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“It is tempting to stay, is not?”
Dom opened his eyes.
He had been dreaming again, remembering another time altogether. Another place.
Saito looked at him across the table, weary with age.
“Everything is established here.” Saito gestured to the room. “Is this the worst place to die?”
“No,” Cobb admitted. There were worse places, and he had died in several of them.
“I remember seeing you at dinner once with a lovely woman.” Saito looked at him quizzically. ‘It was a long time ago.” He named a restaurant that Cobb hadn’t been inside in over a decade.
“My wife.” Cobb murmured. “She’s…” He still didn’t have words for losing Mal. It seemed unreal in the daytime, and in the night, in the darkness, he never believed it to be true at all. Even now, it felt as though he would turn a corner and find her waiting there for him. Even now, he couldn’t deny the desire to stay.
“Ah yes, the infamous Mal.” Saito pursed his lips. ‘Tell me, what you thought, the first time you saw her?”
“I thought…” Cobb paused, letting himself go back to the memory, for the first time in a long long time. He had seen her across the room of a faculty party where he had wandered off from his father’s group. She had been standing on a balcony, even then, he should have seen it coming.
She had been laughing over a glass of champagne, and he wanted to know how to make her laugh like that. Delicate and fullbodied and charming and dry. And then her eyes had met his, and the smile upon her lips had been delicious as wine on a summer night.
He had learned how to make her laugh like that, eventually. It was still one of his best accomplishments.
“I thought she was lovely.”
Saito smiled faintly. “You still love her very dearly.”
“Yes.” Cobb admitted. “Always.” He hesitated. “But that doesn’t mean i don’t want to go back, to bring you back with me.” It tore at his heart to admit it, but he had said his farewells to Mal in the eye of the storm as the buildings whirled around them, cradled her in his arms and felt her breath still against his chest.
“It would disappoint me to hear you say otherwise.” Saito murmured.
“Will you tell me then, how she came into your mind so long ago?”
“Is that what you want to ask me?’ Saito raised an eyebrow.
"What made you trust her?”
“She was very…persuasive.” Saito told him. “And I had done my research, even then.”
“Was it worth it?” Cobb couldn’t help asking. After all they had been through together, all the levels of time they had passed…was gaining control of the business market worth this?
Saito leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands together, gazing at Cobb in silence. “Yes.” He said at last. “I believe so.”
‘Then come back with me.” Cobb pressed. “Surely that is the next step for you, for us.”
“You think so?”
Cobb leaned across the table. “Come back with me, and let me tell you all about dreaming.”
Saito smiled.