Author's Note: Hey guys, here's the next chapter, I hope you enjoy! Usual thanks to Kitty Quasar for your awesome reviews, they're so informative and I love it. Also thanks to anyone else who has reviewed or who will in the future!

Diclaimer: I own no aspect of Inception in any way.

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Chapter Five

Their first planning session went straightforward enough. The three of them basically agreed on the same things from the start (with a few minor disagreements between Eames and Arthur). They agreed that to completely eradicate the idea they had planted in Fischer's mind they would have to break into that particular part of his mind once more. They would then have to extract and destroy the original idea and plant the new one in its place. To do that, they were going to have to do their best to get Fischer to allow them access to that particular part of his mind once more.

"We all know how delicate a mind is," Cobb said, walking around in front of Arthur and Eames who were sitting at the table, Eames with his feet up. "It's not like we can just go up to Fischer with a gun and tell him to let us into that part of his mind. We need to get him to give us voluntary subconscious access."

"Well suppose we were to duplicate the first level or so of the inception job?" Eames suggested. "His mind would fill in the bottom level of the dream by itself from memory, including the vault again. He wouldn't even realize he was doing it."

"Yes, but would he even remember the inception job that well?" asked Arthur. "There are plenty of hotels and cities that are alike to those particular dream levels."

"The idea we planted in his mind is significant enough that he should remember the levels of the dream once he's in them," said Cobb. "And most of all he'll remember the distinct feeling of those levels, especially with our presence in his mind once more."

"That'll make us an easy target for his subconscious then," Arthur said. "He'll remember the layouts of the levels from before so his projections know where to look for us."

"Not if we hid in different parts of the mazes," said Cobb. "We'll still have the disadvantage though, as his projections will still be somewhat familiar with the dreamscape. How elaborate were the mazes Ariadne taught you both?"

"I don't know about Yusuf's level, but mine was quite detailed," said Eames.

"Same here," Arthur agreed.

"So, if we were to present him with the first identical level again, hopefully he'll begin to remember. By the second level, Fischer will subconsciously know what's going on, so by the third level down hopefully he'll fill in all of the details from the inception job," said Cobb. "Including the idea we planted in his safe."

"So if we were to break into the safe before he got there and replaced the information," Arthur said. "You don't think he would notice?"

"Not before we've destroyed that idea and replaced it with the new one," Eames said. "And by then it will be too late."

There was a slight pause as Arthur thought this over, nodding slowly in agreement.

"Could you forge Maurice Fischer, Eames?" Cobb asked suddenly.

Eames puffed out his cheeks, leaning his head back so he could properly see Cobb's face. "That'd be bloody difficult. I never researched him, so I don't have much to copy from. I doubt I could make his mannerisms familiar enough for Fischer to take it."

"But even Fischer didn't know his father very well," Cobb said. "You spent those weeks at Fischer-Morrow in Sidney with Browning, surely you saw Maurice from time to time. You'd only need to talk to Robert Fischer for a couple minutes tops to plant that new idea before the kick."

Eames shrugged. "Well, it's risky but, sure, we can try it."

Arthur frowned, looking at Cobb. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. "If even Eames isn't sure about it..." he trailed off, not needing to complete his sentence.

Cobb nodded, not making eye contact with the point man, before changing the subject. "So you both can duplicate the same second and third levels from the inception job that Ariadne taught you," he said. "That just leaves us with the first level."

"Will Yusuf not do it?" Eames asked.

"I don't know, he hasn't arrived yet so I haven't really talked to him" Cobb replied. "But he seemed... reluctant, to say the least."

"And if he won't?" said Arthur. "You could host that level, couldn't you Cobb?"

"Eames needs me in that bottom level," Cobb said. "Someone needs to lead Fischer into the complex and into the vault where Eames will be."

"We'll need another person then, if Yusuf won't do it," Arthur said.

"If Yusuf won't do it, we could phone up Ariadne in Paris," Eames suggested. "She knows the layout of the dreams better than anyone."

"No," Arthur and Cobb both said at the same time.

"We're not bringing her into this," Cobb said immediately.

"Come off it-" Eames started, but Arthur cut him off.

