a/n: I own nothing! This was filled for a prompt of: all I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid. I didn't realise it was a song lyric until it was too late to incorporate the song. Anyway, I hope you like it! Link to the prompt post at the end of this chapter.
She is making coffee as quietly as she can in the early morning stillness of her apartment when it happens.
"Are you there?" is almost a scream as he sits bolt upright in bed, his unseeing eyes wide with fear. She is back in the bedroom as he says, "I can't feel you. Are you there?" He is gasping for air as she kneels on the bed, trying to hold every part of him together with her arms.
"I'm here, I'm here, you're safe, it was just a dream, you're safe, Arthur. You're with me," she repeats the words again and again and holds on as tightly as she can. She wonders if he is even capable of dreaming anymore but everything falls away as she finally feels his arms wrap around her.
For a moment they are still and she tries to say so very many things to him through her skin on his bare chest and her lips on his forehead. When he finally relaxes against her, her relief is almost palpable. Immediately he draws back.
"Oh God, Ariadne, I'm sorry. I don't know - " he begins and stops, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Don't you dare," she says. She, too, pulls away and is soon off the bed.
"I'm making coffee and you're going to have a nice, long shower in my lovely, new bathroom. Everything is where you'd expect it to be. I'll be on the balcony when you're ready." She tries to sound matter-of-fact, as though she entertains clearly distraught men every morning.
He says nothing.
"Arthur?" her voice is a little menacing and if not for the terrible expression on his face, she might be tempted to laugh. I sound just like my mother.
He nods.
She turns to leave and hears a choked "Ariadne?"
She looks back at him, for the first time meeting his eyes. He looks a little abashed.
"Thank you."
The walls are up and the suit immaculate when he joins her half an hour later.
He surveys the balcony as he steps out onto it. She is tucked into a chair with a tray and coffee press in front of her, a dog-eared copy of something by Coleridge in her hand. She hasn't changed out of her pajamas and he remembers the bathroom is attached to her bedroom. She'd given him time and privacy and he wants to say thank you but the words don't come.
She greets him with a hug which he holds onto rather longer than she expects. He releases her with a smile that almost doesn't look forced. He pours the coffee and turns to face the gorgeous cityscape. She stands beside him, leaning into his body. They stay this way, he unwilling to move away from her small warmth and she nearly unable to believe that he is finally here. It is not a dream.
"You know," he says after a while, "you don't have to fix everybody."
"Who said I wanted to fix anyone?" she asks airily, thinking that he means to shut her out.
He raises an eyebrow and smirks, finally turning to look at her. "Oh, I don't know. A mutual friend might have mentioned something."
She laughs.
"How is he doing, anyway?" she asks.
"Alarmingly normal. Gives me the creeps, truth be told," he says.
"Normalcy?" Her confused expression as she asks this makes him suppress a laugh.
"No, Cobb being happy again. I hardly know what to talk to him about anymore."
He smiles again but it fades quickly. She reaches into the space that has formed between them and takes his hand into hers. He sighs. Of everything he's done and said in the past 24 hours, there is one thing he cannot put off talking about.
"About last night," he begins and she turns sharply to face him.
"Shut up," she says. He is taken aback.
"What?"
"Whatever it is that you're going to say is only going to ruin a perfectly enjoyable night," she says, placing her hands on the flat expanse of his chest.
"At least," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, "I enjoyed it."
"Ariadne - you know - that's not - I just," and he gives up. The coffee cup is balanced precariously on the balcony's ledge and he gives in. He kisses her then and clings to her, his strongest tie to this world.
idk how to do a link on here, sorry. here is the prompt .com/inception_?thread=2957162#t2957162