[Fic] Baby, Please Remember Me Once More - Part Four
Title: Baby, Please Remember Me Once More
Author: duckgirlie
Team: ROMANCE!
Prompt: devotion, home.
Summary: “Sorry. I know you? I mean, of course I know you, at least a bit. Your number’s in my wallet. But I don’t know you, not at all.”
Word Count: ~2700 (this part)
Rated: PG
notes: I am determined to have this finished by the end of match, even if it takes daily updates. (And then I also have a three-parter and a one-shot to post, BUT IT WILL BE DONE) In case you're wondering, this is the Tom that David most looks like, particularly bottom left.
one | two | three
done something to him that's taken the memories'>
Eames was asleep when Ariadne arrived twelve hours later. Arthur had been forced to relocate to the parking lot once visiting hours were over and the doctor had started to grumble about ‘family members’ and remind Arthur how he’d already admitted he wasn’t related to Eames.
He was too keyed-up to sleep anyway, so he had pulled out his computer and sat in his car, trying to find out what exactly it was that Eames had been up too since he’d seen him last.
He’d just about dozed off, bent over the steering wheel, when Ariadne knocked on the window.
“What up? Shouldn’t you be babysitting?”
“He’s sleeping. And they won’t let me stay in there overnight.”
She climbed into his passenger seat.
“So. What's the plan?”
“I don't know. I mean, we have to go under, right? We need to find out if someone's done something to him that's taken the memories, or if just the traumatic brain injury. Listen to me, “just” traumatic brain injury...”
She squeezed his upper arm. “What if someone has taken them?”
“Then we fix it.”
“And what if it's the head trauma?”
Arthur just started through the windshield. “I don't know.”
*****
As soon as visiting hours started again, Arthur hurried Ariadne inside. They managed to make it to Eames' room without meeting any of the doctors, and found him sitting up in bed, fiddling with a laptop.
He looked up when the entered and furrowed his brow for a moment, like he was trying to remember something.
“Arthur, right?”
Arthur relaxed very slightly. At least Eames' - David's - ability to form new memories was still mostly intact.
“And you... you I don't know. Were you here yesterday?”
Ariadne smiled gently. “No, I just arrived. I'm Ariadne.”
She reached out to shake his hand.
“I'm David. Are you another fugitive then?”
Ariadne raised an eyebrow at Arthur, who just shrugged.
“He figured it out for himself.”
“Arthur doesn't want to call my mother.” Eames explained. “So we must be up to something criminal.”
“Well, I've never met your mother, but I'm sure he's got the right idea. Maybe he just wants to make sure we have as many answers as possible before we worry her.”
Eames rolled his eyes. “Nah. He's probably just afraid she'll smack him around a bit for letting me get myself into trouble.”
“Nobody lets you get into trouble, Ea - David. You manage it pretty well all by yourself.”
Eames smiled. “Now that's the first thing you've said so far that sounds familiar.”
“So you obviously haven't changed that much.”
Arthur pulled Ariadne over for a second.
“I'm going to try and find Cobb, okay? You keep him talking, try and figure out exactly where his memories stop.”
She smiled that same soft smile again. “You'll figure it out, okay?”
Outside, Arthur leaned against the wall for a second to center himself. He was halfway through his ten cleansing breaths when Cobb interrupted him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Arthur had his hand pinned to the wall before he even realised he was doing it.
“Right. No sneaking up on Arthur then.”
“Sorry.” Arthur pulled back. “I'm... a little jumpy right now.”
“You don't need to apologise.”
Cobb leaned against the wall next to him. “Any change?”
“He might not remember you though, it took him a second to get my name when I arrived. But aside from that... I don't think so. Have to talk to the doctors to make sure, but... No.”
“We have to take him under, you know that?”
Arthur glared at him. “Of course I know that. I've already called Yusuf, we're just waiting on his flight getting in.”
“Do you think we should tell him?”
