Chapter 18
TRIS
The slight chill on my toes is what wakes me. I pull my feet back under the covers and slide them a little to the right in search of Tobias' warmth, but there's nothing there. I yawn and stretch out my arms to find him, but even they come up empty. When I finally open my eyes, I realize he's not here.
I'm not alarmed at first and I lie patiently alone on the mattress, giving him a few minutes, thinking maybe he's in the bathroom. But when he's gone for too long and the bunker is perfectly quiet, I promptly decide I should go looking for him.
I groan as I get up off the mattress and I tiredly pull on my clothes. Still feeling a bit chilly, I wrap the sheet around me before stepping out of the room. The first thing I do is peep on Andy who is surprisingly still fast asleep and very much alone in his bed.
"Tobias?" I whisper, but there's no answer. I check the rest of the bunker, but it's small enough for me to realize within seconds that Tobias isn't inside.
I shiver a little when I take my hand out from under the sheet to put in the passcode for the front door. Not necessarily because I'm cold, but because I'm suddenly frightened that Tobias might have left. I know how confusing this all must be for him, and maybe last night was a little bit too much, but it would be a lie to suggest that either one of us didn't want that moment together.
As the door opens, I quickly walk up the stairs into the old building that lies on top of the bunker, and that's when I see him leaning against the wall, looking out through the large hole that used to be the front door of whatever once stood here. I feel when my shoulders sink from pure relief, and I finally remember to exhale.
I slowly walk up behind him and I tug the sheet even closer to me when the cool wind of dawn begins to hit me. It's still a little dark out, but it won't be for long. I can see the faintest light blue behind what's left of the stars.
"Tobias?" I say his name carefully, wondering what thoughts were so disturbing to have brought him out here. He doesn't turn around, but the air is so quiet I know he heard me approaching.
When I'm standing directly beside him, he doesn't look at me. Instead, he stretches out his arm and wraps it around my waist, drawing me into him. Leaning into his chest, I look forward to see what he's staring at, but I don't see anything except for some trees and old buildings beyond the broken street.
I look up at him and ask, "Is everything okay? Why are you outside?"
He takes a few slow, steady breaths. "Needed some air," he answers lowly, and then he swallows.
I wrap both my arms around him, bringing him under the sheet with me, and I continue to look up at him. His face looks troubled; unfortunately, I'm not the least bit surprised. "What's wrong, Tobias?" I ask him.
He rests his back against the wall and he turns himself to face me, his arms still wrapped around my waist. He lets out a jagged breath and says, "I want to remember, Tris," and he looks intensely into my eyes. "I want so badly to remember all the things you do. I want to remember the first moment I knew I was in love with you, the first time I kissed you."
I sigh, entirely unable to imagine how he must feel; those memories are precious. But I remind him, "You might not remember anything about our life together, but you can feel it." I put my hand over his heart. "Evelyn didn't take that away from you. She couldn't. No one can," I assure him.
Some bonds are just too strong to break.
"I know," he answers softly. "I dreamt about you every night… every single night for five years until I thought I was crazy." He moves one hand from my hip to fix my hair. He gently pushes it behind my ear. "And then that night when I saw you for the first time… I knew something was so very wrong. Tris, I look at you and I just know that you're where I belong... but that scares me more than you can imagine," he chokes out.
"Why?" I take his hand in mine, and I search his eyes carefully.
"I'm afraid to disappoint you," he says in a tone that suggests I should have known. "I am and at the same time I'm not the man you fell in love with. Could you really be happy with me, even if I never remember anything?"
Understanding where his mind has drifted to, I squeeze our fingers together. "You're afraid one day I'll end up changing my mind about you if you never get your memories back?"
Tobias doesn't answer me, but his eyes tell me all I need to know. I smile, and though I don't mean to, I can't help but chuckle a little.
He pinches his eyebrows together. "What?" he asks me with surprise in his eyes.
"You're more you than you think, even without your memories," I smile and shake my head. "We had a very similar conversation once… on an Abnegation rooftop… the night before your choosing ceremony. You were afraid I'd change my mind about you, about Dauntless, though you had no reason to be." I place my hand on his cheek and I'm filled with emotion as I'm taken back to that moment. "Just like now."
I'll never forget that night. I was so terrified I was losing my first love forever, all up until he kissed me and promised me he would never forget me.
The irony isn't lost on me.
And after having spent the last five years without him, it's so much easier for me to understand now how he was never distracted by other girls in Dauntless the way I feared he would have been. It's like we've imprinted on each other, and it's impossible to want anyone else.
