Thank you guys for waiting. Sorry for the delay.
I didn't really understand. At what point had we gone under? When Arthur told me to check my totem, I was just humouring him. There was no way we could be dreaming.
Did this mean Eames was alive? Was he in reality waiting for us? We sat in the car for what must have been half an hour, until Arthur turned to me.
"What should we do?" I knew there was only one thing we could do. One thing to break the bond between dreams and reality. I turned to Arthur and he just shook his head.
"You can't possibly expect us to kill ourselves. It's too unsure."
"Arthur...we could be dreaming right now. We just need someone to test it."
"You want someone to kill themselves...just to test it?" he asked, almost spitting the words out. I knew it was a risk, but there was nothing else to do about it.
"I'll do it." said a small voice from behind. Arthur and I turned around to see Ariadne with her hand raised. Yusuf had the same expression as us. Arthur shook his head furiously.
"No." he said, matter-of-factly.
"I want to try. Eames might be up there."
"Ariadne, what if this isn't a dream? You might die!" Arthur said, angrily. I knew it was incredibly stupid, but we needed someone to try it and Ariadne was offering.
"Ok...if you're sure." I said. Arthur shot me a look that said- how-dare-you-say-that.
"Ok." she said. I handed her my gun, after cheaking it was fully loaded. Arthur looked away. Ariadne raised the gun to her head, and Yusuf covered his ears and turned away. I held up my hand to stop her.
"Ariadne. ...If...you get up there, give us a kick." She nodded her head and smiled. I mouthed the words -thank you.
Her finger pulled the trigger and soon, there was silence in the car. I didn't look behind me. Nor did Arthur. All I could hear was Yusuf muttering "bloody hell."
I sat up gasping for air. My hand flew to my throat and soon I was hyperventilatying. I looked around me and saw my surroundings. We were in the warehouse. I had never been so glad to see this place. I swung my head to the side and saw Cobb, Arthur and Yusuf sleeping peacefully, their bodies not moving. Eames.
I ripped the needle out of my wrist and jumped out of the garden chair. My hand flew to my head, instintly regretting getting up too fast.
"Eames?" I yelled out. My voice echoed around the warehouse and I could feel my heart drop. It was only until I heard footsteps that I turned around.
"Took you bloody long enough."
Eames. There he was, standing in the doorway, wearing a smirk that made me want to punch him in the face. Instead, I ran over to him, throwing my arms around him. I could feel him tense, then relax and hug me back. I looked at his chest for blood, but no. It was clean and Eames was fine. I backed away and smiled at him.
"Hi Eames." I said. He walked over to the garden chairs and kicked Arthur's leg with his shoe.
"Why are they taking so long?"
"We didn't know whether it was a dream or not." Eames looked at me dissaprovingly.
"So they sent you to test it?" I shook my head.
"No, I offered."
"Ahh." he said. "Well I guess we better wake them up." As soon as he finished his sentence, he tipped over Arthur's chair, then Cobb's, and finally Yusuf's. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. 3 fully grown men scream like little girls as they hit the floor. Eames bent down to a clearly dissorientated Arthur and yelled into his ear.
"ABOUT TIME YOU WOKE UP!" Arthur fell back hitting his head, out of shock. I laughed and ran over to him and offered him my hand. He looked up to me and smiled.
"Ariadne!" he shouted, happily. He jumped up and pushed his lips onto mine. Eames wolf whistled behind us, but it was compleatly ignored. After we parted, Arthur looked down at me and laughed. He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to Cobb and Yusuf, who were laughing on the floor.
"We must have forgotten we were under when they stole our totems." Cobb said.
"So we didn't kill them?" Arthur asked, still smiling. Cobb jumped up and took his shoulders.
"No. We didn't. Who cares? We're in reality now!" Cobb said.
It wasn't over. Not by a long shot. But Eames was alive and we were awake. We sat in that warehouse all night, talking and laughing. Something we hadn't done for a long time. We would get more jobs, sure. We would work together, and Ariadne would design a brilliant world, Yusuf would make the right compounds, Eames would forge the right people and Arthur would get the right research... It would all go fine. And until we ran into any trouble, it was just us and the dream world. The perfect match.