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barbarafettTitle: Limbo, Longing, and the Power of Love
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Ariadne
Other Characters: Cobb, Projection!Ariadne, other OCs
Rating: PG for a couple of curse words, dream!death, and dream!suicide
Word Count: 8,688
Disclaimer: The characters and concepts contained herein are the property of Christopher Nolan, Syncopy, Legendary Pictures, and Warner Brothers Entertainment. No money is being made from the publication of this work of fanfiction.
Summary: After the inception job, Arthur loves Ariadne from afar. His projection of her, powered by his love for her, attains semi-independence. When he falls into Limbo, she decides to take charge and do what it takes to save him.
Author's Notes: This is Part 3 of my entry in the Big Bang challenge at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inception_land. This part completes my Big Bang. This was also written for this prompt at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
inception_kink: "Character A has a particularly independent-minded projection of Character B. Character A drops into Limbo and projection!Character B takes over Character A's waking life body."
After the team had landed in L.A. and said their silent goodbyes, Arthur returned home to his apartment for some much-needed time off. He followed the news religiously, carefully monitoring the unfolding saga of Maurice Fischer's funeral, the breakup of Fischer-Morrow, and the acquisition of most of its major components by Proclus Global. He communicated with his cohorts only in brief, congratulatory e-mails and text messages, passing along the news. Everyone on the team knew that to stay safe after a job, especially such an important one, they had to lie low for a while and create the illusion that they weren't connected to each other at all.
It was good to have some time to himself to decompress, Arthur thought. He had just survived the most dangerous, highest-stakes job he'd ever been on. When he wasn't following the news, he spent his free time appreciating how lucky he was to be alive, sane, and back in reality, where he didn't have to worry about nameless people looking for him and shooting at him.
After about a week had gone by, one of his other contacts in the business got back in touch with him. He was already getting tired of being alone, so he let it be known that he was a free agent and that Cobb had retired. Within another few days, Arthur was back in the field again.
* * *
You really didn't know what you had until it was gone.
Putting up with Eames' condescension, Yusuf's use of him as a guinea pig, Cobb's brooding, and Saito's imposing presence had seemed like such a burden during the Fischer job. Now, Arthur found himself missing all of them. The teamwork required to pull the job off had been such that they had formed closer bonds than most career criminals usually cared to make. Without them around, life just wasn't the same.
He missed Ariadne most of all. She had been everyone's little sister, always full of questions about their various specialties. Arthur knew there was more to her than that, though. She had always been patient and kind to everyone, especially when teaching level layouts to the dreamers. When he had kissed her on the hotel bench, it had been an honest attempt to create a distraction, but it had also been something he'd fantasized about for weeks. He wanted to get back in touch with her, but that would be unwise while he was working with other people. He didn't want to be the one to take her deeper into this criminal underworld. If she ended up in it on her own, fine, but he wasn't going to be the deciding factor.
One day, Arthur and his new associates were doing a practice run-through of the dream scenario for their upcoming job, and it was his turn to be the subject. From the top floor of a high office tower, he could see his projections running through a maze of narrow streets and alleyways, attempting to find his teammates.
"Is it as good as anything I built?" asked a voice from somewhere behind him.
Arthur whirled around, automatically drawing down on the unexpected intruder. He nearly dropped the Glock when he saw who it was.
"Oh my God!" he exclaimed. "Ariadne! What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?"
"You were just thinking about me, weren't you?" answered Ariadne. "Well, here I am."
Arthur understood. "You're just a projection."
"Yes."
This was strange. "Why are you here and not down there, trying to take down our extractor like everyone else? I'm working right now."
"'Everyone else' is just a bunch of random people you've seen somewhere at some point during your life and subconsciously remembered. I'm not just some random person to you, am I?"
Arthur swallowed, reminding himself that he was, in fact, only admitting this to himself. "No, of course not." He put away the gun.
Ariadne smiled. "You're so sweet."
He wanted to kiss her again, wanted it badly, but he knew that now was not a good time. If he focused his attention exclusively on fantasizing about her rather than on the fact that his mind was being 'invaded,' his other projections would start to become distracted, and his associates would know that he wasn't doing his job.
"And you're remarkably strong-willed," he said.
"Of course I am. You know that."
"I mean, for a projection. You came here and started a conversation with me independently. But I know you're not real."
"But you do want me around."
"I do, but not now. I'm trying to work."
"Okay, then. I'll leave you to it." She started to leave, then hesitated. "You never did answer my question."
"No, of course it isn't as good as your work," said Arthur.
Ariadne smiled. "Just remember, whenever you're here, I'm here." She left the room.
"Goodbye," Arthur said. He stared after her and wondered whether he had just discovered that emotional attachment issues and their symptoms were communicable through shared dreams.
* * *
They were being followed.
Arthur had been through this too many times not to recognize it. The projections were starting to converge on them. They had almost made it to the vault. They couldn't get caught now.
He kept walking, staying calm, but giving Dunmore a look that meant, We're in trouble. We'd better get this done quickly. The extractor nodded back.
Another projection appeared from a side passageway as they approached the entrance to it. Arthur prepared himself to fight her off if he had to, but suspended that instinct temporarily when he realized who it was.
The imaginary Ariadne fell into step beside him, on his left, and whispered to him. "You still have one more opportunity to create a closed loop where there isn't one already. You can seal yourself off from them that way. It'll buy you some time."
That was true. Arthur nodded to Ariadne, smiling slightly. When they turned the last corner before the bank vault, Arthur sealed off the entrance to the hallway they had just entered and redirected the one they had just left back onto itself, rearranging walls to turn it into an enclosed square. Ariadne was still right beside him.
Dunmore turned to Arthur, indicated Ariadne with a nod, and asked, "One of yours?"
"Yeah," said Arthur.
"That shouldn't happen."
"I know, but it is. Don't worry about it. She's acting as an ally."
"She told you to alter the maze?"
"Yes."
"I guess I must be your muse," said Ariadne.
"Sure," said Arthur.
Dunmore was busy unlocking the vault, but continued talking to Arthur. "Who is she?"
"Just someone I knew once," said Arthur.
"Girlfriend?"
"No. Coworker on my last job."
"Architect," specified Ariadne. "I'm Ariadne Webster, by the way."
"Zachary Dunmore. But you knew that."
"I did, yes."
"So what are you doing here?"
"You mean besides helping your point man do his job?"
"I have to admit that that was a pretty neat trick, but that doesn't change the fact that it
shouldn't be happening. If you're part of Arthur's mind, then you know that only the mark's mind should be populating the world of the dream."
"I know, but Arthur was thinking, 'If Ariadne were here...,' so here I am."
Dunmore looked up from the file folder of documents he had been reading to glare at Arthur. "There has to be more going on here than you're admitting to," he said.
Arthur looked slightly embarrassed. "Well... yeah. I miss her, and... I wish she could be more than just a coworker. That's why my projection of her keeps popping up."
Dunmore's expression softened, but only slightly. "We'll talk about it later. I'm trying to concentrate right now." He returned his attention to reading his documents.
Arthur turned away, listening for any sound. He heard running footsteps and occasional shouts of anger and confusion coming from the other side of the short wall he had just dreamed into existence. It didn't matter, though; they already had what they had come for. Their time would be up soon, and they would wake up unscathed.
* * *
Fortunately for Arthur, Dunmore was fairly open-minded, in the traditional sense of the expression. Arthur had been certain he was going to be fired from the moment the extractor had discovered his new point man's lack of control over his own thoughts, but Dunmore proved to be understanding and accepting, if concerned. It was self-evident that Arthur's projection of Ariadne had caused no danger or harm, and had, in fact, helped them pull off the job. For those reasons, Dunmore agreed to keep Arthur on. "I'm interested to see if your not-girlfriend can help us out again," he said, when the job was finished and they were discussing it. "She doesn't get her own share, though."
Arthur smiled at the joke. "Thank you very much. I'm glad to be working with you."
"No problem. She seemed very self-confident- did she go into the field with you before? The real her, I mean?"
"Yes, she did."
"Well, we're going to need a third team member for the next job. Why not invite her along?"
Arthur shook his head. "She's still in school, and was perfectly innocent before she fell in with all of us. I don't think she wants to stay in the business."
"Oh. That's all right. I have a go-to architect whom I trust to do that."
* * *
Their next target was a woman who had been known to participate in shared dreaming recreationally. Sneaking in and getting the information they needed would be a little trickier than it was for normal people who had no previous experience with the technology. Arthur suggested creating a dream within a dream, and once he had explained how the technique worked and outlined some of his and Cobb's past successes with it, his present coworkers were on board with the idea.
As the keeper of the old team's PASIV device, Arthur had ended up holding on to the last of Yusuf's compound. He debated with himself whether or not to offer it up for use, but ultimately decided to go ahead and do it. This time, he was going to make sure not only that they were prepared for anything, including militarized projections, but that everyone involved knew in advance exactly what they were getting into.
There was enough of the compound left for the three of them plus their mark, but only for about five minutes of real time. With this compound, that would mean a total of an hour and forty minutes in the first dream, and well over a day in the second. Arthur made sure to inform the new team of these facts, too. They agreed to use Yusuf's compound, intrigued by the prospect of the higher time dilation factor allowing them to get in, get out, and get away more quickly than ever.
This time, everything went exactly according to plan. There were no cover-blowing mistakes in the design of the dreams, nor were any on-the-fly changes to the architecture needed. They made it through both of the initial phases of their con without alerting any of the projections to the presence of strangers.
It wasn't until Dunmore was in the middle of reading the targeted confidential information that Arthur noticed the tiny, flashing red LED next to the latch of the safety-deposit box built into the back wall of the hotel. He immediately went on high alert, but it made sense. The mark's subconscious always filled in most of the fine detail of the dream environment. This woman was in charge of both the physical and electronic security measures for a major national bank. Of course her mind would give a safety-deposit box a silent alarm, in addition to placing confidential information there.
Arthur whispered to Dunmore that they might be in trouble. He nodded, continuing to concentrate intently on remembering the mark's computer passwords. Arthur watched and waited.
