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Dom locks her totem in a safe and throws out the key. He can’t throw the totem itself away, as hard as he’s tried to put this all behind him, to leave it in the past where it belongs, where it can never haunt him again. But at the same time, he can’t stand to ruin her memory like that, not when there was so much more to her than the memory he’d trapped inside the recesses of his mind.
So he keeps it, in a sense, but not close enough where it could tempt him again. That chapter of his life is closed, done forever. He’s not going down that road again.
Philippa finds the key in the trash and wisely doesn’t ask any questions about it. She’s so young but already wiser beyond her years – her grandmother’s influence, he supposes – and she spends much of her time away from her formerly estranged father, still wary, still not completely trusting.
James, on the other hand, is always thrilled to see him and jumps into his arms at every opportunity. He shrieks with glee and Dom finds it easier to breathe. Just a little.
Marie doesn’t go back to Paris, even when it’s confirmed that Dom had nothing to do with Mal’s death. Instead she moves into the neighboring house and comes by as often as she can. At first, he thinks it’s because she doesn’t trust him enough to leave him alone with his own children and not to go back into his old habits. But as time goes on, he realizes that it’s not him – it’s the kids. She doesn’t want to leave them.
James has Mal’s laugh and Philippa has Mal’s eyes and Dom sits down with Marie on the night of his anniversary and they share a bottle of wine in silence.
Step by step, he gets back into the habit of being a parent again, of making three full meals plus snacks, of buying supplies and groceries and whatever else they might need, of driving from friends to tutoring to practice to recitals to wherever they need to go. Some days are harder than others, where he feels like he doesn’t really belong, scanning for exits, cameras, anonymous faces in a crowd. But it’s getting easier as they days go on.
He feels like he’s almost become a real person now.
It takes him a surprisingly long time to realize he hasn’t been sleeping.
He thinks it’s simple anxiety at first (as though anxiety can ever be considered “simple”), as he makes sure if he’s done everything he needs to do for tomorrow, if he tucked the kids in and turned out the light, if he turned off the stove, if he’s really safe here, if he’s really awake, if he’s no longer dreaming.
He doesn’t take the totem out.
It’s almost two months into normalcy when he caves in and tells Arthur. He was always the smart one, between the two of them, and it’s likely he’ll understand what’s been going on.
“Have you tried sleeping pills?” is Arthur’s first suggestion and Dom wonders why he bothered to contact him at all.
“I don’t want to use any sort of medicine to fix this,” he explains. “I just want to get back into the habit of sleeping unaided. Not having to go under and control my dreams to dream at all.” He thinks about the last time he had a natural dream. Nothing comes to mind, and he wonders if there might be an underlying problem to this insomnia.
“I really don’t know what to tell you, Dom,” Arthur sighs. “The mind is a tricky and delicate thing. Once you’ve messed around with it, it’s no longer the same.”
They talk a little more, awkward and casual, and Dom wipes his face when he hangs up. He looks under his bed and finds it there – the PASIV device, covered in a thin layer of dust, just waiting to be used once again.
He kicks it under further and heads into the kitchen.
James asks for a bedtime story. Philippa has grown out of them, but she makes her way into her brother’s room and sits on a chair in the corner.
Dom is hesitant, mostly because he was never the one who could tell stories, who could weave words into images into experiences into something meaningful – that was Mal. He could create, sure, just not the same way she could.
He racks his brain and sits at the edge of the bed, trying to think of any sort of fairytale he might remember well enough to tell. He clears his throat and starts out with a classic – Sleeping Beauty – and he can tell, as soon as the opening words leave his mouth, that this might’ve been the wrong decision: Philippa looks bored and James’ enthusiasm has dwindled and neither of those are good signs.
So he tries again – same story, different plot. There’s a princess, certainly, who gets taken by evil forces and forced into a deep sleep, and a prince (because if you have one autocratic ruler, you need another) exiled from his kingdom in order to do something brave so he can go back to his home. And then there’s a crew of adventurers who decide to help the prince save her – all loosely based off of his crew, of course, because the best inspiration is always real life.
He manages to squeeze all of them in there - Arthur as the genius of the group, Eames as the charming one, Yusuf as the reluctant comedic relief, Saito as the extra support, and Ariadne as the one who actually ends up saving everyone in the end. They each had their role to play and they played it remarkably well (and now the story was over and they could stop).
Most of the references he makes go above James’ head but not Philippa’s, as he discovers when he tucks James in after he falls asleep halfway through and she comes up to him and asks, “Is this what you were doing? While you were gone?”
Dom doesn’t know what to say, so he tells her the truth. “Kind of,” he says. “I’ll tell you the full story one day.” He pats her back and walks her back to her room.
