49. Daybreak
TOBIAS
In the weeks that follow I find that it is movement, not stillness, that helps to keep the distress at bay, so I try to keep myself busy as much as I can.
I find that if I push my body to its limit during the day I might actually manage to fall asleep that night, though still not with little effort. Most nights sleep evades us and Tris and I would just lie there, face to face. I'd hold her in my arms in silence and together we'd weather the night, awaiting the sunrise. It's without purpose, because the daylight hours are fraught with desolations of their own.
Most days I feel disconnected, the way I do now. It's like I am here without actually being here. Even when the city was all stirred up and the streets were loud with rampant chaos, I watched everyone else recover from the memory serum that had altered them as if from a great distance.
Zeke and I had organized a team charged with overseeing the strategic release of the antidote throughout the city. We were careful not to release it all at once, in an attempt to try and pacify the situation as best we could. Still, people were confused and horrified and angry, even the Amity. We had to plant soldiers around Erudite headquarters and put many of their leaders under protective custody. The truth was a horrible one, but killing every person dressed in blue was most definitely not the solution. Especially considering that the majority of the Erudite themselves were unknowing victims just the same. But one by one, faction by faction, we eventually managed to get the city under control.
The first thing we did after having captured everyone's attention was to try and let them understand or at least see the faults in our faction system. To no one's surprise, though there were those who saw the need for its expulsion, many didn't want to get rid of the faction system entirely and therefore demanded that we maintain some part of it integrated in our city's social structure. Striking a productive balance was testing, but after weeks of difficult negotiation and compromise between the council and the faction leaders, we managed to satisfy the vast majority of the city.
The factions no longer exist in the dictatorial sense in which they once did. All laws pertaining to intermingling and marriage and strict conformity to the faction have all been abolished. People are free to choose whether or not they want to live in a faction, and to even change factions at any time if they find themselves unhappy in the one they live in. And though most factions continue to specialize in a particular field, members of other factions are free to embark in work in whatever field they find interest.
We've also banned the aptitude tests for now, allowing people to find out who they are for themselves instead of letting a simulation decide for them. Maybe sometime in the future the generation that follows might be able to consult the test without the frightening sense of obligation that it once meant and still means for many of us, but for right now, in an attempt to bridge the divide between the factions and uproot the deeply ingrained ethics of factional living, we have limited segregation and encourage understanding and respecting the virtues of all. And more than to their factions, we encourage people to be true to themselves.
The government has suffered small adjustments in order to better suit the recent changes and needs of our city. But the council still remains, although now Hana has been elected President of the city. She offered me a place as her second, but I declined.
The factionless are now an official party of their own, with representation on the council and the right to an education, housing, a job and resources just like everyone else. My mother was especially ecstatic about that change. So much so that she stepped down from her position and Peter finally got his chance at leadership. I guess she was waiting until her dreams were realized before passing over the reins. I am truly glad she lived to see it.
The city is quiet now. We are all free and at peace. We even named it and had an inaugural ceremony. Some suggested that we call it The Last City, since we are all that's left of the world. But my youngest countered their suggestion, saying that we are not the ending of an old world, but the beginning of a new one. We are now officially The First City. Hana said she wouldn't be surprised if Christian turned out to be the next president. After all that he did, I think it would only be fitting.
Things are different now, better. One would think we would be celebrating. But we can't yet. And we won't. Not without Rae.
We've been waiting for six weeks, and every day that goes by and she doesn't wake up is harder than the day before it. Tris and I keep finding ourselves stifled by the company of others and then crippled by emptiness when they leave. We are terrified that we will lose our daughter and it doesn't let us sleep. It doesn't let us appreciate the new world we live in. Because we will have lost more than we have gained if we lose her.
Caleb, along with a small medical staff, moved into Dauntless to oversee her care. Dr. Jimenez has tried to keep us informed and constantly reminds us that things could go either way. Though she has stressed that the longer Rae stays under, the less likely it is that she'll wake up. But she's breathing on her own now and I'd like to think that's a good sign. It has to be.
