fatherslove | (no subject)

The PASIV was in the living room, though she'd considered for awhile where to put it. She wanted them both to be comfortable, wanted to make sure this turned out for the best, and in the end she'd placed it on the coffee table, where there was room for both of them to sit, where she knew they'd be safe. She was excited, confident in her ability to handle the PASIV with Neil's instructions, but mostly she was looking forward to doing this, to showing Delta something he'd never seen before or couldn't remember.

A smile curved her lips when she opened the door to find him standing on the other side with the flower. "Hi," she said, resting her hand on his arm to push up on her toes and kiss him in greeting.

This time he expected the kiss and leaned into it, his free hand slipping up to cup her jaw. Each time it felt more natural, less like something he had to give any thought to - and more as if it were calling up something in him. Pushing the earth off of something buried not so deep.

"Hello."

"Hi," she said again, grinning a little against his mouth before she dropped back down and moved away to let him come inside. She liked kissing him, though it didn't surprise her much, since she'd long since accepted that she liked him.

"Is the rose for me or did you finally discover that long line of women I predicted on our first date?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"I'm still looking for them." He stepped into her apartment, looking around - he had seen it before, of course, and he wasn't sure what he was looking for now. Something new, maybe. Some clue about how this would be done.

"So, I... You'll have to tell me what happens now." He laughed softly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Like always."

"Good thing I'm such a good teacher," she said, still smiling, then nodded for him to follow her into the kitchen, then took the flower from him and turned to find a vase in one of her cupboard. "First, we put this in water," she said, filling the vase at the sink and then sliding the rose into it.

"As for the rest, it's all pretty simple," she continued, turning back to look at him, the vase still in her hands. "Because it's my memory, I'm the dreamer, but you're coming in with me so your subconscious is going to populate the dream. Fill it with people, mostly." And she just had to make sure not to change enough to draw their attention.

"So..." He frowned very slightly. "Let me make sure I understand. I'll be inside your dream. But everyone we see will be... me?" He laughed softly. "I'm sorry, I'm still having a hard time even imagining this."

"I know," she said, moving back into the living room to set the vase down on a small table. "Until I went in with Neil for the first time, I didn't completely understand what it could be like or how everything worked."

She sat down on the couch, leaving plenty of room for Delta to join her, then pulled one leg up under her body. "It's you, but it's not you. It's a little like they're there to protect you. As long as I don't do anything to draw their attention to the fact that it's a dream, they'll just go about their lives like any regular people would."

He sat down next to her, body angled slightly toward her, and looked at the case on the coffee table. It didn't look like much of anything, if the truth were told. It certainly didn't look like anything that could do something as fantastic as put him into someone else's dream.

"And what if they don't? What if you do draw their attention?"

"Well, they won't be very nice," she said, and although she had no experience with this part, she remembered Eames telling her what could happen. "I guess it's almost like a defense mechanism. Your brain wants to protect itself from this outside influence, so they attack it. But even if they do, nothing can happen to me inside the dream, I'd just wake up."

She wanted that much to be very clear. She was sure if he thought she might get hurt, he wouldn't want to go through with any of it and now that the possibility was here and so close, she couldn't imagine giving it up.

"Good." He hadn't really suspected there would be any serious danger. She would have told him, he was sure. And he didn't entirely understand it, still, but if she wasn't worried he would trust her.

"So what should I do?"

She'd thought about telling him to bring something he could use as a totem, but she wasn't worried about either of them being unable to tell the dream from reality. Not this first time, anyway. If it was something he decided he wanted to do again, she'd go into that, but for now, she just opened the suitcase and set it down on the coffee table.

"We both have to hook up to this," she said. "Like an IV. It administers the drug that lets us share. There's a timer on it, too, so we can set a limit on how long we'd be under, but time doesn't work the same in the dream as it does out here. Five minutes seems like an hour."

"Five minutes, then?" His thumb passed absently over his wrist. His memories of needles weren't especially good ones. But they also weren't entirely bad. EVE, and power flooding into his veins.

"Or longer?"

