Fic: Dreamers Often Lie

[withoutverona]

Title: Dreamers Often Lie
Author: Elisabeth
Fandoms: Inception, Fandom High, Witch Hunter Robin, Romeo + Juliet. But mostly Fandom High.
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: First long fic I’ve written in forever. This one wouldn’t leave me alone after I saw Inception: I am almost certain there will be a part II once I see it again. Warning for Shakespearean canon puncturing. Inception spoilers nonspecific but present.

It took six months back in the real world before Dom Cobb was itchy for another job.

He tried to ignore it, at first. He had more than enough money to live on: Saito had seen to that. He had Philippa and James and a life to readjust to, one where he didn’t feel like he was being followed every time he went down the street. He was grateful for it, grateful for the day-to-day routine, grateful to hug his children and then settle down to write reports for a few clients Miles had referred to him. He was starting from the bottom again, or close to it, but he was grateful to have it, right? Grateful.

And he was slowly going out of his mind with boredom.

He’d gone four levels deep in dreams, been stuck for decades, and gotten out. Doing the kind of paperwork and risk analysis Miles’ friends would hire him for these days was like going from running marathons to huffing through the 50-yard dash. He understood the reason -- Saito could get him cleared legally, but he couldn’t erase the aura of this guy is trouble that still clung to him. He didn’t want to take crooked jobs, and people who weren’t crooked were being careful about hiring him until he proved himself again. He understood that. But it didn’t make the work any more pleasant.

He was slogging his way through yet another document when Arthur called. "Cobb," he said into the phone, eyes not really leaving the computer screen. "What’s up?"

"We need you," Arthur said. "Saito told one of his buddies about us. He’s interested, but only if the whole team from the inception job comes. Everybody else is in -- Eames talked Ariadne into it yesterday. Ready to come back?"

Cobb sighed. "I don’t know," he said, pacing down the hall to peek into the room where Philippa slept. "I have stuff. Everybody knows I have stuff. I don’t know if I’m ready."

Even to his own ears, he didn’t sound terribly convincing. Arthur played on that.

"Let me tell you more," he said slowly, reeling out the job like a spool of thread. It was simple enough: an L.A.-based electronics firm thought one of its senior financial execs was skimming off the top of company accounts, but the paper trail was coming up empty. Going into his dreams for proof was the most painless option that didn’t involve getting the police involved and sending the company’s stock price tumbling.

"And they’ll pay us each" -- and here Arthur named an amount that would cover tuition for James and Philippa at the best schools in town through the twelfth grade. It was roughly ten times what Cobb would have asked for.

"That’s ridiculous," Cobb said. "Do they know that’s way too much?"

"Finding out for sure about this Cahill guy is worth it to them. It’s a third what they figure he’s stolen," Arthur explained. "Are you in? They need an answer soon."

Another look at Philippa, who was smiling in her sleep, and: "Yeah. Yeah, I’ll try it."

On the very next Friday, the team set up in a hotel room next to the suspected embezzler’s. Cobb paced around the hotel room until the moment came for him to be put under. It would be fine. Piece of cake.

And it might have been that easy-breezy confection -- if an island on the other side of the country hadn’t been in a petulant mood. Because when Dom Cobb was next aware, he wasn’t in the dream setting Ariadne had taken such pains to put together. He was lying on a sofa in a cluttered but posh apartment, accounting homework resting on the table beside him.

"What the hell?" he wondered aloud, as he started to explore the apartment. Dreams were tricky things; maybe Ariadne had changed this one on the last minute and he’d misunderstood. Maybe the dreamer they were going into was unusually hard to influence. But something was off.

"Aijin?" came a female voice from what had to be a bedroom. "What the hell, what? Do you think your professor give you extra-hard homework to try to trick you again?"

The tone was affectionate, teasing; the voice was young and had a touch of a Japanese accent. Dom slowly went toward it, feeling little fear even though his hand was on the gun in his belt. Mostly, he was annoyed. They carefully designed the dreams to avoid this kind of potential sexual element. He wasn’t sure what had been going through Ariadne’s head.

"Hello?" he tried, cautiously. "I’ll be out of here in a minute. I was just looking for a friend." That was sometimes enough to placate projections, keep them from going feral. They wouldn’t attack if they thought you were leaving.

