Chapter 16
TRIS
I give Andy a warm bath, a long one, and then I change him into a fresh pair of pajamas. He smiles at me the whole time, feeling rather content after having spent the day napping and talking to his father.
I couldn't help but stare at them; I always knew Andy took after Tobias, but it became so much more evident when they sat face to face. And everything was so natural between them- a genuine bond that you'd swear had been years in the making. Watching them make up for lost time was both beautiful and heart-breaking to watch.
"Mmmmmm," Andy smiles as he sniffs loudly. The pleasant scent of hot chocolate creeps into the bedroom from the kitchen.
"You want hot chocolate?" I ask him, as if he'd ever say no.
Andy nods with a grin, and excitedly jumps off the bed. He looks up at me with bright eyes, pleading for me to take him into the kitchen. I realize I really have to set the mood for him to fall asleep tonight. He napped for most of the day, and now he's filled with all this energy.
"Ready!" Tobias yells from the kitchen, and Andy takes my hand and practically drags me out of the bedroom.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming," I concede as I stumble sleepily behind my son.
Tobias laughs when he sees Andy pulling me out of the room, and the look on his face almost stops my heart. It's the first time I've heard him laugh like that, or seen him smile like that since we found each other again. It's surreal, this moment where we're just a normal family, and nothing outside of this bunker matters.
Andy lets go of my hand and excitedly sits himself at the table while I smile at Tobias for a little bit too long. Our evening was pleasant; while Andy slept we talked a little, laughed a little, kissed a little, like when we were teenagers. In fact, he's still wearing the grey shirt my mother gave him- my father's shirt, and if his hair were short enough, I'd think I was standing in a memory.
Slowly he walks toward me, and when we're face to face he softly asks, "What is it?"
His eyes are penetrating, and I unconsciously smile just a little wider. "It's been a while since I've seen you in grey."
"Oh," he says. He looks down at the shirt and then pulls on the hem. "I do wear it well."
I chuckle louder than I mean to, and my cheeks suddenly feel warm at the thought that Tobias looks handsome in anything… and in nothing. I'm sure I begin to sweat.
I decide to walk away and feed my son before I continue to make a fool of myself, but Tobias takes my hand and says, "Tris, I wanted to thank you… for today."
I take a step back so I'm standing in front of him again.
"I needed that time with Andy… more than you know," he whispers, and he gently brushes his thumb against my palm. I find we touch each other easily now, without hesitation, so much so that even if Tobias hadn't confessed the love in his heart for me, I would have known it by now. I felt it in the tender kisses we shared after putting Andy to sleep.
"I think we all did," I answer earnestly, and I feel a tinge of guilt creep up inside me when I think of how reluctant I was to let Tobias even know Andy existed. I confess, "At first I wasn't sure I could trust you with him… even though I did imagine how much you needed him… and how much he needed you. But I was wrong to doubt you."
"You weren't, Tris. None of this is easy," Tobias says quickly. "You did what you thought you had to do. And I'd never hold protecting our son against you."
"I know you wouldn't," I nod, but I can still see how my actions may have caused Tobias even more pain, even if it was to protect our son. I don't think I'd ever felt so torn in my life, but it's because I love them both to the ends of the earth and back. I look into his eyes and say, "But I don't ever want you to feel like your pain doesn't matter to me too."
When I begin to hang my head a little, Tobias catches my chin between his fingers and slowly nudges it upward. "I know it does, or I wouldn't be here," he says just before leaving a soft kiss on my lips. And just like it was before, it's impossible for me to stop kissing him. I ache for him so much that my knees begin to fold. But before I can collapse into him, the moment is disturbed by the sound of someone on the other side of the front door.
"Andy, go back inside the bedroom!" I say forcefully to my son who had been sitting quietly at the table. Although I know there are only two other people who know that code, I'd rather not assume the person opening that door is a friend.
Letting go of me, Tobias rushes into the kitchen and pulls a large knife from the drawer.
"Go inside, Baby," I say again to Andy, but before he can make it to the bedroom, the door unlocks.
"Who's there?!" I demand, shoving Andy behind me at the same time Tobias steps in front of me with the knife in his hand.
"Don't freak out!" a familiar voice answers before stepping inside. "It's me!"
"Zeke?" I ask at the same time he pushes the large door open and walks through with both his hands in the air. I let out a sigh of relief as it closes behind him.
"Uncle Zeke!" Andy cries out, and he rushes from behind me to greet the man who I believe might be his favourite person in the world.
Zeke groans as he picks Andy up, yet he effortlessly throws him in the air a few times. Andy giggles loudly, and I don't miss the slightly jealous look on Tobias' face as he returns to the kitchen to put the knife back in the drawer.
"What are you doing here, Tris?" Zeke asks me, although I could ask him the same thing. "I thought you were sleeping at your mother's." His eyes glance curiously at me and then at Tobias.
