crack_van | A Dream You Dream Together is Reality, by Lady Ragnell (PG-13)

Fandom: INCEPTION
Title: A Dream You Dream Together is Reality - PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Length: 7,814
Author on LJ:

lady_ragnell
Author Website: AO3 profile
Why this must be read: I've already recced one fic that uses the 'Mal woke up' trope. This fantastic fic follows that trope into the future, by posing the question: what would it do to you, knowing your parents spent an entire lifetime with another version of you in a dream? Philippa Cobb is smart, practical, and completely illusion-free, and we watch her grow up among dreams--never apart from them, but never a part of them. Tinged with all the shadows and danger of dreamshare, but never losing its head, this clever, engrossing fic will stay with you for a long time, and have you rooting for Philippa, just as you may once have rooted for her father.

Phillipa is five and she’s going to stay with her grandparents. “We’re learning something new, Phil,” says her father, crouched down in front of her while she pouts. Mama is trying to convince James not to cry. “We’re going to have an adventure, and we’ll come back in a few days and have so much to tell you.”

Three days later, there’s a flurry of phone calls and then Phillipa is in the hospital and her mother is standing in the middle of the waiting room with her hands pressed against her mouth. “He stayed,” she whispers when she sees them, and catches Phillipa up in her arms even though she’s getting too heavy for that. “He counted layers wrong and he was so sure he was right, that he had to stay with you and James. He got your hair wrong, God, how could he get your hair wrong, my darling?”

“Mal,” says Arthur who stays with them sometimes, and her mother stops crooning into Phillipa’s hair. “You’re going to scare her.”

“She has to know someday.”

“Not today.” He takes James away from Grandfather, who is trying to speak with a doctor.

Phillipa can already read a little and she’s going to kindergarten in three months and she knows something’s wrong with her father, but he was only dreaming. That’s what he and Mama say whenever they leave her for a while, that they’re dreaming together. “Did he have a nightmare?” she asks, and doesn’t understand the way her mother’s breath catches.

Arthur is the one who answers, eyes on her mother. “No. He’s just still dreaming.”

A Dream You Dream Together is Reality