Updates yeah! Ok, I know there's been like no Cobb but he's coming up either in Ch. 15 or 16. I swear.
Thanks for the reviews, they make me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Let's keep the Dom/Ari love going!
LIMBO – Ariadne and Arthur's Dreamscape
Ariadne stepped through the doors of the shop and made a run for it.
She looked back at the store full of regret that Dom would not be with her until later on. She had no illusions as to what would transpire between Arthur and her shade once the point man figured out that she had given him the slip.
It was her fault. She shouldn't have pretended with Dom with Arthur around.
In truth, Ariadne had never forgotten that she was in limbo. She controlled it not the other way around but she also knew that she would never be able to convince Arthur of that.
He had too much personal experience of the latter to believe that.
Not that she didn't have her near misses, there had been a few times in the past year that she had woken in her Paris house confused but a quick check of her totem had assured her that she was not out yet.
She had built several fail save clues all along her world to keep her memory and building in check as well as keeping to Cobb's rules like limbo commandments. It helped greatly that her shade, modeled after the man himself, was a great deterrent and often stopped her if she was getting too closely invested.
She sighed but couldn't seem to shake the combined guilt of having left Dom behind and deceiving Arthur so she could escape and continue in this world.
She had been very surprised when he had shown up among her projections though not because she hadn't expected him, since every member of their team had made an appearance at one point or another including Fischer.
What had surprised her was that he was alone and that gave him away as real.
She was about to ask where Cobb was but after the cold appraisal he did on herself and her shade, she had instead rephrased it, "I knew it was only a matter of time before you showed up. Where are the others?"
"It's just me."
"Oh." She hadn't meant to sound so disappointed and was struck silent by his wounded look.
"What are you doing?' he asked motioning to the fountain behind them.
"Isn't obvious? Dominic and I are celebrating."
"Are you?" he said woodenly.
"Yeah, what's the matter? Why are you so serious?" She asked and threw her arms out, "you're in Italy, the eternal city."
"Can I speak to you in private." He said and dragged her away from the square before she could actually protest.
'Arthur, let go of me. Arthur, stop manhandling me. Arthur, what the hell?' Were all things she should have said as he pulled her along yet his take-charge attitude had stuck the responses to her throat, lodging them there.
She tried not to compare him to Dom when he found them but then Arthur stuck her in the middle of them and it was downright impossible. She had tried to reason with him and ended up lying instead and now she was running from a friend she should have been happy to see but wasn't.
He could never understand what she had managed to accomplish here and maybe that was the reason she clung to her shade and by extension Cobb.
Arthur would no doubt be annoyed that she was waiting for Cobb. Since on more than one occasion he had let slip some of the resentment he felt towards their colleague and how everyone acknowledged the extractor as the undisputed leader, even when said leader was falling further into the rabbit hole.
Ariadne had seen Arthur's worry in the warehouse and knew that he cared for Cobb as a brother but like any family relationship, there were real issues that were often hidden for the sake of harmony.
Still she had seen it in his brown eyes how much he wanted to be the one who saved the day and she had used that to her advantage, which was why she felt guilty now, and was not willing to play damsel to his hero. She didn't need saving. She need help in finishing so she could go home and not be haunted by the unending ocean that surrounded limbo.
She departed up the stairs on the left side of the fountain and waited to see if Dom had been able to get away. She lingered on the steps debating whether to go back down but she saw Arthur before he could break through the projections and spot her.
Arthur catching her a second time was not an option.
She moved a few streets around opening up the middle that dissected this portion of the city and leading her straight to the entrance of her favorite hotel.
Ariadne stepped into the foyer and was greeted by the quiet expanse of luxury accommodations. She got into the elevator and punched in the top floor. She let out a breath she had no idea she'd been holding and sank into the seat.
Hotel Monolith would have to be home base for now, she could not lead him to her real home. It would give him leverage over her if he knew where she really stayed.
The elevator pinged and the doors slipped open to show a beach complete with a never-ending pool the exact shade as her companion's eyes.
"He shot me."
Ariadne nodded and leaned on the doors blocking them open. "I figured. That's why I'm here. I knew you wouldn't risk meeting me at our usual spot. So what happened exactly?"
Dom stepped into the elevator and sat in the same place Ariadne had been.
