Wish You Were Here, Part 1
Title: Wish You Were Here
Fandom: Inception
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Arthur, Ariadne, Cobb, Mal, Miles,
Summary: The inception succeeds, and Saito is rescued but at the cost of Cobb, who is in a hospital, left in a coma. Life goes on. If the coma was the test of their friendship, then Arthur’s got a lot to prove when Cobb wakes up…with his memory in tatters. Mild Arthur/Cobb.
Note: Third fic of the Ṛta series.
It is a Tuesday.
Cobb was institutionalised on a Tuesday. Eames was on a flight to Morocco soon after, and Yusuf was headed back to Mombasa. There was decidedly little contact between the two of them, and maybe the hint of an apology from Yusuf. Most of it was a slightly edgy silence that meant that Eames and Yusuf had issues to settle between the two of them. Saito settled Cobb’s affairs, even found a private, very reliable, and expensive hospital for Cobb to be warded in. Cobb’s name had been cleared with whispers in the right channels, and Arthur almost laughed because Saito’s contacts and money had done what he couldn’t do when he’d had the case.
After that, Saito had left as well, presumably for Tokyo. Ariadne spent a little time in LA, even saw Cobb once or twice, and then headed on a flight back to Paris.
Everyone had their own life to lead. Inception had just brought them together for a time, and whatever it was, they’d unravelled just as quickly in the aftermath.
And Arthur? He found himself back in his old job, running cases as if nothing much had changed. Funny how it was so easy to slip between two lives as if they’d been lived completely separately. The moment he stepped into the apartment (felt like two years since he’d last been in it, although it wasn’t even true) and glanced around. He felt like a stranger, or a ghost. Everything was where he had last left it, undisturbed, and as he stepped forward, Arthur, Cobb’s point man dissolved. The only thing left was Special Agent Arthur, FBI, a skin he slipped perfectly back into with each movement.
A familiar life that first felt a little too tight, or too loose, but would fit him just right after he’d gotten used to it again through the familiar patterns and routines. Just like shaving.
Rituals. They were the only thing that stayed with you. Little safe spaces, where one could move through life without having to think. Rituals connected the past and the present, and stayed the same through periods of change. Going through the familiar motions gave Arthur a sense of stability, a kind of anchor that he needed.
Arthur wondered, sometimes, if he could have spotted Robert Fischer’s training if he’d looked harder. But there was no point in wondering, in guilt or self-recrimination. So he did what he was good at, keeping his affairs in order, keeping his head down and out of trouble.
Reminding the Bureau that he hadn’t been AIC and lead investigator on all those cases for nothing.
Cobb was institutionalised on a Tuesday. Or a Wednesday.
The world went on.
It was a Tuesday.
Arthur and Stephen Miles exchanged grim glances. Even before the doctor could think of mentioning brain scans, they both knew what a coma really meant. They both knew where Cobb had gone. They both knew that into that world of shadows, they couldn’t follow.
Sometimes, dreams are more powerful than realities. The trap of Limbo is that it feeds you exactly what you desire. Some desires are so powerful that a person could will himself to be trapped based on the force of the desire alone. Among other complications.
Arthur watched the movement of Cobb’s chest, rising and falling, and thought he knew what Cobb was dreaming about. If Cobb was really dreaming. And there it was, as he glanced discreetly at Ariadne, sharp like a breaking wound.
Why didn’t you tell me, Cobb?
Betrayal. Why betrayal? Why hurt? Had he expected to be entitled to some kind of answer? That for some reason or other, Cobb should have told him? Shouldn’t have just brushed him off? Or maybe he should have dug deeper. Should have pressed Cobb, stubbornly. Arthur sighed. He knew Cobb wouldn’t have given him a straight answer. He’d have lied, brushed him off, or picked some kind of fight if Arthur had forced the issue.
He didn’t remember making his way to the corridor outside. Didn’t remember slumping against the wall. The flare of pain in his fist. He’d hit the wall in exactly the way he hadn’t been supposed to. Split knuckles and a trickle of blood. He’d lost control there, for a moment. The thought frightened him. He didn’t lose control. It wasn’t him. That was…that was what Cobb did.
He closed his eyes, and dug a little deeper.
It still hurt, a little bitter thorn lodged deep inside his mind.
“Arthur?”
He opened his eyes a crack, and then figured who it was. He pulled himself together. Straightened up, posture upright. No more slumping. “Yeah?”
Ariadne watched him, concerned. Maybe a little curious. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Arthur said, again. He absently wiped the blood off on his pants and then blew out one long, steady, exhausted breath through his teeth. A cynical and worn corner of his mind wanted to say, you said he was going to be fine. You left him and said he was going to come out.
Accusations weren’t useful. She didn’t know Cobb as well as he did. He’d just be blaming her for what had been his own decision. To give up. To wait.
And how well did he know Cobb? He’d never known the whole story. Not as much as what Cobb had told her. Not in the way he’d opened up to her probing without a fight. He let out another sigh as he remembered one of their worse confrontations. Eventually, Arthur had learned to stop pushing. Trust Cobb. That had been hard, but it’d worked. Or so he’d thought. What was it with Cobb and opening up to complete strangers, while he tried to drive off those closer to him? Arthur thought he’d done an admirable job in sticking around, all circumstances considered.
No. That line of thought wasn’t going to help. Ariadne would feel as guilty as he did. She’d accompanied Cobb all the way down to Limbo, but left near the end. She’d taken his reassurance that he’d be fine.
But he wasn’t. He hadn’t woken up. He’d been lost and trapped down there. Arthur shifted, trying to stop thinking in the same frustrating circle. “We could go back down there,” Ariadne spoke up, quietly. She’d slipped in into the space beside him, her posture questioning. He thought about the stolen kiss. Wondered why he’d done it. Her fingers lightly brushed his split knuckle. “Help him to wake up.”
Arthur was already shaking his head. “Not possible,” he said immediately. “Maybe if he was still in the dream. But now? He’s gone too deep.”
“We go all the way back down through the layers, into Limbo. And then we wake him up.”
“It’s too risky.”
“You don’t know that. You haven’t tried it.”
He took a deep breath. “No, I haven’t,” he agreed, “But I wouldn’t. There’s a reason why dreamsharing doesn’t work on people in comas, Ariadne.”
“But Cobb’s not in a coma. He’s dreaming. It’d be just like how we retrieved Fischer and how…Cobb retrieved Saito.” He didn’t miss the way she faltered when she mentioned Cobb’s name. Maybe she’d realised it wasn’t the best of examples.
“Right,” Arthur retorted bitterly, “And that worked so good?”
She frowned at him, folding her arms across her chest. “That’s not helping,” she told him tartly. “You can be an asshole when you put your mind to it, you know?”
Arthur shifted a little. Ariadne had a point, he realised. He was falling back into the only pattern he knew; lashing out at everything. Criticism. Incisive analysis. He’d settled into a working rhythm with Cobb. Cobb came up with the ideas, and Arthur tested them, forced them back to a firm grounding, shot holes in all of them so the unlikely bits went. Between Cobb’s prodding and Arthur’s criticism, they’d somehow managed to find a middle ground. Somehow managed to develop brilliant ideas that usually worked. Or sometimes worked.
Plans didn’t always survive first contact.
Planning with Ariadne, even in such a small conversation like this, resulted in a completely different dynamic. He took a deep breath, and let it out again, and tried to bring his frustration and anger under control before he spoke again. “Point taken,” Arthur said, by way of apology. “I don’t think we need any reminders.”
Ariadne accepted that with a nod. Still, the sharp look in her eyes didn’t quite soften. “There are going to be risks, Arthur. Sometimes…we have to take them.”
Arthur frowned, and thought about his response before he actually gave voice to it. “There are risks,” he agreed neutrally. “But this isn’t the same. Whoever who goes in there to wake Cobb up could end up in the exact same condition.”
“You wouldn’t be willing to take that risk for Cobb?” she wanted to know.
Arthur bit on his tongue and turned away. He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure if he knew what answer he would have given Ariadne. Maybe there wasn’t an answer to such questions. “It doesn’t matter,” he said at last, studying the pattern of the flooring. He could feel her eyes on him, curious. Inquiring. “It wouldn’t be possible, anyway.”
“Why not?” she challenged.
His mouth pressed into a thin, wry smile. No, not wry - more helpless than anything, and maybe a little self-deprecating. “The dream lasts as long as the somnacin in his system. When the somnacin wears off, the subject wakes up. Put all of these together, Ariadne.” He counted them off, one by one on his fingers. “The somnacin’s worn off by now. That’s why we managed to wake up. We couldn’t have woken up if the sedative hadn’t worn off.” One. “Cobb can’t dream. Not anymore.” Two. Do you still dream, Arthur? “By all rights, Cobb shouldn’t be dreaming. But he isn’t waking up. Isn’t responding.” Three. “The most we can guess at is some kind of coma state. It’s totally unexplored territory, and a dangerous job’s never the best time to play guess-and-check.” Four.
Ariadne made no reply for a while. He didn’t look at her, but he could all but feel the weight of her gaze, and the silence. Thoughtful. Considering. Assessing. “You’ve thought this out already, haven’t you? And you’ve given up on him.”
He was too tired to feel too much anger at the bald statement. At her assessment. Maybe because he knew she was right. “Maybe,” Arthur replied, evenly. “I can hope, can’t I?”