“I don't know.” Arthur ran his hands through his hair. “I mean, if we do tell him, at least we can get an idea of where to bring him. But on the other hand...”
“We don't know what's been done to him, we don't know what's going to happen if anything inside his subconscious has any time to prepare.”
Arthur shoved his hands deep into this pockets. “Will his subconscious remember being militarised, even if he doesn't?”
Cobb stepped away from the wall and looked down the hallway. “I don't know.”
*****
David smiled at Ariadne as she stepped closer to the bed.
“So, do we work together as well?”
“Sometimes. Not as often as you work with Arthur, but often enough.”
“You don't look the criminal type.”
“You probably didn't either, when you started.”
He mussed his fingers through his hand and started fiddling with the laptop again.
“I don't remember what I looked like. Do you know what my password is?”
She smiled. “If it's your work laptop, then no, you keep that one entirely secret. If it's your personal laptop, then I think it's 'eamesyoureanidiot', all one word, no caps. Arthur made you change it so they had separate ones.”
David tapped a couple of keys, and sighed. “Looks like no.”
“Maybe Arthur knows. Or maybe it'll come back.”
“Well, if my memories start coming back, there are a couple I'd rather get first.”
“What's the last thing you do remember?”
David could tell she was fishing, but she looked like she was safe, and Arthur trusted her, and he trusted Arthur - even if he didn't fully know why - so he let her.
“Um... It doesn't just cut out, yeah? Like, after they're mostly gone, there are still a couple of flashes, like eating cereal, or riding my bike, before it all disappears.”
Ariadne smiled encouragingly. “That's okay. What's the last proper memory, then?”
David lay back for a second before he started talking.
“There was a party. I think it was at my friend Jilly's place - it felt like that anyway, in a giant field somewhere - and I didn't want to be there, because my ex was going, but I had to be, because Jilly would have fucking killed me if I missed it. So I was there, but I was moping in the corner, and then I was flirting with this bloke, but that was only because Dara was totally about to cop off with his horrible blonde girl, but then instead I just got absolutely mangled and went home. Then the next morning my mum just glared at me over the kitchen table and then force-fed me about six oranges.”
“Does anything feel significant about the memory?” Ariadne asked.
“Not really. Just another party, y'know. Not the first time I'd been that drunk. Not even the first time we'd broken up. Maybe not the last time, either.”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out.”
David smiled at her, and yawned. “I think I need a nap.”
“Are you okay? Didn't you sleep well?”
“Nah, I slept fine. The doctors just said I might sleep a lot for a while, recuperating and all that, yeah?”
“Okay. I'll leave you, okay? We're just outside if you need us, okay?”
“Cheers. Laters, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
David lay back and closed his eyes as Ariadne slipped out the door.
*****
Arthur glanced up as Ariadne approached.
“Did you get anything?”
“Not anything helpful. His last intact memory wasn't anything special, just another party.”
“It could be whatever his first missing memory is. Could it be when he started-“ Cobb asked.
“No. He's not going to join the army until just before his twenty-fourth birthday. He doesn't get involved in dreaming for another seven months after that.” Arthur interrupted.
“Then maybe there's something else significant there, we just need to find what is is. Maybe we should call in his mo-”
“No.” Arthur cut Cobb off again. “We're not calling her in unless we know what's going on. Yusuf's going to be here in a couple of hours, we'll taken him under, figure out what's wrong, and find out how to fix it.”
He turned shortly and strode out of the hospital, checking his watch to count down til Yusuf arrived.
*****
Yusuf arrived exactly two hours later, carrying a battered suitcase and looking determined.
Ariadne had managed to wheedle a tiny room out of the nurses, and they set up there, running through a short plan.
“I've brought this. Yusuf held up a vial. “I don't think any of you have used it before. It's designed for clarity, but it's missing any of the memory inhibitors we usually include to stop the mark remembering the extraction. It should mean that whatever we find in there will be unfiltered, but it also means that Eames should remember whatever we show him in the dream.”