"I was," I answer awkwardly, placing my hand on my hip, not really sure what to say after, considering Andy is sitting happily on Zeke's forearm and I'd rather not have to explain that in front of him. I'm not sure why, since Andy already assumes his parents are together.
"Oh… Well… I brought Four some clothes," Zeke stammers nervously for some reason. "I wasn't sure you had any for him, and I could smell him all the way from Dauntless," he smirks. I only now notice the large, black plastic bag he had set on the floor.
"Thank you, Zeke," I smile earnestly, and I feel my shoulders relax a bit. It might be because I no longer have to worry about washing Tobias' clothes every single day, although I've taken a liking to seeing him in my dad's shirt. Who knows, maybe wearing some of his old clothes will help to trigger his memory.
"It is the very least I can do, Tris," Zeke says. He eyes Tobias again who is still staring at him from the kitchen only a little less than threateningly. "What's going on here? I thought Four would be here alone and handcuffed to the wall or something." Zeke looks over at the empty corner where we had left Tobias the first night we put him in here, handcuffed and drugged.
I shudder.
Tobias, on the other hand, casually holds out his arms in front of him and says, "Sorry to disappoint you, But I am here of my own free will."
Zeke's face suddenly becomes hard. "You got your memories back?" he asks quietly.
"No," I answer for Tobias, and Zeke's eyes shoot back at me. "But he did find out the truth."
"I see," he says softly, and I see how his face sinks, as subtle as it is. "And how are you taking it?" Zeke asks Tobias, who sarcastically answers, "Gracefully."
I stop a snicker at my throat. It's not entirely a lie. In another version of this reality, all of the factionless are already dead.
"As expected," Zeke smiles, teasing his friend. "You never could resist her." Shaking his head, he smiles at me knowingly, and then he sets Andy back on the ground. "So there I was worried sick about you, and you two are here playing house?" Zeke folds his arms across his chest and laughs at us, eyeing us both with amusement.
If there is ever anyone who could find a reason to laugh in the middle of a crisis, it's Zeke.
I walk up to him and push him in the shoulder and I take Andy's hand. "Zeke!" I scold him. "Watch your mouth in front of Andy."
"It's a start. It'll do for now," he says a little less jokingly. His face is entirely serious when he says, "Harrison wanted to come along but he couldn't. Derek's got everybody on a tight leash. He knows we're all close so he's got eyes on all of us, waiting to see which one of us will lead him to you."
"How do you know he didn't follow you?" Tobias asks, leaning against the counter.
"Because I'm smarter than Derek and a hell of a lot smarter than Chad," Zeke says, taking off his dark jacket.
I take it from him and throw it across one of the chairs. "And Christina?" I ask.
He shrugs. "I think I'm smarter than her too."
"That's not what I mean and you know it," I roll my eyes at him as I walk back over.
Taking a step closer to me, Zeke puts his hand on my shoulder. "Hey… you let me worry about Christina," he says seriously. "She's having a hard time with this, but that's not on you. Okay?"
Tobias eyes Zeke as Zeke eyes me. Andy eyes the three of us curiously.
"Okay," I say half-heartedly. I hate to feel like I'm being forced to choose between my husband and my best friend, especially because I know who I would choose.
Tobias approaches us and he picks up the bag of clothes from the floor. "Thank you," he says evenly, but his voice is a bit tense. It's strange seeing him this awkward around Zeke, and I have to remind myself that technically he doesn't know him at all. I suppose it's natural that he would feel a bit threatened, considering Zeke is the one who shot him with the tranquilizer and helped to drag him here.
"No problem," Zeke answers sincerely.
"It's good that you're here, actually," I input. "I was supposed to call you. We need to talk."
He lets out a breath. "Then let's talk."
I take Andy to bed after he's eaten his supper, and then the adults all sit around the kitchen table to discuss business. Zeke and Tobias both shift in their seats a few times, and I'm the one who breaks the silence even though I already heard most of the story earlier from Tobias.
"Why don't you start from the beginning, Tobias," I say from beside him, and I gently set my hand on his own.
He nods and looks Zeke right in the eye. "Evelyn told me that five years ago a team of Dauntless soldiers had gone to investigate them," he begins. "They were in the beginning phase of starting up a revolution- hoarding weapons and calling in anyone who was willing to fight, but Dauntless had detected the suspicious activity in the area."
"I remember," Zeke says with a frown, placing his hands on the wooden table. And of course he would remember; it was his team that was sent in to investigate. "On the cameras around the city we saw them hauling supplies, piling up their food. It was strange. We'd never seen them behave in that way before. The factionless were always segregated even amongst themselves, and it looked to us like they were trying to make a faction of themselves."