Ariadne and Arthur almost-fought on a Tuesday. A strange sort of fight, where the real issues weren’t just about whether anything could be done for Cobb. It was something slightly more personal than that. The real issues were buried deep, deep enough that underlying the entire conversation was just hints. A reflection of fire, rather than the fire itself.
Neither ever came right out and said it.
It is a Tuesday.
If walking back into his old apartment felt like a dream, he must be easily two or three layers down by now. Drowning in unreality. He weren’t sure if Ellis knew. Knew about Arthur, point man and extractor. He probably did, Arthur had guessed. As much as Arthur had done his best to slip under the radar, he was fairly certain there had been traces. Sometimes, all it too was a stupid mistake. Or some luck. The extractor wasn’t the problem either. It was the extractions he’d been with Cobb on that were a problem.
He didn’t think too hard about whether he should have been running those extractions. He’d settled for some kind of compromise, helping Cobb but not directly performing the extraction itself. Distraction. Running interference. Operations planning. That he could do.
Sure, tell that to a court, Arthur. They’d buy that.
But this? The review board commends him on an exceptional performance while on undercover assignment. Another commendation to go into that service record. The golden boy of mindcrime. Maybe a transfer to DC is in the works. Excellent work in bringing the functioning of the extraction black market to light. Nash is in custody.
And the only thing Arthur can think, right now, is what?
His brain is whirling, spinning. Reeling. Can a whole board be so wrong? And yet his memories tell him something else entirely. He’d nothing to do with Nash, other than that ill-fated job on Saito, performed for Cobol Engineering. Nash was left to Cobol Engineering, and Arthur had aided Cobb with extractions, unless -
He realises he doesn’t even recognise the man who sits among the ADs and section chief for mindcrime. Sure, he doesn’t recognise the whole room, but he’s had a good memory. Show him a face once or twice, and he’ll be able to recall it. It’s how Arthur recognises even James Kelly, whom he’s seen maybe once, and in passing. He doesn’t recognise the man who sits there as if he’s an AD. Security? Inspection? Is he even an AD?
He felt like the rug had been swept out from under his feet with a neat yank, and then he was falling. Maybe Cobb’s problems were transmissible. He’s hallucinating the whole affair - and isn’t it funny, that a dressing down wouldn’t have made Arthur question his grip on reality, but this?
UC work is difficult, he is told. Highly stressful. Light duty at his office for a while. Maybe, one of them suggests, as faces spin and blur before Arthur’s eyes before they resolve into recognisable features again, maybe a stint at Quantico, training new trainees?
He remembers little of the rest. By the time Arthur’s feet drag him, step by step outside that office, he’s wondering if the past few months really happened. If his memory is really working. When was the last time he’d checked his totem? When was the last time he’d really used it, since he’d gotten one just because Cobb had said (in that flat tone of voice) that he’d rather not risk someone else getting a breakdown?
You’re forgetting the three questions, Arthur.
Pierce’s voice. Training alone brings it back into his mind. What do you remember? How did you get here? What are you doing?
He wants to hunker down, right outside that office and try his totem. What remains of his shredded reason and his taut nerves reminds him that isn’t a good idea. Get back to the hotel, and then test your totem.
Saito, Arthur thinks, casting about for a logical reason. Could this be Saito? Could Saito have a highly-placed contact who’d created records? Service records that had convinced everyone placed above Ellis? He acknowledges the cynical counter. No. Maybe not. Did Saito even know? He wouldn’t put it past Saito. Information gathering was tricky and painstaking, but surely a man like Saito had resources at his disposal.
Nash. But Saito had left Nash for Cobol Engineering, he’d said. It all came back to Saito and Cobol.
In the end, because he’s still the sort who takes comfort in the stability of rituals, Arthur takes a quick shower first. Hangs his shirt out on a chair, tie straightened out and slung over the shirt. He should get some sleep, really, but he sits down on the bed. Bags still tossed carelessly over the place because there hadn’t been much time between arrival and when he was due to report in.
Arthur shifts the black carry-on off the bed and onto the floor. Little neat habits that make him occupy himself, so he can carry on numb and circle around the questions that swim around his brain. That he doesn’t and can’t have answers to. He isn’t sure of what he remembers. If it’s even right.
He tipped the die out of his pocket. Four pips stare up, into the light. Arthur’s breath hitches. He snatches it up, and tosses it again. Six pips. Four. Four.
His breath catches in his throat.
He’s not sure what to say. What to think. What story are they telling for Cobb? UC? Innocent man, cleared of all charges? Are they worried he’ll sue? Maybe military intel, or even CIA. There are plenty of organisations with an interest in dreamsharing, after all. What if they’re right? What if Cobb was UC, and he’s been played like a fish on a line?
No, it couldn’t be. Arthur is sure he’d have known if Cobb was with the FBI. CIA? How do you know? How could you know? A nasty little voice whispers at the back of his head. You weren’t even sure if you’d really been going UC, even when being debriefed. Debriefed, not reprimanded. Not put for a disciplinary hearing.
Thick blank spaces in his memory, here and there, where Arthur is fairly certain they’d never existed before. He tries to think about the blank spaces, the fogged over holes. Are they real? Are they there? Breathe, Arthur. Don’t panic, or you’ll never remember. Is it possible to be UC and not know it? Some kind of submerged conditioning thing? Is it even possible to do that to a person? Bury something so deep down in their mind that they don’t even realise it’s there?
Inception. No, not inception. A kind of inception. A whole persona, a whole story. Why did he help Cobb?
Breathe, Arthur. This isn’t helping.
Would you even know if someone had been in your head and rummaged around your mind?
Real. He needed something real. Arthur wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming, or just gone mad right now. Add an aspirin. His head is starting to hurt. How did he get here? Flight to DC. Pounding.
Daniel Foster’s voice makes him realise the pounding isn’t just in his head. It’s on the door. It’s like trying to think through a head of vodka or something. Arthur makes it over to the door, opens it. Daniel Foster. Came with him from LA to DC. Foster frowns at him. Looks concerned. “Here. Brought you an aspirin. You looked pretty out of it.”
Oh, new question of the day. How did he know? Foster is frowning, saying something else. Arthur doesn’t register what, until the door is closed, and he finds himself in a chair. Foster’s saying something. So distant. A murmur against his skull. What do you remember?
An aspirin and a glass of cold water, pushed into his hand. Arthur gulps them down gratefully. Mechanically. Thanks Foster. Go back on autopilot, Arthur. Get some sleep. Things can start making sense tomorrow. In the morning. Good thing Foster popped the childproof cap, or he’d be batting at the container of aspirin until it broke.
If he’s said any of this out loud, Foster’s face shows no sign of it.
Foster’s said something. Arthur blinks, and tries to focus. “Sorry?”
“That’s a lot of scars,” Foster says, neutrally.
Gardner, Cobb, and Cobb again, where the bullet went straight through his thigh. Funny that he’s never really been able to scar ‘well’, if there’s ever such a term. One line of keloid that curves along his shoulder-blade, to the right. One deep, ugly red-purple, stiffened against his skin along his lower back, where the knife had caught him.
He feels the weight of Foster’s scrutiny, eyes on the history and the proof of the past he carries like tattoos on his skin. Arthur considers briefly if it’s worth the effort to yank on his shirt. Decides he can’t be bothered.
Slumps back in his chair. Closes his eyes. Waits for the aspirin to work. “Yeah,” he says, after what seems to be an awfully long time. Left with his thoughts. “Hey, if you need to go, just let yourself out.”
Way to talk to the guy heading your squad. Right now, Arthur doesn’t particularly care.
It was a Tuesday.
Everything was right where he left it. He’d left on a Wednesday. Arthur wondered if that meant he’d lost a day, or gained slightly under a week, if he ignored the intervening gap of months. It was becoming steadily easier to do just that. He took a step forward. Wondered if he could taste the layer of dust weighing the air he breathed into his lungs. Flicked on the light. Glanced around and felt an acute sense of unfamiliarity, of not-belonging. Felt like a stranger, a ghost haunting a home that only vaguely stirred some sensation of familiarity in him. It was that sort of quiet detachment that enveloped him now, with a cool and calm quality that slid across him like glass.
Memories stirred in the corners of the room, caked with dust, maybe a few cobwebs. Too frightened to shift directly into the illumination of the electric lighting. Arthur took another step forward. And another. Felt Arthur, extractor and Cobb’s point man dissolve away like crinkled paper stirred in a glass of water. It wasn’t clean, more a ragged-edged separation of two selves, two beings, and two identities, where one could no longer persist.
Traces of the extractor lingered. Arthur set the PASIV case down on the table, and tried to dispel the lingering sense of uncertainty, frustration, and disquiet. As if he’d spent so long in rented lodgings and hotels all around the world that he couldn’t even fit back into his own home.
Dreams always seemed to confuse a person’s perception of time, to make them feel as if they’d spent much longer gone than they really had. Arthur was feeling every single one of those dream minutes as if they’d really happened. In a sense, they had. His clock and his calendar said he hadn’t been gone for that long.
He fished around in his pocket and left the ochre die upturned next to the brushed-silver PASIV. It sat there, like an unasked question. Arthur felt his lips move in a grim smile. Dark humour, that. He’d asked the questions too many times.
Well-executed undercover assignment. Saito must have gone above Ellis’ head. Maybe to a well-placed AD or something. He’d never even received orders to that effect. Maybe it was Saito. Arthur had tried to raise the business man over the phone, but Saito had been uncontactable. So much for that.
