On a field of grass, where no one goes poof
On a field of grass, where no one goes poof
Disclaimer: This is actually a crossover of sorts. I wonder if anyone will recognize it? I gave in. I give up. I need a little bit of fluff. Oh dear. Not beta'd.
In memoriam: Scar and Daybreak II.
A/N: This is a rewrite, after having left it deliberately ambiguous. I was uncommitted when I first wrote this, on the verge of Abandoning Ship. Not because I prefer the other, but mostly because I just feel it is too early for the Ship Wars to start, and I'm not sure where Nolan wants this to go (if it would even go anywhere). Attempting to divine the intentions of God (aka Nolan) is awfully frightening, and there's a part of me that'S afraid that once Nolan decides then maybe all this ickyness on my part would have all been for nothing. But now I know that while we have no idea where Nolan will take this 'verse, this story needed to show its backbone. If nothing else, Inception is about emotional honesty.
She weeps and she is not alone. He is always with her even when they are apart, and yet so distant though she could see his shoes in the periphery of her vision. Star-crossed, her husband called them, before he took the bullet while Topside that left her here on her knees with her tears dropping on the headstone etched with his name.
Her husband had known. He had always known that there was a part of her that he couldn't touch, that he was not allowed to see. Yet he was patient with her anyway, indulging the ardent facade she put up for him. For all of them.
It was stupid. The quadrangle of doom. It would have been a soap opera if there had been secret trysts and love children (her infertility took care of that).
But there were children. They've always understood, more than they let on. Sometimes she suspects that they were actually rooting for her to do... something. There is no denying that she loves them. They adopted her, much to the surprise and chagrin of both men.
But most worrying of all was the devotion they had for each other. Their bond was stronger than blood or legal contract could break. They were practically married. So they let the marriage to one of them go on as if it, she, wasn't a wedge between them. Or as if one of them was not this space in her marriage, which they were unaware was doomed.
-aadaadaada-
"What the hell is your problem?", her fists pushing against his chest and breaking contact.
"You! You're my problem," he barks.
Outside at the hotel bar, her fiance is in a drunken stupor post-bachelor party revelry. The occasional jeer can be heard through the door while the remaining guests finish off the liquid party favors. Here, inside what would be her honeymoon suite tomorrow night, she is splayed out on her back on a coffee table under his best man with a nearly empty bottle of rum and shot glasses littering the floor.
"I dare you," he whispers all matter of fact. "I double dog dare you." His eyes meet hers as if it was nothing more than him asking her to recite the names of all the pillar forms of ancient Greece, though the corners of his mouth betrayed the import of his words.
He gets off, shaking his head as if the act would shake away the moment of weakness, the memory.
Hunger. Desperation. He pushes her against he edge of the table and the shot glasses tinkle down to the floor. Barely reigning in the violence that he didn't recognize from himself, smashing his mouth onto hers, he was not gentle. He had no coherent thoughts, he had no thoughts. Her eyes were open, willing his azure blues to look at her, while his hands roughly pull down her pants.
"There's no need to rush...", she manages to get out, kicking off her shoes all the while, her pants pooling around her ankles.
He wasn't listening, and she realizes he's so lost he CAN'T hear anything. This moment, which she knew would come eventually, was not the fusion she thought it would be. There was no strengthening of their undeniable connection here. In fact it was actually waning, as if it was getting as lost as him and she will be damned (more than she is already) if this is how he chooses to sever the tie that binds them.
"There is no...this," his finger moving in the space between them as he steps back.
"No," she slurs as she props herself on her elbows. "I'm not a problem. I am moving on, getting hitched and all. You see, I have no problem with the living. That... that my dear would be you."
He looks at her, his eyes the frostiest she's seen them. Her mouth was kiss-swollen, and he regretted that he had done that and regrets that he does regret.
