Chapter 1 - Memories

Tobias's POV

A/N: This idea came to me after the end of Allegiant. What if Tris didn't die? What if it just looked that way? This is my take on what could have happened... two years after Tris's "death."

Resurgent (adj): 1. rising again: rising or becoming stronger again

I once heard an Erudite say, "time heals all wounds," but that hasn't been the case with mine. My DNA may not be damaged, but I am broken. A broken child in the shell of a man.

So many losses. Too many losses. And reminders everywhere. Zeke won't zip line anymore. Not without his little brother there, wide smile, ready for a joke and a thrill. Marcus. He's a different kind of lost. He's out there somewhere. Anywhere. And maybe that's worse than if he were dead. I see him when I walk through the old Abnegation sector. I remember him in small spaces. I remember the lashes when I smell leather, like his belt.

My mother. Memories of her are bittersweet. She chose me, forsaking the plans she had waited her whole life to enact. The kind of acceptance I had always craved. We lived together in a small broken out apartment on the Fringe. Close to the city but far enough away to keep us from harm. We made it our own. The blue fountain was only the beginning of our treasures. Yet, a leopard can't change its spots. She grew bored of her simple role as mom. She wanted more, craved more. And I would not be the one to stifle her this time. I would not become my father. She had been gone for over a year now. Only two letters had come.

And then there was her, the gaping hole, in my life. The girl who had healed my heart. Made me human. Gone. Cruelly snatched from me. Tris. Two years later and not a day goes by that I don't think about her. The way she felt in my arms. Her warmth. Her strength. The way she listened and understood me. Accepted me.

Yet, time marches on. I live on. I protect her memory. And hold it close. She wouldn't want me to stop. She wouldn't want me to stand still. After mom left, I moved back to Chicago. Back home. I live alone. I couldn't move back to Dauntless, though many did. Too many memories of her. Zeke, Christina, and Cara all live my building in an apartment several floors above me.

Caleb went back to Erudite. Tris's sacrifice changed him. He went back to change his faction and to make sure that history would never repeat itself. Now, I only see Caleb once a year. On her birthday. We never did get to celebrate it together. Caleb and I hardly speak. But there is solace in the company of another who loved her. I try to forgive him. But I'm not sure I ever truly will.