A/N: So this got long.

At Tris' thirty-nine week prenatal visit Dr. Gonzales tells her she can go into labor anytime now. But she doesn't. Week forty and her due date slip by, but Benjamin seems perfectly content to stay where he is. The doctor says that is normal, it could be something as simple as miscalculating her due date, but even if that's not the case maybe the baby just needs a little more time. He'll let you know when he's ready. Relax.

As week forty-one starts creeping towards week forty-two she starts having small moments of sheer panic that something is wrong, aided and abetted by the doctor casually announcing that if this goes on much longer they'll have to medically induce labor. Benjamin's not moving as much now as he used to, but that's normal. She knows it. Logically, she knows it. Every baby book, the doctor, Tobias, everyone tells her it's normal. But all she can think about when Benjamin is so still is that he's slowly dying inside of her. She bites her nails down to the quick as she sleeps and Tobias has to talk her down from tears and demands of an immediate c-section.

He starts sleeping on her couch, and reads her to sleep every night. Normally it goes a long way towards calming her, but there's nothing soothing about his voice or the story of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy tonight. It's late and she's tired, but with the baby sitting heavily inside of her, it's hard get comfortable enough to sleep. And she's sick to her stomach so much lately it's almost like having morning sickness all over again. The doctor says all that's normal too. Tris closes her eyes against the swoop of nausea in her stomach and the pinching ache of cramps that follow and roll down through her abdomen to her back. Tobias hand wraps around hers, warm and steady, and when she opens her eyes he's watching her with concern. "I'm fine," she says. "Keep reading."

Tobias does as she asks, finally putting the book away when she rolls onto her side like she does when she's ready to sleep. He shifts to get off the bed, but her hand tightens around his. "Stay," she says quietly, her features pinched.

Tris has never asked him to stay with her. Even his sleeping on the couch was an unspoken decision between them. Tobias reaches out, tucking her hair behind her ear and trailing her hand across her cheek and trying not to show the panic he can feel bubbling up inside of him at her request. "Are you okay?"

"It's nothing, just... stay."

He kicks his shoes off and lays down facing her, hand smoothing up and down her arm. "What's nothing?"

"I just feel... off," she says haltingly, trying to find the right words. "Cramps and kind of sick to my stomach and my back is killing me." All that is easy to describe. What's harder to describe is the sort of nervous thrumming around her. It's the same feeling that makes your hair stand on end when you sense something coming before it actually happens, and the times she's felt it before haven't boded well.

"Do you think you're going into labor?"

In the dim light spilling out of the bathroom he sees her frown. "Maybe." The doctor warned her that she might mistake cramps for contractions, and since she's had menstrual cramps that have hurt worse than this...

Tobias rolls over, reaching for the phone they rarely ever use on the bedside table before Tris can protest because his biggest fear lately is that they won't make it to the infirmary on time, that Tris will be stuck somewhere helpless, or with only him to help her give birth. The obstetrics doctor on-call in the infirmary can only tell them they have to wait and see because it could be a false labor or the real thing. Until then doctors orders are to stay home and rest because they can't make her any more comfortable in the infirmary than she is now. "Well that was pointless," he snaps as he hangs up the phone. "He couldn't tell me anything more than the baby books have."

"You've been reading baby books?" Tris voice is a little disbelieving, but the smile on her face is more indulgent and amused than anything else.

"Yeah."

"And what did they say?"

"That you don't need a doctor until your contractions are ten minutes apart and you can't walk or talk through them, or your water breaks."

Tris can't help being a little impressed, first that he read the books, and secondly that he memorized them.

"At least if this is happening they probably won't have to induce you," he says, trying to find the silver lining.

"If it's real labor," she points out.

He feels her pulse quicken under the thin skin of her neck where his hand is resting, the realization settling over them both that in a few short hours Benjamin could be born. Tris expects to feel relieved, but all she feels is a certain terror that starts in her toes and steadily works its way up. This baby is real. She's felt him, loved him, but he'll be real in a different way, a new way, and it's terrifying.

