CHAPTER 1
On the flight

Disclaimer: Chris Nolan and WB owns everything. I just dream my little dream because they let me. I had to make some amendments. This is my first ever fanfic so I would appreciate it the feedback. I'm a big believer in love triangles, and I am a D/A fan so you know where I'm leaning.

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She still knows how to dream, even after all that, she thinks. She's waiting to become like him – someone who can't dream. She remembers much too clearly, the probing questions, the inquisition.

Do you know what it is to be a lover?

The tone is drawn out, and Ariadne knows that the question does not quite pertain to whether she's actually had sex before but whether she has felt the weight of all that that word implies. Been burdened with the responsibility, been burnt by the passion.

No, she has never been a lover. Odd, because now she knows it isn't really Mal asking the question as the projection stalks around her, but him.

But that's it. That's what draws her back here, back to a hotel room that she has never been in, to a window that she has never climbed out of, to the broken shards of glass that implied a violence that never actually happened.

She has never felt devotion of this magnitude before, but as she bears witness to this madness in her own world, she realizes that she does feel.

She waits by the riverside, clinging to the arms of a friend as they shiver in their sodden clothes.

"No, he'll be alright," she says with conviction. He nods, not knowing the wiser.

Sometimes she's waiting by the riverside alone, sometimes Arthur is with her. Sometimes the whole team is there. Sometimes she dives into the river, trying to get back to that crumbling city, and always Arthur holds her back. Arthur always does this by the riverside, all this because of that stolen kiss which barely even registered. She has to be honest with herself – of course it registered, otherwise it wouldn't be Arthur that would always hold her back.

It's pointless she knows, she isn't experienced enough to go into limbo by herself though she knows where all his markers are. He may not even be in his fantasy metropolis, hoping that he is chasing someone through their version of limbo and trying to get back home.

She never thought of herself as a sentimental creature before, but that was before she knew that sentimentality of this depth existed. She knows that part of this is a form of fangirl obsession – how can anyone not be in awe in the presence of true love? The fact that she is not the object of such affection didn't matter. What she could not ignore was the sense of connection, tenuous but true. She was not supposed to use real memories, but she can't help it. Her subconscious reexamines every inflection, every interaction.

She watched herself watching someone else saying goodbye to a shade. This is her basement. Whatever happens, no one else can know how much her face lit up when he says he would follow, that he would not lose himself and that he would come back. She watches herself stare out into the river, waiting. She's not supposed to use her memories, but where else can she prod her subconscious for clues? She is sitting at the corner café where she first learned to create worlds of her own.

As suddenly as she figured out she was in a dream that first time, she realizes that she no longer knows how to dream. She knows what guilt is like now. The mark had to be brought back. When she jumped off the window, she thought he would find his way. He said he would find Saito, but that was before she saw both bodies still stuck in the van and she kicks herself for not staying longer to make sure he was really alright. She pushed herself into this whole mess so that everyone else would be spared from the monsters in his head, but what she wants now more than anything is to kill those monsters for him. She knows it isn't her responsibility and he said so in those last moments before she jumped, yet she feels she owes him that much.

So she waits by the river, by the bridge, in all the places they've been together alone. But more often than not she goes back to the hotel room, where he can taunt her again and where his truth blends with her own. She can't bring herself to go to the beach, because Mal and the kids are there even in her own dreams.

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Eames and Arthur eye her as she dozes in her seat, concerned she was still napping though she was no longer connected to the PASIV. She thinks none of them are connected to the machine as Fischer wakes. She can't go back for him now, but she can't allow her eyes to betray her panic so she wills herself back to the Land of Nod. Truth is they were still halfway through the flight, and it would be several hours before they land. The compartment is dark yet she spies Cobb and Saito still sleeping. She resists Arthur's attempts to stir her awake behind her.

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Her mentor. Her leader. Her hero…? All right there's hero worship there. More like anti-hero worship. The tragic hero dying for love. She wanted him to live for love. She followed because she thought she understood. Because he asked her "Do you know what it is to be a lover?".

No. I have never been a lover, nor a half of a whole. What I know about tragic heroes that die for love, I learned it from you. All I know of dreaming, I learned from you. All I know of guilt, I learned from you. Come back and then maybe I'll be free.

She still doesn't understand why she feels guilty about the situation, only that she does.