“Won't that freak him out when he wakes up?” Ariadne asked.
“He'll be fine.” Arthur said. “Eames took to dreaming very quickly, he won't freak out, not unless something bad happens down there.”
“Which we'll try to avoid.” Cobb said.
Ariadne pulled open her sketchpad. “So where are we bringing him?”
Cobb looked over at Arthur. “You've been to Eames' family home, right?”
Arthur frowned. “Once or twice, but-“
“You're the dreamer, and I need a series of rooms, starting with wherever the last time you saw him was, then working backwards - any significant places you can think of - and ending with whatever Ariadne managed to get about his last memory.They don't need to be completely in order, just what you think might trigger a memory. Fill in the gaps with his family home.”
“So, what? We try and herd him through the rooms, see if memories are still there?”
“Exactly. Hopefully, he'll fill the room with projections related to the location, and we can see what's intact.”
Arthur checked his watch. “He's been asleep for two hours, we should move.”
They moved back into Eames' room.
Yusuf set up the PASIV with the modified compounds, and took watch at the door. Cobb, Arthur and Ariadne pulled chairs over to the side of the bed and sat down, hooking themselves in.
“Be careful in there.” Yusuf warned. “We have no way of knowing what his projections will be like. And I can only give you a couple of minutes. With the head injury, anything more could be dangerous.”
“We'll be fine.” Arthur said.
He pressed the button, and then -
They were in Eames' small LA apartment, and over by the window, Eames was standing, staring out...
Except that no, this wasn't Eames. This was David, all narrow shoulders, clear skin, and open, honest face. He was standing there in jeans so worn they were practically see-through and a Clash tshirt, and he looked lost, lost and so much younger then Arthur can ever remember him being, even though -
And Arthur shouldn't be surprised, because Eames is still a forger, even if he doesn't remember what that even is, and just like scars often find themselves erased in dreams, his subconscious has obviously settled on what it thinks it looks like.
“No projections.” Ariadne whispered.
“We're still in his apartment, there wouldn't be.” Cobb pointed out.
Except she pointed out the window, and the streets were completely clear.
“We need to move him on.”
Arthur threw his voice across the room, called out 'David' from behind a door, and they carefully followed him through, into -
A hotel room, and Ea - David, because this really was David, was standing in the centre of the room, like he was frozen in the middle of something but didn't know what it was. He turned, and looked right through them, and Arthur felt something brush against his back.
Ariadne grabbed his hand. “What was that?”
“A shadow.” Dom explained.
“Is that a memory?”
“It could be anything.” Arthur said.
“Still no projections.” Cobb said. “Move us on.”
Arthur threw his voice again, and through the door -
The Paris warehouse, and David sat behind his desk, staring at a pair of glasses in his hand.
Arthur held his breath, because if he can remember the glasses, then maybe he can remember Inception, and then...
But instead, David stands up and walks over, stopping just in front of them, his arms wound tight around his body.
“Look, I know this makes me sound like a proper kid, but I think I'm lost.”
Arthur started slightly, because if David couldn't see them in the previous dreams, how come he could see them now?
“D'ya think you can tell me where I am?”
He was talking to all of them, but there's something about the way he smiles that's just at Arthur, and Arthur has a sudden flash of - I mean, you look like my boyfriends - before he can answer.
“I think you need to go through that door.”
He pointed, and David smiled gratefully and walked towards the door, and they followed him into -
The house in Mombasa, filled with all the trinkets of Eames' globetrotting, and David didn't look like he recognised it, but pushed forward anyway, moving through the room like it could tell him something, something he didn't even know to ask for.
And he picked up everything he could see, turning them over and over and smiling, but it's a smile of fascination, not of recognition, so Arthur moved them on again, into -
Eames' family home, and Arthur felt another shadow brush past him, then another, and Cobb grinned.