In the dim lighting at the corners of the room where sharp light met ill-defined shadow, the previous months and years seemed too much like a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Arthur hung his coat neatly on an unoccupied chair, left his bags on the living room floor. Occupying himself with physical tasks, and letting his mind drift, he could almost believe that. None of it had happened. Unreal.
He snorted and wondered if this clash of distinct identities was what Eames had to deal with when forging. Sometimes, the line in the sand was sharp and clearly-drawn. Right now, he wasn’t too sure about that. Wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten who he was supposed to be. He left the die lying where it was, didn’t touch it and went to make himself a cup of coffee. Old, familiar motions, to lay the ghosts that lingered like strands of cobwebs in untouched corners.
It was a Tuesday.
Ariadne stirred her coffee, and tried not to look interested. She failed. The half-eaten sandwich sat on her plate, all but discarded. He could all but sense that she was hovering impatiently, on the verge of just asking him to spill the news. He answered her question anyway. “The same,” he said, before she could really ask. “No better.” No worse. Maybe that’s more optimistic than Arthur’s been looking for right now.
“Has Miles said anything?”
Arthur shrugged. The last time he’d gone, it had been just for a short while. He hadn’t wanted to linger, and he certainly didn’t want to discuss Cobb’s condition with the doctor. He doubted the doctor would have done so anyway. Arthur wasn’t in any way related to Cobb, and this kind of patient-related information would be held under strict confidentiality.
The last time Arthur had gone, Miles hadn’t been there. He hadn’t really talked to Miles since they’d gotten back to LA. Maybe Miles was back in Paris, back to his job. They were all, he thought ironically, back to the little corners they’d set out for themselves. Doing the same things they’d used to do.
Ariadne studied him intently, opened her mouth to say something.
Arthur asked, “How’s your studies going?”
She frowned, but said, warily, “Fine. One more semester, and I’ll be able to file for graduation.” Pause. “How’s...well, what are you doing?”
Another shrug. “Work,” Arthur said evasively. “Went back to my old job.” And everything went on as usual. He’d had a job and a life before he’d met Cobb. As odd as it seemed, he did have one, separate from Cobb. Those jobs were in-betweens, filling in the spaces between the times he’d spent back in the States, working. Dreamsharing brought them all closer together, but sometimes, Arthur wondered if it was the only thing.
Wondered if what Ariadne’s question really was, “What are you doing without Cobb?”
Fine, Arthur thought. He was doing perfectly fine. He wondered if, in some way, that was the wrong answer.
It was a Tuesday.
Cobb woke up on a Tuesday.
It was a Tuesday when Cobb woke up. Arthur hadn’t known, hadn’t visited the facility in at least two months. Two months, since he’d been assigned to Quantico on a brief training stint and taught a bunch of bright, fresh-faced young trainees the basics of dreamsharing, instead of Chase.
For some reason, they reminded him of Ariadne and the Fischer job, though none of them had the quick, intuitive way she grasped concepts, or any of her creative brilliance. Nothing of the way she or Cobb so easily pushed boundaries and took concepts that Arthur was familiar with to whole new levels.
Arthur supposed he could be grateful for that. Anything like that in sessions would have stirred up memories. Instead, he kept it nice and safe. Lectures on the theory behind dreamsharing. One or two practicals. Mentioned the standard three questions that an extractor always had to ask him or herself. Stressed their importance. He said nothing about totems, although he was very much aware of the one in his pocket.
Totems weren’t part of standard operating procedure.
Privately, Arthur wondered if he’d ever believed Cobb could have woken up. Would have woken up. He kept warding off such thoughts, telling himself that there was so much uncertainty involved. Cobb’s case was the first of its kind. Hopefully the last. They had no way of knowing what was to be expected.
Beneath the platitudes, he wasn’t too surprised to discover he’d all but written Cobb off for dead. Had thought it wasn’t possible, or even likely that Cobb would ever wake up. Thought that Saito had bought Cobb a living coffin, and had probably paid for the funeral to go with it to. The least he could do for the man who had been lost trying to save him.
After the first unsuccessful call, Arthur hadn’t even bothered trying to call Saito again.
Then, Miles had called him, the week after Arthur had returned to LA. “Cobb’s woken up,” was all he said. Arthur wasn’t even sure why or how Miles had ended up in town. Maybe the doctor had contacted Miles, as the next-of-kin. Arthur vaguely recalled something about a cousin, but the woman had only been present at Mal’s funeral and had left after that. She probably wasn’t going to give a damn about Cobb’s condition.
He stepped out of the elevator. Funny how he remembered how to get to the ward, even though he hadn’t been there in months. Two months since he’d seen Cobb. Muscle atrophy must have started to sink in. There had been a catch, Arthur thought. Something Miles wasn’t telling him. Miles must have been at the hospital. Maybe it was bad. Arthur couldn’t quite see how things could get worse.
Miles was waiting in the corridor outside the ward. “Arthur,” he acknowledged, as Arthur came down the corridor. Expression so carefully blank that all of Arthur’s instincts were screaming at him, saying that something hadn’t gone well. Not good.
Sharp nod. “How’s he?”
Miles hesitated. “He’s awake.”
Awake. A few days ago, Arthur wouldn’t even have bet on that happening. Now, his heart hammered in his chest anyway. He was swimming again, tugging at Cobb, trying to wake him up. He was saying, “He’ll be lost.”
He’d been right then. But Cobb had woken up. Just that there was another ‘but’. Arthur hadn’t hoped for much, had never been hopeful about the result. But now that Cobb had woken up, contrary to expectations, he felt a stubborn flicker of hope, deep within his chest. Painfully tight to breathe. Throat locked.
“There’s something else.” Arthur thought about all the consequences of waking up from Limbo that he could think of. It had driven Mal mad, hadn’t it? Psychological harm, possible dissociation, that was what had happened to Cobb. Cobb’s voice recited the list in his head. Paranoia, possible addiction, compulsive behaviour, thrill-seeking, utterly reckless attitudes…
Cobb had said that, so long ago, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in Arthur’s apartment, eyes very evidently somewhere else.
Arthur forced his mind back to the present.
A wry, gentle smile. Miles nodded. Arthur wondered why Miles was acting like he was going to break, or go crazy or something. “He can’t remember anything,” Miles said quietly. “He had a violent panic attack, and they had to sedate him. He’s awake right now, and in restraints.”
Some go crazy. Some forget. Paranoia, possible addiction...
Arthur almost laughed. It wasn’t because he found it funny. It was a dark kind of humour, the only way he could deal with this. Cobb had woken up. Cobb didn’t remember anything. They had to sedate him. Put him in restraints. Violent panic attacks.
It never ended, did it? There was a roaring in his ears. For a moment, the world had grown awfully distant and quiet. Narrowed down to a single doorway, a single choice. This was going to be ugly. He could do what he’d done for the past two months. More than that. Go home. Forget about Cobb. He’d already written Cobb off, given him up for lost, hadn’t he?
Hope. The fragile flame, cupped in his hands. A choice that wasn’t really a choice. One way or another, he’d come. They both knew he was going to push that door open. Was that how Pandora had felt?
“Don’t mention anything about the lost time to him,” Miles added. Was that compassion that Arthur read in his features? “Don’t distress him. He’s…not taking this too well.”
Well, was there a good way to take losing at least twenty years of your life? Arthur wasn’t sure how he’d react if he’d known he’d lost his memory. Probably go absolutely crazy. Still, he nodded to Miles. “Point taken.”
He pushed open the door.
Arthur’s first thought was that Cobb looked a lot worse than Arthur had thought. Two months. Time hadn’t been kind to him. He was set up in five-points, and for a moment, Arthur’s mind blurred the face. McKinney, not Cobb. He blinked, forced himself to remember. McKinney hadn’t quite been resolved. As far as Arthur knew it was one dead end after another. Cobb looked like he’d reached the end of the line.
Muscle atrophy. He wondered if they’d intubated him. There was no IV line, and the IV stand had been hastily wheeled away to the corner of the room. Arthur wondered what that meant - Cobb had fought the IV? Tore the needle out? Tried to strangle himself or someone with the line?
Blue eyes stared at him, sunken and hollow. No recognition. Nothing.
“Who the hell are you?” Cobb asked.
Arthur wanted to laugh, almost-hysterically. He didn’t know what else to say. What else to do. The nurse on duty shot him a warning look. Arthur shoved his hands in the pocket of his jacket, and tried to think about what he was going to say.
I used to be your colleague. Maybe your friend.
No, scratch that. You used to be a criminal. I work with law enforcement. Used to investigate you. Tried to clear your name. It didn’t work out.
Don’t mention anything about lost time.
“Someone you knew,” Arthur said, very carefully.
“It’s always someone I knew.”
The tone hadn’t changed. Still bitter, and still sharp enough to cut. It used to be about Mal. Now it was about the past. The past that Cobb couldn’t remember. Why, Arthur wondered. Was it because Cobb had lived a whole lifetime down there in Limbo, and when he came back, it was just too much for his brain to accept, so it’d blocked out the memories?
How the mind worked was a mystery. Some people thought it would never be entirely explained. Arthur wasn’t sure they’d actually be able to know precisely why Cobb remembered nothing. Why the mind chose to block access to certain memories. Trauma? Something else entirely?
He just shrugged in answer to what Cobb had said. Didn’t know what he could really say in response to it. Blue eyes narrowed. Cobb was slurring his words. Sedated, probably. Miles mentioned they had to sedate him, before putting him into restraints.
“What’s your name?”
“Arthur.”
