Author's Note: I am simply amazed at how many of you were in a slight panic over the cliffhanger. Many of you drew assumptions that I hadn't meant to leave for you, lol. Anyhow, here's the next chapter, as promised. And yes, we're getting down to the end of the tale, guys. Sad to say. This story is my Inception baby. You all know I won't stop writing, though. I've got lots of ideas bouncing around in my head.
I wrote a very, sort of, totally AU story for Inception this past week to curb my writer's block. It's called Tryst, so go check it out. :)
Thanks again to all my readers, reviewers, and those who favorite/alert me! You're all amazing.
Also, with one character, I took liberties with her name. If she was actually named by Nolan and it's something different, someone give me a heads up and I'll edit the chapter.
Please enjoy and don't forget to leave a review!
Disclaimer: I own only my own plot. Nolan has the rest.
Dom Cobb snapped his cell phone shut with a sigh.
Tossing it on the table, he sat and stared out the window, thinking. Arthur and the others had found the source. But the cost at his own soul was cutting. There wasn't any way he could truly mention it to his kids and the thought of bringing it up to anyone other than the others who were suffering made his queasy.
He needed to call Miles.
Just as he reached for his discarded phone, it rang shrilly, vibrating on the wood surface. Brows knitted, he quickly answered it. "Arthur? Is there something else?"
"Dom, it's me."
"Miles? I was just about to call you. What's going on?" His eyes darted around for the kids, but he realized they were still at school. "I've got something we need to discuss."
"Dom," Miles choked. "Can it wait? You and the kids need to get over here, now. It's Josephine."
A shot ran down his spine as his father-in-law spoke. "What about her?" he asked cautiously. Alarms were ringing in his head.
"She's... Please, just get here so the kids can see her one last time?"
"One...last... Oh god," Dom's mouth became dry in horror. "We'll be there soon." He hung up and went to their room to collect some random clothing.
Scenarios of what had happened raced through his mind.
He hoped the would get there in time before...
He also hoped Arthur and Eames had nothing to do with this.
– –
"You're much more pleasant this go around, Ariadne." Eames sipped his drink as he looked across the aisle at her.
"Maybe because I was able to sleep for roughly six hours of natural sleep for the first time in over a month, Eames." Ariadne frowned at him. "But I still reserve the right to be moody. I hate flying."
He reached over and patted her hand. "I know, dear. You should sleep more now."
She scowled, glancing at Arthur who sat next to her working on his laptop. "I can't. I'm keyed up now. Where are we even going?"
"Back to France," muttered Arthur. "Actually, Paris. I got a message from Cobb saying he was headed there with his kids. Something about meeting with Miles..." He sent Eames a quick glance, who immediately sat up straighter in his seat.
Noticing the unsaid message, Ariadne narrowed her eyes at both of them. "What are you two hiding from me?"
Eames sighed. "From here on out, it's going to be a delicate situation. There's going to be a lot of conflicting emotions, but in the end, we all know what the right thing will be and it will be done. Now, it's not necessarily us that will have any issues. It's Cobb we need to keep an eye on."
"It's something to do with Professor Miles and Dom, isn't it? Did Miles do this?" Ariadne scoot to the edge of her seat, her voice an octave higher. She didn't want to believe a teacher she looked up to could be capable of such deviance.
"No," Arthur said slowly. "But the entire situation is heavily wrapped around them. I suppose, looking at it from a distance, and in the future, we'll all be able to see clearly how it could have happened," he mused. "And it definitely wouldn't come as a surprise."
"Arthur," Ariadne ground out. "Stop stalling."
"It's Cobb's mother-in-law, Josephine. She hired Yusuf," Eames blurted. "No need to beat around the bush anymore, Arthur. It's not fair to her."
Arthur just sent him a dark look. "Don't play the good guy, Eames." To Ariadne, he said, "Dom and Josephine have had a rocky relationship since Mal's death. More so since he came back and was cleared of all his charges. She feels Mal wasn't rightly given justice. Just as Mal was blind to the truth of reality and dreams, Josephine is blind to the fact that Mal was mentally unstable and committed a disillusioned suicide."
"And she blames Cobb for everything. Like Arthur said, looking at it now, it's quite clear as to why she'd want revenge. Then again, why on earth did she want to poison the minds of everyone in the extraction business. I'm keen on that tidbit," Eames said, leaning back in his seat.
