The day he was discharged, I hadn't slept since the waiting room. That was three days ago. I knew why, though. I kept thinking how disgustingly similar the accident and the waking from limbo were. Him talking, trying to help somebody, when he's hit by a huge force.

James and Philippa were at school and Miles at the college, so it was me that had to go get him. He was already in his wheelchair when I arrived. I could also tell that he was embarrassed and nervous about being lifted into the passenger seat of Miles' car.

Getting him back out of the car, though, was a different ordeal entirely. Without any help from hospital staff we were going to have to get him into his wheelchair. I positioned the chair facing the car door. Cobb turned around, grimacing when his casted leg hit the gear shift. Thank God his arms were fine, and he could push himself into the chair, pulling his legs along.

He sat, silent and helpless in the living room as I brought his mattress down. There was no way he was getting up those stairs with two broken legs and a still healing lung. His bedroom was clean, sterile.

I didn't stop to look around, the thought of Mal here, alive, would only depress me. As I stripped the bed, my mind wandered.

You are waiting for a train…

No. No. I told myself, you will not think of that now. You are here to make Cobb better, not to be sad about his past. That's just ridiculous anyway. It's not like there was anything you could have done to keep them together.

I began, then, the arduous task of getting the mattress down the stairs. I was walking backwards and dragging it behind me. It thumped down each stair, and with each dull thud I could feel Cobb wince from his position on the ground.

With a final grunt of effort, I pulled it onto the main floor.

"Where- where's the guest bedroom?" I asked him, panting.

"I'll show you." He said and began wheeling himself down the hall. "Just in here." He was pointing into a small, bright room. It seemed too small for the empty queen sized gold bed frame that stood as the solitary piece of furniture in the room. I heaved the mattress onto the frame and, sweating with the effort it took me, positioned it in place.

With a huff I sat, deflated, on the edge. He wheeled over next to me. We were the same height.

"Miles is moved out. How are we gonna get you into that bed tonight?" I asked him, wiping my forehead.

"I'll manage. If you agree to help me, that is." Even though he was smiling his eyes were dreadfully sad.

I said nothing. There was something uncomfortable in the air, a barrier of some kind.

"Any way, I can't ask you to take care of me, Ariadne." He told me, looking down.

"I'll get the sheets." I said stiffly, and left him there, with the late afternoon sun turning his hair gold.


I didn't have a place to stay at the moment, and I knew he assumed that I'd be staying with him. I knew that would be the best thing for him, as Philippa and James couldn't be expected to do much. But it was not really what I wanted. I knew that Cobb was the priority, and not my comfort. I wasn't the one with two shattered legs and a collapsed lung.

Dinner was quiet and odd. It was only the two of us, as the kids were at Miles' to ensure Cobb an interruption-free first night home. I sat across from him and stared down at the pasta I'd hurriedly made.

"This is good, Ariadne." He said with a small smile I his voice.

I looked up, smirking. "Goddamned liar. It's terrible, there's no need to flatter me, and I could still kill you any time I wanted."

He gasped dramatically. "You'd never!" He exclaimed with a laugh. His eyes turned almost immediately sad.

"You know, Cobb-" He cut me off.

"Ariadne! For fuck's sake, call me Dom." He was staring me down.

I stared right back. "Why? No one else does."

"'Cobb' is too formal. It doesn't feel right." He answered quietly.

I said nothing; I think I was slightly stunned. I cleared the table.


That night, he had to have a bath. I filled the tub with bubbles (a concealer of sorts) and hot water.

"I promise I won't look." I said with as much reassurance as I could muster.

He only grimaced. Cobb hoisted himself onto the lip of the tub, and with eyes cast to the ceiling; I gently lowered each leg into the water. He sank, strong arms trembling with the effort, into the bath.

"I'm- I'm gonna go now." I told him awkwardly.

He nodded.

"Call me when you want to get out."

If I knew anything about Cobb, he would hate being dependant on someone as heavily as he was now. I was the only was he could really live, and that, would make only looking at me sickening for him.

There was no room upstairs, so I took the liberty of finding the linen closet, and making myself a bed on the pull out couch.

"Ariadne." I heard him call from the bathroom. His voice was small.

There were still bubbles in the water (thank God) and he was sitting up, with a pained grimace on his face.

"I hit my leg." He said, in response to my puzzled expression.

"How're we gonna do this?" I asked him. I myself had no idea.

"I suppose we could let the water out and I could air dry here." He was only half joking.

"I suppose we could." I sighed. "Where's the plug?"

He motioned to where it must have been, and I reached into the now luke-warm water and pulled it out. I turned away as the water drained.

"Could you pass me that magazine, please?" I handed it to him, still looking up.

"I'm gonna go, again."

"No stay, don't worry, you can face the door." I could tell he was smiling. "Just, I wanna talk."

"So, talk." I was irritated over some non-existent reason.

"Well, what are we going to do about you?"

"What about me?"

"I mean, you're staying here, right?" He asked, a hint of hope in his voice.

"I should hope so. I don't have a place here. And I can't exactly just run off back to Paris, now can I?"

"Good." He responded, satisfied. "I'm all dry."

He pulled himself up onto the edge of the tub, groaning with strain. Cobb slid himself backwards into the chair I had waiting. I was still averting my eyes when I carefully pulled each leg out of the bath and rested them on the rests of the wheelchair.

"I'm fine from here, Ariadne." He told me, and to be honest, I really didn't want to argue the point.


"Hold still, would you?" I said impatiently. We were trying to get him into bed.

"Well, I'm sorry that I can't get myself into bed using only my arms, Ariadne."

"Why do you keep doing that?" I asked.

"Doing what?"

"Saying 'Ariadne'. There's no one else you could be talking to."

"If I call you 'Ariadne', you should call me 'Dom'."

I responded with, "Whatever. Tomorrow I'm calling Arthur."

When I finally settled down on the surprisingly comfortable couch, guilt washed over me again. I shouldn't have been so bitchy to him. I thought to myself. It's my fault he's crippled now, anyway.

Suddenly the couch wasn't half as soft.