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Reality is wrong. Dreams are real.- Tupac Shakur
Snap! Pop! Hiss! Dom stands and stares the smoke filling his lungs, and the heat of the fire warming his face. He watches the house he built with Mal burn. It's crumbling to the ground, all his dreams of freedom turning to ash. He watches until he hears the sirens and then he walks away; he swears his steps are silent on the concrete. Dom can still smell the smoke when he reaches the tracks. He can feel the ground start to tremble, it won't be long now. They say your life flashes before your eyes.
Dom remembers calling Mal his dream girl. People laughed when he said that, but it was true. From the first time he saw those big brown eyes and that hair, a mass of chocolate and gold, they appeared almost nightly in his dreams. Teasing, tempting, taunting him, Mal would run from him in those dreams, not very fast or very far. She would wait for him, let him catch her, and then just as he was waking up she'd pull away again.
He remembers how sweaty his palms were the first time he shook her hand. He was so nervous, his heart racing. Mal smiled and laughed at him, sweet and infectious. She kissed his cheek. Dom wondered if she knew how many nights he spent chasing her through mazes of imaginary streets, her voice echoing off the walls in his mind.
He remembers their first date. Mal took him on a tour of the city. Dom told her he'd been living in Paris for a year. She just took his hand and said, “let me show you my city.” Mal's city was an uncharted territory of back streets, dim lights, cigar smoke, and vaguely dangerous beautiful people. Mal dragged him onto the dance floor. Smiling she swayed to the music, letting his fingertips graze her hips, before she spun just out of reach. He felt dizzy, as he watched the green silk of her dress disappear into the haze and darkness of the dance floor. She came back with a drink, and her friend Eames.
He remembers the first time she said I love you. Mal had looked into his eyes for what seemed an eternity. It wasn't romantic adoration, it was as if she was sizing him up. Her gaze was fond but Dom still felt like a moth in a jar. It made him want to squirm, but he didn't move. He didn't dare. Then she said softly yet decisively, “I love you Dom, you belong to me.” If only he had really understood what that meant. Once when they shared a dream and Dom found himself trapped in a hall of locked doors. Mal found him in five minutes, it felt like five days.
He remembers the whirls of gold in her hair, and the way she said his name. He remembers knowing that something wasn't quite right. They shouldn’t be old and gray. He knew it wasn't the real her, but she begged him to stay. He was too much in love to say no. He can see them building like gods, like children, he and his Mal. No that's not right. Mal can't really be held. He always felt that loving her was like trying to hold water in your hands, except in dream time, you could watch it slowly slip through your fingers. Mal had been slipping since the first time he kissed her. He's her Dom. He'll always belong to her, more to her than he does even to himself.
He remembers their world composed of nothing but their heart's desire. He would have done anything for Mal; for a touch of her hand, a taste of her lips, the scent of her skin, anything for a piece of her. He gave her a lifetime. He would have given her a million more, but she wasn't quite the same. She made little changes to herself in the dream, her hair just a touch lighter. Such a small change nobody would have noticed, but he did. He drank Mal every moment, and he noticed. It was like a slow drip in his mind. This world wasn't real. They had to get back; so he convinced his beautiful, precious Mal to lie down beside him and wake up.
Dom remembers opening his eyes and there she was, hair just right. His heart beat quicker for her. Then he looked at her eyes and he knew something was wrong. The unease seeped in around them, heavy like fog, drowning Mal. He watched her grow paranoid, angry, hostile, and he clung to his memories of her. He tried to drown reality with love. He can't live with what's done, neither can she.
Dom remembers her on that ledge. He remembers watching his dream girl on a pedestal turn human, real. She was all the things he didn't want to see. She was smashing his world to bits. Still, he couldn't help but think how lovely she was, even as his heart began to crack. Mal jumped from the pedestal, a goddess smashing herself on the jagged rocks of reality; then she jumped from the ledge.
Dom remembers the first time he dreamed about her, after. He remembers thinking how ironic that he remembers her best as she was last. His dream girl now an indictment of his love. Was it love or something darker? He remembers how he ached to have the real her not just a shade who dogged his steps even when he was awake. That was the worst part, but he never told a soul. He saw Mal even when his eyes were open.
He remembers Mal there in her house because it always belonged to her. She was anger and rage and all of the guilt he'll own forever. He is torn and desperate. He can't decide whether to go or stay here and serve his penance. The decision is made and she falls in his arms, dying again. When the blood seeps out it feels so wet and warm and real. It's awful but it's over.
He can't remember why he thought he was free. He should have known his love for Mal was a gilded cage without a key. He realized it the first time he saw her, he was playing in the garden with Phillipa and James. Phillipa had called out to him and when he looked he saw Mal's dying eyes; felt her blood slip through his fingers. He blinked and she disappeared for a while. It was six months before he saw her again. He hadn't dreamed organically in ages. This time though he woke from his dream in a cold sweat, Mal's name caught in this throat. He had trouble sleeping after that. Sometimes he thought he felt her breath on his face, and her blood warm and sticky on his hands. He told himself it was just a dream. Dom laughed aloud the first time that old cliché ran through his mind. He knew it was a lie.
He remembers long days and nights with no relief from her presence. A shade that controls his dream, a memory that won't grant him waking peace. Dom remembers looking at his children and seeing only her. He'd sent them back to Mal's parents, just to be safe. He knew Mal was calling him home, there was no home for Dom without Mal. He ignored the concerned messages from Ariadne, Arthur, and even Eames. Eventually they stopped.
He can see the lights and hear the clanging of the bells. The rails are trembling harder now. They say your life flashes before your eyes. If they're right, now he knows his whole life was loving Mal. Nothing more, nothing less and he finds he doesn't mind a bit. He closes his eyes and says goodnight to no one. Dom knows just where this train will take him, and he knows Mal will be waiting for him at the end of the line