Tobias is careful to wear something that covers the bruises on his arms, and chokes down some pain pills so he can move without giving away the fact that his body is more black, blue, green, and yellow than flesh colored.
He ignores the looks of hostility and suspicion he gets as he walks through the bowels of Dauntless and towards Tris' office. His heart is slamming against his ribs and he feels like he might throw up, but he ignores that too.
Her door is open and she's bowed over her desk, one hand pushed up into her hair as she scribbles out order forms. Just seeing her, being closer to her than he's been in weeks makes pain spread out from his heart, unfurl across his collar bones and curl up his neck. He can't decide if it feels like dying or if it feels like love, can't decide if they're all that different.
When he raps his knuckles on the doorframe she looks up and her face goes slack, disbelieving. Her eyes drop down to the pretty wrapped package in his hand, the same one she refused to accept when Zeke offered it to her at her birthday party. A second later she snaps her mouth shut and looks back down at the papers on her desk. "I don't want your gift." Her tone clearly telling him he's one wrong word away from getting yelled at. "And I don't have anything to say to you."
He hovers and fidgets for a minute before stepping inside and closing the door. They don't need to give the rumor mill any more fuel. She closes her eyes and forces out a harsh breath through her nose, willing him to leave. "Thirty seconds and I'll go," he pleads and sits down in the chair across from her.
She doesn't say anything, doesn't even look up at him.
"I moved out of the apartment. Shauna told me you don't want it anymore either way, but before you make a decision take a look at the spare room."
Her teeth are clenched together so hard she thinks they might shatter. She wants to ask him if Shauna told him she doesn't want help with the baby, won't even let Christina throw her a baby shower because she has to get used to doing things on her own, so she can handle being alone with the baby after he's born. She wants to ask Tobias why he's doing this now, if he thinks it's enough to get her back.
But she doesn't say any of that. She says, "I need you to leave, Tobias. Now." Her words strung at tightly as her muscles.
He doesn't argue and once he's gone she leans back in her chair and tries to steady herself; tries to stop her hands shaking, and heart racing, and pull some air into her lungs. The baby twists and kicks, and her hands fall to her stomach, caressing. "I know, you didn't like that either," she murmurs soothingly, keeping up a steady stream of coos until he calms.
It's just the reminder she needs. The first time she felt him move she didn't find any closure about her relationship with Tobias, but she did find a new resolve about the future. A determination set in, and though Christina has been nagging about her 'stubbornly' refusing the baby shower, it's not about that. It's about loving her baby and being a mother and doing what's best for him even before he's born. It's about being self-reliant even if Christina doesn't see it that way.
And she found strength in it. Strength that enables her to not cry herself to sleep every night, and ignore the gossip, and face the things she has been running from, like a new apartment. Clearly it hasn't done anything to quell her anger at Tobias, and at first she's dead set against his request out of nothing but spite, but later she's curious because of an off-hand comment Tori made at her birthday party that made no sense at the time.
Still, it takes until the night before she plans to move her things out before that curiosity propels her through the door. Tris has to subdue the panic she feels when she walks into the scene of their last fight and quickly steps to the spare room. What she finds takes her breath away.
Tori painted the walls in soft green to contrast the leafy trees and birds and squirrels and deer silhouetted in deep brown, one of which has a boy hanging from the limb Dauntlessly. She even painted some trees in a different shade of green to create depth and the whole thing more than makes up for the fact that the room has no windows. It's beautiful. Perfect and wonderful and immediately she feels like Benjamin belongs there.
Tris chokes out a sound of shock and nearly stumbles into the room. It's all there; a crib and dresser and changing table and rocker. There's even a set of shelves and her breath catches in her throat at the sight of the framed picture of her mother and the tiny toy Ferris wheel sitting next to it. Her fingers skim across the dark, glossy wood of the crib, the soft white bedding, the mobile hanging above it, each arm ending with a colorful paper pinwheel.
