Title: Le Famille
Author: A Crazy Elephant
Summary: Or "Five Times Ariadne Met Her Team Members' Families and the One Time They Met Hers"
Category: Family/Friendship
Word Count: 1,380
Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Christopher Nolan, not me. Sad.
Author's Notes: So I've been reading unhealthy amounts of Inception fanfiction since this summer and I've come to find I love the family/back story types the best. Since I'm forbidden to start work on my NaNoWriMo entry and I'm avoiding a Human Variation paper on Mendelian inheritance, I thought I'd go ahead and let off some steam with a fuzzy family piece of my own. None of them really have a point, just a series of fluffy moments with the families I like to think our favorite dream thieves have. I'm using a different tense than my usual style; let me know if I slip back into the past participle. Reviews are loved; I'd love to hear what you think. = )
1 – Saito
2 Days Before Inception
They're staying at some ridiculously lavish hotel in Sydney.
Well, she and Saito are staying at this ridiculously lavish hotel. The others have made themselves scarce, booked in several other extravagant hotels in the area that she's pretty sure each cost nearly as much as a semester's worth of tuition per night. It would look suspicious, she is told, too highly coincidental if anyone got curious and did some digging to find that every first class passenger on the Sydney to Los Angeles just happened to arrive in Australia on the same day and just happened to stay in the same hotel before hand.
She arrives from Hong Kong with a passport that says her name is Katie Stephens from California and a lie about looking into schools abroad on a trust fund allowance the morning after Saito, who claims to be stopping in to check on one of his business ventures and the day before Yusuf who is supposedly on his way to a symposium on organic chemistry. She has been carefully instructed, groomed and outfitted with a particularly impressive pack of false identification papers, plane tickets and a suitcase loaded with designer versions of her usual wardrobe in every effort to make her less Poor College Student and more Trust Fund Baby.
But checked in and standing in a room three times the size of her Parisian flat, she doesn't feel like Trust Fund Baby Katie from Los Angeles. She hardly even feels like Poor College Student Ariadne from Paris. It feels like a dream.
Except it isn't. The bishop falls with a resounding thud to the nightstand every time she gives it a knock. She can remember how she got to the Sydney hotel - from waking up from Cobb's nightmares to the announcement of Maurice Fischer's passing, to Eames and Arthur giving her a crash course in using aliases, false travel documents and not arousing suspicion, to the flights to Hong Kong and Sydney and the taxi to the hotel. Barring any truth to certain philosophical theories that she only half remembers from a long ago undergraduate philosophy seminar and to the best of her knowledge, she is most certainly awake. In forty-eight hours, she will get on a plane, enter the subconscious of at least two men she barely knows and help plant an idea that will surely be felt by far more than just Robert Fischer and the team's bank accounts.
With reality verified, she gets restless and suddenly the suite with it's sleek design and clean lines reminisce of another hotel she'll be seeing this week, feels cramped and stuffy. Leaving the suitcase, she takes her messenger bag and her bishop and returns to the row of elevators.
It's too cold outside after the mild late spring of Paris and the stuffy warmth of Hong Kong, so she elects to remain in the lobby. She briefly considers one of the upscale restaurants, but even in her newly purchased Hermès scarf and Gucci shoes, she's quite certain she'd feel out of place and that the guilty feeling of glaring conspicuousness would be even more difficult to shake so instead she settles onto one of the boxy couches that act as buffer between the reception desk and the restaurants. She rummages through her bag and produces her sketchbook, with dim intentions of recording some of the design elements in the building around her.
"What'cha drawing?" The question comes from behind; above her shoulder, really and from a tiny little face with familiar sharp features and an accent that sounds like it was perhaps picked up from Sesame Street.
"Oh – the hotel," She explains awkwardly, holding up the sketchbook for the little boy's inspection. It's hard to say how old he is – he's tall enough to push eight or nine and the crisp little khakis and oxford he wears add to the effect, but the complete innocence of the question, as though asking anything of complete strangers is entirely normal, plus the look in his dark eyes that expects a genuine answer sets him back to perhaps six or seven.
The child studies the picture critically for a moment, then the lobby around them.
"You forgot the sign. For the restaurant." He concludes, pointing to the far wall where the letters of the eatery's name glow in the ambient lighting and then at her sketch. She snorts a chuckle and nods.
"So I have. Thank you." She offers what she hopes is an appreciative smile. The jetlag, plus the growing anxiety of the upcoming assignment and the general surrealism of the entire experience have dulled her manners and enthusiasm and she'd hate to hurt the kid's feelings.
"Why are you in Australia?" He asks, matter-of-factly. "You aren't Australian." He's definitely more on the six end of the age spectrum. His frank observations and probing questions haven't really a logical pattern or a snide tone that an older child might use.
"No, no I'm not." She agrees. "I'm looking at schools." She uses the lie Eames has supplied her with and nearly feels guilty telling it in response to such an earnest question.
"Why would you want to do that?" He scrunches his face in mild confusion and she nearly giggles at the innocent simplicity of his comprehension. "Wouldn't you want to go to school instead of just looking at it?"
"I do want to go to school, I just have to pick one first." She explains with another smile. "And I have to see them before I can choose." This answer is satisfactory and the child nods enthusiastically.
"We're surprising Father." The boy announces. "He's working and Mother thought we ought to visit him." He explains. There's a touch of pride in his voice and he holds his chin a bit higher at the cleverness and secretiveness of this plan. "He's been in France," The child continues. "That's miles and miles away!"
"Yeah?" She enthuses.
"Yes," He beams. "Mother says this is the closest he'll be to home until his meetings are over so we had to visit."
"I'm sure he'll be very pleased you've come to see him." She tries another encouraging smile and the child seems satisfied. He is about to speak, but the approach of an older boy and a brief scolding in what she assumes is Japanese interrupts.
"I am sorry for my brother," The elder apologizes. The boy, sporting the same sharp features as his brother, is stiffer; his manners more refined and he's clearly at least twice the age of the smaller boy. Dressed in an even neater button down and pleated little khaki pants than his brother, he's a miniature, more casual version of her employer and she knows she's correctly identified Saito's sons. "He is . . . overly friendly."
"It's all right." She admits. And it is. There's something comforting in the younger boy's smile and it's nice to see a side of her employer's life that doesn't include cryptic observations, cutthroat business strategies or outrageously accommodating spending sprees.
"She was showing me her picture." The smaller child points to her open sketchbook. "I was helping, Ichiro-chan!" He defends.
"I'm sure you were, Jiro-kun." The older boy, Ichiro, is not convinced and his tone has a note of impatience. "Come along." A call from the lobby in Japanese interrupts, bringing both boys' attentions to the reception area where Saito stands with a woman in a prim little cocktail dress, looking expectantly at the children.
"I apologize for my brother," Ichiro says again, with a little nod as he ushers his brother toward their parents. "Good day,"
"Good bye!" Jiro waves enthusiastically over his brother's shoulder as he is herded away before bounding ahead to his parents
"Good bye!" She waves back, smiling as the boys reach their mother, who gives them a short lecture she assumes is along the lines of 'don't talk to strangers'. While the boys accept their reprimand, Saito catches her gaze and nods in acknowledgement with a knowing sort of smile. She nods back as they move out to the curb and a waiting car and even though she still feels as though she'd moving through a dream, at least, she decides, it's a good one.