“They have to be memories. These ones are stronger because they're at home - they're tied into things he does remember. Keep moving him on.”
David didn't want to leave - he wasn't lost anymore, he knew where this was, but Arthur pushed him anyway, through another door, and into -
Another hotel room, a different room, and there were no moving shadows here, but something else. There's an energy suffusing the whole room that's nearly suffocating, and David turned to them, his arms wrapped even tighter around himself, his shoulders hunched.
“Can we leave? I... I don't like it here. Please?”
And Arthur agreed, because it was his memory as well, he remembered this hotel room, so he grabbed David's hand and pulled him through another door, into -
A long barracks, and this felt doubly wrong, because this was the kind of place that should be bustling with activity, but it's just David, sitting alone on a cot, his knees drawn up to his chest.
He looked somehow, even younger. And there's a shadow in this room as well, but barely, and Arthur could feel it edging around the room, circling David but never getting close enough for him to notice.
Suddenly, he heard the strains of music and Cobb grabbed his arm.
“Last one now, bring us to the party.”
“It's just a big field.” Ariadne said, and they pulled a dazed David to his feet and got him through the door, into -
Night time. And here there were projections, projections everywhere, young men and women crowded together and laughing.
Arthur looked at David, his shoulders had relaxed and he pushed into the crowd. He looked at everyone, trying to see the people, see if he could place any of them, but Cobb grabbed his arm...
“We have to kick out before he wakes up.”
“One second.”
Across the room, David had a bottle of gin under one arm and a plastic glass in one hand, and he was talking to a boy with curly hair and wide eyes, but his eyes were fixed across the crowd, on a guy with black trousers, a crisp white shirt, neat hair, and his arm fastened around a beautiful blonde girl.
He took a half step forward, but Cobb grabbed him again.
“Now.”
The word tipped over and -
The hospital room, where they caught their breathe and Yusuf carefully checked the PASIV.
Eames blinked his eyes open and stared around the room.
“What the fuck was that?”
five
Author: duckgirlie
Team: ROMANCE!
Prompt: devotion, home.
Summary: “Sorry. I know you? I mean, of course I know you, at least a bit. Your number’s in my wallet. But I don’t know you, not at all.”
Word Count: ~2700 (this part)
Rated: PG
notes: I am determined to have this finished by the end of match, even if it takes daily updates. (And then I also have a three-parter and a one-shot to post, BUT IT WILL BE DONE) In case you're wondering, this is the Tom that David most looks like, particularly bottom left.
one | two | three
done something to him that's taken the memories'>
Eames was asleep when Ariadne arrived twelve hours later. Arthur had been forced to relocate to the parking lot once visiting hours were over and the doctor had started to grumble about ‘family members’ and remind Arthur how he’d already admitted he wasn’t related to Eames.
He was too keyed-up to sleep anyway, so he had pulled out his computer and sat in his car, trying to find out what exactly it was that Eames had been up too since he’d seen him last.
He’d just about dozed off, bent over the steering wheel, when Ariadne knocked on the window.
“What up? Shouldn’t you be babysitting?”
“He’s sleeping. And they won’t let me stay in there overnight.”
She climbed into his passenger seat.
“So. What's the plan?”
“I don't know. I mean, we have to go under, right? We need to find out if someone's done something to him that's taken the memories, or if just the traumatic brain injury. Listen to me, “just” traumatic brain injury...”
She squeezed his upper arm. “What if someone has taken them?”
“Then we fix it.”
“And what if it's the head trauma?”
Arthur just started through the windshield. “I don't know.”
*****
As soon as visiting hours started again, Arthur hurried Ariadne inside. They managed to make it to Eames' room without meeting any of the doctors, and found him sitting up in bed, fiddling with a laptop.
He looked up when the entered and furrowed his brow for a moment, like he was trying to remember something.
“Arthur, right?”