"A friend?" Dojima Yurika asked. She left the bedroom, and Dom found himself face-to-face with a model-like blonde a little younger than Ariadne. "What are you -- you aren’t Romeo."

Romeo. Right. There’d been nothing about anybody by that name in the dossier, which meant either Ariadne was getting creative (and he had to talk to her) or Arthur had screwed up (and he definitely had to talk to him).

"I’m not," he said earnestly, deciding to go for the Mr. Charles ploy. Usually he’d give things a lot more time before whipping it out, but usually things weren’t this off this fast. "My name is Mr. Charles. This is just a dream. I was trying to find Eric Cahill, so if you just tell me where he is I’ll be out of your hair."

"No way," Yurika said, subtly shifting into what Cobb recognized as a basic martial arts defensive pose. "I have no idea who that is, and we aren’t dreaming. You’re going to tell me who you are and why you’re in my apartment. And explain why you could be my boyfriend’s older brother while you’re at it."

"Your .... boyfriend." Okay, this projection wasn’t acting much like a projection. Cobb felt desperately for the toy top he carried as a token in his pocket, realizing it wasn’t there. He didn’t have a chance to consider what that meant. Trying to figure out what kind of dream this was, he asked, "I’m not sure what’s going on. Is your name Juliet?"

"She’s dead," the girl said crisply, and the defensive stance was now more aggressive. The question seemed to have touched a nerve. "Is this is some Montague bullshit? I don’t want that in my house. Please go if it is."

Dom wanted to, was the thing. He had a feeling this girl, whoever she was, dream or not, could seriously fuck him up. And then there was the way she said Montague bullshit, like he should know what that was. Nothing felt right, and he had no idea what had happened.

Instead, he sank into a chair and rested his forehead on his palm. "I’m in so much trouble."

"Yes you are," she chirped, moving out to explore the living room. "Where did Romeo go? He was here when I went to get dressed. I didn’t hear him leave, and there’s no way I would have missed it if you got somebody to drag him off."

"I don’t know," Cobb explained miserably. "I’m not supposed to be here. I was working, minding my own business" -- no, he hadn’t been -- "and then bam, I’m here. Looking at" -- he leaned to see the book’s title -- "Principles in Accounting. That what Romeo does?"

"He’s in business school," the girl confirmed. She took a seat, watching him with sharp eyes. He didn’t seem like a threat, so she could let down her guard at least that much -- though she still didn’t like the bulge of a gun she saw in the man’s jacket.

"My name is Dojima Yurika," she offered. "This is our apartment. Tell me a little more about ‘your own business’?" It had the form of a request, but it wasn’t one. "And I will take you down to STN-J and let them figure out to do with you if you talk about being a dream again instead of telling the truth."

Dom had no idea what STN-J was. He didn’t think he wanted to find out. "It’s Cobb," he said. "Dominic Cobb. Dreams are my business," he said, and briefly and vaguely sketched out what he did for a living. Most people had at least heard of extraction, though it was still rare enough to need a bit of explaining. "I don’t want trouble. I’m supposed to be inside somebody’s head, not ... here." He glanced out the window, surprised by the familiar landscape. If this was a dream, it shouldn’t have been so recognizable. "In Tokyo?"

"Tokyo, hai," Dojima said, nodding. "Roppongi district. " Her lips were pursed thoughtfully. She didn’t know what extraction was, and the idea of messing with people’s heads didn’t sit well with her. But at least he’d been honest this time -- and there was the odd familiarity of his face and voice that made her trust him, at least as much as she’d trust any stranger in this situation. Memories of Fandom were nagging at her. "I’m going to call someone," she announced. "Don’t try to run away or do anything stupid like that."

"I won’t," Dom promised. Hands in his pockets, he poked about the living room, trying to figure out who the hell Dojima and her Romeo were and how he could get home. The name Montague kept tugging at him -- really, who named their kid after a tragic hero? -- but that was on the back burner as he tried to decide if this was a dream or some bizarre twist on reality. It should have felt like a dream. And yet. The landscape was too perfect a replica, his token was missing, there was no sign of the rest of his team -- a thousand things were telling him this was real.

He was turning into Mal, unable to tell dreams from reality. Maybe it had been too soon for him to go back into the field ...