Was that maybe a glimmer of recognition? “You’re dead.” Flatly delivered, and so immediate that Arthur could have sworn it was reflexive.
“Well,” Arthur said, sounding a lot more flippant than he felt, “I’m probably the liveliest dead person you’ll see around.”
“Dead,” Cobb murmured. He turned his head to the side, and said, fiercely, “They’re all dead. I don’t want to talk to you.”
Arthur took a cautious step forward. And then another, until he was finally by Cobb’s bedside. Pressed Cobb’s fingers against his wrist. Let Cobb feel the pulse there, beating. “We’re not dead,” he said, as gently as he could. Calm. Soothing. Reassuring. “You’ve been unconscious for a long time. They’re just dreams, Cobb. You’re going to be okay.”
Just dreams. As if dreams couldn’t harm a person. Arthur should have known that all too well by now. Cobb. Mal. McKinney. Davies. The list just went on and on. Some days, he wondered if it was worth it, all the things dreamsharing let them do. Then again, it was a stupid question. He’d mostly joined the FBI because of mindcrime. Because it was one of several legal avenues to dreamsharing.
Hadn’t thought about how everything seemed to be at least ninety-five percent paperwork. Though it wasn’t as if the other five percent didn’t make up for it. Sometimes.
At some point in time, he realised he was just repeating, ‘It’s okay,’ and Cobb’s fingers had closed around his hand. The harsh rhythm of Cobb’s breathing had evened out, which was something at least.
Arthur felt a tug on his arm. The nurse pointed at the door, and Arthur nodded, and carefully extricated his hand. Pulled away. Turned to leave.
“Not real,” Cobb murmured wearily, and then he closed his eyes.
Arthur wasn’t sure what could be said. He left.
It was a Tuesday.
Arthur always ended up visiting Cobb on a Tuesday. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe the regularity of the visits gave them both something stable to hold on to. As far as Arthur was concerned, he did his best to find a way to make it in every Tuesday. That Tuesday was one of the better days. Cobb oscillated between recalling details, maybe a face, a name, an incident, to almost nothing. The inability to recall frustrated Cobb, and sometimes he had one of his violent attacks.
One thing Arthur learned to do was to leave the gun at work or at home before he visited Cobb. Just in case. He remembered the Mal incident all too well, and didn’t plan on seeing if Cobb’s aim got better (he knew Cobb was a better shot than that, from the experience of too many dreams with hostile projections.)
Cobb sat up on the bed, propped up by pillows and said, “You came back.” He always said that, every time Arthur visited him. No recognition, nothing from their past. Any memory Cobb had of him was mostly since Arthur had taken to visiting him at the hospital. Little mention about his children. Arthur wasn’t sure who that was kinder to - Cobb or his children. It wasn’t his decision to make, although he might not have agreed with it.
Maybe Cobb’s children might have triggered some kind of memory. He wasn’t sure. He thought they stood a better chance than he did. Whatever it was, Doctor M. Varun still believed that Arthur’s visits helped. That talking to Cobb helped. So that was what Arthur did. He’d have done it even if Dr Varun hadn’t told him to.
Arthur shrugged, and took a seat. No more restraints, since Cobb hadn’t had an attack in a while. Still, the room was painfully devoid of anything that could be used to harm. No decorations, no accessories. Bed was firmly bolted down. Table was blunt-edged and secured as well. Cobb wasn’t allowed sharp utensils. Kept under constant watch.
The chair would go when Arthur did. They both knew that by now.
“It’s Tuesday,” Arthur said, by way of explanation. He always said that, in response. Every single Tuesday. They had their own little rituals, their own little ways of ensuring some kind of continuity. That everything was alright with the world.
“Four o’clock,” Cobb agreed, transferring his stare to the clock that hung on the wall. He said nothing for a bit. Arthur wasn’t sure where to start. What cues to read. Once, he and Cobb had reached the stage where a glance, a motion of the fingers, a soft cough - any of these signalled something, with so many nuances he could understand. Now, he was back at the blank wall, guessing. Communicating.
Sometimes, words were all they had. Sometimes, words weren’t enough to bridge that new gap.
Maybe it was going to be one of those visits where they said nothing for the whole duration. Arthur looked at his watch. He could deal with that, the waiting and the silence. Dr Varun had told him to keep talking to Cobb about anything. On his better days, Cobb wanted Arthur to talk to him about the past, to fill in the gaps that had opened up in his memory.
Arthur wasn’t sure they didn’t both have gaps.
Cobb spoke up first, matter-of-factly. “Mal didn’t like you very much,” he said. “She thought I shouldn’t talk to you.”
Arthur tried not to stiffen. Didn’t, Cobb had said. When was the past? Was this before Limbo, in Limbo, after? He realised his fingers had curled tightly around the sides of the chair and made them relax. Cobb was watching him, a sly gleam in his bright eyes.
“You didn’t get on very well with her, did you?”
Arthur elected for honesty. “I didn’t even know her.” Better than to begin explaining to Cobb about projections and the insane projection of his wife that had been lurking around in his head until Cobb had tried building a whole world, a whole prison of memories to block her access to his conscious mind. Until she had started breaking free and slipping out into dreams.
“Oh,” Cobb said. He frowned, looking somewhat cheated. Sometimes, he remembered things, in fleeting snatches. All Dr Varun had said was that they had to be patient, and hope things would come back in time. Arthur wondered when those memories were from. If they were going to stay. Sometimes, they didn’t.
“So, why’re you still talking to me?”
Cobb shrugged, his expression oddly open. “It gets rather boring here,” he said. “Miles doesn’t say too much. You’re the only one who knew me from…” Muscles tightened. Arthur carefully made sure he could stand, clear of the chair if there proved to be any problems. He watched Cobb, until Cobb relaxed. Arthur let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. No violent attacks. Not today, anyway. The last one had been bad enough. Another day on chemical restraints, before they realised Cobb had a resistance to them. They’d gone back to the good old physical restraints. “From back then,” Cobb said, vaguely. And then, the quiet offering, “And I don’t think you’re that bad.”
Wonderful. A vote of confidence from a semi-insane Cobb. Arthur wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
“Thanks.” I guess. He cast about for something to talk about. Something else. Anything else. “What’ve you been doing?” He knew the answers already. Sessions with his physiotherapist. Maybe reading the papers. Doing crosswords. There was little enough to do in a hospital. Sometimes, Arthur wondered if it was possible to die from sheer boredom.
“Physical therapy,” Cobb answered, easily. “Recommended bed rest. I’ve been…sleeping long enough.” Arthur caught the hesitation. How do you tell what is a dream and what isn’t?
“You could check your totem,” he offered.
Cobb made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Won’t let me. Nothing I can hurt people with, remember?” Something hollow moved in his eyes when he said that, as if stating a fact. It was a fact. Arthur looked away first. Felt something twist inside him. Thought of crouching down inside a hotel room, and tossing his die on the floor again and again until he was certain. He wasn’t sure which idea frightened him more - that this wasn’t someone else’s dream, or that he had holes in his memory. Might have holes in his memory.
He didn’t think too hard about the other option.
“I’ll speak to Dr Varun about it,” Arthur offered.
Small inscrutable smile. “Thanks.”
Well, screw it. This was starting to get vaguely familiar. Arthur shifted a little in his chair. Wondered what had happened to Cobb’s totem, who had it, or if Cobb even remembered how his worked, how to use it. Could he even continue to use a compromised totem?
Touchstone. The memory lingered, drawn by the mention of totems like iron to a lodestone. Simple, galvanic, and clean. Arthur didn’t know how to go about explaining to Cobb that his totem was compromised, wasn’t sure how he could even begin to talk about a meeting in a flat in Vietnam to Cobb.
I need a touchstone. Someone I can trust.
Well, it hadn’t worked out that well, had it? There was the Fischer job. And there was now, after Cobb had woken up. Two months in which Arthur had done perfectly fine and gone about his life. And there was now. Visiting Cobb every Tuesday.
Trust? He wasn’t that reliable. Not by a long shot.
Do you even remember how your totem works? He wanted to ask Cobb. He didn’t ask it. Maybe some things, some actions were ingrained far deeper than memory.
“Do you dream?” Cobb asked him. His smile was suitably enigmatic.
For some reason, the question shook him. It’d come out of the blue, and so suddenly that he didn’t quite know why Cobb was asking him. They hadn’t spoken too much about extraction. The strange thing was, the more Arthur thought about it, the more he realised they’d talked about enough things, and very little of them actually pertained to the past. As if they’d both avoided some of the touchier issues by common consensus. Or as if no matter how much he tried to fill Cobb in, he’d always defaulted to giving Cobb the sanitised version, no contest about that.
Arthur said, casually, “Sometimes.”
“I don’t,” Cobb said. Bluntly honest. “At least, not anymore.”
I think, he didn’t add. But Arthur heard it anyway.
Arthur stared at him, waiting. Wondering if Cobb was hiding something. Wondering if there was something Cobb wasn’t telling him. Except how would he know? He hadn’t known the last time. Or maybe he had, but he’d turned a blind eye. Assumed Cobb would have let him know if it was something important. Hadn’t dared to push.
Hesitation, Arthur?
He almost laughed out loud, humourlessly. Still too tentative, after all this time. Still too afraid to commit, and still too afraid to push.
What a screwed up touchstone.
“Why’s it so important to dream?”
Silence. Cobb looked at him. He was frowning, as if he was trying to remember. He said, slow and hesitating, “I wish I knew.”
Cobb had to be put back in restraints when he grabbed Arthur, manhandled him and slammed him hard against a wall.