Arthur relaxed very slightly. At least Eames' - David's - ability to form new memories was still mostly intact.
“And you... you I don't know. Were you here yesterday?”
Ariadne smiled gently. “No, I just arrived. I'm Ariadne.”
She reached out to shake his hand.
“I'm David. Are you another fugitive then?”
Ariadne raised an eyebrow at Arthur, who just shrugged.
“He figured it out for himself.”
“Arthur doesn't want to call my mother.” Eames explained. “So we must be up to something criminal.”
“Well, I've never met your mother, but I'm sure he's got the right idea. Maybe he just wants to make sure we have as many answers as possible before we worry her.”
Eames rolled his eyes. “Nah. He's probably just afraid she'll smack him around a bit for letting me get myself into trouble.”
“Nobody lets you get into trouble, Ea - David. You manage it pretty well all by yourself.”
Eames smiled. “Now that's the first thing you've said so far that sounds familiar.”
“So you obviously haven't changed that much.”
Arthur pulled Ariadne over for a second.
“I'm going to try and find Cobb, okay? You keep him talking, try and figure out exactly where his memories stop.”
She smiled that same soft smile again. “You'll figure it out, okay?”
Outside, Arthur leaned against the wall for a second to center himself. He was halfway through his ten cleansing breaths when Cobb interrupted him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Arthur had his hand pinned to the wall before he even realised he was doing it.
“Right. No sneaking up on Arthur then.”
“Sorry.” Arthur pulled back. “I'm... a little jumpy right now.”
“You don't need to apologise.”
Cobb leaned against the wall next to him. “Any change?”
“He might not remember you though, it took him a second to get my name when I arrived. But aside from that... I don't think so. Have to talk to the doctors to make sure, but... No.”
“We have to take him under, you know that?”
Arthur glared at him. “Of course I know that. I've already called Yusuf, we're just waiting on his flight getting in.”
“Do you think we should tell him?”
“I don't know.” Arthur ran his hands through his hair. “I mean, if we do tell him, at least we can get an idea of where to bring him. But on the other hand...”
“We don't know what's been done to him, we don't know what's going to happen if anything inside his subconscious has any time to prepare.”
Arthur shoved his hands deep into this pockets. “Will his subconscious remember being militarised, even if he doesn't?”
Cobb stepped away from the wall and looked down the hallway. “I don't know.”
*****
David smiled at Ariadne as she stepped closer to the bed.
“So, do we work together as well?”
“Sometimes. Not as often as you work with Arthur, but often enough.”
“You don't look the criminal type.”
“You probably didn't either, when you started.”
He mussed his fingers through his hand and started fiddling with the laptop again.
“I don't remember what I looked like. Do you know what my password is?”
She smiled. “If it's your work laptop, then no, you keep that one entirely secret. If it's your personal laptop, then I think it's 'eamesyoureanidiot', all one word, no caps. Arthur made you change it so they had separate ones.”
David tapped a couple of keys, and sighed. “Looks like no.”
“Maybe Arthur knows. Or maybe it'll come back.”
“Well, if my memories start coming back, there are a couple I'd rather get first.”
“What's the last thing you do remember?”
David could tell she was fishing, but she looked like she was safe, and Arthur trusted her, and he trusted Arthur - even if he didn't fully know why - so he let her.
“Um... It doesn't just cut out, yeah? Like, after they're mostly gone, there are still a couple of flashes, like eating cereal, or riding my bike, before it all disappears.”
Ariadne smiled encouragingly. “That's okay. What's the last proper memory, then?”
David lay back for a second before he started talking.
“There was a party. I think it was at my friend Jilly's place - it felt like that anyway, in a giant field somewhere - and I didn't want to be there, because my ex was going, but I had to be, because Jilly would have fucking killed me if I missed it. So I was there, but I was moping in the corner, and then I was flirting with this bloke, but that was only because Dara was totally about to cop off with his horrible blonde girl, but then instead I just got absolutely mangled and went home. Then the next morning my mum just glared at me over the kitchen table and then force-fed me about six oranges.”