"She has her own life now, Eames," he snapped. "Let her get on with it. It's too dangerous for-"

"For a lady, is that it?" Eames asked, eyebrows raised.

Arthur shook his head but Cobb interrupted before he could say anything. "She's not trained to be in the dream levels, Eames," he said. "She was fine in the inception job because she always stayed beside me or Arthur, but this is different. She won't be able to protect us from Fischer's militarized projections, especially not for that long in the top level."

Eames fell silent with a shrug.

Cobb sat down in a chair at the table beside Arthur, facing Eames. "If Yusuf won't agree to this, then we'll just have to hire someone else."

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It was nearly three days before Yusuf finally showed up at the hotel. He walked into the meeting room before lunch, saying that the hotel clerk had told him he could find the team there.

"Have you got them?" Cobb said in way of greeting, walking over to Yusuf. Arthur stayed at his table with his laptop, surrounded by photos and papers, but paying close attention to the conversation. Eames was out, ransacking the offices at Fischer-Morrow for any meeting tapes or videos that might have footage of Maurice in them.

Yusuf nodded, nudging at the more professional looking of the two cases he had with him. "All in there, everything you need. I had to make everything from scratch again, that's why it took so long. And arranging flights is a bloody nightmare. There's a reason I don't usually travel."

"Thanks for coming, I appreciate it," Cobb said.

Yusuf walked over to the table the PASIV was lying on and placed his case down beside it and began unloading all of the compounds. "I brought plenty of extras," he said. "I didn't know how much you would be preparing since we already trained with the compounds for in the inception job."

"That's fine," Cobb said, his eyes on the vials Yusuf was placing on the table. "We have about a week and a half still until we're supposed to complete the job. Is there any chance you could stay and work on perfecting the sedative until then so that we won't risk falling into Limbo?"

Yusuf smiled gently at Cobb. "Impossible. And in a week and a half? Cobb, I've spent months and months working on that sedative. I'm not going to come up with a miracle solution in a few days." Finishing unloading all of the vials of the compound, he snapped his case shut and turned to face Cobb. "Do you have my paycheck?"

Cobb nodded and pulled an envelope out of his pocket. "There's no rush to leave," he said. "Why don't you come have a drink? You must be tired from your flight."

Yusuf hesitated, and Cobb could see in his eyes that he knew exactly what Cobb was trying to do. "No, no, that's alright, thank you. I'm meeting up with a friend soon, anyway."

"Eames should be back soon," said Cobb. "Why don't you have dinner with the three of us so we can catch up with how you're doing?"

"Cobb, it's barely been six weeks since the inception job," Yusuf said. "I'm doing exactly the same as when we parted then. It was good to see you, but now if you'll excuse me."

He began to head for the door. Cobb glanced at Arthur, and Arthur gave him an urgent look.

"Yusuf, wait," Cobb said.

"I'm not going into the field again!" Yusuf cut across Cobb, sounding annoyed for the first time. "Please save it. I'm sorry, but I'm perfectly happy right now without this, I don't want to become so involved in a job again."

"You still haven't even heard what we're offering."

"I don't need the money," Yusuf replied. "And I don't want anything else."

He reached the door and opened it, looking back. "I'm sorry," he said again. "Best of luck to you both. Give my regards to Mr. Eames."

He left the room. Cobb and Arthur stared at each other for a long beat, then Arthur stood up and hurriedly followed Yusuf out of the room.

Cobb sank into a chair by the PASIV. Things had finally been looking plausible, and now yet again everything was begging to blow up around him. His mind began to scramble desperately for solutions.

Several long minutes passed before the door to the meeting room opened again. Cobb's head snapped up hopefully as Arthur walked back into the room.

"I told him everything," Arthur said. "He still wouldn't do it." He sank into the chair across the table from Cobb. The vials sat between them, the glass reflecting the light of the chandelier up at them. The silence stretched out, each of them immersed in their own thoughts.

"So what do we do now?" Arthur finally asked.

"We wait until Eames arrives back before we discuss it," Cobb said, then sighed and gestured to the PASIV. "Care to go under?"