True to the expectations he'd had for this job based on his research, the security guards who responded to the silent alarm were angry, but uncoordinated, clearly indicative of a mind that hadn't been militarized. There certainly were a lot of them, though, enough to drag Arthur and Dunmore away from each other. Despite their lack of training, they managed to disarm Arthur and hold him still while one of them pointed his own gun at his head. His last thoughts before the projection pulled the trigger were of his friends who had visited Limbo before him, but who would not be waiting for him there - Dom, Mal, Saito, and Ariadne - and of his resolve never to forget that that world was not real.
* * *
Arthur's projection of Ariadne knelt beside his lifeless dream body, in the center of the swirling chaos of the collapsing dream. She was crying. She had appeared on the scene just in time to watch her dreamer die. There had been no way she could have saved him, and now he was lost to Limbo. He would never return to the real world, and since he hadn't taken her down there with him, she would soon cease to exist entirely.
Unless...
As irrational and ridiculous as it seemed, the projection of Ariadne had both a self-preservation instinct and a moment of inspiration. Maybe there was a way she could save both their lives.
She threw herself down on top of Arthur's dream body, embracing him and pressing her forehead against his. She threw every bit of willpower she had behind her idea, commanding herself to wake up, wake up, wake up as the dream world collapsed around her -
- and then she was in the living room of an apartment, sitting in an easy chair across from Dunmore and Preston, the architect who had joined them on this job.
"Arthur, are you all right?" Preston asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Ariadne asked. It had worked. This was the first dream layer.
They weren't out of the woods yet, though. Ariadne practically ripped the needle out of her wrist as she got up and went over to Dunmore. "Help me give him the kick," she said to Preston. "Keep Rossetti under for as long as you can."
"What happened?" asked Preston as he moved to help.
"We got separated," answered Ariadne. "Don't worry about it. We did get what we came for."
This apartment didn't have a freestanding bathtub, so they'd had to make do with placing Dunmore's chair on the side table next to the couch. Together, they pushed the chair over onto the couch. Dunmore cringed in pain, but opened his eyes and looked at his co-conspirators. "Hey, that's pretty clever," he said to Ariadne.
"Thanks," she said. "Do you remember all the info?"
"Of course. Preston, how much time do we have left down here?"
"About six minutes. Come on, let's go. We don't want to be here when she wakes up."
Indeed not. Their method of getting Rossetti back to this apartment had involved buying her a drug-laced drink. While their subsequent violation of her had been mental and psychological, not physical, she would almost certainly assume that it had been the latter when she woke up and found herself in an unfamiliar apartment. They disconnected and packed up the rest of their equipment and retreated from the apartment to a hidden passageway, where they planned to wait for their timer to run out and return them to the real world.
* * *
Arthur felt himself being pushed forward by ocean waves. The last, powerful wave drove him face-first into wet sand, snapping his attention back into focus. Weakly, he pushed himself up, spitting out sand.
What just happened...? he thought.
He crawled further up the beach, his head spinning. His sweater and slacks were soaked. Hadn't he been wearing his black stealth outfit just a moment ago...?
The realization hit him, and he reeled. Limbo.
He looked around, wild-eyed. Apparently, raw, infinite subconscious manifested as an endless ocean, a beach, and endless, flat, barren land beyond it. Nothing else, because he had never been here before and was all alone.
He reached into his pants pocket, very firmly expecting that the die would still be there. It was. And it felt exactly the way it always did. It didn't help much when you already knew that it was your dream, and no one else's. Still, there was another meaning associated with it: that there was a real world, and the one he was currently in wasn't it.
He resolved never, ever to forget that, even as the hopelessness of the situation became fully apparent. Unless and until someone else figured out what had happened and tried to get him out, this was all there was.
He idly ran his other hand through the sand, molding it into a little hill. After a moment, when he looked around again, he saw that there was now an identical, but much bigger, hill behind him, with grass on it.
Awesome.
The reaction was automatic and irresistible. Though he was a soldier first and foremost, he loved architecture and building very much. Here, there would never be any opposition, just endless time and space to create.
He stood up and turned to face the hill, one hand still closed around the die in his pocket.
Never recreate from your memory.
He wouldn't, he mentally promised his old friend. But still, creating something appealed much more than sitting in the sand, doing nothing.
He began to climb the hill, so that he could stand at the top of it and create a master plan for the world he surveyed.
* * *
The seconds ticked down. Once again, Ariadne focused all her concentration on waking up. She'd managed to get into Arthur's imaginary body in the first dream layer by that means, but would it work again? It had to. The alternative was annihilation.
Music played, slow and stretched-out. She knew what it meant. She focused on it as if it were a beacon in a dark night.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Ariadne's eyes felt unnaturally heavy. She dragged them open.
She was in a chair in Rossetti's office. Rossetti was in the other one; hopefully, she'd believe that she had simply fallen asleep at her desk during one of her late-night work sessions. Dunmore and Preston were both on the floor behind Rossetti.
Ariadne took all this in, amazed. She had really done it. This was the real world.
She took a deep breath. That part of the plan was working. This body was still alive, and seemed to be functioning normally. Tentatively, she got up from her chair.
"You're spacing out," Dunmore hissed at her. "Hurry up!"
Oh, yeah. The other plan - Arthur's and the others' plan. They weren't done with that yet. Ariadne hurriedly started getting all the IV cannulae coiled up and the needles disposed of, letting her hands move by themselves. She found that all she had to do was focus on the fact that Arthur had probably done this a thousand times, and everything she needed to do came to her easily. It made sense, in its way; she was, after all, an entity composed of pure subconscious.
They made it out of the office, leaving Rossetti asleep with her arms folded on her desk and her head resting on them. They didn't speak another word to each other until they got back to the hotel they were using as a base.
"Something about that didn't make sense," said Dunmore, when they were in the privacy of a hotel room. "Arthur, you were already awake when I woke up into the first layer. Preston, you didn't give him the kick before me, did you?"
"Of course not!" said Preston. "He just... sort of woke up by himself... wait, yeah, you're right. That didn't make sense. We were just in too much of a hurry to notice it before. You'd have to have died in order to have woken up on your own, Arthur- but you said if we did..."
"I know what I said," interjected Ariadne. "And that's exactly what happened."
There was no point lying about it. The others had correctly deduced from the events they had observed that Arthur had to have died in the second layer, and they knew about the effects of Yusuf's compound. They had to have an explanation for how Arthur could still apparently be alive and cognizant here in the real world.
"I'm not really Arthur," said the projection of Ariadne, but it came out in Arthur's voice. "I mean, I am, but I'm not. It's actually just Arthur's subconscious projection of Ariadne who's speaking right now. I watched him die in the dream, and I knew what would happen then, and I just... I wondered if I could sort of... take over for him while he was... away. So far, it's working."
The others stared at her in disbelief.
"You have to be making this up," said Preston.
"Why the hell would I do that?" answered Ariadne. "We all know that there's no way around the fact that Arthur got killed in the dream and his conscious mind dropped into Limbo. I'm telling you, it's me. Arthur's muse." She addressed this last phrase to Dunmore.
"Did you know about this?" Preston asked Dunmore.
"Yeah, I did," said Dunmore. "His projection of her showed up on the last job we were on, too. She called herself Arthur's muse. She actually helped us get out of there without getting caught."
"But projections can't act independently like that!" protested Preston.
Oh, if only you knew the half! thought Ariadne.
"Sure we can," she said to him. "If the dreamer feels a really powerful emotion connected with their memories of a real person, those memories can sort of... go rogue."
"And then they can possess them."
"Something like that. I think I only just now discovered that this was even possible. I don't know if I like the idea of calling it possession, though. But whatever it is I'm doing, I'm the only thing keeping this body awake, alert, and relatively sane until its rightful owner comes back."
"Well, I'm not going down there to get him," said Dunmore.
"Neither am I," said Preston.
"That's okay," said Ariadne. "I have a plan for that, and it doesn't involve you. I'm going to go and find the real Ariadne and tell her that Arthur is in love with her. I know she'll be willing to go to Limbo to retrieve someone who's stuck there; she's done it before."
"Wait," said Dunmore. "When was that? During the job you worked on together?"
"Uh-huh."
"So everything went wrong the first time you used that stuff, too!"
"Some things went wrong. We did what we set out to do."
"You asshole! You didn't mention that part!"
"Sorry. I've told you more about that job than I probably should have."
"Well, you go and find that girl," said Dunmore. "Just get away from me. And I'm sticking to what I said before. You don't get a share, Not-girlfriend."
"That was a joke!"
"It was, but it's not anymore. We're not working together again until you get your head on straight again. I'll pay you when you come back as yourself, Arthur. If you come back."
Ariadne scowled. "Fine. I can afford to get where I'm going on my own. Good night."
* * *
Ariadne-the-projection retreated to her own- well, Arthur's- hotel room after that. She tried to acclimate to the feeling of being in a male body. It was true; they really did have lower centers of gravity, which made moving around feel slightly different. She wasn't sure that she would ever be completely used to being a guy, but she dealt with it by relying on her natural access to Arthur's subconscious habits.
After setting the PASIV device down, she wandered through the small apartment, touching and feeling everything. This is the real world. If the inventors of the dreamshare technology had been trying to make it possible to accurately reproduce the look and feel of the real world, they had done an admirable job. She found herself recalling that Arthur had reacted to his first experience with the dreamshare with a sense of wonder similar to what she was feeling now.
She soon realized that she was exhausted, and- hungry. These sensations never happened to projections, who popped into and out of existence when their dreamer fell asleep and woke up. Although the sensations were new to her, the knowledge of what to do next came to mind readily. She got herself dinner out of her hotel minibar, for the convenience of it.
As she ate, she pondered what to do about her other problem. What would happen to her if this body fell asleep naturally? Would she be pulled down into Limbo, too? Would she simply never wake up anywhere again? She was afraid to find out, but she knew that the next phase of her plan would require all her energy and wits, so she decided to chance it. She made sure, however, to set several different alarms and place them at varying distances from the bed, so that she'd have to get up to turn them all off.
As she was undressing for bed, her fingers found the loaded die in the pocket of her slacks. In a dream, any factual information known to a subject was known to all of his or her projections as well, and this remained true even in Ariadne's present situation. She knew why the die was there and what number it was supposed to land on. She felt the impulse to roll it, but resisted. She had to keep on believing that she really was here in the real world, animating a real body. She couldn't stand to even consider the possibility that this entire adventure was, after all, still nothing more than a hallucination unfolding in someone else's mind.
