001 [Video]
[The camera flickers on, revealing a man sitting in a chair, spinning a top on a table. The area around him seems to be nondescript, abandoned. His clothing is soaking wet, but he doesn't seem to be paying attention to that. Weightier issues press on his mind
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He clears his throat. ]
You make it sound like a trip to the principal's office.
[ Not quite, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
He pauses. ]
Tell me what's around - what you see, or show me with the device. I'll come get you.
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[It's a rare time that the first thought becomes Dom's first words. He ignores the principal statement. It's erroneous and not necessary right now.
Focus and push forward. Make note of things. This is no longer him, it's the team, and the crisis needs to be dealt with.]
A building two blocks from the beach. Not my beach.
Arthur, you should be currently on an airplane, waiting for Saito and I to wake up.
Explain to me why you came in after me.
[It's the only thing he can think happened.]
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[ That much they can openly agree on. ]
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I don't know where we are, [ Dom, he always thinks, ] Cobb. [ He always says.
There's a pause. ] I don't even know how we got here. [ Which says plenty of course but not nearly enough - which seems to be happen a lot. ]
But everyone on the team's here except Saito. Us. And a bunch of other people.
You'll see.
[ Projections? The truth is, lately, Arthur's second-guessing that one a lot more than he'd like to admit but they'll get to that. ]
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[There is a tone that is, 'really, Arthur'. Yes, he can be sardonic, even in the tenseness of this.
But focus again. He wants to see face, but he won't ask. He'll listen, nod. Worrying that Arthur has clearly been here for some time. They all have been.
They might not be his, exactly.
If someone managed to compromise him, here--it would lead to very interesting things--most of which he couldn't fathom.
It's worrying, to say the least.]
Hurry up.
Fischer--is he here?
[He needs to know if that man who says he isn't Fischer, but has his face--he needs to know if Arthur knows.]
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[ The look he gives the device is sharp, unhappy, and anyone around to see it wouldn't miss the clench to his jaw but this is just audio for a reason, partially to buy Arthur himself time to prioritize, reemploy the practicality that sets him into place better than most other things. Anyway, the only answer for 'hurry' is a frustrated huff of breath. To the other thing however, he responds quickly, ]
I don't think it's him. I haven't gotten close enough to find out. He sounds like him, looks like him, but I'm pretty sure that's where the similarities stop.
[ He sighs. ]
How do you feel? Other than cold.
[ Part of him, most of him expects to have that question bypassed, have Dom redirect the conversation for more answers Arthur may or may not have, but he asks anyway. ]
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The team shouldn't be here.
The gambit--it's somehow failed, and it's his fault. It's not rational, but he feels that somehow he's doomed them all to this strange limbo. What had he missed? He had covered every angle, every detail.
But as Arthur had proven, things slip through cracks.
Perhaps Limbo is something else entirely. ]
I'm fine.
The wedding ring is gone.
[He knows he should keep it off network, like Arthur said, but he needs to get it out. It's the most telling thing he can say to explain how he 'feels'.]
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You-
[ Though he does not stop his hurried path for Dom, the abrupt silence is disturbed through the device only by the rush of wind buffering through the receiver. The discomfort of this newest information lodges in his throat and he's not sure what to say to that for a long moment. Dominick Cobb always has his ring in dreams. To be fair, Arthur has never been to limbo before so he supposes he wouldn't know about that in particular but the fact that Dom brings it up at all is communicative enough. In a general sense it's not new to him - the idea that the rules they've built with and on before are no longer in play - but this specific absence is the dragging, weighted sort of personal that's harder to reason around.
Why wouldn't Dom have his wedding ring? ]
Nothing's really how we're used to.
[ He admits. ]
For instance, dying doesn't wake you up.
[ The tone is plain enough: I've tried. ]
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[His tone is dry, sardonic. At this point Dom is attempting to compartmentalize, to start locking the bits and pieces up into a manageable order. When he's at the bare edges of his mind, when he can't logic anything, it's what he does. It's kept him alive, breathing, surviving for two years.
Years that should have been over by now. He would find Saito, he would bring him back--and then he would be back with his children.
But instead he is here, and his team is here, Arthur is here.
And for once Arthur has no answers, seems tired in a subtle way that isn't normal. Not the way he's come to be over the past two years, or ever the tired he was in their youth, when everything was bright and beautiful.
This tired comes with a man who simply doesn't have any answers, anymore.
It's sobering, and makes Dom only want to lock those compartments up into a tighter order. In case Arthur needs him.
Because Heaven knows it's been the opposite for too long.]
You don't believe this is Limbo, do you.
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Once when Dom was here he had arrived from a disturbing point in his memory and Arthur had been worried as to what it might mean regarding him topside. What everyone's different beliefs on when ( ... )
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Holding Mal. Watching her die. Letting go of her completely, knowing that it was the only way he'd ever be free. Moving forward towards the future.
The scariest thing he'd ever done.
Then onwards. To find Saito. To save the man who had given him the chance, the out.
To get his children back.]
Yes. The beach--going for Saito.
I assume there is more to it, then.
[Something you aren't telling him. But that's all right. He's kept enough secrets for the both of you. He regrets that, but isn't that all Dom is some days. Regrets.]
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[ More to this, more to everything. It's one of those ongoing frustrations Arthur constantly thinks he doesn't have the patience for, though his actions contradict this. He pauses. ]
I'll be there soon. Don't go anywhere else.
[ If his tone smacks a little of concern and uncertainty it's nothing new, not where Dom is involved. Arthur takes the train to the beach for the sake of time though he has no delusions about Dom taking it back. They'll end up walking, he's sure, even if Dom has never explained to him his intense dislike of trains. In the bag he has with him, Arthur has dry clothes including a heavier coat, which will do ( ... )
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Dom sighs--it's weary, with a hint of annoyance.]
I wasn't intending to, Arthur.
[Just trust him, will you? He knows it's difficult. But the tone Arthur just took with him makes him feel weary down to his bones. Perhaps even when he escapes nothing will change. They will part and things will slide by, like water over sand. ]
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Anyway, he catches the annoyance, understands where it's coming from but knows as well that Dom will know where his own mistrust stems from, how it's become a kind of defense mechanism for the two of them as one operative form. Some kind of argument is on the tip of his tongue but he swallows it back thickly and says, ] See you soon then.
[ When Arthur arrives it's as fast as possible, there not being too many buildings near the sea so that the first one he picks from the vague description is the right one, Arthur holding his breath without realizing it, ignoring the sharp and uncomfortable feeling lodging in his chest like a question, like a dozen questions all meaning the same thing: no answers. That's all he's brought with him, that and the clothes nabbed from Eames' closet since Arthur's would fit Ariadne but that's about it. There are shoes Arthur grabbed before hitting the train, all the clothes, the heavy coat, but ( ... )
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Not a shade, not a projection. Not someone forging. He needs this to be his--the person that means the most to him, besides his children. His family--something Arthur has always been a party of.]
I see you thought of everything.
[A grim smile, and a reach out to squeeze Arthur's shoulder; tactile. lean muscle under cloth.
He takes the towel then, and removes his worn coat, his shirt, and starts to work at drying himself.]
They told me you're all living in one house, now.
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Then he walks around the bare bones perimeter of the abandoned house. Concrete, ragged insides, any nondescript location they could dream up without thinking about it but he supposes he shouldn't be being choosy. At least it blocks out the wind. He glances a little worriedly at Dom as he dries off, nods. ]
Normally I'd have us split off but....this pl-- the dream isn't. [ Running a ( ... )
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