It feels like her pregnancy has been defined by fear; from the fear of Tobias' reaction when she found out to the fear that Benjamin won't be healthy. But now those fears feel like the fears of a child, in a literal and symbolic sense because the new fears that replace them are so immediate. What if something goes wrong? What if she dies? What if Benjamin does? She thinks about the pain and blood of birth, of her own slight frame breaking under the stress of it.

But the only fear that really matters, the one that cleanses all the other from her mind and the only one that eeks past her lips is, "what if I don't love him?" Her voice sounds broken and tremulous and she realizes she's on the verge of tears. Tris doesn't know how to be a mother. Books and birthing classes can't teach her how to love this tiny life she's created with Tobias.

"You already do." Tobias' voice is soft, certain, and reassuring.

"Because he's a part of me," she says, her voice a tight and painful counterpoint to his. "What happens after?" She can feed him and clothe him and protect him, but what does that matter if she can't love him?

Tobias reaches out, his hands as tender as his voice. "He'll still be a part of you. You'll still love him." There are very few things he's been certain of in his life, but he's never doubted this for a moment. Tris will love their son, will be the kind of mother he wishes he had, of that he has no doubt.

He gets up, circling the bed so he can lay behind her and rub some of the pain out of the small of her back. "Try to relax," he says against her shoulder. His fingers cramp after a while, but he keeps massaging until the realization that he referred to Benjamin as 'their son' nearly knocks him senseless.

At first Benjamin was an 'it', and then 'the baby, occasionally 'Tris' baby', and eventually 'Benjamin'. But now he's 'their son', and even though there's a fleeting urge to run from it, after that passes he has to blink back tears. 'Their son'. The emotions those two simple words said together create is something he's never felt before. Something good and warm that doesn't have name, but fills him completely.

When he feels Tris wince in pain he wraps his arms around her, pulls her close and tries to give her some of his strength the same way he did when he put her on his back and ran through the halls of Erudite. This is what love is, being strong for someone else, not because they're weak, but because sometimes they need the strength of others to be strong themselves.

"You should sleep," she says when she relaxes, her voice not nearly as strangled with fear as it was before.

"I will if you will."

"I don't think that's going to happen," she chuckles.

"What can I do to help?"

"Just this. This is good," she says quietly.

They stay that way for a few hours, dozing but never really getting any true sleep since every time a fresh round of cramps rolls through Tris she goes rigid in Tobias' arms and it effectively keeps them both awake. When she gets restless and says she wants to walk around for a bit he gets up with her, holding her hand as they slowly pace around the apartment. It helps a little, eases some of the tension she can feel building in her hips and thighs.

And for a while that's enough. They make a circuit of the apartment and then lay back down, resting until Tris wants to walk again. The time between each set of cramps gets shorter, they get stronger, but still nothing she can't handle. The impending sunrise is just making the world outside lighten by a few degrees as they pass the windows when Tris groans from somewhere deep in her chest and nearly crushes Tobias' hand in hers. Her eyes are wide and scared when she looks up at him.

"Okay," she pants. "Okay... definitely not a false labor." Tobias has to fight the urge to scoop her up in his arms and carry her down to the infirmary. Once logic takes over again he checks his watch, noting the time and tries to urge Tris back to bed. "I need to walk," she says firmly. She's too keyed up to sit still anyway.

The next contraction comes twenty-three minutes later. By the time the sun fully in the sky they're coming at fifteen minute intervals and Tobias leaves Tris' side only to retrieve the bag she packed weeks ago and their shoes and jackets. When they come every twelve minutes she tells him she's ready to leave because she's a little worried they won't make it to the infirmary in time either.

Tobias expects to meet a flurry of activity once they get to there; half the faction and doctors and nurses and medical equipment rushing out to meet them because Tris is in labor, she's have a baby, and this is a big deal. Instead all they get is a bored looking nurse who seems to take her sweet time pulling Tris' file and putting her in a wheelchair to take her to the birthing room.

"I need Christina," she says when the next contraction passes, her cheeks splotchy from pain.