She set the die down, carefully and reverently, on top of the dresser and continued getting ready for bed. She was actually grateful for the fact that this body no longer experienced natural dreams. If she were to find herself in a dream, she would probably stay there, where she belonged.
* * *
A vibration was running through her head, and the world was black.
What the hell?
Music was playing from somewhere- no, no- but it was playing in real time, and it was in English. Ariadne remembered where she was and what she had done last night. The alarms had worked. She was still in Arthur's now-awake body.
She rolled over, pushed herself up on her elbows, and searched under her pillow for the cell phone. She found it and turned off the vibrating alarm, then got up and turned off the clock radio and the beeping watch alarm.
Her plan was to fly standby to Paris, where she would get back in touch with the real Ariadne and tell her everything that was going on. Flying standby would suck, and having jet lag would really suck, but she knew she had to get this done as quickly as possible. The longer Arthur's mind was stuck down there, the less chance he would come back to reality and still be recognizably the same person.
While repacking Arthur's luggage, Ariadne came across a small collection of fake passports and other IDs. On top of the pile was the one Eames had made for their journey from Paris to Sydney to Los Angeles.
Eames. Arthur hadn't spoken to him at all since they'd all parted ways in Los Angeles. Ariadne really, really wanted to get a hold of him. If there was one person here in the real world who could relate to this experience of walking around in someone else's body, it was him. She decided not to call him, though. The fewer people who knew about the situation, the better. Besides, she knew Arthur would never hear the end of it if Eames found out that his body had been walking around with a feminine mind controlling it.
She took one of the other fake passports with her for the trip, one that hadn't been used in a while, but looked at the one Eames had made again before putting it away. She hoped that someday, after she'd saved Arthur and he and Eames were working together again, she'd get the chance to talk to him about his craft.
* * *
It was early morning of the next day by the time she finally made it to Paris. Almost as soon as she got off the plane, she called the real Ariadne from one of the pay phones that the airport still kept in service for tourists just arriving in the country.
"Hello?"
It was strange to hear what she thought of as her own voice on the other end of the phone. "Um, hi, Ariadne," she said. "It's Arthur."
"Arthur!" the real Ariadne exclaimed. "It's good to hear from you! I got all the updates you sent- thanks! What are you doing back in Paris?"
"I need to talk to you about something as soon as possible. It's personal, not work-related, but it's still time-sensitive. Can I meet you somewhere private?"
"We don't have a base here anymore, do we?"
"No, we don't. It was rented."
"Okay. Come on over to my place. I'm at home."
"Thank you so much, Ariadne. Just tell me how to get there."
"Okay." Ariadne-the-projection took out a moleskine and started making notes.
* * *
In between the airport and the real Ariadne's college-student apartment, the projection stopped to buy her a dozen red roses. Not many guys get to ask themselves, 'If I were a woman, what would I want a guy to do for me?' and come up with an answer this accurate, she thought cheekily. Then again, Arthur didn't know everything there was to know about women in general or about Ariadne in particular, and therefore, neither did his projections, so her guess about what the real Ariadne would find romantic might prove to be wrong. It was worth a shot, though.
The projection climbed the stairs, took a deep breath, and knocked on the real Ariadne's door. She opened it and stared, dumbfounded, at the roses.
"Arthur..." she said slowly. "I... I had no idea..." Her hand reached for something in her pocket.
The projection nodded approvingly, stepping in and closing the door. "Yes, Ariadne. This is really happening, and it isn't anybody's dream. Go ahead and check, though. I won't look."
The real Ariadne went to the coffee table to use her totem. The projection turned around, closing her eyes. There was a small clunk.
"All right, you can look now," said the real Ariadne. "I believe you."
The projection joined her in the small living room, and they sat across from each other.
"So you came all the way here because... you're in love with me?" the real Ariadne began.
"Not just because of that," answered the projection, "although that's true. Ariadne, someone we know is in danger, and I think you're the only one who can help."
The real Ariadne's face fell. "Did Mal come back?"
"No, thankfully. That's all over with, at least as far as I know. It's kind of a long story."
"Go ahead."
The projection told her how Arthur had decided to use up the last of Yusuf's sedative-enhanced compound, what had happened on that job, and that the person telling the tale was really just a projection who had temporarily taken charge of Arthur's body.
"I had no idea if I could actually do it," she finished, "but here I am. I wanted to see you because I thought you should know that Arthur's love for you is so powerful that his projection of you has turned semi-independent."
"Like Mal," said the real Ariadne.
"No, no. This is the other side of the same coin. I'm basically personified love. My existence is fueled by positive emotion, not negative emotion."
"If you're just a projection, don't you just want Arthur to stay with you in Limbo forever? Wouldn't you both be happy then?"
"No! That wouldn't make him happy at all. I'm not real. I know I'm not real. Projections aren't nearly as interesting as the real people."
"They don't have the nuances and imperfections that come with being real."
"Exactly. I don't want to go and be in Limbo with Arthur because then he could never be here, with the real Ariadne. All I want is to bring him back to the surface. That's why I came to you. I need your help to do that. We both know it takes another real person to convince someone to leave Limbo, to help them remember that their world is not real. You're the one he loves, so it should be you. You have the best chance of succeeding."
The real Ariadne was overwhelmed, crying. "Arthur, you idiot!" she said, but she didn't sound particularly angry. "Why didn't you just throw the rest of that stuff away?"
"Does that mean you're in?" asked the projection.
"Of course I'm in! I can't just let Arthur stay down there, not after... after all we went through!"
"You're a good friend, Ariadne."
"Thanks. Hey, what should I call you, anyway? I guess I can't call you Arthur, but calling you Ariadne would be even weirder."
"Do you have a middle name?"
"Irene. You didn't know that?"
"No, because you never told Arthur. You can call me Irene, then."
"Okay. Wait. Is there any more of Yusuf's compound?"
"No. That was the last of it."
"Then how am I going to get to Limbo by myself? The last time I was there, there were three other people dreaming the layers above me."
"Dom and Mal managed to get there that first time, with just the two of them. I don't know how they did it, though. We'd have to ask him."
A shadow crossed Ariadne's face. "I think he just wants to enjoy his retirement."
"I know, but Arthur is one of his oldest and best friends. I'm sure he'll be in, too, once we tell him what's going on. Can I use your phone?"
"Of course."
* * *
Dom didn't even complain about the fact that it was after 10:00 at night his time when he heard Arthur's voice on the phone. The projection who was speaking with that voice, now nicknamed Irene, explained what had happened to Arthur and why she and the real Ariadne were coming to him for advice.
"I’m coming with you," Dom said.
Irene was taken aback. "What? You don’t have to do that. We don’t expect you to get involved. All we need is for you to tell us how you got into Limbo that first time."
"For God's sake, Arthur is my best friend! I can't just give you directions over the phone. This is too important. I have to be there myself."
"Are you sure you want to, Dom? It would sort of mean coming out of retirement."
"Saving my best friend's life is not a crime. I'm coming with you."
"Okay, Dom. For the kids' sake, though, we'll come to you, all right?"
"All right. The other reason I have to come with you is because that first time, Mal and I worked together to get there, and I don't know if it would work the same way if it was just one real person and one projection trying to get there. No offense."
"None taken. We'll get on our way as soon as we can. I'll be in touch when we get to L.A."
"Can I talk to him?" the real Ariadne whispered urgently.
"My real-life counterpart wants to talk to you," said Irene.
"Put her on," said Dom.
Irene handed Ariadne the phone. "I'm not going to be able to talk you out of coming with us, am I?" she said. There was a pause, and then she went on: "What, you don't think I can do it?... Fair enough. But what happens when all your buildings pop up? Will they supersede anything Arthur's built?... Really? Oh, okay. That's good to know.... Okay, see you soon. Do you want me to put Irene back on?... Okay, bye." Ariadne hung up.
"Should I ask?" said Irene.
"He said he does think I can convince Arthur to leave Limbo, but he wants to be there to back me up in case I change my mind and decide to stay there," said Ariadne. "He also said that we don't have to worry about everything he and Mal built in Limbo popping up again when we get there, because that didn't happen when he went there to rescue Saito."
"Oh, okay."
"So, we're going to him, right?"
"Yes."
"How do we get halfway around the world on short notice?"
"We go and put ourselves on the standby list at the airport, wait, and hope. Did you keep your fake ID from before?"
"Of course, but why do I need it? What we're going to do isn't illegal, right?"
"Right, but I'm using one, and you don't want there to be a record of the real you associating with any of my identities."
"Okay, I'll use it. I can be ready to leave in fifteen minutes."
"May I help you pack?"
"Sure."
* * *
Anxiety made the already-long journey from Paris back to L.A. seem to stretch into an eternity. Both Ariadne and Irene slept on the plane, but only for short, sporadic stretches. At the end of the trip, Ariadne felt a sharp shock of déjà vu when she walked into the same house she had seen the night when she had peeked in on Cobb's "experiments." She would have to make sure to do a reality check before they got started.
Cobb and Irene walked around the living room, closing the curtains. The kids were already in bed, and they didn't expect to need more than ten minutes of real time to get the job done. "Okay, here's how this works," explained Cobb to Ariadne. "We're going to need to create four layers of dreams within dreams, just like before. The difference is, for this, we don't need anyone to stay behind and keep dreaming the upper layers. All we need is for all of us to remember what the upper layers were, and that they were dreams, and we'll get to Limbo without losing any of our awareness that we're dreaming. That was the hypothesis that Mal and I proved right, that first time."
"Okay," said Ariadne.
"So where do I come in?" asked Irene.
"You're the subject," said Cobb.
"How does that work? I'm just a projection myself."
"That's what we're about to find out. Ariadne, you can have the couch."
"Thanks, but no thanks," said Ariadne. "You can have it. I'll sleep on the floor next to Irene. I want to be the first person Arthur sees when he wakes up for real."
"You love him, too," said Cobb.
"Yeah, I think I do."
Cobb actually smiled. "I hope that works out for you."
"Thanks."
They moved the coffee table so that Ariadne and Irene could lie perpendicular to the couch with the PASIV device between them. Cobb tossed them the throw pillows from the couch, then lay down on it.
"Would you like to do the honors this time, Ariadne?" said Cobb when they were all ready.
"Sure," said Ariadne. "Sweet dreams."
She pushed the yellow button.