Fandom: Inception
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Arthur, Ariadne, Cobb, Mal, Miles,
Summary: The inception succeeds, and Saito is rescued but at the cost of Cobb, who is in a hospital, left in a coma. Life goes on. If the coma was the test of their friendship, then Arthur’s got a lot to prove when Cobb wakes up…with his memory in tatters. Mild Arthur/Cobb.
Note: Third fic of the Ṛta series.
It is a Tuesday.
Cobb was institutionalised on a Tuesday. Eames was on a flight to Morocco soon after, and Yusuf was headed back to Mombasa. There was decidedly little contact between the two of them, and maybe the hint of an apology from Yusuf. Most of it was a slightly edgy silence that meant that Eames and Yusuf had issues to settle between the two of them. Saito settled Cobb’s affairs, even found a private, very reliable, and expensive hospital for Cobb to be warded in. Cobb’s name had been cleared with whispers in the right channels, and Arthur almost laughed because Saito’s contacts and money had done what he couldn’t do when he’d had the case.
After that, Saito had left as well, presumably for Tokyo. Ariadne spent a little time in LA, even saw Cobb once or twice, and then headed on a flight back to Paris.
Everyone had their own life to lead. Inception had just brought them together for a time, and whatever it was, they’d unravelled just as quickly in the aftermath.
And Arthur? He found himself back in his old job, running cases as if nothing much had changed. Funny how it was so easy to slip between two lives as if they’d been lived completely separately. The moment he stepped into the apartment (felt like two years since he’d last been in it, although it wasn’t even true) and glanced around. He felt like a stranger, or a ghost. Everything was where he had last left it, undisturbed, and as he stepped forward, Arthur, Cobb’s point man dissolved. The only thing left was Special Agent Arthur, FBI, a skin he slipped perfectly back into with each movement.
A familiar life that first felt a little too tight, or too loose, but would fit him just right after he’d gotten used to it again through the familiar patterns and routines. Just like shaving.
Rituals. They were the only thing that stayed with you. Little safe spaces, where one could move through life without having to think. Rituals connected the past and the present, and stayed the same through periods of change. Going through the familiar motions gave Arthur a sense of stability, a kind of anchor that he needed.
Arthur wondered, sometimes, if he could have spotted Robert Fischer’s training if he’d looked harder. But there was no point in wondering, in guilt or self-recrimination. So he did what he was good at, keeping his affairs in order, keeping his head down and out of trouble.
Reminding the Bureau that he hadn’t been AIC and lead investigator on all those cases for nothing.
Cobb was institutionalised on a Tuesday. Or a Wednesday.
The world went on.
It was a Tuesday.
Arthur and Stephen Miles exchanged grim glances. Even before the doctor could think of mentioning brain scans, they both knew what a coma really meant. They both knew where Cobb had gone. They both knew that into that world of shadows, they couldn’t follow.
Sometimes, dreams are more powerful than realities. The trap of Limbo is that it feeds you exactly what you desire. Some desires are so powerful that a person could will himself to be trapped based on the force of the desire alone. Among other complications.
Arthur watched the movement of Cobb’s chest, rising and falling, and thought he knew what Cobb was dreaming about. If Cobb was really dreaming. And there it was, as he glanced discreetly at Ariadne, sharp like a breaking wound.
Why didn’t you tell me, Cobb?
Betrayal. Why betrayal? Why hurt? Had he expected to be entitled to some kind of answer? That for some reason or other, Cobb should have told him? Shouldn’t have just brushed him off? Or maybe he should have dug deeper. Should have pressed Cobb, stubbornly. Arthur sighed. He knew Cobb wouldn’t have given him a straight answer. He’d have lied, brushed him off, or picked some kind of fight if Arthur had forced the issue.
He didn’t remember making his way to the corridor outside. Didn’t remember slumping against the wall. The flare of pain in his fist. He’d hit the wall in exactly the way he hadn’t been supposed to. Split knuckles and a trickle of blood. He’d lost control there, for a moment. The thought frightened him. He didn’t lose control. It wasn’t him. That was…that was what Cobb did.
He closed his eyes, and dug a little deeper.
It still hurt, a little bitter thorn lodged deep inside his mind.
“Arthur?”
He opened his eyes a crack, and then figured who it was. He pulled himself together. Straightened up, posture upright. No more slumping. “Yeah?”
Ariadne watched him, concerned. Maybe a little curious. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Arthur said, again. He absently wiped the blood off on his pants and then blew out one long, steady, exhausted breath through his teeth. A cynical and worn corner of his mind wanted to say, you said he was going to be fine. You left him and said he was going to come out.
Accusations weren’t useful. She didn’t know Cobb as well as he did. He’d just be blaming her for what had been his own decision. To give up. To wait.
And how well did he know Cobb? He’d never known the whole story. Not as much as what Cobb had told her. Not in the way he’d opened up to her probing without a fight. He let out another sigh as he remembered one of their worse confrontations. Eventually, Arthur had learned to stop pushing. Trust Cobb. That had been hard, but it’d worked. Or so he’d thought. What was it with Cobb and opening up to complete strangers, while he tried to drive off those closer to him? Arthur thought he’d done an admirable job in sticking around, all circumstances considered.
No. That line of thought wasn’t going to help. Ariadne would feel as guilty as he did. She’d accompanied Cobb all the way down to Limbo, but left near the end. She’d taken his reassurance that he’d be fine.
But he wasn’t. He hadn’t woken up. He’d been lost and trapped down there. Arthur shifted, trying to stop thinking in the same frustrating circle. “We could go back down there,” Ariadne spoke up, quietly. She’d slipped in into the space beside him, her posture questioning. He thought about the stolen kiss. Wondered why he’d done it. Her fingers lightly brushed his split knuckle. “Help him to wake up.”
Arthur was already shaking his head. “Not possible,” he said immediately. “Maybe if he was still in the dream. But now? He’s gone too deep.”
“We go all the way back down through the layers, into Limbo. And then we wake him up.”
“It’s too risky.”
“You don’t know that. You haven’t tried it.”
He took a deep breath. “No, I haven’t,” he agreed, “But I wouldn’t. There’s a reason why dreamsharing doesn’t work on people in comas, Ariadne.”
“But Cobb’s not in a coma. He’s dreaming. It’d be just like how we retrieved Fischer and how…Cobb retrieved Saito.” He didn’t miss the way she faltered when she mentioned Cobb’s name. Maybe she’d realised it wasn’t the best of examples.
“Right,” Arthur retorted bitterly, “And that worked so good?”
She frowned at him, folding her arms across her chest. “That’s not helping,” she told him tartly. “You can be an asshole when you put your mind to it, you know?”
Arthur shifted a little. Ariadne had a point, he realised. He was falling back into the only pattern he knew; lashing out at everything. Criticism. Incisive analysis. He’d settled into a working rhythm with Cobb. Cobb came up with the ideas, and Arthur tested them, forced them back to a firm grounding, shot holes in all of them so the unlikely bits went. Between Cobb’s prodding and Arthur’s criticism, they’d somehow managed to find a middle ground. Somehow managed to develop brilliant ideas that usually worked. Or sometimes worked.
Plans didn’t always survive first contact.
Planning with Ariadne, even in such a small conversation like this, resulted in a completely different dynamic. He took a deep breath, and let it out again, and tried to bring his frustration and anger under control before he spoke again. “Point taken,” Arthur said, by way of apology. “I don’t think we need any reminders.”
Ariadne accepted that with a nod. Still, the sharp look in her eyes didn’t quite soften. “There are going to be risks, Arthur. Sometimes…we have to take them.”
Arthur frowned, and thought about his response before he actually gave voice to it. “There are risks,” he agreed neutrally. “But this isn’t the same. Whoever who goes in there to wake Cobb up could end up in the exact same condition.”
“You wouldn’t be willing to take that risk for Cobb?” she wanted to know.
Arthur bit on his tongue and turned away. He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure if he knew what answer he would have given Ariadne. Maybe there wasn’t an answer to such questions. “It doesn’t matter,” he said at last, studying the pattern of the flooring. He could feel her eyes on him, curious. Inquiring. “It wouldn’t be possible, anyway.”
“Why not?” she challenged.
His mouth pressed into a thin, wry smile. No, not wry - more helpless than anything, and maybe a little self-deprecating. “The dream lasts as long as the somnacin in his system. When the somnacin wears off, the subject wakes up. Put all of these together, Ariadne.” He counted them off, one by one on his fingers. “The somnacin’s worn off by now. That’s why we managed to wake up. We couldn’t have woken up if the sedative hadn’t worn off.” One. “Cobb can’t dream. Not anymore.” Two. Do you still dream, Arthur? “By all rights, Cobb shouldn’t be dreaming. But he isn’t waking up. Isn’t responding.” Three. “The most we can guess at is some kind of coma state. It’s totally unexplored territory, and a dangerous job’s never the best time to play guess-and-check.” Four.
Ariadne made no reply for a while. He didn’t look at her, but he could all but feel the weight of her gaze, and the silence. Thoughtful. Considering. Assessing. “You’ve thought this out already, haven’t you? And you’ve given up on him.”
He was too tired to feel too much anger at the bald statement. At her assessment. Maybe because he knew she was right. “Maybe,” Arthur replied, evenly. “I can hope, can’t I?”
Ariadne and Arthur almost-fought on a Tuesday. A strange sort of fight, where the real issues weren’t just about whether anything could be done for Cobb. It was something slightly more personal than that. The real issues were buried deep, deep enough that underlying the entire conversation was just hints. A reflection of fire, rather than the fire itself.