"How about five minutes for the first time and see where we can go from there?" she asked with a smile, taking lines out of the PASIV, one for each of them. Hooking herself up was no problem, but she paused before she did anything for Delta, holding the line and looking up at him.

"This is okay?" she asked, wanting to be sure.

He hesitated a second more - but not because he was afraid. He wasn't sure what he was feeling. And whatever it was, it wasn't going to get in the way; he took the line from her and nodded, slipping it under the skin of his wrist.

"It's okay."

"Okay," she said, then leaned forward to kiss him again, her hand on his face. Still sitting close to him, she dropped her hand to his knee. "Now tell me where you want to go." There were a few places she'd tried her best to remember, recreating all the details she could, but she wanted him to be able to pick.

"I... don't know," he murmured against her mouth. For an instant, just sitting like this with her felt like enough. He didn't even feel the needle in his wrist anymore. Then he remembered what she had said on the beach.

"Romania. Show me one of the forests."

"Romania it is," she said, then leaned forward to press the plunger on the PASIV before she leaned back against the couch again. She could see it already, one place she'd gone in particular, the forest lush and green, an old castle rising out of the trees and before she had a chance to look over at Delta again, she was asleep.

When she opened her eyes, she was at the base of the castle, the stone wall towering over her, throwing her into its shadow. It looked exactly like she remembered it.

For a moment he had no idea where he was.

He was looking out over a forest, he could tell that much immediately, but it seemed thicker and felt older than anything in Arcadia, or anything in the countryside around Darrow. There was a shadow at the corner of his vision and he turned, and now he knew he wasn't anywhere he had been before, staring up at the wall that dwarfed him.

That dwarfed them. He wasn't alone.

When he looked at Lily, he started to remember. It bled back in slowly, gradually. It wasn't real. But it felt real.

"This is..." he started to say, and then fell silent again, slowly turning in place and trying to see everything at once.

"I know," she said, turning to look at the forest that spread around them. She'd been here before, really here and she'd been into a dream with Neil, but even so, this was incredible. Eames had said something once about creating from memories, that it wasn't always safe to do so, but it was one time and she wasn't going to do anything complex with it. She was secure in her ability to know what was real and what wasn't for now.

Turning back to Delta, she held her hand out toward him. She wanted to go further into the trees, then come back for the castle.

Slowly, still moving as if stunned, he took her hand. It was good that she was there to lead him, he decided. He wouldn't have the first idea where to go anyway.

"I didn't think it would all be so big."

Linking her fingers with his, she led Delta further into the trees, into the dark, quiet green, a canopy of leaves stretching overhead. "It's old," she said, even though she knew it wasn't really. It was all in her head, something she'd made, but she'd felt it was old at the time and so she'd created it that way.

There was a path, a hiking trail, and she walked along slowly until she could hear the sound of running water, then she broke off from the path and walked straight through the trees.

He followed her, his hand in hers, and he couldn't help thinking of fairy tales, of journeys through enchanted woods and castles on hills - all the things the Little Sisters had chattered happily about on the shoulders of their Daddies.

But this was so real. Even though he knew it was anything but. It didn't matter. It felt real enough to cut.

After a few moments, they emerged from the trees again, at the edge of the water. It wasn't quite big enough to be called a river, but it was wider than a stream and the sun shot through the leaves of the trees above them. It was exactly as she remembered it and she smiled, turning toward him.

"I think this is Biertan," she said. "We came here on a day off, driven most of the way and then walked the rest of the way in. I spent most of the day here."

"I can see why you would want to stay." By the water's edge he released her hand, dropped into a crouch and dipped his fingers into the sun-dappled water. It was cold, surprisingly so, and sent a pleasant little shiver up his arm.

"Biertan," he echoed softly, feeling the shape of the word. A new word, for a new place.

She remembered that day, how the other dancers had wanted her to come into the castle with them and she'd gone eventually, but not before spending most of her time alone by the water. She spent so much time being social that people tended to be surprised when she wanted to be alone, but it happened every now and then.

"The others went into the castle to explore," she said. "It was so quiet." Like it was now. She was sure there would be people inside the castle, but out here they were alone.