He doesn’t sleep that night (because he can’t) but he does manage to nod off a little. It did help him feel better, admitting everything aloud about what had happened, even through a skewed lens. They all went through a harrowing experience together, something that bonded all of them together and they grew closer together as a result.
It might be strange to say, but he.
He misses them.
Miles comes by as summer vacation winds down, a short break between semesters, and though Dom had told him all about what had happened, he still seems pleasantly surprised to see him back in his home.
They only get to talk for a little while, when Marie has taken the kids to the park, and they sit at the table and stare out the window for a while before Miles speaks.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect you to still be here,” he says, pouring himself a small cup of tea. He offers one to Dom and he politely declines.
“Why?” he asks.
Miles takes a sip and looks back out the window. “You know how it is, Dom. How addicting the entire experience can be. Once you get a taste of it – the opportunities to do and create things which no one has ever done before – it’s hard to go back.”
Dom wonders if he should admit about not being able to sleep. “I want to be here for Philippa and James,” he says, after a moment. “I want to make sure that they’re okay, that they know I won’t be leaving them again before I even consider taking another job.”
Miles nods slowly, almost scrutinizing Dom. “I hope you do well by them, Dom. They deserve something good in their lives.”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know.”
It’s been almost four months since Dom last saw him when Eames shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. He’s got a nasty bruise over his right shoulder and a painful gash to his arm and Dom helps him onto the couch inside before going to get a first aid kit.
Eames takes off his shirt and winces slightly as Dom starts to clean his wound. “Thanks for this,” he says after a while. “I would’ve called, but I didn’t expect this to be how my night would end.”
“What happened?” Dom asks.
“In one sense, you could call it a bad date,” he muses. “Can’t give away the details, but let’s just say that I’ll need to lie low for a while before I can resurface. Will it need stitches?”
“No, the bandages will do just fine.” He starts wrapping up Eames’ arm, feeling the muscles tense under his fingers whenever he brushes against the injury. “It could’ve been much worse.”
“That’s where my handsome face and charming personality come to save the day,” Eames jokes.
Dom rolls his eyes and hands him ointment for his shoulder. And then, maybe because of nostalgia or maybe because of loneliness, he says, “The guest bedroom is free, if you want it.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, but Dom can see the glint in his eyes and knows that he’s already mentally unpacking his belongings and is more than ready to crash on the spare bed. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on your… domesticity.”
“As long as you don’t bring any of your bad dates back with you, I think we’ll be fine,” Dom says.
Eames lets out a laugh and leans back in the chair, rubbing his shoulder gingerly. “Well, it would be nice to be with the kids again.”
“Again?” Dom raises a brow and Eames gives him a look.
“You think no one came to visit them while you were gone?” he asks. “She wasn’t just your wife, remember. We all lost someone that day.”
“I know,” he says. He remembers Arthur sending him pictures and delivering presents when he could, as well as the few others who’d believed him when he said he hadn’t killed his wife. “But I didn’t really imagine you would – I mean, you’re always busy and I never thought you were that great with kids.”
Eames gives a loud scoff, throwing his head back dramatically. “I’ll have you know that I am excellent with children. In fact, I’ll prove it tomorrow when they run over to me with their excited faces and I reward their love with delicious pancakes.”
“How are you going to make pancakes with those injuries? They’re not very conducive to cooking,” Dom points out.
“I’ll figure it out,” Eames says dismissively. He stands up, stretching out his legs, before turning to him. “Thank you, Cobb.”
“It’s no problem, Eames,” he says. “Go get some rest.” He helps him into the bedroom before returning to his own and spending another sleepless night alone with his thoughts.
He finds Eames in the kitchen the next morning, along with Philippa and James, watching him flip pancakes over the stove.
“This is delicious, Uncle Eames,” James says through a mouthful and Dom ruffles his hair.
“No talking while you’re eating,” he chastises gently and takes a seat next to Philippa. “I must say, Eames, I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I am a man of many talents,” Eames says. He throws him a cheeky wink and slides him a plate.
Philippa wipes syrup off her mouth and asks, “How long are you going to be staying for?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he admits, in a strange show of honesty. He flips a pancake and it goes flying before landing right back into the pan. “Who wants seconds?”
“You’re not sure?” Dom asks him later, when the kids are out playing in the backyard. They sit out with them, glass of lemonade in hand, as the last vestiges of summer go out around them.
“Well, there’s not really anywhere else for me to go, is there?” Eames says. “Things have changed out there, since you left.”
“Like what?”
He doesn’t respond immediately, taking a small sip of his drink and staring out distantly. The kids are still playing, with James and Philippa chasing each other, joyful screams filling the air. “Lots of things.” He pauses for a moment. “I did a job a month ago, the first dream-share since our last one, and the experience was… surreal.”
“What an interesting way to describe a dream,” Dom deadpans.
