Cobb, his expression saying it all.
"You lucky son of a gun."
She searched inside herself, asking herself if what happened was just a one-time thing. Yes, it probably was, she tells herself.
They all exit the plane, discreet. She can't help but feel sorry for an extremely confused Fischer. He left before any of them, and she did not see a trace of him at the airport. He had left the airport and was trying to shake of the whole experience. He let his guard down around the dark haired, angelic woman, and he hated himself for getting so close. If anyone were to find out, she would be captured before the week was out.
She smiled at Cobb as he got through immigration, having finally battled his demons, the elusive vixen torturing his mind. Eames in the line behind her. Saito walked by her. Yusuf a few people away as she collected her bags, but not him.
She went back to France. She finished her degree. Professor Miles would smile at her, her friends welcomed her home, but she was vacant. Her mind had left, along with her heart. Oh, she was still logical, she was smart as ever, but she lacked passion and she knew why. He had taken her heart.
Everything was straight.
Lines.
Logic.
Thoughts.
Nothing twisted.
No more of the twisting combinations that made her love architecture. Doing the impossible was out of the question now. Everything had a ridged formation.
She passed her exam with average marks.
You lacked creative flare was the comment the marker gave her.
She dreamed of him. The only place logic was illogical. Paradox.
She stopped living, but was alive. Paradox.
He loved her, yet he left her. Paradox.
Little by little, the old her returned. Buildings began to curve upwards, thoughts were shaded with colours. Logic was kicked to the curb.
But she didn't dream anymore, unless she dreamed of him. He began to slip out of the cracks in her mind, and the scent of His rain drenched leather jacket dropped from her list of favourite smells, and the tenderness of their embraces was washed over with new feelings.
Oh, she'd seen them. Him to be more precise. She'd seen quiet a lot of him.
She was the once young, once fulfilled, once in love Architect, Ariadne. She saw him once in the future. She was smiling, wearing a pair of blue jeans, a light brown shirt and red cardigan, topped with a creamy silk scarf. She laughed, she danced with others. He saw her and he shook his head, how sweet she seemed as a small child asked her for a dance, a young boy, no more than twelve, offering this iridescent lady his hand for a dance. She accepts, and they turn awkwardly. He watches from afar, leaning against the white marble bar in the far end of the room.
"She looks like someone I know." The Point Man said, spotting her across the room.
"Of course she does. Just look for the mark." Eames' voice as bored and sarcastic as he searched the room. Eames didn't recognise Ariadne, even after seven years, but he could. If not her name, than all the tangible things about her, the softness of her peach coloured skin, the warm glow and scent of roses as he kissed her cheek, the apple shampoo washed through her hair.
She had no idea how much of him she had taken with her. He was incomplete when they left each other, everything began to bend.
Lines.
Logic.
Thought.
Nothing ordered anymore.
No more of the tables of facts and straight edges that made him so precise. Somehow, the impossible seemed logical to him, and he hated thinking that. Loops and swirls were no way for a Point Man to think.
He no longer saw paradoxes. He saw opportunities. Perfectly logical nonsense. That in it's self is a paradox, but he didn't even see that.
He did, after a time. He began to think in straight lines. Years since they departed from that aeroplane, since he had seen her, even when he saw her that night , he could remember the sight of her soft smiles, the thundering of his heart when he kissed her, the exhilaration when he held her close.
He was Arthur. Straight to the point, Point Man, stick-in-the-mud Arthur. And he was here, with Eames, searching for the next mark, forgetting the young woman whom he had loved.
For better or for worse, it is hard to say. Both shattered, both repaired, yet both have a small hole, left unfilled, for there are some wounds, time alone cannot heal. But they learn to love, they learn to grow, they though they do not consciously love each other, they always will.