* * *
Irene staggered, nearly falling over before catching herself against the alley wall. Did the sudden shift from lying down in reality to standing up in a dream feel like that every time?
She looked around, trying to orient herself. There was daylight at the end of the alley, but it was dull and cheerless. She remembered the mission she was on and walked toward it, trying to find the others.
"Irene!" a voice called when she stepped out onto the street. She turned to look. Cobb and Ariadne were standing halfway down the block. She walked toward them.
"This is way too weird," said Ariadne when Irene came near them.
Irene realized that now that they were all in a dream, she looked like Ariadne again. Only now, the real Ariadne was here, too. They looked at each other.
"At least we're wearing different clothes," said Irene.
"Yeah," said Ariadne. "Why is everything all dim and washed-out-looking here? This doesn't look as real as shared dreams usually do."
"I'm the subject. If I were a real person, it would look as real as it usually does, I'm guessing."
"I'm glad this plan is working at all," said Cobb. "Come on, let's get moving."
They went to find a private, indoor space where they could lie down and enter the second layer of their dream.
* * *
Water surged and pounded around Irene. She sat up in the wet sand, coughing. Her counterpart and Cobb were nearby, already standing up and walking out of the ocean.
Irene got up and came alongside them, still wiping seawater and hair out of her eyes. "Are we here?"
"We're here," said Cobb.
"Is it always like that, getting here?"
"Every time. Does everybody remember where we are and why we came here?"
"We're back in Limbo again, and this time we're here to get Arthur back," said Ariadne. "There are three other layers of dreams between us and reality."
"And where in reality did we start from?"
"From your house."
Irene nodded. "What she said. I remember all that, too."
"Very good," said Cobb.
They looked up at the landscape before them.
"Somebody's been busy," said Ariadne.
Before them was an intricate tangle of structures, only some of which fit the traditional definition of buildings. Paradoxical staircases and ladders crisscrossed the cityscape and looped and folded back on themselves everywhere you looked. Irene couldn't follow them with her eyes.
"How are we ever going to find Arthur in this?" Irene wondered.
"You don't have any ideas?" said Ariadne. "You're part of his mind. Don't you have, like, real-person radar?"
"Only for other real people, like you. I feel much stronger now that I'm on the same dream level as Arthur's conscious mind, but I couldn't begin to tell you where he was."
Ariadne turned to Cobb. "You found Saito."
"That wasn't very hard," said Cobb. "Saito hadn't built anything nearly this complicated. And he had guards. I got captured and taken to him."
"Arthur might have guards, too," said Irene. "Let's go see."
They approached closer to the apparently impenetrable jungle of structures. "I don't even see a way in from this side," said Ariadne. She looked intently at one of the rope ladders, and its length extended to reach down to the ground.
"No! Don't!" Irene shoved Ariadne, causing them both to fall to the ground in a heap.
"Hey!" shouted Ariadne, picking herself up. "What was that for?"
"Instinct," said Irene apologetically, reaching out a hand to help her up. "I am just a projection, after all. When you started messing around with my dreamer's dream, I just couldn't stop myself. Sorry."
Ariadne nodded. "Right. Sorry. I'll try not to do that again."
"If Arthur does have guards here," said Cobb, "you just tripped the alarm system."
"With a structure this complicated, who needs security?" said Ariadne.
"Good point. Let's go exploring."
The three of them climbed the rope ladder into the bizarre structure.
* * *
An indistinct amount of time later, they finally emerged from a dark maze of tunnels to find themselves standing at the edge of a perfectly square park. There were other people here, the first they had seen since entering Limbo. To no one's surprise, all the people in the park were giving them unfriendly stares.
Ariadne was nervous for just a moment, and then she saw something else that stunned her. Evidently, here in Limbo, not only could memories become neighborhoods and defibrillator shocks become lightning storms, but figures of speech could become literal realities. On a pedestal in the exact center of the park stood a marble statue of- her.
Ariadne was touched. Even in Limbo, Arthur still remembered her and thought of her that highly? What would he do if he knew that the real her was here?
"Arthur!" Ariadne cried out impulsively. "I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, I'm here! It's me, Ariadne! I'm really here and- and I love you, Arthur Callahan!"
Suddenly, the sky brightened from gray to brilliant blue, and the entire landscape started to shake. The projections in the park stepped back, watching this strangely powerful entity warily, but not attacking.
The earthquake settled down and a man emerged from the midst of the crowd. He was very old, with pure white hair, and moved feebly.
Shocked, Ariadne looked at Cobb. "Is that-"
"Yes," said Cobb. "You remember how time moves faster here, right?"
Ariadne nodded. She ran to Arthur and threw her arms around him, burying her head in his chest and crying. "Arthur!" she sobbed. "We did it! We found you!"
"You're..." said Arthur. "But that's impossible..."
He looked back and forth between Ariadne and the statue several times.
"You don't look a day over the age you were when I knew you," he said. His voice was dry and scratchy. "How can that be?"
"Oh, Arthur!" said Ariadne. "I'm not a day over that age, and neither are you! You're dreaming, Arthur. You've been in Limbo for who knows how long. Do you remember anything from before... before you were here?"
"I remember you. Did you say... you love me?"
"Yes! Yes, Arthur, I love you! That's why I came here to get you. Come back to the real world with me, Arthur, so we can be young and in love."
Arthur looked at her, thoughtfully. Then he looked around. "I must be dreaming," he said slowly, "for there to be two of you."
"That's right, Arthur. I'm the real one. She's just your projection of me, the one who shows up in your dreams sometimes."
"If I've been dreaming all this time... where has she been? All these years, I've thought of you, wondered where you were, and wanted to be with you. But no matter how hard I wished for it, you were never there. I never understood why."
"It's because your projection of me took over your real body, in the real world. She was trying to keep your brain from getting fried long enough for us to come and save you. I hope it worked, but you have to come back with us, Arthur."
"My... Let me talk to her."
"Okay."
Arthur and Ariadne came back over to where Irene and Cobb were standing. "Is it true?" Arthur asked Irene. "You're just a... a projection?"
"I am," said Irene. "I'm the version of Ariadne that exists in your mind. And believe me, it's really good to be home."
"Home... Have you come to stay with me here? It would be what I've been wishing for, for so long."
Irene shook her head. "No. I'm not the one you really want. I'm just an ideal. She's the reality."
"Yes," said Ariadne, nodding.
"How can you know you're just a projection?" said Arthur to Irene. "And how can you be asking me to wake up and leave you? I didn't think that was possible."
"Why does everyone expect me to be just like Mal?" cried Irene, stamping her foot. "I am not Mal. I know what's real because I am empowered by the most real emotion there is- love. Not guilt. I believe that positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time."
Arthur's eyes opened a little wider. He looked at Cobb, seemingly for the first time. "Dom," he said.
"Yes," said Cobb. "You remember me."
"You said that."
"Yeah, I did. Do you remember when? What we were doing?"
Arthur nodded. "I remember. You, Fischer, Saito. The inception. Everything before, too."
They embraced. "Welcome back, Arthur," said Cobb.
"You and Ariadne both... you came back here to find me," said Arthur.
"Of course we did. We both love you, in our own ways. Neither of us wanted you to be lost here forever. Are you ready to take a leap of faith?"
"I am. It only takes one leap, right?"
"That's right."
"I know what we can do. Come on."
* * *
Arthur led them to the top of a high tower in the city he had built. It stood on a cliff, overlooking the ocean.
"It never gets any easier, does it?" said Ariadne to Cobb, gesturing at the long drop.
"No," said Cobb. "It doesn't. May this be the last time any of us have to do this."
"Hey," said Arthur to Irene, "when we wake up, what happens to you?"
"I'll still be part of your mind," said Irene. "The next time you're dreaming and you think of the real me, I'll be there to be your muse."
The real Ariadne smiled at this.
"But until then, you'll just... go out, like a candle flame," said Arthur.
"Yes," said Irene. "But it's all right. I'm used to it. That's just the way dreams are."
"Goodbye, Irene," said Ariadne. "And thank you so much."
"Don't mention it," said Irene. "Thank you. I couldn't have done it alone. You too, Cobb. Goodbye."
"Goodbye," said Cobb.
They held hands, with Arthur in the middle, and leapt off the top of the tower.
* * *
Ugggghhh.
Arthur opened his eyes. Phantom pain radiated through his entire body, but it was already fading. He sat up, instinctively beginning to feel for broken bones before remembering that he would find none. The fall and the impact had, after all, been a dream.
Ariadne was sitting up next to him. The second she saw that he was awake, she seized hold of him and kissed him, exuding joy and excitement. He kissed back, matching her enthusiasm. His love had come back to him, brought him back to reality. They had, he hoped, the rest of their lives ahead of them to be lovers.
A hand on his shoulder- Dom's. "I hate to interrupt the moment," said Dom, "but would you mind handing me those cannulae? You didn't even take them out."
Arthur and Ariadne broke apart and carefully removed the needles from their arms. As Arthur did so, he was suddenly hit with a wave of uncertainty. He crawled over to the coffee table, turned his back to the others, and rolled his die. It landed on the correct number.
He looked at the die thoughtfully. He had kept this object with him all those years, so long that he had almost forgotten what it was for. And yet, now, he had remembered what to do with it almost instantly. He also remembered that the operative phrase in his understanding of what it was for was "someone else's."
"Hey, guys?" he said, turning back to Dom and Ariadne. "Would you mind... you know." He held up the die.
Dom nodded, looking serious. "Of course, Arthur."
Arthur covered his eyes.
Clunk. "Not me," said Ariadne's voice.
Whirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirr... clatter. "It's okay, Arthur," said Dom. "None of us are stuck in anyone else's dream. You can open your eyes now."
Arthur did, relaxing. "Wow," he said. "It's... almost too much to believe. To suddenly be young again, after getting old, and to remember it so clearly..."
"Welcome to the club," said Dom.
Arthur looked at him. "Is this what happened that first time?"
"Yes. It's not easy, coming back from Limbo after a lifetime there. You're really lucky, though. I've been through that already, and I'll help you get through it. Plus, you have Ariadne."
"Mm-hmm," said Ariadne. "I'm so glad you're back, Arthur."
"Me, too. Thank you, Ariadne. I love you. You're an amazing person."
"So are you."