"I never did know how to live without you, Tobias Eaton, and even when I was forced to, I never learned," I confess. It's something I often felt ashamed about. I feared it made me weak, but at the same time I didn't care to force myself forward. I wasn't hurting anyone but myself by holding on to him.
I take his hand again and I entwine our fingers together. "So even if you don't get your memories back, I'm open to making new ones, because you're still you; you are all the things I love about you," I continue to say wholeheartedly. "And for so long I've been haunted by the thought that I'd never see you again, that you'd never know your son. So now that it doesn't have to be that way anymore, why would I ever want that?"
Tobias presses his free hand into my back, pushing my chest into his, and he leaves a tender kiss on my forehead. "And what if we can't work things out with Dauntless? Where do we go?" he asks. "I certainly can't go back to the factionless. Not that I would want to."
"It's gonna be okay, Tobias," I assure him strongly, realizing he's worrying about more than just one thing. "Everything will be okay."
"Do you really believe that?" he whispers.
"Yes," I answer with surety. "Because we're both innocent in all this and I don't believe life would give you back to me only to take you away again."
He presses his forehead to mine and he stays there for a while, taking slow and steady breaths. When he kisses me softly, paying special attention to my bottom lip, I laugh lightly against his mouth. "It's funny how you say you're not the same man I fell in love with, but you kiss me the same, you hold me the same, you make love to me like you've memorized every inch of my body."
After last night, there's not a sliver of doubt in my mind that the man in front of me is my Tobias, the same Tobias who studied me and learned me until he became an expert on pleasuring me until my body trembled.
Tobias smiles knowingly. "I told you… if I don't think about it, certain things come back to me. Besides, my dreams were sometimes quite vivid." He has a rude look in his eyes and his cheeks flush with colour as he blushes uncontrollably.
"What exactly did you dream?" I ask out of curiosity.
"We had a lot of sex, didn't we?" he asks me with a grin, essentially answering my question.
"We did," I laugh, and I bury my face into his chest to hide my own embarrassment. "What else did you dream?"
He tenderly brushes his hand against my hair. "One time I dreamt we were lying down on our backs in a large net somewhere," Tobias says. "There was this huge hole in the ceiling and we were looking up at the sky. It was late in the evening but it was cloudy, and you kept pointing out shapes and animals. I didn't see it. I just saw clouds," he laughs.
I don't.
Tobias and I had done that once during my initiation. I told him as much as I enjoyed my new life living underground, I had missed seeing the sky, so when training was over for the day he took me to the net and we looked up through the hole in the ceiling until it was too dark to see anything but stars.
I pull my face away from his chest and curiously I ask, "What else?"
He looks down at me thoughtfully. With a shrug he adds, "In one of my dreams you were crying. I don't know why, but you kept saying it was because you left him. You were saying it over and over again. I told you it wasn't your fault but you wouldn't stop crying."
I stop breathing and every hair on my arm stands at attention. That was the night my father died.
"Tobias… those aren't dreams," I say hesitantly, and I'm suddenly hyper aware of my breathing. "Those are memories."
We both stare at each other with wide open eyes, and we don't blink or move, not until we hear something rustling in the bushes.
"Someone's there," Tobias says gutturally, and he instantly pushes me behind him. "Go back inside, Tris," he commands.
"Wait!" someone yells, and I feel my body stiffen. It's a woman's voice and Tobias seems to recognize it, because he stands still instead of moving back inside. "It's me," the woman says, and I can see her now. She's tall and slim, factionless, with fair skin and long brown hair; she approaches us with both her hands in the air. "I have some information you might need."
"Kate?" Tobias says nervously, and then he stops breathing.
TOBIAS
"Who?" Tris whispers carefully beside me as Kate slowly makes her way toward us.
"It's okay. I know her," I manage to say quietly, but I still push Tris to stand behind me. I have no idea why Kate's here or how she found us.
"How do you know we can trust her?"
"I don't. But I want to hear what she has to say." I haven't seen Kate for a while, but I always got the impression she disliked my mother. If she's here alone, she might be here to help. But the second I start to feel like she's a threat, I'm taking her down.
"How did you find us?" I ask Kate when she stands only a few feet away from us. The early rays of the sun are reflected against her brown hair.
"Harrison," she answers. Her hands are still up in the air and I spot a small bag in her right hand. "Shouldn't we go inside?" She looks behind me.
"We can talk out here," Tris says firmly, taking the words out of my mouth. Andy's inside the bunker and no one but me or Tris is getting anywhere near him.
Kate nods quickly. "Tobias," she begins, and I feel Tris stiffen behind me. Kate slowly allows her hands to fall to her sides. "I need to apologize to you."