Eames ignores the comment and continues. “It was only a single layer and yet… Dreams are supposed to be relaxing – an escape from reality, even after we militarized them and turned them into another battleground. A place where death literally meant waking up. And all of that changed, once we did that job. Death wasn’t just death. It was something worse than death. It was…” he trails off.
“I get it,” Dom says quietly.
“I know you do,” Eames says. “That’s why I’m here.” The kids run by and he high-fives them in turn. “You’re not sleeping, are you?”
Dom sighs. “No, I’m not.”
“Is it because you went cold turkey after so many years?”
“Maybe,” he shrugs. “Or maybe it’s for no reason at all. Maybe it’s because I went to Limbo a second time or because I killed Mal and still blame myself for what happened to her or because I went from such a high stress environment to one where the most stressful thing is making sure James doesn’t eat peanuts and I feel so guilty that I left my kids alone for so long.”
“You have a lot of problems, Cobb,” Eames says after a moment.
“I know,” Dom says.
He’s leaving the grocery store, hands full with bags, when a car pulls up before him and Saito opens the door. “Care for a lift, Mr. Cobb?”
Dom’s half tempted to turn around and go back inside. “My car’s here,” he says instead.
“I can have someone drive it back on your behalf,” he replies and beckons him inside.
Dom doesn’t know why he does it, but he gets in the car. He drops the bags into the seat beside him and looks over at Saito. It’s strange, he thinks, to be in the company of someone whom you saved and who saved you, in two different senses.
“My plane had a layover,” Saito says, “and Eames suggested I take this time to see how you were doing.”
“You keep in touch with Eames?” Dom asks, raising a brow.
“We all keep in touch,” Saito says, as though it should’ve been obvious. “An experience like that, where only a few people understand – you’d keep in touch with them.” He leans back in his seat and looks out the window. “Of course, you and I share the most, out of the entire group.”
“Limbo,” Dom says. He looks out the window too and it’s relaxing, in its own way. The weather is getting cooler outside and he’ll have to make sure James and Philippa wear their jackets when they go outside. And Eames, for that matter, since he loves to play devil’s advocate and get his kids to do exactly what he doesn’t want them to do.
“How are the children?” Saito asks.
“Fine,” Dom says. “They’re adjusting well, I think. It’s getting better, slowly.”
“That is good,” Saito hums. He opens the door and it takes Dom a moment to realize they’re back at his house. His car is in the driveway, along with Eames’, and he can see the lights on in almost every single room.
Saito helps him gather the bags and Dom manages to grab ahold of all of them. “Thanks for the ride,” he says. “I’ll, uh, talk to you later.”
“I’m sure you will,” Saito says, in a way that seems he doesn’t believe he’ll talk to him later. But before Dom can think of anything else to say, Saito gets back into the car and drives away.
“Eames is staying at your house?” Arthur asks, incredulous.
“Yeah, he is,” Dom says. “He’s surprisingly good with the kids.”
“I know that,” he says. “Just, why there? Why with you?”
“Haven’t asked. I think it’s because I was closest.”
“Hey, is that Arthur you’re talking to?” Eames calls from the kitchen. “Tell him I said hi. Arthur, can you hear me?”
“Tell him I can’t hear him,” Arthur says.
“I’m not telling him that.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Eames walks over and plucks the phone out of Dom’s hand, setting it on the table and putting it on speaker. “Arthur, love, you’re on speaker.”
Arthur lets out a groan. “I’ve told you to stop calling me that.”
“I call plenty of people ‘love’. And you’ve never told me to stop.”
“Yes I have.”
Eames shakes his head. “Nope. You always just sigh and roll your eyes. And occasionally blush.”
“I don’t blush,” Arthur says indignantly. “Dom, tell him I don’t blush.”
“I’m not getting into your argument,” Dom replies. He wishes he had popcorn, or some other food to convey how entertaining this was.
“What are you up to, love?” Eames asks.
Arthur sighs. “I’m working right now.”
“You’re on a job?” Eames asks.
“No, I’m with Yusuf. He and I experiment with compounds and sell them online. Sometimes Ariadne helps.”
Eames raises a brow and looks at Dom, who shrugs. “It’s a profitable business.”
“Neither of them have told me about this,” he grumbles.
“That’s because you never call to talk about work – you call to complain, let me get in a few words, and then hang up,” Yusuf’s voice comes through the phone, static from distance. “Hi, Cobb.”
“Hello, Yusuf,” Dom hums. “How’re you doing?”
“Pretty good, thanks,” Yusuf replies.
Arthur groans again. “When did this stop being a private conversation between me and Dom?”
“I don’t know, but I’m fairly certain it was your fault,” Eames says.
“I’m hanging up now. Tell the kids I said hi, Dom.” The call ends with a click, and Eames smiles.