Neither ever came right out and said it.
It is a Tuesday.
If walking back into his old apartment felt like a dream, he must be easily two or three layers down by now. Drowning in unreality. He weren’t sure if Ellis knew. Knew about Arthur, point man and extractor. He probably did, Arthur had guessed. As much as Arthur had done his best to slip under the radar, he was fairly certain there had been traces. Sometimes, all it too was a stupid mistake. Or some luck. The extractor wasn’t the problem either. It was the extractions he’d been with Cobb on that were a problem.
He didn’t think too hard about whether he should have been running those extractions. He’d settled for some kind of compromise, helping Cobb but not directly performing the extraction itself. Distraction. Running interference. Operations planning. That he could do.
Sure, tell that to a court, Arthur. They’d buy that.
But this? The review board commends him on an exceptional performance while on undercover assignment. Another commendation to go into that service record. The golden boy of mindcrime. Maybe a transfer to DC is in the works. Excellent work in bringing the functioning of the extraction black market to light. Nash is in custody.
And the only thing Arthur can think, right now, is what?
His brain is whirling, spinning. Reeling. Can a whole board be so wrong? And yet his memories tell him something else entirely. He’d nothing to do with Nash, other than that ill-fated job on Saito, performed for Cobol Engineering. Nash was left to Cobol Engineering, and Arthur had aided Cobb with extractions, unless -
He realises he doesn’t even recognise the man who sits among the ADs and section chief for mindcrime. Sure, he doesn’t recognise the whole room, but he’s had a good memory. Show him a face once or twice, and he’ll be able to recall it. It’s how Arthur recognises even James Kelly, whom he’s seen maybe once, and in passing. He doesn’t recognise the man who sits there as if he’s an AD. Security? Inspection? Is he even an AD?
He felt like the rug had been swept out from under his feet with a neat yank, and then he was falling. Maybe Cobb’s problems were transmissible. He’s hallucinating the whole affair - and isn’t it funny, that a dressing down wouldn’t have made Arthur question his grip on reality, but this?
UC work is difficult, he is told. Highly stressful. Light duty at his office for a while. Maybe, one of them suggests, as faces spin and blur before Arthur’s eyes before they resolve into recognisable features again, maybe a stint at Quantico, training new trainees?
He remembers little of the rest. By the time Arthur’s feet drag him, step by step outside that office, he’s wondering if the past few months really happened. If his memory is really working. When was the last time he’d checked his totem? When was the last time he’d really used it, since he’d gotten one just because Cobb had said (in that flat tone of voice) that he’d rather not risk someone else getting a breakdown?
You’re forgetting the three questions, Arthur.
Pierce’s voice. Training alone brings it back into his mind. What do you remember? How did you get here? What are you doing?
He wants to hunker down, right outside that office and try his totem. What remains of his shredded reason and his taut nerves reminds him that isn’t a good idea. Get back to the hotel, and then test your totem.
Saito, Arthur thinks, casting about for a logical reason. Could this be Saito? Could Saito have a highly-placed contact who’d created records? Service records that had convinced everyone placed above Ellis? He acknowledges the cynical counter. No. Maybe not. Did Saito even know? He wouldn’t put it past Saito. Information gathering was tricky and painstaking, but surely a man like Saito had resources at his disposal.
Nash. But Saito had left Nash for Cobol Engineering, he’d said. It all came back to Saito and Cobol.
In the end, because he’s still the sort who takes comfort in the stability of rituals, Arthur takes a quick shower first. Hangs his shirt out on a chair, tie straightened out and slung over the shirt. He should get some sleep, really, but he sits down on the bed. Bags still tossed carelessly over the place because there hadn’t been much time between arrival and when he was due to report in.
Arthur shifts the black carry-on off the bed and onto the floor. Little neat habits that make him occupy himself, so he can carry on numb and circle around the questions that swim around his brain. That he doesn’t and can’t have answers to. He isn’t sure of what he remembers. If it’s even right.
He tipped the die out of his pocket. Four pips stare up, into the light. Arthur’s breath hitches. He snatches it up, and tosses it again. Six pips. Four. Four.
His breath catches in his throat.
He’s not sure what to say. What to think. What story are they telling for Cobb? UC? Innocent man, cleared of all charges? Are they worried he’ll sue? Maybe military intel, or even CIA. There are plenty of organisations with an interest in dreamsharing, after all. What if they’re right? What if Cobb was UC, and he’s been played like a fish on a line?
No, it couldn’t be. Arthur is sure he’d have known if Cobb was with the FBI. CIA? How do you know? How could you know? A nasty little voice whispers at the back of his head. You weren’t even sure if you’d really been going UC, even when being debriefed. Debriefed, not reprimanded. Not put for a disciplinary hearing.
Thick blank spaces in his memory, here and there, where Arthur is fairly certain they’d never existed before. He tries to think about the blank spaces, the fogged over holes. Are they real? Are they there? Breathe, Arthur. Don’t panic, or you’ll never remember. Is it possible to be UC and not know it? Some kind of submerged conditioning thing? Is it even possible to do that to a person? Bury something so deep down in their mind that they don’t even realise it’s there?
Inception. No, not inception. A kind of inception. A whole persona, a whole story. Why did he help Cobb?
Breathe, Arthur. This isn’t helping.
Would you even know if someone had been in your head and rummaged around your mind?
Real. He needed something real. Arthur wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming, or just gone mad right now. Add an aspirin. His head is starting to hurt. How did he get here? Flight to DC. Pounding.
Daniel Foster’s voice makes him realise the pounding isn’t just in his head. It’s on the door. It’s like trying to think through a head of vodka or something. Arthur makes it over to the door, opens it. Daniel Foster. Came with him from LA to DC. Foster frowns at him. Looks concerned. “Here. Brought you an aspirin. You looked pretty out of it.”
Oh, new question of the day. How did he know? Foster is frowning, saying something else. Arthur doesn’t register what, until the door is closed, and he finds himself in a chair. Foster’s saying something. So distant. A murmur against his skull. What do you remember?
An aspirin and a glass of cold water, pushed into his hand. Arthur gulps them down gratefully. Mechanically. Thanks Foster. Go back on autopilot, Arthur. Get some sleep. Things can start making sense tomorrow. In the morning. Good thing Foster popped the childproof cap, or he’d be batting at the container of aspirin until it broke.
If he’s said any of this out loud, Foster’s face shows no sign of it.
Foster’s said something. Arthur blinks, and tries to focus. “Sorry?”
“That’s a lot of scars,” Foster says, neutrally.
Gardner, Cobb, and Cobb again, where the bullet went straight through his thigh. Funny that he’s never really been able to scar ‘well’, if there’s ever such a term. One line of keloid that curves along his shoulder-blade, to the right. One deep, ugly red-purple, stiffened against his skin along his lower back, where the knife had caught him.
He feels the weight of Foster’s scrutiny, eyes on the history and the proof of the past he carries like tattoos on his skin. Arthur considers briefly if it’s worth the effort to yank on his shirt. Decides he can’t be bothered.
Slumps back in his chair. Closes his eyes. Waits for the aspirin to work. “Yeah,” he says, after what seems to be an awfully long time. Left with his thoughts. “Hey, if you need to go, just let yourself out.”
Way to talk to the guy heading your squad. Right now, Arthur doesn’t particularly care.
It was a Tuesday.
Everything was right where he left it. He’d left on a Wednesday. Arthur wondered if that meant he’d lost a day, or gained slightly under a week, if he ignored the intervening gap of months. It was becoming steadily easier to do just that. He took a step forward. Wondered if he could taste the layer of dust weighing the air he breathed into his lungs. Flicked on the light. Glanced around and felt an acute sense of unfamiliarity, of not-belonging. Felt like a stranger, a ghost haunting a home that only vaguely stirred some sensation of familiarity in him. It was that sort of quiet detachment that enveloped him now, with a cool and calm quality that slid across him like glass.
Memories stirred in the corners of the room, caked with dust, maybe a few cobwebs. Too frightened to shift directly into the illumination of the electric lighting. Arthur took another step forward. And another. Felt Arthur, extractor and Cobb’s point man dissolve away like crinkled paper stirred in a glass of water. It wasn’t clean, more a ragged-edged separation of two selves, two beings, and two identities, where one could no longer persist.
Traces of the extractor lingered. Arthur set the PASIV case down on the table, and tried to dispel the lingering sense of uncertainty, frustration, and disquiet. As if he’d spent so long in rented lodgings and hotels all around the world that he couldn’t even fit back into his own home.
Dreams always seemed to confuse a person’s perception of time, to make them feel as if they’d spent much longer gone than they really had. Arthur was feeling every single one of those dream minutes as if they’d really happened. In a sense, they had. His clock and his calendar said he hadn’t been gone for that long.
He fished around in his pocket and left the ochre die upturned next to the brushed-silver PASIV. It sat there, like an unasked question. Arthur felt his lips move in a grim smile. Dark humour, that. He’d asked the questions too many times.
Well-executed undercover assignment. Saito must have gone above Ellis’ head. Maybe to a well-placed AD or something. He’d never even received orders to that effect. Maybe it was Saito. Arthur had tried to raise the business man over the phone, but Saito had been uncontactable. So much for that.
