Hello readers! Here is my contribution to STEAMM day 2016 (which has actually been in the works for a couple of weeks), which as some of you may know celebrates the Sybil x Tom, Edith x Anthony, and Mary x Matthew ships that were cruelly struck down in that cursed season.

Inception is one of my favourite films and I loved the universe that Christopher Nolan created. When I rewatched it over the summer I found myself thinking what it would be like as a STEAMM-centered fic ... and so I got to writing this! Now, I'm using a lot of the elements from the movie such as extraction, lucid dreaming, projections, etc. but I want to give my own spin on things, so some elements may not be exactly the same as the are in the movie. And some things from the movie aren't entirely explained or explained very well, so please don't ask me this or that about that, because even I don't know – I'm just trying to make things as understandable as possible. So, there will be similarities in story elements/character traits/perhaps storylines, but this is not meant to be a crossover.

I appreciate any and all feedback or thoughts you have on this, so thank you to everyone who takes the time to write a review. And for those of you who remember/read my last big STEAMM fic ... I WILL NOT REPEAT WHAT I DID THE LAST TIME! I PROMISE! PLEASE DO NOT RUN AWAY!

Dream Within the Dream

Prologue

"Over here! I've got someone!"

Mary's eyes flickered open at the shout, but she didn't move. She didn't lift her face from the river bank, even though she wanted to spit the salty water from her mouth or give her cheeks relief from the sharp-edged rocks pressing into her skin. Another ripple of cold water cascaded over her legs, dampening her trousers again.

How long she had been lying there, she couldn't know. An hour … half a day … a whole day? She felt weak, and her stomach from hunger. She wanted to stay there on the rough bank, fall into a deep sleep again. What was it like to sleep? It had been a long time since she had lay down in a bed, closed her eyes, and let dreams simply wash over her mind, meaningless and eventually to be forgotten.

She didn't move a muscle even as someone crouched down beside her, and something prodded her spine. A moment later, someone else walked down the bank, rocks crunching under heavy boots. "Did you check her?"

"Not yet. I can't get to her jacket pockets."

An irritated grumble from one of the men. "C'mon then."

Mary flinched, but she didn't fight or say a word as the two men pulled her by her arm and shoulder onto her back. She lay completely still as one bent down and reached into her jacket, rummaging his hands through the pockets. There wasn't any sunlight here – she couldn't feel any warmth on her gritty face. The undulations of the river kept washing over her legs, and she let out a shiver, her first movement since the two men had found her.

"Here, take this." The man going through her pockets pulled something heavy from her left side. Her Beretta, Mary realized. She wasn't upset at having it taken away from her – if things worked in her favour, then she'd get it back.

And hopefully, she might be able to use it.

The man went through her other pocket, finding exactly what Mary knew what was in it. "What the hell's this?" he said as he pulled it out. "Ratty old thing, isn't it?"

"That supposed to be a dog or something?" the other man said.

"Doesn't matter. Let's bring her in."

Mary groaned as she was lifted up off the ground, both men grasping her arms. She didn't have the energy to find her footing and walk alongside with them, so she let herself be dragged across the bank, her shoes tearing from the rocks and debris.

She opened her eyes just a crack, and saw something familiar run across the river – Waterloo Bridge, or a rather convincing reproduction. And St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance – it looked much like the real thing, but how did it look up close? She didn't think she'd get a change to judge it for herself, but she supposed it was quite close to the real thing.

She kept her eyes open as she was carried up a set of metal stairs and across a pavement, but her eyes closed again and she let herself be dragged off to who knows where. When they finally stopped, one of the men let go of her arm and knocked on a door, which was opened. Immediately he took hold of her again and pulled her inside, her toes knocking against the sill. From the sudden smoothness that her feet brushed against, she figured she was in the foyer of a house now – one that might not be too spacious but nevertheless large and decorated in good taste, like the house at 10 Downing Street.

The men dragged her to the end of a long hallway, then tossed her limp body into a loveseat. "Stay there," one of them ordered. Mary smirked to herself: if she had the energy, she wouldn't try and escape anyway. If her hunch was correct, she was exactly where she needed to be.

Footsteps retreated down another hallway, and distantly she heard one of the men talking – to someone else? She could barely hear what he was saying, he was so far away and his voice was partially muffled, like he was talking through a half-closed door.

" … she had washed up on the South Bank. She was carrying this …"

Someting heavy was placed against a wooden surface – her Baretta.

" … and this as well."

A barely impercetible sound of something soft hitting the same surface. A softer, scratchier voice, still male, spoke aloud.

"Bring her in, please. And get her some food."

A few minutes later, and Mary was picked up again. Her eyes flickered open again, though she cast them downward to the polished marble floor of the corridor she was being dragged down. Eventually the marble floor turned into a glossy wood floor, and she was roughly plopped into a seat again, this time a dining room chair. Her entire body sagged, and it took what little energy she had left into not collapsing onto the wood floor. She leaned against the table in front of her, pressing her face into her splayed arms, remaining like that for a few moments until a dish was placed on the table.

"Go ahead … eat," the soft male voice gently urged.

Mary somehow found the strength to open her eyes and reach for the bowl in front of her. A thick, creamy soup filled the bowl nearly to the top, a spoon already sitting in it. She was suddenly ravenous, ducking her head towards the bowl so she could place the spoonful of warm, thick soup into her mouth without spilling a drop. It filled her dry, grainy mouth with a comforting taste and soothed her throat as she swallowed. It tasted like how she thought real food ought to taste. She quickly took in another spoonful, then another and another, wolfing down half the soup.

If Mama or Granny saw me like this, Mary thought with fleeting amusement, they'd both keel over.

The realization that she couldn't remember either her mother or her grandmother's faces made her pause, and the man sitting across from her took this chance to speak again.

"Why are you here?"

Mary slowly raised her head, gazing across the polished table at the old man who was watching her. His hair was a bit longer than what might be considered neat for someone of his advanced age, and every strand of it was white. There were lines all across his face, she noticed with dismay. But his eyes … his eyes had hardly changed. They were his, Mary knew.

"What?" she asked, her voice cracked from disuse.

"Why are you here?" the old man rasped again. He had tried to speak a bit clearer, but Mary recognized that voice anyway. Even after an entire lifetime, she would always know that voice, no matter how hoarse or quiet it was.

The gun was still lying on the table, but the man had in his hand the other thing that Mary had had in her pocket. He glanced at it, his expression suddenly sad.

"Do you remember that?" Mary asked.

The man nodded. "I remember," he said slowly. He turned the little stuffed dog around his hand, inspecting every inch of it. "I've seen it before, many years ago. It belonged to a woman I once knew … a long time ago … in a dream I can't remember."

Mary's hands were shaking, and she dropped the spoon. "But it's not the exact same," she told him as calmly as she could. "Make it stand up."

The old man did as she told him. The padding in the stuffed dog's legs was too unevenly packed in for it to stand longer than a few seconds, but this one stood upright as though it were a real dog, and might walk its way across the table to Mary. It remained there for a whole minute, with both Mary and the old man watching it the entire time.

"Don't you see? It's not the same," Mary said. "It's impossible."

The old man looked towards Mary again, and there was something more than sadness in his eyes: a mixture of regret, horror, and at long last, comprehension. They held the glazed-over look that someone had when their whole world, their entire lives, came crumbling down in an instant. His breathing sounded ragged, and his hands were also trembling.

Mary nodded, looking straight into the man's watery blue eyes. "I've come back for you."