His train of thought was interrupted as he paused before a photo of a young couple, dressed for what looked like a school dance. The girl was Dojima, no doubt about it. The boy was .... him? "What the hell?" he said aloud, again. Dojima had mentioned the resemblance, sure, but he thought she meant her boyfriend was fair and blue-eyed, not ... this. This was like looking at a photo of himself fifteen years before. It was mesmerizing; he couldn’t stop looking, trying to find a telling difference.

He was still frozen in front of the photo when Dojima re-entered. "Hai, so Rikku’s not fairy-sized, but whoever answered Jen’s phone is calling herself Lieutenant Summers and Pendragon’s singing in a wheelchair," she reported comfortably, as if talking to an old friend. "Fandom strange strikes again!

Blinking, Dom turned toward her and asked the only question he could ask. "What?"

"Sorry, sorry," Dojima sang out. "Um .... our high school, the one Romeo and I went to, is a very strange place. Every so often people there turn into somebody else, like our friends did. Usually it’s somebody they look like or share a name with.They get better," she added hastily. "But you’re the somebody else Romeo turned into. You’ll both be home ... ano, Sunday or Monday."

"Sunday or Monday," Dom repeated weakly, closing his eyes. "Great. My first job in months and I’m going to look like a complete moron. Do you even know how insane that all sounds?"

He didn’t give the girl a chance to answer as something else occurred to him. "And does that mean Romeo’s where I should be? ‘Cause, no offense, it’s not really work for a business major."

The girl shook her head gently. "Romeo’s just gone," she answered with a touch of sorrow. "Nobody remembers where they went. You probably won’t remember the weekend either."

"I’m fucked," Dom protested. He considered kicking the wall but decided it wouldn’t help anything. "I’ll make a call. I’ll make a call and someone, someone is going to fix this."

As the girl stood by, he pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and got the beep of this number is not in service. Grimacing now, he dialed the next number in his phone, than a third, to the same results. Directory assistance had no record of Saito’s company.

"So," he said once he turned his phone off, since moaning about how fucked he was wasn’t going to help at all, "what do we do now? I sit around and watch TV and wait to wake up as myself?"

"Unless you have a better idea," Dojima confirmed airily. "You can stay in our spare room, if you want. You’re kind of like family in law. Besides -- I’d get in so much trouble if you broke your leg or something and it stuck after Romeo came back! And I don’t feel like playing nurse to a cranky ouji."

"He’s a prince?" Dom asked, sinking bonelessly into his chair. The situation wasn’t really getting less weird for him; if she said her boyfriend, his clone, was royalty he’d totally accept it.

Dojima shook her head. "He just acts like he is sometimes. Only son in an important family -- you know how that goes, ne?"

Cobb pictured Robert Fischer crying at his father’s dreamed bedside and winced a bit. "Guess I do," he said. "Lots of pressure, but lots of privilege to go with it. And they named him Romeo Montague -- that can’t have made it easier."

"What’s wrong with his name?" Dojima sniffed. "It’s a mouthful, but I like it. It suits him."

Dom rubbed his forehead. "Romeo Montague?" he repeated. "Like in the play. Shakespeare."

The girl’s blank look wasn’t going away, so Dom kept talking. "You know, two houses both alike in dignity. The kids, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love and everybody dies. I thought everybody read it in high school English."

"Not us," Dojima said, shrugging a bit and seeming distinctly cooler. This was her boyfriend’s life, and a piece of it she was never entirely comfortable about -- it was not getting-to-know-you chatter, no matter what Cobb had read about it in his bizarre universe.

And, anyhow, Romeo hadn’t died. So there.

"Maybe you went to Perez Hilton high school!" she joked, with a giggle that meant: Tread carefully, friend. "Old gossip is boring."

Cobb frowned at her, hard, but let it drop. He’d just been informed he woke up in somebody else’s life because the kid looked like him; it wasn’t the time to get into some loony argument about Shakespeare. (Though the whole thing was tipping him pretty strongly toward wanting to believe this was all a bizarre, uncontrolled dream. Real people didn’t have that much in common with fictional characters.) "I must have, huh?" he said. "Sorry."

The girl shrugged and made a little movement with her mouth, indicating she was willing to let it go if he was. "Let’s have tea!" she said, jumping up from her seat. "And you can tell me all about going into people’s dreams, okay?"