Ariadne blinked quickly a few times, absorbing the new information. She didn't know a lot about Cobb's family as a whole, but it seemed as if, even after making peace with Mal's shade in the dreamscape, he was still haunted with her death in reality by Mal's mother. The woman would be a constant hound to his mind and heart, always trying to plant the seeds of doubt once more in his mind.
She could tip him over the edge of sanity and make him want the dreamscape with Mal. Perhaps just to escape the guilt.
And she had a niggling feeling that, while Cobb was on the run and Miles taught at the university, she had tried many times, maybe even succeeding, to plant the dark seeds in both James and Phillipa as well. Her heart hurt a little at the thought of corrupting a child's mind and heart with such malice and ill intent.
"You talked to Cobb, then?" she asked them.
Eames nodded. "Arthur called him not long after you fell asleep. Took the news a tad better than we'd expected. But not much more than that."
"I think Dom knew, in a way, that Josephine was very much capable of it. She knows of extraction and the dreamscape. It was Miles who taught Dom, after all, and both he and Mal were deeply in the business of extraction and subconscious security," Arthur said over his notes. "It just hit home that she would actually do something so malicious. It's one thing to be rude and give cutting jabs over dinner and another to want to drive someone to suicide. And just like Eames said, it's also so amazingly farfetched that she would want to bring harm to the entire community that Mal so warmly embraced."
"I guess loss and heartache can do that to someone," Ariadne mused somberly.
Eames straightened in his seat and finished his drink. "I think she's batty."
Both Ariadne and Arthur shot him disapproving glares.
– –
Dom had pulled the kids out of the last hour of their classes and drove them immediately to the airport, telling them they were visiting their grandparents again. When Phillipa asked why there were flying again so soon since their last visit, he'd said,
"They called me while you were at school. They asked to see you two. They love you both very much."
He spent the first half of their flight thinking of what to tell them. He wasn't sure on the details, but they didn't need details. They were just kids. Generalities in these situations were usually best; when adults went in too deep, kids usually got lost in the complications and the numerous whys that immediately popped into their heads. Luckily, while they were over the Atlantic, the two of them fell asleep, leaning on each other as they snoozed.
He took the quiet time to use the phone in front of him to call Arthur.
"Yes?"
"It's me, Arthur. Where are you?"
"I just landed in Paris with Ariadne and Eames. What's wrong? Aren't you still in the air?" Cobb could hear the busy noise of the airport in the background, along with Eames' booming voice, calling out to Ariadne.
"I am. Something's happened. I got a call, right after I talked with you."
"Is this why you're on your way here?" Confusion laced Arthur's words and Dom knew this confusion, the unknown, was eating at him.
Dom nodded even though his colleague couldn't see him. "I got a call from Miles, actually. I'd been just about to call him. Something happened."
The line was silent a moment. "What kind of 'something', Dom?"
"I don't know. He didn't elaborate. He begged me and the kids to come over immediately. I grabbed some clothes, the kids and shelled out a small fortune for last minute tickets. We're maybe an hour and a half from France. I'm not totally sure right now."
"It's Josephine?" Arthur asked. When Cobb confirmed, he sighed. "As far as I'm aware, the four of us are the only ones who know it's her. I can't guarantee you it wasn't a job from any of us, but you know her, Dom..."
"I know, I know," he let out a breath. "If she knows we know, she'd do something."
"She'd do something even if we didn't know. She's extremely paranoid. You've known this for years. Mal took after her, Dom. I will admit, though, Mal was nothing like Josephine."
"I know, I know," Cobb repeated, closing his eyes tight. "Look, I'm going to go. I'll be at the hospital with Miles and the kids. I'll let you know what's going on, okay?"
Arthur agreed and hung up, leaving Dom with a dial tone and a hollow feeling.
– –
Arthur asked Ariadne to take them to her apartment so they could regroup. She begrudgingly agreed, demanding that Eames stay out of her room as a prerequisite. Arthur only raised a brow as Eames let out a barking laugh.
When she let them in, she told them quickly where the bathroom and kitchen was and went to throw herself on her couch. She ignored the body the followed her and absently listened to the footsteps at the other side of her place.
"This is insane," she said to herself aloud.
"I'll admit, it's definitely not the typical schedule in the life of an extractor," Arthur mused, a small smile playing on his lips. "Are you sure you want this kind of life? You're still in the shallows. You could gather your chips and cash out if you'd like."
"You just said this doesn't happen frequently." She turned over to lay on her back, eyes zeroing in on Arthur.
