Despite spring being on its way, the air blew off the lake colder than the air around him.
Caleb Prior picked his way across the shore, stooping to pick up a flat rock before throwing it into the bucket he carried. By the time he reached the memorial, it weighed him down, and he was relieved to set it on a bench.
For the thousandth time, he brushed away imaginary dust from his jacket as he waited. He'd gotten to the memorial for the Final Battle for Chicago early to collect stones as well as to gather his thoughts.
Five years seemed like a long time, yet at the same time not.
He looked down at his hands, expecting to see them coated in red. Those moments before-
Caleb shook his head before realizing Tris had arrived while he was lost in thought. She dismounted from the back of a bike before its other rider took off his helmet. Black hair and silver piercings shone in the faint sun. He watched his sister kiss her boyfriend, who actually smiled before saying something too soft for Caleb to hear.
He waved to Eric, who gave him a sloppy salute in return.
He never expected to like the former Dauntless leader, but here they were. If he wanted to know what was actually going on with his sister while they were in the borderlands, he sent the message to Eric.
"Caleb." Tris greeted, her own helmet under her arm. He waited until she set it down on the bench before sweeping her into a hug, "You got taller."
"Your hair got shorter."
He ruffled her hair, it was ear length now but still the dirty blonde that matched his own.
"Easier to deal with when you're camping almost every night. You won't believe how many times it's saved me in a fight." She replied. The only evidence of her Dauntless background was the knife strapped to her thigh. Rather than all black he remembered her leaving in, she wore shades of brown and gray. Better camouflage he supposed. "Five years is a long time."
"It is." He agreed. "You missed the unveiling by three days."
Not that he was mad, but the day of since he really wanted her with him since she'd nearly died for Chicago. All of his family's blood nearly shed to achieve the peace they now dwelled in as well as the blurring of Faction lines.
"I wanted to be here but the thing with river pirates is they always show up when you least expect them," Tris told him. "Good news is we don't have to worry about river pirates anymore."
They walked around the memorial. He'd been on the committee that brought it from an idea into being. Simple with a brick wall listing the dead behind a series of benches at the lakeside. Amity members spent a week before the unveiling setting up planters along the route. They'd chosen the rockiest point of shore to represent how all things eventually wore down then changed.
"I wish they could've seen this." Caleb said when they found their parents' brick. One of the first, he mused after Tris reached out to touch it like she could reach across time. "I wish I could apologize for how I treated them."
"I think they know." She said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "It's beautiful, Caleb."
He led her to a heart shaped stone in the center of the wall. The pink granite cost a lot of credits (paid for out of his own pocket) to salvage then carve. In a simple but elegant script, it read:
Tris Prior, Chicago's Savior.
She brought a hand to her mouth in surprise.
"You did die for a moment there." Caleb said to break the tension. Though the words brought him back to kneeling over her body as she bled out. He remembered Eric's dramatic entry via a window, the clinking of his gear as he unhooked himself from his rappelling harness, and the shake in his voice as he bellowed orders at Caleb. "Never get shot again."
"I have some bad news about my job duties for you then," she laughed, hiding her face against the wool of his coat.
He snorted, kissing the top of her head.
"Don't get shot in center mass or in the head," he amended, leading her back to the bench with her helmet and his bucket of rocks. "Remember this?"
"How we'd skip duties and come here? Of course," Tris answered. She sorted through the rocks like she always did, looking for the "First perfect one" to skip. He followed her down to the shore, navigating the loose rocks using the bucket as a counter balance. "I don't think I've done this since before the Choosing Ceremony."
He smiled, choosing his own rock. She wound up and threw. The stone skipped seven times then sank into the waves. He went next, only making five. She giggled, making his heart lighter.
At twenty one he knew they both felt older than they were. How had they lived so much in such a short time? It was good to just skip rocks and forget the city behind them, the blood shed, and the lives lost.
"I kept the bullet." Caleb confessed after they went through half the bucket.
"I know. Eric told me." Tris replied. She twirled around before skipping another stone, "I still have the strip of your shirt."
It'd been silk in a deep cerulean used to bind off the wound.
"When did you get in?" Caleb asked, backing away from a subject best spoken about when the sun wasn't out. They would one day talk about that day, but not now. Instead he looked over at the woman she'd become; a little taller, leaner, and more haunted than the girl who'd left Chicago.
"Last night. We crashed in an abandoned building, Dauntless doesn't want Eric on site because of everything. I figured I could find something else today. I don't like the idea of sleeping alone in a place I haven't called home in more than half a decade."
"You two could stay with me," Caleb offered. A few years ago he moved into a renovated townhouse from before the war. It still needed work though, "I have the space."
"Might as well. I have to get used to living with you again if you're going out west with us this summer." She winked then picked another stone. "What? You didn't think I wouldn't know the moment you signed up to take Marlene's spot as ambassador?"
He shrugged. The posting came up during a council meeting where he may or may not have pulled rank to get it. As a consequence three times a week Tori Wu kicked his ass all over the Dauntless training levels. Then survival lessons out in Amity to round out his "education."
"Never say that I didn't try to surprise you. Did they try to bribe you into staying with a council position?" Caleb asked. He took a few more stones.
"First thing this morning. Caleb-" Tris pursed her lips before trying again, "Caleb, being in this city makes my skin crawl. I know I stayed away for a long time, but I wanted to be able to come back and not wake up screaming. It wasn't because I didn't want to see you."
"I feel the same way. There are times when I wash my hands until they're sore. I see your blood on them and I just can't stop myself," Caleb ripped open a scar he thought healed over, not nicely, but enough to let him sleep at night. "I've been working on it."
"It's not like we can create a serum to make us forget anymore."
Those had been outlawed under the new council, the first law Caleb himself pushed through. He stayed behind to make amends and to redeem himself for all the bad he'd done or let happen.
"Tris, I'm sorry that all this happened and I did nothing to-" Caleb choked on the tears. The guilt strangled him after the "what ifs" and "could've beens" finally broke free after years of his tamping them down. He'd been blinded by his own ambition, nearly paying a price he never thought he'd be capable of considering.
"Hey, we were children thrown into something larger than us." She pulled him into her arms, holding tight as he wept into her shoulder, "We survived. You made the choice when it counted and saved me. You've been making the right choice ever since then."
"I was ready to die with you, injecting myself with David's serum, if we couldn't save you." Caleb whispered the one secret he kept from everyone. "Thought maybe it could be my atonement for everything I did."
Exhaustion slipped through his body once the proverbial wound was lanced. She hushed him, rocking them back and forth. He saw Tris' own tears going down her cheeks as she smiled at him.
"I forgive you, Caleb. I forgave you the moment I woke up." Tris said. She bumped her shoulder against his, "You need to work on forgiving yourself."
"Yeah," was all he managed then wiped his nose on his sleeve.
They went through the rest of the bucket then sat on the rocks to watch the waves, lapsing into idle conversation on and off. Caleb just let himself appreciate that they were there together in spite of leaving much unsaid between them.
There would be time enough later to say everything the stretch of years kept silent.