"Okay," Cobb said. He had no intention of giving away trade secrets, but making small talk with maybe-a-projection was as good a way to spend time as he could figure

Considering his options, his hand went to his gun again. If it was a dream, he could just shoot himself and get out of here. But he decided to keep that as his ace in the hole if he really needed it. Say, if it got to be Tuesday and he was still stuck. Or if the girl started attacking. But, even if the chance the girl’s story was true and this wasn’t a dream was only five percent, it was still a five percent chance he’d end up killing himself for no reason.

Like Mal. Again. Dom buried his face in his hands and sighed.

Dojima’s facial expression when she came back into the room matched his. He’d dimly heard her on the phone, but had been a bit too distracted to pay close attention.

"We have a problem," she announced.

"Out of tea?" he tried, since she wasn’t carrying any. "Or ... what’s up?"

"Romeo’s father is in Tokyo on business," she said. "I completely forgot, or Romeo forgot to tell me. Anyhow, he expects us for dinner tonight."

Cobb looked at Dojima like she was insane -- which, in his view, she clearly was. "So beg off," he said. "Say Romeo has the flu. He’ll catch up next time they’re in .... Italy?"

Dojima scoffed at him, half-laughing in dismay. "California. And, see, you don’t know Montague men. If I said he was sick he’d be over here before I hung up the phone, banging on the door and looking at me like I got Romeo sick on purpose."

"And you don’t want to deal with that. I get it. What are you going to do instead?" Cobb asked, leaning forward in concern. As long as he was in Dojima’s house, her problems were his problems.

"We turn you into Romeo," Dojima said with sparkling eyes, as if some part of her relished the challenge of it all. "It won’t be easy. It’s a good thing I know a little bit about disguise."

"Me too," Cobb volunteered. "But even if we were both Frank Abagnale, that’s insane. It’s my, his, dad. He’s going to notice I’m randomly a dozen years older. Not to mention all the stuff he’ll expect me to know. Say Romeo got called out of the country unexpectedly."

"And that won’t make his father suspicious at all," Dojima shot back. She was circling him with careful eyes. "We can do it. Barely. Dim lights, makeup ... you can pass. For dinner, anyhow. You’ll need a blond rinse in your hair, and you’ll have to say you’ve been working out a lot. Romeo’s skinny. And the way you talk ..."

"What’s wrong with my voice?" Cobb asked, raising an eyebrow. He wasn’t crazy about the "dye your hair and wear make-up" aspects of the plan, but it was clear the girl wasn’t going to take his arguments seriously.

She shook her head. "You sound like him, you just don’t talk like him. He speaks Verona more than English sometimes. Especially with his family."

"He speaks Verona," Cobb repeated. "You mean Italian, right? I don’t really speak Italian."

"I mean Verona," Dojima said. "All, ano, old-fashioned and flowery, like somebody in an old book. Metaphors. Thee and thou. I think he does it to sound more poetic? Or" -- she giggled -- "to confuse poor Japanese girls."

Incredulously, Cobb asked, "I have to talk like Shakespeare?"

Dojima seemed to think about it for a moment. "I guess. I don’t really like Shakespeare."

"You don’t" -- okay, Cobb was going to breathe. Breathe and not tell this girl how totally insane it was that her boyfriend seemed to be a fictional character who had died 450 years ago. Besides, how insane did it make him that he was seriously considering impersonating a fictional character?

He folded.

"All right. Got any movies of him? Tapes of class presentations, home videos, YouTube stuff, whatever."

"No," Dojima drawled, as she twisted with a piece of hair in thought. "Wait. Yes. Some of our friends were playing with the camera at my last birthday party. He drank too much and made up a poem for me ... would that work?"

"Can I drink too much before I meet his father?" Cobb joked, stretching out in the chair.

"It might not hurt," Dojima said as she set up the computer to play the clip she had in mind. She was ... perhaps 25 percent serious.

Cobb watched the film, then a few other fragments she dug up. Romeo read a poem, told a joke, danced in the background at a wedding, fixed his hair (and made a face at the fact he was being filmed doing such). It was, all together, less than five minutes of film, some of it blurry or with no sound.

It was what Cobb had to work with.

He tried to make all of the bits fit into a cohesive person. "All right," he said, "All right. Tell me more about him. What’s his dad going to want to talk about?"