“Does anything feel significant about the memory?” Ariadne asked.
“Not really. Just another party, y'know. Not the first time I'd been that drunk. Not even the first time we'd broken up. Maybe not the last time, either.”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out.”
David smiled at her, and yawned. “I think I need a nap.”
“Are you okay? Didn't you sleep well?”
“Nah, I slept fine. The doctors just said I might sleep a lot for a while, recuperating and all that, yeah?”
“Okay. I'll leave you, okay? We're just outside if you need us, okay?”
“Cheers. Laters, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
David lay back and closed his eyes as Ariadne slipped out the door.
*****
Arthur glanced up as Ariadne approached.
“Did you get anything?”
“Not anything helpful. His last intact memory wasn't anything special, just another party.”
“It could be whatever his first missing memory is. Could it be when he started-“ Cobb asked.
“No. He's not going to join the army until just before his twenty-fourth birthday. He doesn't get involved in dreaming for another seven months after that.” Arthur interrupted.
“Then maybe there's something else significant there, we just need to find what is is. Maybe we should call in his mo-”
“No.” Arthur cut Cobb off again. “We're not calling her in unless we know what's going on. Yusuf's going to be here in a couple of hours, we'll taken him under, figure out what's wrong, and find out how to fix it.”
He turned shortly and strode out of the hospital, checking his watch to count down til Yusuf arrived.
*****
Yusuf arrived exactly two hours later, carrying a battered suitcase and looking determined.
Ariadne had managed to wheedle a tiny room out of the nurses, and they set up there, running through a short plan.
“I've brought this. Yusuf held up a vial. “I don't think any of you have used it before. It's designed for clarity, but it's missing any of the memory inhibitors we usually include to stop the mark remembering the extraction. It should mean that whatever we find in there will be unfiltered, but it also means that Eames should remember whatever we show him in the dream.”
“Won't that freak him out when he wakes up?” Ariadne asked.
“He'll be fine.” Arthur said. “Eames took to dreaming very quickly, he won't freak out, not unless something bad happens down there.”
“Which we'll try to avoid.” Cobb said.
Ariadne pulled open her sketchpad. “So where are we bringing him?”
Cobb looked over at Arthur. “You've been to Eames' family home, right?”
Arthur frowned. “Once or twice, but-“
“You're the dreamer, and I need a series of rooms, starting with wherever the last time you saw him was, then working backwards - any significant places you can think of - and ending with whatever Ariadne managed to get about his last memory.They don't need to be completely in order, just what you think might trigger a memory. Fill in the gaps with his family home.”
“So, what? We try and herd him through the rooms, see if memories are still there?”
“Exactly. Hopefully, he'll fill the room with projections related to the location, and we can see what's intact.”
Arthur checked his watch. “He's been asleep for two hours, we should move.”
They moved back into Eames' room.
Yusuf set up the PASIV with the modified compounds, and took watch at the door. Cobb, Arthur and Ariadne pulled chairs over to the side of the bed and sat down, hooking themselves in.
“Be careful in there.” Yusuf warned. “We have no way of knowing what his projections will be like. And I can only give you a couple of minutes. With the head injury, anything more could be dangerous.”
“We'll be fine.” Arthur said.
He pressed the button, and then -
They were in Eames' small LA apartment, and over by the window, Eames was standing, staring out...
Except that no, this wasn't Eames. This was David, all narrow shoulders, clear skin, and open, honest face. He was standing there in jeans so worn they were practically see-through and a Clash tshirt, and he looked lost, lost and so much younger then Arthur can ever remember him being, even though -
And Arthur shouldn't be surprised, because Eames is still a forger, even if he doesn't remember what that even is, and just like scars often find themselves erased in dreams, his subconscious has obviously settled on what it thinks it looks like.
