Many thanks for all of the reviews; you guys are wonderful.
~M.
Six days becomes five days, and then they begin counting the time down in hours; day and night neutralized with drawn curtains and bright lights in the dingy, two-bed hotel room that was supposed to be Cobb's.
The first time Ariadne visits her own room is somewhere around hour ninety-eight. She closes her eyes for just a second and is magically transported from her place on Cobb's floor surrounded by sketches of floor plans and furniture to one of his beds. She blinks a few times, sits up, and tries to piece together how she ended up under the blankets and where her shoes went.
"There's coffee," Eames's voice tells her.
It takes her a moment to focus her eyes enough to spot him seated on the edge of the other bed, beside the open PASIV and the prone bodies of Arthur and Cobb.
"How long was I out for?" she asks.
"Two hours, give or take."
She nods, stands, and reaches for her book bag and duffel with the half-drunk, half-disoriented sensation of exhaustion where her muscles won't stop shivering because her body can't seem to find the energy to warm itself up.
"I'm going to go take a shower," she tells him, and adds a "Hi" to Yusuf when she realizes he's seated at the desk surrounded by chemistry equipment. "Do either of you know where my shoes went?"
"Arthur was kind enough to put them by the door before tucking you into bed," Eames says, face twisted up in a grin. "I'm somewhat surprised you didn't wake up, what with him picking pulling you off the floor and laying you out. Then again, he was very delicate, wouldn't you say, Yusuf?"
"I'd say it's a wonder he only took off your shoes," Yusuf mutters without looking up, though Ariadne is at the right angle to see the smirk pressed into his features.
She wishes she were awake enough for a scathing retort.
As it is, she rolls her eyes at them and crosses the room to wedge her feet into her sneakers without taking the time to retie them.
The door falls shut behind her with a bang.
Her room looks just like Cobb's, which, in turn, looks just like every other three-star, had-to-find-somewhere-to-crash-fast hotel room on the planet, with only minor differences in amenities and color schemes.
She drops her bags, strips off her clothes, and stands under the hot water of the shower until her body stops shaking and the bathroom mirror is completely fogged. She runs shampoo-coated fingers through her hair and the neurons in her brain paint pictures of bedrooms and board meetings and the bitter desperation of Arthur's expression in the instant before his lips met hers in the car on the way to the hotel.
She is scared. She can admit that to herself here in the isolation of her own room. Scared because she knows her limitations, knows there's not enough time, knows none of the others have found a way to simplify their objective in any quantifiable way.
She has other fears too, ones that she won't let herself dwell on as they flitter through her mind. Fears of the future, the what-if, the could-have-been. The fear that time is running out, and that she's spending it focused on the wrong objectives. The fear that this would all be easier if it wasn't for one stupid point man who can't seem to keep his lips to himself and doesn't seem to understand the way he's worming inside her brain and rewiring her thoughts and emotions and all the straightforward, cut-and-dry plans she's laid out for herself.
The fear that she'll lose him before she ever even got to have him.
She cranks the hot water until it scalds her skin and sterilizes her mind. Soap, shaving cream, razor, conditioner. She thinks about the smell of cheap skin care fragrances and the pruning of her fingers and toes until she shuts off the shower and reaches for a towel.
Her skin is red and blotchy. The dark crescents beneath her eyes are sharp enough to be seen through the steam on the mirror. There's a very small, very stupid part of her mind that wonders what Arthur will think of her ragged appearance.
In retaliation she rakes her hair—still wet—back into a tight bun and pulls on the most wrinkled collection of clothes in her bag.
She knows there's not enough time for distractions.
She slips on her messenger bag and sneakers, and heads back down the hall to Cobb's room.
"The first trick to changing your appearance is finding a mirror. You're the architect, so you already know where they all are in this little excursion, but if you ever find yourself needing a disguise in a strange dream, the first thing you should do is look for a bathroom or hotel room, although, in a pinch, you should be able to use windows, bodies of water, picture frames, kitchen knives, doorknobs; just about anything that'll reflect an image will work."
She nods at their reflections in the ninth-floor women's bathroom of the Hong Kong branch of Cobol Engineering and doesn't mention that there's almost no chance of her ever getting to do this again.
"The second trick is to rearrange what your reflection looks like. It should feel just like rearranging a room, except with an image instead of a setting."
