A/N – Sorry for the long wait (again!). French Writing GCSEs are never particularly fun, unless you're French, of course. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter.

Thanks for reading. Reviews are great – Ellen

When Cobb's eyes had opened and she'd seen their startling blueness again, she'd almost cried.

She'd done a lot of crying, actually. The pain that now made her whole body shake had steadily been getting worse, regardless of the drugs the doctors and nurses seemed to want to pump into her. She had now realised exactly what was going on.

The disease, this necrotizing fasciitis, the reason her stomach ached and her arm looked like it was going to drop off, was the security on this level of the dream. She wanted to kill Cobb for being so clever.

After all, you can't kill a disease. It just kills you. Slowly. Mercilessly. As she had waited for Cobb to return from wherever the hell he was, she'd rocked backwards and forwards on her metal cot, crying and cursing.

She was going to die. It was strange, she thought, how logical it was that it had come to this. She always pushed her luck, often too far, and it seemed only right that it was now luck's turn to push her. Off a ravine. Or in this case, the edge of sanity.

As she lay there, tears laden with despair rolling solemnly down her pale, clammy cheeks, she realised she had only one regret; she'd never see Arthur's face again.

She hadn't realised how much she needed him until she'd lost him. Watching him fall from the edge of the skyscraper, watching him fall from the top of the rickety staircase: both had been torturous and it was only now she recalled exactly how many minutes of the planning of Fischer's Inception she'd spent simply staring at him. She smiled, despite the fact it hurt her chapped lips, and tried to remember exactly the way he'd looked when he'd kissed her.

It was worth a shot.

Even though she was dying, about to purchase a one-way ticket to Limbo, she couldn't find it within her to regret the decisions that had brought her there. After all, she'd learnt how to live as she'd never lived before, dream as she'd never dreamed before, love – even if it was only now that she realised it.

It was too late. Arthur was dead. He would never be aware of the epiphany that was taking place on this small, cramped hospital bed, three layers deep in Dom Cobb's imagination.

Yes, she thought. That's what I regret; he'll never know. He'll never know that I love him.

Cobb had returned to consciousness a little while later.

"What happened?" she asked weakly, her voice scratchy and feeble.

"I really don't know," he replied, staring into space. "I think I was in Limbo."

"Limbo?"

"I know," he said, turning to look at her. He had to stop himself grimacing.

Dark shadows seemed smudged under her eyes and she appeared weak, like a rag doll left broken and unwanted. Her lips were dry and chapped, bleeding at the corner of her mouth and patches of her skin were purple and weepy. Her arm was wrapped in thick bandages, although patches of blood had seeped through here and there and, judging by the smell, something unpleasant was going on beneath it.

Guilt gnawed away at him, like a parasite. If he had never met her, had never employed her as his architect, she wouldn't be in this state, wouldn't be dying. She'd always seemed so young, so full of life and now she lay barely a metre away, sallow and weary – a shell of the girl she'd once been. She was a girl, really, after all. How old was she, anyway? Twenty-three, twenty -four? With another nervous twist of his stomach, Cobb pictured his own daughter, Phillipa, lying in Ariadne's place. Phillipa, who he wouldn't even let ride her own bike without being supervised by him and wearing the set of Barbie Doll kneepads, elbow-pads and crash helmet he'd bought her for Christmas. Ariadne had to have a father somewhere. Had anyone ever fixed stabilizers to the back of her bike? It was only then he realised how very little he knew about the dying girl in front of him. Who, beyond the team, would miss her?

"How did you get out?" she asked and, blinking back the tears he hadn't realised were forming, Cobb shrugged.

"I don't really know," he said, turning away to stare at the wall: a less depressing object of focus. "I will one day, though."

"What do you mean?" Ariadne asked, her sickly brow furrowed. Cobb turned to look at her; it was the least he could do.

"I met myself," he said. "I was a lot older, a lot grumpier too. I had a cat called Arthur..." He trailed off suddenly, before starting to laugh. The laughter took a hold of his body, making his stomach ache as he rocked. Tears rolled down the creases of his face: out of mirth or despair he was no longer sure.

Suddenly he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. He looked up, his eyes cloudy with tears, to see Ariadne's face barely inches away from his own. She was standing up, an obvious effort, and her legs started to shake with the weight. She slumped sideways onto his bed, still holding him close. It was then he realised he wasn't laughing anymore, that had he had never been. Instead, he cried into Ariadne's diseased shoulder, until the hysteria was replaced with the familiar sense of emptiness he'd assumed as soon as he'd returned to the dream-world.

"We're looking for a safe, right?" he suddenly asked, his voice croaky from his tears. Ariadne nodded. "Then let's find that fucking safe."