“Always a delight talking to Arthur, isn’t it?”
“Indeed,” Dom nods.
“It’s so strange to dream,” Dom says. James is spending the night with a friend and Philippa is upstairs, pretending to be asleep when she’s actually reading in bed. He’s sitting with Eames on the couch, sharing a bottle of something Eames had on hand.
“You had a dream recently?” Eames asks. He pours some of the bottle into a cup and takes a sip.
Dom nods. “Yeah, a natural one. God, I’d forgotten what it felt like, to leave everything entirely up to the subconscious and actually rest for once.” That’s not completely true – he knows what it’s like to have his subconscious in control, but now that it’s not trying to kill him, it’s actually relaxing to dream.
Eames gives him a patronizing smile. “You know, you’re the only person I’m friends with who doesn’t usually have natural dreams,” he says.
“Arthur doesn’t,” Dom points out. “Usually he doesn’t dream at all.”
“Really?” Eames says. “I didn’t know that. Then again, he and I aren’t actual friends. We only… tolerate each other, really.”
Dom lets out a scoff. “I think he more than tolerates you.”
“Arthur isn’t the type of person who more than tolerates people.” He shakes his head and drains the cup. “What was your dream about?”
“It wasn’t anything special,” Dom says with a shrug. “I was on a boat, out in the middle of the sea. Someone called my name and I turned out, and that was it.”
“Sounds pretty boring,” Eames says.
“Eames, you’ve been living in my guest bedroom for three weeks now – I don’t think you have the right to judge me on my dreams, boring or not.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Eames says as he refills his cup.
“I do, and since I’m the one who pays the bills and the food and everything else…”
Eames gives him a look. “Do you want me to leave? I can, if my being here is bothersome. Or I can start paying rent, if you think that’ll help.”
“No, Eames, I…” Dom stops. “You don’t need to leave. The kids like you and you’re a friend. Stay as long as you need to.”
“Oh,” Eames says, and then smiles. “Thanks.”
“It’s no problem,” Dom says. He sits up straight and finishes his drink. “Though I would like to know how you got yourself into this mess.”
“Oh, yes, well, that is an incredibly long and exciting story,” Eames says with a laugh. “Get comfortable and let me tell you the whole thing.”
Dom gets comfortable and Eames tells him the whole thing.
Eames is gone the next day. His car is gone, his phone is gone, and he is gone. He doesn’t leave a note, but he does send Dom a text a while later, telling him not to throw away his things while he’s gone.
Dom asks him if he’s coming back and Eames tells him that since this is now one of his safe houses, it’s highly likely he’ll be coming back when he’s in trouble. Or in danger. Or wants to see the kids. Or is just generally bored. Really, he’ll just drop by unexpectedly whenever he wants.
Dom did see something like this happening.
“I’m going to miss his pancakes,” James says solemnly when Dom breaks the news.
“I can make pancakes for you,” Dom offers.
James shakes his head. “Yours aren’t as good, Daddy. Maybe he can teach you how to make better ones.” He leaves and Dom imagines how much Eames would laugh if he’d heard that.
“It was fun having him around again,” Philippa says.
“How often did he used to come by?” Dom asks.
“Every few months or so,” she shrugs. “Grand-mère used to like having him around, since he’d love to help her out and cook meals for us. She didn’t really like Arthur that much because he’d be really awkward around us when we were younger.”
“That’s not your fault,” he says. “Arthur is awkward around everyone.”
Philippa laughs and he kisses her head before letting her go off and do her homework.
He calls Saito, finally, after getting his number from Eames, and it takes a few rings for him to pick up.
“I’ll be honest, Mr. Cobb,” he starts, “I was certainly not expecting this phone call.”
“I said I’d talk to you later,” Dom says. He sits down on the couch and leans back, looking up at the clock above the fireplace. He has to pick the kids up in half an hour. “And I keep my word.”
“Yes, that you did,” Saito says. “So, what would you like to talk about?”
Dom doesn’t say anything for a moment, as he realizes he didn’t think any of this through. He’d thought the conversation would flow naturally, casually, like two old friends meeting each other after years apart. But, like two old friends after years apart, so much had happened in that time and neither of them knew where to begin. “How’s Sonia?”
“We are no longer together. Haven’t been, for several months now.”
“Oh.” There’s a beat of awkward silence. “How have you been sleeping?” he finally asks, and tries not to berate himself for such a stupid question.
“Fine, all things considered,” Saito replies. “Though there are some nights where the dreamcades seem like an appealing option, but it… brings back memories.”
“I get it,” Dom says. “Memories like that don’t really fade away. They just get stronger… I had my first natural dream last night, since my first Limbo.” He stops, but Saito doesn’t respond so he keeps talking. “I never had a normal REM cycle since that night – it just never came. I could never close my eyes because every time I did, I just remembered. I’d lived a life and I died and all I wanted to do was forget but I couldn’t.”