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They were standing in the middle of a super market, in the grocery section. Arthur glanced around, taking in his surroundings. Cobb was the dreamer; this was his invention. The building was rather standard, though more beautiful than a customary super market with bricks making up one side, a high ceiling and elegant wooden beams. It was fairly crowed with projections; Arthur supposed this was because his mind was in overdrive after the un-customarily long break from dream sharing. It seemed the same was with Cobb, as the building kept growing larger and larger as he watched, its architecture changing and rearranging itself to accommodate the rapidly rising number of departments.

"Cobb," Arthur quickly warned as the other shoppers all frowned in confusion, looking around, focusing on the two of them.

"Right, sorry," Cobb muttered. The construction of the building slowed to a halt, and everything stilled.

Arthur gave Cobb a side-long glance. "Feels good to be building again, then, does it?"

"You've no idea."

Cobb led the way out of the fruit aisle they were standing in. He was dressed in a plain leather jacket with a dark polo shirt underneath, and a quick glance in Arthur's direction showed him that his partner was dressed similarly.

Cobb didn't continue building as they stepped out onto the parking lot of the supermarket. His dreamscape had been created, and all they were here to do now was observe. They were a block away from the crowded main street of the city. They headed to the busy downtown street, and Cobb turned to walk uptown. They continued along for several minutes before Cobb turned down a busy adjoining street, and they crossed a bridge over a river that split the city in two. They stopped near the middle of the bridge to observe the view of the city from Cobb's mind.

"You certainly haven't lost your knack," Arthur said quietly as they looked out at the sprawling streets and towering skyscrapers that stretched around them in every direction.

Cobb didn't reply as he gazed around, leaning against the railing that prevented pedestrians falling from the narrow sidewalk into the water below them. Despite the deafening sounds of buses screeching past and the river thundering beneath them, he felt a sudden wave of peacefulness wash through him. He was back to architecture, back to what he had always been meant for. What better place was there to admire his work from? He had always been interested in the architectural design of bridges, and he had so many memories of him and Mal enjoying the views from bridges together in happier times.

An arm snaked gently around his waist, bringing him back from his thoughts. He spun his head around in surprise, thinking it was Arthur for a moment, before he found himself eye to eye with a familiar set of green ones.

"I've missed you, Dom," Mal said softly.

Cobb stared down into her lovely face in surprise, completely taken aback. He had assumed, apparently wrongly, that he had put her memory to rest during the inception job. She, too, seemed unsure that they were really together, as she moved her other hand up to touch his cheek, as though to reassure herself that he really was there.

"Cobb, what the hell-?" he heard Arthur start, his voice low and menacing, but he cut the other man off.

"No, wait, Arthur," he said, staring down into his wife's loving eyes before continuing cautiously, "I think- I think this is a different projection of her. I don't think this projection will endanger the dream."

He felt, rather than saw Arthur's disbelief, but he did his best to ignore it as Mal nodded up at him, her eyes large and innocent.

"Of course not," she said softly in her beautiful, though mild, French accent. "I would never do anything to hurt you, I'm so sorry for everything. Are the children alright?"

Cobb swallowed. "They're just fine, Mal. They miss you so much. Almost as much as I do."

"Cobb..." Arthur started in warning again, but Mal's hypnotizing eyes shot up to lock with his.

"Arthur," she said gently, smiling. "You don't need to be so worried about me. I'm not going to do anything."

Arthur still looked at her, unfazed. Mal stepped away from Cobb, closer to Arthur, her smile faltering for a moment.

"Please, Arthur," she said softly, her voice wavering slightly. "I'm not going to do anything, I promise you. I know now, I know what's real, and up there in reality, my children need their father to come home. I'm here to help him get home."

For the first time, Arthur's face displayed a trace on uncertainty. He looked to Cobb. "Your projection of her feels different, you said?"

Cobb hesitated, and then nodded. "When Ariadne and I followed her and Fischer down into Limbo on the last job, I... confronted her. She died in Limbo."

"And you trust her now?"

This time, as Mal turned from Arthur and gently took Cobb's hand, he didn't hesitate in answering Arthur. "Yes."

