I sit slumped on the hospital bed. My injured arm is propped on a stack of pillows. There's a faceless nurse sewing stitches through the bullet wound in my arm. When she offered me a local anesthetic, something to numb the pain, I refused. I told her to save it for someone who wanted it. There was nothing selfish in my refusal, nothing at all. I deserve the sharp bursts of pain that ignite my upper arm. I deserve the guilt, all of it. I grit my teeth and I wait.

They should be back soon, I think. He should be back soon.

"Just a few more," the nurse says to me, but her voice sounds like it's under water, and I grit my teeth against the pain.

I shouldn't be here. I should be dead.

"There we go," she says. I barely register the snip of scissors as the excess thread is cut off. "You know the drill. Keep it clean. Antibiotic before bed and in the morning, and you can take a pain killer if you need to."

I nod my head. Mumble a thank you. Don't tell her that I don't want the pain killer, that I don't deserve the pain killer, that I should be dead.

She leaves and the door shuts with a barely perceptible sound. Instantaneously, the dam breaks on the memories and the guilt, and they all flood in to drown me.

"If I don't survive," I told Caleb, "tell Tobias I never wanted to leave him."

Running.

Explosives.

Bullet to my arm.

Death serum.

David.

Caleb, bursting in, shouting "Tell him yourself!" and slamming his hand on the green button. But not before a gun shot sounded. Time stopped. A hundred, a thousand, a million memories flew through my head. Words died on my tongue. I could feel every muscle give up, slacken as I watched.

David shot him in the head just before his hand touched the button, erasing everything, and then I watched my brother die on the floor right in front of me. His eyes were still open. Wet. Drinking in everything.

I exploded into motion. Through the haze of my vision, I saw David lift his gun at me, and my adrenaline-fed instincts fueled me as I dropped to the ground. The shock vibrated through every fiber of me, reverberating in my bones.

The bullet sailed over me. I snapped my body into a crouch, every muscle burning.

I ripped the gun from David's hand. Aimed it right between his eyes. Fear clouded them, but he didn't look surprised."I'll see you in Hell," I muttered. And I grabbed his right hand and fired a bullet through it. He'll never shoot anyone else.

Caleb sacrificed himself for me. Caleb died because of me. When he was planning to before, it wasn't for me. I don't know what his motives were then and I don't care to because, whatever they were, they weren't...good. Maybe it's best that they fade with him. But his last action was for me, and for a chance at a future.

I had forgiven him. I was going to die for him, almost did.

And then he sacrificed himself for me. Like my mother and father did. My family is gone. They all died for me and I can never live up to that. I can never be worth the sacrifice of three lives. In their final moments, each of them were so selfless, and braver than I'll ever be. My mother and my father and my brother gave their lives so that I could continue mine, and without my actions, the four of us would be having dinner right now in our plain house in the Abnegation sector. Or we would be asking about each other's days. Or cleaning the house.

Or enslaved by the Erudite.

Either way, we would be together.

A tear drips onto my clasped hands. Then another. And another, until my fingers, white from being clenched so tightly, are soaked with tears.

My chest has been cracked open, ribs pried apart by guilt. The empty cavity where my heart used to be is filled with emotions that would take an eternity to identify and count. White, bare walls around me close in. Stale air suffocates me, incapacitates my lungs and I feel everything and nothing all at once.

Time is nonexistent as I drain myself of tears.

I should be searching for injured people. I should be helping to clean and bind wounds. I should be holding hands and patting shoulder as my friends say goodbye.

There are about a thousand things I should be doing right now, and I can't seem to muster up the will to do any of them. I just want to sit here. And cry. And mourn. I need to rebuild the walls around me before I can give anyone the chance to break them.

I recall the countless times my family saved me. The little times, the ones that no of them can—could remember, and yet they meant the world to me. The big times which I will make sure everybody remembers.

I choke on a sob. I am a useless creature, overcome by emotion and powerless to do anything but to sit here and grieve, letting the thoughts attack my mind. Somewhere deep inside me, I know that I will not be sleeping soundly for a very long time. Maybe this is my body's way of telling me that I need to rest, just pause for a moment and wring myself of grief. Or maybe this is my body's way of proving to me exactly how useless I am.

The dull light from overhead flickers over the small puddle of tears collecting at my feet. A puddle of tears for an ocean of sadness. I shouldn't be alive. I should be dead. I should be with Caleb, with my mother and father.

I know the instant he walks in. He is short of breath, from running, maybe, and I can feel the heated energy rolling off of him. I can't meet his eyes though. I just...I can't.

His footsteps pound against the linoleum and he has abandoned all grace and stealth as he strides toward me. Tobias engulfs me in his arms, and crushes me against his chest, his grip too tight and perfect. My wounded arm complains and I tell it to shut up as I cry into his shoulder.