“I understand,” Saito says, and Dom knows he’s telling the truth because he’s the only person who could understand. “It is a lonely life, being full of regret, waiting to die alone. Sometimes I think I’m still there, on the shores of my consciousness, waiting for someone to kill me.”
“I understand,” Dom says.
“I know,” Saito says.
There’s a long moment of comfortable quiet when Dom checks the time again. “I have to pick up my kids from school.”
“Of course. And I have to return to my work.”
“Yeah.” Dom sits up and straightens his jacket. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I look forward to it,” Saito says, and he hangs up.
He picks up Philippa and James and listens to them talk about their day at school, and he feels much better afterwards.
“What did you do all day, Daddy?” James asks as they pull into the driveway.
Dom shrugs and helps him out of the car. “I just talked to an old friend.”
He calls Ariadne a couple of days later, the first time since the job.
“Hey,” she greets, “it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it has,” Dom replies, and smiles a little. “How are you? I heard you’re working with Yusuf and Arthur.”
“In my spare time,” she says. “It helps pay the bills for college.”
“Still in Paris?”
“Yeah, still in Paris,” she hums. “Your father-in-law talked to me about the job when I came back. I didn’t tell him about Mal – in case you didn’t want him to know.”
“He knows,” Dom sighs.
“Oh,” Ariadne says. “Well, he was really kind about it. Helped me get back into the habit of normal, uncontrolled sleep when I want to and lucid dreaming when I don’t. It’s nice to have someone around who knows what you went through.”
“I know. You know, he taught me how to share dreams, a long time ago.”
“I know, he told me,” she says.
“So you’ve been talking about me behind my back?” he jokes. She laughs, and that’s answer enough.
They talk for a little while more, about his kids and her girlfriend, about Arthur and Eames and Yusuf and Saito, about getting together sometime soon. They’re about to say their goodbyes when he asks her, “Do you think you’ll do it again? Lucid dreaming and dream sharing, that is.”
She’s silent for a while before finally responding. “I don’t think so. I might, but I don’t think I would want to. Not now, at least, and not for a long while.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I’ve seen what it can do to a person,” she says. “I’ve seen what it can do to you.”
Those words stick with him for the rest of the day, and he doesn’t sleep that night, trying to understand exactly what she’d meant. He knows, but he lets it keep him up for the rest of the night, leading to an unproductive day the next morning.
Eames is back suddenly one morning, all smiles and charm, acting as though he’d never left. He picks the kids up and takes them to the park and doesn’t come back until late that night, with them struggling to stay awake as they saunter up to bed.
“What happened?” Dom asks, when they’re finally alone.
“I did a job,” he says. “And then another one. And then a break. And then I came here.”
Dom wants to ask him further, or at least make a joke about how vague he was being, but there’s a sort of weariness to Eames he hadn’t noticed before, not when the kids were around. He’s tired, maybe even sorrowful, and instead of saying anything, Dom seats him on the couch and makes a cup of tea.
“Thanks,” Eames says with a quiet sigh, after taking a small sip. He wraps both hands around the cup and soaks in the warmth. It’s getting colder outside, might even snow within the next couple of days.
“It’s no problem,” Dom says, and starts talking about what James and Philippa have been up to.
It snows the day he goes to the bank, and when he comes out, Saito is waiting for him. He’s dressed in a black coat, boots, gloves, and a pleasantly polite smile. “Good afternoon, Mr. Cobb.”
“Another layover?” Dom asks.
The corner of Saito’s lips quirk. “Indeed,” he says. “Might we take a short walk together? The weather is rather nice.”
“We can do that,” Dom says, and they walk, side by side, as snow falls around them. “How’s Proclus Global doing?”
“It’s doing very well, since the decline of Fischer Morrow,” Saito replies. “Since then, I’ve had to take many meetings here on this side of the world.”
“It’s not terrible here. Japan was nice, for the short time we were there, but we didn’t do much sightseeing.” He remembers the view of Tokyo Tower from his hotel room, moments before he had to meet up with the team for the last act of the Cobol job. “I wouldn’t mind visiting again.”
“You should,” Saito tells him. “Japan is a wonderful country full of history and culture. Though, like all places, it has its darkness and shadows.”
“Yeah,” Dom says with a sigh. “That’s a little depressing to think about all the time, though.”
“It is, but for someone who is working to bring about a change, it’s more of a problem that needs fixing than an ingrained issue in society that can never be changed.”
“Isn’t that a little naïve?”
“Is it?” Saito looks at him and then looks back in front of him, abruptly changing the subject. “Ariadne and I spoke the other day. She wanted to know if her comment had disturbed you in any way.”