As I walk toward the infirmary for my daily visit, I try to match my footsteps to my heartbeat. It paces me, encourages me to take each difficult step that I do. I stop by the door of her room and I shove my hands into my pockets to keep them from shaking.
It's never easy walking in there. Because there's always that picture in the back of my mind that when I push the door open I'll find her sitting up on the bed, and I know that every time I don't it will cripple me a little bit more.
Still, I take a deep breath and I push the door open, and walking past the entrance I see Jake. It's not to my surprise. He hasn't left Rae's side for all this time. All the changes that have happened in the city over the past few weeks and I doubt he's seen any of it. I had asked the nurse to keep a bed open for him at night because I didn't like that he was sleeping in the chair beside her bed. But he said no.
I understand it. There was a time, before our children were born, when Tris was all I had. If saving the world meant losing her, then the world would have perished.
"Jake. You should get some proper rest, son," I say, approaching him slowly. His hair is longer now and he's traded his Dauntless black for more comfortable clothes.
"I'm not leaving her," he says without turning to look at me. But I don't have to look into his eyes to know the sentiments that linger deep inside them. His longing for her is almost tangible in the room.
"Can you give me a minute with her?" I ask, placing a kind hand on his shoulder. Jake looks up at me and nods. His eyes are heavy and his face is stern. Undeniably sleep evades him too. He stands from the chair and with a soft kiss to Rae's forehead he exits the room, but I know he won't go too far.
I close the door behind him, and taking a seat in the chair there I just look at her for a while. She looks like she's asleep; expressionless. Maybe to the rest of Dauntless this is how she always looks, and they wouldn't find it strange to see her this way. But I've seen her smile, I've seen her laugh until her face was more than just flushed, I've seen her cry and I've seen her eyes wide with raw excitement. I've known colours of my daughter that only few have known.
"I brought your gun," I laugh softly as I lean forward and place it on the table, knowing she'd want it nearby. I remember when I gave it back to her on the day after her sixteenth birthday. She cried and all she could have managed to say at first was Thank You. But then she said I miss him; David, her father, my friend. I had missed him too, and even though I knew better than to think that I could ever replace him, in my heart I always hoped that Rae knew that she was never without a father.
But I failed her. I broke my promise. I was supposed to take care of her. And maybe now David wants her back, but I'm not ready to give her back. She's as much mine as she was his.
I take her hand in mine and I rub my fingers in the space between hers. They're so small compared to mine, like Tris'. Jake says sometimes she moves her fingers. The doctors say it could mean something, but it could also mean nothing. I choose to believe the prior. I also choose to believe that she can hear me. So every day I visit and I usually tell her about my day and all that's been going on in the city. But today I just want to beg her to come home.
Tracing the length of her finger I say, "We miss you, Rae." There's never been a greater understatement. "I try to keep myself busy because I know that you'd probably tell me to suck it up." I smile. "But no matter what I do I can't focus. How am I supposed to? You're not there with us when you should be. You've always been there… from the very beginning."
And tears fill my eyes at the advent of a memory and I say, "I remember one night when Tris and I had so much trouble getting the twins to bed. It took us hours." I chuckle softly. "We were so tired. And about three in the morning Alex started fussing. I was just about to get up before he woke up Anna or Tris, but then I heard you. I heard you through the baby monitor." My voice cracks when I say, "You were singing to him," and a thick teardrop falls on my arm. "You were always such a good big sister… You still are."
I'll always remember the first time Rae held Alex in her arms. She had promised him that she'd be the best big sister ever. She's always kept that promise, even in times when it could have cost her her life. Even now.
