Chapter 15
TOBIAS
"Daddy."
The cry is so distant I almost can't hear it, even when it sounds out a second and a third time. It feels like I'm dreaming and only when I feel a tiny hand shaking my shoulder do I realize I'm not.
"Daddy," I hear a little louder.
I slowly stir awake and the first thing I notice is Tris snuggled into my chest, her arms carelessly flung over my waist. My arms are cradling her, slowly rising and falling with her chest as she breathes. It feels so surreal, so perfectly peaceful. I've only dreamt of holding her like this, and now that she's in my arms, I suddenly understand the emptiness I felt when I'd wake up and find no one beside me. Who could ever forget this feeling?
"Are you awake?" I hear my son whisper. When I roll over on the mattress I see him standing over me, still wearing his blue and white pajamas. His eyes are wide and bright and every bit like mine.
I don't think I've ever felt this content after being woken up.
"Hi, Andy," I whisper to him with a smile. "Is everything okay?"
"I'm hungry," he answers softly, looking at his sleeping mother.
Even in her deep sleep, Tris must hear him, because she immediately opens her eyes. "What time is it?" she asks me sleepily.
I stare at my empty wrist for a second before reaching my hand down into my pocket to pull out my watch. I'm so tired it takes me a few seconds to read it right. "It's 1 o' clock in the afternoon," I groan.
Suddenly alert, Tris' eyes fly open and she gasps. "Oh no. I'm so sorry, Baby. Give me a second," she pleads with Andy. "I'm coming."
"Okay," Andy answers contentedly, rubbing his eyes, and then he quickly scampers out of the room.
Tris and I now lie face to face, and I'm amazed at how natural it feels to me. I suppose because I've seen her from this angle so many times before in my dreams. My hand finds her cheek, and all I can do is stare at her as my thumb skims across the smooth skin of her face. I can't help but notice how effortlessly beautiful she is. Her hair is a mess and the lines from the pillow case still mark her face, and even so she looks angelic.
"We might have overslept," Tris says groggily and a little nervously. I suppose this is slightly awkward for her. Not too long ago we were at each other's throats, and now my hand is caressing her face, her hands are lying over my waist, our legs are intertwined, and the entire lengths of our bodies touch.
As for me, I won't deny I want to feel her skin instead of her jeans on me. We're both still fully clothed; we were tired after we got back to the bunker and emotions were so high we didn't bother to change. We just fell asleep.
I chuckle. "Well, we were up all night. That's to be expected."
Tris smiles at me and her eyelids fall ever so slowly over her eyes.
"You're still tired."
"Only a little," she yawns.
I move her hair out of her face. "I can make something for Andy to eat… while you get some more rest."
She stares at me curiously for a while, studying me. "Are you sure?" she whispers with the slightest hesitation.
"Yes," I answer earnestly while searching her eyes.
Tris let me have it after we got back to the bunker, and for good reason. It didn't take long for me to realize she was right; now that my son's involved, I have to really think before I move, and whatever I do, his well-being must always be my greatest priority, or I don't deserve to be a part of his life. And more than revenge, more than making Evelyn pay for what she did to me, I want to be a part of my son's life just as I want him in mine. I won't ever do anything to jeopardize that. "Please," I beg her.
"As long as you understand it's more than just a meal," Tris says seriously.
"I do." I nod. I understand it might be a small gesture from me, but it could mean the world to Andy.
"Okay then," she whispers.
My fingers still sway against her cheek, shifting a strand of hair or two out of her eyes. Her gaze is so strong, mesmerizing.
I've noticed she possesses a power over me. She always seems to be able to bring me back when my mind is spiralling out of control. I remember how I felt when I was looking at my father after believing he was dead all this time, and then again when we were on the way to the bunker and all I could do was think about how much my mother had taken away from me. Tris touched me, and although nothing around me made any sense, I felt comforted and safe.
"Have you always been my compass?" I ask her earnestly.
"Only for most of your life," Tris says with a shy smile.
Without a doubt I know that's why I dreamt of her- she has always been the most important person in my life. And even though it's a life I don't remember, a large part of me recognizes her and misses her- loves her; all I've ever wanted to do since the moment I saw her was hold her and touch her, so I do. My fingers glide themselves into her hair and slowly I bring her face to mine. My lips seek out her own and my body shivers when they connect.