“Why didn’t she just call me?” Dom asks.
“Because she didn’t know if her comment had disturbed you in any way.”
“That makes sense.” He pauses a moment. “Tell her I’m fine and it didn’t.”
“Very well,” Saito nods. “But did it?”
Dom doesn’t say anything for a moment. “It did,” he admits. “It did bother me. I wonder if that’s the way she sees me – as someone who let dream sharing destroy their entire life and everything they loved. She has incredible talent as an architect but she won’t tap into her potential because she sees me as a warning story, an Icarus, something to keep her from reaching for the sun.”
“Can you blame her?” Saito asks. “Your wife killed herself, you were forced away from your family, and her ghost haunted you in your dreams, literally. You were the epitome of the worst-case scenario in the dream sharing underworld.”
“More so for her,” Dom says quietly. He takes a deep breath and tells Saito of what he’d done, of the inception, of the madness and his role in its development. “I ran an experiment on my wife and it cost me everything.”
“A young man’s mistake,” Saito says. “But now we are old men, and we can look back on what our younger selves did and see our follies for what they were.” He stops and puts a hand on his shoulder. “It is time to stop living in the past, Mr. Cobb. I understand that it’s easier said than done, but you must make an effort.”
“Why do you come and talk to me?” Dom asks.
Saito smiles. “Because it makes me feel better.” He lets go of him and walks into an oncoming crowd, and Dom stands in front of his car for a few long moments.
“Do you think I live in the past?” Dom asks. He’s alone in the house – the kids are at school and Eames hasn’t been by in a couple of days, a fact he’s had to assure Arthur of several times before he agreed to talk on the phone.
“Yes,” Arthur replies unflinchingly. “Mainly because you’ve been letting your wife’s ghost run around in your mind for the past several years.”
“She’s gone now,” Dom points out.
“That doesn’t mean that the last few years didn’t happen,” Arthur retorts.
“Hey, be nicer to him,” Yusuf calls out. “He’s had a rough life.”
“Talk to Dom on your own time, Yusuf,” Arthur says, the eye roll evident in his tone. He sighs. “What’s got you thinking about this, anyway?”
“Nothing,” Dom says quickly. He clears his throat. “Do you actually like Eames or do you just tolerate him?”
“I – what kind of question is that?” Arthur huffs. “Well, it varies. Sometimes I’d like to punch him in his smug face and other times, he’s actually really… nice.”
“He thinks you just tolerate him.”
“I suppose that’s one way to put it. He and I have a long and complex history, one that you don’t need to know. Especially you, Yusuf – I can tell those headphones aren’t plugged in!” There’s something mumbled in the background and Arthur groans and Dom laughs.
“That might be my cue to hang up,” he says.
“Dom,” Arthur says, “let me ask you something. Why did you use her totem?”
Dom is silent for a long moment. “I’ll call you later, Arthur,” he says, and hangs up, alone once again.
He does a job a week later. He doesn’t know why he agreed to do it – he needed the money, he was bored, he thought it was important, or maybe there was no reason at all and he just did it because he could. In any case, he agreed and left the kids with Marie in order to travel to Argentina.
The job isn’t dangerous or complex, and it takes a little over two weeks to complete. He doesn’t get Mal’s totem out of the safe, partly because there’s a part of him that doesn’t care if he’s still dreaming if he wakes up, and partly because he knows what his real totem is.
He leaves the hotel on the last day, prepared to leave for the airport, when he sees Saito’s car waiting for him. He doesn’t hesitate as he steps inside.
“Why do you always have a layover wherever I happen to be?” he asks.
“Perhaps I have a poor travel manager,” Saito shrugs. “In any case, you’d turned off your phone and your friends were concerned that something may have happened to you. Eames alone called twenty times in the past three days.”
“I didn’t want them to know that I was taking a job,” Dom says. He looks at him. “Did you call?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Saito replies smoothly.
“How did you get here?” he asks. “I thought I covered my tracks. Arthur and Eames and everyone else couldn’t find me, apparently, so how did you?”
Saito gives him the ghost of a smile. “I found you the same way I discovered your team was to try and extract information from me, the same way I almost outmaneuvered you in your dream, the same way I knew you’d performed inception once, before I asked you to do it again.”
“How?” When he doesn’t respond, Dom asks, “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?” he asks instead.
Dom sighs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know why I came here. I don’t need the money, I could’ve done something else to be less bored, I didn’t think this was important at all. I just… came here to do it.”
“I see,” Saito says. “Did this job help you in any way?”
“No,” Dom replies. “If anything, I feel worse. Guilty, even. I shouldn’t have done this – I could’ve done anything. I have a degree in architecture, a good resume, decent recommendations. I could’ve gotten out of this life but instead I just dove right back in.” He wipes his face. “Why do I tell you these things?”