They kissed again. Arthur knew this was the beginning of something beautiful, and right, and real.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Ariadne
Other Characters: Cobb, Projection!Ariadne, other OCs
Rating: PG for a couple of curse words, dream!death, and dream!suicide
Word Count: 8,688
Disclaimer: The characters and concepts contained herein are the property of Christopher Nolan, Syncopy, Legendary Pictures, and Warner Brothers Entertainment. No money is being made from the publication of this work of fanfiction.
Summary: After the inception job, Arthur loves Ariadne from afar. His projection of her, powered by his love for her, attains semi-independence. When he falls into Limbo, she decides to take charge and do what it takes to save him.
Author's Notes: This is Part 3 of my entry in the Big Bang challenge at
inception_land. This part completes my Big Bang. This was also written for this prompt at inception_kink: "Character A has a particularly independent-minded projection of Character B. Character A drops into Limbo and projection!Character B takes over Character A's waking life body."After the team had landed in L.A. and said their silent goodbyes, Arthur returned home to his apartment for some much-needed time off. He followed the news religiously, carefully monitoring the unfolding saga of Maurice Fischer's funeral, the breakup of Fischer-Morrow, and the acquisition of most of its major components by Proclus Global. He communicated with his cohorts only in brief, congratulatory e-mails and text messages, passing along the news. Everyone on the team knew that to stay safe after a job, especially such an important one, they had to lie low for a while and create the illusion that they weren't connected to each other at all.
It was good to have some time to himself to decompress, Arthur thought. He had just survived the most dangerous, highest-stakes job he'd ever been on. When he wasn't following the news, he spent his free time appreciating how lucky he was to be alive, sane, and back in reality, where he didn't have to worry about nameless people looking for him and shooting at him.
After about a week had gone by, one of his other contacts in the business got back in touch with him. He was already getting tired of being alone, so he let it be known that he was a free agent and that Cobb had retired. Within another few days, Arthur was back in the field again.
* * *
You really didn't know what you had until it was gone.
Putting up with Eames' condescension, Yusuf's use of him as a guinea pig, Cobb's brooding, and Saito's imposing presence had seemed like such a burden during the Fischer job. Now, Arthur found himself missing all of them. The teamwork required to pull the job off had been such that they had formed closer bonds than most career criminals usually cared to make. Without them around, life just wasn't the same.
He missed Ariadne most of all. She had been everyone's little sister, always full of questions about their various specialties. Arthur knew there was more to her than that, though. She had always been patient and kind to everyone, especially when teaching level layouts to the dreamers. When he had kissed her on the hotel bench, it had been an honest attempt to create a distraction, but it had also been something he'd fantasized about for weeks. He wanted to get back in touch with her, but that would be unwise while he was working with other people. He didn't want to be the one to take her deeper into this criminal underworld. If she ended up in it on her own, fine, but he wasn't going to be the deciding factor.
One day, Arthur and his new associates were doing a practice run-through of the dream scenario for their upcoming job, and it was his turn to be the subject. From the top floor of a high office tower, he could see his projections running through a maze of narrow streets and alleyways, attempting to find his teammates.
"Is it as good as anything I built?" asked a voice from somewhere behind him.
Arthur whirled around, automatically drawing down on the unexpected intruder. He nearly dropped the Glock when he saw who it was.
"Oh my God!" he exclaimed. "Ariadne! What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me?"
"You were just thinking about me, weren't you?" answered Ariadne. "Well, here I am."
Arthur understood. "You're just a projection."
"Yes."
This was strange. "Why are you here and not down there, trying to take down our extractor like everyone else? I'm working right now."
"'Everyone else' is just a bunch of random people you've seen somewhere at some point during your life and subconsciously remembered. I'm not just some random person to you, am I?"
Arthur swallowed, reminding himself that he was, in fact, only admitting this to himself. "No, of course not." He put away the gun.
Ariadne smiled. "You're so sweet."
He wanted to kiss her again, wanted it badly, but he knew that now was not a good time. If he focused his attention exclusively on fantasizing about her rather than on the fact that his mind was being 'invaded,' his other projections would start to become distracted, and his associates would know that he wasn't doing his job.
"And you're remarkably strong-willed," he said.
"Of course I am. You know that."
"I mean, for a projection. You came here and started a conversation with me independently. But I know you're not real."
"But you do want me around."
"I do, but not now. I'm trying to work."
"Okay, then. I'll leave you to it." She started to leave, then hesitated. "You never did answer my question."
"No, of course it isn't as good as your work," said Arthur.
Ariadne smiled. "Just remember, whenever you're here, I'm here." She left the room.
"Goodbye," Arthur said. He stared after her and wondered whether he had just discovered that emotional attachment issues and their symptoms were communicable through shared dreams.
* * *
They were being followed.
Arthur had been through this too many times not to recognize it. The projections were starting to converge on them. They had almost made it to the vault. They couldn't get caught now.
He kept walking, staying calm, but giving Dunmore a look that meant, We're in trouble. We'd better get this done quickly. The extractor nodded back.
Another projection appeared from a side passageway as they approached the entrance to it. Arthur prepared himself to fight her off if he had to, but suspended that instinct temporarily when he realized who it was.
The imaginary Ariadne fell into step beside him, on his left, and whispered to him. "You still have one more opportunity to create a closed loop where there isn't one already. You can seal yourself off from them that way. It'll buy you some time."
That was true. Arthur nodded to Ariadne, smiling slightly. When they turned the last corner before the bank vault, Arthur sealed off the entrance to the hallway they had just entered and redirected the one they had just left back onto itself, rearranging walls to turn it into an enclosed square. Ariadne was still right beside him.
Dunmore turned to Arthur, indicated Ariadne with a nod, and asked, "One of yours?"
"Yeah," said Arthur.
"That shouldn't happen."
"I know, but it is. Don't worry about it. She's acting as an ally."
"She told you to alter the maze?"
"Yes."
"I guess I must be your muse," said Ariadne.
"Sure," said Arthur.
Dunmore was busy unlocking the vault, but continued talking to Arthur. "Who is she?"
"Just someone I knew once," said Arthur.
"Girlfriend?"
"No. Coworker on my last job."
"Architect," specified Ariadne. "I'm Ariadne Webster, by the way."
"Zachary Dunmore. But you knew that."
"I did, yes."
"So what are you doing here?"
"You mean besides helping your point man do his job?"
"I have to admit that that was a pretty neat trick, but that doesn't change the fact that it
shouldn't be happening. If you're part of Arthur's mind, then you know that only the mark's mind should be populating the world of the dream."
"I know, but Arthur was thinking, 'If Ariadne were here...,' so here I am."
Dunmore looked up from the file folder of documents he had been reading to glare at Arthur. "There has to be more going on here than you're admitting to," he said.
Arthur looked slightly embarrassed. "Well... yeah. I miss her, and... I wish she could be more than just a coworker. That's why my projection of her keeps popping up."
Dunmore's expression softened, but only slightly. "We'll talk about it later. I'm trying to concentrate right now." He returned his attention to reading his documents.
Arthur turned away, listening for any sound. He heard running footsteps and occasional shouts of anger and confusion coming from the other side of the short wall he had just dreamed into existence. It didn't matter, though; they already had what they had come for. Their time would be up soon, and they would wake up unscathed.
* * *
Fortunately for Arthur, Dunmore was fairly open-minded, in the traditional sense of the expression. Arthur had been certain he was going to be fired from the moment the extractor had discovered his new point man's lack of control over his own thoughts, but Dunmore proved to be understanding and accepting, if concerned. It was self-evident that Arthur's projection of Ariadne had caused no danger or harm, and had, in fact, helped them pull off the job. For those reasons, Dunmore agreed to keep Arthur on. "I'm interested to see if your not-girlfriend can help us out again," he said, when the job was finished and they were discussing it. "She doesn't get her own share, though."
Arthur smiled at the joke. "Thank you very much. I'm glad to be working with you."
"No problem. She seemed very self-confident- did she go into the field with you before? The real her, I mean?"
"Yes, she did."
"Well, we're going to need a third team member for the next job. Why not invite her along?"
Arthur shook his head. "She's still in school, and was perfectly innocent before she fell in with all of us. I don't think she wants to stay in the business."
"Oh. That's all right. I have a go-to architect whom I trust to do that."
* * *
Their next target was a woman who had been known to participate in shared dreaming recreationally. Sneaking in and getting the information they needed would be a little trickier than it was for normal people who had no previous experience with the technology. Arthur suggested creating a dream within a dream, and once he had explained how the technique worked and outlined some of his and Cobb's past successes with it, his present coworkers were on board with the idea.
As the keeper of the old team's PASIV device, Arthur had ended up holding on to the last of Yusuf's compound. He debated with himself whether or not to offer it up for use, but ultimately decided to go ahead and do it. This time, he was going to make sure not only that they were prepared for anything, including militarized projections, but that everyone involved knew in advance exactly what they were getting into.
There was enough of the compound left for the three of them plus their mark, but only for about five minutes of real time. With this compound, that would mean a total of an hour and forty minutes in the first dream, and well over a day in the second. Arthur made sure to inform the new team of these facts, too. They agreed to use Yusuf's compound, intrigued by the prospect of the higher time dilation factor allowing them to get in, get out, and get away more quickly than ever.
This time, everything went exactly according to plan. There were no cover-blowing mistakes in the design of the dreams, nor were any on-the-fly changes to the architecture needed. They made it through both of the initial phases of their con without alerting any of the projections to the presence of strangers.
It wasn't until Dunmore was in the middle of reading the targeted confidential information that Arthur noticed the tiny, flashing red LED next to the latch of the safety-deposit box built into the back wall of the hotel. He immediately went on high alert, but it made sense. The mark's subconscious always filled in most of the fine detail of the dream environment. This woman was in charge of both the physical and electronic security measures for a major national bank. Of course her mind would give a safety-deposit box a silent alarm, in addition to placing confidential information there.
Arthur whispered to Dunmore that they might be in trouble. He nodded, continuing to concentrate intently on remembering the mark's computer passwords. Arthur watched and waited.
True to the expectations he'd had for this job based on his research, the security guards who responded to the silent alarm were angry, but uncoordinated, clearly indicative of a mind that hadn't been militarized. There certainly were a lot of them, though, enough to drag Arthur and Dunmore away from each other. Despite their lack of training, they managed to disarm Arthur and hold him still while one of them pointed his own gun at his head. His last thoughts before the projection pulled the trigger were of his friends who had visited Limbo before him, but who would not be waiting for him there - Dom, Mal, Saito, and Ariadne - and of his resolve never to forget that that world was not real.
