Summary: What happened to Tobias after Tris died? Set after her death in Allegiant. Tobias is trying to live without her.

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A huge thank you to Sarahliz1624 for betaing this fic!

Acceptance

Sometimes I wake up screaming. I can never remember my dream, but her face haunts my mind all day after something like that happens, so I know my dream was about her again.

~8~

I like to think that when I wake up sweating and breathing heavily after dreaming about her it's because the dream was good, but then I remind myself with anger that all I see in my dreams is her face: smiling, crying, nervous. It's always her face.

~8~

Christina tries talking to me about it when I tell her what I dream about one day. She says she knows the feeling and I think I believe her, because she had lost Will and she understands. But when I say her name I feel bad, as if saying it makes her death more certain. It's stupid, I know. It doesn't matter.

~8~

Zeke tells me he is sorry. I don't know what I should say in return so I thank him without looking in his eyes. His eyes are blank when he says he's not sorry for me, but for her. It hurt a little. Maybe more than a little.

~8~

I have five shirts she used to wear so much they caught her smell. I sleep with one of them in my hands the first few weeks, until it loses the smell, then I take another one. When the last one no longer smells like her I have a panic attack and I wake Zeke up. Zeke finally seems to realize how bad things really are.

~8~

Cara offers me more comfort than anyone, which is funny because she didn't even like Tris. But I don't bring that up when we talk quietly and slowly I feel the weight lifting a bit from my chest.

~8~

I try writing her letters, but I can't seem to put everything I want to say in a letter, or even ten letters. So in the harshness of the night, when everyone around me is asleep, I whisper my words into the thin air as if talking to her. I tell her how much I love her, how much I miss her.

~8~

I hope to feel some kind of release when we scatter her ashes, but the familiar weight of depression and madness is still in my chest. I ask myself if I will ever get over her.

~8~

One day, four years after her death, I wake up and realize I don't remember what she wore the day she died, or the day I first kissed her. I expect hyperventilating and desperate screams into the air, but all that comes out of me is a trail of quiet tears and a sigh.

~8~

I meet Amy when I'm twenty five years old. She had light brown hair and bluish-green eyes and her smile can brighten up even the darkest room. She's beautiful, but when she asks me out I refuse because I don't think I can ever love anyone like I loved Tris, and I don't think Amy deserves it.

~8~

I give up after the fifth time she asks and go out on a date with her. Tris's face bothers my mind when I smile slightly at the young woman in front of me. Two years later we get married in a small wedding with only our closest friends.

~8~

She gives birth to a daughter and I ask her if she agrees to call her Beatrice. Amy knows about my past and she agrees. She doesn't even look upset or jealous. She whispers our daughters name fondly. That night I cry after she falls asleep.

~8~

Beatrice grows up looking more like me than like Amy. Somewhere deep inside me, I'm glad. In the secret depths of my mind I can imagine, for a few short moments, that this kid is Tris's. Then I want to punch myself.

~8~

Beatrice has a good friend, Laura. She brings her home one day and she calls her "Tris". When I hear it I freeze. My voice is cold and dead serious when I tell her to never call my daughter that again. I almost sound like I'm instructing an initiate in Dauntless again. Amy is not home, but I know Beatrice told her what happened when she hugs me in bed that night.

~8~

My daughter asks me about it, obviously, and I tell her. I wonder if I should say I loved Tris less than I actually did for my girl's sake, but she is thirteen and she deserves to know, and I won't do that to Tris. She deserves respect.

~8~

Sometimes Amy looks at me with a little sadness or jealousy and I know I'm hurting her when I refuse to let go of my first love. In those times I want to hold her and tell her I'm sorry, but I don't want to lie.

~8~

Our marriage lasts long, even though I can never give her all my love. I know that somewhere along the way she had learned to accept me the way I am.

~8~

I am forty three when I can't exactly remember her face. It's noting big – I still remember her full lips and her grayish-blue eyes, but I don't remember her hair in detail and I'm not sure about her features as much. I take an old picture and look at her. Is this happy young teenager the girl I remember?

~8~

It takes a few more years for me to understand the only thing that remains sure about Tris in my mind is the shape of her eyes. I hold onto them as much as I can, but when I'm seventy four and I sit with my two grandsons I realize I can't remember them as well.

~8~

When I'm close to my last day, too old to actually count how old I am, I wake up one night and whisper her name. Tris. My first love. My heart. Tris. I believe this moment is the one where I finally accept that she's dead and is never, ever coming back.