As much as it annoyed Tobias that Tris didn't let him come to any of her prenatal visits after she moved out, it doesn't bother him that Christina will be the one coaching her through labor. The only point of reference either of them have is Abnegation, and when a baby is born there the only people allowed in the room are the midwife and her helpers. Men wait outside until it's all over. It's just how these things are done. Accepted. Unquestioned. Though as Tobias leaves to collect Christina he can't help wondering if it's really what either he or Tris wants.

Ten minutes later he's back, Christina a few steps ahead of him and bursting through the door just in time to catch the tail end of whatever Dr. Gonzales is saying.

"...but I want to wait until your contractions are five minutes apart before we administer the epidural." Tris is chewing her lip so hard she looks like she's going to bite a hole in it, but she nods along with the doctor and absently lets one of the nurses stick an IV line in her arm. "One of the nurses or myself will be in to check on you every thirty minutes or so. If you need something use the call button," she says and then she's gone.

Tobias hovers by the door uncertainly. "Do you want me to stay... or?" He finally asks.

"It's okay. You can stay for a while," Tris says shyly. She knows he will leave eventually, but she's not quite ready for that yet.

It's a waiting game now and though it feels like no time at all to Tobias before her contractions start coming every five minutes, to Tris it feels like each one is a small eternity, like she barely recovers from one before the next one starts.

"I'd rather get shot again," she whines as the pain fades enough to allow her to talk. Her hand is damp and Tobias is pretty sure he felt something snap in his own when she clutched at it. He hates seeing her like this, and every time her face contorts with pain his heart feels like it's contracting painfully too.

The pain gets worse, doubles to something even worse than that and when Tobias rolls her over onto her side so the anesthesiologist can insert a needle into her spine she moans in relief. The epidural doesn't take the pain away completely, and she can still feel the intense pressure of the baby stretching her pelvis, but it's so much better than before. The doctor comes in to check her again and though it's awkward Tris tells him it's probably time for him to leave.

Zeke is waiting for him in the row of chairs just outside the door. "How did you know we were here?"

"Michael told everyone at breakfast."

"Fantastic," Tobias says dryly, dropping down into the seat next to him and gratefully accepting a cup of coffee. He has no doubt that once everyone finishes eating they'll all come here. Tris isn't up for that sort of attention right now, so maybe it's a good thing he's sitting outside the door like a guard dog.

"How long have you been up?"

"Never really got to sleep last night," he says, the question making him look down at his watch. With a shock he realizes it's been nearly nearly seven hours since he called the infirmary the night before.

"Well, if Tris' labor is anything like Shauna's you're not going to get any rest for a while."

"Jesus, I hope not." Tobias remembers sitting in the waiting room with their friends and family for what felt like days when Zoey was being born. In the end they delivered her through a c-section.

Zeke chuckles as the doctor steps out to the hall. "It will probably be another hour or so before she has to start pushing if you want to go eat," she says, a kind, patient smile on her face.

"I'm good," Tobias says, waving her off. Even if he was starving he has good reason to stay and a few minutes later his fears are justified when Michael and Uriah show up. Michael's visit is more desultory than anything - he's just stopping by on his way to work -, but Uriah seems intent to taking up their vigil. They watch silently as the doctor bustles back into Tris' room, followed by a couple of nurses a while later.

Shauna and Zoey are the next visitors and they find the three men playing cards as they wait. They stay until the groans coming from behind the door start to upset Zoey. They bother Tobias too, and not just because he knows Tris is in pain. Every time he hears her he's nine years old again, sitting in his grey living room in his grey clothes with his little hands clamped tightly over his ears in a vain attempt to block out his mother's screams, each one sending a tremor of fear up his staircased spine that leaves his whole body shaking.

When Shauna comes back with Tori instead of Zoey his palms are slick with sweat. He hunches in on himself, elbows digging into his knees and hands restlessly rubbing his neck. He can't focus on their conversation, the voices of his friends like the buzzing of insects around him, more an annoyance than anything else.

"You're not going to be in there with her?" Tori's voice sounds far away, and Tobias has to force himself to focus on her even though she's right next to him.