I'm quiet for a while, waiting for an explanation, but then I realize there's only one thing she could be apologizing for. "You knew," I say brashly.
"To a certain extent," she quickly explains. She's nervous, more nervous than I've ever seen her. "I knew what your mother had done to you, but I didn't know you had a family… a wife and a son?" She shakes her head and glances at Tris. "I would have told Harrison if I had known you were acquainted with him, even if it was to forcefully extract you."
"You're Harrison's informant?" Tris asks, stepping out from behind me even though I try to keep her there.
"Yes," Kate exhales. "I met with him about a year ago."
"Why?" I ask her. My mother's people, as much as some of them disliked her, were all indoctrinated. I never imagined in a million years that one of them would actually betray her, so even when we became aware that someone had been giving the Dauntless information, we had no idea who it could be.
"At first I was all for Evelyn's ideas and dreams of equality," Kate begins. "But then she got carried away, she became as bad as the people she wanted to overthrow. She was keeping resources for herself, gave herself certain privileges that no one else had, and she started treating some better than she did others. When I caught wind of her plan to attack Dauntless for no reason other than her need to be a tyrant, that was the final straw for me," she says sternly. "I have family there, innocent people."
"I didn't know either," I confess to her. "I only found out a few days ago."
"She was lying to everyone," Kate shakes her head. "When I realized that, I tried to stay in the loop; I even accepted her offer to spy on you for her, thinking she would have at least been honest with you about the war she was trying to wage, since you were the one training her army. I figured I'd share whatever information I found with someone inside Dauntless I could trust. But you were so closed off… I knew you were a dead end from the first night."
Clutching at the blanket, Tris gives me an eye. Something tells me she'll want an explanation and I won't want to give it to her.
"She's been watching me this whole time?"
It's a rhetorical question, but Kate answers, "She was always afraid you'd get your memories back. It haunted her. She became paranoid about it and insisted we tell her if you even hinted about remembering anything."
"That's why she wanted me killed the second I set foot there," Tris says bitterly from beside me.
"Yes," Kate nods, and her eyes scan Tris curiously. "She couldn't take the risk that Tobias would have seen you." She then looks at me and says, "Because Tony had made it clear that you never really forgot about Tris. It's why she kept him around even after they had that falling out. He was the only person you confided in, and she needed him to tell her all the things you never told her, and believe me he did. I suppose that's why he's dead." Kate twists her head to the side and gives me an eye.
That's exactly why he's dead. He had the power all along to keep me there or set me free. He made the wrong choice.
"Anyway," Kate adds lowly. "She did let him in on some useful information that I managed to extract before you stabbed him in the neck. And that's why I'm here."
"What do you know?" I quickly ask.
"The memory serum.. It came from Amity," she answers. "You need to go there and ask for Johanna Reyes. If anybody knows how to reverse it, it's her."
My heart swells. Could there really be a cure for it? Could I really get all of my memories back?
"That name sounds so familiar," Tris whispers beside me, looking up at me.
"She's the leader of Amity. You've definitely heard her name before," Kate says. "But be careful. Evelyn is turning over houses looking for you two. If she finds you, no one will ever see either of you again. You she won't kill," she says to me. "But you'll wish she did."
"Let me guess," I snarl. "She's planning to kill my wife and keep me locked up for the rest of my life."
"Something like that," Kate says slowly, letting out a breath, which means it might actually be a little worse than that. Evelyn knows about Andy now, and her pathological need for a son might drive her to raise him herself. I stand rigid; she'll be dead before she ever lays eyes on him.
"I have to go. But I brought some things," Kate slowly stretches out her hand with the small bag. "I didn't know if you had any fresh food."
Carefully, Tris reaches out and takes the bag. "Thank you," she says levelly. "I'll take these inside." Tris' eyes dart between me and Kate, probably sensing the tension there and deciding to give us some privacy, despite the fact that she might not actually want to.
I really wouldn't mind if she stayed. I don't have anything to say to Kate that I couldn't say in front of Tris. Despite whatever feelings Kate might have had for me, I never had any real feelings for her, and she knew that.
"Thanks again, Kate," I say to her as Tris walks down the stairs and back into the bunker.
"It's no problem at all. Good luck." Her eyes glance at the ground and then at the bushes behind her.
Feeling the awkwardness building, I nod and turn around to leave. And then it occurs to me to ask, "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Sure," she instantly answers.
"Who is Evelyn's source in Dauntless?"
"Tall guy," she says. "Slim, annoying. He has a nose ring and a tattoo of an eagle on his face. I think he was one of the ones who were captured along with Tris."
I only know one person who fits that description.