In the dim lighting at the corners of the room where sharp light met ill-defined shadow, the previous months and years seemed too much like a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Arthur hung his coat neatly on an unoccupied chair, left his bags on the living room floor. Occupying himself with physical tasks, and letting his mind drift, he could almost believe that. None of it had happened. Unreal.
He snorted and wondered if this clash of distinct identities was what Eames had to deal with when forging. Sometimes, the line in the sand was sharp and clearly-drawn. Right now, he wasn’t too sure about that. Wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten who he was supposed to be. He left the die lying where it was, didn’t touch it and went to make himself a cup of coffee. Old, familiar motions, to lay the ghosts that lingered like strands of cobwebs in untouched corners.
It was a Tuesday.
Ariadne stirred her coffee, and tried not to look interested. She failed. The half-eaten sandwich sat on her plate, all but discarded. He could all but sense that she was hovering impatiently, on the verge of just asking him to spill the news. He answered her question anyway. “The same,” he said, before she could really ask. “No better.” No worse. Maybe that’s more optimistic than Arthur’s been looking for right now.
“Has Miles said anything?”
Arthur shrugged. The last time he’d gone, it had been just for a short while. He hadn’t wanted to linger, and he certainly didn’t want to discuss Cobb’s condition with the doctor. He doubted the doctor would have done so anyway. Arthur wasn’t in any way related to Cobb, and this kind of patient-related information would be held under strict confidentiality.
The last time Arthur had gone, Miles hadn’t been there. He hadn’t really talked to Miles since they’d gotten back to LA. Maybe Miles was back in Paris, back to his job. They were all, he thought ironically, back to the little corners they’d set out for themselves. Doing the same things they’d used to do.
Ariadne studied him intently, opened her mouth to say something.
Arthur asked, “How’s your studies going?”
She frowned, but said, warily, “Fine. One more semester, and I’ll be able to file for graduation.” Pause. “How’s...well, what are you doing?”
Another shrug. “Work,” Arthur said evasively. “Went back to my old job.” And everything went on as usual. He’d had a job and a life before he’d met Cobb. As odd as it seemed, he did have one, separate from Cobb. Those jobs were in-betweens, filling in the spaces between the times he’d spent back in the States, working. Dreamsharing brought them all closer together, but sometimes, Arthur wondered if it was the only thing.
Wondered if what Ariadne’s question really was, “What are you doing without Cobb?”
Fine, Arthur thought. He was doing perfectly fine. He wondered if, in some way, that was the wrong answer.
It was a Tuesday.
Cobb woke up on a Tuesday.
It was a Tuesday when Cobb woke up. Arthur hadn’t known, hadn’t visited the facility in at least two months. Two months, since he’d been assigned to Quantico on a brief training stint and taught a bunch of bright, fresh-faced young trainees the basics of dreamsharing, instead of Chase.
For some reason, they reminded him of Ariadne and the Fischer job, though none of them had the quick, intuitive way she grasped concepts, or any of her creative brilliance. Nothing of the way she or Cobb so easily pushed boundaries and took concepts that Arthur was familiar with to whole new levels.
Arthur supposed he could be grateful for that. Anything like that in sessions would have stirred up memories. Instead, he kept it nice and safe. Lectures on the theory behind dreamsharing. One or two practicals. Mentioned the standard three questions that an extractor always had to ask him or herself. Stressed their importance. He said nothing about totems, although he was very much aware of the one in his pocket.
Totems weren’t part of standard operating procedure.
Privately, Arthur wondered if he’d ever believed Cobb could have woken up. Would have woken up. He kept warding off such thoughts, telling himself that there was so much uncertainty involved. Cobb’s case was the first of its kind. Hopefully the last. They had no way of knowing what was to be expected.
Beneath the platitudes, he wasn’t too surprised to discover he’d all but written Cobb off for dead. Had thought it wasn’t possible, or even likely that Cobb would ever wake up. Thought that Saito had bought Cobb a living coffin, and had probably paid for the funeral to go with it to. The least he could do for the man who had been lost trying to save him.
After the first unsuccessful call, Arthur hadn’t even bothered trying to call Saito again.
Then, Miles had called him, the week after Arthur had returned to LA. “Cobb’s woken up,” was all he said. Arthur wasn’t even sure why or how Miles had ended up in town. Maybe the doctor had contacted Miles, as the next-of-kin. Arthur vaguely recalled something about a cousin, but the woman had only been present at Mal’s funeral and had left after that. She probably wasn’t going to give a damn about Cobb’s condition.
He stepped out of the elevator. Funny how he remembered how to get to the ward, even though he hadn’t been there in months. Two months since he’d seen Cobb. Muscle atrophy must have started to sink in. There had been a catch, Arthur thought. Something Miles wasn’t telling him. Miles must have been at the hospital. Maybe it was bad. Arthur couldn’t quite see how things could get worse.
Miles was waiting in the corridor outside the ward. “Arthur,” he acknowledged, as Arthur came down the corridor. Expression so carefully blank that all of Arthur’s instincts were screaming at him, saying that something hadn’t gone well. Not good.
Sharp nod. “How’s he?”
Miles hesitated. “He’s awake.”
Awake. A few days ago, Arthur wouldn’t even have bet on that happening. Now, his heart hammered in his chest anyway. He was swimming again, tugging at Cobb, trying to wake him up. He was saying, “He’ll be lost.”
He’d been right then. But Cobb had woken up. Just that there was another ‘but’. Arthur hadn’t hoped for much, had never been hopeful about the result. But now that Cobb had woken up, contrary to expectations, he felt a stubborn flicker of hope, deep within his chest. Painfully tight to breathe. Throat locked.
“There’s something else.” Arthur thought about all the consequences of waking up from Limbo that he could think of. It had driven Mal mad, hadn’t it? Psychological harm, possible dissociation, that was what had happened to Cobb. Cobb’s voice recited the list in his head. Paranoia, possible addiction, compulsive behaviour, thrill-seeking, utterly reckless attitudes…
Cobb had said that, so long ago, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in Arthur’s apartment, eyes very evidently somewhere else.
Arthur forced his mind back to the present.
A wry, gentle smile. Miles nodded. Arthur wondered why Miles was acting like he was going to break, or go crazy or something. “He can’t remember anything,” Miles said quietly. “He had a violent panic attack, and they had to sedate him. He’s awake right now, and in restraints.”
Some go crazy. Some forget. Paranoia, possible addiction...
Arthur almost laughed. It wasn’t because he found it funny. It was a dark kind of humour, the only way he could deal with this. Cobb had woken up. Cobb didn’t remember anything. They had to sedate him. Put him in restraints. Violent panic attacks.
It never ended, did it? There was a roaring in his ears. For a moment, the world had grown awfully distant and quiet. Narrowed down to a single doorway, a single choice. This was going to be ugly. He could do what he’d done for the past two months. More than that. Go home. Forget about Cobb. He’d already written Cobb off, given him up for lost, hadn’t he?
Hope. The fragile flame, cupped in his hands. A choice that wasn’t really a choice. One way or another, he’d come. They both knew he was going to push that door open. Was that how Pandora had felt?
“Don’t mention anything about the lost time to him,” Miles added. Was that compassion that Arthur read in his features? “Don’t distress him. He’s…not taking this too well.”
Well, was there a good way to take losing at least twenty years of your life? Arthur wasn’t sure how he’d react if he’d known he’d lost his memory. Probably go absolutely crazy. Still, he nodded to Miles. “Point taken.”
He pushed open the door.
Arthur’s first thought was that Cobb looked a lot worse than Arthur had thought. Two months. Time hadn’t been kind to him. He was set up in five-points, and for a moment, Arthur’s mind blurred the face. McKinney, not Cobb. He blinked, forced himself to remember. McKinney hadn’t quite been resolved. As far as Arthur knew it was one dead end after another. Cobb looked like he’d reached the end of the line.
Muscle atrophy. He wondered if they’d intubated him. There was no IV line, and the IV stand had been hastily wheeled away to the corner of the room. Arthur wondered what that meant - Cobb had fought the IV? Tore the needle out? Tried to strangle himself or someone with the line?
Blue eyes stared at him, sunken and hollow. No recognition. Nothing.
“Who the hell are you?” Cobb asked.
Arthur wanted to laugh, almost-hysterically. He didn’t know what else to say. What else to do. The nurse on duty shot him a warning look. Arthur shoved his hands in the pocket of his jacket, and tried to think about what he was going to say.
I used to be your colleague. Maybe your friend.
No, scratch that. You used to be a criminal. I work with law enforcement. Used to investigate you. Tried to clear your name. It didn’t work out.
Don’t mention anything about lost time.
“Someone you knew,” Arthur said, very carefully.
“It’s always someone I knew.”
The tone hadn’t changed. Still bitter, and still sharp enough to cut. It used to be about Mal. Now it was about the past. The past that Cobb couldn’t remember. Why, Arthur wondered. Was it because Cobb had lived a whole lifetime down there in Limbo, and when he came back, it was just too much for his brain to accept, so it’d blocked out the memories?
How the mind worked was a mystery. Some people thought it would never be entirely explained. Arthur wasn’t sure they’d actually be able to know precisely why Cobb remembered nothing. Why the mind chose to block access to certain memories. Trauma? Something else entirely?
He just shrugged in answer to what Cobb had said. Didn’t know what he could really say in response to it. Blue eyes narrowed. Cobb was slurring his words. Sedated, probably. Miles mentioned they had to sedate him, before putting him into restraints.
“What’s your name?”
“Arthur.”
Was that maybe a glimmer of recognition? “You’re dead.” Flatly delivered, and so immediate that Arthur could have sworn it was reflexive.