"It's one of their weird Abnegation things," Zeke answers before he can.

He's still surprised how much time is passing every time he looks down at his watch, but he feels second scrape across his nerves like broken glass leaving him raw. The sounds from behind the door wax and wane, and he feels like he's living and dying with them. "Why don't they give her more drugs," he snaps to no one, his last frayed nerve giving way when Tris goes from groaning to screaming through her teeth.

"She has to be able to feel when to push," someone says.

He shoulders his way out of the crowd of their friends and paces, his hands restlessly tugging through his hair, rubbing his neck, wrapping around himself. There's a part of him that wants to run out the door like he did when he was a child. And then he remembers what he came home to when he did.

Fraudulent or not Evelyn's 'death' defined his childhood and even though he knows it's totally irrational a part of truly believed that if he hadn't run away that day his mother wouldn't have died. It was superstitious and childish, but he never could shake that, even when he found out she didn't. But it's that more than anything that keeps him pacing the hall of the infirmary instead of running out the door now. Just the thought of Tris dying makes him feel like he's drowning, reeling around in an abyss and desperately struggling towards the surface, hoping he finds the warmth and light of life instead of the consuming darkness of death.

Zeke grabs his elbow and pulls him down the hall a few more feet, using his body to hide the flask his hands Tobias. "Drink," he commands, his tone leaving no room for argument. Even if it did Tobias wouldn't. He winces as the liquor burns down his throat, mixes unpleasantly with the coffee in his stomach, but it does help, at least until Tris makes another pained noise.

"I can't listen to this anymore," Tobias says through gritted teeth, shoving the flask back at his friend. He storms through the door of the birthing room ready to scream at anyone and everyone whose fault it is that Tris is suffering. He's struck momentarily dumb though, taking in the scene that greets him.

Tris looks small and exhausted where she's leaning against the pillow with her eyes closed, hands gripping onto the rails of her bed so tightly her knuckles are white. Her hair has been pulled up into a ponytail, but it's falling loose, sticking to the sweat on her face. Christina's at her shoulder while the nurses buzz around the room busily helping the doctor who is on a stool between her bent legs.

"Just a little while longer and it will all be over," the doctor says, her arms hidden by the sheet strung across Tris' legs.

"Do you hear that?" Christina says, her voice nervous and full of forced enthusiasm. "It's almost over."

"Shut up," Tris snaps. "Why do you keep saying that?" Her eyes peel open slowly, painfully, and she catches sight of Tobias standing just inside the door. "Oh God, Tobias," she groans, her frustration and exhaustion peaking at the sight of him. "Get out!" She's struggling, feels like she failing and she doesn't want Tobias to see it anymore now than she did when he watched her struggle as an initiate.

But the words are barely out of her mouth before she chokes on a sob and he's right there, pushing Christina out of his way, and forgetting why he's here in the first place. A nurse squawks that he needs to be wearing a mask and hospital gown, but he ignores her, wraps his arms around Tris so she can bury her face against his shoulder. "This baby is never coming out," she whimpers, voice quiet and tearful. "They keep saying that he is, but he's not."

No one catches the rest of the conversation that passes between them, just Tobias' tone of reassurance as his hand rubs between her shoulders, but whatever he says is enough to calm her. A minute later she dries her tears on his shirt and he pushes the hair out of her face before leaning his forehead against hers.

"Tris," Dr. Gonzales says sharply, "I can see his head now. I need you to focus, okay? A few more pushes and you'll be able to hold him."

She completely ignores the doctor. "Stay with me," She asks Tobias, her voice quiet and uncertain despite everything he's just said to her.

"Always." And like it did when they were laying in bed his strength gives her strength.

"On the count of three I need you to push. One... two... three..."

Tris grits her teeth, screams through them, muscles straining despite the burning pain between her legs. Tobias keeps an arm around her, and lets her crush his hand with one of hers as she pushes. Her body relaxes momentarily as she gasps for breath and then bears down again. Everyone is shouting instructions and encouragement at her, everyone but him because he doesn't know how she can stand it, trying to listen to them and bring their baby into the world at the same time.