"In a way, that's exactly what they were doing," Tobias answers. "But they were figured out, so when the team was sent in and when Evelyn saw me with them, she coaxed me to stay and talk to her because she knew she couldn't allow the others to return to Dauntless with that information."
"She orchestrated the crash," Zeke deduces, sounding angry, and his fingers all clench together in a tight fist. He always gets emotional when he talks about that train crash. I don't think he can think about it without remembering he was supposed to be on it.
"She did," Tobias confirms levelly.
"That's what Harrison had said," I say to Zeke from across the table, remembering the meeting we had just before my team was sent into the factionless. It seems like so long ago. "He said his informant had told him so."
"Who is your informant?" Tobias quickly turns his head to ask me. "I knew someone had betrayed Evelyn but I never did figure out who it was."
"I really don't know who it is," I answer honestly.
"Neither do I," Zeke adds. "But I wish I did. I'd try to convince him to come forward. It would be helpful if someone from inside the factionless attested to the truth of the matter since Chad had demeaned our intel because we lacked the evidence to support it," Zeke says angrily, still clenching his fists in front of him. "We had returned to the crash site and the factionless hideout, but we never found anything or anyone."
"That's because they evacuated," Tobias explains with a nod. "They knew you'd be back so they relocated all their resources."
"So you're telling me all of this is connected?" Zeke asks as he puts the pieces together. "I remember it well, but everything went quiet after the crash, so I never thought to connect those factionless incidents with the current ones." His eyes widen as recognition slowly creeps into them.
"After I was brought on board, I taught them how to be more discreet," says Tobias. "The movement never stopped. We just got Dauntless off our trail." He hangs his head just a little, and I can tell he regrets everything he ever did to help them.
"And why did you end up staying with her anyway?" Zeke queries carefully, not wishing to sound as if he were accusing his friend of anything.
"She was desperate," Tobias answers with a small frown. "She said she had written so many letters and I refused to answer any of them. So she gave me some sort of memory serum that she got from God knows where, and basically rewrote my history and told it back to me."
Zeke shakes his head with disdain just like I did the first time I realized what had happened. "How sick is she?" He asks. I don't think there are limits.
"Sick enough to admit that she and I had no kind of relationship at all before she took my memory," Tobias answers.
This catches my attention. "So you weren't meeting with her in secret?" I raise an eyebrow.
Tobias shakes his head slowly and he looks at me inquisitively. "She said it was the first time we spoke since she left Abnegation."
"She said," Zeke says carefully.
"Does it really matter?" Tobias asks.
"It does," Zeke says strongly. "If you were meeting with her before the crash there might be a trail, and your best friend Derek is bound to uncover it. It'll only add fuel to his theory that you abandoned Dauntless and killed your team to cover up your tracks."
I gasp; the thought is horrid, but that's not the only reason why it bugs me. I also hate the idea of Tobias having lied to me. Instead of worrying about how incriminating it would look if he really were seeing her in secret, he looks at me knowingly and asks, "Do you think I was meeting with her, Tris?"
"I don't know what to think," I confess, not looking him in the eye. "But I'd rather hope you weren't lying to me."
"I don't think I was," Tobias says sincerely. "But I can't say for sure. I only know what she told me." Tobias sinks a little in his chair, and I feel horrible for making him feel guilty about something he might not have even done.
"What can you say for sure?" Zeke asks him in a low tone.
"She used me," Tobias snarls. "She lied to me about an Erudite-Dauntless coalition to take over the city."
Zeke raises an eyebrow, which is exactly the reaction I had when I heard it. "You mean the one that already happened and was foiled?"
"Yes. The very one," Tobias answers with obvious annoyance toward his mother. "All in all, she believes that something like that could easily happen again because certain factions hold too much power, while the factionless hold no power at all."
Zeke nods. "So what phase are they now in their revolution?"
"The last phase," Tobias says, "For years now Evelyn has been bringing all the factionless together, and she made herself a pretty decent army."
"With what intention? Burn the city to the ground?"
Tobias takes a breath. "I initially believed it was to stop the Erudite from conducting inhumane experiments on factionless people. I only recently found out her plan is to actually overthrow Dauntless and replace it."
"Replace Dauntless?" Zeke laughs loudly at this, and I quickly hush him before he wakes Andy.
"Yes," Tobias answers seriously. "As in kill all of you and then occupy the space you now hold as the city's defenders and police."
Zeke gives him an eye. "Is she out of her mind?!"
"We've established that," I mumble.
"I mean, I know," Zeke says with a smirk. "But does she really think her army is any match for ours?"
"Well, I trained them." Tobias shrugs a little, and he leans back into his chair.
Zeke's grin immediately plummets, and for good reason. Every year, Tobias' initiates had always come out on top. And when he was promoted to head of security, he ensured that every Dauntless soldier was at the top of their game. Given time, he could turn the weakest punch into a knockout.
"Fuck," Zeke mumbles under his breath.