If things weren't absolute shit between her and Tobias she would be all over him, showering him with kisses and words of thanks and love. As it is though, she lowers herself gently into the rocker, mind buzzing and body thrumming. She's too confused by it. Weeks of nothing and then this?
She doesn't know how long she sits there, trying to untangle her thoughts, trying to divine his motivations and decide if any of the reasons she comes up with will mollify her enough to be able to accept this amazing gift from him. And she doesn't know how long Tobias stands in the door watching her, but when his voice finally reaches her she startles. "Do you like it?" She has a feeling he's probably said it a few times.
Tris forces her eyes to focus, drags them over to where he's leaning against the door. She didn't really have a chance to take in his appearance before, but she does now and she has no doubt the whispers about him that have reached her ears are true. And maybe it's juvenile, but pleases something inside of her to know he's doing worse off alone than she is.
"Tobias, it's... perfect," she sighs in defeated exasperation. "Why are you doing this? I don't-" she starts and then cuts off, trying to find a way to condense all her questions into one and coming up empty. "Is it just so you feel better about everything that's happened?" She finishes lamely.
He winces at the reminder that the Abnegation believe most apologies aren't about the people wounded, they're just a way to alleviate the guilt of the person who inflicted the wounds. He doesn't contradict her because that's probably part of it, though he won't even admit it to himself, let alone her.
He walks up to her slowly, carefully folding himself down onto the floor in front of her. It's probably meant to reassure, but all it does is come off timid and she can't help thinking how diminished he looks. A sliver of her anger peels away at the sight, and as much as she'd like to blame her pregnancy hormones for it, she knows it has nothing to do with that. Tobias' pain has always hurt her, even when it shouldn't.
His eyes get hung up on the swell of her stomach for a minute, at the way her arm is absently cradled around it like she's holding the baby, before dropping to the floor while he fiddles with his shoe laces. "You and the baby need a home, and you both deserve a real one. Maybe this isn't much, but it's what I could do."
"All it does is complicate things."
He drags a hand across his face, tries to wipe away his emotions with it and answer her. "It doesn't have to. You don't have to see me again after this if you don't want to."
"It's not about what I want, it's about what's best for the baby." He expects her voice to be hard and angry, or maybe biting and sarcastic, but definitely accusatory. The fact that it isn't any of those things, that it's even and calm, throws him. He looks up to find her watching him, but he doesn't find anything in her expression that gives him an answer, and after a minute she looks away. "Don't expect me to wait until you figure it out."
It's her dismissal and he knows it. Tobias pulls his key out of his pocket, sets it at her feet, and pushes himself to his own. "If you don't want the apartment I'll tell Shauna to give it to someone with kids," he says quietly and walks out. He waits until he's in the elevator to let his face reflect the pain he feels because he's never going to be what's best for that baby.
"Well, she took the apartment, so that's good." Zeke has always been the 'forgive and forget' type and Tobias never really appreciated that until he was on the receiving end of it.
He missed his friend, and not just because it's easier to bear the looks he's getting from the Dauntless ranged around the park the same as it was to bear the looks they gave him when the Erudite let every know exactly why he transferred with a friend by his side.
A warm summer breeze blows across the park. There's a football game going on in one corner, and children playing in the other, and teenagers sneaking off for someplace secluded in-between. It's idyllic, but all he can think about is the last time he was here with Tris and the fight that they had.
"Have you talked to her since?"
"No. I'm leaving that up to her," Tobias says, plucking at the withering grass surrounding him.
"That's stupid," Zeke scoffs.
"Not if she doesn't want to see me anymore."
"She still loves you."
"It's not about that anymore. It's about what's best for the baby."
"And you still think that's not you?"
"Every kid deserves to be loved," he mutters, remembering exactly why he feels that way.
"And if you didn't love that kid at least a little you wouldn't have spent all the time nitpicking every insignificant detail you did putting that nursery together. And by the way, fuck you for that; I'm pretty sure Shauna expects me to go all out for our next one now."
