A/N: Sorry for the wait! Unfortunately, the stretches between chapters might be a bit longer, what with school coming up and everything. I've been hitting the GRE study books pretty hard myself, hence the delay. However I'll do my damndest to make it up to you with long, fun-filled, scintillating chapters! If I'm not coming through, please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you'd like to see more (or less) of! I live to serve ::bow:: Thanks again to everyone who gave feedback on the last chapter – it is appreciated as always. If you'd like to drop me a line, feel free to give me any advice, criticism or compliments!


Visiting the Ponti Café was a tradition with Mosi long before she took up residence in London. During her years of unlawful, yet incredibly gainful, employment in the extraction business, she'd traveled through Heathrow many times. Heathrow being the hellish air travel hub it was, Mosi found herself with a few hours to kill every time she flew.

Ponti's was her haven.

She picked up the bulbous blue cups and saucers with a customary unnoticed nod to the barista just behind the counter, already hard at work on at least three other orders. Ponti's was packed with tourists, hipsters making fun of the tourists, and night shift workers making fun of the hipsters. Mosi lifted the cups of hot liquid up and around the sea of talking heads, her body contorting through the crowd with practiced ease, feet just managing to avoid purses, power cords, and the occasional stack of books.

Cobb sat at a plastic-topped table in the back, just under the stairs that led up to the second floor. It was a surprisingly quiet spot amidst the chaos of caffeine-seeking people of the night; equally surprising was the fact that the table seemed to have been reserved for Mosi, who had picked up the cheap cardboard sign with a flourish, gestured him to sit and made her way to the front of the long line with no resistance.

Cobb could almost make out the strained tones of modern folk music pulsing out of the speaker system, his mind wandering to past memories as he watched Mosi pick her way towards him. Her gawky frame managed to look almost graceful in movement, a quality he had forgotten about in the intervening years.

"You must come here often," he commented, throwing one arm over the back of his chair as he leaned back, smiling up into her flushed face.

"Too often." Mosi smiled back, keeping one eye on the precariously full drinks as she slid herself onto her chair. She placed her own mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of her, bringing his fresh Americano up to her nose and breathing in deeply. With a delighted shiver and a longing sigh, she relinquished it.

Cobb took the cup gingerly, eyeing the woman across from him suspiciously. "You know you could always order your own. You'd get to drink it and everything."

Mosi waved a hand at him dismissively, taking a long swallow of her drink. "If there's one thing I don't need, it's a caffeine addiction." She leaned back in her chair slowly, brushing an errant bang out of her face with her free hand as she allowed herself a smile. "I have enough problems as it is."

Cobb refrained from responding, managing to pull a weak grin across his lips as his fingers tapped the ceramic cup nervously. Mosi watched him closely for a moment, her eyes scrunching down into a squint. She put down her cup with a gentle click, but remained in a languid position. "You're in quite the state, aren't you, bergie?"

Taking a sip of his coffee, Cobb straightened in his chair, cocking his head slightly to one side as he valiantly endeavored to keep smiling. "Is it that obvious?"

Mosi took the opportunity to shrug her jacket off her shoulders, shaking her head as she pulled at her sleeves. "No. No it's not." She turned, draping her jacket over the chair carefully, avoiding his eyes. "I just know you very, very well."

When she turned back towards him, her face was all business. The easy lines of smiles had fallen from her lips and eyes, her expression became unreadable. Her body remained, as always, loose, her arms and legs flaying out from her body languidly. It was only because Cobb also knew her very, very well that he could detect the slight tension in her shoulders, the repositioning of her body towards the nearest exit.

Cobb took a drink of his Americano, endeavoring to act as if he hadn't noticed the complete shift in the mood of his companion. He fidgeted in the uncomfortable metal chair as if it was the foremost thing on his mind, lining up the words carefully before they hit his tongue.

"I need your help, Mo."

"Oh." She moved her arm up to rest on the back of the chair, her hand flipping up easily as she adjusted. "Well, in that case, name it - I'm always happy to help a friend."

Her tone was anything but friendly, and Cobb knew that she knew it. He leaned in, resting his arm on the table as he did so. "It's a job."

"Unavailable." She began to stand up, grabbing her coat with one hand. "Was that it?"

"Mosi."

She paused, awkwardly stuck in a position half erect and half at rest. She translated an eye-roll into a complete upper body expression, rolling her shoulders back and her head around her neck as she looked back down at the man across from her with unwilling eyes.

His sea foam blue eyes glanced up at her for only a moment before returning to their previous position, staring straight ahead at where she had been reclining. "Mo, you promised to hear me out."