"Family stuff," Dojima said slowly. "Ask about Benvolio and Rosaline. Religion -- they’re really Catholic. He’ll want to know how your classes are, but Romeo just says ‘as ever’ and changes the subject." As if they were sharing a secret, she added, "He’s getting this degree for his father. He doesn’t have much passion for it."

Cobb nodded, feeling a bit of sympathy. "Anything I should avoid mentioning?"

Dojima winced, knowing it could be a minefield. "His mom," she said. "She died a few years ago. It’s a sore point. Oh, and Ted thinks Romeo will be back in Verona for good in about eight months, so please don’t say anything different."

"He won’t be?" Cobb asked.

"I don’t know," Dojima admitted. "He’s not really talking about it either way." She clearly had her preferences, though, and they weren’t in America.

"And" -- Cobb drew a breath -- "what happens if he catches us?"

"Nothing," Dojima said firmly. "Because we won’t get caught, so it’s not worth planning for."

He suspected she was lying through her teeth. As if to stop the man’s speculation, she gave him a critical look. "We should take care of your hair. Maybe do some fun roleplay to get you into character."

"I’m all yours," Cobb said, wishing it were a little less true.

CHAPTER II

A few hours later, Dojima and Cobb were on their way to one of Tokyo’s trendier -- and dimmer -- eateries. Cobb had to admire the girl’s artistry. With a bottle of ash-blond dye, some kind of stinging facial mask, one of Romeo’s suits, and a few dabs of foundation, she made him look ...

Well. Not exactly 19. That was long past. But in a dim restaurant, given Romeo’s father was expecting to see his son, he could pass for a 19-year-old who’d been on a three-day bender. Which, from what Dojima told him, wouldn’t be entirely out of character.

"Hold my hand," the blonde hissed. "We’re supposed to be in love, remember? And don’t forget to smile. It makes you look younger. And you’ve smiled about once since you got here."

"Do you smile a lot when you’re suddenly in bizarre parallel universes?" he hissed back through clenched teeth.

But he curved the lips over those clenched teeth into a smile. And he’d hold her hand, too, awkward as it felt. She squeezed it once and gave him a triumphant look as they arrived at the restaurant.

"Ted!" she cried gaily, aiming an enthusiastic hug at a stout older man in a navy suit. "It’s fantastic to see you. Your naughty son almost got us lost. He’s not feeling well, but I dragged him out tonight, and he swore this restaurant was five blocks over. How are you? Did you stay in the hotel my father told you about?"

It was amazing, Dom thought as he smiled at the man with what he hoped seemed an appropriately filial expression, how well she could turn on the bubbliness. Almost as if it wasn’t real at all.

Ted answered Dojima’s questions readily, not taking his eyes off Dom. It was all he could do not to shift nervously, as if he’d already been caught out.

"Well met, my boy," he said, once Dojima had let go of him. "The days have treated thee well, I see. Though I might doubt your sense."

"Well met indeed," Cobb said, having checked with Dojima to know what the expected response might be. He widened his eyes, tried to seem younger, hoped it worked. "My ... sense, father?"

"Aye, aye, your sense," The old man affirmed. He clapped Cobb on the back in a way clearly meant to move into a bear hug. "Thou hast put on brawn -- who is to say thine brain has not suffered? For whence else did the sense come from?"

Cobb gave him the expected embrace, chuckling during it so he could delay having to say anything of substance at all.

"It .. " He froze before words -- a quote, probably, but at least it was something -- came into his mind. "A man must have a healthy mind in a healthy body, must he not?" Dom said, a bit stiffly, and with one eye on Dojima in hopes she’d cut him off if he got too far afield from an expected answer. "Mayhap" -- God he was glad he remembered that word and didn’t say maybe -- my body has been growing along with my mind as I age and develop wisdom."

"A wise Romeo," Ted repeated, affably. "May I live to see that happy day."

There was more chit-chat as they were lead to the table, and then, mercifully, Dojima found a way to carry the conversation through telling long, detailed stories about life in her office. " -- and Karasuma was cleaning whipped cream off her desk all day," one ended. "And Zaizen grumbled until Amon came back to apologize! Can you imagine?"