It all happens so fast, Tris curling forward and straining and screaming one last time. Suddenly there's a baby screaming too, drowning out the voices of everyone else. Tris body goes limp in his arms and he lays her back against the pillows. He kisses every part of her that he can reach as her shoulders shake with the force of her tears, relief crashing down on her at the feel of Benjamin sitting on top of her stomach instead of inside it, at the sound of his wailing filling the room and his displeasure of this bright, cold, loud new world he's in.

The doctor taps Tobias on the shoulder, hands him a pair of surgical scissors and shows him where to cut the umbilical cord. Benjamin is small and red and wrinkled, his dark hair plastered to his forehead by the layer of mucus that covers him, but Tobias is sure he's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. When he looks back up at Tris she's smiling and wiping away her tears so she doesn't miss a thing.

One of the nurses takes Benjamin across the room to measure and weigh him, to clean him up and wrap him up, and even though it's irrational Tris can't help feeling a little prickle of panic at the separation. "Is he okay?" she asks Tobias, her voice full of worry.

"He's fine," he says soothingly, but pecks a kiss to her forehead and goes to stand next to the nurse while she works on their son to keep watch all the same. Tobias counts fingers and toes while the nurse calls out that Benjamin weighs seven and a half pounds and is twenty inches long. His arms and legs flail around trying to fight her off as she puts drops in his eyes and a tiny diaper on his butt. Tobias knows the doctor is still working on Tris, delivering the afterbirth and cleaning her up, but she doesn't seem to be paying any more attention to it than he is since every time he looks up she's watching him and the nurse.

Benjamin is still crying as he's wrapped loosely in a blanket and placed in Tris arms, Tobias resuming his place at her side when the nurse steps away. "Hi, Benjamin," Tris coos, a smile splitting her face despite her tears and his. She keeps up a steady stream of murmurs until he quiets, finding comfort in the familiar sound of her voice. "He looks like you", Tris smiles up at Tobias when Benjamin opens his eyes to reveal the same dark blue irises his father has.

"See if you can get him to nurse," the doctor gently suggests, untying the front of Tris robe and helping her position the baby correctly. It takes a minute, but then he does, mouth closing around her and his tiny hand resting on her breast, fingers curling and uncurling like a happy cat as he eats.

"He's perfect, Tobias," Tris sighs, eyes flicking up to his for a moment before landing back on their son. She expected this part to be too weird, too much like when Tobias' mouth is on her to not be. And it is strange, but not for those reasons because even though the actions are similar they feel worlds apart. She feels sleepy and content, like she's the one eating a big meal and not the one providing it.

"You did so good, Tris," Tobias says, surprised to find his voice thick. He kisses her cheek, reaches out and stacks his hand on top of her where it's wrapped around Benjamin. Once he's nursed and burped Tris offers him up to Tobias so the nurses can lift her into a clean bed with fresh linens.

Benjamin whimpers a little at the jostling and momentary loss of contact, but Tobias cradles him against his chest and coos to him just like Tris did, hopeful that his son knows his voice as well as Tris' now that he's spent so many nights reading to them. When his eyes open to search out the source of the sound Tobias lifts him higher, bows over him to compensate for the poor vision every baby is born with. The infant gurgles unintelligibly, a hand finding one of Tobias fingers where it rests on his chest, curling around it like he's shaking hands, saying 'hello' even though he can't talk yet.

And the tears that Tobias has been holding back finally spill across his cheeks. He wants to wrap Benjamin up tight in his arms, to protect him because he's so small and fragile, bones as easily broken as glass. He silently promises him that he will never know the sting of a belt or the terror of a locked closet; that he and Tris will always love him and want him and protect him no matter what, and if anyone tries to hurt him they will destroy them.