* * *
Arthur's projection of Ariadne knelt beside his lifeless dream body, in the center of the swirling chaos of the collapsing dream. She was crying. She had appeared on the scene just in time to watch her dreamer die. There had been no way she could have saved him, and now he was lost to Limbo. He would never return to the real world, and since he hadn't taken her down there with him, she would soon cease to exist entirely.
Unless...
As irrational and ridiculous as it seemed, the projection of Ariadne had both a self-preservation instinct and a moment of inspiration. Maybe there was a way she could save both their lives.
She threw herself down on top of Arthur's dream body, embracing him and pressing her forehead against his. She threw every bit of willpower she had behind her idea, commanding herself to wake up, wake up, wake up as the dream world collapsed around her -
- and then she was in the living room of an apartment, sitting in an easy chair across from Dunmore and Preston, the architect who had joined them on this job.
"Arthur, are you all right?" Preston asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Ariadne asked. It had worked. This was the first dream layer.
They weren't out of the woods yet, though. Ariadne practically ripped the needle out of her wrist as she got up and went over to Dunmore. "Help me give him the kick," she said to Preston. "Keep Rossetti under for as long as you can."
"What happened?" asked Preston as he moved to help.
"We got separated," answered Ariadne. "Don't worry about it. We did get what we came for."
This apartment didn't have a freestanding bathtub, so they'd had to make do with placing Dunmore's chair on the side table next to the couch. Together, they pushed the chair over onto the couch. Dunmore cringed in pain, but opened his eyes and looked at his co-conspirators. "Hey, that's pretty clever," he said to Ariadne.
"Thanks," she said. "Do you remember all the info?"
"Of course. Preston, how much time do we have left down here?"
"About six minutes. Come on, let's go. We don't want to be here when she wakes up."
Indeed not. Their method of getting Rossetti back to this apartment had involved buying her a drug-laced drink. While their subsequent violation of her had been mental and psychological, not physical, she would almost certainly assume that it had been the latter when she woke up and found herself in an unfamiliar apartment. They disconnected and packed up the rest of their equipment and retreated from the apartment to a hidden passageway, where they planned to wait for their timer to run out and return them to the real world.
* * *
Arthur felt himself being pushed forward by ocean waves. The last, powerful wave drove him face-first into wet sand, snapping his attention back into focus. Weakly, he pushed himself up, spitting out sand.
What just happened...? he thought.
He crawled further up the beach, his head spinning. His sweater and slacks were soaked. Hadn't he been wearing his black stealth outfit just a moment ago...?
The realization hit him, and he reeled. Limbo.
He looked around, wild-eyed. Apparently, raw, infinite subconscious manifested as an endless ocean, a beach, and endless, flat, barren land beyond it. Nothing else, because he had never been here before and was all alone.
He reached into his pants pocket, very firmly expecting that the die would still be there. It was. And it felt exactly the way it always did. It didn't help much when you already knew that it was your dream, and no one else's. Still, there was another meaning associated with it: that there was a real world, and the one he was currently in wasn't it.
He resolved never, ever to forget that, even as the hopelessness of the situation became fully apparent. Unless and until someone else figured out what had happened and tried to get him out, this was all there was.
He idly ran his other hand through the sand, molding it into a little hill. After a moment, when he looked around again, he saw that there was now an identical, but much bigger, hill behind him, with grass on it.
Awesome.
The reaction was automatic and irresistible. Though he was a soldier first and foremost, he loved architecture and building very much. Here, there would never be any opposition, just endless time and space to create.
He stood up and turned to face the hill, one hand still closed around the die in his pocket.
Never recreate from your memory.
He wouldn't, he mentally promised his old friend. But still, creating something appealed much more than sitting in the sand, doing nothing.
He began to climb the hill, so that he could stand at the top of it and create a master plan for the world he surveyed.
* * *
The seconds ticked down. Once again, Ariadne focused all her concentration on waking up. She'd managed to get into Arthur's imaginary body in the first dream layer by that means, but would it work again? It had to. The alternative was annihilation.
Music played, slow and stretched-out. She knew what it meant. She focused on it as if it were a beacon in a dark night.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Ariadne's eyes felt unnaturally heavy. She dragged them open.
She was in a chair in Rossetti's office. Rossetti was in the other one; hopefully, she'd believe that she had simply fallen asleep at her desk during one of her late-night work sessions. Dunmore and Preston were both on the floor behind Rossetti.
Ariadne took all this in, amazed. She had really done it. This was the real world.
She took a deep breath. That part of the plan was working. This body was still alive, and seemed to be functioning normally. Tentatively, she got up from her chair.
"You're spacing out," Dunmore hissed at her. "Hurry up!"
Oh, yeah. The other plan - Arthur's and the others' plan. They weren't done with that yet. Ariadne hurriedly started getting all the IV cannulae coiled up and the needles disposed of, letting her hands move by themselves. She found that all she had to do was focus on the fact that Arthur had probably done this a thousand times, and everything she needed to do came to her easily. It made sense, in its way; she was, after all, an entity composed of pure subconscious.
They made it out of the office, leaving Rossetti asleep with her arms folded on her desk and her head resting on them. They didn't speak another word to each other until they got back to the hotel they were using as a base.
"Something about that didn't make sense," said Dunmore, when they were in the privacy of a hotel room. "Arthur, you were already awake when I woke up into the first layer. Preston, you didn't give him the kick before me, did you?"
"Of course not!" said Preston. "He just... sort of woke up by himself... wait, yeah, you're right. That didn't make sense. We were just in too much of a hurry to notice it before. You'd have to have died in order to have woken up on your own, Arthur- but you said if we did..."
"I know what I said," interjected Ariadne. "And that's exactly what happened."
There was no point lying about it. The others had correctly deduced from the events they had observed that Arthur had to have died in the second layer, and they knew about the effects of Yusuf's compound. They had to have an explanation for how Arthur could still apparently be alive and cognizant here in the real world.
"I'm not really Arthur," said the projection of Ariadne, but it came out in Arthur's voice. "I mean, I am, but I'm not. It's actually just Arthur's subconscious projection of Ariadne who's speaking right now. I watched him die in the dream, and I knew what would happen then, and I just... I wondered if I could sort of... take over for him while he was... away. So far, it's working."
The others stared at her in disbelief.
"You have to be making this up," said Preston.
"Why the hell would I do that?" answered Ariadne. "We all know that there's no way around the fact that Arthur got killed in the dream and his conscious mind dropped into Limbo. I'm telling you, it's me. Arthur's muse." She addressed this last phrase to Dunmore.
"Did you know about this?" Preston asked Dunmore.
"Yeah, I did," said Dunmore. "His projection of her showed up on the last job we were on, too. She called herself Arthur's muse. She actually helped us get out of there without getting caught."
"But projections can't act independently like that!" protested Preston.
Oh, if only you knew the half! thought Ariadne.
"Sure we can," she said to him. "If the dreamer feels a really powerful emotion connected with their memories of a real person, those memories can sort of... go rogue."
"And then they can possess them."
"Something like that. I think I only just now discovered that this was even possible. I don't know if I like the idea of calling it possession, though. But whatever it is I'm doing, I'm the only thing keeping this body awake, alert, and relatively sane until its rightful owner comes back."
"Well, I'm not going down there to get him," said Dunmore.
"Neither am I," said Preston.
"That's okay," said Ariadne. "I have a plan for that, and it doesn't involve you. I'm going to go and find the real Ariadne and tell her that Arthur is in love with her. I know she'll be willing to go to Limbo to retrieve someone who's stuck there; she's done it before."
"Wait," said Dunmore. "When was that? During the job you worked on together?"
"Uh-huh."
"So everything went wrong the first time you used that stuff, too!"
"Some things went wrong. We did what we set out to do."
"You asshole! You didn't mention that part!"
"Sorry. I've told you more about that job than I probably should have."
"Well, you go and find that girl," said Dunmore. "Just get away from me. And I'm sticking to what I said before. You don't get a share, Not-girlfriend."
"That was a joke!"
"It was, but it's not anymore. We're not working together again until you get your head on straight again. I'll pay you when you come back as yourself, Arthur. If you come back."
Ariadne scowled. "Fine. I can afford to get where I'm going on my own. Good night."
* * *
Ariadne-the-projection retreated to her own- well, Arthur's- hotel room after that. She tried to acclimate to the feeling of being in a male body. It was true; they really did have lower centers of gravity, which made moving around feel slightly different. She wasn't sure that she would ever be completely used to being a guy, but she dealt with it by relying on her natural access to Arthur's subconscious habits.
After setting the PASIV device down, she wandered through the small apartment, touching and feeling everything. This is the real world. If the inventors of the dreamshare technology had been trying to make it possible to accurately reproduce the look and feel of the real world, they had done an admirable job. She found herself recalling that Arthur had reacted to his first experience with the dreamshare with a sense of wonder similar to what she was feeling now.
She soon realized that she was exhausted, and- hungry. These sensations never happened to projections, who popped into and out of existence when their dreamer fell asleep and woke up. Although the sensations were new to her, the knowledge of what to do next came to mind readily. She got herself dinner out of her hotel minibar, for the convenience of it.
As she ate, she pondered what to do about her other problem. What would happen to her if this body fell asleep naturally? Would she be pulled down into Limbo, too? Would she simply never wake up anywhere again? She was afraid to find out, but she knew that the next phase of her plan would require all her energy and wits, so she decided to chance it. She made sure, however, to set several different alarms and place them at varying distances from the bed, so that she'd have to get up to turn them all off.
As she was undressing for bed, her fingers found the loaded die in the pocket of her slacks. In a dream, any factual information known to a subject was known to all of his or her projections as well, and this remained true even in Ariadne's present situation. She knew why the die was there and what number it was supposed to land on. She felt the impulse to roll it, but resisted. She had to keep on believing that she really was here in the real world, animating a real body. She couldn't stand to even consider the possibility that this entire adventure was, after all, still nothing more than a hallucination unfolding in someone else's mind.
