"avec mes souvenirs, j'ai allumé le feu"

11. Pendulous

There was a grandfather clock at the back of the room. It was a large, ornate thing, far too imposing to be considered fine or beautiful, but also far too majestic and regal to be considered ugly. Squeezed between two washed-out, crumbling bookcases that looked like quivering bodyguards, it glared out at the room, its golden pendulum swinging back and forth with a powerful resolve.

It was also the only thing Arthur could see from his current position, lying prostrate on the floor, inhaling the clouds of dust that ballooned outwards from the moth-eaten Persian rug every time he so much as flinched. One of his captors was pressing a booted foot into his back, screaming at him in Japanese.

"No. No," he said, inhaling sharply as pain shot through his back. "I don't know where it is, stop asking—"

He froze. The clock's pendulum had stopped moving – only it was dangling somewhere along the path of its upward swing.

Arthur grinned and tried to muffle his laughter. His captor apparently did not take his sudden amusement lightly; he was dragged roughly to his feet and immediately took a blow to his face. He staggered backwards across the room and collapsed in front of the clock.

"Feel free to shoot me," he said, staring up at his angry captors through watering eyes. He did not even bother to lift his hands in surrender. "It's not like I'm not used to the pain; and really, it's all fair game anyway."

12. Deluge

Phillipa knew her mother was dead.

She spent her days pretending that nothing had happened, that Mummy had merely gone away with Daddy, and she would see them again soon. She pretended so she wouldn't worry Grandpa and Grandma; she pretended so she wouldn't worry Jamie, who was much too young to understand. But she knew Mummy was not coming home ever again.

It made her sad. She cried at night, an endless stream of tears, but she never made a sound. She cried quietly and she couldn't stop until she finally felt like there were no tears left in her eyes. All she could do then was curl up under her blankets, shivering, and clutching the stuff toy dog Mummy had given her for her third birthday while she was surrounded by the stuffed animals Daddy kept sending her and Jamie. After a while, she would slip out of bed, walk to the bathroom and wash her face with cold water, removing the sticky trails of tears on her cheeks. Then she would crawl back into bed and pull the covers up to her neck. She would stare out her window at the stars and ask them to bring Daddy home. Sometimes she even saw a shooting star; she took that as a sign, and begged the stars even harder.

But some part of her mind wished the opposite, wished that Daddy wouldn't come home. If he really wanted to come home, why wouldn't he? He used to tell her that he would do anything for her. If that really were true, then he would be here right now.

13. Withdrawal

"Mal."

She was refusing to look at him, her eyes instead focusing on the windows behind him. The knife was still in her hands; she was gripping it tightly, her knuckles turning white, blood seeping out from under the blade where it was slicing through the skin of her left palm.

"Give me the knife, Mal."

She could see Phillipa and James through the window, playing, laughing, as children do. A happy bliss, a happy, ignorant bliss that was a fabrication of her own mind. They were what she wanted.

"Mal. Give me the knife."

What she wanted to see. But they weren't real; they couldn't be.

"Mal! You're—"

They were as much within her mind as this house was, and she had to escape. She could not live here anymore; if she remained, she would succumb to her own desires.

"Mal… Donne-moi le couteau."

Her desires were her greatest enemy, preventing her from escaping, preventing her from doing what needed to be done.

"Mal! Écoute-moi, s'il te plaît!"

She had to return to her children, her true children. She could not remain here as a mother to fabrications, no matter what her husband said.

"Mallorie!"

He wrenched the knife from her grasp and threw it on the table, out of reach, its silvery edge shimmering with a coat of her own blood. She could only stare ahead, gazing at her children-who-were-not-her-children, while he carefully inspected and gently cleaned her wounded hand.

14. Blister

Dom Cobb's photograph stared down at the room; though his image hardly seemed threatening, the real-life counterpart was something entirely different. The man had skills capable of bringing down empires; theirs, specifically, now he had failed them. Failed to breach Saito's mind and bring them what they need. Cobb and his team had failed, and, like the cowards they were, turned and fled.

"That's the trouble with men who work outside the law. You never know when they could jump ship to the highest-paying party."

"I was aware of the risks."

"It was foolish to hire him and his team. They have failed, and the information they could divulge to our enemies could be fatal."

"Then we will have them dealt with."

"Then do it. Or it will be your price to pay."

"How could I forget? You never give up the chance to remind me."

15. Coal

"So, Arthur," Ariadne said as she tipped a spoonful of sugar into her coffee and stirred it around, "how did you get dragged into this?"

"Me?" He shrugged and took a sip from his own cup – a very dark roast, so strong she could have sworn she would be able to smell it a mile off. Naturally, he drank it black.

"Yeah," Ariadne said, now reaching for the cream. "What could Cobb possibly say to convince a guy like you to get involved in something like this?"

"He took my lunch money in the third grade and never paid me back."

Ariadne raised an eyebrow. She stirred her sweetened coffee one more time and downed half of it in a mouthful. Arthur observed her with great interest.

"What?" she said, setting her cup back down.

He leaned back in his chair, still regarding her with curiosity. "The bigger question here, Ariadne," he said, "is how can you drink something like that in Paris?"

She finished her coffee in another gulp. "I'm Canadian." She plunked the cup down in front of her with definitive emphasis. "Two creams, two sugars – that's our rule. Thanks to Tim Hortons, we're a nation of sugared caffeine addicts."

16. Kismet

There was a time – he didn't know when, they had been in limbo for so long, for years uncountable – when he dared to ask her whether it was worth it. This research, this exploration, this journey into the human mind. Perhaps curiosity had gotten the better of them; perhaps they had been too greedy for knowledge. Perhaps this never-ending place was their God-given punishment for attempting to go where no one had gone before.

