title: we'll take this world and forget we have it
fandom: divergent
characters: tobias eaton/tris prior
information: post-series AU | 850 words | oneshot
summary: tris takes the memory serum and tobias picks up the pieces from there. / (alternate ending, post-Allegiant)
(empty chairs and blank stares)
Nobody knows how Tris stumbled out of the room with her life and two dead bodies behind her, but she does. Her fingers are shaking and she throws the gun at her feet, and decides she wants to simply disappear.
Everyone is so preoccupied with the coup d'état, they don't notice the blonde girl cowering in the corner with wide-set eyes and fear in her body.
Tobias returns and sees Tris, and something goes over him, a mix of elation, relief, and for the first time in a long time, peace. He walks over to her corner and easily towers over her petite figure. She tries to shrink into the small space behind her because she has never been more scared than in her short span of life.
"I don't think I have ever been more happy to see you," Tobias says candidly.
He pulls her chin up and leans forward. She screams.
-/-
They find out what happened to Tris hours later: memory serum.
Everyone stares at the girl they once admired, the brave girl who led them to freedom, and wonder if she's still there.
-/-
The first few days after unfold themselves in a scramble of broken objects, minds, and hearts. Cara, Christina, and Co. continue to mill about the Bureau fixing whatever is left of the shattered glass of the government.
He's tasked with organization, making sure everyone does everything that is needed and nobody steps out of line, not again. It's a slow process, and as much as Tobias hates leaving Tris to her own confused thoughts, he hates watching her sacrifice fall to dust even more.
Tobias spends the time he has free with Tris, locked away in a room in their apartment; day after day, he watches her past and present collide in a haze. After all, the universe granted him one of many more moments with her.
-/-
Christina occasionally drops in and tells stories of chocolate cake and speeding trains; she's careful to omit their fallen friends and long-dead names. Tobias stands in the corner, a tall shadow on the wall, and watches Tris' slow moments of recognition flicker on her small face.
"How do you do it?" he asks Christina after seeing the old Tris surfacing. "I try to write her a biography, but... How do you know what to keep in the past?"
"What do you think Tris would want to remember about herself?"
"Everything, nothing. She didn't ask for this."
Christina opens her mouth to say something, but stops herself. "Tris knows herself only as well as we knew her."
-/-
On the day they go to unplug Uriah, Tris holds his hand as they walk toward their friend's comatose body. Tobias slips his fingers into hers, appreciative he has her by his side.
All Tris knows is she and Uriah were friends, but he was in gravely infected by an experimental serum gone wrong. She no longer knows anything about walls and betrayal, not anymore.
They walk into the room and see Zeke and Hanna, hands clasped together as the doctor is fiddling with switches on a panel.
Tris touches Uriah's lifeless hand and knows she should be sad, because this was – this is her friend and he's dead.
-/-
Tobias brings home the videos they show in conventions to reeducate the masses and all she can bring herself to do is stare in confusion. She's lost, she's so lost that Tobias questions if he can bring her back.
Then she does something that is so utterly, undeniably Tris, and Tobias thinks she's not lost, but instead she's hiding.
Her friends, or what is left of her friends, want to think the same, yet when they look at her, they see an empty shell and confused eyes. She'll talk to them, about the weather or the color of her shoes, but it's not conversation, it's two strangers smiling and speaking.
-/-
Sometimes, Tris' eyes will flutter around the room, and she will begin clenching and unclenching her fists. It doesn't take Tobias long to realize she no longer remembers who she is, but whoever this person is, she has enough Tris left in her not to completely break down.
He approaches her slowly, placatingly, and simply says, "Your name is Tris Prior."
She nods, once, before tucking her knees into her chest and curling up into a small ball. She can almost disappear, Tobias thinks, because of how small she is. "My name is Tris Prior," she repeats, drawing out the syllables.
Tobias bends down and takes her hands into his. "Your name is Tris Prior and I love you." He sits with her and waits until she unfurls and understanding dawns on her face again. Until then, he just waits, for the first time and what he always hopes to be the last.
(+ author's note)
started this sometime after reading allegiant, lost track of it, and now posted without any idea as to what i wrote.
don't be surprised if a fic with a similar plot manifests itself again under a different title.