Arthur's gaze didn't waver as he continued analyzing Cobb's face. "Then that's good enough for me," he said at last.

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Eames had had a highly successful day, and he was feeling quite good about it all as he returned to the meeting room late in the afternoon. He had finally found some footage of Maurice Fischer in the memory banks of one of the computers of the Fischer-Morrow offices. That had been the key find that had then led him to floodgates of visual and audio recordings of various meetings, important enough that Maurice Fischer should have been in attendance for all of them. He had copied them onto an USB stick, and then left for The Duke and Duchess, planning on thoroughly examining each of them in the cool comfort of either his hotel suite or the working atmosphere of the meeting room.

Unlocking the meeting room door to let himself in, he saw Cobb and Arthur asleep in chairs at the table, hooked into the PASIV together. A collection of vials lay by the PASIV, telling him of Yusuf's visit. He headed over to the two of them and glanced at the timer; they had another minute left. He fought the sudden urge to test Arthur's inner ear function, and headed to the corner of the room to his table. He booted up his laptop and was heading over to the fridge for a drink when the timer on the PASIV went off. He glanced to his team members at the table as the high pitched beeping continued in increments of four. Arthur's eyes opened at the same time that Cobb woke with a slight jerk.

Arthur quickly withdrew his needle, wiping away the tiny drop of blood left by the twin injection marks of the IV line. Ignoring Eames, he walked over to his space in the corner and began working, a look of intense concentration on his face. Meanwhile, Cobb was leaning forward, still in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his heart still hammering.

"Been a while since Yusuf's sedative, eh?" Eames said, stopping on his journey to the fridge to talk to Cobb, his hands in his pockets. "Powerful as ever then, is it?"

Cobb looked up at him slowly, before tearing the IV line out of his wrist, and walking out of the room without replying. Eames watched him go, then went over to the PASIV and began properly packing it away as Cobb had failed to do so. He glanced in Arthur's direction, and found the younger man still immersed in his work.

"So what changed down there?" Eames asked.

"Mal," said Arthur briefly in answer.

Eames felt his heart sink. "Still?"

Arthur shook his head. "No, that's the thing. Cobb thinks we can work with her, he thinks she can help us."

Eames blinked, his face expressionless. "I'd think you were pulling my leg, Arthur, but seeing as it's you I'm talking to, I suppose that that would be a rather ridiculous assumption."

Arthur turned his attention back to his work, not wanting to continue the discussion if Eames wasn't going to have any big issues with the alteration in their plan. "You flatter me," he said shortly.

Eames opened his mouth to reply, but Arthur cut him off. "Thank you, Eames, I appreciate your silence," he said pointedly.

Eames smirked, before returning to the fridge for his drink as he replied, "Don't get used to it."

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Cobb could feel himself shaking as he left the meeting room. He had forgotten how sharp Yusuf's compound was, and he couldn't rid the image of Mal from his mind. His fingers clenched around his totem in his pocket, but there was a young family at the far end of the hallway and no smooth surface he could spin the top on. He headed for his suite, making room impatiently in the elevator for an elderly Vietnamese couple as they took their time entering the elevator on the second floor, then exiting it again on the third.

Finally in his room once more, he headed for his desk and sat on the edge of the chair at the desk. He set the top spinning across the top of the polished surface, and watched for several long seconds before the top finally unbalanced and toppled over. He reached for the phone, his thoughts still on Mal. They still didn't have someone to dream the first level of the eradication, and Mal's appearance in the dream had shaken him more than he wanted to tell Arthur. He wasn't certain about any course of action now, but he knew he couldn't let Eames or Arthur become aware of that. He had to seem completely in control of the job. He made a quick decision and dialed the number.

The phone rang twice, before someone picked it up. "Oui, bonjour?"

"Ariadne, it's Cobb."

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So that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I wrote out an alternate version of it, then I went back and rewrote parts of it because I came up with a different idea that will, with any luck, make things more exciting in the chapters to come since I know these chapters are a little dry. Hopefully it will all work out. I won't be dragging the planning out much longer, I'm almost finished setting everything up. Please, let me know what you think, I love to hear from you!

~kat