"Speaking of big sisters, you remember that day when Tris had to go to school to get you out of trouble after you punched that bully in his face?" I ask with a grin, though I certainly wasn't grinning that day. I was upset and she knew I would be, but Rae says she got tired of him pushing other people around so she gave him a taste of his own medicine. She was fourteen. "Tris told me your teacher was so upset. She remembers her saying, I told you to call your mother not your big sister. Tris said she wanted to smack the stupid right out of her," I chuckle.
I'm actually surprised she didn't. Tris loves all of our children, but there's a special place in her heart for Rae. They learned how to change diapers and mix a bottle together. They shared everything and they grew up together. They've laughed in each other's arms as much as they've cried on each other's shoulders. They're not just mother-daughter; they're sisters, best friends. And even after Rae did everything she could have done to save Tris' life, she continued looking out for her, for all of us. It's almost like she felt she owed us something. But she's wrong. We are indebted to her. She changed our lives.
"Everyone's a mess without you, Rae," I say, not caring that I sound strangled and breathless and broken. "Jake's a mess, Tris is a mess, I'm a mess. Alex blames himself. Anna says it should have been her. It's a nightmare." I swallow. "Things have gotten better for the city, but we'd take it all back if it meant that you'd be ok. And I know what you'd say to that, but I don't care. I don't care because we still need you," I whimper, hoping that it's enough to make her come back. "So I need you to wake up. I need you to come home."
On the night after we ceased the city, the night after Rae was hurt, Alex had asked me how he could ever be happy if she doesn't wake up. I knew what to say and I knew that I had told him the truth. Though, it was an idea that I myself had rejected. I still reject it, but I don't deny its truth. Rae would want us to go on. And knowing that, I also know that I have to be strong for my family in the event that our nightmares become reality. I know that though in the city we've built we now strive to be more than our faction, still I must be selfless and I must be brave.
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves risking your life for something bigger than yourself, like Alex did, or for someone else, like Rae did. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, like Jake did.
But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. Like we'll all have to do if…
But I press my lips together as if that alone could somehow push back the thought from whatever evil place it came from. I push it back. I reject it.
But I don't deny it's truth.
"Please don't put us through that," I whisper to Rae as if she had heard my silent thoughts. "I know it's a selfish thing to ask, but I thought I would anyways." And though I can barely see her face through the tears, I can't bear to let go of her hand to wipe them away. And swallowing hard I find the strength to say, "I want you to come back. But if you don't-" I choke over the words "-I just want you to know that I've always been so proud of you and I'll always owe you so much. And that one of the greatest joys in my life was being able to call you my friend, my accomplice, and my daughter... And I love you."
I press her fingers into my face and I sob into them, squeezing them so hard that I know if she was awake she would scream or pull them away. I kiss them gently and I look up at the blurred, white haze that is the ceiling. And closing my eyes I try to control myself but I can't seem to stop. And the reality that we might lose her hits me hard in the chest, stealing my breaths away long before I've caught them. I tremble and my breaths are jagged and my chest is tight. And in that moment when I think that I will die along with her if she dare does, piercing through my sobs and over the sound of my pounding heart there is a hoarse whisper that says, "I love you too, Dad."
A/N: There she is :) Please let me know what you guys thought of this chapter!
Posting this chapter makes me so emotional because apart from the Epilogues (Yes, Epilogues, plural) we're just about at the end of this story guys :( I know it's sudden, but there's not much to tell from here that won't be told in the Epilogues. What happens immediately after Rae wakes up will be posted at the end of her short story, but I'll also post it here as chapter 50, which is actually a bonus chapter since 'technically' it's not a part of this story. I'll be posting the first chapter of Rae's short story next week or so. It's called "Memoirs of a lasting love (A DLS Story)". It's only five chapters long, not too big of a commitment, so feel free to follow or check it out :) That should give me enough time to finish the Epilogues for Divergent Love Stories because I still haven't and I really don't want to rush them, and now that I'm getting closer to the exam of my life there just aren't enough hours in the day. But PLEASE hold on tight and don't forget about me or this story. Thank you guys so much for all your support, and I'll see you soon :)