She looked out at the sandcastles that would never be completed before stepping back in and sitting next to him. He punched in the basement button and Ariadne watched the floors pass while trying to process this new side to an old friend. "What did you tell him?"
"He was angry when he realized you were gone. He demanded to know where you had disappeared. I told him I didn't answer to him. He asked me where you were again but I told him, 'why would I tell you something, she doesn't want you to know.'
"Oh, Dom. You didn't. Why would you say that?"
He got up and kicked the elevator wall. "Because it's true, Ari. I mean what the hell. He just comes in and drags you off and I'm supposed to be okay with it. And then he was holding you and it's going to be bad enough when I have to deal with the real Cobb. I don't want to have to deal with Arthur too."
"It's not like I encouraged it," Ariadne said rising to her full height. "You know it's not Arthur that I'm wa-"
"I know, I know. You're waiting for the great and wonderful Cobb. I'm well aware it." He shouted but grew quiet as the elevator finally opened onto a Paris rooftop similar to where she had first done her test for Mr. Cobb.
"I hate this place." He said quietly.
Ariadne didn't bother to reach for him as he walked to the very edge of the rooftop. She was accustomed to the moods of her shade and knew that he wouldn't remain upset long.
"Dom, I can't stay here forever. We both agreed."
"Did we? I remember telling you to leave this place and you said we had a lot of work to do before he showed up. That work is being neglected. These fantasies have to end."
She approached the rail and looked down at the cobbled streets. "I did say that. I'm sorry that I need to go back home with him. With the real Cobb."
The shade turned and looked at her. "I can't give you what he can. You need him, Ari." The blue eyes of Dominic Cobb darkened until they turned brown like hers. "He, Arthur told me I wasn't real."
"Is that what started the fight?"
"No, I didn't care because I know he's right-"
"I don't understand." She said tracing his serious face.
"He said that he'd bring you out and I told him that you loved me more than you would ever love him." He chuckled humorlessly and removed her hands from his face.
"Dom."
"I hit him because he asked me how long did I think I could trap you here." He turned away, "he's right and up to this point I thought I was helping but I'm not. I'm making things more difficult for you. I can see it in how much longer it takes for you to reach for your totem."
"That's not true." She protested attempting to step closer and comfort her shade but he didn't want comfort so she stood still and looked awkwardly at the back he was now presenting her with.
"It took you twenty minutes for you to reach for it yesterday when every other day it has taken five or less. You haven't gone near the dunes since last week and today you told Arthur, you didn't know Cobb had kids."
Ariadne shook her head forgetting he wasn't facing her. "I was lying, of course I know he has kids."
"You're lying now. I saw the way your eyes rounded when he mentioned Phillippa and James. I know you better than that. I know that you remember Paris but what else do you remember? And what have you forgotten?"
Ariadne wrapped her arms around his middle pressing her face into his broad back. "I remembered the warehouse and I remember my time with him as only fragments. I'm forgetting."
He gathered her in his arms and she rested her head against his heart and already she knew he wasn't mad at her anymore. "You need to remember, that's why you need him. I get that but it's becoming harder for me to let you go the longer you stay. I don't want you to get lost in here."
"I won't. We just have to keep the routine we had before."
"Can you tell me what little you do recall? Tell me any interactions you can remember."
"I remember something that happened on the plane." She looked up at him, "it was right after we got to the airport. We'd had an argument on the way there. He told me how he had sabotaged me. He told me that I would never work in dream share after this."
"And what else?"
"Can we do this later?" she asked yawning into his shirt, "it's been a long day and I want to be up and ready for the thing tonight."
"Ari, just tell me what happened and then you can rest. I promise."
She scrunched her forehead in concentration. "Ok, I was sitting in front of Arthur. Saito was in front of me. Eames was…"
"Where was Eames?"
"Eames was behind Cobb and Fischer was in front of Cobb. Yusuf was in the middle at the top. Cobb came in and put his stuff down. He was waiting or listening for something. I can't remember…"
"Try its important."
"Um…
Cobb was standing several feet over. Every few minutes he would glance at his watch and Saito would look back. Arthur was looking out the window.
The architect was flipping through a magazine but once in a while she would look up at the tall extractor to her right. She could honestly say she hated him right now.