She had said nothing at first. She had smiled, even laughed a little, and ran her hands through his hair, clutching him to her. "Non… c'est magnifique. Je suis contente ici."

"Es-tu sûre?"

She pressed one hand to his cheek and kissed him softly. "We are our own Gods."

17. Possession

Robert Fischer had been trained to recognize when his subconscious was being invaded. When his training had first begun at the insistence of his father, he had brushed it off. It seemed silly and entirely ridiculous – who needed to protect their dreams? He never dreamed. Or if he did dream, he never remembered it. The last time he remembered dreaming – and he could not actually recall the dream – he had been nine years old and received a sharp scolding from his father after waking up the entire household by screaming in his sleep while in the grip of a nightmare.

As a result, he had not been ready for the first true attack on his subconscious, and had not been fully aware of what was happening when it occurred. When a rival company countered his father's current plans, Robert realised that he had been responsible for leaking the valuable information. The result? His father refused to speak to him for months, and Robert engaged in proper subconscious training.

A year or so later, another attack occurred, and he quickly repelled it. It was an amateur attempt to extract information, and easily dealt with. For once, Robert had a dream he remembered, possibly because of the moment he climbed to the top of a skyscraper and shouted: "You do not control my own dreams!"

It had had a grandiose effect that would be ridiculous anywhere else, and he rather liked it.

His father, of course, would have been appalled.

18. Plethora

"Non! Rien de rien… Non! Je ne regrette rien…"

"Oi! Turn that bloody thing off, I can't concentrate!"

"As eloquent as always, Eames," Arthur said with a sigh. He looked up from his computer, from which Édith Piaf's voice was blaring, and observed a red-faced Eames with a certain blasé demeanour.

"Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait…"

Eames was lying on a lounge chair, grinding his teeth furiously. "I hate that song," he said, grunting into the paper folder he was holding several inches away from his face.

"Too bad," Arthur said, scanning the profile document he was currently analysing. "It's Cobb's favourite, and it never hurts to get it ingrained in your head."

"I don't need some damn French woman's voice in my head!"

"Ni le mal..."

"All right, that's enough!"

Eames tossed the folder aside; the papers scattered across the floor as he launched himself towards Arthur's desk and pulled the laptop's cord.

"Oh, thanks," Arthur said, continuing to read. "I needed to unplug it, it was completely charged."

"…tout ça m'est bien égal…"

Eames grunted and pushed down the computer screen, snapping the laptop closed. The music stopped.

Arthur rubbed his chin. "Satisfied?"

Eames was about to respond when Ariadne opened the door. She ignored Eames and Arthur, crossing the workplace absentmindedly, and went directly to her work station. She immediately plunked her iPod down on her desk and plugged it into a nearby set of speakers.

"Non, rien de rien—"

"BLOODY HELL!"

"Non! Je ne regrette rien…"

19. Illicit

A month or so after Inception – after she had received her share of the profits, after she had stared, dumbfounded, at the massive amount of money in her bank account, after she had called Arthur and dumbly asked him what anyone was supposed to do with that amount of money, after she had thought about reaching Saito and asking him if she had received the correct amount – Ariadne went to visit her parents. She was on break from her graduate studies any how, and it had been about a year since she had made the trek back to the good, old Maritimes to see her family.

They were pleased to see her, of course, despite that their last meeting had been less than pleasant. As they all remembered, there had been much yelling and shouting when her parents had inquired how she was going to continue to pay for her Parisian living expenses. They had assured her that there was the bleak reality that she would have to give up her studies in Paris and come home as they could certainly not support her, and she could barely support herself.

That, of course, was no longer going to be a problem.

"I kind of have a job," Ariadne said when her parents asked. "Or had a job. Have/had, take your pick."

"Pardon?" her mother said. "Do you or do you not have a job?"

"It was a kind of one-off thing, but they may ask me to do more."

"Designing?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "Oh, yeah. Lots of designing. I was designing away."

"Where?" her father asked.

She swallowed. "I can't really tell you, Dad."

"Good heavens, why not?"

"Well, it's kind of…" She wet her lower lip. "Um. Classified, I guess."

Her parents stared at her.

"What?" Ariadne exclaimed. "Do I seriously have to tell you everything? You should be happy that I have a job, not worrying about where my designs are going to be! It's not like you'd want to go see them anyway!"

20. Cataclysm

Stephen Miles was no stranger to disaster. He had frequently witnessed it in his youth. Human catastrophe, brought on by war, famine, a fear of the unknown – the progress of history had seen it all. But somehow, all of it seemed like such a distant thing when your own family was put on the line and torn apart through its own means.

He would never forgive himself for teaching Mal, for introducing her to the world of dreamscapes. She had been too young; she had been taken with it immediately, and never let go. Once she experienced the realm of the dream, she was intoxicated by its power, by the illusions it could create; she wanted to know more, wanted to explore. Stephen had introduced her, and she had learned to run before she could walk.

Even now, he could not decide whether the dream worlds had been worth it. It had been responsible for bringing his family more happiness than they had ever known. It had brought Mal to Dom, it had given Stephen his beloved grandchildren – but it had also taken Mal away. His daughter, his precious, beautiful girl, was gone, throwing herself away for the sake of the dream she could not escape.

To lose your child… to have your child take her own life… that was the true meaning of despair. And he thought that no matter what the dream worlds had given him, the price it demanded was too great for any number of fantastical worlds he had visited or created.

It was the ultimate fate of a creator. Eventually, your art consumed and destroyed that which was most precious to you.

A/N: They never did say where Ariadne was from – so I decided to say she was Canadian (like her actress, Ellen Page). As a Canadian, it's fun to have more fictional Canadian characters out there, eh?