The stories didn’t make much sense with the little context Dom had, but they seemed to entertain Ted and didn’t require more from Dom than smiles, nods, and expressions of disbelief. He was midway through his entree before Dojima excused herself for a moment, leaving him alone with his fake father.

There was an awkward silence as Dom sipped at his water and Ted refolded his napkin on his lap.

"Thou hast been keeping secrets," Ted said suddenly, making Dom’s hand shake enough that a piece of ice jumped out of his water and slid over the back of his hand.

"Keeping secrets, my father?" he tried, hoping he didn’t sound as much like he was about to shit his pants as he felt. "Um ... I must not have ... kept them well, if you have found them out."

Did that sound right? Was it how Romeo would have answered? There was no Dojima to kick him if he was off.

"Ah, I know my son," Ted said, with a playfulness only somewhat borne of the half-bottle of wine he’d ingested so far. "Thou art quiet. ‘Tis only in thine nature when you have much in your head and fear any words you say might cause the ones you wish not to share to follow them out, like so many sheep through a gate." He beamed as he studied Cobb for a moment. "And I detect a new seriousness in you, too -- a more adult cast to thine eye. Nay, ‘tis clear to a father’s view what troubles thee. Thou thinkst on marriage."

And that was where Cobb was glad the sip of water hadn’t made it to his mouth. Spitting it out would not have seemed very Montague-esque, it seemed. "Marriage," he said. "It -- I am young, Father. It is" -- and here he was just going to quote the damned play -- "an honor I think not of." Off Ted’s frown, he belatedly added, "Again. I am too young to be wed again."

"Well," Ted said, clearly not believing a word of it, "if your mind alters and leads you to the altar, remember it must be in a church, and in Verona. ‘Tis the best way to honor the memory of your mother -- to say nothing of the virtue of Miss Dojima."

Which was something Cobb considered the existence of questionable at best, given the little he knew of the lady. He managed not to say that. Instead, relieved (and hoping he wasn’t about to ruin Romeo’s life) he said, "It has been in my mind. I’ve not forgotten that -- pledge, father."

"What pledge?" Dojima asked brightly, rejoining them. Cobb had the distinct feeling she’d been watching, waiting for the most fortuitous spot to interrupt. "Are you sillies talking business again? Let’s ignore that until after we get some dessert!"

Both Montague men -- or, rather, one Montague and one fake Montague -- seemed willing to accede to the lady’s wishes. Conversation stayed on an even keel for the rest of what felt like a very long meal, until Ted Montague excused himself to go back to his hotel. Dom got another long hug and the word "Remember," but no further scrutiny.

"We did it!" Cobb exulted on the way home, and at that moment he really did look 19. "He bought it."

"He did," Dojima confirmed, with a glance to him and a little, enigmatic smile. It was no longer strictly necessary to hold his hand to keep up the ruse, but she was doing it anyhow. "He told me how proud he was of you. Romeo will appreciate that. Boys always want to impress their daddies, don’t they?"

"I guess," Cobb said uncertainly, wondering if he was imagining the bitterness in her voice. Wondering if it was worth commenting on. He decided not to, and pitched his voice lower to ask, "What would you have done if he’d caught on? For real."

"For real?" she considered it for a long moment, and her voice took on a softer edge when she spoke. "I would have gone into hysterics and claimed Romeo had forced me to go along with it and I didn’t know anything else, and they could ask him when he got back. They would’ve torn the country up looking for him."

"And I....?" Dom was pretty sure he knew the answer to this one.

"Jail," Dojima answered. "If you were lucky." She squeezed his hand. "So, good thing things didn’t go that way, ne?"

"Good thing," Cobb agreed.

The next 18 hours passed painlessly enough, for time in a bizarre parallel universe. Japanese TV was never a bad way to kill a day or so, and Romeo had a decent collection of action movies on top of that. Dojima was cordial company, if with an edge that seemed to say You aren’t going to start talking about Elizabethan playwrights again, are you?. And -- just as she’d promised -- on Monday morning he woke up back in his own life.

It just wasn’t safe in his own bed. Instead, he was in what seemed like a city park, sitting on a bench. A river was visible just beyond a strand of trees across the path, and he could hear traffic behind him.

"Where were you?" Eames asked, as he walked up -- dressed in a police uniform -- and roughly shook Cobb by the shoulder. "We’ve been here bloody hours. Arthur is going nuts. Cahill’s a tough one to crack."