He nodded in agreement. "I did. Sometimes, the enemy doesn't hide. Sometimes, they like coming at you with guns and thugs. There are scarier things that go bump in the night than our own irrational, long-term fears. The here and now fears are usually what kill us. What prey on us in this business."
Ariadne watch him a moment, trying to see if she could read his mind.
She got nothing. Per usual.
"I suppose. I could also get hurt tonight making dinner. Get raped and mugged after going to the movies next week. Hit by lightening in three seconds."
They watched each other silently for a moment.
The silence was broken by Eames, who shouted from Ariadne's kitchen. "Why don't you have food?"
She rolled her eyes. "Because I'm a student. I don't have time for eating. Or sleeping. Order something if you want to eat," she called out. "What are we waiting for, exactly?" she asked Arthur.
Arthur cleared his throat, slightly startled out of his reverie. "Dom was still in the air when he called me. I'm assuming his plane is just now landed. He said he was heading to Miles and Josephine right away. Which reminds me... Eames, please come join us. I've got new information."
The forger took his time walking to the sitting area, perching himself near Ariadne's feet, the only space left to sit. "From Cobb?"
"Yes, that was him who called earlier. Apparently there's some sort of emergency involving Josephine. She's in the hospital, Miles is there with her now. Cobb and his kids are heading straight there. He said to wait for his call, for when he knew what was going on. My preliminary assumption is that she may have tried to kill herself."
"You're kidding me?" Eames asked, taken aback. Arthur shook his head. "Does she know?"
"We're not sure. But Dom knows how..."
"Unstable?" Ariadne suggested.
"Unstable Josephine is," Arthur used Ariadne's word choice, but not without a frown. "I don't want to assume too much, but it seems with all of this, it's a case of Occam's Razor."
"The easiest conclusion is the correct one?" Ariadne asked.
"Something like that."
Eames leaned back, thoughtful. "Maybe she realized that the drugs were running out or wearing off on everyone and she wanted to take the easy way out before people found out it was her?"
"Perhaps. But we're going on the assumption she's put that kind of thought into this. I mean, some of the points in all of this make it seem like she wanted to get caught. Especially by Dom," Ariadne bit her lip.
"To show him that she has power over him... Even it some little way," Arthur added. "But it still doesn't explain wanting to get to the entire PASIV community."
"I think we aren't going to figure that one out unless we ask her ourselves," Eames said, frowning. "Mostly because it doesn't make any damn sense."
Arthur rubbed his eyes in frustration. "Well, as long as our assumptions about what's happened aren't correct, we should be able to."
"If she talks," Eames added. Arthur nodded.
Ariadne stood. "Guys, I feel like you two should get some rest now. I mean, Eames, I saw you dosed for a bit on the plane, but still. And Arthur, I know you haven't slept since we shared the PASIV on Saturday."
Eames stood eagerly. "Will do. I'll just go borrow your bed..."
"No." Ariadne said to him. "You're a snoop. You're not allowed in there. You can have the couch. Unless Arthur wants it, then you can have the floor."
"Ariadne, I don't think..." Arthur began, but was quickly shushed.
"No. You don't get to boss me around on this one. Either go sleep in my bed, or sleep on the couch."
Both men stared at Ariadne a moment, surprised at the commanding tone she took. Arthur quickly stood and headed for her bedroom. "I suppose I'll be nice and allow Eames the couch then..."
"How kind of you," Eames muttered.
"Come on guys, just a few hours. It's not like I'm asking you to go swim with sharks or anything." She gathered an extra pillow for Eames from her bed and tossed it at him.
"Better hope Arthur doesn't snoop," Eames called out. "He might run into that impressive lingerie collection you've got, Ari!"
"Shut up, Eames! Sleep!" Ariadne hissed, standing over him, glaring.
Behind her, she could hear Arthur chuckle. "Should I give you a moment to hide anything you don't want me to see?"
Ariadne thought a moment. "I should probably hide the few things he dug up," she said, brushing past him, a blush on her face.
Arthur looked down at Eames, who was still sitting upright on the couch. "You don't need to goad her like that."
"True... But notice how she didn't deny the collection of lingerie?"
A/N: I couldn't help myself. I had to add some humor to end the chapter. Hope that's okay with all of you.
I'm plotting out what's left in the story. I'm thinking two more chapters...Three if I pad it all out and make it super intense. What do you guys think? Two more chapters or three?
As always, reviews give birth to unicorns of all colors and shapes and sizes. You want a chocolate unicorn that fits in your pocket? Leave a review!
Story recommendation: Clockwork by ScarlettBlush