It wasn't the fact that the rest of the team knew very little about the man who they were trusting and that she was the only one who did and therefore couldn't tell, that just annoyed her.
Granted it was her own fault for having meddled and plugging herself in where she didn't belong but she had wanted to know and now she couldn't forget and honestly she didn't want to. She was glad to have found out what lurked behind the darkness in his eyes, though she wished she could take it away as easily as she found it.
What had started the hate she was feeling was his confession of the back alley deal he'd done with Miles in order to get her. Just the idea that they had gone behind her back and planned out her life like she was their kid irritated her greatly but for Cobb to promise to never let her work within his world after showing her its wonders hurt her.
He trusted her with his demons but couldn't trust her to know her own limits. To cut off her abilities without even so much as a sentence said between them.
Ariadne knew very well that whatever addiction she had to dream share had to do with Cobb. Logically it was only fair that he talk to her about its end.
She rubbed her stomach in remembrance of the knife blade entering her smooth skin and the fact that it was his wife that had embedded it there. She looked up and was startled to see his ocean blues staring at her hand. She hastily picked up her magazine and continued reading but she had seen the question in his eyes.
Needing to kill time and hide from those eyes, she rose and went straight into the bathroom.
Ariadne turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face soaking the neck of her jacket and part of her blouse. She stood enjoying the feel of the cold fabric against her hot skin and the comfort of being alone without five sets of eyeballs scrutinizing her every move.
She set her totem down and spun the bishop on the metal counter. Its top made a single semi lazy circle before the heavy bottom toppled it to the side. Ariadne righted the bishop and tried again. It circled then toppled, circled, toppled, circled, toppled, three… four… five more times before she realized that her hands were shaking.
She tried to put it on the counter but it slipped right off the edge. She stood silent and waiting for the clatter of it hitting the floor but it never came.
"What are you doing?"
"Doing?" she repeated blinking in an effort to calm herself.
Now she was in for it. She knew how he operated, after all it was his job to get information out of people, if he even detected the slightest hint of something wrong, he'd kick her out of the mission for sure. Her only mission if he had his way.
"Why are you…" it must have dawned on him that he was in the restroom and that he'd just barged in. He recovered his composure and held out the bishop, "this. What is this about?"
"You couldn't knock?" she said taking it from his hand.
"The door wasn't locked so-' he sighed. "Are you ok?"
She placed the chess piece in her pocket and motioned for him to close the door. He looked oddly at her but she rolled her eyes, "hey if you want everybody to hear about your nightly experiments by all means leave it open."
He scowled at her but closed the door. In hindsight perhaps this had not been the best idea.
Ariadne had not realized that though this bathroom was more spacious than most, given its first class locale, it still was an airplane bathroom. And even thought she was downright tiny, Cobb was most definitely not and he seemed to take up all the space so that she found herself cornered and too close to him for her comfort.
"Look, I'm fine. A little airsick and a little nervous but nothing a few tiny bottles won't cure."
He eyed her and she wondered if he was buying any of it. "Ariadne, you can't take any liquor. I wouldn't allow it." He said letting her off the hook.
"One, I know I'm short but I am over twenty-one. In fact I turned twenty-three last week, want me to show you my I.D. and two, I'm not your kid."
He smiled but shook his head. "One, I don't doubt your age even though you look barely out of high school," she started to protest but he shut her up. "Two, with all the sedatives we are about to take, anything else could be fatal. So I'm afraid you're gonna have to do without liquid courage."
"Oh, right," she said smiling sheepishly, which seemed to relax him a little bit.
She instantly felt bad about thinking ill of him earlier. Here he was with the weight of the mission and the fear of Mal on his shoulders but he still managed to take the time to make sure she was all right.
"How do you do it?" He asked suddenly.
Cobb was once again slipping into that earnest expression that always caught her unawares, the one that said he was not as tough as he seemed. "One more time," she said weakly.
"How do you do it? How do you stay so calm and collected? How do you stay so nonchalant, so sure that everything will be ok?" He clarified.
She laughed nervously and pushed at her hair, "I don't or don't you remember me spinning my Bishop like a nut-" She stopped afraid she might have offended him since that was what he always doing but his easy smile told her that she hadn't. "Anyway. I just have a mini break down and then I'm ok."