He's alive.

I'll be okay.

I'll be okay for him.

I feel his silent tears in my hair. His chest shakes against mine, our breaths rattling in syncopation. His hands slide roughly up my spine and over my shoulders. Their heat warms me. Trembling fingers cup my jaw and lift it upwards so that I am forced to meet his gaze.

That dream-colored blue is swimming with tears. They drill into me like I am the only thing on the planet that deserves his attention. I don't know what I look like. Nor do I care. All I know is that against all odds we have made it to this point, and he's staring at me and I'm staring back at him and we're both incredulous.

"Whatever happened," he says fiercely, and his voice is a new day, "we'll take care of it tomorrow. Together. But right now, I'm here, and you're here. And I love you. And we-"

Whatever he was going to say is lost against my mouth. We twine together, and my fingers unhesitatingly slide under his shirt to trace facets of muscle. He feels whole. He feels beautiful.

His nimble fingers climb up my spine. They flatten suddenly and press me against him, even closer than before. My touch is trapped between our bodies, between hard and soft, between his smooth skin, warm from the hurriedly pumping blood underneath, and his dirty t-shirt.

Tobias tilts his head, tastes the shape of my smile and presses relentless, urging kisses against my lips. I feel vital. I feel his hands, smoothing down my back and curving along the sides of my thighs. He grips them there and hoists my legs around his waist, holding me against every inch of him. I am pressed against the architecture of his body and I know that there will be time to map it more thoroughly later. Looping my arms around his neck, I pull my entire body upwards, so that I can align it with his again.

"I love you," I murmur against his mouth. I'm sure he can feel the kiss and taste in the words, and his breath mingles with mine as he says it fearlessly back. I touch kisses along the stubbly line of his jaw. Our hearts hammer against each other. I whisper in his ear one more time before I loosen his hold on me and stand on my own two feet. The world sways around me.

Without him, without his touch, I can feel the grief swallow me up again. I can tell whatever demons haunt him come to claim him as we part because his shoulders tense and his eyes harden.

"Tomorrow," I promise. "We'll take care of things."

"Yes," he says. "And after that...after that, then we get to the part we've been waiting for." He says the words grimly at first, but in them lies hope.

I lace my fingers strongly around his. Looking down at them, they appear to be unbreakable with both of us holding so tightly.

I swivel my eyes back up at him.

"We'll be okay," I tell him, also reassuring myself.

"We'll be okay."

I nod, and Tobias bends down to brush a kiss just above the stitches in my bicep. It hurts a little, but I feel no pain. When he pulls away, I can see that a small smile transforms his face, and there is not a doubt in my mind that the two of us will, after everything we've been through, will be alright. Hands clasped between us, we step outside and back out into the real world.

We find Christina first. I am tackled in a sobbing bear hug and the hand that isn't attached to Tobias's wraps around her. She is loud and strong and crying unabashedly and she is my best friend. She's practically shouting something into my ear, but I can't tell what she's saying. When she breaks away, a sad little grin is plastered on her face.

"So I guess we can all live happily ever after now, huh?" she asks. There is so much those words don't say—how much mourning it will take until we can all be at peace, how much rebuilding it will require so that we all feel some semblance of safety, how much work we must put in, in order to choose happiness.

I glance at Tobias, whose expression is conflicted. Neither of us feel totally safe yet. But the immediate danger, the impending danger has ceased. The two of us must slowly let our guards down eventually.

"Yeah," I say to her. "Yeah, I guess so."

The three of us walk in silence to the kitchen, where we hope to find food. A few familiar faces pass us by, and we offer nothing more than nods of heads or small smiles. I see Zeke and I move to give him a hug, to console him in any way I know how, but the emptiness in his eyes stop me. I retie my hand to Tobias's and we all walk away—I must let him grieve on his own, and I feel a sting of pity that he doesn't have anyone to grieve with. Well, he has his mother, but he must be strong for her. Who will be strong for him?

People mill about the kitchen, but no one laughs or smiles. Those that we see remember, were untouched by the memory serum. I can tell because all of them share the same expression: caught halfway between sad and happy, that nebulous, waiting emotion. I overhear some conversation that tells me that those who have forgotten, the people of Chicago, some of the people in the compound, are being rounded up outside, are being told some version of the truth.

"I, uh, I'm going to go find Zeke. See if I can help with anything," Christina tells us after grabbing a muffin. And I know this is her way of gracefully leaving us. "You two eat and then go cuddle or something." And I know this is her way of ungracefully being my best friend. She turns over her shoulder and leaves the kitchen. I watch her walk away, attempting to give Tobias and I some space, some peace, so that we can begin to heal.

Time will heal what we cannot.

We will rebuild each other and then we will slowly work outwards.