I only meant it to be a chaste kiss, but it sparked something inside me- or someone. I become hungry for her, desperate almost, and I deepen the kiss, parting her sweet lips with mine. My fingers curl into her hair and I bring her face closer still; my breaths are jagged as my mouth greedily tastes hers. Tris moans sweetly, and she presses her body closer into me. It's a pleasant surprise when she takes charge of the kiss, eagerly attacking my lips. She tugs at my hair, and she only lets up when Andy yells from the kitchen, "Mommy! You're taking too long!"
"Go," she laughs against my lips.
Reluctantly, but with a grin on my face, I slowly push myself up from the mattress. Tris' eyes stay on me as I walk toward the door and I feel content when I see she's grinning, too. I almost don't want to leave the room, but I can't leave my four year old to starve while I caress his mother.
I turn on the lights when I walk out of the room and it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. I squint all the way to the kitchen and I try my best to not bump into anything on the way there.
"Are you making me breakfast, Daddy?" I hear Andy ask me, and I smile at the tiny blob sitting at the table when I realize it's him. He's sitting there expectantly like the prince he is.
I rub my eyes and groan. "I certainly am," I answer. It's actually lunchtime, but since there's no sunlight in the bunker and he just woke up, Andy seems to be under the impression that it's morning. I won't be the one to tell him it's not, since breakfast is significantly easier to make than lunch.
I rest my back against the fridge and blink a few times. When my eyes are finally accustomed to the light, I see Andy grinning at me. "What are you going to make me?" he asks giddily.
It amazes me just how quickly he's welcomed me into his life, as if he didn't just meet me last night. I met my own father last night and I still haven't decided if I should speak to him or not.
"Well… what do you want?"
"I don't know," Andy shrugs, raising his hands in the air. "Mommy makes eggs sometimes. Or Pancakes."
I walk up to the small pantry and say, "Well, let's see what we have in here." I doubt there are any eggs or flour, or anything perishable. I open the left side of it and I peep through its contents. "Macaroni, some noodles, canned beans, expired oatmeal," I take the last one out and throw it in the garbage under the sink. "Mayonnaise, peanut butter."
"Ew!"
"You don't like peanut butter?" I immediately turn around, and Andy shakes his head vigorously, expressing his dissatisfaction with the horrid food paste.
"Smart boy," I smile. "Why is that even here?"
All of a sudden, I hear quick footsteps behind me when Tris walks out of the bedroom and right into the kitchen. She grabs the jar of peanut butter from my hand. "That's mine." She looks at the jar and smiles sweetly for some reason, and then, pushing herself up on her toes, she kisses me on the cheek. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," I say, though I don't know what for.
"There's fresh bread somewhere in there," Tris says, looking inside the pantry. "My mom gave me some."
"Yay!" Andy claps, jumping up and down in his chair.
"You want grandma's bread?" I turn and ask him.
He nods. "And macaroni."
I give him an eye. "You want bread and macaroni for breakfast?"
"He's asked for much stranger things," Tris laughs, still looking through the pantry. "Be glad it's something you can actually make."
I chuckle and say, "Very true." I can't remember the last time I actually had to cook something. I turn around and take one of the pots from the rack. I fill it with water and put it to boil.
Tris smiles at me as she sets the bread on the counter. "Well… I'll leave you boys to it."
This time I'm the one thanking her, and my eyes follow her all the way back to the room. I don't think she could ever understand how much her trust means to me. When I told her I wanted my family back, I meant it, and the fact that she's giving me a chance to prove myself, to spend time alone with Andy, only reinforces what I already know; Tris loves me just as much as I love her. I won't disappoint her; I won't disappoint either of them.
I look at Andy and smile as I open the small blue and yellow box of macaroni and pour it into the boiling water.
"Where were you, Daddy?" My son wastes no time in asking me. I don't know if he means to ask where I went last night or where I've been his whole life.
"I had to go see someone," I answer, assuming it's the prior. "I'm sorry I left without saying anything. It won't happen again."
"And before that?"
I stir the boiling pot of water. "I was taken away," I explain to him, "by some bad people. They didn't let me come home."
"So you didn't want to go?" he asks, and his eyes hold a hint of sadness.
