Here is chapter two. I would like to thank liliesandroses54 for the sole review on the first chapter.
Here's the deal for part three, I would like at least 4 reviews on either chapter posted so far. 4 more reviews = part three :)
Chapter Two: The Turn
It was the only moment that Olivia could recall where she held a disdain for coffee as they sat at a tiny table outside a quaint café on a bustling city street. She wiped her sore fingers with a cloth as she tried to remove the blood.
She was thankful that it wasn't due to reasons that one could discern from little red marks on a paper cup; lacerations of a guilty hand.
The reasons to her appeared to be insidious and witty, something that she did not appreciate.
He knew how she liked her coffee; he'd even announced it when the waitress brought over their order:
"Black coffee, with one sugar," he said with just a dash of bravado.
It was a dash too much.
Ribbons of steam billowed out from her untouched cup of coffee on the table as she watched him, an obnoxious fly scrambling in the ointment.
She would wait a little longer; she wanted to see how long he would scramble before he begged for help.
But of course there was no such thing as a perfect reality; its only constant was imperfection.
"You know your coffee is getting cold," he mentioned in a distracted tone.
Let it get cold then, she thought. If this man was as audacious as he was inconsiderate then she was eager to discover what little trove of contingencies he had up his sleeve.
"You know I don't think that you ever told me your name," she said.
"I haven't had a reason to," he answered as he sipped his coffee.
"Well I just asked you your name so I'd say that's enough of a reason."
He set his coffee cup back on the table, the delicate china clinking slightly as he set back on the saucer. It reminded her of silver wind chimes.
He leaned forward on the table and folded his hands; she felt as if she were on the wrong end of Sherlock Holmes' interrogation table.
"Is it really?" He asked in a deadpan voice.
She didn't answer.
"Is simply asking ever enough, or does there need to be some... desperation in the question?
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs as his hands settled on his lap: "What do you think Olivia, are you desperate to know my name?"
The wicker woven chair beneath her was the only thing that kept her grasp of reality from tumbling away into a pit of molten fear at that moment.
She had never told him her name, so how could he possibly know it?
Dozens of scenarios screamed through her mind like a whirring pinwheel; each coming faster and faster until she couldn't discern one from the other twenty.
Uncertainty held her in its thick jaws; caught in limbo between life and death.
She had never thought such a terrifying moment was even conceivable.
"How do you know my name?" She asked.
"Because," he answered, "It's my job to know you Olivia."
The fly was still in the ointment, but now it swam through it unhindered; and to Olivia that was far more disconcerting. But after she had sat for moments in disbelief and throbbing fear she refused to let her question go unanswered; if there was one thing that she had never been it was passive.
She placed her hands, palms flat like smooth coins and looked him right in the eyes as she spoke:
"Listen to me I don't care how you know me or what the hell you want with me, you know my name so at the very least you could have the courtesy to tell me yours."
He moved his pointer finger from beneath his chin to graze his upper lip in a lazy motion before he nodded.
"You really are desperate to know my name aren't you?"
She didn't answer; she would never capitulate to admission.
"My name is Dom Cobb," he answered.
With that matter sorted she refused to beat around the bush any longer, even if there was a tiger lurking amongst the emerald shrubbery she wanted to know what was there.
"Why am I here?"
It was of course, a rather general question. But he was there for a specific reason, which suggested that she was too. (Except that only one of them knew why).
His eyes darted straight to hers and didn't move, she thought that she saw a glint of epiphany in his cerulean eyes. His finger had stopped the motions against his upper lip. He dropped his hand from his face before he spoke again:
"That depends on your definition of here," he answered.
She slid her palms back off the table as her shoulders met the rough wicker of the chair. Her throat bristled and her skin rose in goose bumps. She didn't have a chance to add any words before he continued:
"Right now you are sitting at a table outside a café, drinking a cup of coffee with one sugar," he paused momentarily, "And you are in a sensory deprivation tank under the watch of Peter and Walter Bishop."
She quirked a suspicious eyebrow.
"But I haven't been back in the tank in months, why would I go back in?"
"Back in?" he asked, almost surprised, "You never left."
Her mouth crumbled into a frown.
"You've been in the tank ever since you went in to talk to John Scott."
Her eyes bloomed open like emerald suns as the realisation crashed into her, moulding painfully into her body.
She'd never left the tank.
"So this," she gestured to the rippling facade of buildings and streets, "Isn't real?"
"No," he answered, "You've been living in a dream Olivia, a dream that you conjured up in that tank."
Her entire body felt heavy like lead, her heart thick and painful with molten shock. Her memories of the time since her visit to the tank paled like glass, so breakable and transparent.
They weren't real.
Her and Peter... wasn't real. It was all some goddamned illusion that had been spun from the coiled thread of her imagination, and there'd always been enough to suit her purposes.
She pressed her trembling fingers to her forehead as her blonde hair curtained around her; it was so overwhelming; so twisted and mangled like broken bones that she struggled to keep her composure.
When she looked back up at him, his eyes were fixed on her in a studious manner as if she were a lab rat and he was gauging her reactions.
Like Walternate.
She almost told him to knock it off, but then another thought occurred to her. If she had never left the tank, she had never been Over There.
She had never been a subject of Walternate's latent vendetta.
But that was under the assumption that she believed every ounce of what this Dom Cobb had said, and she wasn't one to assume.
"Why should I believe you?"
"So the sceptic in you finally comes out," he said with a smirk.
He frowned slightly before he spoke again.
"You should believe me Olivia because I was sent in here by Walter and Peter, and they want to bring you back. According to Peter, Walter's gone through quite the amount of red vines since your little escapade began."
There was something about the way he mentioned the minute details that only a few would know that opened her little vial of trust, something that she reserved for saints and heroes.
She nibbled at her lower lip slightly before she spoke: "So what happens now?"
He stood from the table and walked over to her side:
"What happens when the dream ends... you wake up."
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