"Cahill?" Cobb asked, blinking. He wasn’t sure if this was a dream or real or -- something else entirely. He wasn’t sure about the place he had just come from, either. It was all a very disorienting mush inside his head, and it made it hard to even remember what the job was, let alone the part he’d planned for himself.

"He’s in the police station over there," Eames said. They’d started walking, falling into step at an only slightly hurried pace. The projections within the dream barely gave them a glance. "We’ve been doing good cop-bad cop on him, and we’re pretty sure he’s taking the money. We just can’t figure out where he’s putting it." He smiled, barely. "Rather like how we couldn’t figure out where you put yourself, which brings us back to the question of the hour: Where were you?"

"Would you believe me if I said you wouldn’t believe me?" Cobb tried, as they climbed the steps to the police station. He was getting his bearings again; he remembered the details of the case more easily now. "Or maybe just that it’s a really, really long story."

"I’ll believe you on the second one," Eames said. His Australian accent was slipping away as he crept deeper into character. "The first one just makes me think you don’t trust me, but that’s nothing new, is it?"

So he hadn’t been forgiven for the Mal situation, or -- more precisely -- for hiding the Mal situation. Cobb couldn’t be surprised.

"Eames --" he started, but lost the train of thought that would have lead to whatever apology he would have made when he noticed the statue looming over the park, several feet taller than the highest tree. "Who’s that?" he asked, indicating it with a nod. "Seems a weird thing for Ariadne to put in."

"She didn’t," Eames said flatly. "Best we can tell, it’s Cahill’s father. Somebody has daddy issues and they clog up his dreams. Keeps getting bigger, too. Kind of creepy."

"Is his father alive?" Cobb asked. Something about the statue was sticking with him, making him think ...

"He is," a harried Arthur announced as he joined them. "Why? And where did you take off to?"

Cobb didn’t answer before he grabbed a detective badge and barged into the interrogation room. He heard Eames and Arthur saying something sarcastic about his communication skills behind his back, but it wasn’t like he cared. He’d buy them fruit baskets once they got home.

Cahill turned out to be a balding rabbit-like man who glared at Cobb with a ferocity that didn’t match his appearance. "Lawyer," he said. "I told your partner that. Lawyer. Now."

"Your dad has the money," Cobb said, going off nothing more than his intuition. Dojima’s voice floated in his head: Boys always want to impress their daddies, don’t they?. "Right? You didn’t make enough to do something he thought was important, so you started skimming. Then skimming more. And now you can’t steal enough to cover everything he expects. Is that it?"

All the answer he needed came in the tears that filled Cahill’s eyes. "It’s his house," he explained in a harsh whisper. "He .... got pulled into a bad business deal. Lost it. Would have lost anything. My family’s had the house a hundred years. I had to help. He couldn’t understand why his son didn’t have the money. So I ..." he blotted his eyes. "I want a lawyer. Now."

Cobb sank into his seat, staying quiet. It was an old trick, but an effective one, one that worked as well in dreams as it did in the waking world -- he’d wait and let Cahill think things were about to get worse. "And the rest of it?" he said, after the pause started to get uncomfortable. "You stole a lot."

Cahill’s face was old and sad and hard. "I couldn’t let the old bastard have a better life than mine," he said.

And that was all the man would say. It was all he needed to say; the forensic accountants would be able to find the money, now that he’d admitted where most of it had gone.

"We got the confession," Cobb said wearily on the way out of the room. "Let’s wrap it up. Feels like I’ve been down here for days."

"That’s it?" Ariadne hissed, short legs pumping to catch up with him as he walked away. "You just reappear, save the day in five minutes, won’t tell anybody where you were, and ... that’s it?"

His blue eyes were ice. "What do you want me to do?" he asked. "It’s not a Mal thing. She’s gone. Things went haywire, I found my way here. That’s all there is."

"That’s all there is?" she echoed, disbelieving.

No. But no matter how he felt about the truth of his time in Tokyo -- and he could have argued either side of it, a dream way down on the wrong side of the tracks in the labyrinth or something real but strange -- telling the team about it would just make him sound insane. He was not fucking Romeo Montague, period, not even in a dream.

"Yes."

He didn’t turn to see her face again as he waited for the kick back into the waking world.