She set the die down, carefully and reverently, on top of the dresser and continued getting ready for bed. She was actually grateful for the fact that this body no longer experienced natural dreams. If she were to find herself in a dream, she would probably stay there, where she belonged.
* * *
A vibration was running through her head, and the world was black.
What the hell?
Music was playing from somewhere- no, no- but it was playing in real time, and it was in English. Ariadne remembered where she was and what she had done last night. The alarms had worked. She was still in Arthur's now-awake body.
She rolled over, pushed herself up on her elbows, and searched under her pillow for the cell phone. She found it and turned off the vibrating alarm, then got up and turned off the clock radio and the beeping watch alarm.
Her plan was to fly standby to Paris, where she would get back in touch with the real Ariadne and tell her everything that was going on. Flying standby would suck, and having jet lag would really suck, but she knew she had to get this done as quickly as possible. The longer Arthur's mind was stuck down there, the less chance he would come back to reality and still be recognizably the same person.
While repacking Arthur's luggage, Ariadne came across a small collection of fake passports and other IDs. On top of the pile was the one Eames had made for their journey from Paris to Sydney to Los Angeles.
Eames. Arthur hadn't spoken to him at all since they'd all parted ways in Los Angeles. Ariadne really, really wanted to get a hold of him. If there was one person here in the real world who could relate to this experience of walking around in someone else's body, it was him. She decided not to call him, though. The fewer people who knew about the situation, the better. Besides, she knew Arthur would never hear the end of it if Eames found out that his body had been walking around with a feminine mind controlling it.
She took one of the other fake passports with her for the trip, one that hadn't been used in a while, but looked at the one Eames had made again before putting it away. She hoped that someday, after she'd saved Arthur and he and Eames were working together again, she'd get the chance to talk to him about his craft.
* * *
It was early morning of the next day by the time she finally made it to Paris. Almost as soon as she got off the plane, she called the real Ariadne from one of the pay phones that the airport still kept in service for tourists just arriving in the country.
"Hello?"
It was strange to hear what she thought of as her own voice on the other end of the phone. "Um, hi, Ariadne," she said. "It's Arthur."
"Arthur!" the real Ariadne exclaimed. "It's good to hear from you! I got all the updates you sent- thanks! What are you doing back in Paris?"
"I need to talk to you about something as soon as possible. It's personal, not work-related, but it's still time-sensitive. Can I meet you somewhere private?"
"We don't have a base here anymore, do we?"
"No, we don't. It was rented."
"Okay. Come on over to my place. I'm at home."
"Thank you so much, Ariadne. Just tell me how to get there."
"Okay." Ariadne-the-projection took out a moleskine and started making notes.
* * *
In between the airport and the real Ariadne's college-student apartment, the projection stopped to buy her a dozen red roses. Not many guys get to ask themselves, 'If I were a woman, what would I want a guy to do for me?' and come up with an answer this accurate, she thought cheekily. Then again, Arthur didn't know everything there was to know about women in general or about Ariadne in particular, and therefore, neither did his projections, so her guess about what the real Ariadne would find romantic might prove to be wrong. It was worth a shot, though.
The projection climbed the stairs, took a deep breath, and knocked on the real Ariadne's door. She opened it and stared, dumbfounded, at the roses.
"Arthur..." she said slowly. "I... I had no idea..." Her hand reached for something in her pocket.
The projection nodded approvingly, stepping in and closing the door. "Yes, Ariadne. This is really happening, and it isn't anybody's dream. Go ahead and check, though. I won't look."
The real Ariadne went to the coffee table to use her totem. The projection turned around, closing her eyes. There was a small clunk.
"All right, you can look now," said the real Ariadne. "I believe you."
The projection joined her in the small living room, and they sat across from each other.
"So you came all the way here because... you're in love with me?" the real Ariadne began.
"Not just because of that," answered the projection, "although that's true. Ariadne, someone we know is in danger, and I think you're the only one who can help."
The real Ariadne's face fell. "Did Mal come back?"
"No, thankfully. That's all over with, at least as far as I know. It's kind of a long story."
"Go ahead."
The projection told her how Arthur had decided to use up the last of Yusuf's sedative-enhanced compound, what had happened on that job, and that the person telling the tale was really just a projection who had temporarily taken charge of Arthur's body.
"I had no idea if I could actually do it," she finished, "but here I am. I wanted to see you because I thought you should know that Arthur's love for you is so powerful that his projection of you has turned semi-independent."
"Like Mal," said the real Ariadne.
"No, no. This is the other side of the same coin. I'm basically personified love. My existence is fueled by positive emotion, not negative emotion."
"If you're just a projection, don't you just want Arthur to stay with you in Limbo forever? Wouldn't you both be happy then?"
"No! That wouldn't make him happy at all. I'm not real. I know I'm not real. Projections aren't nearly as interesting as the real people."
"They don't have the nuances and imperfections that come with being real."
"Exactly. I don't want to go and be in Limbo with Arthur because then he could never be here, with the real Ariadne. All I want is to bring him back to the surface. That's why I came to you. I need your help to do that. We both know it takes another real person to convince someone to leave Limbo, to help them remember that their world is not real. You're the one he loves, so it should be you. You have the best chance of succeeding."
The real Ariadne was overwhelmed, crying. "Arthur, you idiot!" she said, but she didn't sound particularly angry. "Why didn't you just throw the rest of that stuff away?"
"Does that mean you're in?" asked the projection.
"Of course I'm in! I can't just let Arthur stay down there, not after... after all we went through!"
"You're a good friend, Ariadne."
"Thanks. Hey, what should I call you, anyway? I guess I can't call you Arthur, but calling you Ariadne would be even weirder."
"Do you have a middle name?"
"Irene. You didn't know that?"
"No, because you never told Arthur. You can call me Irene, then."
"Okay. Wait. Is there any more of Yusuf's compound?"
"No. That was the last of it."
"Then how am I going to get to Limbo by myself? The last time I was there, there were three other people dreaming the layers above me."
"Dom and Mal managed to get there that first time, with just the two of them. I don't know how they did it, though. We'd have to ask him."
A shadow crossed Ariadne's face. "I think he just wants to enjoy his retirement."
"I know, but Arthur is one of his oldest and best friends. I'm sure he'll be in, too, once we tell him what's going on. Can I use your phone?"
"Of course."
* * *
Dom didn't even complain about the fact that it was after 10:00 at night his time when he heard Arthur's voice on the phone. The projection who was speaking with that voice, now nicknamed Irene, explained what had happened to Arthur and why she and the real Ariadne were coming to him for advice.
"I’m coming with you," Dom said.
Irene was taken aback. "What? You don’t have to do that. We don’t expect you to get involved. All we need is for you to tell us how you got into Limbo that first time."
"For God's sake, Arthur is my best friend! I can't just give you directions over the phone. This is too important. I have to be there myself."
"Are you sure you want to, Dom? It would sort of mean coming out of retirement."
"Saving my best friend's life is not a crime. I'm coming with you."
"Okay, Dom. For the kids' sake, though, we'll come to you, all right?"
"All right. The other reason I have to come with you is because that first time, Mal and I worked together to get there, and I don't know if it would work the same way if it was just one real person and one projection trying to get there. No offense."
"None taken. We'll get on our way as soon as we can. I'll be in touch when we get to L.A."
"Can I talk to him?" the real Ariadne whispered urgently.
"My real-life counterpart wants to talk to you," said Irene.
"Put her on," said Dom.
Irene handed Ariadne the phone. "I'm not going to be able to talk you out of coming with us, am I?" she said. There was a pause, and then she went on: "What, you don't think I can do it?... Fair enough. But what happens when all your buildings pop up? Will they supersede anything Arthur's built?... Really? Oh, okay. That's good to know.... Okay, see you soon. Do you want me to put Irene back on?... Okay, bye." Ariadne hung up.
"Should I ask?" said Irene.
"He said he does think I can convince Arthur to leave Limbo, but he wants to be there to back me up in case I change my mind and decide to stay there," said Ariadne. "He also said that we don't have to worry about everything he and Mal built in Limbo popping up again when we get there, because that didn't happen when he went there to rescue Saito."
"Oh, okay."
"So, we're going to him, right?"
"Yes."
"How do we get halfway around the world on short notice?"
"We go and put ourselves on the standby list at the airport, wait, and hope. Did you keep your fake ID from before?"
"Of course, but why do I need it? What we're going to do isn't illegal, right?"
"Right, but I'm using one, and you don't want there to be a record of the real you associating with any of my identities."
"Okay, I'll use it. I can be ready to leave in fifteen minutes."
"May I help you pack?"
"Sure."
* * *
Anxiety made the already-long journey from Paris back to L.A. seem to stretch into an eternity. Both Ariadne and Irene slept on the plane, but only for short, sporadic stretches. At the end of the trip, Ariadne felt a sharp shock of déjà vu when she walked into the same house she had seen the night when she had peeked in on Cobb's "experiments." She would have to make sure to do a reality check before they got started.
Cobb and Irene walked around the living room, closing the curtains. The kids were already in bed, and they didn't expect to need more than ten minutes of real time to get the job done. "Okay, here's how this works," explained Cobb to Ariadne. "We're going to need to create four layers of dreams within dreams, just like before. The difference is, for this, we don't need anyone to stay behind and keep dreaming the upper layers. All we need is for all of us to remember what the upper layers were, and that they were dreams, and we'll get to Limbo without losing any of our awareness that we're dreaming. That was the hypothesis that Mal and I proved right, that first time."
"Okay," said Ariadne.
"So where do I come in?" asked Irene.
"You're the subject," said Cobb.
"How does that work? I'm just a projection myself."
"That's what we're about to find out. Ariadne, you can have the couch."
"Thanks, but no thanks," said Ariadne. "You can have it. I'll sleep on the floor next to Irene. I want to be the first person Arthur sees when he wakes up for real."
"You love him, too," said Cobb.
"Yeah, I think I do."
Cobb actually smiled. "I hope that works out for you."
"Thanks."
They moved the coffee table so that Ariadne and Irene could lie perpendicular to the couch with the PASIV device between them. Cobb tossed them the throw pillows from the couch, then lay down on it.
"Would you like to do the honors this time, Ariadne?" said Cobb when they were all ready.
"Sure," said Ariadne. "Sweet dreams."
She pushed the yellow button.