"Sorry," Tobias chuckles before turning serious again. "But that wasn't... I wanted it to be perfect for her, for everything I put her through." Which is why he spent days obsessing on it, debating over the finish of the furniture and searching through what felt like a million bedding sets so over-the-top babyish they made him want to puke until he found the right one.
"A guilty conscience doesn't preclude you from loving your kid."
"No, it doesn't, but I can't guarantee that things will be different if I do somehow manage to get a second chance. That's not fair to anybody."
Their conversation is cut short by Zoey bounding over, cheeks flushed from chasing the object of her affection around the park. His name is Nick and unlike the other boys in her daycare he doesn't have cooties. She tugs her dad to his feet, intent to follow him back to the Pire now that he's leaving with his parents.
"You know you're raising a little stalker," Tobias mutters, a wry smile turning up his lips.
"Says the man who watches his girlfriend on the surveillance cameras," Zeke deadpans.
It's twilight by the time they get back to Dauntless and there's a line of Amity trucks pulled up outside, delivering food. Zoey catches sight of Tris just as Tobias does and, with a gleeful shriek, barrels towards her favourite Auntie. By the time Tobias and Zeke catch up Zoey is jumping up and down and demanding 'up' while Tris tries to patiently explain to her that her belly is too big for that now.
"Here," Zeke says, hooking his hands under her arms and lifting her so that she's face to face with Tris. After a sloppy kiss to Tris' cheek he sets her back down. "Wow, you're getting so big."
Tobias glares at him, but Tris just rolls her eyes. "Thanks, Zeke."
"How far along are you now?"
"Six months as of yesterday."
Tobias can't help being envious at the ease of their banter. He doesn't know what to say to Tris anymore, so he stands there, mute and awkward and trying to come up with something that doesn't sound like he's talking to a stranger before he realizes she may be addressing herself to Zeke for the same reason; she doesn't know how to talk to him anymore either.
"Shauna wants to get together with everyone later this week, go out for pizza or something."
"Yeah, she told me."
"Are you coming?"
"If I'm not too tired. It's hard to get comfortable enough to sleep because I'm getting so big," she smirks at him.
With the last of the food delivered they walk into the Pire, Tobias wishing he knew enough about pregnancy to recommend sleeping with a body pillow to her the way Zeke did. Of course the only way he knew it was because Shauna slept with one when she was pregnant, so.
They pause by the service elevator to say goodbye when Tris reaches out for Zoey's hand and asks her if she wants to feel the baby move inside her. Tris presses her hand to the side of her stomach. "Can you feel him? She asks after a minute.
Zoey's little face puckers in confusion and she shakes her head. Worry floods Tris' face and before it can blossom into full blown hysteria that maybe she's hallucinating the whole thing Tobias reaches out and touches the same spot. Everyone holds their breath at the contact; Tris out of shock, and Tobias out of guilt for what he's unthinkingly done, and Zeke because he's waiting for one of them to yell at the other. But then there it is, something solid putting pressure on his palm. He looks up at Tris, smiling, but she's still looking down at his hand. When he feels it again he follows after it a few inches, at least until it becomes clear the baby is done moving for now and he lets his hand fall to his side.
It's Tris who recovers first, stepping away with a wave and promise to go out with them before disappearing into the service elevator.
Zeke startles Tobias out his stupor with a slap to his back. "Look, I'm no Erudite, but Tris has been chasing after you for months. Maybe now it's your turn."
A/N: Well, crap. Just realized the discrepancy in Zoey's age here at the end. For whatever reason I was thinking of her as older than I've made her in previous chapters. Fixed it now.
So, bit of a short chapter, but it was the only convenient place to cut it. Oh, and if you're curious about what the baby's room looks like I'm posting the pictures I used for inspiration on my tumblr (bleuwrites dot Tumblr, etc.).