“No projections.” Ariadne whispered.
“We're still in his apartment, there wouldn't be.” Cobb pointed out.
Except she pointed out the window, and the streets were completely clear.
“We need to move him on.”
Arthur threw his voice across the room, called out 'David' from behind a door, and they carefully followed him through, into -
A hotel room, and Ea - David, because this really was David, was standing in the centre of the room, like he was frozen in the middle of something but didn't know what it was. He turned, and looked right through them, and Arthur felt something brush against his back.
Ariadne grabbed his hand. “What was that?”
“A shadow.” Dom explained.
“Is that a memory?”
“It could be anything.” Arthur said.
“Still no projections.” Cobb said. “Move us on.”
Arthur threw his voice again, and through the door -
The Paris warehouse, and David sat behind his desk, staring at a pair of glasses in his hand.
Arthur held his breath, because if he can remember the glasses, then maybe he can remember Inception, and then...
But instead, David stands up and walks over, stopping just in front of them, his arms wound tight around his body.
“Look, I know this makes me sound like a proper kid, but I think I'm lost.”
Arthur started slightly, because if David couldn't see them in the previous dreams, how come he could see them now?
“D'ya think you can tell me where I am?”
He was talking to all of them, but there's something about the way he smiles that's just at Arthur, and Arthur has a sudden flash of - I mean, you look like my boyfriends - before he can answer.
“I think you need to go through that door.”
He pointed, and David smiled gratefully and walked towards the door, and they followed him into -
The house in Mombasa, filled with all the trinkets of Eames' globetrotting, and David didn't look like he recognised it, but pushed forward anyway, moving through the room like it could tell him something, something he didn't even know to ask for.
And he picked up everything he could see, turning them over and over and smiling, but it's a smile of fascination, not of recognition, so Arthur moved them on again, into -
Eames' family home, and Arthur felt another shadow brush past him, then another, and Cobb grinned.
“They have to be memories. These ones are stronger because they're at home - they're tied into things he does remember. Keep moving him on.”
David didn't want to leave - he wasn't lost anymore, he knew where this was, but Arthur pushed him anyway, through another door, and into -
Another hotel room, a different room, and there were no moving shadows here, but something else. There's an energy suffusing the whole room that's nearly suffocating, and David turned to them, his arms wrapped even tighter around himself, his shoulders hunched.
“Can we leave? I... I don't like it here. Please?”
And Arthur agreed, because it was his memory as well, he remembered this hotel room, so he grabbed David's hand and pulled him through another door, into -
A long barracks, and this felt doubly wrong, because this was the kind of place that should be bustling with activity, but it's just David, sitting alone on a cot, his knees drawn up to his chest.
He looked somehow, even younger. And there's a shadow in this room as well, but barely, and Arthur could feel it edging around the room, circling David but never getting close enough for him to notice.
Suddenly, he heard the strains of music and Cobb grabbed his arm.
“Last one now, bring us to the party.”
“It's just a big field.” Ariadne said, and they pulled a dazed David to his feet and got him through the door, into -
Night time. And here there were projections, projections everywhere, young men and women crowded together and laughing.
Arthur looked at David, his shoulders had relaxed and he pushed into the crowd. He looked at everyone, trying to see the people, see if he could place any of them, but Cobb grabbed his arm...
“We have to kick out before he wakes up.”
“One second.”
Across the room, David had a bottle of gin under one arm and a plastic glass in one hand, and he was talking to a boy with curly hair and wide eyes, but his eyes were fixed across the crowd, on a guy with black trousers, a crisp white shirt, neat hair, and his arm fastened around a beautiful blonde girl.
He took a half step forward, but Cobb grabbed him again.
“Now.”
The word tipped over and -
The hospital room, where they caught their breathe and Yusuf carefully checked the PASIV.
Eames blinked his eyes open and stared around the room.
“What the fuck was that?”
five