* * *
Irene staggered, nearly falling over before catching herself against the alley wall. Did the sudden shift from lying down in reality to standing up in a dream feel like that every time?
She looked around, trying to orient herself. There was daylight at the end of the alley, but it was dull and cheerless. She remembered the mission she was on and walked toward it, trying to find the others.
"Irene!" a voice called when she stepped out onto the street. She turned to look. Cobb and Ariadne were standing halfway down the block. She walked toward them.
"This is way too weird," said Ariadne when Irene came near them.
Irene realized that now that they were all in a dream, she looked like Ariadne again. Only now, the real Ariadne was here, too. They looked at each other.
"At least we're wearing different clothes," said Irene.
"Yeah," said Ariadne. "Why is everything all dim and washed-out-looking here? This doesn't look as real as shared dreams usually do."
"I'm the subject. If I were a real person, it would look as real as it usually does, I'm guessing."
"I'm glad this plan is working at all," said Cobb. "Come on, let's get moving."
They went to find a private, indoor space where they could lie down and enter the second layer of their dream.
* * *
Water surged and pounded around Irene. She sat up in the wet sand, coughing. Her counterpart and Cobb were nearby, already standing up and walking out of the ocean.
Irene got up and came alongside them, still wiping seawater and hair out of her eyes. "Are we here?"
"We're here," said Cobb.
"Is it always like that, getting here?"
"Every time. Does everybody remember where we are and why we came here?"
"We're back in Limbo again, and this time we're here to get Arthur back," said Ariadne. "There are three other layers of dreams between us and reality."
"And where in reality did we start from?"
"From your house."
Irene nodded. "What she said. I remember all that, too."
"Very good," said Cobb.
They looked up at the landscape before them.
"Somebody's been busy," said Ariadne.
Before them was an intricate tangle of structures, only some of which fit the traditional definition of buildings. Paradoxical staircases and ladders crisscrossed the cityscape and looped and folded back on themselves everywhere you looked. Irene couldn't follow them with her eyes.
"How are we ever going to find Arthur in this?" Irene wondered.
"You don't have any ideas?" said Ariadne. "You're part of his mind. Don't you have, like, real-person radar?"
"Only for other real people, like you. I feel much stronger now that I'm on the same dream level as Arthur's conscious mind, but I couldn't begin to tell you where he was."
Ariadne turned to Cobb. "You found Saito."
"That wasn't very hard," said Cobb. "Saito hadn't built anything nearly this complicated. And he had guards. I got captured and taken to him."
"Arthur might have guards, too," said Irene. "Let's go see."
They approached closer to the apparently impenetrable jungle of structures. "I don't even see a way in from this side," said Ariadne. She looked intently at one of the rope ladders, and its length extended to reach down to the ground.
"No! Don't!" Irene shoved Ariadne, causing them both to fall to the ground in a heap.
"Hey!" shouted Ariadne, picking herself up. "What was that for?"
"Instinct," said Irene apologetically, reaching out a hand to help her up. "I am just a projection, after all. When you started messing around with my dreamer's dream, I just couldn't stop myself. Sorry."
Ariadne nodded. "Right. Sorry. I'll try not to do that again."
"If Arthur does have guards here," said Cobb, "you just tripped the alarm system."
"With a structure this complicated, who needs security?" said Ariadne.
"Good point. Let's go exploring."
The three of them climbed the rope ladder into the bizarre structure.
* * *
An indistinct amount of time later, they finally emerged from a dark maze of tunnels to find themselves standing at the edge of a perfectly square park. There were other people here, the first they had seen since entering Limbo. To no one's surprise, all the people in the park were giving them unfriendly stares.
Ariadne was nervous for just a moment, and then she saw something else that stunned her. Evidently, here in Limbo, not only could memories become neighborhoods and defibrillator shocks become lightning storms, but figures of speech could become literal realities. On a pedestal in the exact center of the park stood a marble statue of- her.
Ariadne was touched. Even in Limbo, Arthur still remembered her and thought of her that highly? What would he do if he knew that the real her was here?
"Arthur!" Ariadne cried out impulsively. "I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, I'm here! It's me, Ariadne! I'm really here and- and I love you, Arthur Callahan!"
Suddenly, the sky brightened from gray to brilliant blue, and the entire landscape started to shake. The projections in the park stepped back, watching this strangely powerful entity warily, but not attacking.
The earthquake settled down and a man emerged from the midst of the crowd. He was very old, with pure white hair, and moved feebly.
Shocked, Ariadne looked at Cobb. "Is that-"
"Yes," said Cobb. "You remember how time moves faster here, right?"
Ariadne nodded. She ran to Arthur and threw her arms around him, burying her head in his chest and crying. "Arthur!" she sobbed. "We did it! We found you!"
"You're..." said Arthur. "But that's impossible..."
He looked back and forth between Ariadne and the statue several times.
"You don't look a day over the age you were when I knew you," he said. His voice was dry and scratchy. "How can that be?"
"Oh, Arthur!" said Ariadne. "I'm not a day over that age, and neither are you! You're dreaming, Arthur. You've been in Limbo for who knows how long. Do you remember anything from before... before you were here?"
"I remember you. Did you say... you love me?"
"Yes! Yes, Arthur, I love you! That's why I came here to get you. Come back to the real world with me, Arthur, so we can be young and in love."
Arthur looked at her, thoughtfully. Then he looked around. "I must be dreaming," he said slowly, "for there to be two of you."
"That's right, Arthur. I'm the real one. She's just your projection of me, the one who shows up in your dreams sometimes."
"If I've been dreaming all this time... where has she been? All these years, I've thought of you, wondered where you were, and wanted to be with you. But no matter how hard I wished for it, you were never there. I never understood why."
"It's because your projection of me took over your real body, in the real world. She was trying to keep your brain from getting fried long enough for us to come and save you. I hope it worked, but you have to come back with us, Arthur."
"My... Let me talk to her."
"Okay."
Arthur and Ariadne came back over to where Irene and Cobb were standing. "Is it true?" Arthur asked Irene. "You're just a... a projection?"
"I am," said Irene. "I'm the version of Ariadne that exists in your mind. And believe me, it's really good to be home."
"Home... Have you come to stay with me here? It would be what I've been wishing for, for so long."
Irene shook her head. "No. I'm not the one you really want. I'm just an ideal. She's the reality."
"Yes," said Ariadne, nodding.
"How can you know you're just a projection?" said Arthur to Irene. "And how can you be asking me to wake up and leave you? I didn't think that was possible."
"Why does everyone expect me to be just like Mal?" cried Irene, stamping her foot. "I am not Mal. I know what's real because I am empowered by the most real emotion there is- love. Not guilt. I believe that positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time."
Arthur's eyes opened a little wider. He looked at Cobb, seemingly for the first time. "Dom," he said.
"Yes," said Cobb. "You remember me."
"You said that."
"Yeah, I did. Do you remember when? What we were doing?"
Arthur nodded. "I remember. You, Fischer, Saito. The inception. Everything before, too."
They embraced. "Welcome back, Arthur," said Cobb.
"You and Ariadne both... you came back here to find me," said Arthur.
"Of course we did. We both love you, in our own ways. Neither of us wanted you to be lost here forever. Are you ready to take a leap of faith?"
"I am. It only takes one leap, right?"
"That's right."
"I know what we can do. Come on."
* * *
Arthur led them to the top of a high tower in the city he had built. It stood on a cliff, overlooking the ocean.
"It never gets any easier, does it?" said Ariadne to Cobb, gesturing at the long drop.
"No," said Cobb. "It doesn't. May this be the last time any of us have to do this."
"Hey," said Arthur to Irene, "when we wake up, what happens to you?"
"I'll still be part of your mind," said Irene. "The next time you're dreaming and you think of the real me, I'll be there to be your muse."
The real Ariadne smiled at this.
"But until then, you'll just... go out, like a candle flame," said Arthur.
"Yes," said Irene. "But it's all right. I'm used to it. That's just the way dreams are."
"Goodbye, Irene," said Ariadne. "And thank you so much."
"Don't mention it," said Irene. "Thank you. I couldn't have done it alone. You too, Cobb. Goodbye."
"Goodbye," said Cobb.
They held hands, with Arthur in the middle, and leapt off the top of the tower.
* * *
Ugggghhh.
Arthur opened his eyes. Phantom pain radiated through his entire body, but it was already fading. He sat up, instinctively beginning to feel for broken bones before remembering that he would find none. The fall and the impact had, after all, been a dream.
Ariadne was sitting up next to him. The second she saw that he was awake, she seized hold of him and kissed him, exuding joy and excitement. He kissed back, matching her enthusiasm. His love had come back to him, brought him back to reality. They had, he hoped, the rest of their lives ahead of them to be lovers.
A hand on his shoulder- Dom's. "I hate to interrupt the moment," said Dom, "but would you mind handing me those cannulae? You didn't even take them out."
Arthur and Ariadne broke apart and carefully removed the needles from their arms. As Arthur did so, he was suddenly hit with a wave of uncertainty. He crawled over to the coffee table, turned his back to the others, and rolled his die. It landed on the correct number.
He looked at the die thoughtfully. He had kept this object with him all those years, so long that he had almost forgotten what it was for. And yet, now, he had remembered what to do with it almost instantly. He also remembered that the operative phrase in his understanding of what it was for was "someone else's."
"Hey, guys?" he said, turning back to Dom and Ariadne. "Would you mind... you know." He held up the die.
Dom nodded, looking serious. "Of course, Arthur."
Arthur covered his eyes.
Clunk. "Not me," said Ariadne's voice.
Whirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirrwhirr... clatter. "It's okay, Arthur," said Dom. "None of us are stuck in anyone else's dream. You can open your eyes now."
Arthur did, relaxing. "Wow," he said. "It's... almost too much to believe. To suddenly be young again, after getting old, and to remember it so clearly..."
"Welcome to the club," said Dom.
Arthur looked at him. "Is this what happened that first time?"
"Yes. It's not easy, coming back from Limbo after a lifetime there. You're really lucky, though. I've been through that already, and I'll help you get through it. Plus, you have Ariadne."
"Mm-hmm," said Ariadne. "I'm so glad you're back, Arthur."
"Me, too. Thank you, Ariadne. I love you. You're an amazing person."
"So are you."
They kissed again. Arthur knew this was the beginning of something beautiful, and right, and real.