"Mini-break downs. I'll try that. Everybody gets scared their first time. Eames puked after his first job and Arthur had panic attacks."
"What about you?"
"My first time was with Mal. We drank a lot of wine after. So I don't remember much." He looked wistful then became serious again. Ariadne wished she hadn't asked. It sucked to be in love with someone still so in love with his past and watch it take the life out of him.
"So your bishop, is that what it does? It spins like mine?" He opened his hand to reveal the ever-present totem.
"No, it's weighted."
"You like Arthur's better?" He asked absentmindedly spinning the top.
"Better…like…"
"His idea for totems." Cobb said. "You liked his weighted dice better."
"Oh, no. It's weighted but that's not what it does." She got her totem and showed him the bottom. "There's a compartment and inside is something. That's why it's weighted to keep the hinge from springing. It was Miles' idea actually. Do you want to see it better?"
Ariadne offered it up to him but in her excitement had forgotten how small the bathroom was and therefore how close they were to each other. It took about two seconds to digest the fact that his face was only a few inches away and that his blue eyes were searching her face before she felt his lips on hers.
They were soft but firm much like the pressure of his hand on the back of her head. She breathed against him and opened her mouth giving him an invitation to deepen the kiss, which he gladly took.
She didn't know why this was happening.
She would have checked her totem if it wasn't for the fact that it was already clenched in her hand and marking his arm, where it pressed up against.
He let go of her head and she almost whimpered but instantly was silenced as she felt his hand shift through her brown hair and rest on her back while adjusting his mouth to better kiss her.
Ariadne didn't know why she did what she did; it was probably due to the lack of oxygen getting to her brain but she arched her body pushing the full length of her petite frame up against his much larger one.
This earned a groan from him, long enough to pull her mouth from his caress to kiss the underside of his jaw.
"Excuse me? Is anybody in there? I don't mean to be rude but will you be much longer? The other bathroom is occupied and I really can't wait any more."
Yusuf's gentle voice pulled the two apart and the realization of what had transpired between then and what could have happened had Yusuf not interrupted them, made Ariadne stumble back against the wall while Cobb put his head on the door and stared at the ground.
"Ari…Ariadne. I'm sorry. I just wanted." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't really know why I came looking for you. I was worried and I don't know why that happened and you know, I never meant to... I'm so sorry." Cobb hurriedly undid the lock and stepped out of the bathroom leaving Ariadne confused and hurt.
"Oh Cobb, sorry for hurrying you along but I've… what's the matter? Are you all right?"
Cobb pushed past the chemist and back through the curtains of the first class cabin not stopping to answer any of the man's questions.
"Yusuf, I need to get back to my seat."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be in the way; it's just that Cobb looked…where did you? Oh dear. I didn't mean to interrupt you and…not that…I didn't know that you two were…umm." Yusuf trailed off looking like he wanted nothing more than to disappear into the floor.
"Were not and I really appreciate if you didn't mention." Ariadne waved at the bathroom in embarrassment.
"I wouldn't dream of it." He said, "I guess we should get back to our seats then."
"Yes. Thank you." Ariadne took her seat and buckled up not daring to look at anybody but especially at Eames. The man was a forger for a reason and she did not need any more awkward questions.
She took a quick glance at Cobb and found him receiving Fischer's passport, he tapped the man and returned it. Ariadne picked up her magazine but the words kept swimming off the page.
Hopefully they would soon be on the job and she could pretend that what happened between them had been a fluke born out of nerves and would never be happening again.
"He was an inspiring figure. I'm sorry for you loss." She heard him say. Fischer thanked him and clinked glasses. It took less than five minutes for the sedative to kick in and Cobb to get up and test if Fischer was truly out.
"O.k." He said and immediately the stewardess pulled the curtain, handed the case to Arthur and they all repositioned their chairs. They each grabbed a line and inserted.
Ariadne adjusted the seat like the others and they all lay back. Yusuf nodded at the stewardess and just as the button was about to be pushed, she turned her head in time to see Cobb turn and look at her before his hand went slack.
She finished her story but Dom wasn't really listening, he was looking out at the sea. He had a feeling that Cobb had just arrived and his time with Ariadne had been cut short.