Eames' reflection shrinks, and the image in the mirror becomes a small boy with dark eyes and skin and hair.
Ariadne glances between the boy in the mirror and the man at her side, and both smile at her.
"The third trick, and this is the one that most people struggle with, is to believe the truth of the reflection, accept it, and let it change the reality of the dream."
There is no transition. One moment it's Eames standing beside her, and the next moment it's the boy from the mirror. He turns a wide grin to her, and when he speaks it's with a voice too young and too strangely accented to be Eames'. "See?"
"I think so."
"Good, because it's your turn." The boy spins around and hops up on the edge of the countertop, swinging his legs.
Ariadne studies herself in the mirror—the combed back hair, the wrinkled clothes, the hollowed eyes that her mind has done such a wonderful job projecting into the dream world—and tries to remember everything about her aunt. The woman wasn't tall—five-foot one, five-foot two, maybe—and she had mountains of tight brown curls and a big smile. The smaller details are harder—the shade of her eyes, the curve of her ears, the slender lines of her body, but Ariadne gathers it all together, and, when she thinks she's ready, projects it onto the mirror.
Her aunt blinks back at her from behind the glass.
"Nice job," the boy tells her. "You're half way there."
She nods again, and forces herself to think back to waking up in the library, to the phone call from Arthur and the pinprick in her arm and the sensation of believing the impossible because the evidence forces you to believe.
She glances down, and her aunt's delicate fingers smooth the soft skirt of her sundress.
The boy whistles and claps his hands. "That was bloody fantastic. Most people can't do it on their first try, much less do it that smoothly. Bloody hell; let's go show Cobb and Arthur."
He hops off the counter and starts toward the door, but there's something about the way her aunt's fingers move and curl and flex that keeps Ariadne from following.
The boy sighs dramatically and stomps back to her side. His small hand latches onto one of her sleeves and he half guides, half drags her out into the hall.
The movements feel foreign to her; her whole body is out of proportion and she stumbles to keep pace with the child at her side.
"You're going to want to make a left up here if you're heading for the conference room," her aunt's voice tells him.
He laughs, shakes his head, and mutters "fantastic" again as they veer left.
Projections in dark suits pass them on their way down the hall. Each one offers a scowl or a glare at the odd duo invading their business day.
The boy sticks his tongue out at each one as they stalk past, and giggles when their expressions darken.
"Are you trying to make them suspicious?" Ariadne hisses at him.
"Not entirely, although you could probably use a bit more target practice before the big day."
"I'm not sure we have time for it. Next door on your right."
"Got it. Nice job on the solid oak," he says, pulling open the door and dragging her inside.
Arthur and Cobb look up from a mountain file folders with mixed expressions of concern.
"It's us," the boy says in Eames' voice, before switching back to his own. "Look at this; she did this in under a minute."
Arthur raises an eyebrow. "Impressive."
The boy shakes his head and releases his grip on Ariadne's sleeve. He drops into one of the chairs around the conference table that takes up most of the space in the room. "No, it's not; it's bloody brilliant is what it is. Show some respect for the art."
"It's very impressive," Arthur amends. "As is this dreamscape."
"Thanks," says Ariadne. "What are you two working on?"
Cobb meets her gaze. "Logistics. Out in the real world we've already paid off the hospital staff, and the surgeon's told us that he can keep Whelan under for four hours and blame it on 'complications.' If things go well, they should be done with the surgery in an hour and a half."
"Which would give us two and a half hours to work this thing," Ariadne guesses.
"Give or take a bit," Arthur says.
The boy in the chair looks at him incredulously. "Can we do it in two and a half hours?"
Arthur gestures at the stack of folders covering the table. "That's what we're working on."
"But it's not why we're here," Cobb adds. "Ariadne, if you'd oblige us with a tour?"
"Sure," she says, and her aunt's body leads them through the building's maze until the time runs out.
It's Arthur she sees first; Arthur in profile, stretched out on the bed beside her.
His eyes snap open and he turns to look at her, raising a hand to brush his fingers over the contours of her face.
The air fills with voices as Cobb and Eames join them back in reality. The sound breaks whatever spell has bewitched him, and the point man shifts away from her, rolling off the bed and to his feet in one precise move, and unhooking the IV from his arm in a second.
And, just like that, he forces her back into the fear of not having enough time.