Mosi took a deep breath in through her nose, letting it out slowly as she returned to her seat. This time her hands came up to rest on the table top, fingers intertwining tensely. "Okay. Okay, Dom: I'm listening."

Cobb breathed in deeply, putting himself mentally back on the script he had prepared. "It's a dangerous job. With no payment that I can guarantee, you should know that upfront."

Mosi attempted to mask her confusion and interest with a casual sip of her cooling drink. "Alright, it's known. What kind of job is this?"

"It's more of a…" Cobb searched for the right words, twisting his cup in its saucer absentmindedly. "…a personal favor then a job."

Mosi pulled back slightly, straightening her back and looking at him sideways. "Listen, Dom…if you're in some kind of trouble, you can just come out and say it. Is it your charges back in the states? Has something changed?"

Cobb couldn't suppress a chuckle, shaking his head over his steaming drink with a tense smile. "Well, if you have to know, they have changed. But that's not the problem, no."

Her inquiring eyes and disbelieving grimace asked all the questions for her and Cobb couldn't avoid answering them, especially since it still gave him a thrill to say it, even a year later. "I found a way home, Mo."

"Home?" Mosi leaned in slowly, a smile spreading across her features. "Home home? Home in the states, but not in prison home? Home with your family home?"

Cobb only nodded. Mosi's hands came up to her mouth, deadening the sound of her ecstatic exclamations. "Aweh! Aweh, Dom! That is so – I mean! That is so befok, bru!" She grabbed him warmly by the arms, leaning over the table to planting an unexpected kiss on his cheek. "Congratulations!"

He cleared his throat, smiling but caught off guard by Mosi's emotional outbursts that had at one time been so familiar. "Thanks."

She sat back hard in her chair, her grey eyes as wide as her smile. "How did this happen? When?"

"About a year ago." He sighed, leaning back in his chair, seemingly unable to control the smile on his face. "And it's been a great year."

Mosi cocked her head to one side, reaching a hand out to toy with the handle of her cup. "I'll bet. But how'd you do it, Dom?"

Cobb considered the impact of his response before he said it, watching her closely, curious as to his old friend's reaction. "Inception."

Mosi's face remained disappointedly unchanged. She waited a beat before nodding, mistaking his silence for a need of encouragement. "Yeah, what about it?"

Dom splayed his hand out on the counter top, leaning in as he explained simply, "I did it."

Her shoulders dropped slowly, arms falling down to her sides. She pushed her body away from the table as if she was considering getting up. Her breathing shallowed out as she stared at the man across from her.

"Bullshit."

Cobb shook his head ever so slightly, sending Mosi's eyes flicking compulsively from his face to a chipped tile on the café floor. "Are you…" her voice had fallen to a whisper and she was having difficulty completing sentences, as if she had just run a 5k. He had to lean in to hear her properly. "Are you telling me…that you – you, actually did it; you – you planted an idea in someone's mind and it, it stuck?" Her pleading eyes finally met his. "It worked?"

He nodded, smiling wide. "Yes."

Mosi couldn't hold it in anymore. Her two arms came up slowly, resting one on top of the other on the table top. Her head dropped onto them with a high-pitched groan and a simple exclamation. "Oh Christ, I think I'm gonna faint!"

Cobb sat back in his chair, draining his drink to the dregs. "Try breathing through your nose, I hear it helps."

"Okay, sure," was the muffled response from the recumbent woman across from him. She lifted her head after a few moments, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks rosy. "You clever son of a bitch, you really did it? I think I just fell in love with you!"

"I sincerely hope not. No offense."

"None taken." Mosi sat back, composure slowly but surely returning to her as she smiled uncontrollably, sighing and moaning like a happy child. "You did it, I cannot believe it! How, how you have to tell me! It's not like Inception's been a part of my life directly and indirectly since I was 12 or anything; you have to tell me!"

Cobb sensed an opportunity, one that he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of before. He ran a hand through his hair casually, a hand slipping itself into his pocket before he made eye contact with her again. "I would, but it's my only poker chip in this game."

Mosi greedily sucked down a mouthful of hot chocolate before pressing, "How so?"

"Here's the way it works," Cobb kept his expression amiable enough but his tone was all business. "You do this favor for me, this job – and I'll give you Inception."


Slang 101

1. Bergie - Refers to anyone down-and-out

2. Aweh! - An exclamation of excitement

3. Befok - Really good, exciting, cool

4. Bru - Male friend, brother