“Because,” Saito says, “you were inside my mind and you’ve seen me at my lowest. You know me in a way no one else can, and your mind recognizes that and opens up to me.”
“You talk like you’re sure of this,” Dom says.
“I am.”
“How?”
“If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee,” Saito quotes. “You looked into me and I looked into you.” He drops him off at the airport and Dom thinks about his words the entire plane ride back.
He never thought about it, but he does know Saito – not just from the files he’d gotten from Cobol, but things you can’t verbalize. Experiences, feelings, hopes, dreams, his very thoughts – Dom knows them in an intimate way, developing a connection that he hasn’t had with anyone in a long time. They shared with each other the deepest recesses of their mind and that had to count for something. And apparently it did.
Marie picks him up from the airport, as Eames is home with the kids, and the ride back is a long and quiet one.
Philippa and James are asleep by the time they get back and he and Eames spend a quiet night sitting in front of the television and not talking for a few hours.
“You should’ve called back,” Eames says finally.
“I was on a job.”
“Yeah, but you should’ve called back. Just in case something had happened.”
“Okay,” Dom says. “I would say I’d call next time, but there isn’t going to be a next time.”
Eames raises a brow but, thankfully, doesn’t ask further. He sits back and sighs. “Arthur and I finished a job while you were gone.”
“Yeah?” Dom asks politely.
“Yeah,” Eames nods. He sighs again. “It’s so strange, being around someone whose actions you don’t understand at all and who have some personal image of who you are, but you have no idea what it is or what it means.”
That’s oddly specific, Dom thinks, and says, “I understand completely.”
He checks the mail the next morning and there’s a letter for him from Proclus Global about a job opportunity. It’s on a trial basis, only as a consultant for now, but the pay is more than decent and it would give him time for the kids without feeling like he has nothing to do.
He texts Saito a thank you and doesn’t get a reply.
Christmas sneaks up on Dom until it’s there, just a few days away.
He vaguely remembers taking the kids (and Eames) out for trick-or-treat, the small dinner he had with the family at Marie’s house while James and Philippa played outside in the leaves, and then all of a sudden, Christmas.
“Where did the time go?” he muses to Ariadne as he stands in a department store, trying to decide on what gifts to get.
“I don’t know, but I’m glad,” she says. “Finals are finally over and while Dana spends her Christmas with her family, I’ll be coming back to the States.”
“That’s good, maybe you can visit,” he smiles. “Do you think Arthur would like a new tie or a new vest?”
“Tie,” Ariadne replies. “He was complaining about it a couple of days ago how he never has enough ties. I’m getting him one too.”
“What if we all got him ties?”
“That would be pretty hilarious.”
Dom stifles a laugh and talks with her for a little more before she has to hang up. He grabs the tie for Arthur, cufflinks for Eames, a sweater for Yusuf, perfume for Ariadne, books for Philippa, toys for James, and other assorted gifts for other assorted people. It’s when he’s walking back to his car with all his bags in tow that he realizes he hadn’t gotten anything for Saito.
Saito, the man he’d been unintentionally venting all his problems to because he understood what the problems were about. The man who’d gotten him a job at his own company, for no reason except to stop him from falling back into old habits. The man who understands him completely because they shared a descent into possible madness together.
It’s incredibly hard as he thinks about what he could give him – he’s an incredibly rich man with a world of wealth at his fingertips. Anything he wants, he could get. So what could Dom get him?
He doesn’t have anything, even when he’s getting ready to mail presents out, and in the end, he gets him a fancy watch with a basic card and writes ‘thank you’ on the inside, and feels supremely guilty afterward.
Christmas Eve, he spends with Marie, Miles, the kids – and Eames, because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go and no one thinks he doesn’t belong. It’s a nice quiet affair with plenty of food and plenty of family and for the first time after a long while, he gets to see his children unwrap their presents on Christmas morning.
It’s a beautiful sight, and he wishes Mal had been there to see it.
Eames notices and sits beside him on the sofa, and they watch as the kids start to play with their presents and get ready for a long Christmas morning.
Boxing Day is a surprise, as Philippa and James spend it with their grandparents and he and Eames spend it with Yusuf and Ariadne, who’d driven down together to come and celebrate with them.
Dom doesn’t know whether to hug Ariadne or clap her on the back, and she makes the decision for him by wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him tightly.
“It’s great to see you again,” she smiles.
“You too,” he smiles back. He looks around. “Where’s Arthur? I thought I’d see him.”
“He had ‘work’ to do,” Yusuf says and he looks at Eames, whose smile falters slightly.
“Well,” he says, “he would’ve been a real Scrooge at this party anyway. Yusuf, Ariadne, care to join me in the adjoining house to play with the children?”