When Tobias leans in to place gentle kisses to his cheek Benjamin makes a sound that so clearly says irritation at the rasp of his stubble that Tobias can't help laughing. It's watery and weak, but he brushes away the lingering wetness on his face with his free hand and sits down on the edge of the bed next to Tris. "Thank you, for him," Tobias says quietly, gently rocking the baby in his arms, watching with rapt attention as Benjamin's weak eyes take in as much as they can.

Whatever she is going to say in response is cut off by Christina peeking through the door. It's only now that he and Tris realize she disappeared after the baby was born. "You've got a whole crowd of people waiting out here, and we're getting a little impatient," she reminds them, her Candor honesty kept from being rude by the smile puffing up her cheeks.

Judging by the look on Tris' face he can tell it's not something she's sure she wants to deal with right now. "You don't have to see them if you don't want to," Tobias says, keeping his voice low enough that only Tris can hear him. "I'll tell them to come back tomorrow." Or to just fuck right off and go away, but he doesn't say that.

"It's fine," Tris says, though her voice says it isn't. Tobias puts Benjamin back in his mothers arms where he belongs and stands up, putting himself between his family and everything else as people pour into the room. He has a feeling he'll spend the rest of his life doing this.

Zeke pulls Tobias into a crushing hug as Christina and Shauna fawn over Tris and Benjamin. Tori is next and Harrison and Bud now too, followed closely by Uriah and Michael. Mercifully the visit only lasts a few minutes before a nurse wheels in a bassinet and reminds everyone that both mother and baby need to rest. And it's true that Tris is exhausted, but mostly she's grateful for the interruption just because the only people she wants right now is the one in her arms and the one at her side.

She holds on to Benjamin as the nurse checks her over, in awe of him. She pulls off the little knit cap someone stuck on his head and brushes her fingers across his dark hair. How she could ever have worried she wouldn't love him is a mystery to her because that's all she feels. Fierce, consuming, undeniable love filling up every part of her. She doesn't even want to put him in the bassinet, doesn't know if she can stand to have that much space between her and something she loves so much.

The nurse slips from the room once she's satisfied Tris isn't bleeding too much with a promise to come back later. Tris holds on to Benjamin for as long as she can but eventually she's just too tired. "A little help?" She asks since she still can't move much. She has Tobias wheel the bassinet as close as possible and then hands off Benjamin to him so he can settle him inside it.

"Are you still in that much pain?" He asks as he helps Tris roll onto her side. She's so used to sleeping this way now that she doesn't think she'll ever be able to sleep on her back again.

"Kind of. Mostly it's just hard to move from the waist down because the epidural hasn't worn off completely."

"They should have given you more," he grumps, remembering his annoyance from earlier. "You shouldn't have been in that much pain."

"I don't know," she says sleepily. "Once he was out I couldn't feel anything. If I wasn't so wrapped up in him I probably would have freaked out, thought I was paralyzed or something. Of course now that it's wearing off I want more."

"Do you want me to go get the nurse? See if she can give you something?" He asks, his face furrowing in worry.

"No," she sighs. "I just want to sleep."

"Okay."

"Lay down with me," she adds, her eyes drooping.

Tobias lays down behind her, carefully fitting himself into the space between her body and the bedrail, ending their day in much the same way as it began. "We'll go home soon," he murmurs into her hair, letting himself give in to the exhaustion he feels too. "A few days and then I'm taking my family home, where they belong," he adds, more to himself than her.

If he says anything else Tris doesn't hear it, but for the first time in nine months she feels whole and happy, and as she succumbs to sleep she finally lets herself believe the things Tobias said to her when she thought her pain was never going to end.

A/N: To the reviewer who hoped that Benjamin's birth wouldn't be 'horrific'... I tend to think birth is horrific period, but when I wrote this my main concern was that I wanted it to be real. It annoys me to no end how romanticized some people write it and I wanted to avoid that.

Anyway, I'm debating what to do with this. I can just wrap it up with en epilogue, but I might write a few more chapters covering Ben's first year. I haven't decided yet. Either way THANK YOU all so much for your enthusiastic response. I know there's probably going to be some people grumping that I didn't write the dialog for what Tobias said to Tris, but I purposefully kept that vague; sometimes it's just better that way.