"No. I didn't." I shake my head, and I feel the same anger from before creep up inside me again.
Andy seems pensive, but satisfied, as if he understands this situation in its entirety, although I know there's no way he could. I'm glad he doesn't require much of an explanation. It might confuse him if I tried to explain exactly how I was taken away, or that I have no memory of a life with his mother while still harboring in my heart a lifetime of love for her.
"Mommy got sad when she talked about you," Andy reveals earnestly. "Were you sad too?"
My anger turns to grief, and I leave the pot and walk over to my son. I bend down until I can look him right in his eyes. I place my hand on his cheek and say, "I was. Every day I woke up, I felt like something was missing."
"Me too," he frowns, and it breaks me even more inside. I know Tris is right, and finding a way to get my life back is more important than vengeance. But how hard it is to not run outside right now and capture the ones who played a part in breaking my son's heart and tearing them all to pieces, one by one.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't there, Andy," I say tenderly, and he searches my eyes. "I'm sorry I missed so much. But I'm here now… and I'm never leaving you again."
He smiles and his eyes become bright with hope. "I'm really glad you're back, Daddy."
I smile back and then I pick him up out of the chair and I just hold him tight, for all the years I couldn't. "Me too."
Tris sits beside me on the bed eating the reheated macaroni like she barely has the energy to chew. She had slept for a few more hours while Andy and I ate, did the dishes and then played together for a bit. He told me all about his Uncle Zeke and Aunt Christina and his godfather Harry. He and I had an amazing few hours together. Tris was so exhausted she slept through the noise.
Andy still runs back and forth across the room, entertaining himself with Dino who is apparently terrorizing the city, and I can't keep my eyes off him. Maybe for another man, watching his kid play is such a normal, trifling thing, but for me it's the pinnacle of the life I do remember. And although we've locked ourselves inside a bunker, this is actually the most liberated I've felt in five years; it's just the three of us and I feel whole.
"How long can we stay here?" I ask Tris, never minding what's beyond that big metal door for now.
"For as long as we need to," she answers quietly. "The only people who know we're here are people who won't hurt us. And we have enough food to last a few weeks, but I don't think we'll be here that long."
I nod. I know at some point we'll have to return to reality, but I'm okay with that. I am content for today, but I won't deny the urge to set things right still burns inside me.
Tris puts the empty bowl on the nightstand and then snuggles into me, our legs hanging over the bedside. My arm instinctively snakes around her back and I hold her against me. Together we watch our son gasp in awe as his toy dinosaur scales the bedroom wall. Whenever we do decide to leave my prison made sanctuary, I need to ensure he's safe.
"You really don't have a plan?" I speak softly as Andy plays.
"I know what we need to do. What I don't know is how is we're going to pull it off," Tris sighs. "Step one was getting you to come to your senses."
"Which I did," I whisper jokingly in her ear.
"Which you did," she smiles briefly. "Step two, you have to tell me everything you know about what the factionless are planning."
"Step three, we find a way to stop Evelyn before she can actually do it," I infer.
"Exactly," Tris nods into my chest. She looks up at me thoughtfully. "I see you're back to calling her Evelyn."
After knowing what she's done, as much as I can't deny that I still love her, there's no part of me that could call that woman Mom ever again. "I feel like I don't know who she is anymore."
"That's because you never did," Tris answers dismally and I shudder inside. It's a horrible thought, that a woman I hardly knew essentially kidnapped me and used me for her own twisted purpose. I couldn't have known, but I still feel like a fool. When my face sinks, Tris says to me, "Don't worry, Tobias. We'll stop her." She takes my hand and she entwines our fingers together. It amazes me how perfectly they fit.
"It shouldn't be too hard with my intel," I say levelly. I know Evelyn's entire battle strategy because I'm the one who came up with it.
"It will be if they should choose to lock us both up the second we set foot in Dauntless," Tris whispers gravely. "Which is why we're not going back there yet… not without a peace offering."
"Does information count?" I ask, after all it's all we have to offer.
"Yeah," she nods slowly. "I need an update from Harrison and Zeke. I'll call them tomorrow and see if we can ask them to make a deal for us. Then we have to find a way to prove our innocence. That's step four."