“I’m not so great with kids,” Yusuf starts, but Eames pulls him along forcibly and they’re out the door before he can protest more.
“We should probably go after them soon, to make sure they don’t cause any trouble,” Dom says.
“Yeah, we should,” she agrees. They walk out together, slowly, watching the snow fall around them. “How have you been?”
“It’s been well,” he says. “The kids loved the presents you suggested.”
“I knew they would,” she says triumphantly. She turns to look at him, hesitates a moment, then asks, “Do you think you’ll teach them about dream sharing?”
“No,” Dom says firmly. “It’s… too risky. I don’t want them going into this when there’s a chance they won’t get out. I don’t want what happened to me and Mal to happen to them.”
She nods and doesn’t bring up the subject again. They spend the rest of the day out playing in the snow, drinking hot chocolate and exchanging stories about various jobs by the fireplace once James and Philippa head off to bed.
He doesn’t check his phone until Yusuf and Ariadne leave for their flight, and there’s a single message from Saito.
‘Thank you.’
He calls Arthur a day before New Year’s Eve, trying to get him to come down for a night.
He picks up immediately. “If you’re calling to invite me down, the answer is no. I have plenty of work up here that I’m very busy with.”
Dom raises a brow. “So it has nothing to do with the fact that Eames is also going to be here?”
“No, nothing at all – and stop eavesdropping, Yusuf, I can hear your laughter through the door!” Arthur grumbles under his breath and Dom resists the urge to chuckle.
“Arthur, I know you like pretending to be aloof and academic and above emotions and whatever,” Dom says, “but honestly, I think your life would be much easier if you would just tell him that you like him.”
Arthur coughs loudly. “I – what – I don’t – what?”
Dom rolls his eyes. “I introduced you two, I know you both very well, and I know that this whole ‘history’ you have with Eames is just a bunch of times he flirted with you and you didn’t know how to respond. Cut the act and just admit it – you know he thinks you don’t like him at all, right?”
“He thinks that?” Arthur asks.
“For someone who’s pretty smart, you’re pretty thick,” Dom says. “Come down, tell him, have a happy ending.” He hangs up and smiles, feeling pretty accomplished.
He doesn’t hear from Arthur and New Year’s Eve comes around anyway, with him, Eames, and the kids, who resolutely stayed awake in order to see the ball drop on television.
“Could we go there one day?” James asks.
Eames shakes his head. “No, there’s a whole bunch of people, it’s super cold, and there’s never enough food. Much more fun here, right?” He tickles his side and James lets out a squeal.
Dom smiles and leans back. He looks down at his phone and thinks of what he’d told Arthur. “I’ll be back in a bit,” he says, and heads outside in the cold.
It takes a few rings for him to pick up. “Mr. Cobb, what an unexpected surprise.”
“Hopefully not a bad one.”
“No, not at all,” he says, and Dom can hear the smile in his voice.
“How’s the New Years?” he asks.
“Fairly well, so far,” Saito hums. “Uneventful, so far, business-wise, but no news is good news. What about you? How is it in the past?”
“We’re about to catch up in a couple of minutes,” Dom says with a slight chuckle. “I talked to Arthur about his crush on Eames and I think he’s going to finally admit it to him.”
“That’s good,” Saito hums. There’s a brief pause. “Your Christmas present was very thoughtful.”
“I just picked it randomly,” Dom admits. “I wasn’t sure of what you’d like, so… I’m glad you liked it. And, uh, thank you, for the job. And for listening to me, all the times I just vent at you.”
“It’s fine,” Saito says. “I feel it’s fair, since you helped me as well. We’re both young men, together, again.”
Dom nods and looks out in the distance. Snow is still falling, small flakes in his hair and on his shoulders, and the tips of his fingers feel frozen. “I feel like we know so much about each other, and at the same time, barely anything.”
“Maybe because that’s true.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” He takes a deep breath. “Have dinner with me.”
“Excuse me?” Saito asks, slightly confused.
Dom continues. “Next Friday, come by during your ‘layover’ and we can have dinner at my house, just me and you. So we can get to know each other.”
There’s a small moment of quiet. “Fine,” he says. “Next Friday. I’ll see you then, Mr. Cobb.”
“You don’t need to call me Mr. Cobb,” Dom says, lips slightly quirking.
“I don’t,” Saito agrees. “But I feel Cobb suits you better than your first name.”
“I suppose I could say the same about you.”
“Yes, I suppose you could.”
He smiles slightly and turns around. Arthur is inside, somehow, and he and Eames seem to have finally communicated properly as they’re now kissing. James looks like he’s torn between mirth and disgust and settles for giggling at them, and Philippa rolls her eyes as though she’d known this would happen. Midnight comes and goes on the television screen.
“Happy New Year, Saito,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I look forward to it,” he says, and hangs up as Dom steps back inside.