"Do you have a timeline?" I chip in, looking at Tobias. "Do you know exactly when they plan to attack us?"
"Well I was the one who kept pushing it off," he explains to me. "I kept telling Evelyn the men weren't ready. But when your team found us, things were essentially sped up."
"So you don't think they can pull it off?" Zeke asks, his voice laced with curiosity. He scratches the hair on the side of his face.
Tobias leans forward again and looks his old friend right in the eye. "They might not, but that doesn't mean they won't do a lot of damage before you take them all down. And on the other hand… they might."
Understanding what he's saying, Zeke says, "So we need to make sure we never find out which it is."
Tobias nods. Whether the factionless win or lose, it'll be dirty, and it'll be on his hands. After that, there's no pardon to be had from Dauntless.
"Do you know where they are now?" Zeke asks him.
"I do, but now that Evelyn knows I know everything, she might not stay there. She's probably moving as we speak."
"Any idea where she would go?" I ask.
"She has several options; I made sure of that. But it wouldn't be hard to flush her out if you guys have a source."
"Well, she has one too," I remind them both. "And we still have no idea who it is. So we have to take care who we go to with the information needed to stop the factionless and save Tobias. We won't be able to do either if the wrong person catches wind of it."
Zeke raises an eyebrow at me. "Are you sure you want to involve the Dauntless in this, Tris? I thought that's what we were running away from."
"What other choice do we have now, Zeke?" I ask him. "You need an army to defeat an army, and information is the best way to win a war. Besides, it's the only bargaining chip Tobias and I have, so we have to make it work for us."
"You're thinking if Tobias comes forward with the intel he has it'll buy him some leverage?" Zeke asks me skeptically.
"You tell me," I sulk, but by his reaction I don't feel too hopeful at all anymore. In fact, I feel frightened now.
"Without his memories, I really can't say," Zeke answer me cautiously. "It'll land on Derek's table and we can't really expect him to be fair and honest. Four knows the law better than anyone, but that's Four."
"And technically… I'm not Four," Tobias says. Then out of nowhere he adds, "What I'd like to know is… who's this Derek I keep hearing about?"
I feel my heart race inside my chest for some reason, and I instantly bite my lip. "He's one of the Dauntless leaders. He holds your old position as head of security; he's in charge of the Dauntless army."
Tobias nods slowly, evenly, the way he did when the gears were turning inside his head. "I've gathered he doesn't like me very much," he looks at me and says. "Is it just because he's in love with you? Or is there more to it?"
I almost gasp, and Zeke sits frozen in his chair.
"I heard what Christina said to you just before she walked out," Tobias explains, and his eyes are softer than I had expected. "Derek is hoping you'll turn yourself in so he can go easy on you."
Zeke lets out a heavy breath. "Still sharp as fuck, I see."
I suddenly feel uncomfortable, as if I were naked in front of them both. Tobias might not yet remember his feud with Derek, but when he does remember, how do I tell him that I actually went on a date with the man? Do I ever mention that he tried to kiss me when I obviously didn't want to? I'm even more relieved now it never went any further than that.
"Trust me, there's a lot more to it than just Tris," Zeke says for me when I fail to remember how to speak. "You and Derek have been at it for years."
"Well that puts me at a severe disadvantage," Tobias says pensively, still looking at me. I wonder if he sees the guilt that's written all over my face. "I don't imagine him allowing me to be the hero in any version of this story."
"Hmmm," Zeke smiles with sudden optimism. "Then let him take all the credit."
Both Tobias and I immediately turn and give Zeke an eye.
"What do you mean?" I ask him.
Excitedly, Zeke explains, "We go to Derek with the intel like you suggested. But we let him take the credit for figuring out the factionless, let him be the one to stop them. He'll have his name written down in some history book somewhere that no one will ever read, just like he's always wanted, and in return you ask for pardon."
I squint my eyes a little. "I see where you're going with this." It's a win-win since Tobias and I only want our lives back. Derek can keep the glory.
"Tell you what. I'll talk to Harry, see what he thinks," Zeke continues. "I'll radio in if he believes we can use the information to our favour, and if he thinks it's a good idea, we'll talk to Derek and set up a meeting with you."
I want to ask what we're to do in the event that Harry doesn't think it's a good idea, or Derek refuses to meet with us. What do we do then? But I don't want to dampen the mood; this is the closest we've come to having an actual complete plan.
"It's attractive, but how can we be sure he'll bite?" Tobias bravely asks what I couldn't.
"You can almost always count on the Dauntless' need to win a fight, Four," Zeke answers with a smile.
Almost always. Unfortunately, there's no good in being almost pardoned.
A/N: What's in store for the Eaton family? We'll find out soon enough! Bamberlee and I would like to thank you guys for your continued love and support. Please review and let us know what you thought of this chapter :)