“Well,” Arthur said, sounding a lot more flippant than he felt, “I’m probably the liveliest dead person you’ll see around.”
“Dead,” Cobb murmured. He turned his head to the side, and said, fiercely, “They’re all dead. I don’t want to talk to you.”
Arthur took a cautious step forward. And then another, until he was finally by Cobb’s bedside. Pressed Cobb’s fingers against his wrist. Let Cobb feel the pulse there, beating. “We’re not dead,” he said, as gently as he could. Calm. Soothing. Reassuring. “You’ve been unconscious for a long time. They’re just dreams, Cobb. You’re going to be okay.”
Just dreams. As if dreams couldn’t harm a person. Arthur should have known that all too well by now. Cobb. Mal. McKinney. Davies. The list just went on and on. Some days, he wondered if it was worth it, all the things dreamsharing let them do. Then again, it was a stupid question. He’d mostly joined the FBI because of mindcrime. Because it was one of several legal avenues to dreamsharing.
Hadn’t thought about how everything seemed to be at least ninety-five percent paperwork. Though it wasn’t as if the other five percent didn’t make up for it. Sometimes.
At some point in time, he realised he was just repeating, ‘It’s okay,’ and Cobb’s fingers had closed around his hand. The harsh rhythm of Cobb’s breathing had evened out, which was something at least.
Arthur felt a tug on his arm. The nurse pointed at the door, and Arthur nodded, and carefully extricated his hand. Pulled away. Turned to leave.
“Not real,” Cobb murmured wearily, and then he closed his eyes.
Arthur wasn’t sure what could be said. He left.
It was a Tuesday.
Arthur always ended up visiting Cobb on a Tuesday. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe the regularity of the visits gave them both something stable to hold on to. As far as Arthur was concerned, he did his best to find a way to make it in every Tuesday. That Tuesday was one of the better days. Cobb oscillated between recalling details, maybe a face, a name, an incident, to almost nothing. The inability to recall frustrated Cobb, and sometimes he had one of his violent attacks.
One thing Arthur learned to do was to leave the gun at work or at home before he visited Cobb. Just in case. He remembered the Mal incident all too well, and didn’t plan on seeing if Cobb’s aim got better (he knew Cobb was a better shot than that, from the experience of too many dreams with hostile projections.)
Cobb sat up on the bed, propped up by pillows and said, “You came back.” He always said that, every time Arthur visited him. No recognition, nothing from their past. Any memory Cobb had of him was mostly since Arthur had taken to visiting him at the hospital. Little mention about his children. Arthur wasn’t sure who that was kinder to - Cobb or his children. It wasn’t his decision to make, although he might not have agreed with it.
Maybe Cobb’s children might have triggered some kind of memory. He wasn’t sure. He thought they stood a better chance than he did. Whatever it was, Doctor M. Varun still believed that Arthur’s visits helped. That talking to Cobb helped. So that was what Arthur did. He’d have done it even if Dr Varun hadn’t told him to.
Arthur shrugged, and took a seat. No more restraints, since Cobb hadn’t had an attack in a while. Still, the room was painfully devoid of anything that could be used to harm. No decorations, no accessories. Bed was firmly bolted down. Table was blunt-edged and secured as well. Cobb wasn’t allowed sharp utensils. Kept under constant watch.
The chair would go when Arthur did. They both knew that by now.
“It’s Tuesday,” Arthur said, by way of explanation. He always said that, in response. Every single Tuesday. They had their own little rituals, their own little ways of ensuring some kind of continuity. That everything was alright with the world.
“Four o’clock,” Cobb agreed, transferring his stare to the clock that hung on the wall. He said nothing for a bit. Arthur wasn’t sure where to start. What cues to read. Once, he and Cobb had reached the stage where a glance, a motion of the fingers, a soft cough - any of these signalled something, with so many nuances he could understand. Now, he was back at the blank wall, guessing. Communicating.
Sometimes, words were all they had. Sometimes, words weren’t enough to bridge that new gap.
Maybe it was going to be one of those visits where they said nothing for the whole duration. Arthur looked at his watch. He could deal with that, the waiting and the silence. Dr Varun had told him to keep talking to Cobb about anything. On his better days, Cobb wanted Arthur to talk to him about the past, to fill in the gaps that had opened up in his memory.
Arthur wasn’t sure they didn’t both have gaps.
Cobb spoke up first, matter-of-factly. “Mal didn’t like you very much,” he said. “She thought I shouldn’t talk to you.”
Arthur tried not to stiffen. Didn’t, Cobb had said. When was the past? Was this before Limbo, in Limbo, after? He realised his fingers had curled tightly around the sides of the chair and made them relax. Cobb was watching him, a sly gleam in his bright eyes.
“You didn’t get on very well with her, did you?”
Arthur elected for honesty. “I didn’t even know her.” Better than to begin explaining to Cobb about projections and the insane projection of his wife that had been lurking around in his head until Cobb had tried building a whole world, a whole prison of memories to block her access to his conscious mind. Until she had started breaking free and slipping out into dreams.
“Oh,” Cobb said. He frowned, looking somewhat cheated. Sometimes, he remembered things, in fleeting snatches. All Dr Varun had said was that they had to be patient, and hope things would come back in time. Arthur wondered when those memories were from. If they were going to stay. Sometimes, they didn’t.
“So, why’re you still talking to me?”
Cobb shrugged, his expression oddly open. “It gets rather boring here,” he said. “Miles doesn’t say too much. You’re the only one who knew me from…” Muscles tightened. Arthur carefully made sure he could stand, clear of the chair if there proved to be any problems. He watched Cobb, until Cobb relaxed. Arthur let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. No violent attacks. Not today, anyway. The last one had been bad enough. Another day on chemical restraints, before they realised Cobb had a resistance to them. They’d gone back to the good old physical restraints. “From back then,” Cobb said, vaguely. And then, the quiet offering, “And I don’t think you’re that bad.”
Wonderful. A vote of confidence from a semi-insane Cobb. Arthur wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
“Thanks.” I guess. He cast about for something to talk about. Something else. Anything else. “What’ve you been doing?” He knew the answers already. Sessions with his physiotherapist. Maybe reading the papers. Doing crosswords. There was little enough to do in a hospital. Sometimes, Arthur wondered if it was possible to die from sheer boredom.
“Physical therapy,” Cobb answered, easily. “Recommended bed rest. I’ve been…sleeping long enough.” Arthur caught the hesitation. How do you tell what is a dream and what isn’t?
“You could check your totem,” he offered.
Cobb made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Won’t let me. Nothing I can hurt people with, remember?” Something hollow moved in his eyes when he said that, as if stating a fact. It was a fact. Arthur looked away first. Felt something twist inside him. Thought of crouching down inside a hotel room, and tossing his die on the floor again and again until he was certain. He wasn’t sure which idea frightened him more - that this wasn’t someone else’s dream, or that he had holes in his memory. Might have holes in his memory.
He didn’t think too hard about the other option.
“I’ll speak to Dr Varun about it,” Arthur offered.
Small inscrutable smile. “Thanks.”
Well, screw it. This was starting to get vaguely familiar. Arthur shifted a little in his chair. Wondered what had happened to Cobb’s totem, who had it, or if Cobb even remembered how his worked, how to use it. Could he even continue to use a compromised totem?
Touchstone. The memory lingered, drawn by the mention of totems like iron to a lodestone. Simple, galvanic, and clean. Arthur didn’t know how to go about explaining to Cobb that his totem was compromised, wasn’t sure how he could even begin to talk about a meeting in a flat in Vietnam to Cobb.
I need a touchstone. Someone I can trust.
Well, it hadn’t worked out that well, had it? There was the Fischer job. And there was now, after Cobb had woken up. Two months in which Arthur had done perfectly fine and gone about his life. And there was now. Visiting Cobb every Tuesday.
Trust? He wasn’t that reliable. Not by a long shot.
Do you even remember how your totem works? He wanted to ask Cobb. He didn’t ask it. Maybe some things, some actions were ingrained far deeper than memory.
“Do you dream?” Cobb asked him. His smile was suitably enigmatic.
For some reason, the question shook him. It’d come out of the blue, and so suddenly that he didn’t quite know why Cobb was asking him. They hadn’t spoken too much about extraction. The strange thing was, the more Arthur thought about it, the more he realised they’d talked about enough things, and very little of them actually pertained to the past. As if they’d both avoided some of the touchier issues by common consensus. Or as if no matter how much he tried to fill Cobb in, he’d always defaulted to giving Cobb the sanitised version, no contest about that.
Arthur said, casually, “Sometimes.”
“I don’t,” Cobb said. Bluntly honest. “At least, not anymore.”
I think, he didn’t add. But Arthur heard it anyway.
Arthur stared at him, waiting. Wondering if Cobb was hiding something. Wondering if there was something Cobb wasn’t telling him. Except how would he know? He hadn’t known the last time. Or maybe he had, but he’d turned a blind eye. Assumed Cobb would have let him know if it was something important. Hadn’t dared to push.
Hesitation, Arthur?
He almost laughed out loud, humourlessly. Still too tentative, after all this time. Still too afraid to commit, and still too afraid to push.
What a screwed up touchstone.
“Why’s it so important to dream?”
Silence. Cobb looked at him. He was frowning, as if he was trying to remember. He said, slow and hesitating, “I wish I knew.”
Cobb had to be put back in restraints when he grabbed Arthur, manhandled him and slammed him hard against a wall.