Suddenly he is hovering over her, grabbing her neck and covering her mouth with his, all angry and something else. She barely registers the contact and then it was over with no apologies. He leaves the room as she slides down to the floor reaching for the last shot of liquid courage remaining in the bottle. "To cliches," she toasts to herself, her sad tipsy laughter echoing around her.
The sense of connection was thick in the air.
-aadaadaada-
"I love you," she insists.
"But you would die for him."
"Just as you would die for him too."
His eyes sting because that last response was a statement of fact. He walks to the door and deigns to look back. He knows what he will find there, his wife's form huddled around his injured, sleeping one. They said it would be the last time they would all work together, the last time every single time. But he knew they couldn't stay away from each other, all three of them.
He knew his wife was faithful in her own way, yet she never asked him to share her dreams with her. He knew she still dreamed. And he knew that he was dreaming again, his dead wife no longer a deadly phantasm flitting about in his head.
A lock of blonde hair fell over his brow, and she smoothed it back. His face was a mishmash of color, lumpy and swollen almost unrecognizable. She would know him anywhere, proven as she saw through all his forgeries (Cobb learned from Eames as quickly as he picked up extraction from Mal, even besting the Brit). She always found him in every one of their last jobs. That should have told him all he needed to know. He was helpless now and cannot protect them.
Ariadne didn't realize she was prescient. Her husband did not let the current matter go. His suit clad figure cast a shadow across the floor before he left to clean up the botched job.
Despite everything, he loves them both, as well as the two blonde teens dozing in the sofa of the hospital suite. That was his final thought before his vision faded to black for the last time, his blood pooling along with those of the traitor client and passel of henchmen.
- aadaadaada-
"They're both gone!," the teenage girl shouts. "I don't understand why you people can't be adult about this. I mean, what is wrong with just being happy with the here and now? It's been years!"
Cobalt eyes meet cobalt eyes as he shrugs, "Because I love them both."
She sighs in exasperation.
"What is this cult of misery you people worship? I am going to tie you both up and maroon you on a deserted island."
She's too young to understand that love isn't what Hollywood movies make it, that sometimes people don't know what to do with the chance at redemption handed to them. In the grand scheme of things, the heavens had been generous with its second and third and so on chances. Yet he was no longer built for peace and he stopped believing he deserved it a long time ago. He doesn't know what story she repeats to herself, but likely it comes to the same conclusion as his does. They've gotten used to their complications, the two of them left behind.
They stopped working in Dreamshare in honor of his memory. Eames makes sure no one ever made contact and they've settled into quiet, private lives.
-aadaadaada-
On the anniversary of the shooting they gather to pay respect. Sometimes they were a big group, the whole extended family coming together in silence. The last three years, it was just the two of them.
Her hair is now short with a touch of gray while his hairline recedes further yet he still manages to look like a rake in his twilight years. They never see each other outside of this, though he knows Phil and James seeher everyday and make that point to him every chance they got. Ariadne had opened up a counseling practice in LA, specializing in managing substance abuse (and similar) cases. He knows how she is doing, despite the absence of contact.
She knows how he has been, his occasional forays into urban planning consultation work were a matter of public record. Despite his attempts at isolation, the world clamored for his talent. Under his eye, dry patches of dirt, junkyards and seemingly useless real estate were transformed into parks and creative open spaces replete with both functional and decorative sculptures and other works of art. The cemetery itself was a client. New mourning walls and marble dais were carefully laid out across the area, providing peaceful and private areas for communion and reflection. He gave peace to others that he barely had in himself.
They barely look at each other during these visits, and they never actually spoke (to each other). There had never been any accidental touches. Yet they felt no space anymore between them. Today however, today, they felt it. The tug. In their advanced age it shouldn't matter what they are, they just are. Her husband would have wanted them to be happy, after all they were his best friends.
"They're not coming back," his voice gravelly from disuse. He no longer sees them in his dreams, and he wonders if she understands.
"Neither am I."
His head perks up, unsure if she understood or if he miscalculated again.
The grass swirls around them as the wind picks up. He reaches out and holds her hand. She doesn't go.