"And how would we do that?" I raise an eyebrow. I can imagine that from their point of view I'm a faction traitor who faked my own death and now Tris has gone rogue.
"I don't know," she sulks and her gaze sinks.
I look at her carefully. "You don't sound too sure this plan will work."
"That's because of who we're dealing with," she answers, shaking her head a little bit. "It could go either way." She glances at me and then at Andy. "I'm glad he at least had today to just be a normal kid. His whole life is about to change in one way or the other."
As she rests against me, I look down at our entwined fingers, at my thumb threading softly over her palm. I think of how effortlessly Tris and I found ourselves in this position, and how even if we get through this unscathed, Andy's life will be a bit different now that I'm back in the picture.
"He asked me where I was all these years," I mention to Tris, "I was glad he didn't ask about us; I don't know how to explain any of this to him."
"He looks fine with it if you ask me," Tris chuckles, looking at him sweetly.
"That's because he doesn't understand."
"He does, actually," Tris looks up at me seriously. "He understands his daddy's home. As soon as he was old enough to want something, that is what he wanted. And he knew I wanted you back too, so he wouldn't expect anything else but this." She raises our hands a little. "Children are curious, but they don't really care about the details. They only care about what is."
I nod a little. "I wish the world was that simple when I looked at it."
Tris huffs. "Adults tend to complicate things."
"We do, don't we?" I agree, looking into Tris' eyes. "After I saw Evelyn last night, I almost lost it. My mind went all over the place and I kept thinking about everything that was wrong with this entire situation. But you know what Andy said to me?"
"What?"
"He said, 'Everything is going to be okay, Daddy. We're together now.'"
Tris squeezes my hand and smiles, and I'm sure her eyes become a little wet. "His logic is sound."
I agree wholeheartedly. Andy's words and his tiny arms around my neck were all that held me together in that moment. I was driving myself crazy thinking about everything I had lost, the wrong that was done to me, and I never stopped to appreciate the fact that I had found my way home, and that I had a son waiting for me.
I suddenly wonder, "How did he recognize me?" I was taken before Tris ever knew she was pregnant, which is why Andy never appeared in my dreams. Curiously, I glance at him; he's now sitting on the floor with his legs crossed. Dino runs back and forth between his knees.
"He has a picture of you in his bedroom," Tris explains to me. "I thought he should know what his father looked like."
I smile, remembering I did see a small picture of her and me in her apartment which I still haven't mentioned I broke into. "Thank you, Tris," I whisper earnestly and she smiles back.
"There's absolutely nothing to thank me for, Tobias," she says sweetly. "You both deserved as much."
But I know nothing of what I deserved. I can only hope that I was a better man then than I am now, and that I'll be a better man again once this is all over, with or without my memories. That's what Andy deserves.
My baby boy yawns loudly, and his arms stretch out in front of him. His eyes become heavy and he stands to his feet. Drowsily, he walks over to us and I pick him up and put him to sit beside me on the bed. He bends over and rests his head in my lap and my hand instantly finds his hair. In less than a minute his breathing becomes so even that I imagine he's fast asleep.
"I think he's all played out," I whisper.
"You think?" Tris giggles. "I'm surprised he lasted this long. It's only five o'clock but it feels like midnight."
"You had a rough night," I say to Tris. "You should probably take a nap too."
"I won't argue that."
When Tris sits up, she helps me to adjust Andy in the bed without waking him, and we place Dino nearby where we know he'd want him. Tris covers his feet with a sheet as I press a kiss to his forehead and wish him sweet dreams, and then we walk quietly out of the bedroom. Andy looks so tiny on the large bed, and even though I know I'm only one room away, it's incredibly difficult to leave him even if it's just for a nap.
"I know I never met him," I say softly to Tris when she turns off the light. "But when I saw him last night, I felt it… that he was mine… and I couldn't explain how. I just knew. And suddenly it was like nothing else in the world mattered; I felt like nothing could ever be as important as him."
Tris rests her head on my shoulder as we both glance back at Andy one last time. She takes my hand and says, "Welcome to parenthood."
A/N: Things are getting a little better for team Eaton, and I'm hoping you guys are enjoying it :) Thank you all for your reviews on the last chapter! And forever thanks to Bamberlee who keeps making time to keep this story great ;)
