Tobias' POV

I watch as Tris' eyes and expression change and she looks like the girl I met years ago. The warmth, the ferocity return and I feel her lips on mine as our kisses become hungrier and intense with each one.

"I love you, Tobias." she murmurs and I feel my heart swell. I've waited what feels like forever to hear those words again. "I love you too, Tris." "Don't ever leave me again." she begs and I see her eyes grow wide.

"Never, I'm never leaving you again." I reply, knowing how much pain she must have had to endure when I left. It must have been incredible and I know that nothing would compare to how lost I would be without her.

Her pain was so great that she couldn't bear it so she sought to start over which meant taking the memory serum. The serum erased not only her memory of me, but everything that made her who she was, who she used to be.

I remember telling her once when we escaped to Amity that maybe for her to fight a serum, she had to want and I know that must be true now because she didn't fight it. I also remember being under a simulation when the attack on Abnegation took place. She helped me fight it, but her situation isn't like that.

For the first few weeks, I tried to see if she could fight it. Eventually, I begged and pleaded for her to but it didn't work. She started as a blank slate. No memory of Dauntless, her family, her name- everything. Over time, we have come back together. I helped her rebuild herself.

We started slowing with the factions then moved to the more complex topics like initiation. Caleb helped fill in her life before I met her with her childhood. Eventually, she started to slowly remember things like how her name in Dauntless was Tris or why I was called Four.

I found an old syringe of the serum and we went through both our fear landscapes. Hers had changed somewhat. Instead of having to kill her family, she faced having to watch me die and helplessly watch as there was nothing she could do.

I understood then why erasing everything was necessary for her. I don't know if I could live with that if the roles were reversed. I had to ensure it didn't so instead of her going into the Weapons Lab, I did.

I was gone for two years, unable to escape as I was starved, beaten, and tortured in between testing the simulations on me. I knew it didn't happen, but I had to watch Tris die repeatedly. It was horrible, but I can't imagine how it would have been if I had thought Tris was actually dead.

I suppose I should back up a little though and explain what happened, when our nightmare began.

Two Years Before

I twist and lunge toward the device. The gun goes off and pain races through my body. I don't even know where the bullet hit me.

I can still hear Caleb repeating the code for Matthew. With a quaking hand I type in the numbers on the keypad.

The gun goes off again.

More pain, and black edges on my vision, but I hear Caleb's voice speaking again. The green button.

So much pain.

But how, when my body feels so numb?

I start to fall, and slam my hand into the keypad on my way down. A light turns on behind the green button.

I hear a beep, and a churning sound.

I slide to the floor. I feel something warm on my neck, and under my cheek. Red. Blood is a strange color. Dark.

Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?

I want to be. I can. I believe it.

When I open my eyes next, I notice the sound of a monitor beeping steadily. I'm alone in a god awful hospital gown that's about three sizes too small for me. A man in a wheelchair rolls up to the side of my bed. David.

He tried to kill me, what does he want with me? Where's Tris? How long have I been out? "Hello, Tobias. Welcome back. You were in a coma for six months. Now, the real fun begins." he says with a devilish grin.

This is when my two year nightmare began. That is when I wished for and craved death. Death sounded kinder than being alive. Throughout my ordeal, I always thought of Tris, especially when she was in Erudite and felt she couldn't hold on.

For many nights, I finally understood that feeling. For many nights, I wondered how the others felt about my "death". Would they accept me when I turned out to in fact be alive?