Chad.
I nod slowly, thinking how much I'll enjoy killing him, and considering how much the others seemed to detest him, I don't think I'll be the only one. "Thank you," I say again to Kate.
"You're welcome, Tobias," she says, and I feel her eyes on me as I head back inside.
I take one final breath of the cold morning air as I step into the bunker. As the door closes behind me, I walk into the kitchen and I find Tris emptying the contents of the bag Kate left us on the counter. It's not much, but it was kind of her.
"Who's she?" Tris asks knowingly, not looking at me. She still has the sheet wrapped around her.
I walk up to her and I gently turn her toward me. When her hands fall from the counter, I lift her chin so I'm looking right into her eyes. They're penetrating, and I can see the pain inside them. Sincerely, I say, "No one who means anything to me. She was just someone to pass the time… back when I thought you were a figment of my imagination." I figure honesty is the only way to go in this situation. Lying about it won't do any good at all.
"Does she know that?" Tris rolls her eyes at me, and when she turns her head away, I gently tug it back.
"Yes."
Tris frowns a little, and her voice breaks when she admits, "It was agonizing… hearing her call you by your name. I'm used to being the only person who did that."
When her eyes sink to the floor again, I don't bother to tell her that everyone in the factionless called me by my name. I understand it was the only name I knew, but I also understand our history and how much that name means to her. I'm sure she feels like something special has been stolen from her, and I know that feeling all too well.
"I'm sorry, Tris," is all I say.
She shakes her head a little and wipes the tear that rolls down her right cheek. "Don't apologize, Tobias," she insists. "It's not your fault. And it wouldn't have been your fault even if she had meant more to you." She looks up at me sternly, and I can tell she's trying her best to be strong and level-headed about this, even though I'm sure it feels like a dagger to the heart. I don't even want to imagine Tris with someone else, much less look them in the eye.
"But she doesn't," I assure her, sensing her uncertainty. When Tris tries to look away from me again, I quickly pull her closer. "She doesn't, Tris," I say strongly. Then, having her attention, I hold her face in my hands and tenderly whisper, "She knows my name, but she could never know me like you do." Without ever deciding to I bring her lips to mine. I kiss her slowly but deeply, pulling her closer to me with every sway of my lips until she's flush against me. I moan softly as Tris returns my kiss, and I feel her arms slowly creep around my neck. I kiss her harder, and I feel my desire for her becoming stronger the more I give in to it.
I don't know how long we kiss like that until we both pull away to breathe. Then, with her face still in my hands, we stand there for a while with our foreheads pressed together, our eyes closed, and our breaths mixing in the middle. Then Tris presses her ear into my chest; we wrap our arms around each other and somehow our bodies end up slowly swaying from left to right, almost as if we were dancing. The warmest feeling of comfort comes over me.
"I miss the sound of your heartbeat," Tris whispers with a small smile. "Always steady… like a song."
"It beats for you," I say without thought, and before I can even process what I just said, Tris looks up at me and giggles. Her cheeks flush and her eyes seem suddenly brighter. She pushes herself up on her toes to place the sweetest kiss on my lips.
I smile in pleasant surprise.
"You know, that's exactly the kind of corny shit you'd say to get yourself out of trouble," Tris laughs, and with her eyes wet, she cups my cheek with her palm. "I always knew you were still in there. I knew it," she smiles sweetly. "Your memories are shoved into a corner somewhere, but they are there."
"And now we know how to bring them to the surface," I remind her.
Tris' face suddenly becomes serious as she thinks about what Kate said. Her hand slowly falls from my face and she nods resolutely.
I take both her hands into mine. "So are we going to do this? We're going to Amity?"
"If there's a chance we should take it," Tris says determinedly, and I agree. "With your memories back, we'll have a much better shot at winning over the Dauntless, because then you'll know who you're dealing with, and you'll know the people who are loyal to you."
"What about Andy?" I ask, looking at the bedroom where my son sleeps peacefully. "It won't be safe for us to take him with us."
Tris sighs and stares at the bedroom along with me. "Maybe I should have left him in Abnegation."
"We can sneak him back in," I quickly suggest. "Tonight. No one will know he's there."
Tris thinks about it for a second before she concedes, and then she presses her face into my chest again, breathing me in. I can almost feel the wheels turning inside her head, and just like her, I hate having Andy in the middle of all this, but if this is what it takes to keep our family together, then this is what we must do.
A/N: Forever thanks to Bamberlee for her editing wonders! :) And also to our readers, reviewers and followers. I LOVED reading your thoughts on the last chapter. What did we think of this one? Hope you're all excited to see what happens next! ;)
